Chapter 256: Surtr, Ivan the Terrible, and the First Emperor
Seven layers of swords manifested above the ground.
At the same time, they rose in the hearts of all people.
Even infants, even those born blind, even the elderly whose senses had begun to fade could feel it.
A sword, lifting inside the chest.
A sword that felt as if it had slid into everyone's hands.
Gripped.
Then, with an invisible swing.
The colossal figure outside the planet shattered instantly.
It was not the main body that had arrived.
It was only a leading shadow.
Cernunnos, the Horned God, was the supreme deity of Celtic myth. A son and consort of the Mother Earth, an embodiment of nature, the sun, masculinity, fertility, harvest, death, and rebirth.
Yet his true manifestation was a deer.
And he carried the role of a guide.
He had gone first with an illusory shadow, opening a path to this place.
A path wide enough for the other world ending calamities to follow.
The shattering bought only a breath.
No one dared relax.
In the Tokyo venue, every Heroic Spirit radiated light.
And every Heroic Spirit looked toward the brightest point within that radiance.
"Hm hm! My Adjutant, have you finally arrived!?" Nero smiled, unable to hold back her voice any longer.
The Roman Emperor, golden haired and dressed in red, strode forward. She was the first to approach the figure that had just appeared.
Black hair fell neatly over a young face.
Red gold eyes opened.
Rowe, wearing a clean suit as if he were simply another guest, looked at Nero and smiled.
He nodded.
"I'm here."
Three days.
Three days of forging.
Three days of refining himself.
Rowe had successfully forged himself into a sword.
The human figure standing here was the hilt.
The seven swords hanging in the sky were born from the Chaos of Taiyi, while the blade and guard were composed of the steel shell of a Machine God.
He was linked to human order.
More than that, he carried human order.
He used human order to carry the Moon Cell.
He used the Moon Cell to carry himself.
Then he used himself to carry human order.
A triple cycle, perfectly closed.
What manifested in the sky were seven swords forged from Reason, Chaos, and the Machine God.
Nero stared at Lord Rowe, then at the beautiful girl following behind him, with emerald hair that fell like silk.
The young Empress of Rome smiled with bright confidence.
She looked every bit the victor.
Enkidu held back a laugh and said nothing.
Rowe merely reached out and ruffled Nero's hair, right in front of her.
"Lord Rowe, it seems you are fully prepared."
Artoria stepped forward, Holy Lance shining in her grip. A dark blue robe wrapped her tall, graceful figure, and with each step the subtle sway of her hips carried a quiet, royal allure.
Her golden ahoge twitched.
Her sky blue eyes passed over the smug Nero, then slid toward the young Empress who, in a way that felt almost unfair, bore a striking resemblance to herself.
Something like pity flickered in the Azure King's expression.
"Your Majesty Nero is still so energetic."
"Umu, of course!" Nero spread her arms wide. "This is Rome's great victory!"
"Yes. Rome's victory." King Arthur chuckled, deciding some things did not need to be said aloud.
There was no argument.
No struggle.
Everything was unfolding exactly as Lord Rowe had arranged.
Altera remained in the distance, not approaching, only lifting the Divine Sword in her hand a fraction.
Atalanta met Lord Rowe's eyes and bared her teeth, huffing.
Scathach brushed hair from her forehead, then patted Skaði beside her as if confirming the results of special training.
Ishtar turned her head away in practiced tsundere defiance.
Ereshkigal waved hesitantly.
"AHAHAHA, a mere mad dog dares to make this King wait so long!?"
Gilgamesh stepped forward, but Lord Rowe was already surrounded, forcing the King of Heroes to settle for an irritated noise.
"A mere Gilgamesh " Lord Rowe squinted. "I'll deal with you later."
He swept his gaze across the hall.
Some smiled at him.
Some stared with admiration.
Some bowed and prayed.
Some burned with the urge to challenge, declarations already on their lips.
This gathering of countless Heroic Spirits was lively enough to feel unreal.
Old acquaintances were everywhere. Familiar faces colliding again after ages.
But now was not the time for talk.
Lord Rowe lifted his head and looked upward.
"They've arrived," he said with a light chuckle.
They had.
Cernunnos' guiding shadow had been shattered, but the path he opened remained.
And so the starry sky welcomed new guests.
The atmospheric boundary trembled. The line between Earth's true heavens and the Sea of Stars blurred as multiple evils forced themselves closer.
Lord Rowe heard the warning of the Counter Force.
"I can't hold them back any longer…"
Gaia's voice was clear and solemn, stripped of its earlier tsundere bite.
"Father, it's up to you now…" Alaya said the same.
Lord Rowe smiled.
"Holding them back for three days… thank you."
In truth, they should have arrived three days ago.
It was the combined resistance of Gaia and Alaya, who had gained the qualifications to stand as the Counter Force against the Sea of Stars, that delayed them until now.
But this was their limit.
The present world, illuminated by the radiance of Heroic Spirits, had gained infinite possibility. The future that once belonged to the old world was collapse, depletion, the end.
That inevitability was gone now, thanks to the manifestation of the Throne.
Gaia and Alaya had gained immeasurable benefits, but those benefits were still potential, still growth.
The world needed time to expand.
They needed time as well, to extend their influence across the Sea of Stars.
To become Earth's Counter Force and Humanity's Counter Force on a wider stage.
To integrate endless time and space.
The Throne represented the future.
And holding the line for three days was already extraordinary.
The awakened enemies included a being that broke the usual scale, like Chaos.
Three days was short.
But it was enough.
The sky dimmed.
The seven layered sword light reflected the approaching figures with cruel clarity.
What lay beyond the atmosphere should have been invisible to ordinary people, even to many ordinary Servants, but now almost everyone felt it in their hearts.
They saw the vast Sea of Stars, wrapped by an endless existence that belonged to that sea.
They saw figures emerging.
The first was terrifying.
A golem like beast, massive as a continent, wearing a king's attire and crown, supported by enormous tusks.
Its presence was as heavy as the farthest Caucasus range.
Blue gray skin was coiled with lightning that looked like punishment given form.
Ivan the Terrible.
Russia's most notorious tyrant and its first Tsar, the one who established the Tsardom.
In proper human history he was only a monarch.
But in his own twisted timeline, he met the end of the world and chose another path to survive the apocalypse.
He gathered countless magi, fused the adaptability of beasts with humans, and became a creature that could endure any environment.
Even so, Russia's world was still pruned.
Yet by accident, he absorbed the deep resentment of a world's death.
He became evil.
Not only the evil of humanity.
But the evil of birds, beasts, insects, fish, flowers, plants, trees, and all living things.
And behind him, another figure followed.
"Destroy… obliterate!"
A roar tore through the outer edge of the atmosphere. Vacuum should not carry sound, but the space around Earth was already being overwritten by the Sea of Stars' domain, and for transcendents, forcing a roar into existence was effortless.
A fire giant advanced, not inferior to Ivan in size, and arguably surpassing him.
He carried a sword of lava.
Horns rose from his head. A black bone face stared down. Flame haze wrapped his exposed colossal form until he looked like a living volcano that had learned to walk.
Surtr.
Leader of the fire giants of Norse myth.
In a deviated world, he became the demon god who devoured gods and the world itself.
If Ivan was the demon king that led the world into the abyss, Surtr was the terror that personally burned it to ash.
Destruction. Annihilation. The evil of a world's end, taken to an extreme.
These were the vanguard that destroyed worlds.
Then.
Behind them.
Another figure.
"Hahahaha! The hegemon who surpasses the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors is none other than the First Emperor, which is Us!"
A domineering voice echoed.
Bands of shimmering light circled and expanded.
Great Walls woven from celestial bodies, like two immense whips closing in from all sides, wrapping Earth in their radiance.
At the origin of those lashes was a massive hall, forged from steel, spiritual light flowing across its surface.
A mechanical brain.
The only problem was the voice.
Why did it sound so familiar?
Inside the venue, Gilgamesh and Ramses II exchanged glances, then both looked behind them.
"Ah, is it Our turn to appear!?" Ying Zheng smiled, wearing a crown and a dark imperial robe. "That's right. It is Us!"
The moment the words fell, Ying Zheng's figure vanished from the hall.
He reappeared beneath the enormous palace brain, robe billowing, a Xuanwu phantom soaring behind him, majesty overflowing.
The First Emperor of the Lostbelt.
The Supreme Emperor who had ruled Earth for thousands of years, wielding the planet's power.
Gilgamesh and Ramses II both froze.
The traitor was among us.
That thick browed, wide eyed man was a traitor.
And they had just been chatting with him like it was a pleasant banquet.
"Were we played?" Ramses II stroked his chin. Even the greatest king of ancient Egypt had not expected this twist.
"Hmph. Foolish people. They are indeed only capable of this much!"
"You were also tricked, weren't you?"
"This King did it on purpose. Glorious as this Great King is, I had long seen through him and was merely waiting for this moment of exposure!"
"Kuh hahaha. Do not pretend, Mongrel!"
"Mon… Mongrel?"
"That's right. My friend told me. That is your title!"
"That mad dog…"
Their bickering did not stop, but neither king's attention left the three approaching figures.
"Let's move."
With a muffled rumble, Ivan the Terrible released a roar that shook the domain around Earth. Thunder boiled and scattered like a sea.
Surtr did not speak.
He simply lifted the great sword in his hand.
His body was vast like a moving continent.
The heat clinging to that blade was no less than the extreme core of the sun.
If the sword fell, its output would dwarf the ultimate destructive power of modern human technology many times over.
In an instant, the sky burned with the glow of lava.
Scarlet meteorites fell, roaring as they crossed the distance between heaven and earth.
Fire boiled.
Streams of flame converged.
Almost at the same time, Ivan raised an elephant foot high.
Thunder surged and burst outward.
This scene was even more despair inducing than the earlier image of Cernunnos reaching down from beyond the heavens.
The Heroic Spirits in the venue looked up.
But no one felt fear.
Because there was a sword in their hearts.
Because the sword had been drawn, brilliant and resplendent.
Rowe moved.
Rowe's movement was everyone's movement.
The seven layered sword light inside their consciousness erupted, and the seven swords above the sky bloomed with blinding radiance.
Surtr's molten great sword was obstructed.
Ivan's sea of thunder was diverted by a vast barrier.
Compared to the bodies of Ivan and Surtr, Rowe's human form was tiny, smaller than dust, standing at the edge of the highest atmosphere.
Seven layers of sword light circled him like a ring.
Ivan roared, but did not strike first.
Because Surtr was faster.
The sword light held, and the flame giant raised his blade again, gathering greater output, then brought it down.
A violent tremor rolled through the Sea of Stars, echoing across the solar system.
It was a sound that could not be stopped.
It was the power of a god of destruction, born from the end of myth.
Compared to Surtr's single strike, Rowe looked insignificant.
Earth behind him looked fragile enough to shatter from a single poke.
A human form facing a super scale enemy.
Even if Rowe was a primordial human.
Even if he was a star forging god.
Even if he would not lose to size alone.
If he misstepped, if he lacked the correct counter, he would still be driven into a dangerous position.
This was compatibility.
Rowe advanced instead of retreating.
He drew one sword from the seven layered ring.
His eyes burned.
Countless wills converged upon him at once.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
More.
At this moment, he was not the only one holding a sword.
The sword he wielded was not one sword.
It was hundreds of millions of swords, held simultaneously by hundreds of millions of people.
The blade blazed.
Its flowing light was like the sun.
That sword carried humanity's Reason.
It was humanity's wrath.
Wrath against those who looked down on them.
Wrath given form as a principle.
Wrath, refined into a judgment.