Shattering Archer's Reality Marble was actually quite simple.
Step one, activate Secondary Combustion Mode.
Step two, authorize the Scorched Earth Operations Protocol. Step three, take flight, and then execute a Rider! Kick!
Actually, using fists would work too, but a Rider Kick was just cooler.
Of course, Xia Yu had long been prepared to be targeted.
If you had to ask why...
Yesterday.
"We absolutely can't beat her head-on," Tohsaka Rin said with a solemn expression.
"Uh-huh," Furina nodded repeatedly.
"So I've compiled the abilities of the Heroic Spirits we have on hand," Fujimaru Ritsuka said, looking at Cu Chulainn. "Even though I don't know why that fake priest isn't coming over, as long as you're here, it'll work."
"Lancer, your mission is to directly open the battle with your Noble Phantasm." As the Master with the most combat experience present, it was naturally up to Ritsuka to arrange the battle plan.
"We aren't expecting your Noble Phantasm to defeat the enemy in one strike. As long as it can tie down one of her hands, that's enough!" Ritsuka's eyes sparkled, a hint of excitement curling the corners of her mouth. "Even if it's only temporary!"
"Tch, although that sounds really frustrating," Cu Chulainn smacked his lips, "the reality of it is just that helpless. She could grab my Noble Phantasm with one hand even without wearing that armor..."
"A cyborg warrior from the future, a Hero active on interstellar battlefields fighting against calamities ravaging the universe," Fujimaru Ritsuka blinked. "Isn't it completely normal for her to possess this level of strength?"
"Exactly," Furina blinked, the corners of her mouth curving up slightly.
"Fine, I'll do it." Even if Cu Chulainn was displeased, he knew what was at stake.
"Then, next up are Saber and Archer." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the red and blue Servants opposite her. "Your mission is harassment."
"When Cu Chulainn's Noble Phantasm temporarily ties down one of her hands, I need you two to launch an attack immediately. Pin her down and prevent her from breaking free of Gáe Bolg."
"Understood," Artoria agreed straightforwardly. Archer was silent, deep in his own thoughts, but still nodded.
"Mash, you're up next," Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at her junior. "Your mission is a frontal assault. Use the size advantage of your Great Shield to temporarily block her field of vision! Keep her occupied so she doesn't have time to notice our side!"
"The key to this tactic is to force her to temporarily leave the ground." Her expression was grave. "With one hand tied down by Gáe Bolg and encircled by three Servants... according to our intel, she can fly."
"In order to break free from this restrictive predicament, she will have to temporarily escape your attack range, which means she can only take flight!"
"Ah, right, right, right," Furina nodded repeatedly.
"Then, now for the main event." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at Rider. "Rider, your mission is to set up your chains in the airspace above the battlefield when they launch their attack. All you need to do is delay her for even a single second when she takes off!"
"Next is Caster. After Mash blocks her vision, you must immediately begin your Magecraft incantation. Prepare the most powerful Magecraft you can cast in a short timeframe, and the moment she is trapped by Rider, unleash it!"
Hearing this, Medea and Furina exchanged a glance.
"Mhm, I understand," she said with a smile.
She couldn't help but smile; after all, she actually knew Xia Yu's entire plan.
Xia Yu hadn't hidden anything from her. Although Medea didn't say it aloud, she truly enjoyed this feeling of being trusted.
"But even with all this, can we really defeat Miss Firefly?" Tohsaka Rin didn't believe Caster's Magecraft would be enough to beat her.
"Miss Tohsaka, you're overlooking one thing." Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka shook her head. "Our goal has never been to defeat her. That's an impossible task, assuming Miss Firefly is truly as powerful as she claims."
"Our goal is to rescue your younger sister. Therefore, the true killing blow was never Miss Medea's Magecraft, but your Archer."
She looked at Archer with burning eyes. "You said earlier that you have a Reality Marble, right?"
"Yes," Archer nodded.
"Very good. After she takes flight, Mash will use her Great Shield to cover you, and you must immediately begin your incantation." A sharp glint flashed in Fujimaru Ritsuka's eyes. "Everything prior to this is just a smokescreen; it won't defeat her at all."
"Fortunately, we don't need to defeat her. We only need you to stall her for one minute!"
"Within one minute, the multitude of Servants we have outside will be more than enough to deal with her Master, and then we'll use Miss Medea's Noble Phantasm to sever the connection between Miss Matou Sakura and the Holy Grail!"
"What an ingenious plan, Ritsuka," Furina said with a face full of admiration. "As expected of you!"
"As expected of Chaldea's Master," Medea chimed in. "If we lay things out like this, our chances of winning are at least much higher than fighting her head-on."
"This was your plan, wasn't it, Ritsuka?" Xia Yu released Archer and looked at the grim-faced crowd before her. "It was all linked together so perfectly. If I didn't have a bit of strength, I really would've fallen for your trick."
"Seventeen seconds..." Tohsaka Rin tightly gripped the Jeweled Sword Zelretch in her hand. "Archer only stalled for seventeen seconds..."
"Even though everything was going so smoothly..."
The only unexpected variable was the addition of True Assassin, but they had managed to temporarily incorporate his Noble Phantasm as well.
But even so, it was still...
"Ritsuka, the current you hasn't faced that many desperate situations yet," Xia Yu smiled. "You haven't encountered those truly powerful opponents, so you don't yet understand that the more complex a plan is, the higher the risks, and the more susceptible it is to accidents."
"No matter how much you scheme, it is all futile in the face of absolute power."
"Then again, the current you isn't the you in my memories yet. Do you know what left the deepest impression on me about you?"
"It was you wielding a dagger, going to single-handedly challenge Tiamat—the temporarily restrained Beast holding the principle of Regression. It was you, bare-handed, throwing a punch right into the face of the mastermind behind the Incineration of Humanity."
"Perhaps only by truly letting you witness the vastness of the world will you shed this current naive appearance and transform into the Fujimaru Ritsuka I'm most familiar with."
As she spoke, the flames on her body transitioned from crimson to cyan-blue. Two energy swords materialized in her hands, the tangible energy on her shoulders condensing into a backward-flowing cape, and beams of energy drifted down from her head like feathers.
[Like a Moth to a Flame—Born to Die]!
"There's a second phase to this?" Seeing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka let out a sigh. "Also, isn't the future me a bit too magnificent in your eyes? I don't know anything about having the capability to challenge a Beast one-on-one. As for that mastermind behind the Incineration of Humanity, the last time I saw him, I almost died in London."
"Don't underestimate yourself, Savior." Xia Yu raised a sword towards her. "Also, this is the third phase. The second phase was skipped past by him."
She glanced at Archer.
"Sorry, Rin." Archer, his head covered in blood, struggled to stand up and looked weakly at Tohsaka Rin. "I couldn't hold her off..."
"No, you've already done your best. I don't blame you, Archer." Tohsaka Rin took a deep breath. "Hey, Savior, do you have any other plans?"
"None," Fujimaru Ritsuka shook her head. "We're truly at our wit's end this time. Even the Reality Marble could only stall for a dozen seconds..."
"But we have good news on our end, everyone." Right then, the Doctor's communication came through. "This Miss Firefly might not necessarily be as powerful as she claims. Perhaps she really can single-handedly take on all the Servants here, but compared to the White Titan from the past... well, there's still somewhat of a gap."
"The state of her Saint Graph is very strange. It took us a lot of time to slowly analyze it, but regardless, a Saint Graph of this caliber is insufficient to bear the power of a Vanguard of the Umbral Star."
It was true. Mainly, Firefly's power was too idealistic, and Xia Yu could only mobilize a small fraction of it. But it didn't matter. If Firefly wasn't enough, couldn't she just use Acheron?
"That's why I've always felt like you were bluffing me," Fujimaru Ritsuka shot Xia Yu a resentful glance. "Even though you definitely gave a lot of true information, there must have been parts meant to mislead me, right?"
"Ritsuka, let me teach you one more thing," Xia Yu chuckled and said. "For some things, you can't expect the enemy to obediently disclose their entire plan. At times like this, you should point a sword directly at their neck and then ask the question."
"Is that so?" Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka scratched her head. "Looks like we have no choice but to fight."
"You know the drill," Xia Yu bent forward slightly. "If you want it, come take it yourself!"
After saying that, seeing the 2015 Fujimaru Ritsuka fail to understand her 2019 meme, she felt slightly disappointed.
However...
She couldn't be blamed, right? After all, her world no longer had a future.
In a mere instant, energy surged from behind Xia Yu, and she transformed into a streak of cyan-blue light as she charged towards the crowd!
"Mash!" Seeing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka's pupils contracted, and she shouted loudly.
"Yes, Senpai!" Mash dependably raised her Great Shield and intercepted directly in front of Xia Yu. She had been on guard all along!
"By the name of my Command Spell, Archer, swiftly recover!" Tohsaka Rin didn't hesitate to use a Command Spell to heal Archer. At this moment, every ounce of combat power was precious.
Boom!
Xia Yu slammed directly into Mash's Great Shield. That immense force caused even the unyielding Mash to stagger. The next moment, taking advantage of her unsteady footing, Xia Yu exerted force once more, knocking the Great Shield right out of her hands.
Mash's defenses were instantly left wide open.
"Assassin!" Seeing this, Tohsaka Rin's pupils shrank. Their side absolutely could not afford to lose any more members.
Upon hearing her command, True Assassin, who had long been prepared, appeared holding his dagger. Striking from a highly tricky angle—from the blind spot beneath Mash's deflected Great Shield—he thrust the dagger directly towards the gaps in the armor.
This was how an assassin fought an armored warrior. They could only risk their lives betting on their ability to pierce the weak points of the opponent's armor.
If you asked what happens if they couldn't pierce it?
Then it was naturally an instant game over.
Of course, knights had it much simpler.
Artoria also charged in from another direction. Wielding her Holy Sword with broad, sweeping strikes, she slashed directly towards the opponent's arm.
In the distance, Cu Chulainn also retrieved his Lance and prepared to use his Noble Phantasm once more.
After all, most of the Magical Energy Fujimaru Ritsuka supplied to the Servants came from Chaldea's mana reactor, so he didn't feel a hint of reluctance in using it.
Because among everyone present, it seemed temporarily that only his Noble Phantasm could effectively tie down the enemy.
Assassin perhaps could as well, but his Noble Phantasm leaned more towards a curse. Who knew if the opponent possessed a means to dispel curses?
Yet, facing their onslaught, Xia Yu appeared entirely composed.
"Too slow!"
She unleashed a horizontal slash directly with her left hand, forcefully repelling the two-handed sword strike of Artoria—a Servant heavily reliant on high stats. Meanwhile, she put away the sword in her right hand, grabbed the wide-open Mash by the collar, and threw her straight up into the sky!
"Eh?!" Even after taking off into the air, Mash was still stunned. It was her first time being crushed so utterly without any power to fight back.
What? You're asking about Assassin?
Apologies, his little dagger was simply far too weak. Xia Yu didn't even bother to dodge; he chiseled a strike into SAM's thigh, leaving not a single mark.
Following that, Xia Yu spun around and struck towards Artoria with dual swords. The energy behind her erupted instantly, the searing energy flow directly repelling Assassin, who wanted to launch another attack.
Seeing her charging over, Artoria braced herself and raised her sword to resist, but she was still no match for Firefly's transcendent stats, and her entire body was instantaneously sent flying by the dual swords.
Fortunately, Cu Chulainn's Noble Phantasm had also arrived. Therefore, Xia Yu didn't press her advantage right away; instead, she spun and executed a heavy cleave with her dual swords, directly sending that crimson Lance flying!
Gáe Bolg's effect was extremely tyrannical, but it wasn't without weaknesses.
In the original plot, Artoria relied on her Instinct to dodge that strike that pierced the heart through causality. The specific principle relied on the mechanic of Instinct to suppress the causality mechanic of Gáe Bolg.
Originally, this should have been incredibly difficult to pull off. But at the end of the day, when mechanics clashed evenly against each other, it was time for their respective stats to do the talking.
Clearly, Artoria's stats were above Cu Chulainn's. The latter's Noble Phantasm was useful, but only when facing opponents of the same tier. The minuscule Magical Energy consumption had both pros and cons; when stats were inferior to the opponent's, this drawback was completely exposed.
And facing Xia Yu, although she didn't have Artoria's super-strong Instinct, she possessed absolute stats.
She merely had to fundamentally prevent that spear from getting close and destroy its closed causal loop.
It sounded absurd, but Gáe Bolg also had something to say: With this little Magical Energy consumption, it's really hard for me to get things done... With just this bit of Magical Energy, you still expect me to kill gods and buddhas alike if they stand in my way?
Are you joking?
So, after Xia Yu struck Gáe Bolg flying with a single cleave, she turned around again. She saw Artoria, having regrouped, charging forward with her sword once more. And further away, Medea was happily charging up an exceptionally massive fireball.
Then she blinked at her. The fireball detached from the wand, rushing towards her with unparalleled momentum.
There was also Tohsaka Rin in the back, the Jeweled Sword Zelretch in her hand shining brightly. Rider was in the shadows, doing who knows what, presumably also winding up a huge move. True Assassin disappeared from sight again, probably already preparing his Noble Phantasm; after all, his dagger was truly powerless against the SAM Armor.
Even Mash, directly above, had adjusted her mindset, plummeting down towards her with her shield raised.
Seeing this, Xia Yu smiled very happily.