The Deva Path's Chibaku Tensei has always yielded the finest results I desired.
It was true when I faced Angra Mainyu, true during my fierce battles against the Dead Apostles… and it holds true at this very moment.
"Now, Medea!"
[Rule Breaker: All Spells Must Be Broken]
Strictly speaking, there was little reason for Rule Breaker to see much action within a Singularity.
While it is the ultimate anti-thaumaturgy Noble Phantasm—capable of nullifying all magical effects and forcibly reverting contracts and prana to their state prior to manifestation—the story changes when it comes to 'Curses.'
Suppose we consider a Servant to be a finely woven fabric or silk; Rule Breaker is the tool that unravels that fabric back into individual threads. However, a curse is a stain that has soaked into the entirety of that fabric. Naturally, even if the threads are unraveled, the stain remains. Since the earth, the sea, and everything touched by the curse is effectively contaminated by that stain, Medea's Rule Breaker cannot resolve it.
But… the Poseidon before our eyes is different.
He had already perished once at the hands of Drake. The King of Demon Gods merely used the remaining corpse and the Holy Grail to resurrect him—a puppet in the state of a Divine Spirit to be controlled at his whim.
In other words… if one peers into the foundational logic, his existence is 'analogous' to a Servant contract.
"And Medea's magecraft… is capable of forcibly dispelling any spell, regardless of its nature!"
Of course, exceptions exist.
It is meaningless against the likes of God Hand, which nullifies attacks below B-rank, or Rho Aias, which blocks the Noble Phantasm's strike itself.
However, what if the objective is to forcibly sever the contract binding the Poseidon before us?
[Poseidon's Saint Graph is at a staggering level. Naturally, the amount of magical energy Goetia is supplying to maintain him is beyond common sense. To put it another way, the moment that contract is severed, Poseidon will inevitably collapse like a punctured balloon!]
True to Romani's words, Poseidon's form was already crumbling.
With a final cry, the golden bird that had fended off Poseidon's attack began to plummet toward the sea, but I quickly utilized Bansho Ten'in to pull her to safety.
"…Did we kill him? Did we actually take down Poseidon?"
"It's not over yet. Teach! Turn the ship around. We're heading for Atlantis immediately. We have to destroy the altar there to resolve this Singularity!"
There are many unknowns regarding the mechanics and activation methods of Noble Phantasms, but it is common knowledge that Phantasms like Teach's—which require a massive output to enhance their capabilities—suffer a penalty where they cannot be used again for a certain duration.
Furthermore, now that we have revealed our ability to fly, it is obvious we will be withered by the King of Demon Gods' parade of curses unless we settle this with a lightning strike.
"Caenis, how are you holding up against the curse?"
"…I can manage."
"Speak plainly. This isn't the time to act tough!"
"Honestly, I feel like I'm dying. If a chance comes, I'll blow myself up along with my Noble Phantasm, so keep that in mind…"
Her majestic bearing was gone. Eaten away by the curse of blood-red water, she was isolated within Medea's bounded field, coughing up black blood incessantly. This next assault would likely be our final opportunity…
[Atlantis is 8 kilometers out at 45 degrees port! Since it's currently floating, you'll see it instantly. Magical energy signature confirmed; charging in immediately!]
"Thanks for the briefing, Romani. We're going full speed!"
No one else spoke.
There was only one decisive battle remaining. It seemed as though everyone was conserving even the strength required to breathe for that final clash…
"…Eh?"
In that moment, Medea spoke up.
Locusts, swarming like sudden storm clouds, began to blot out the sun.
Medea, being the most sensitive to magecraft and hexes, reacted instantly. Her lips began to move frantically, incanting spells via High-Speed Incantation.
"…What is that?"
"A curse… no, the mechanism of the daily curse hasn't triggered. It was supposed to be one curse per day."
Just then, I felt something cold brush against my cheek.
When I touched my face, I found something resembling snow clinging to my skin.
"What is this? Why is it snowing?"
"…Master. That isn't snow."
[I just scanned it—it's likely hail. The King of Demon Gods expanded his curses by clumsily imitating the God of the sacred scripts, but trying to copy another's magecraft is fundamentally absurd. Especially if it's a curse directly laid by a Chief God! It means he's barely managing to bind and control a curse at this point that should have already backflowed into a cataclysm.]
"Which means this is the final destination where the altar resides!"
The moment Jason shouted, the roar of thunder filled the air, and hailstones as large as boulders began to rain down relentlessly.
Hector, Jason, Atalante, and Drake—all of whom had climbed back up from the deck—began to shoot down the hailstones one by one. Meanwhile, Blackbeard displayed his divine helmsmanship, steering the ship toward Atlantis as it rose into the sky.
[I see.]
In that moment, it appeared.
I had previously identified the various organisms that formed its foundation, but this was undeniably different from the others in many ways.
Features that were certainly distorted… no, a mass of flesh that couldn't even be called features.
An appearance that one could hardly bear to call human. Yet, the shape formed by that gathered lump of flesh was, unmistakably, in the likeness of a man.
Clad in ancient Hebrew attire, he wore the white robes reserved for high priests, adorned with gold necklaces and bracelets. However, peering at his soul, essence, and prana through the Rinnegan revealed something so grotesque it felt like my eyes would rot. The aura of magical energy he radiated was enough to make even the Servants tense in anticipation.
We stared at him in silence.
Our undeniable enemy. Our objective.
The opponent I had been hostile toward since I first became aware of this world's state; the one I had shared a direct, ill-fated connection with since my unnervingly young participation in the Holy Grail War.
I had been sharpening my blade, intending to hurl every profanity in existence at him should he appear, but I couldn't bring myself to do it now. Even if I could, I wanted to refuse.
After all, to call that thing before my eyes a 'living being' would be…
[I wondered… and indeed, the insects have arrived.]
He was simply too vast.
[The King of Demon Gods…]
Romani whispered softly.
[How trivial.]
And as if in response, a single word reached us.
I could only imagine that the Chaldea control room was currently in a state of absolute devastation due to that single sentence.
"Ugh…!"
"Master, are you al— Damn it. What kind of monster is this…!"
I tried to resist using every ounce of experience, prana, technique, and magecraft I had gathered, but a ruthless pain invaded my mind so fiercely I couldn't even scream.
Romani… seemed to be enduring it, perhaps because he was once the King of Magic and was currently a manifested soul via the Impure World Reincarnation.
[The sight of insects struggling is truly worthless.]
"Guh… Damn it… Seal Absorption!"
As I instinctively activated Seal Absorption to suck in the curses woven into his speech, the headache began to subside, if only slightly.
That damn King of Demon Gods was scattering a venomous curse ritual over a massive area—one potent enough to turn a healthy human into a vegetable just by uttering a single word.
[Submit to extinction. Do not resist. The only conclusion for you incomplete beings is a perfect death. Resign yourselves to fate.]
I deactivated the bounded field that had been blocking the hail with Shinra Tensei and focused entirely on countering his curses.
The King of Demon Gods' curses possessed a magnitude of power comparable to the Ten Plagues unleashed by the mighty gods of antiquity. Perhaps they were even stronger.
[Utterly trivial. Your behavior is so persistent it has become tiresome.]
"What…?"
[In the end, you will all die. All human life eventually perishes. Why can you not understand this? A dead human does not return to life. To exist as a human is to be wretched, tragic, and as disposable as trash rolling on the ground. Since you are destined to die anyway, would it not be a better use of your lives to serve my great undertaking? Countless humans have already accepted their destinies; you, too, should submit to your destruction. Kneel before my mercy.]
Mercy, my ass…
I ground my teeth until they nearly cracked and slowly stood up.
[I am rooted in you. I am a calamity, an inevitability. Humans do not resist fate. No matter how much they challenge the voice of God, the movements of nature, or their ordained destiny, no human can overcome them. All other humans have accepted their lot; why do only you Heroic Spirits, you magi, persist in your resistance? The reason is simple… your spirits have degraded. Your essence is so ignorant, foolish, and miserable that you have lost even the fundamental concept of 'giving up.' Die already. Dealing with such anomalies as you is…]
"Hey."
[What?]
"If that's our destiny, then why didn't you accept your own? If it's natural for humans to die, shouldn't it be just as 'natural' for a bastard derived from humans like you to vanish when your master dies? You've slaughtered tens of millions… no, billions of innocent humans just to achieve a nonsensical goal, burning the world for such a pathetic reason. Why haven't you vanished according to fate? Most entities like you have already done so."
The thing mimicking Solomon raised its right hand and pointed it at me.
[The insect is being far too noisy.]
Immediately after, I was sent flying through the air by a force I could not even begin to describe.