For Early/Extra Chapters : patreon.com/scoldeyjodxd
Already 30+ Chapters Updated + Daily Updates
To understand the Black Hawk situation, we need to back up and check in with an old friend.
That's right. Chen Ge.
After the catastrophic defeat in the Streamer League, Chen Ge had arrived at a profound personal truth.
The more you scheme, the harder you get blindsided by something you never saw coming.
So, in pursuit of his dream — winning the Holy Grail War alongside Drake — Chen Ge, who had dropped out of high school what felt like a lifetime ago, picked up a history book.
Then another one.
Then mythology. World mythology. European mythology. Heroic epics. Anything that could give him an edge.
And now, with ranked mode live and the meta wide open, Chen Ge had a plan.
More Holy Relics meant easier Servant selection. More Holy Grails meant new outfits for Drake down the line. Both required climbing ranked. Unlike Maverick, who had spent his prep time plotting sniper positions to ambush Max, Chen Ge had simply queued up, run a standard Kenneth opening, and booked the first available flight to France.
Not to find Louis XVI. That wasn't a joke with a payoff.
Based on his all-night reading session, Chen Ge had already identified his ideal Servant.
Charlemagne. The Father of Europe. Karl the Great.
The case for him was airtight. As Pepin the Short's eldest son, Charlemagne had inherited the Frankish throne, initially co-ruling with his brother — until his brother died with the kind of sudden, inexplicable convenience that history sometimes provides. From that point forward, Charlemagne ruled alone, and ruled completely.
He'd inherited his father's religious foreign policy and taken it further than anyone expected. He expelled the Lombards from northern Italy. He led campaigns into the Muslim Iberian Peninsula. He drove east into Saxony, presenting its people with a two-option policy: convert to Catholicism or be executed. His army was, by the standards of the era, unstoppable.
The result: the first unification of Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. The political foundation that would eventually produce France, Germany, and the Low Countries. And on Christmas Day, in a ceremony arranged by the Pope himself — three centuries after the last Roman emperor in the West — Charlemagne became the first man to hold the title of Emperor of the Romans in all that time.
The Carolingian Empire. The Father of Europe. Enlightener of Civilization.
In a Holy Grail War where the gods themselves couldn't be summoned, Charlemagne was the ceiling for European Heroic Spirits. Possibly the ceiling overall.
Chen Ge had acquired a throne — Charlemagne's actual throne, sourced through a combination of legitimate antique dealers and people who asked fewer questions — through methods that didn't bear close examination. He'd flown to Fuyuki City at maximum speed, found a cooperative local resident through a process he described internally as "friendly negotiation," borrowed their house, and begun the summoning.
The blue light faded.
The figure that stepped through it was not Charlemagne.
"Ciallo~! ✩" The voice was bright and cheerful and immediately filled the entire room. "Are you my Master? So nice to meet you! I'm Astolfo — my class is Rider, just so you know! Call me Astolfo!"
The figure beaming at Chen Ge was small, pink-haired, dressed in elaborate knight's armor that somehow managed to look less like armor and more like a fashion statement, with suspenders and black stockings that had absolutely no business being part of any combat outfit.
"Oh — h-hi. I'm Chen Ge."
"What's wrong, Master? Your face is so red!"
Now, to be clear: Chen Ge was not the type. He'd never held a girl's hand. The Drake situation had been purely circumstantial — adrenaline, urgency, no time to think. He was self-disciplined in a way that distinguished him from the chaos of his generation, even if the academics hadn't worked out.
But standing in a borrowed living room with a very cute, very soft, very fragrant Rider Servant who had both tiny hands wrapped around his right palm and was looking up at him with enormous eyes—
Chen Ge's cheeks went scarlet.
The chat, naturally, had thoughts.
[BlackTiger]: I am Black Tiger and I endorse Astolfo~
[Melting]: Oh my god she's so cute. I'm melting. My girlish heart is completely gone.
[NewWife]: This is my wife. New wife. And she's the cute type. I'm so happy.
[Generous]: Honestly I'm a reasonable person. We can share. I'm fine with it.
[Diabetic_Warning]: Someone from two comments up — come over here and wake this person up. Diabetics stay back, don't let them taste anything sweet.
[EunuchClub]: Welcome to the European Eunuch Club. We have snacks.
[Unfair]: Chen Ge why do you always get beautiful girls?? I've summoned three muscular men in a row. THREE.
[Motivational]: Chen Ge! You look like Xiao Chunan right now! Pull yourself together! You're embarrassing us!
[Exposed]: Stop pretending, Chen Ge. Your eyes haven't left her stockings since she appeared. Be honest.
"Nonsense! I'm studying European knight armor!"
His face was the color of a stop sign.
For the audience: Astolfo was one of Charlemagne's Twelve Paladins. A knight from the French heroic epics — son of the King of England, possessor of legendary beauty, and famous throughout the legends for being reckless, impulsive, and seemingly magnetically attracted to trouble. He never caused trouble intentionally. He simply had a gift for finding it and making it significantly larger than it needed to be.
The gender-bent presentation was, in context, not surprising.
What was perhaps more surprising was the combat profile, because while Astolfo ranked last among the Twelve Paladins in raw power, he'd accumulated Noble Phantasms across so many separate adventures and stories that the sheer number of them was its own kind of overwhelming. As a Rider, he'd be carrying most of them.
Chen Ge had not gotten Charlemagne.
Chen Ge had gotten someone arguably more interesting.
This was absolutely not a cope. This was a tactical assessment. The Holy Grail War could still be won.
That was Chen Ge's position and he was sticking to it.
"It's nothing," Chen Ge said, composing himself with visible effort. "I just think you're very cute, Astolfo. Like a little rabbit."
The chat erupted.
[NaggingAlert]: What a nagging Streamer!
[Disgusted_Affectionately]: Chen Ge you are genuinely so gross right now~
[Slicer_Summoned]: WHERE IS THE SLICER MAN. I want ten billion copies of this face sent to every person alive.
[System]: User 'You_Are_Cute_Like_A_Rabbit' has gifted 10 rockets.
[RighteousUser]: That donor is a true hero.
[ManagerNeeded]: Someone please manage this man.
But the compliment landed well on its intended recipient.
Astolfo's face went apple-pink. Both hands pressed to cheeks. The enormous eyes went even wider.
"Cute like a little rabbit~ oh my, being told that makes me so shy~"
"Just telling the truth."
"Hehehe~!" A pause. "Oh — by the way, Master! Have you ever experienced flying? Like, real flying?"
"Does a plane count?"
"NO. Real flying."
Chen Ge didn't have time to form a follow-up question before Astolfo let out a sharp whistle.
The window exploded inward with a rush of wind and spirit particles, and something enormous descended from the sky — wings beating, talons extended, an eagle's head and chest on a horse's hindquarters, the whole thing radiating the energy of a creature that was deeply uncertain about its place in the natural order.
"Hehe, scared, Master?"
"A little," Chen Ge admitted. "Is this your mount?"
"Yes! His name is Wuai! Because he goes 'Wuai! Wuai!'"
"Wuai.(I was never given that name.)"
"Oh, sorry, I don't understand what you're saying! But I super like you, so you must super like me too, right!"
"Wuai?(Excuse me?)"
The chat watched the hippogriff's expression cycle through confusion, resignation, and something approaching existential exhaustion.
[Crying]: This poor creature. This poor, confused creature.
[ExplainerMode]: So for those wondering: a hippogriff is technically impossible. Griffins eat horses. These two species have no business producing offspring. And yet.
[PhilosophyStudent]: And yet.
[WantingMore]: If I had someone this energetic waking me up to study every morning I'd have gotten into any college I wanted.
[Realistic]: Buddy. That's a fantasy. Come back to earth.
[Envious_Again]: Not only does Chen Ge get Drake on a ship, he also gets to ride a hippogriff with a cute girl wrapped around his waist. I quit.
Astolfo, demonstrating the move-first-think-never approach that had defined her entire legendary career, grabbed Chen Ge by the collar and deposited him on the hippogriff's back before he'd finished processing consent.
The wings beat. The ground dropped away.
The wind hit Chen Ge's face like cold water, and the city of Fuyuki spread out below him in miniature, and the clouds were close enough to touch, and—
He forgot to be embarrassed.
This was flying. Actual flying, shoulder to shoulder with the sky, the world below shrinking into something you could hold in one hand, the weightlessness and the vastness and the deep, clean cold of altitude.
Chen Ge had flown in games. He knew what it looked like from the outside.
He had not known what it felt like from the inside.
His face split into a grin that had no self-consciousness in it whatsoever.
"Astolfo," he said, over the wind, "what exactly is Wuai? Is he a griffin?"
"No! But not a horse either. Wuai is a phantom horse that doesn't exist in this world. He's a griffin... in other words, he's not a griffin."
The chat took a moment.
[Parsing]: So he's a griffin that's not a griffin. A horse that's not a horse. A thing that cannot exist, and yet.
[Philosophy_Again]: And yet.
[GriefForWuai]: Astolfo genuinely doesn't understand her own mount's origins. She just liked him and conscripted him. He had no say.
[RelatingToWuai]: I too have been liked and conscripted without being consulted. I understand, Wuai.
The flying continued.
The view was extraordinary.
The soft warmth against Chen Ge's back was warm and close and smelled like something pleasant that he absolutely was not thinking about.
The chat was so envious they were practically dissolving.
Chen Ge's smile stretched from ear to ear.
He had no mirror. The chat couldn't see his face. For once in his streaming career, the camera had his back.
Then something poked him.
Chen Ge went very still.
"Astolfo."
"Yes, Master~?"
"Is that... your sword?"
A pause.
"Of course not, silly~ That's my—" A bright, cheerful laugh. "I'm a genuine boy, you know!"
"..."
Show Some By Powerstones
Next BONUS CHAPTER at 200 powerstones