Hello, I finally decided to focus on Dante and Kiss-Shot's fight against Zelrecht, occasionally showing glimpses of the other two battles.
That said, very little is known about Zelrecht's second magic and fighting style, so I'll have to get creative and find ways to use different applications of Jewel Magic, his second magic, and Zelrecht's way of thinking to try and make the fight as close to Type-Moon's reality as possible, but I'm not making any promises.
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Caster fired a flare gun into the sky.
Zelrecht watched, preparing to see if this was a signal to activate a trap or a mechanism for escape.
On the other side of the battlefield, not far from the simultaneous fighting, Assassin could be seen dodging Lancer's frenzied attacks. Lancer resembled an unstoppable beast.
Lancer's lance, originally for jousting, had been modified by Merlin into a machine of mass destruction. It was equipped with various devices that could hold cartridges filled with ether, capable of destroying his enemy both internally and externally, resulting in instant death. Only someone like Mordred or Heracles could withstand it without severe damage.
The knight spun his body with the lance, fleeing towards Assassin, who could only dodge and deflect for the moment, waiting for the right opportunity to launch an offensive.
But the building was crumbling, so, mid-step by the Serb, the floor gave way, causing him to lose his balance.
Lancer immediately took advantage of this, using one of his cartridges, ready to defeat the villain once and for all, but Assassin managed to react, detonating a smoke bomb, causing her opponent to lose sight of him and miss her attack.
The explosion from the tip of the ether spear spread the smoke, making Lancer's vision slightly clearer, but thanks to Assassin's stealth skills, she lost his location, only for her knightly experience to kick in, raising her shield to block the rifle's bullet.
Throwing herself to the ground, Lancer spun around, emerging from the smoke, and saw Assassin outside with a rifle in her hand, ready to fire, but she didn't.
Just as Assassin was about to attack, she saw the flare in the sky. That was Caster's signal to begin the next phase.
He quickly focused to sense the runes and magical seals Caster had prepared before they invaded the clock tower, which empowered and sustained his Noble Phantasm without him having to expend any mana.
Dropping his rifle, he summoned his iconic pistol while drawing the knife Caster had given him.
"Немам тело, али живим у историји човечанства, храним се гвожђем и ватром, почињем речју, а завршавам сузом, уништавам садашњост да бих променио будућност, каналишем себе, почетак краја." Assassin recounted his chant while defending himself from Lancer's attack, who did not watch him prepare his attack.
When the chant ended, the entire floor of the clock tower was filled with magical circuits, with Assassin at the epicenter of this phenomenon.
"This is a Noble Phantasm," Lancer declared, watching, somewhat disturbed, as Assassin's ability was executed.
Elsewhere, Avenger emerged from a destroyed house, drew her bow, and fired an arrow, which intercepted Saber's mana attack.
Saber stepped out of the building only to see the floor filled with various magical circuits, reaching right up to an edge, which was covered with several magical seals and runes.
"Is this it?" Saber wondered, but she couldn't continue thinking, as she had to block Avenger's attack, which dragged her back a few meters.
"So confident that you can look away from your opponent? I'll make you pay for that," Avenger declared, activating her Conqueror's Haki.
Knowing that he sensed an energy very similar to what Caster had felt, he knew he had to act with much greater caution.
With this in mind, the former king coated his sword in mana, generating black and red lightning, ready to attack.
He returned to the two users of true magic. Zelrecht watched Caster's actions, expecting something, but nothing happened.
Just as he was about to comment, he saw the ground fill with magical circles. Demonstrating his vast knowledge and mastery of sorcery, he immediately realized what was happening.
"A large-scale reality marble," he concluded, somewhat panicked since, throughout much of his experience with the second magic, he had never before witnessed a parallel world where this Holy Grail War unfolded in this way.
Zelrecht, as a user of the second magic, which allows him to manipulate parallel universes, can see multiple parallel realities to gather information. Even if two realities aren't identical, it doesn't mean similar things can't happen.
An example of this can be seen in the Fate/stay night route; the three routes have different endings, but the beginnings are practically the same.
But during this time, he didn't find an alternate reality where Altrouge summoned Dante; there are always other Servants, but only this one was summoned, the ancient Greek hero with red eyes. And that means he can't gather information from other realities to stay one hundred steps ahead as usual; now he has to act in the moment and improvise.
In a normal situation, he wouldn't have intervened in this war, but seeing that these things only happened in this reality, his curiosity led him to participate out of a friendly nature. He volunteered to face Caster, since he was the only one, besides Arcueid, who could stand up to her. But there was the fact that if Arcueid stayed here, he would have to fight Altrouge, and being a generous grandfather, he let his granddaughter go to the safe side while he faced a threat that even Solomon himself had some doubts about confronting.
Zelrecht recognized Assassin's Noble Phantasm and also the sorcery used to enhance the Reality Marble, so he didn't like what he saw, but he didn't have time to react.
The ground glowed, blinding everyone and trapping them in a world where only one thing existed: war.
...
Lancer opened her eyes to find herself in a trench.
"Huh?" she wondered, realizing she was hidden underground, only to see a grenade land right in front of her.
Without thinking, she raised her shield to block the blast, then spun around and used her spear to try and strike her attacker.
Assassin managed to react, but with a wound on her shoulder, she jumped out of the trench.
"You won't escape," Lancer declared, pressing on, but the moment she saw the surface of the reality marble, she froze.
A world filled with death, chaos, and destruction. A world filled with firearms, mines, barbed wire, and, above all, corpses. Lancer couldn't tell if they were all real or not, since some looked perfectly like students or teachers from the clock tower, but this could be an illusion created by Assassin's heroic treasure.
"Help!! Help!!" came the voices of some young sorcerers.
The moment Lancer turned to look at him, she saw the floor where they stood explode from a landmine, scattering the young people's limbs across the area.
One of the hands reached in front of Lancer, who hesitated, wondering whether to pick it up or not, just to see if it was real.
"They're real," Assassin affirmed from behind her. "Everyone who was in the clock tower was brought to this war zone; this is my Noble Phantasm, Ground Zero, allowing me to recreate the consequences, tragedy, and destruction caused by my actions."
Lancer just stared at the scene, watching the bullets fly by, hearing the artillery fire in the distance, the planes whizzing across the landscape.
"I have to stop this," she told herself, driven by a sense of duty and honor but, above all, to prevent the people of the clock tower from perishing in this place.
Assassin looked at her; she just smiles.
"Heh, don't get too cocky, because right now she's in my little play area."
...
Caster and Zelrecht were in an area a little more secluded from the noise of the war, practically alone.
"Here we are, face to face, and only one of us will leave here alive," Caster declared, rolling up his sleeves to reveal several neatly arranged magic circles.
The marshal frowned at this and the situation they were in.
"Precasting spells, magnificent," he couldn't help but praise what Caster had done to imbue his jeweled sword with mana. "Looks like I'll have to fight for real this time."
The truth was, since this universe or reality was so unique, nothing like this had ever happened anywhere else, so he couldn't have prevented it, and now he slightly regretted having agreed to this, since Arcued had a better chance of surviving in this situation.
This was thanks to the deal Dante had made with the Throne of Heroes when he was summoned only three times; The first instance was in an alternate universe, and now it's happening in the reality where he intervened. Since these events are isolated incidents, they can't be replicated in other universes; if they were, Dante would surely have been replaced by another Servant.
For this reason, Zelrecht couldn't obtain information about what might happen here, nor about Caster's abilities, only to a certain extent. He never met Dante or Kiss-Shot firsthand until the latter went to the already sealed Clock Tower, but he did meet Helena.
Helena is essentially a fusion of Dante and Kiss-Shot, and Zelrecht has fought her, so he may have some idea of how certain powers she inherited from her parents work, but he doesn't know everything, and that's what worries him: what aces up his sleeve Caster might have at this moment.
Without any hesitation, Zelrecht slashes through space with his sword, creating an opening from which a jet of pure ether, accumulated from different dimensions, shoots toward Caster. Caster reacts by using soru to evade the impact zone, then responds by drawing a coin and using one of his pre-cast spells; in less than a second, he fires a railgun.
Zelrecht doesn't move; he merely pats the space, and the railgun collides with an impossible wall, which somehow materializes as a wall of jewels, fracturing but not shattering.
Caster reacts quickly to see from above how the railgun narrows to where it was. He realizes that the attack's power has been significantly reduced; there must have been a considerable loss of energy passing through the other dimension and returning to ours.
The blond-haired man, before formally joining this war, knew that the user of the second magic could be one of his opponents. Therefore, using Kamigami no Gigan, he had glimpsed how this true magic worked, but unfortunately, he couldn't delve deeper thanks to the root's protection.
Back on the ground, he realized that if he wanted power, this kind of exchange wouldn't work. Thanks to their true magic, both possessed infinite magical energy, so a battle of attrition wouldn't suffice, and each had their own ways of evading and redirecting the other's attacks.
"Kiss, be alert," Caster mentally communicated to his shadow host.
Kiss-shot said nothing to distract Caster, but she was ready to act at any moment.
The problem: Zelrecht knew this, and he didn't need to be a user of the second magic to know that Caster had a near-primordial vampire hidden within her body. He knew this primarily thanks to the records of the Second Holy Grail War and, above all, those of Rider and Caster from his faction.
Using soru, she quickly reached Zelrecht's melee attack zone. The marshal knew how dangerous Caster was in close combat, as it was her specialty despite being a Caster, and especially because of one detail: her use of the third magic.
He knew that Caster only needed to touch his body to manipulate his soul—perhaps not take it in her case, but she could generate pressure and even force it, beginning to break both his body and soul little by little. Therefore, he shouldn't let himself be touched under any circumstances.
Zelrecht touched space again, creating a multidimensional barrier that protected him from Caster's attack and preparing to counterattack.
The redhead's blow left a small crack in the barrier.
"So that's how it is," Caster said, taking the challenge of destroying the barrier as a challenge. Coating his fist with Haki at its highest level, a combination of Haki and magic, he struck the barrier with all his might, shattering it completely.
Thanks to his Armament and Conqueror's Haki, the destructive shockwave hit Zelrecht head-on, damaging him and sending him flying backward, interrupting his Jewel Magic cast.
The four-dimensional barrier shattered, allowing Caster to advance his opponent, but Zelrecht already had something up his sleeve.
He threw two gems, which collided and shattered, creating a reinforced crystal tesseract that encased Caster.
"Huh?" Caster said that since nothing could be seen from the outside of the tesseract, only the past and future of about two seconds, like a mirrored labyrinth, creating a cacophony of momentary confusion.
Zelrecht knew this wouldn't stop Caster permanently, so he began preparing his spell, and so it was.
Caster extended his hands and, with another pre-cast spell, created a powerful, concentrated current of compressed wind that destroyed the sides of the tesseract, freeing it.
The Marcisa needed some time to properly cast the spell he wanted, so he had to go on the defensive, using his jeweled sword.
The blond-haired man looked at his opponent and shrouded his hand in darkness to begin gathering magical energy at a single point.
"Beyond time, beyond space, there is infinity," Zelrecht began to narrate.
Caster, with all the magical energy of the environment plus his own, fired a mana cannon at his opponent.
Zelretch, using his weapon, fragmented space, splitting it and causing it to splinter right in front of him, dividing the attack in two and changing its direction.
Caster narrowed his eyes at this, mentally noting that he could do this to launch himself at full speed toward Zelretch, intending to touch him and, if possible, destroy his magic circuits, for if he succeeded, victory would be assured.
"I am he who has seen the immensity and what lies beyond," Zelretch continued as he threw two more gems, which shattered, activating the spell.
Caster felt everything around him polarize, dodging several beams that formed around him, intended to incapacitate him, creating a block in the path between them.
"Phantom of the Void," Caster announced, stamping his foot hard on the ground, which began to expand with darkness, and behind him appeared a pillar made of it.
From the pillar, several cylindrical shapes with spherical tips began to emerge, resembling the form of a classic cartoon ghost, yet the pillar itself remained unique.
The ghosts began to absorb all the beams before the spotlights from which the beams were being fired freed Caster from the attack.
"I, who can touch infinity, summon you, I who am beyond human comprehension," Zelrecht continued, watching as Caster enveloped his hand in darkness and the same beams of his spell that he had cast earlier.
Caster focused all the sorcery he had absorbed from the enemy attack and launched a concentrated beam at the marshal, essentially returning the attack.
Zelrecht reacted swiftly, activating a defensive spell that created a barrier, which appeared in front of him, destroying one of his gems.
The barrier blocked the attack but was also destroyed in the process.
"Only the truth in this world is capable of seeing it in the infinite possibilities that this multidimensional reality offers us," the marshal recounted, using the jeweled sword to fire several ether cannons in Caster's direction, merely to buy time.
Caster dodged each attack while preparing his next, which he intended to create an opening to strike Zelrecth. But suddenly, his eyes shifted as he used Haki to foresee what his opponent was about to do.
Therefore, instantly activating two cannons simultaneously, he drew a weapon and, altering its parameters to make it much more powerful, fired the railgun at speeds exceeding Mach 5.
Zelrecht, seeing Caster's actions, patted the air, creating another barrier that stopped the attack, but the power of his opponent's blast began to shatter his defense in less than a second.
Now in the final line of his chant, he could no longer stop, so he took a risk. Using his cursed sword, he used the reflection of space to deflect, but it wasn't very effective, only managing to deflect a few centimeters.
Caster's attack managed to destroy almost Zelrecht's entire arm and damage his sword, which was likened to a conceptual weapon, but that didn't stop the marshal.
"That's why I summoned you, Kaleidoscope. Come here and rule over space and time," Zelrecht finished.
Caster saw how all of space fragmented and was stolen from a field of blurred glass, as if the space surrounding them were made of the kind of glass found in churches or, more specifically, like stained-glass windows.
"This is a barrier, right?" Caster asked, getting an idea of where he'd been trapped with his enemy.
"Something like that," he remarked, using his gem sword to fire an ether cannon in any direction. Midway through its trajectory, space reflected and changed direction, sending it straight toward Caster.
He simply turned his head to dodge, only to see the shot refract again, changing direction three times before returning to where he stood.
"I see," Caster concluded, covering his hand in darkness and absorbing the attack. He endured the residual damage from the synecite energy, which caused his bones to splinter. "Now I can only destroy or absorb his attacks, because if I dodge, he can redirect them and strike me again."
"I expected nothing less from you," Zelrecht said, smiling as he prepared for his next spell, Caster doing the same.
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Dante - Caster Class
TR: C ~ A
END: B ~ A+
AGI: C ~ A+
MN: Ex
LCK: A
NP: EX
When the war is over, I'll upload this to the Servants section; for now, I'll leave it here. The first parameter is his base strength, and the second is his maximum potential when he buffs himself with Haki, Magic, and Sorcery.