Chapter 255

Chapter 255: Chapter 255

BOOM!

The magical cannon arrived like a bolt of lightning, its overwhelming energy already bearing down on Kiriya.

If the beam so much as grazed him, half his body would probably be vaporized on the spot.

Before it could strike, however, a smaller figure swept in front of him like the wind.

"Not happening! Casseur de Logistille!"

Astolfo shouted the True Name of his Noble Phantasm and thrust his grimoire forward.

Golden leaves of light poured from its pages and spread across the air in overlapping layers, weaving themselves into a brilliant magical barrier.

The EX-rank bombardment slammed into that shield with enough force to make the entire throne hall tremble, yet the golden defense held firm and refused to yield.

"What?"

Shock flashed across Semiramis’s face, but it lasted only an instant before a cold smile returned.

"Heh. Impressive Magic Resistance, but surely you don’t think magical bombardment is the only thing I can do."

As she spoke, several chains emerged from distortions in the space before her.

They moved like living serpents, curving around Astolfo’s barrier from both sides as they lunged toward Kiriya and Rider.

Before the chains could close around them, arrows streaked through the shattered doorway in rapid succession.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Each shot had been aimed at one of Semiramis’s vital points—her throat, eyes, heart, and head—with such precision that she had no choice but to redirect the chains and knock them from the air.

Sparks erupted throughout the hall as Chiron’s arrows collided against enchanted metal, forcing Semiramis to divide her attention between several threats at once.

And while Kiriya, Astolfo, and Chiron kept the Queen of Assyria occupied, a dark figure shot through the doorway and sprinted directly toward Mordred.

It was Kairi Sisigou.

Semiramis’s expression twisted in fury.

Kiriya was one thing.

He had already defeated Karna and had more than earned the right to be treated as a serious threat.

But Kairi?

A mere human magus, an insignificant insect compared with the Heroic Spirits gathered here, actually dared charge into her throne room and challenge her authority?

The insult was intolerable!

Several magical cannons immediately shifted toward Kairi while hooked chains tore through the air from another direction, intending to tear him apart before he could reach Mordred.

"Go!"

Kiriya grabbed Astolfo and threw him.

"WAAAAAH—MASTER!"

Astolfo screamed the entire way through the air, but despite his panic, he did not lose his grip on the grimoire.

The golden leaves erupted outward again as he passed Kairi, forming another barrier just in time to catch the incoming magical cannon.

BOOOOM!

The beam crashed against Casseur de Logistille, illuminating the hall in blinding light.

At the same moment, Jeanne moved.

Clang!

Her battle standard swept across the corridor in a broad arc and struck aside the chains descending toward Kairi.

Metal screamed against the reinforced shaft, but Jeanne held her ground, placing herself between Semiramis and the mercenary.

"I won’t allow you to stop him."

Her voice was clear and unwavering.

"You bastards!"

Semiramis finally lost her temper.

Again and again, these people had entered her domain, ignored her authority, disrupted her plans, and treated the Queen of Assyria as though she were merely another obstacle to be pushed aside.

Did they truly believe she was incapable of crushing them?

Before she could retaliate, Kiriya’s voice suddenly rang across the hall.

"Hey, Empress!"

Semiramis’s eyes snapped toward him.

"Look over here!"

Kiriya flicked his wrist and hurled a shuriken directly at her.

Semiramis almost laughed.

"A single throwing blade?"

The weapon had certainly been thrown with tremendous force, and its speed was impressive, but it was still only one piece of metal.

"How much contempt do you intend to show me?"

Kiriya merely smiled.

His hands were already forming seals.

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu."

The single projectile split apart in midair.

One became ten.

Ten became a hundred.

A hundred became a thousand!

Within an instant, the throne hall was filled with a storm of spinning blades that poured down upon Semiramis like a metallic downpour.

"What?!"

Her expression changed immediately.

Six-sided shields of light materialized around her in overlapping layers just before the barrage struck.

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!

Thousands of impacts erupted almost simultaneously, showering the hall with sparks as the cloned weapons hammered against the magical barriers from every direction.

Semiramis frowned as ripples spread continuously across the shields under the repeated impacts.

The individual projectiles were not especially threatening, but the power behind the technique was far beyond that of ordinary thrown weapons.

In terms of destructive force, the barrage was already comparable to a simplified version of Archer of Red’s Phoebus Catastrophe.

More importantly, Kiriya had succeeded in forcing Semiramis to focus on defending herself.

Those few seconds were enough.

Kairi crossed the remaining twenty-odd meters between himself and Mordred, dropped beside his Servant, and immediately pulled the vial of Hydra antitoxin from his pocket.

Mordred looked terrible.

Semiramis’s poison had eaten through her body so severely that gruesome lesions covered her skin, and her breathing had weakened to little more than a faint thread.

She was already standing at the very edge of death.

Kairi drove the antitoxin directly into the artery at her neck.

Thump!

Thump!

Two powerful heartbeats suddenly echoed from Mordred’s chest.

The antidote worked almost immediately.

Within one or two breaths, her eyes snapped open, and as magical energy once again circulated properly through her body, even her clothing changed with her restored condition.

The heavy armor disappeared.

In its place appeared an extravagant dark-red strapless dress.

And somehow, the modest rise beneath her armor had transformed into a far more impressive pair of curves beneath the dress.

Kiriya had kept part of his attention on Kairi’s rescue attempt, and when he caught sight of Mordred’s sudden transformation, his thoughts almost derailed entirely.

’What the hell? That antidote comes with a breast-enhancement effect too?’

His mind immediately began wandering in completely inappropriate directions.

’Should I ask that uncle for the formula later? We’ve fought side by side and survived a battlefield together now. He probably wouldn’t refuse, right?’

Hestia obviously had no need for anything like that, but not every woman Kiriya knew had been blessed with the goddess’s absurd natural advantages.

Kiriya had very few virtues worth boasting about, but at least his preferences were remarkably consistent.

Of course, that was a matter for later.

They were still in the middle of a fight.

"To become this distracted while standing in front of me... there is a limit to how much you can look down on someone, you bastard!"

The dignified and self-important Queen of Assyria finally abandoned all pretense of refinement and cursed outright.

Unfortunately for Semiramis, she only managed to finish half of the sentence before Kiriya appeared directly in front of her.

There had been no warning.

One moment he was across the hall.

The next, the edge of a sword was already piercing through the air toward her chest.

Semiramis’s eyes widened.

The blade drove straight into the region of her heart.

Kiriya did not stop there.

He twisted the weapon violently inside the wound, deliberately destroying the Spiritual Core to make absolutely certain there would be no recovery.

"Cough... cough...!"

Blood spilled from Semiramis’s lips.

She slowly raised her head and stared at Kiriya, disbelief still lingering in her fading eyes.

One hand weakly reached toward him as though she intended to seize him even now, but Kiriya simply pulled the sword free.

Her strength immediately vanished.

Semiramis collapsed backward against her throne, the light in her eyes growing dimmer with every passing second.

She had not even been able to unleash Sikera Ušum: Arrogant King’s Alcohol!

That fact alone left her bitterly unwilling to accept the result.

Kiriya watched her life force fade and finally released the breath he had been holding.

"Finally dealt with this woman."

The entire sequence leading up to that attack had not merely been about saving Mordred.

Kiriya had also been deliberately attacking Semiramis’s composure.

He had forced her to split her attention between Astolfo, Chiron, Jeanne, and Kairi, repeatedly frustrated her attempts to control the battlefield, and then deliberately provoked her until anger began overriding the cold judgment she had maintained as a queen.

At the same time, the barrage created by Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu had served another purpose.

Hidden among the countless projectiles had been Flying Thunder God kunai, and while Semiramis focused on defending against the storm, one of those marked weapons had reached exactly the position Kiriya needed.

The moment her attention slipped—

He teleported.

Originally, Kiriya had expected a considerably harder fight against Semiramis inside her own Hanging Gardens.

Instead, everything had gone far more smoothly than he had anticipated.

He turned toward the others, several of whom were still staring at him in stunned silence.

"I’ll leave the cleanup here to you."

Kiriya shifted his borrowed sword into a more comfortable grip.

"I’m going after Amakusa Shirou Tokisada."

Without waiting for a reply, he accelerated and disappeared down the corridor leading deeper into the fortress.

"...Seriously?"

Mordred, who had only just recovered from the brink of death, blinked several times.

"I was ready to go all out, and he just ended the whole damn fight before I even got back on my feet."

She looked profoundly dissatisfied.

"Well, you’re still alive."

Kairi gave her a tired look.

"Maybe appreciate that part first."

"Exactly!"

Astolfo leaned back with both hands behind his head, wearing the cheerful grin of someone who had already forgotten that he had nearly been vaporized several times.

"Everybody survived, the bad guy got beaten, and we’re all together again. That’s basically the perfect happy ending!"

Chiron looked toward the corridor where Kiriya had disappeared, his expression more complicated.

"To think the Great Holy Grail War would develop into something like this..."

At this point, the Greater Grail would almost certainly end up in someone else’s hands.

Chiron’s own wish had effectively become irrelevant, and from one perspective, everything he had done since being summoned seemed almost meaningless.

And yet—

A faint smile appeared on the great sage’s face.

"To have witnessed a young hero like him with my own eyes... perhaps this journey was not wasted after all."

"Is it... over?"

The tension in Jeanne’s face finally loosened slightly.

Then her expression changed.

Her Revelation descended.

A warning exploded through her mind with such force that her eyes widened instantly.

"Fullness—manifestation!"

Jeanne spun around.

"MOVE! GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

She seized Astolfo and launched herself backward at full speed.

At almost the exact same moment, Mordred reacted on instinct, hoisting Kairi onto her shoulder before retreating alongside Chiron.

They had barely cleared the area when an enormous magical formation appeared in the air above the place where they had been standing.

Its light flooded the ruined throne hall.

Then, accompanied by a savage roar that seemed to shake the Hanging Gardens from within, an enormous figure descended through the formation.

The presence that came with it was oppressive, violent, and unmistakably inhuman.

It was as though a demon god itself had been summoned onto the battlefield.