"I told you long ago, King of Heroes."
Seiji's voice rose, leisurely, like a devil's verdict, or like a merciful teacher instructing a slow-witted student.
"Your rules have no effect on me."
"The dragon within her is no longer answerable to this world, no longer bound by the laws of you ancient gods. Its master is me."
"You want to bind my private property with that outdated, hole-ridden set of laws of yours?"
"It's laughable in the extreme."
In the instant that Gilgamesh lost himself for a single moment over this scene that overturned all common sense.
Alter moved!
She let out an inhuman roar full of a dragon's majesty, the muscles of her arms swelling abruptly beneath the pitch-black armor!
With a clatter of chains, the Chains of Heaven, the incarnation of his dear friend, that bound even gods and never failed, was actually...
actually snapped clean apart by her, by the purest, most savage, most unreasonable "strength"!
Fragments of the golden chain gave a mournful cry as they scattered weakly downward.
"Now..."
Freed of her bonds, Alter raised those cold golden eyes, locking onto Gilgamesh high above like the most precise targeting radar.
"It's my turn."
The words had barely left her mouth.
The air beneath her feet burst open in a visible ring of white shockwave!
Alter's figure became a pitch-black afterimage that seemed to tear through space itself, ignoring gravity and air resistance, soaring up against the sky straight at that golden king!
Fast!
Too fast!
So fast that even Gilgamesh's dynamic vision could only just barely catch a blurred, flickering shadow!
"Damn it!"
Gilgamesh was struck with terror, and without a thought he drew several shield Noble Phantasms from the Gate of Babylon, each bearing top-tier defensive concepts in myth and legend, layering them in front of himself!
The Colossus shield of Rhodes! The prototype of the Shield of Ajax! ...
But it was no use!
A muffled sound of a blade tearing through flesh.
That pitch-black, ominous demonic sword, under the immense magic Alter poured into it, seemed to become a "blade of the end" that could sever any concept, and it pierced through every shield as easily as cutting warm butter.
Then it plunged hard into Gilgamesh's left shoulder!
"Gah!"
Agony shot through his whole body in an instant!
Gilgamesh let out a pained grunt, his body like a kite with its string cut, slammed down from the heights toward the ground by that impact too vast to resist!
He smashed a massive crater into the ground, dozens of meters across, smoke and dust billowing, rubble flying everywhere.
Pathetic!
Pathetic as never before!
He, the one and only king above and below the heavens, had actually...
actually been wounded in a single exchange by a thing he regarded as a "filthy toy"?!
Unforgivable!
Absolutely unforgivable!
"Mongrel..."
Gilgamesh rose unsteadily from the crater. Several cracks had already appeared on his golden armor, which was caked with dust, and the wound on his left shoulder was leaking golden blood of divinity, giving off faint points of light.
Every expression vanished from his face.
In their place was an absolute, cold "nothing."
It was the face of someone who had truly resolved to kill.
"It seems..."
His right hand reached slowly toward the void beside him.
"...it's time to let you, you worm who doesn't even know how to write his own death, witness the truth of the world."
A strangely shaped sword hilt, made of three cylindrical sections of different colors, resembling a key, was slowly drawn from the golden ripple.
The instant that "key sword" appeared.
The very "color" of the whole world changed.
The air seemed to congeal into a solid. The wind stopped flowing. Sound vanished. The planet's Counter Force wailed, and the world's laws shrank back.
A terrifying pressure, from primeval chaos, from before Pangu split heaven and earth, beyond every limit of human cognition, blanketed the whole of Fuyuki City.
It was the instinctive trembling of "the world" itself, in the face of a power capable of "formatting" it!
"Ea, the Sword of Rupture..."
For the first time, a look of true interest appeared in Seiji's eyes. No longer the way one looks at a toy, but the way one looks at a "rule-tier" collectible worth taking into one's possession, one with extremely high research value.
Behind him, Medea and Rider were already flickering in and out of spiritual form under this pressure, nearly suppressed into forced retreat. Their faces were written over with the deepest fear, born from the instinct of the soul. This was the most primal awe of life in the face of "nothing."
But Seiji acted as if it were nothing at all. He even strode forward a few steps with great interest, like a mad scholar wanting to observe a rare specimen up close.
"Magnificent."
He praised it from the heart, his voice full of appreciation.
"The apex of anti-world Noble Phantasms, built on the concept of splitting heaven and earth. No, this thing no longer belongs to the category of Noble Phantasms. It is itself a phenomenon, an authority."
[Warning! Warning! World-level energy reaction detected!]
[Target: Ea, the Sword of Rupture, is undergoing function release! Its essence is a spatial fault, simulating the force that tore the world apart at creation!]
[Threat level assessment: world-ending!]
[System calculating evasion plan... calculation failed! This attack cannot be evaded!]
[System recommendation: Host should immediately abandon current world coordinates and execute forced teleportation!]
In his mind, the system sounded the most urgent, most severe warning in its entire history, all but blaring its highest alarm.
Yet Seiji only chuckled softly and shut off the system's alert outright.
Withdraw? You've got to be kidding.
The most brilliant finale is about to begin. How could a top-tier player choose to pull the plug and run the moment the final boss unleashes its ultimate move?
What he intended to do was, the instant the boss's cast bar finished, to "interrupt" the skill in his own way.
"Mongrel, to witness this king wield Ea is a supreme honor you could not attain in a lifetime of striving!"
Gilgamesh slowly raised the Sword of Rupture in his hand. The wounds on his body had already begun to heal under that immense magic. He poured all his magic into this one weapon, the only one worthy of standing as his equal.
The three cylindrical sections of the blade, carved with ancient cuneiform inscriptions from before humanity's birth, began to rotate slowly in different directions.
Each rotation seemed to grind away at space itself, giving off a low hum that set teeth on edge.
Red magic, like a storm, began to gather and compress on the blade!
The surrounding space showed visible black cracks, like shattering glass!
"With this Star of Genesis, let me offer up the funeral of an ending for your ignorance and arrogance!"
"Here, this king shall remake hell!"
"ENUMA ELISH!!!"
He roared and swung the sword down!
No light.
No sound.
Only a red "storm," made of pure, warped space and chaotic laws, erupted from the blade!
Wherever that storm passed, the earth, buildings, mountains and rivers, the air... every "matter" and "concept" that existed in this world was mercilessly "ground to dust," forcibly "reverted" to the most primal, chaotic "nothing"!
This was not destruction.
This was... the reversal of "creation"!
It was an absolute "one," enough to beat the entire world back to that state where heaven and earth were undivided and nothing yet lived!
Facing this world-ending strike that could erase all things.
On Saber Alter's eternally unchanging, cold face, the slightest waver appeared for the first time. Her remade, pure combat instinct was screaming warnings at her in a frenzy!
Danger! Danger! Danger!
This strike could not be blocked! Could not be dodged! Could not be defended against!
She instinctively raised those cold golden eyes, looking toward the man standing behind her, her "king."
As if asking how she should respond.
Yet Seiji only gave her a gentle, reassuring, encouraging smile.
He gave no command.
He simply stood there quietly, arms spread, as if to embrace this heaven-destroying, earth-shattering storm.
He was waiting in anticipation.
He was viewing it.
Viewing the most magnificent, final "movement" performed by the oldest of kings.
And viewing, too, the most extreme, most unreasonable "miracle" he was about to stage, one that could silence even the gods...
A "divine act."
The red storm drew near.
It was already right before him.
Time, in this moment, seemed to stretch out infinitely.
That world-destroying red storm became, in Seiji's eyes, frame after frame of clearly analyzable, slow-playing images.
He could see clearly how space was torn, kneaded, and crushed like paper.
He could see clearly how the four great elements that made up the world, along with the fundamental laws of time and space, were warped, scrambled, and recombined into chaos.
He could even "smell" that chaotic scent from the moment of the world's birth, full of infinite possibility and absolute emptiness alike.
"What a... magnificent display of fireworks."
He sighed softly, and what flickered in his eyes was the wild joy of a scholar discovering truth, not the fear of a mortal facing death.
Then, in the instant before that world-ending storm was about to swallow him and all his "collectibles."
He slowly raised his right hand.
No astonishing surge of magic.
No flashy visual effects.
He merely spoke a single word, in an utterly flat tone, as if stating a long-predetermined, indisputable fact, to that heaven-destroying red storm.
"Stop."
[System command: Absolute Authority (world-rule analysis resolution 45%) fully released!]
[Executing highest-privilege command: Conceptual Usurpation!]
[Usurpation target: Heroic Spirit Gilgamesh.]
[Object of usurpation: anti-world Noble Phantasm Ea, the Sword of Rupture.]
[Core concept usurped: ownership.]
[Execution time: 0.1 seconds.]
[Executing... usurpation successful!]
A low hum rang out.
An invisible power of brute authority, transcending every law of this world, belonging neither to magecraft nor to True Magic, composed purely of "I define," instantly enveloped Gilgamesh as he poured out his Noble Phantasm at full force!
Gilgamesh's body went stiff.
He discovered, to his horror.
That the "connection" between himself and the Ea in his hand, the connection that had existed since the moment of its birth, taken for granted, absolute, like an extension of his own arm, had actually...
snapped!
Vanished into thin air!
It was as if you held your own sword in your own hand and put everything into the strongest strike of your life.
But in the instant of the swing, your brain and soul frantically told you, in a voice from some higher dimension:
Warning! You are illegally using an item that does not belong to you!
Warning! Ownership has changed!
This absolute, utterly unreasonable "deprivation" at the conceptual level threw him into vast confusion and stupor like none he had known!
And the Enuma Elish he had swung out, having lost the control of its "master," lost its subsequent energy supply, lost the "qualification" to be wielded...
abruptly, less than a meter from Seiji...
stopped dead, like a film frame with the pause button pressed!
That violent red storm, fierce enough to tear space apart, still spun and roared in place, yet it could no longer advance even an inch.
Then, like a mirage that had lost its support, like a slide with the power yanked out, it slowly dissipated into the air amid an unwilling hiss.
It couldn't stir up so much as a faint breeze.
The world returned to silence.
A dead silence.
"..."
Gilgamesh stared blankly at his empty hands.
Ea, the Sword of Rupture, had lost its connection to him, vanished from his grasp, and reverted to spiritual particles, returning to that "treasury" that was his, yet now seemed separated from him by a pane of glass.
On that face which had always worn arrogance and confidence, there now remained only a pure, incomprehensible "blank."
What... had happened?
"I told you, King of Heroes."
Seiji's voice rose leisurely beside his ear, like Death tolling the funeral bell, like a devil savoring the final struggles of its prey.
"Your rules have no effect on me."
"Your treasures are quite fine. Especially this last one. I'm very fond of it."
"So..."
A smile appeared on his face, pure and cruel as a child receiving a beloved toy.
"...now, they're mine."
"No... impossible..."
Gilgamesh muttered to himself as if his soul had left him. His mind had suffered a blow a hundred million times worse than having his body torn apart.
This was beyond his cognition.
It even made him feel more fear than death!
Because, at the most fundamental level, it negated the core "meaning of his existence" as the "King of Heroes," as "the owner of humanity's oldest treasures"!
A king who could not own his own treasures, what kind of king was that?!
And Seiji could no longer be bothered to appreciate this toy he'd played until it "broke."
He gave a final, simple command to the pitch-black doll beside him, the one that had never once wavered from start to finish.
"Alter."
"Finish him."
"Yes."
The black King of Knights showed not the slightest hesitation.
To her, the "king's" command was absolute truth.
Her figure vanished from where she stood in an instant.
The next second, she had appeared before the soul-stricken Gilgamesh.
The pitch-black demonic sword in her hand was raised high, dark magic capable of severing souls gathered on its blade, aimed at that once-proud head.
Gilgamesh instinctively raised his head.
He looked at that cold face without a trace of feeling.
Looked at those hollow golden eyes.
Looked at that pitch-black demonic sword about to sever his head, the sword he had once dismissed with contempt.
For some reason, the man's smile from a moment ago surfaced in his mind.
What kind of smile had that been?
It was the smile of a hunter appreciating prey caught by the leg in a trap, howling endlessly.
It was the smile of a player watching an NPC he'd warped beyond recognition with a cheat tool, breaking down in tears.
It was... the smile of a god, looking down upon the hell he'd created with his own hands, full of delight and satisfaction.
"So that's it..."
"This king was the one who..."
The pitch-black blade swept cleanly across his neck.
That proud head shot up toward the heavens.