Chapter 62: The Melee
Yumesaki scanned their surroundings, watching as one Onmyoji after another materialized out of the gloom, commanding an absolute horde of Shikigami and Yokai to form an impenetrable perimeter around them. Yet, not a single trace of fear crossed his face.
Granted, in this particular world, the descendants of Abe no Seimei were clearly leagues more powerful than their counterparts from the standard Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan timeline.
But that wasn't nearly enough to make Yumesaki break a sweat. After all, their own lineup was nothing short of legendary.
Cu Chulainn burst into a wild, bloodthirsty laugh. "Well, looks like we don't have to fight over who gets to kill the old man anymore. Ha! Now this is what I call a party!"
His eyes darted frantically across the crowd, eagerly picking out his next targets.
Right at that moment, Abe no Seimei's eldest son, Abe no Yoshihira, arrived at the front lines. He bowed deeply and respectfully toward his father.
"Father."
Abe no Seimei's expression didn't waver in the slightest as he replied softly, "I leave the rest to you."
Abe no Yoshihira nodded firmly before turning his gaze toward Yumesaki's group, his eyes cold and dripping with tangible killing intent.
"Eliminate them."
The moment the command left his lips, countless Shikigami and the direct descendants of the Abe clan unleashed their payloads simultaneously.
Torrents of pressurized water, crackling lightning dragons, roaring fireballs, and blinding beams of sword light... a sky-blotting barrage rained down upon them like a cataclysmic landslide, aiming to completely erase Yumesaki's group from existence.
Medea immediately raised her hands, chanting rapidly as layer upon layer of brilliant magical arrays expanded into heavy, defensive barriers, absorbing the apocalyptic onslaught head-on.
At the same exact time, the Heroic Spirit Emiya began reciting his projection incantations.
One legendary weapon after another materialized in the air around him before launching like cruise missiles toward the surrounding enemies.
"Broken Phantasm!"
The moment those projected Noble Phantasms struck the enemy ranks, they detonated into spectacular, earth-shattering explosions.
Boom! Boom!! Boom!!!
A succession of deafening blasts ripped through the hall, sending violent, crushing shockwaves tearing through the area like a tsunami. Countless weaker Shikigami and Yokai were instantly pulverized, blown to atoms before they could even attempt to evade the blasts.
Seeing the absolute chaos, Cu Chulainn couldn't hold himself back any longer and bolted forward at the very first opportunity.
The blue-clad Lancer moved like a streak of lightning piercing the dark, the crimson spear in his hand carving a white-hot trail through the air.
Suddenly, a figure stepped directly into his path, blocking his advance.
It was the third-generation head of the family, Abe no Orochi.
Despite her delicate female form, she possessed a terrifying, raw strength that ranked her near the absolute apex among the historical heads of the clan.
With a casual wave of her hand, eight pitch-black rifts tore open within the empty air. Eight massive, serpentine Shikigami erupted from the tears with deafening roars, each easily measuring over thirty meters in length. As their jaws unhinged, a torrential downpour of highly corrosive venom spewed forth like a storm.
Instead of backing down, Cu Chulainn's grin widened, pulling back into a savage, beast-like snarl as he lunged forward.
And so, a brutal clash of survival began.
To definitively test his hypothesis regarding their immortality, Cu Chulainn didn't hesitate to unleash his Noble Phantasm once more.
"Gae Bolg!"
The crimson spear flew from his grip, tracing an impossible arc through the air that completely defied the laws of physics.
The eight massive serpents lunged forward as one, intending to use their sheer physical bulk to intercept the projectile.
But Gae Bolg never missed its mark. The moment the spearhead pierced the first giant serpent, its magical energy punched straight through the second, the third, the fourth... until it ultimately impaled itself squarely through Abe no Orochi's chest.
Abe no Orochi looked down blankly, staring at the fist-sized hole that had suddenly appeared in the center of her torso.
But within the very next second, dense, jet-black demonic energy surged from the edges of the wound. Like countless microscopic snakes slithering beneath her skin and flesh, the energy stitched her ruptured internal organs back together piece by piece.
Cu Chulainn couldn't help but let out a sharp scoff. "Hah, I knew it. A whole damn circus of immortal freaks."
He gripped his returned spear tightly, a surge of adrenaline and genuine excitement washing over him unlike anything he had felt in a long time.
At the exact same time, Medusa, Medea, Heracles, and the rest of the group made their moves, locking onto their respective targets.
The grandest, most chaotic melee in history had officially begun.
The opponent Emiya chose to lock eyes with was none other than Abe no Yoshihira.
As the eldest son of Abe no Seimei, Yoshihira shared a similar trait with Rikuo Nura, carrying a quarter of Yokai blood flowing through his veins.
In the standard history, this man's primary ability revolved around weather manipulation, with a particular mastery over summoning devastating lightning storms.
However, right now, Abe no Yoshihira was showcasing an entirely different facet of his power.
With his hands weaving intricate mudras, a massive, fifty-meter-wide five-pointed star array ignited directly beneath his feet.
Beams of brilliant, blinding energy shot upward from the center of the seal, morphing into countless long, crackling whips of pure light that lashed out violently toward Emiya.
Emiya leaped backward, extending both arms perfectly straight out.
"Trace on."
Prana condensed instantly within his palms, solidifying into a pair of iconic, paired swords—one pitch black, one snowy white.
The twin blades, Kanshou and Bakuya.
The light whips rained down upon him like a torrential storm, but the twin swords in his hands transformed into twin arcs of black and white light, parrying every single incoming strike with absolute precision.
The metallic clashing of weapons echoed in endless, overlapping waves through the Spiral Castle, sounding like a thousand cathedral bells ringing in unison.
But Abe no Yoshihira's mastery of Jujutsu went far beyond simple energy constructs.
He slammed one hand hard against the stone floor, causing the five-pointed star array to expand even further. From the glowing heart of the seal, an endless tide of Shikigami forged purely from condensed curses poured out—Tengu, ghostly crows, fox yokai, and ravenous ghouls—swarming toward Emiya like an unstoppable wave.
Emiya smoothly dematerialized his twin blades and held out his left hand.
An ancient, elegantly curved black bow materialized in his palm.
Placing his right hand on the string, his Prana condensed into a twisted, spiral-grooved arrow—a perfect replica of Caladbolg. Drawing the bowstring to its absolute limit, he aimed the tip dead center at the approaching horde of Shikigami.
"Broken Phantasm."
The arrow loosed from the string, traveling at supersonic speeds before detonating with catastrophic force the exact moment it embedded itself in the center of the swarm.
A raging shockwave of raw Prana rippled outward in all directions, vaporizing a massive chunk of Abe no Yoshihira's summoned vanguard instantly.
But Emiya didn't stop there.
He continuously kept his distance, darting backward while seamlessly drawing his bow again and again.
A second, third, and fourth arrow fired in rapid, rhythmic succession, each detonation unleashing an absolute storm of destructive magical energy right in the enemy's face.
However, Abe no Yoshihira's silhouette had already vanished from his original position.
Emiya's instincts flared, and he spun around on a dime, crossing Kanshou and Bakuya into a desperate X-guard.
Almost at that exact microsecond, Abe no Yoshihira's fist punched straight through the billowing dust cloud, slamming heavily against the cross section of the twin blades. The sheer kinetic force of the blow sent Emiya flying backward through the air.
But in the very next heartbeat—
The entire world burned away into ash in a single blink of an eye.
When Abe no Yoshihira blinked, he found himself standing atop a vast, desolate wasteland stretching out as far as the eye could see, a world literally made of countless swords driven into the earth.
The crimson, blood-colored sky held no sun; only massive, rusted gears grinding and turning slowly across the heavens.
Reality Marble: Unlimited Blade Works.
"An innate domain?"
The Cursed Energy surrounding Abe no Yoshihira erupted in a frantic, violent surge, attempting to use his own Jujutsu barrier to push back against this foreign reality, his hands quickly weaving into a new hand sign.
"Domain Expansion: Roaring Thunder."
In an instant, an isolated pocket of a churning, roaring sea of lightning violently forced its way inside the Reality Marble, clashing for dominance.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield.
Heracles swung his massive Axe-Sword with brutal, primeval force. Every single sweep of his weapon sheared through massive stone pillars like twigs, and every heavy stomp of his foot left deep, spiderweb-like craters in the foundation beneath him.
The ones currently straining to hold him back were the fourth-generation head, Abe no Ariyuki, and the fifth-generation head, Gokadoin Yasunaga.
Abe no Ariyuki took the form of a remarkably young boy, but the sheer scale of his power was monstrous.
In the original timeline, he had casually intervened in the final showdown between Rikuo Nura and Sanmoto Gorozaemon, effortlessly overwhelming the likes of Keikain Ryuji to rescue Encho.
But facing Heracles now, he was being pushed to his absolute limits, forced to pull out every single card in his deck.
A specialized gravity Jujutsu warped the surrounding space into a violent, spiraling vortex. Every single cubic inch of air was compressed to its absolute limit, to the point where even the ambient light passing through visibly bent and distorted.
Yet, this crushing pressure couldn't even make Heracles flinch. As the physical embodiment of strength itself, a little extra gravitational pull meant absolutely nothing to him.
As for the fifth-generation head, Gokadoin Yasunaga—
He was a highly unique individual.
He served as the ultimate bridge between the old ways and the new era.
In his original history, despite being a direct descendant of Abe no Seimei, he desperately wanted to steer the clan away from their unhealthy obsession with Seimei's grand design. He wished to return them to their original mandate within the Onmyoryo—protecting the common people as an official institution under the imperial court.
He had even attempted to dismantle the Abe clan from within, hoping that by discarding the name and transitioning to the Gokadoin surname, he could finally break Seimei's lingering curse.
Ultimately, he had failed to sway the hardliners led by Abe no Ariyuki. Disillusioned and heartbroken, he had vanished from history, living out his days in a secluded village of half-yokai, waiting for his semi-immortal life to finally flicker out.
But in this twisted, merged universe, given his sudden appearance on this battlefield, his convictions had clearly taken a different path.
The exact reasons for his shift remained a mystery.
Perhaps that was simply the nature of a merged world.
Gokadoin Yasunaga's Jujutsu leaned heavily toward binding and sealing techniques. Working in perfect tandem with Abe no Ariyuki, he deployed a dense, overwhelming network of sealing scripts that formed a massive, glowing web, trapping Heracles dead center.
But once again, the same immutable truth applied: these intricate, flashy toys were utterly meaningless before the might of Heracles.
The sealing scripts? Torn to shreds.
The spatial distortion? Weathered by pure, unyielding muscle.
The sealing arrays manifested as an endless, boundless net, desperately trying to shackle the Berserker's movements completely.
But Heracles merely let out a guttural, earth-shaking roar. The raw kinetic shockwave of his voice alone shattered half of the glowing nets into glittering dust.
With his feet planted solidly onto the crumbling bedrock, every single step he took forward shattered more sealing arrays beneath his heels like glass.
"Hey, hey, hey... what kind of ungodly monster are we even dealing with here?"
At this point, cold sweat was pouring down Abe no Ariyuki's face.
In all his years of living and fighting, he had genuinely never encountered a Yokai or entity that defied common sense so completely.
...
On another front entirely, Medea finally crossed paths with her designated opponent, Gokadoin Yuiyui.
She was a woman possessing an undeniably beautiful yet deeply unsettling face, dressed in an elaborate, Gothic Lolita gown while cradling a stuffed teddy bear tightly in her arms.
Because Gokadoin Yuiyui's era of leadership took place during the bloody, chaotic civil wars following the Onin War in Japan, the ambient yoki of the world had been exceptionally potent. To survive and dominate, Yuiyui had been forced to elevate the Gokadoin family's combat power to terrifying new heights.
This harsh upbringing placed her at the absolute pinnacle of power among the black-robed Gokadoin heads of all generations, arguably eclipsing even Gokadoin Hiruko, who held the official title of the strongest man in the family.
With a slow, deliberate tug of her fingers, she pulled a set of thin silk threads.
The floor beneath Medea's feet suddenly erupted.
From the dark fissures below, hundreds of human-sized dolls surged upward. Each doll was indistinguishable from a real human being, their hands gripping razor-sharp blades.
They were puppets manipulated by invisible threads, their movements completely erratic and devoid of any predictable pattern.
Medea floated backward gracefully, snapping her fingers in a swift motion. Layer upon layer of purple magical arrays materialized instantly, unleashing a dense volley of Prana beams that blew the first wave of approaching dolls into splinters.
"Impressive, truly impressive! But let's see how you handle this!"
The threads extending from Gokadoin Yuiyui's fingers spread out like a massive spiderweb, completely choking the corridor. An even larger horde of dolls crawled out from the deep shadows, sealing off every single escape route around Medea.
With a subtle twitch of her fingertips, the elite puppets advanced in unison, forcing Medea back step by step.
But right at that critical juncture, Medea's physical form abruptly dissolved into a cloud of dense, violet mist, vanishing completely from her spot.
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Upcoming Chapter Updates
Here's a look at what's coming next:
Chapter 63 — Explosion, Assault
Chapter 64 — Goodbye
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