The kitchen of Twilight Manor was thick with the kind of "smoke of war" you'd expect after a Holy Grail War—
(though in truth, it was just cooking oil fumes).
"...One hundredth shrimp. Mission complete."
Shirou Emiya placed the last Supreme Fried Shrimp onto the platter, then instantly looked like his soul had been sucked out. He collapsed into a chair like a salted fish. If not for the mountain of shrimp shells piled up like a small hill, anyone might've thought he'd just soloed a Floor Boss on the fiftieth floor.
The process was brutal beyond words—but it successfully stuffed Loki's picky mouth shut, and it also earned Wiene a smile so healing it could've been classified as a restorative item.
"Shirou's food... so goooood!"
Watching the little dragon girl eat with her mouth shining with oil, her tiny wings bouncing as she stuffed her cheeks, Shirou felt like even if his arms snapped in half, it would still be worth it.
This, he supposed, was what people meant by the "painful but happy" mindset of a long-suffering mom friend.
…
Late at night, when all was silent.
Although she had been accepted by the Familia, for safety's sake Wiene was still kept in a secret room in the basement.
"Um… Emiya…"
Just as Shirou was about to tell Wiene a bedtime story (for example: the plot of a Magical Girl Illya movie), the door creaked open softly.
The blonde Sword Princess slipped in as soundlessly as a cat. She wore a white nightgown and held a fried potato ball—saved specifically for Wiene.
A simple offering.
An awkward, clumsy pat.
When Ais Wallenstein's fingers touched the warmth of Wiene's scales, something called "the barrier between races" quietly melted at last.
"So warm…"
Ais murmured, as if she'd just discovered an impossible truth.
So monsters also had body heat.
So perhaps… besides killing, she could also protect a life like this.
Shirou didn't disturb the moment. He simply gave a silent thumbs-up in his heart.
The scene was so beautiful it could've been a wallpaper.
And yet—warm, gentle daily life was always short-lived.
Like how an anime's "fanservice episode" was usually followed immediately by an episode filled with knives.
…
Behind the warmth of daily life, in the shadows of Orario, malicious tentacles were already spreading.
Floor 18 — Rivira Town.
In an underground chamber reeking of blood and formalin—
"I heard… that useless piece of trash in the Soma Familia, Zanis, got taken out?"
A man in a gaudy robe and red sunglasses lounged in a chair with one leg crossed over the other, casually spinning a scalpel in his fingers. The smile on his face was nauseating—pure evil, the kind that took joy in trampling others.
Dix Perdix.
Captain of the Ikelos Familia. Orario's most infamous Xenos hunter. A deeply hidden Level 5.
To him, life was nothing more than a toy he could dismantle however he pleased.
"Yes, Captain."
A subordinate reported with trembling caution. "It was done by a red-haired newcomer from the Loki Familia. That rookie's been making waves lately—his title is… 'Senji Muramasa.'"
"Senji Muramasa? That 'Unlimited' kid?"
Dix snorted, his tongue sliding along the edge of the scalpel.
"Rookies are getting more and more arrogant these days. A Level 2 acting this loud?"
"But… I heard he picked up something pretty special in the Great Tree Labyrinth on Floor 19?"
"Yes."
The subordinate lowered his voice further. "Our eyes didn't get a clear look, but that red-haired kid guarded it extremely tightly."
"And… there was a scent left behind at the scene. The scent of a 'dragon girl.'"
"Dragon girl… (Vouivre)."
A greedy red glint flashed beneath Dix's sunglasses, like a hardcore grinder spotting a rare drop.
"That's a premium loot item."
"And if it's a living one… whether we sell it to some freak god, or use it as a 'key' for Knossos…"
"It's priceless."
He rose and walked to a wall filled with horrifying "collections."
Monster horns, hides, eyeballs… even an organ that still looked like it was twitching.
"I don't know where he hid the treasure (most likely inside that so-called strongest defense Familia), but as long as we catch him—"
"Or that supporter of his…"
"With a little 'method'—a curse—we can always make him talk, right?"
Cold, manic laughter echoed through the chamber.
It was a sadist's overture to a feast—
and a signal that the plot was about to enter its darkest arc.
…
The next morning.
Unaware that something called "pervert" had locked onto him, Shirou stood at the exit of Floor 18 with Liliruca Arde (Lili).
"Emiya-sama… are we really going to Floor 24 today?"
Lili stared anxiously at the map in her hands. "That's the 'Granary'—monster density is extremely high. And we only just hit Level 2…"
"It's fine."
Shirou tightened his gloves, eyes steady.
"To earn enough for Wiene's food expenses (that kid eats like a bottomless pit), and to test the new weapon's performance, we have to go deeper."
"And…"
His gaze drifted into the dark. His Mind's Eye caught a faint unease.
"I have a feeling… if I don't get stronger fast, I'll be too late for something."
"Trace—On."
A red figure plunged into the darkness.
A new adventure—and a new conspiracy—waited ahead for this "ally of justice" from another world.
And along the path that led to Floor 24—
A group of "hunters," cloaked in invisibility and fully armed, lay silently in ambush.
They weren't hunting monsters.
They were hunting that red-haired boy.
"He's here… that 'Senji Muramasa.'"
"Curse ready?"
"Relax. Even a Level 2 specialized in defense will drop to his knees and call daddy after this."
"And… Captain Dix came personally."
In the shadows, a pair of red sunglasses stared through a scope, locking onto Shirou's heart.
"Now then… let me see it."
Dix grinned, teeth flashing white in the dark.
"Let's find out…"
"When you cut open that so-called 'Unlimited'…"
"Is the inside red, too?"
...…
Dungeon, Floor 24 — "The Granary"
It wasn't called that because there was free buffet food here.
It was because this floor produced all sorts of rare ingredient-type drops.
Of course, to the monsters that roamed here, adventurers were the real "moving takeout."
Giant hollow-tree terrain, tangled roots crossing like a labyrinth.
A sweet, cloying stench hung in the air—pheromones released by man-eating flowers and venomous insect monsters to lure prey.
"Emiya-sama… doesn't it feel way too quiet around here?"
Lili clutched her hand crossbow, scanning the shadows. As a veteran supporter with an "Escape EX" survival instinct, her danger radar was screaming.
"It does."
Shirou halted. A thin sheen of cold sweat formed on his forehead.
The feedback from Mind's Eye (True) was crystal clear—yet nothing like before, when he could handle things with ease.
This was needle-prick danger from all directions: malicious gazes surrounding them.
This wasn't something wild monsters could coordinate.
These were intelligent beings.
And there were… a lot of them.
"Lili—behind that root! Now!"
Shirou's voice lost its calm. It carried urgency.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
The moment Lili dove toward cover, sharp tearing sounds ripped the air.
Dozens of black blow darts poured from the surrounding shadows like a storm. Their tips shimmered with eerie purple light—coated in a toxin that could make you instantly type "GG."
"Trace—On!"
Shirou didn't have time to think. His body moved on instinct.
The black-and-white twin blades—
Kanshou & Bakuya—
snapped into his hands.
Clang-clang-clang!
Sparks exploded.
He whirled the blades into a storm, desperately batting away the incoming darts—too many, and fired from blind angles.
Hiss!
One dart grazed his cheek, leaving a line of blood.
Another slammed into his shoulder guard—didn't pierce the expensive light armor Lili wore, but the impact still made him stagger.
"Too close…"
Shirou panted, planting himself in front of Lili.
Back at Level 1, that opening barrage would've ended the run.
"Oh? You blocked that?"
A voice rose—mildly surprised, mostly amused.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Dix Perdix, in his flashy robe and red sunglasses, stepped out of the shadows with more than a dozen heavily armed hunters.
"I thought the first round would finish you. Looks like the 'Unlimited' rookie has some bite."
Dix adjusted his sunglasses, a cruel smile curling his mouth.
"But it ends here."
"Ikelos Familia…"
Shirou tightened his grip, eyes grave.
Their gear was top-tier, their positions disciplined—professional killers with practiced coordination.
And every single one of them radiated power above Level 2.
As for the man in the center—
His presence was a deep abyss.
"This is going to be ugly," Shirou thought.
"Do it."
Dix didn't have the bad habit of villains monologuing.
He waved a hand. "Take the supporter alive. The redhead—just leave me his head."
"Yes!"
More than a dozen hunters attacked at once.
No duel.
No honor.
Spears, greatswords, flails—every weapon paired with magic, forming an airtight killing formation.
"Lili! Flash bomb!"
Shirou roared, and at the same time activated his self-reinforcement.
"Steel is my body!"
His mana burned like fuel.
He didn't have another choice.
BOOM!
The flash bomb detonated in the middle of the group. Blinding white light stalled their attack for a fraction of a second.
But only a fraction.
"Ha!"
Shirou seized that instant, moving like a leopard.
He avoided the heavily armored frontliners, cutting into the weaker flank.
"Crane Wing—Unbroken."
Twin blades crossed.
A hunter's wrist split open—weapon flying loose.
But before Shirou could finish, a spear stabbed in from the side.
"Tch!"
He had to turn and parry.
CLANG!
The force jolted his hands numb.
Their levels might be close, but these were Level 2s forged in real life-or-death—nothing like mindless monsters.
"Don't think you're getting out!"
A red mist suddenly burst at the center of the battlefield.
Dix moved.
"Curse Mist!"
The strange crimson fog swallowed Shirou.
It felt like his blood congealed, like his nerves had been severed mid-signal.
"Guh…"
Shirou dropped to one knee—his blades nearly slipping from his grip.
So heavy.
As if a thousand-pound burden had been slammed onto his body.
"Hahaha! Got you!"
A hunter raised a battleaxe, grinning viciously. "Die!"
"Move… MOVE!"
Shirou clenched his teeth. His magic circuits roared at full output.
If the nerves were paralyzed—
Then he'd drive the muscles with mana by force.
Treat the body like a puppet and manipulate it directly.
"Structure Reinforcement—Overload!"
BANG!
At the last possible moment, Shirou raised his reinforced left arm and blocked the axe.
The armor screamed.
His bones sent up a spike of agony.
But he held.
"Get back!"
His right-hand blade stabbed out, forcing the attacker away.
Shirou staggered upright, drenched in sweat.
Magecraft let him resist the curse—barely—but it devoured stamina and mana.
His combat power had dropped at least thirty percent.
"Oh? You can still move after my curse?"
Dix lifted a brow, intrigued.
"Your body's structure is… interesting."
"But how long can you keep it up?"
He blurred—
gone.
So fast.
Shirou's Mind's Eye screamed.
He crossed his blades instinctively in front of his chest.
BOOOOM!!
A crushing impact hit.
Dix's spear slammed into the intersection of the twin blades.
No contest.
Shirou flew like he'd been hit by a truck, smashing through a thick root before stopping.
The projected blades shattered into motes of light.
"Pff—!"
Shirou spat blood. His organs felt displaced.
This was the gap.
Level 2 versus Level 5 was an unbridgeable chasm.
Skill and magecraft looked pitiful in the face of absolute power.
"Cough… cough…"
Shirou knelt, vomiting blood mixed with fragments.
His left arm bent at a grotesque angle—broken.
His chest armor was shredded. A gash deep enough to show bone hissed with black smoke as the curse gnawed at it.
"Emiya-sama!"
Lili cried, trying to rush to him—
Shirou stopped her with a single look.
"Don't… come…"
Gritting his teeth, Shirou used Structure Reinforcement to forcibly stabilize the broken bone.
Too strong.
So this was Level 5.
So fast his Mind's Eye could only catch afterimages.
So powerful that even a body of steel felt like paper.
"Persistent little thing."
Dix shook blood off his spear and adjusted his red sunglasses, voice soaked in mockery.
"You took my curse, ate a clean spear hit, and you're still alive?"
"You really are hiding something."
He stepped closer.
Each step felt like it stomped on Shirou's heart.
"But the game's over."
"Senji Muramasa—your 'Unlimited' is nothing but unlimited garbage in front of real power."
Dix raised his spear.
Dark red mana gathered at the tip—a killing strike.
Despair.
Real despair.
No technique could close that gap.
And yet—
In the depths of those amber eyes, already stained red with blood—
the flame called Emiya Shirou refused to go out.
"Who said… it's over?"
Shirou forced his head up.
His vision blurred, but his mind accelerated to its limit.
If conventional attacks couldn't break defense—
If close combat meant certain death—
Then he'd use it.
That taboo move even an Servant's body struggled to endure.
"Lili…"
His voice was barely more than air.
"Take it out… now."
Lili froze—then understood.
Hands shaking, she pulled out their last high-purity mana recovery crystal—a life-saving trump card Loki had given him, worth tens of millions of valis—
and smashed it against Shirou.
HUM—!
Pure mana surged into his dried circuits.
Still not enough.
Shirou began burning Od—overdrafting life force, squeezing every last drop of potential out of his body.
"I am the bone of my sword."
A chant.
Not only a switch to activate magecraft—
but a ritual of self-hypnosis.
Linking his mind to that wasteland of endless blades.
"Trace…"
Shirou lifted his unbroken right hand, reaching forward as if to grasp something.
In his mind, a legendary demonic sword was disassembled—then rebuilt.
Analyze the concept.
Define the foundation.
Replicate the material.
Imitate the craft.
Synchronize the experience.
Reproduce the accumulated years.
Surpass the final process.
"…On."
The air screamed.
Green lightning of mana raged in Shirou's hand; space itself wavered as if scorched by heat.
A strange sword slowly took shape.
Not a straight blade, but a twisted spiral like a drill.
Its body was pitch-black, yet shimmered with rainbow light.
Not a weapon of this era—
but a sword from Celtic myth, wielded by the great hero Fergus:
[Caladbolg II (Pseudo-Spiral Sword)].
"What… is that?"
Dix stopped.
A veteran's instincts were shrieking.
That sword was dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
"Not done yet…"
Shirou bit down so hard he nearly crushed his teeth. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Projecting it was only step one.
The true kill was how he would use it.
He didn't treat it as a melee weapon.
He braced it against his left arm—
even though the arm was broken, he forced mana into a temporary "launcher" structure.
"Broken…"
Shirou poured everything—every last drop of recovered mana, and all the crystal's power—into Caladbolg.
The blade trembled.
Its magecraft structure began collapsing under the impact of excessive mana.
Red cracks crawled across the black sword-body—signs of runaway mana.
A Noble Phantasm was the crystallization of a hero, the embodiment of faith.
To turn such a miracle into a disposable bomb—
to obtain destructive power beyond the limits of level—
That was—
"…Phantasm!!"
"Madman!"
Dix finally understood.
This kid was building a nuke in his hands.
"Die!!"
No more hesitation.
Level 5 speed exploded—Dix became a red streak, spear thrusting straight for Shirou's heart.
But—
too late.
Shirou let go.
"Take this…"
"Caladbolg—!!"
BOOOOOOM!!
In that instant, the world lost color.
Caladbolg became a storm that twisted space itself.
It wasn't merely a projectile.
It was a drill of annihilation that tore through the atmosphere and the space along its path.
The moment Dix's spear touched the spiral storm, it shattered like a toothpick, inch by inch.
"No—this can't—!"
Before he could finish, crimson radiance swallowed everything.
[Broken Phantasm]—
detonating an A-rank Noble Phantasm.
In that moment, the destruction surpassed even a Level 5's defensive limit.
THUUUUM—————!!!!!
A massive mushroom cloud erupted inside the hollow-tree cavern of Floor 24.
A horrifying shockwave obliterated everything within a hundred meters.
Stone shattered. Giant roots carbonized. The ground wailed.
The entire Granary convulsed like it had been struck by an earthquake of magnitude ten.
The bedrock above began to collapse—countless boulders raining down.
…
Much later.
The smoke thinned.
The once-dense root labyrinth was now a massive, scorched crater.
Rock at the bottom had melted into flowing magma; the air reeked of sulfur and char.
At the crater's edge—
Dix Perdix lay facedown, his whole body blackened.
His left arm and right leg were simply gone.
His high-grade armor had become scrap metal.
His signature red sunglasses had shattered into glittering fragments.
"Cough… cough…"
He vomited black blood, terror replacing all arrogance.
So close.
If he hadn't thrown up every last drop of mana into a defensive barrier at the final moment—
if he hadn't even sacrificed his magic spear—
he wouldn't have survived at all.
"Monster…"
He stared at the crater, shaking.
A Level 5—nearly erased by a Level 2?
That magecraft… was it divine authority?
"I have to… run…"
He didn't dare remain for a second longer.
With his remaining right hand, Dix crushed a high-grade teleport crystal.
Light flashed—
and he fled the battlefield like a beaten animal.
"Hah… ha…"
On the other side of the crater—
Shirou lay spread-eagle on the ground, smoke curling from his body.
The skin on both arms had split open. Muscle fibers had torn from the overload of his circuits.
His consciousness blurred; he didn't even have the strength to move a finger.
"…Did we… win?"
He stared at the spot where Dix disappeared, a bitter smile twitching at his lips.
He hadn't killed him.
But with injuries like that, the freak wouldn't be showing his face again anytime soon.
"Emiya-sama! Emiya-sama!"
Lili sobbed as she rushed to him.
Because Shirou had deliberately shoved her into a blind spot from the shockwave, she wasn't badly hurt.
"Don't cry…"
Shirou forced his eyes open.
He looked at the huge crater he'd blasted open—felt the emptiness of his magic circuits.
This time…
he truly had used everything.
Skill. Mana.
Even life force.
All for a single thread of survival.
"…Next time… I really shouldn't… do something this stupid…"
After those words, the "strongest rookie" who, as a Level 2, had used a nuclear-like strike to cripple a Level 5—
finally lost consciousness completely.
....
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