At the entrance to the royal capital's underground sewer system—
This was the city's drainpipe, the outlet hidden beneath its glittering facade, where all filth and darkness ultimately converged. Normally, a place like this only showed up in third-rate horror movies, or in those awkward scenes where the hero had to crawl through a sewer to evade pursuit.
And now, this party—one that could honestly be called the strongest force assembled since the Age of Myth (if you didn't count that one clown who only knew how to brag)—stood in front of this hole exuding utter despair, collectively frozen in silence.
"Urgh... this smell... did someone seal a thousand goblins in an airtight jar and let them ferment for a hundred years?" Elmira the dancer clutched her nose, the face that usually wore a seductive smile now green to the point of blackening. For an Amazon who cared deeply about beauty, this environment was psychological torture. "Lord Yuris! A place like this will dirty your boots! Let's just kill our way in through the front gate! If we slaughter all the guards, doesn't that still count as infiltration?"
"Shut up, you idiot woman." Yuris the werewolf sounded tough, but his sensitive wolf ears had already drooped flat, a clear sign that heightened smell was not a blessing in moments like this. He glanced at the brand-new boots on his feet, engraved with wind runes—Feilian Boots • Replica—and winced in visible pain. "If these get dirty... I'm biting every rat down here to death."
"Um... everyone, really, if we just endure it for a little while, it'll be over." Argo, the self-proclaimed captain, tried to raise morale, but the fact that he was pinching his own nose made him wholly unconvincing. "Think about it! Princess Ariadne is waiting for us below! This is a trial every hero must pass!"
"I could do without this kind of trial," Fina the half-elf said coldly. The Phantasmal Lament • Replica in her hand gave off a faint hum, as if even the weapon itself was protesting this awful environment.
"All right, enough complaining." Emiya Shirou sighed and pulled out a handful of mint-scented leaves from his bag, which might as well have been a four-dimensional pocket. "One each. Hold it in your mouth. It's a specially prepared awakening herb. It'll temporarily dull your sense of smell and clear your head. It won't block the odor completely, but at least it'll keep you from passing out."
"Saved! Brother Emiya, you really are Doraemon reincarnated!" Argo snatched one first and stuffed it into his mouth, immediately looking like he was ascending to heaven.
"Dora... what now?" Oona, the Amazon berserker, accepted her leaf with a blank look, then gave Shirou the sort of glance one might direct at an overworked nanny. "Are you sure you came here to wage war? Feels more like you brought us on a children's field trip."
"I wish you lot were as obedient as children." Shirou shook his head helplessly and stepped into the pitch-black tunnel first. "Stay close. According to Structural Analysis, the mana flow down here is a mess. Besides the Black King's soldiers, there are probably quite a few mutated monsters too."
Inside the sewer—
What they had expected to be a narrow, claustrophobic passage turned out to be wide enough for two carriages to ride abreast. Glowing moss covered the walls, barely illuminating the road beneath their feet, where black wastewater flowed sluggishly.
Drip. Drip.
The sound of water echoed through the empty tunnel, every drop striking at their nerves.
"Something's coming." Fiana, who had remained silent until now, suddenly halted, lowering her spear slightly. As a Pallum, her instincts for danger were exceptional.
"There are... a lot of them." Helga the elven mage raised her staff, her expression grim. "A hundred meters ahead, around the corner. That's... what is that? Soft, squishy, and its mana feels disgusting."
Before she had even finished speaking, a sickening squelching noise came from up ahead. Then a large green mass, like a lump of gelatin, squeezed its way around the bend. And not just one—behind it came a dense, writhing tide of them.
"Slimes?" Argo blinked. "Even beginner-village monsters dare block our path? Watch me use—whoa, aaagh! It spits acid!"
The leading giant slime suddenly contracted its body, then sprayed out a jet of dark green liquid like a pressurized hose. The liquid landed on a nearby stone pillar, and with a hiss of white smoke, a huge pit was instantly corroded into the rock.
"Mutated Acid Slime." A faint glimmer passed through Shirou's left eye as his Mind's Eye activated. "Physical attacks are only half effective. Don't let that stuff touch you—it'll ruin your face."
"Ruin our faces?!"
Those two words instantly tripped the reverse scales of the two women present—Elmira and Oona.
"You've got to be kidding me! This face of mine is for charming Lord Yuris!" Elmira let out a shriek, and the twin daggers in her hands—Kanshou and Bakuya, Dagger Version—flashed from their sheaths. "Die, you filthy snot-worms!"
She hurled one dagger. The black blade drew an arc through the air, but it didn't fly straight toward the slime. Instead, it carried a bizarre magnetic pull, like a lodestone. Then Elmira threw the white dagger.
"Magnetic Traction—Rend!"
The white blade seemed to answer the black one's call, suddenly accelerating and changing direction mid-flight. An invisible magnetic cutting line formed between them.
Squelch.
The huge slime didn't even have time to react before it was sliced cleanly in half, as neatly as cheese cut by wire.
"Ohoho! Nice! This is so good!" Elmira caught the returning daggers, her face flushing with almost pathological delight. "This automatic tracking, this mutual attraction... it feels just like the red string of fate between Lord Yuris and me!"
"Don't compare that disgusting fantasy to weapons!" Yuris kicked aside a lunging slime, the Feilian Boots • Replica on his feet erupting with a burst of wind. "Second jump!"
He actually stepped on the air itself, launching his body higher in midair. He soared above the slime swarm. "Die for me!"
Borrowing the force of gravity, he stomped straight through the largest slime's core. The pressure wave from the impact blew the surrounding slimes away, smashing them against the wall into shapeless puddles.
"These two... adapted way too fast, didn't they?" Shirou twitched at the corner of his mouth. They'd only gotten their weapons less than half a day ago, and they were already pulling off combos like this? Was this what talent looked like?
"Don't just stand there watching! I want to try my new toy too!" Crozzo stepped forward unwilling to be left behind. Instead of hanging back to throw magic swords like usual, he marched right up, carrying that square-headed warhammer—Mjolnir • Replica.
"I may be a smith, but Emiya's right—smiths need combat power too!" Crozzo drew in a breath, aimed at the densest cluster of slimes ahead, and roared, "Go! My blacksmithing spirit!"
Whoooosh!
The warhammer left his hand spinning, releasing a peal of thunder as it flew. The concept of gravity bound to it activated at that moment. A hammer that had weighed only a few dozen pounds suddenly became ten times heavier at the instant of impact.
BOOM!
That wasn't smashing. That was flattening.
The ground caved in with a crater, and more than a dozen slimes were compressed into two-dimensional stains before they could even scream. Then the hammer traced a strange arc through the air and obediently flew back into Crozzo's hand.
"Hahahaha! Amazing! This is incredible!" Crozzo hugged the hammer and planted a kiss on it, his face flushed with fanatic excitement. "This impact! This feedback! It's even more thrilling than forging! I've got to name it... let's call it Crusher No. 1!"
"You're all a bunch of violence addicts..." Fina sighed helplessly and lifted her harp-bow—Phantasmal Lament • Replica. She didn't draw the string. She merely plucked the invisible mana line with one finger.
Donnng—
A crisp, beautiful note rang through the sewer.
No arrow flew.
And yet, dozens of meters ahead, several slimes attempting to ambush them suddenly trembled violently like drunks. Then—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The magic stones in their cores exploded from inside their own bodies.
Sound-wave resonance.
That was the terrifying property of this bow: it ignored armor and attacked internal structure directly.
"Elegant. Truly elegant." Fina stroked the body of the bow in satisfaction. "This is what suits elven aesthetics. Not like certain barbarians who only know how to splatter slime everywhere."
"Who are you calling a barbarian?!" Oona turned around from where she was carving her way through an entire lane with the Golden Devourer Axe. Her face was smeared in green slime, making her look very... wild indeed.
"This axe is amazing! It electrifies when you pour mana into it! And every swing gets heavier! I feel like I could split a mountain in two right now!"
Watching his teammates bounce around in excitement like children who had just received new toys, Emiya Shirou felt a profound exhaustion settle over him.
What part of this was stealth infiltration?
This was a fully leveled endgame party returning to the starter zone to massacre mobs. At this rate, the noise alone was probably loud enough for the Black King on the surface to hear.
"Lord Emiya." Fiana walked over, her gaze complicated as she looked toward that pack of "problem children" gleefully slaughtering enemies. "Though I hate to admit it... the power of these weapons far exceeds my expectations. To bring them close to the destructive force of high-class adventurers through equipment alone... just who are you?"
"Me?" Shirou shrugged, casually projecting a short sword and pinning a slime that had slipped through. "Just a cook who wants to clock out early and go home to make dinner."
...
After clearing the first wave of monsters, the group continued deeper.
Though everyone was still riding the high of battle, the atmosphere gradually grew more oppressive as they advanced. The glowing moss on the walls thinned away, replaced by black patterns like spreading veins. The smell of blood in the air thickened until it overwhelmed even the stench of the sewer itself.
"The magical reaction ahead... something's wrong with it," Helga said, frowning. "It doesn't feel like a living creature. More like some kind of enormous... altar."
"An altar?" Shirou's heart stirred. Was this where the Black King meant to sacrifice the princess?
"Move faster! Stop playing around!" Shirou barked.
The group dropped their joking expressions and quickened their pace.
After passing through a long corridor, the view suddenly opened up.
It wasn't an exit.
It was a huge underground reservoir—but there was no water at its center. Instead, there was a bottomless pit. Suspended above it floated a platform forged from black crystal.
And on that platform stood two figures.
One was a man in black armor holding a spear—Black King Eld.
The other was a golden-haired girl bound in chains and lying unconscious at the center of the altar—Princess Ariadne.
"So, the rats have finally arrived." The Black King turned, looking down on the intruders from above. A savage grin twisted his face, purple fire burning in his eyes. "A little sooner than I expected. It seems those worthless fools really couldn't stop you."
"Eld!" Argo leaped out first, brandishing that gaudy Sword of Golden Victory • Replica. "Let the princess go! Or this great hero will tear your nest apart!"
"Hero?" Eld sneered. "You? A clown like you? And this mob of riffraff?" He pointed down at the pit beneath his feet. "Do you know what lies below?"
"What?"
"A shortcut to the Great Hole. And the source of the power granted to me by that great being." Eld spread his arms and shouted with feverish devotion, "As long as I cast this woman with fairy blood into it as a sacrifice, I will gain power beyond mankind—power beyond even the gods! At that point, the entire world will crawl at my feet!"
"What a textbook villain speech," Shirou sighed. "Why does every villain think they can control some incomprehensible power?"
"Move!" Fiana wasted no words, thrusting forward with her spear. "Knights! Charge!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Lazar charged with his shield raised while Helga began chanting in the rear.
"We're going too! Don't lose to the official army!" Oona roared and launched herself like a cannonball.
Battle exploded in an instant.
The Black King did not move himself. He merely waved a hand.
And from the abyss below, countless black monsters crawled out—shadow demons made of pure darkness.
These things were immune to physical attacks, and their numbers seemed endless.
"Tch, I hate this type!" Yuris kicked one apart, but it immediately reformed. "Physical attacks don't work! We need magic!"
"Leave it to me!" Crozzo flung several short swords imbued with light. Boom! Bursts of radiance erupted, and several shadow demons screamed as they dispersed. "It works! But there are too many!"
"Then we hit them on a wider scale!" Fina pulled her bow to full draw. "Weep—Sonic Burst Arrow Rain!"
Invisible sonic arrows blanketed the battlefield. Though the shadow demons had no true bodies, the vibrations directly disrupted the structure of the magic holding them together.
In that instant, while the shadow demons were suppressed, Shirou locked onto the Black King atop the platform.
"Take down the king and the rest will fall!" Shirou looked at Argo beside him. "Argo! Ready?"
"R-ready for what?" Argo asked blankly.
"Ready..." Shirou grabbed him by the collar. "...to be a real hero for once!"
He treated Argo like a projectile.
Just like he had thrown magic swords before.
"Go!!!"
"Waaahhh! Brother Emiya, what are you doing?!"
Argo screamed as he flew through the air like a human meteor, hurtling straight for the Black King on the platform.
"What the hell?!" Eld had just been preparing to cast a spell when he saw a white object flying at him. He instinctively raised his spear to block.
That was when Argo's absurd Luck EX kicked in.
Though he was still shrieking, he didn't let go of his sword. The Sword of Golden Victory • Replica drew a brilliant arc of gold through the air—and by some ridiculous twist of fate, Argo's trajectory slipped right past Eld's spear.
The blade didn't strike.
The hilt did.
Thunk!
A perfectly solid, humiliating blow landed squarely on Eld's forehead.
The Black King staggered back, stars exploding in his vision.
"Ow, ow, ow! My head!" Argo crashed onto the altar too, but ignored the pain and scrambled to the bound princess. "Princess! Wake up! I'm the hero Argo, here to save you!"
"You bastard! I'll kill you!" Eld recovered at once, roaring in fury as he thrust his spear toward Argo's back.
"Not happening!"
A red figure flashed onto the altar—
Emiya Shirou.
Using the chaos Argo had caused, he had slipped through the blockade of shadow demons.
"Trace—On!"
His left hand closed, and a spiral-shaped sword appeared.
Pseudo-Caladbolg.
"Get... down there!"
Shirou didn't swing the sword. He drove it forward like a drill, slamming it into Eld's breastplate.
BOOM!
Rotating sword-force erupted in a violent blast. Eld was launched off the platform, hurled downward into the abyss below.
"We won?!" Oona and the others shouted in delight from beneath.
"Not yet!" Shirou snapped. He did not relax for an instant. His eyes fixed on the pit below.
From within it came a pulse of terror.
A roar—inhuman, monstrous—rose from the depths.
Then an enormous black arm seized the edge of the pit.
Eld climbed back up.
No—
That was no longer Eld.
His body had swollen several times in size. Black armor had fused with flesh. Twisted tentacles sprouted from his back. His face had collapsed into a single giant drooling maw.
Abyssal Fusion Entity: Eld.
Level 6? No... that pressure was closer to Level 7.
"I'll... eat... all of you..." the creature gurgled.
"This is getting troublesome..." Shirou gave a wry smile as he stared at the monster. Physical immunity, outrageous regeneration, and that terrifying mass. It was practically a weakened version of Zald.
"Brother Emiya, what do we do?" Argo asked, clutching the still-unconscious princess and trembling.
"What else can we do?" Shirou inhaled deeply and straightened. He looked at the spiral sword in his hand, then at the companions below still locked in bitter struggle.
"If this is the last battle..."
"Then I might as well show everyone..."
"...the trump card I've been keeping in reserve."
He raised his right hand.
The reconstructed dragon-bone prosthetic arm was beginning to heat up. It longed for something.
It longed for the one sword that could truly sever everything—
"Synchronization... full release."
Shirou closed his eyes.
That red wasteland rose again within his mind.
But this time he did not summon an infinity of swords.
He searched for only one.
A single blade that could shine with the most dazzling brilliance in this Age of Gods—
the holy sword of the stars.
Even if he didn't have enough mana to fully release it.
Even if it might blow his arm apart again.
Still—
for that idiot who wanted to be a hero,
for the princess still waiting to be saved,
for the comrades who had placed their faith in him—
it was worth trying.
"Trace... Excalibur."
Golden light began to gather in Shirou's hand.
It was so pure. So warm.
Like the first ray of dawn piercing into this world of underground darkness.
"What is that?" Fiana raised her head toward the light on the platform, her eyes wide with shock. "That power... it isn't mana... it's hope?"
"Graaah?!" The monstrous Eld sensed danger. Instinctively, it tried to flee—but before that light, there was nowhere to run.
"Take this! This is—"
Shirou's eyes snapped open.
"—the light of gold—"
"—swung for the sake of protecting others!!!"
BOOOOOOM!!!
A golden torrent descended from the heavens.
In an instant it swallowed the monster.
Swallowed the darkness.
Swallowed the entire underground chamber.
And in that moment—
everyone saw it.
They saw how the legend called Hero was born.
....
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