Knossos — Core Zone
The earth screamed. The air burned.
This was no longer a dark, damp underground labyrinth—it had become a bullet-hell nightmare, smothered in kaleidoscopic beams and writhing tentacles.
"This number… are they trying to fill the entire room with monsters?!"
Lefiya Viridis wailed in despair as she maintained a wide-area defensive barrier. In her view, the once-spacious hall had been packed tight by surging flesh and plantlike roots. Perched above the abyss, the grotesque Corrupted Spirit Avatar churned like a runaway 3D printer, endlessly producing synthetic beasts known as Viola.
"Don't stop, Lefiya!" Ryuu Lion's figure flashed through the forest of tendrils, her Sirius—in bow form—drawn to its limit. "Luminous Wind!"
A green arrow detonated the eyeball of a Viola that had tried to ambush Haruhime—only for new flesh to knit over the wound in the next heartbeat.
"The regeneration… it's faster than before?" Aiz Wallenstein carved through approaching enemies with the Desperate blade, her golden wind shearing monsters into scraps. But even she was breathing harder now, sweat beading along her brow.
Even a Level 6 couldn't ignore the price of a battle that never ended.
At the very front—where the pressure was worst—Shirou Emiya held the line like a spearpoint.
"Trace—Overload!"
His black-and-white twin blades had shattered countless times already. Every projection, every swing, wrung more from mana that was already running dry.
"So this is… a spirit's power?" Shirou grit his teeth, Eye of the Mind (True) dragging him a hair's breadth past a lethal corrosive beam. This was only a fragment—only a piece—and yet its total mana was outright cheating.
A normal Level 3 would have been crushed the instant they stepped through the door.
"Emiya-dono—your right arm!" Haruhime cried from behind him.
Shirou glanced down.
His right forearm was darkening into a scorched, unhealthy brown. The skin looked burned from the inside out. Muscle fibers had torn; blood soaked through his sleeve.
It was his "container" screaming.
A Level 3 body could not safely carry Level 5-class output.
"It's fine," Shirou said, terrifyingly calm. "It still moves."
"As long as I can swing a sword… we haven't lost."
Lefiya stared at his back and felt something ache in her chest.
Why?
Why was this human pushing himself this far?
He'd joined them less than two months ago. He could've hidden behind Aiz—behind a real Level 6. Instead, he stood in the most dangerous place every single time, like a dam holding back a flood.
High above, upon the altar, the god of death—Thanatos—laughed with feverish delight.
"Despair! Wail! This is the art of death! Your struggle only makes the sacrifice more delicious!"
"Delicious my ass!" Shirou roared and hurled Kanshou like a spinning guillotine, aiming straight for Thanatos.
"Too naïve." Thanatos didn't even move.
A thick tentacle snapped out of the void and flicked the blade aside as if swatting a fly.
"Shirou Emiya," Thanatos sneered. "Where is your 'infinity'? I heard you can project weapons that can shatter the heavens. Why not use them?"
Then, venomously sweet:
"Or is it because… you don't have enough mana left?"
He'd hit the mark.
Shirou's stomach sank.
After the chain of battles leading here, his reserves were already gutted. What he had left was the difference between maintaining the line—or watching everyone die.
If he forced out something like a spiral sword imitation, or anything higher, and it failed to end the fight instantly…
They'd be wiped out.
"Then die." Thanatos lifted a hand. "Spirit—maximum output: God's Breath!"
The avatar's upper body—the half-formed, eerie bust—opened its mouth.
Space warped.
Kaleidoscopic light gathered and compressed into a violently unstable sphere. It wasn't a spell so much as raw, primordial mana, packed until reality itself shuddered.
If it fired, the entire hall would be erased.
"Everyone, defend!" Aiz's face tightened. She abandoned offense and surged to the front. "Ariel—full output!"
"I'll reinforce!" Lefiya bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, forcibly draining her mind to build layer upon layer of shields. "Elf Ring—defensive formation!"
"Not enough… still not enough." Shirou's Eye of the Mind delivered the verdict like a guillotine.
That blast would exceed Level 6 defense limits.
If they tried to tank it, everyone but Aiz would die.
"We have to… break this." Shirou locked onto the growing sphere, his brain racing. A weapon? A trick? A miracle?
"Shirou-dono."
Warm hands wrapped around him from behind.
Haruhime.
The little fox who had always been protected at the rear—stepped forward.
Her body trembled. Her eyes did not.
"I… want to give this… to you."
"Haruhime?"
She raised her staff, golden tails whipping wildly in the mana storm.
"Finn-sama said this was our last trump card. But if we don't use it now… there won't be a future!"
She inhaled—and spoke with all the courage she owned.
"Uchide no Kozuchi!Target: Shirou Emiya!Level Boost—activate!"
A pillar of golden radiance struck Shirou's back like holy lightning.
This wasn't a normal buff.
This was the miracle that cracked the world's rules—a forced elevation of rank.
"Ghh—!"
Shirou's voice tore out of him as his body convulsed. Mana that had been bone-dry detonated into his system like a volcanic eruption. Deadened cells were forcibly revived. Torn muscle rebuilt itself in an instant.
It felt like trying to pour a river into a teacup.
But Shirou Emiya's foundation was abnormal—his base stats were monstrous, every parameter pushed to the extreme.
His "Level 4" weight wasn't like ordinary adventurers.
Even a temporary surge could rival a high Level 5—brush the edge of Level 6.
"Power…" Shirou flexed his fingers.
The twin blades, once heavy, now felt like feathers.
His vision sharpened until he could see dust floating in the air.
Still—
It wasn't enough.
Against the imminent God's Breath, Level Boost alone couldn't win head-on.
"The container… is too small." Shirou felt it—mana spilling, overflowing, screaming for release. Level Boost had raised his output, but his body hadn't truly adapted to hold it.
Like a balloon blown to its absolute limit.
It would burst.
Shirou lifted his head, staring up at Thanatos and the spirit avatar.
His eyes ignited with a fire that didn't belong to a man who planned to survive.
"If it won't fit…"
His voice dropped to something almost serene.
"Then I'll… break the container."
He made a decision that bordered on madness.
He didn't pour the power into offense.
He didn't pour it into defense.
He turned it inward—into detonation.
"Trace—Core—Overlimit!"
He compressed everything—his own mana, and the foreign mana from Level Boost—into the core of his circuits, into the heart of his existence. He rammed it against the wall labeled Level 3.
Against the boundary labeled human.
At the edge of the battlefield, Bete—having just arrived—saw it and nearly lost his mind.
"What the hell is that idiot doing?!" his fur bristled. "Breaking through mid-fight?! He's insane! That's suicide!"
It was.
Without a god updating Falna, forcing a breakthrough could mean exploding into meat and light.
But Shirou Emiya wasn't a normal man.
His body—at its foundation—was made of swords.
The words rose from the deepest layer of his soul, not as an incantation, but as reconstruction.
Steel is my body.
Something cracked.
Then—
A golden column erupted from Shirou's body, punching upward like a beacon.
Not Haruhime's light.
His.
In this do-or-die crucible, two months of accumulated Exilia and feats ignited all at once—every battle, every near-death, every pressure that had been building toward a single point.
The deathmatch in the deep floors.
Ottar's crushing wall.
The spirit's overwhelming malice.
All of it became fuel.
Feat confirmed — carrying a god's weight in a mortal body.
Shirou threw his head back and roared.
Glowing lines spread across his skin—magic circuits expanding, evolving, rewriting the vessel from within.
A human frame shedding its limits.
Level 3 → Level 4 (true).
And because Level Boost still clung to him—
Level 4 (true) + Level Boost = Level 5 (temporary).
The radiance faded.
Shirou stood anew.
His clothes were shredded, his upper body bared and taut, red hair lifting without wind. In his amber eyes, gold flowed like a living flame.
The pressure he gave off—
Did not lose to Aiz.
"…Impossible…" Thanatos' mask cracked, terror spilling through. "Leveling up in battle?! That's not even—heroes' tales don't—!"
"Sorry, villain." Shirou raised a hand, fingers closing around empty air—
—and the air itself answered, trembling like it was cheering.
"My script doesn't follow your rules."
"Spirit—fire, now!" Thanatos shrieked, sensing the threat too late.
The avatar obeyed.
God's Breath launched.
A torrent of annihilation screamed toward Shirou.
"Good."
Shirou didn't dodge.
He didn't call for Aiz.
He simply extended his newly reborn right hand.
"Trace."
No long chant. No painful analysis.
Where his will pointed, the sword followed.
A massive shield appeared—broad as a wall.
Not Rho Aias.
Something else.
A projected, degraded imitation of the divine defense—
Achilles Cosmos.
"World—unfold."
The torrent slammed into the shield.
An attack strong enough to erase a district—
was stopped.
The shield dissolved. The floor collapsed. The shockwave tore the hall apart.
But Shirou—
didn't move.
Not one step back.
"H-He blocked it?!" Lefiya's mouth fell open. "That was—that level of attack!"
Shirou's lips lifted.
"Not done yet."
He dismissed the shield. Leaned forward into a runner's posture.
"If you're finished…"
His voice sharpened.
"…then it's my turn."
"Project—Load."
Two weapons manifested behind him.
One burned with solar flame—
a projected imitation of Excalibur Galatine.
The other writhed with cursed thorns—
a projected imitation of Gáe Bolg—forced into a "blade" by his will.
"Double Broken Phantasm!"
Shirou seized both.
His body vanished—
and reappeared above the spirit's head.
"Teleport?" Ryuu gasped. "No—that's… a shortening step…!"
Not magic.
Speed.
Temporary Level 5 speed.
"Eat this!"
Shirou drove the solar sword into the avatar's left shoulder.
"Galatine—Blast!"
Flame erupted, incinerating half its tendrils in a roaring bloom.
The spirit shrieked and tried to counter.
But in that heartbeat, Shirou plunged the cursed thorn into the core's protective barrier.
"Gáe Bolg—Pierce!"
The crimson curse tore through the defense like paper—through a layer even Level 6 struggled to crack.
"Final strike!"
Shirou flipped in midair, hands coming together as every last thread of mana he owned gathered into his palms.
"Trace—Excalibur Image!"
A golden blade of light formed—imperfect, lesser than the true thing, nowhere near what he'd forced before—
But here, at point-blank range—
it was enough.
The golden pillar dropped straight down, pouring through the rupture Gáe Bolg had opened and flooding the spirit's core.
"No… don't—"
The avatar screamed, for a moment sounding like a human girl—
and then the underground world became a sun.
A colossal explosion bloomed from the hall's center. It swallowed the avatar, the altar, and Thanatos' triumphant stage in one blaze of gold.
When the dust finally cleared—
the monster was gone.
All that remained was a bottomless crater—
and at the crater's base, a red-haired boy stood, steam rising from his body, still upright.
"We… we won…" Haruhime collapsed, tears spilling freely.
"Hmph." Aiz sheathed her sword. Her face remained composed, but her fingers trembled—betraying the thrill she refused to show. "At least it was… not ugly."
"That idiot…" Ryuu stared at his back, relief softening into a smile.
"Oi! Emiya!" Bete rushed to the crater edge and shouted down. "You dead? If you're not dead, bark!"
From below came a weak, utterly shameless reply:
"Bark."
Shirou turned toward them and raised his thumb.
He was covered in blood. His clothes were wrecked.
But his grin was brighter than anything in that ruined hall.
"Everyone…"
He wheezed, still smiling.
"I leveled up."
"Don't brag at a time like this, you bastard!" everyone shouted in unison.
The Knossos core battle ended—not with a clean strategy, but with Shirou Emiya's absurd mid-battle breakthrough and a near-nuclear finishing blow.
Yet as Shirou was hauled back up, Finn watched him with a deepening, unreadable gaze—feeling the shift in the air around him, the unmistakable change in weight.
Leveling up on the battlefield…
In Orario's history, Finn could only recall one precedent.
A certain legend from Hera Familia.
And now—
another name had joined that impossible line.
....
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