Deep within Dragon Valley, the landscape was not the grim, corpse-strewn graveyard one might imagine.
It was a white-bone wilderness beneath dancing auroras—so solemn and radiant it felt almost sacred.
Here, gravity had warped beyond anything "normal" could explain. The Od left behind by generations of dead dragons was so dense that the air itself had been compressed into a pale-blue, gelatinous medium. With every step, Shirou's skin felt as if it were being ground by sandpaper.
"Hey, Emiya-kid—your condition looks worse than before!" Tsubaki marched with her black iron hammer slung over one shoulder. With Haruhime's Level Boost she moved freely, but her battle-hardened eyes never left Shirou. "Right now you look like a factory-defect phone that got slashed during shipping—your signal (mana) keeps flashing red!"
Shirou's entire right side was trembling violently.
His right hand—once semi-transparent—had started absorbing the drifting blue dragon dust the moment they entered this gravity zone. The dust slid along the red circuit-like lines on his arm, burrowing into his skin with a sizzle, burning like acid.
"This feeling…" Shirou gritted his teeth, amber eyes lit with stubborn clarity. "It's like someone's pouring mercury straight into my veins."
He could feel it—his Dungeon-forged body and Dragon Valley's primal atmosphere were violently rejecting each other.
Like force-flashing a pureblood dragon firmware onto an Android device.
The fact his hardware hadn't exploded yet was already a miracle.
"Shirou-sama! Please don't push yourself!" Haruhime's fox ears stood straight up. She clutched her staff so tightly her knuckles whitened, golden tail rigid with panic. "If you can't endure it, I can cast Uchide no Kozuchi again!"
"No," Shirou said, raising his left hand slightly. "I don't need more padding."
"I need this rejection."
His gaze cut over the ridged hills of bone toward the valley's center.
"Only after I shatter this fake equilibrium… can I reach the true marrow of this blade."
At the heart of the valley, on an altar of polished bone, lay a dragon skeleton so intact it was obscene—over fifty meters long, every rib gleaming like burnished silver under the moonlight, radiating pressure that chilled the spine.
A relic rumored to be kin to—
The Ancient Dragon King, Nidhogg.
The moment it sensed the breath of the living, pale-blue soul fire ignited along the bone.
Two orbs of ghostly azure snapped to life inside its empty eye sockets—
Like a judge returning from the underworld.
It was Dragon Valley's guardian will.
The collective resentment of the dead dragons.
"It's here!" Ryuu's voice cut through the air like steel.
She drew her short sword in one motion; her bow, Sirius, trembled in sympathetic resonance. With her sky-blue eyes locked on the skeletal dragon, she slipped to the flank in a green blur, establishing a defensive line.
"This is one of those 'DO NOT APPROACH' threats the Guild seals even in classified records."
Ryuu didn't raise her voice, but the tension in her grip betrayed how hard she was forcing calm.
"Emiya, we'll handle the fight."
"Finish your analysis."
"That's the only reason we came."
Shirou nodded once, hard.
"Thanks, Ryuu. Hold it off for three minutes—no, two is enough!"
He burst forward, becoming a red streak racing straight toward the altar.
The bone dragon roared—an impact that cracked the ground and shredded nearby piles of white bone into powder.
It raised a titanic skeletal claw and slammed down with wind pressure that felt like it could tear space itself open.
The earth collapsed.
"This attack tempo—are we target practice?!" Tsubaki laughed, sparks erupting from her black iron hammer as she braced against the crushing force. Her boots bit into the bone-littered ground.
"Hey, red-haired idiot!" she shouted through the shockwaves. "My back's about to snap! Are you done yet?!"
Shirou didn't answer.
He had already reached the dragon's ribcage.
He didn't attack.
He didn't project a shield.
He simply raised his half-transparent right hand—on the edge of collapse—and pressed it firmly against the dragon's thickest spinal bone.
"Trace—On."
The instant he spoke, his consciousness was yanked into a boundless black space.
No sound.
No light.
Only something so heavy it could suffocate a soul—
Hatred, ten thousand years deep.
He saw the dragon's roar before the Age of Gods arrived.
He saw its despair as stars fell.
He saw the world's foundations wither, layer by layer, until they were overwritten by the so-called "Blessing" system.
His mind began to parse without mercy.
Components: ancient aether crystals, star fragments, life marrow.Framework: an unbending spine, wings that split the sky.Technique: the forging of the world itself.
"—Ghk."
Shirou's heart slammed once—hard enough to hurt.
Blood welled at the corners of his eyes.
It was too heavy.
The sheer volume of "truth" dwarfed everything he'd ever analyzed. Even Ea was merely the record of a king.
This skeleton was a world-part.
A foundational component of existence.
Inside his head, the System screamed in a flat, pitiless tone:
[Warning… Capacity exceeded… Soul collapse probability rising…]
It looped like a broken alarm.
A 64GB phone trying to download a universe-sized, lossless 4K documentary.
Shirou snarled in the darkness—
"Shut up."
He forced his magic circuits to obey.
"I've seen worlds burn."
"I've seen the end of ideals."
"If I can't carry something this heavy…"
"What right do I have to call myself someone who protects those idiots?"
His will detonated.
"I am Emiya Shirou."
"I am Senji Muramasa."
"I am—"
"—the smith who will cut this stupid fate apart!"
All twenty-seven circuits twisted together, fused by sheer intention, blazing with near-golden radiance.
And then his right hand—still pressed to the dragon bone—changed.
It stopped resisting.
It began to devour.
A terrifying suction took hold.
Not a normal projection.
Not imitation.
He was using the concept of Unlimited Blade Works itself to forcibly pull the dragon's quality into his body.
This was—
Existential reconstruction.
"W-what is Shirou-sama doing?!" Haruhime's voice cracked in horror from the distant battlefield. "Is he… eating the dragon's bones?!"
Shirou's right hand had turned brilliant white-gold, its light overwhelming even the dragon's ghostfire.
For the first time, the bone dragon's will trembled with something like fear.
It whipped its skull, gathering a deep-blue breath cannon—heat dense enough to melt mountains.
"Not a chance!" Ryuu flashed in, calm collapsing into pure decisiveness.
She drew Sirius to full tension; lunar aura condensed at the arrowhead.
"Certain-Kill Arrow—Starfall!"
A silver meteor streaked through the aurora and punched cleanly into the dragon's throat.
It wasn't enough to kill.
But the one second of forced stutter—
Was the entire world.
Shirou's eyes snapped open.
The whole bone valley reflected in his pupils.
"Analysis… complete."
His voice was no longer hoarse.
It rang with a crispness—like metal struck true.
He lifted his hand from the spine.
And in that moment, the ancient dragon skeleton—so dominant, so untouchable—crumbled like wood dried for ten thousand years.
A clean, sharp crack—
And it collapsed into a storm of fine dust, scattering into the aurora wind.
In Shirou's right hand remained a slowly pulsing mass of white-gold liquid.
Dragon essence.
The marrow of existence.
The soul of the True-Name weapon.
"True Name…" Shirou whispered.
His right hand was no longer transparent.
It had fully returned to substance—more solid than ever, every line of his arm carrying the sharpness of something that was no longer "human" in the ordinary sense.
Something closer to—
A blade.
He looked down at the liquid light.
"I chased other people's backs."
"I copied myths."
"But all of that…"
"…was still a shadow."
The white-gold essence slid along his arm and gathered in the air, condensing into the vague outline of a sword blank—an unfinished core that flickered between form and concept.
"If I am a sword born to protect…"
"If I am a spirit returned to cut tragedies apart…"
"Then this blade's name needs no god's blessing."
"And no myth's endorsement."
Shirou's eyes deepened.
He remembered Aiz smiling on the streets of Orario.
Loki sneaking snacks in the kitchen while pretending she wasn't.
Companions crying in the Dungeon—over pain, over relief, over being alive.
Those ordinary moments.
Small, trivial, priceless.
They were the only reason he had crossed worlds.
He raised his right hand, letting the sword blank hover before him.
"Weapon core concept—Oath of Protection."
"Grant the weapon its True Name—"
Shirou spoke each word as if hammering it into reality.
"[The Final Sword — The Moment Fate Is Severed]."
Thunderclouds above Dragon Valley split apart, cleaved by raw sword intent.
The gravitational field convulsed.
Massive bones were ripped into the air—then pulverized into dust in a heartbeat.
Reality shook as "truth" asserted itself against "void."
"…This," Tsubaki croaked, dropping to the ground so hard her hammer slipped from her fingers, "is something a Level 4 can do?"
Her smith's worldview was being dragged across the floor and shattered.
"This isn't forging…"
"It's manufacturing a miracle."
The battle ended.
With the guardian bone's collapse, the surrounding mana storm slowly calmed.
Shirou swayed.
The sword blank folded back into his right hand—still unfinished, still waiting for the final heat.
But he knew the hardest step was done.
Now all he needed was the "furnace" opportunity—
And he could truly step toward Level 5.
With a True-Name weapon that would force even the gods to look twice.
"Emiya!" Ryuu and Haruhime rushed in, faces tight with worry.
Shirou turned to them and smiled—exhausted, relieved, honest.
"Sorry… for making you wait."
"The material…"
"…we've got it."
He clenched his right hand around empty air.
A pulse of pressure exploded outward—gravity briefly collapsing around him again.
And beyond their sight—
At the valley's edge, under a small umbrella, Syr stood quietly watching.
No—Freya, wearing Syr's face.
"My, my…" she murmured, lips curving as affection thickened into something dangerous. "Not only did you avoid being swallowed by dragon resentment…"
"…you stole its 'history' and made it yours."
Her silver gaze glittered with a love so concentrated it could freeze a city.
"That unreasonable toughness."
"That light reborn inside destruction."
"Shirou…"
"You're forcing my hand…"
"…to snatch you back right now."
She closed the umbrella and glanced toward the direction of Babel Tower.
"But it's fine."
"The festival in three months…"
"That will be our final wedding."
"Until then…"
"Please—become even stronger."
"So strong…"
"…that even I can no longer control you."
Syr's figure vanished into the wind, leaving only a faint fragrance—the lingering signature of a goddess.
Three days later, at Orario's northern gate, the guards didn't even dare to stop the returning party.
Because the red-haired youth at the front—his right hand still wrapped in bandages—made the ground sing with every step.
A subtle chime.
A sign of mana compressed to the brink of qualitative change.
Shirou stopped before Babel Tower and lifted his gaze to its cloud-piercing height.
"I'm back."
"Loki. Finn."
"I'm back."
He tightened his right hand beneath the bandages.
"And this time…"
"I brought back the winning hand…"
"…that can overturn the entire 'bride-stealing war.'"
Under the cloth, the light named the End waited—quietly—patiently—ready to awaken.
....
Month-End Sale: Get 20% Off This Weekend
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it