Each arrow was formed from Mana-condensed ice.
The moment it hit, it shattered, blooming into high-grade freezing Magecraft that locked the target down.
It was an attack that fused archery and Magecraft.
Shiomi had once used it to break the Fang Clan's Wryneck and force his submission.
With a single arrow.
But now, even a rain-dense barrage poured onto U-Olga Marie without leaving so much as a scratch. It only managed to freeze parts of her body.
"As expected, it's not enough. The 'Alien God' is even stronger than before," Morgan said under her breath.
"She must have completely absorbed the Fantasy Tree from the Chinese Lostbelt," Shiomi judged. "Last time we caught her off guard. She hadn't finished digesting the tree she'd taken."
"Then this will be worse than last time. Should we call Scáthach and Artoria to back us up?" Morgan asked.
"Not a good idea." Shiomi shook his head. "It would only make things more dangerous. We'd end up unable to fight properly."
Morgan let out a quiet laugh. "Never thought the day would come when even they'd be 'in the way'."
If she hadn't been able to become the Unity God together with her husband, she probably would have been the same kind of obstacle right now.
"First, we push the 'Alien God' off the deck." Shiomi cut off the topic and spoke firmly. "I'll cycle the Mana and authority. You just strike. Don't worry about what's behind you."
Morgan drew her magic spear, now transformed into a longbow, to its full draw. A shot rivaling a limited-release Holy Lance erupted once more.
This time, it wasn't simply repeating Shiomi's signature technique. It was that technique fused with her 'Tower' Magecraft.
U-Olga Marie had only just broken free of the ice when she took the blow head-on, and she was forced off the deck, drifting upward into the sky.
Pulled away from Storm Border, U-Olga Marie seethed.
The priest had been right. In raw power, she wouldn't lose to the Unity God. But her opponents' combat experience was too deep, their methods too varied.
Even if they couldn't land decisive damage, they could still keep her from turning it into a one-sided slaughter.
"It's only distance!"
U-Olga Marie lacked the ability to fly. The way she moved through the air was continuous, gapless teleportation.
From one point in the sky to the next.
Even gravity could be sidestepped with a cheat like that.
Anti-gravity flight demanded far more delicate control, and she hadn't had the time to study it.
U-Olga Marie resumed her relentless teleportation straight toward Storm Border.
If she couldn't use the ship as a foothold, she'd be forced into a ground fight.
And she hated this dead land, covered in lava.
"So, you can't actually fight at all?" Morgan's voice sounded right by her ear.
A clear, deep-blue mirror made of water snapped into existence in front of U-Olga Marie right after she completed another teleport.
The Unity God Morgan emerged from the water mirror as she spoke, and her magic spear came down like a sledgehammer, smashing into U-Olga Marie.
"Ugh!"
It worked.
U-Olga Marie was sent flying by the impact, pain flashing through her, and she glared at Morgan with fury.
"Just as I thought. You're so strong you only know how to crush things with brute force. You have no technique, and you don't even know how to fight an opponent whose power is close to your own."
Morgan lifted her magic spear and commanded the four spear-type Noble Phantasms to pursue U-Olga Marie.
In contrast, after only a few exchanges, Morgan and Shiomi had already grasped the nature of U-Olga Marie's conceptual defenses and found attacks that could take effect.
They worked, but there was no blood. Not even a wound remained.
"Sharpen your senses. Watch her movements. Predict the coordinates where the 'Alien God' will appear next," Shiomi instructed calmly. "With me here, your water mirror won't be slower than her."
"Of course." Morgan smiled, leaned back, and sank into the water mirror behind her.
The counterattack came immediately.
After dispersing the force of Morgan's blow, U-Olga Marie began teleporting at a terrifying frequency. Against the Unity God, who moved through water mirrors, she was forced into a battle of teleportation.
Predict the next point.
Arrive faster.
Strike before the other could fully appear.
Thunder rolled without end, lightning repeatedly tearing open the heavy clouds overhead.
Within that chaos, explosions on the scale of Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasms bloomed again and again, shockwaves from the Unity God Morgan and U-Olga Marie trading blows.
"At this speed… even if we wanted to help, we couldn't," Scáthach muttered.
She and Artoria stood near the passage leading to the deck, watching the battle unfold.
The fight had already grown beyond what they could handle.
Just as only the Unity God could truly stand as the 'Alien God''s enemy, the Unity God was also Chaldea's trump card, the only existence with a real chance of winning.
"No. There has to be something we can do," Artoria insisted. "Once Tenkei and Morgan reduce the 'Alien God''s mobility to a level we can keep up with, then we…"
A transmission from the bridge cut her off mid-sentence.
"Wait, what? You're saying you've detected an anomaly on the surface?" Scáthach pressed a hand to the communicator in her ear, making sure she hadn't misheard.
Artoria was already sprinting onto the deck to look directly at the ground below.
Large-scale crust collapses were spreading.
Beneath the crumbling earth, a massive hollow was visible.
Its straight-line span was impossible to estimate, stretching for who knew how many kilometers.
"A huge underground hollow? Don't tell me the real core of the South American Lostbelt is underground?" Scáthach said, stunned.
The surface was too hostile to live on, so the civilization of this Lostbelt had moved below.
The next moment, an ultra-high-temperature heat source surged up from the underground hollow, rising from directly beneath Storm Border.
A blinding pillar of light nearly struck the ship. The sheer Mana pressure forced Scáthach and Artoria back, avoiding close contact with that concentrated, high-density heat.
The pillar shot up through the hollow, piercing the clouds higher than Storm Border itself, its radiance flooding all of South America.
"It's like looking at… the sun…" Scáthach murmured.
The light was so harsh she could barely keep her eyes open. She raised a hand to shield them, then formed a rune-based spell to cut off the glare and confirmed what she was seeing.
"Was that the 'Alien God''s attack?" Artoria asked.
"No." Scáthach listened to the bridge's analysis and relayed it. "That thing's Human Order Foundation value is negative. It belongs to the Lostbelt."
At last, just as the clash between the Unity God and the 'Alien God' reached a boiling point, the Lostbelt itself responded.