[Bridge of the Rewloola-class Battleship, 30,000 meters above the Nordic Lostbelt]
The pale polar daylight filtered through the thin atmosphere, falling upon the Rewloola-class battleship's jet-black armor—only to be completely refracted by its optical camouflage system.
From the ground, all one would see looking up was a faint, unchanging sky.
Steve sat in the captain's chair, lightly tapping the armrest with his fingertips.
On the enormous main holographic screen before them, every detail of the ground battlefield was being displayed in real time.
On the side screens, countless data streams poured down like a waterfall—the joint computational output of Trismegistus II and the battleship's onboard AI.
"…So this is what love looks like in the Norse Lostbelt? It's so intense it's almost blinding."
He took a sip of red wine. His tone was teasing, but his eyes were clearer than usual.
Ever since the Shadow Border had plunged into this endless age of ice and flame, everything had progressed precisely according to a predetermined script—or rather, along the inescapable current of human history's revision.
Giants, Valkyries, and the Lostbelt King, Scáthach-Skadi.
Steve himself had chosen a high-altitude AFK—correction, strategic deterrence mode, but the butterfly effects from his interventions still sent ripples across the surface battle below.
For example, in the form of the perpetually gloomy Kadoc Zemlupus, usually hunched in some corner.
"Hey, Fujimaru! Don't just stand there! The giant's mana is spiking! He's about to use a wide-area attack!"
"Dodge left! That blind spot over there!"
His roars, a touch impatient but absolutely precise, came crackling through the comm lines.
This former A-Team Master was always grumbling, "Why the hell am I stuck babysitting you?" yet he consistently leveraged his knowledge as a Crypter to point out the enemy's weaknesses to Ritsuka.
For another example, there was Sion, their resident alchemist.
"The Shadow Border's engine is holding stable output! Etheric shields have been wavelength-tuned to counter Primordial Flame!"
"Fujimaru, don't worry about your rear! Push forward!"
"These are Steve's—ahem—these are the optimal parameters our tech department pulled an all-nighter to calculate!"
With these two joining in, the originally arduous Norse expedition had become much smoother. Like adding lubrication oil to a precision machine, all the gears meshed that much more smoothly.
However, at this very moment, everything abruptly reached its endgame.
The screen showed a snow-covered wasteland.
The battle known as the Endless Ice and Flame had finally reached its climax.
…
[Ground Battlefield – Norse Lostbelt]
The wind howled, lifting thousands of sheets of snow into the air.
Yet even this bone-piercing cold could not suppress the murderous intent and love boiling at the center of the battlefield.
"Sigurd… Sigurd… SIGURD!!!"
Valkyrie Brynhildr, clad in silvery-blue armor, was now in an extremely dangerous, tragic state.
Her eyes, once haunted and melancholic, now burned a furious red with love's flame.
It was a curse—a murderous impulse forcefully triggered every time she faced her beloved.
Opposite her stood a masked man, brandishing a magic sword—the Lostbelt's Strongest Knight, Sigurd, standing there in a posture that bordered on arrogant.
Even confronted with the earth-rending killing intent of a Valkyrie, he did not flinch—instead, he let out a chilling laugh.
"Come now, Brynhildr."
"Show me your love. Pierce my heart with your spear!"
"If you desire it that much… then I'll grant your wish!"
"This is… my love for you!"
Brynhildr leapt high into the air. The magic spear in her hands began to gather an astronomical amount of power.
Not just physical energy on a material level, but the conceptual causal chain itself.
So long as the target was Sigurd, and she was Brynhildr, who loves Sigurd deeply, the power of this attack would rise to infinity, resulting in an absolutely fatal outcome.
"—Noble Phantasm, release!"
"'Brynhildr Romantia: Until Death Tears Us Apart'!"
——
A massive spear of light tore through the sky like a falling star and impaled the man squarely in the chest.
BOOOOOOM—!!!
The explosion shrouded everything in snow and dust. The violent distortion of the atmosphere from the magic surge shook even the distant Shadow Border.
"Did it work?!"
Mash raised her shield, standing protectively in front of Ritsuka, staring nervously into the heart of the smoke.
"With an attack of that magnitude at such close range… and a special strike against her beloved on top of that…"
Kadoc chewed at his nail, frowning. "Theoretically, even Sigurd shouldn't have been able to walk away unscathed."
"But…"
A heavy sense of unease, impossible to put into words, pressed down on everyone present.
The smoke cleared.
The man was still standing.
It was true that a shocking wound marred his chest. His armor was shattered, and he was drenched in blood.
Yet he did not fall, nor showed any sign of his spiritual foundation collapsing.
If anything, the smile at the corner of his lips twisted further—becoming… almost pleased.
"How… how is this possible…?"
Brynhildr landed, staring at her own hands in disbelief. "Did my love… fail to reach you? Why… why are you still alive?!"
"Ha ha ha! Not enough! It's not nearly enough, Brynhildr!"
The man laughed wildly, spreading his arms as if to embrace the incoming destruction. "Once more! With even greater power! Completely pulverize this body!"
"He… wants to die?"
Fujimaru caught the abnormality at once.
Brynhildr, her love rejected, was thrown into confusion and was about to launch another all-out assault when—
"Stand down, Lancer!"
A voice, cold and sharp as a blade, sliced through the chaos of the battlefield.
Sherlock Holmes, who had been quietly observing from the rear, finally stepped forward.
He did not use any flashy magecraft or martial arts techniques—he simply took a single step.
Yet the aura of absolute rationality radiating from him was enough to freeze the frenzied Brynhildr in place.
"If you do not wish to see all of Northern Europe utterly destroyed, you will cease your attack immediately!"
Holmes' eyes glowed with a blue light.
Ever since Steve cut away the self-imposed constraint of never revealing the truth contract, the great detective's ultimate wisdom had been fully unleashed.
In this moment, he no longer saw the battlefield as a blood-soaked struggle, but as a vast web of clear and distinct causal links.
"Mr. Holmes?"
Mash turned to him in surprise. "But the enemy is already heavily wounded. Now's our chance to—"
"No, Mash… This is a trap."
Holmes spoke like a thunderclap, each word driving like a nail into the blind spots of everyone's understanding. "Did you not notice the damage feedback from that attack just now?"
He lifted his cane, pointing it straight at the still-laughing man.
"The core mechanism of Lady Brynhildr's Noble Phantasm is a special attack against her beloved."
"The closer the target's soul or psyche is to Sigurd, the more its power skyrockets."
"However—"
Holmes' gaze sharpened. "The damage dealt by that blow, for all its spectacle, was nothing more than ordinary physical Noble Phantasm damage."
"And the most crucial part—potentially fatal in its own right—the special attack multiplier… never activated at all."
"What?!"
Brynhildr stood there, dumbfounded. "That's impossible… I still love him this much… how could…"
There could be only one reason.
Holmes spoke coldly as he shifted his gaze to the pale Crypter, Ophelia, standing behind the Strongest Knight.
"Because the inner self currently residing in that body… is not your lover, Sigurd."
Silence swept across the battlefield.
Ophelia's body trembled violently as her hand flew to cover her right eye.
"And that's not all."
Holmes gave her not a moment to recover, continuing his merciless deductions. "Miss Ophelia, one of your Command Spells has already been used, yes? When was it spent?"
"If you used it to strengthen your Servant, why was there never any sign of it during the previous battles?"
"And if you ordered him to commit suicide… why is he still alive now?"
"Unless…"
A chilling, meaningful smile curved the detective's lips. "The Command Spell's order was not commit suicide, but rather suicide is forbidden—or, more precisely, the complete destruction of this Saint Graph is forbidden."
"What are you talking about…?"
Ophelia's voice shook with the fear of having her last secrets laid utterly bare.
"Don't you see?"
Holmes turned to Ritsuka and Mash, raising his voice several notes.
"The enemy standing before you now is imprisoned within the Saint Graph labeled Sigurd."
"He is not Sigurd… nor is he even a Heroic Spirit to begin with!"
"The reason he kept provoking Brynhildr, tricking her into using her most powerful, special-attack Noble Phantasm… was to leverage its conceptual absolute destructive power to break the Command Spell from the outside and shatter the shell of this Strongest Knight."
"And once that shell is broken…"
Holmes' eyes grew solemn, as if foreseeing the world's imminent end. "What emerges from within will no longer be a Servant we can fight."
"It will be something else entirely—a force capable of erasing this entire Lostbelt, and all of us along with it, in an instant—"
"—A disaster on a planetary scale."
Clap, clap, clap—
A slow, yet piercingly clear applause echoed from the blood-stained man.
"Splendid… truly splendid."
The man—no, the monster—lowered the hand covering his face.
Sigurd's original, icy-blue eyes had turned entirely into molten, golden-red lava.
He no longer laughed madly. Instead, he exuded an ancient, suffocating pressure that made one's skin crawl.
"To think that a mind so incisive still exists in this age… I did not expect that."
"I had hoped to take advantage of that woman's help to save myself some time… but it seems I've been found out."
He casually plunged the hero's magic sword into the ground. The surrounding ice and snow instantly vaporized. The earth split apart, and deep-red magma burst forth from the cracks.
"Since the play can no longer go on… there's nothing left for me to do."
His voice was low and hoarse, like an echo rising from the depths of hell.
"It's a bit troublesome… but I'll peel off this layer myself."
…
"Oh? So you've finally dropped the act, Surtr."
Watching the red marker on the display shoot past the detection limit for magical energy in an instant, Steve set down his wineglass, a satisfied smile crossing his lips.
"That Holmes really is quick on the uptake. Lifting his restrictions was worth it. At least he's no longer the idiot from the original storyline who only explains everything after it's already happened. He can finally play the role he was meant to."
He rose, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing down at the white earth gradually collapsing below.
"And thus, Act One—The Detective Unmasked—comes to a perfect close."
"Next…"
Steve pressed the ship-wide comm button. In an instant, his calm, majestic voice echoed through every corner of the Shadow Border and the battleship.
"All hands, to first-class combat readiness."
"Target: the End-Bringer of Norse Myth, the Flame Giant King."
"He's eager to taste the fresh air, so let's give him a grand welcome ceremony."
…
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