The moment spear met axes, the world compressed into violence.
CLANG!
The impact was seismic. A shockwave rippled outward from the point of contact, cracking the asphalt beneath their feet and sending a tremor through the surrounding buildings that rattled windows and knocked loose debris from nearby awnings.
Lancer felt it immediately. The force that traveled down his spear shaft and into his hands was staggering — raw, unfiltered, Berserker-class power channeled through twin axes the size of car doors. The skin between his thumb and forefinger split open on contact, a clean line of blood welling up from the overstressed grip.
His long spear twisted in his hands. Bent. The shaft bowing into a massive arc under the impossible pressure, flexing like a drawn bow at the point of breaking.
But it held.
He held.
The spear didn't snap. His arms didn't buckle. For one grinding, screaming second, Lancer matched Berserker's strength — not with power, but with technique. Angling the shaft. Redirecting the force. Turning a head-on collision into a controlled deflection by sheer spearmanship.
And that was enough.
It proved he could fight this monster.
A grin split Lancer's face — wide, fierce, electric with the kind of joy that only a born warrior could feel in a moment like this.
Then he kicked the Captain out of the way.
"Move."
"OW—"
The pirate went tumbling across the asphalt, clutching his already-injured leg, but Lancer had already forgotten about him. His entire world had narrowed to the figure in front of him — three and a half meters of obsidian muscle, twin axes embedded in the cracked street, golden eyes burning with battle-fury.
This one's mine.
Lancer released his left hand from the spear shaft, resting it across his shoulder while his right hand jerked the butt end sharply upward. The physics were simple: if he couldn't match Berserker's arm strength, he'd use his entire body weight as a fulcrum instead.
The spear shaft became an inclined plane.
Berserker's axes, still locked against the spear tip, slid. The angle stripped their leverage in an instant, sending both massive weapons skidding off the spear's surface and crashing into the street with a thunderous impact that cratered the asphalt and launched a fan of concrete debris into the air.
The debris cloud was brutal.
Chunks of asphalt, rebar fragments, and pulverized concrete sprayed outward in every direction, turning the street into a kill zone. The civilians who'd been too brave — or too stupid — to flee when the cannon went off finally got the message. Screams erupted from every direction as the remaining onlookers scattered.
Up in the second-floor attic of the café, watching through a shattered window, Damian and Crystal had simultaneous, violent reactions.
Crystal doubled over and vomited.
Damian turned green and followed suit.
Normal people. Witnessing superhuman destruction from thirty feet away. The blood, the debris, the sheer wrongness of watching two figures move at speeds that human eyes could barely track while tearing apart the earth beneath their feet — it was too much. The human brain wasn't wired for this.
But the four Servants on the ground?
Ice cold. Every one of them.
Especially Lancer.
Because while the debris was still airborne, while Berserker's vision was still partially obscured by the dust cloud, Lancer had already moved. His spear tip buried itself into the ground ahead of him — deep, deliberate, an anchor point — and he vaulted forward, using the embedded spear like a pole, launching himself at Berserker's exposed flank.
Berserker read it instantly.
Because here was the thing that Lancer was learning, blow by blow: this Berserker was not mindless. He might not be able to speak. He might have the Mad Enhancement skill stripping away his higher reasoning. But his combat instincts — the deep, bone-level battle awareness that came from a legend built on war — were completely intact.
The moment his axes hit the ground, Berserker let go. Didn't try to recover them. Didn't waste a single fraction of a second fighting the inertia of weapons that weighed more than most cars. He simply released — and the instant his hands were free, they curled into fists the size of anvils and swung.
A straight right cross aimed at the space where Lancer was about to land.
The wind from the punch alone was a weapon — a pressurized wall of displaced air that Lancer felt against his face like a physical slap.
He leaned backward.
The fist passed over him — an inch from his nose, close enough to feel the heat of Berserker's skin — and Lancer's eyes sharpened to pinpricks.
Now.
As he leaped back from the missed punch, his right hand didn't release the spear shaft. Instead, he switched to a reverse grip, catching the butt end as his feet left the ground. The spear tip was still buried in the asphalt ahead of him, and as his weight pulled the shaft backward, the entire weapon bent — flexing into a crimson arc far beyond anything a normal spear should endure.
A bow at maximum draw. A whip at full extension. Potential energy screaming to be released.
Lancer let go.
The spear snapped forward with the force of a cannon shot, the crimson shaft straightening in an instant and whipping directly into Berserker's face.
CRACK!
The impact was brutal. Not a slash — a lash. The spear struck Berserker's cheek like a bullwhip made of enchanted steel, and for the first time in the fight, blood appeared on the Berserker's body.
Two streams of dark crimson erupted from his nostrils. Not broken — Berserker's nose was built like a bunker — but bloodied. Hurt. Damaged.
And in the split-second window that the blow created — the flinch, the involuntary backward lean, the fraction of a moment where Berserker's guard dropped — Lancer struck the ground with one foot.
The asphalt cratered beneath him. His empty left hand shot out, and from thin air, a second weapon materialized: a shorter spear, yellowed with age, wrapped in strips of faded talisman paper that pulsed with ancient, terrible energy.
The short spear.
"I'll be taking your head!"
"ROAR!!!"
Lancer's strategy crystallized in that instant. The Captain's failed attacks had accomplished one useful thing: they'd confirmed that Berserker's body was essentially indestructible. Kicks, punches, even spear strikes to the torso — nothing would penetrate that A+ Endurance. The skin was iron. The muscle was steel. The bones were titanium.
But no matter how hard the body, there were always weak points.
The eyes.
Everything Lancer had done in the last thirty seconds — the deflection, the debris cloud, the whip-strike to the face — had been setup. Positioning. Preparation for this single, decisive thrust aimed directly at Berserker's left eye socket. A needle through the only gap in the armor.
The short spear drove forward with killing intent so pure it distorted the air around it.
CLANG!
The sound that rang out was not steel on flesh.
It was steel on teeth.
Lancer's eyes went wide.
"What—?!"
He bit it.
Berserker bit the spear.
The thrust had been perfect — angle, speed, timing, all of it calibrated to strike the eye before Berserker could react. But at the last possible instant, Berserker had tilted his head. Not away from the strike — into it. Turning his face so that the spear tip, instead of hitting his eye, slid past his cheek and drove directly into his open mouth.
Where his gold teeth clamped down on the blade like a vice.
The sound of metal on metal — gold on enchanted steel — locked together like the gears of a machine. The short spear was caught. Pinned. Immovable.
Lancer tried to pull it free.
It didn't budge.
Impossible. He used his TEETH to—
The thought died unfinished.
Because Berserker's chest expanded. His lungs filled. And from between the gold teeth still clamped around Lancer's spear, a wave of heat erupted.
WHOOOOSH!
Fire.
Not metaphorical fire. Not the heat of battle. Actual, literal flames — a torrent of blazing fire that erupted from Berserker's mouth like a dragon's breath, engulfing Lancer in a cone of roaring orange and white.
Lancer had exactly zero seconds to process the information "the Berserker can breathe fire" before the flames hit him.
His entire body ignited.
The force of the blast sent him flying backward — a blazing comet trailing smoke and cinders — and he crashed directly into the Captain, who had been standing behind him looking for "an opening."
WHAM.
The two of them hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, flames, and profanity.
"Are you okay?" Napoleon called from a safe distance, his voice carrying genuine concern.
"I'm fine," Lancer growled, already patting out the flames on his battle suit.
"Are you okay?" the Captain wheezed from underneath him, because Lancer had landed directly on his chest.
"I'm fine."
"ROAR!" Berserker bellowed from across the street, his tone carrying something that sounded almost like... concern?
"...I'm fine."
Fortunately, the flames weren't adhesive. Berserker's fire breath was devastating in the moment but didn't cling like napalm — the fire died the instant Lancer broke contact with the blast zone. His battle suit was scorched, his skin reddened, his pride severely wounded, but the damage was superficial.
He scrambled off the Captain, retrieved both spears, and took stock.
Alright. New information. He breathes fire. He can catch spears with his teeth. His body is essentially indestructible. And he's not stupid.
The list of things that could hurt Berserker was getting very, very short.
But Lancer was Lancer.
And Lancers didn't quit.
He charged again.
This time, short spear only. Close-range was suicide after the fire breath — Berserker would just incinerate anything that got within arm's reach. So Lancer switched tactics entirely.
Speed. Distance. Attrition.
As a martial artist, Lancer had his pride. Losing the strength contest stung. Having his killing blow caught in someone's mouth was humiliating on a level he hadn't experienced since his living days. But pride didn't win wars. Adaptation did.
Berserker charged to meet him — fists cocked, each one carrying enough force to pancake a car. The left cross came first, a devastating haymaker aimed at Lancer's center mass.
Lancer bent backward.
Not just leaned — bent. The kind of impossible backbend that only a Servant with A-rank Agility could pull off, his spine folding backward until his shoulders nearly touched the ground, the wind from Berserker's fist ruffling his hair as it passed a centimeter above his face.
And while he was folded backward, his hand reached down and scooped his long spear off the ground where it had fallen.
He rolled. Forward, under Berserker's guard, between his legs, emerging behind him in a burst of explosive movement. Before Berserker could turn, Lancer was already retreating — backpedaling at superhuman speed, putting twenty feet between them in a heartbeat.
Then he struck.
Quick. Sharp. The long spear lashing out at maximum range — a hit-and-run attack aimed at Berserker's wrist, scoring a thin line of blood before Lancer was already out of reach again.
The kite-and-poke.
Lancers possessed the highest Agility of any class. That wasn't just a stat — it was a philosophy. When the opponent was stronger, you didn't try to out-muscle them. You out-moved them. Stayed at the edge of their range. Punished every overextension. Bled them one cut at a time.
And Berserker's high stats, for all their terrifying power, came with a cost: mana consumption. Every A-rank punch, every fire breath, every moment of sustained Mad Enhancement drained his Master's reserves. In a prolonged fight, the Berserker would burn through fuel faster than anyone else on the field.
Time was on Lancer's side.
All he had to do was keep moving. Keep cutting. Keep surviving.
"This guy really has some moves," Napoleon murmured, watching the fight from behind an overturned car with his arms crossed and his cannon resting against the bumper. His tone was genuinely admiring.
"Indeed," the Captain agreed from beside him, having limped over during the fire-breathing incident. "If only he'd been a bit lighter when he landed on me."
"So. Are you going to help?"
"I'm looking for an opening." The Captain inspected his broken hand with clinical detachment. "Are you going to help?"
"I'm also looking for an opening."
They exchanged a glance. Then, simultaneously, they grinned — the shared, unspoken understanding of two men who had independently arrived at the same conclusion: let the honorable one do the heavy lifting while they watched from safety.
From the café's second floor, Crystal — who had finally stopped being sick and was watching the fight through the shattered window — saw the two of them lounging behind the car like spectators at a sporting event.
Her eye twitched.
"STOP LOOKING FOR AN OPENING AND GET IN THERE!"