"Shirou, why...?"
Ye Sizhen stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
On a rise barely a dozen meters away, the red-haired boy stood there.
He held his Zan'in stance, gripping a bow Ye Sizhen had never seen before, one that belonged to no past civilization.
The pitch-black bow was covered in scale-like patterns. It seemed to be made of carbon or some other material, a weapon with a distinctly futuristic design.
That was Shirou's...
Ye Sizhen had heard of it before: Shirou Amamiya's "Projection Magecraft," something even Age of Gods Magecraft could not replicate.
Rather than a miracle bordering on Magic, it was more accurate to call it a skill.
Up to that point, Ye Sizhen could still understand.
But what happened next?
Ye Sizhen saw Shirou take aim at the opening of the "Thought Disk," the hole she had staked her life to force open, and shoot an arrow into it.
Under normal circumstances, no matter what kind of great Mystery that arrow contained, it would have been reduced to ash the instant it touched the Thought Disk, that Pseudo-Root.
A stronger Mystery overwhelms a weaker Mystery. That was common sense among Magi.
Yet, incredibly, the instant Shirou's arrow touched the "Thought Disk," violent turbulence in space-time erupted around it.
After a single flash, the world returned to calm.
Everything was gone.
The arrow Shirou had fired, and the hole in the Root that Ye Sizhen had forced open, had both vanished.
Shirou using a projected arrow to pierce the great Mystic Code fused with the planet, the source of Thought Magecraft, was of course impossible.
To do something like that would be the same as piercing Earth itself with a single arrow.
Ye Sizhen had not sensed that kind of power from the arrow either.
So... what exactly had happened?
Wait. Ye Sizhen suddenly realized something.
Shirou truly could not destroy the "Thought Disk," but... he did not need to.
Ye Sizhen had used Age of Gods Magecraft to forcibly open a rift in space-time on the surface, a fissure connected to the "Thought Disk."
That was the cause of everything.
If he wanted to stop the catastrophe, all Shirou had to do was destroy that "spatiotemporal fissure."
And the arrow Shirou had fired... had really pierced straight through the "Void Hole."
"..."
Ye Sizhen could not help but draw in a sharp breath.
As a Magus, she could not understand what level of martial mastery one had to reach to accomplish such a feat.
It was an arrow that should have been impossible to land, yet it was an arrow of "Nothingness" that could strike with perfect precision, no matter where its target was.
After honing his archery across three thousand long years, one of the heights Shirou Amamiya had reached was this: when drawing his bow, he could become one with heaven, earth, and nature.
Different schools described the highest realm in different ways.
"Void," "Water Moon," "Infinity."
Those who reached such a realm were called Sword Saints.
And Shirou had gone one step beyond those empty seats that did not exist to begin with.
The arrow he shot reached beyond time and space.
Just like that, the space-time passage connected to the Pseudo-Root was sealed shut, unbelievably enough.
Perhaps even Shirou himself did not understand how extraordinary that seemingly ordinary shot truly was.
"..."
Ye Sizhen stared at Shirou in a daze.
For a moment, she thought she was dreaming, but the pain in her body told her that all of it was real.
How did Shirou know I hadn't left Japan? And how did he find this place?
Before she had time to think, Ye Sizhen noticed it.
The corner of Wuzhiqi's mouth had curled into a cruel smile.
The Immortal who had almost instantly killed Ye Sizhen with a single strike once again revealed her warlike savagery.
"So you're Shirou Amamiya. To think you'd deliver yourself to me..."
Though she could barely move anymore, Ye Sizhen still shouted with everything she had.
"Shirou! Run!"
Unfortunately, compared with an Immortal of the Age of Gods, sound traveled far too slowly.
The wind howled.
A storm of True Ether coiled around Wuzhiqi's body.
If described in terms of wind speed, the number would have been unimaginable.
The sky and earth seemed to tremble and scream as Wuzhiqi launched her attack.
Chains extended from the shackles binding her wrists.
Now several times longer than before, they whirled like an electric fan, accelerating with tremendous force before lashing viciously toward Shirou.
"No...!"
Even if Shirou Amamiya was the Magus who had won the Fourth Holy Grail War, Ye Sizhen fell into despair at the thought that the enemy, now gone mad, was a demon king from the mythical Age of Gods.
"Trace On."
Yet Ye Sizhen, who had imagined the red-haired boy being crushed by those flying chains, saw something completely different.
The chains Wuzhiqi had hurled after accelerating came to a stop in midair.
Shirou had thrown out chains as well.
Unlike the chains that extended from Wuzhiqi's shackles, these were chains tipped with two sharp scimitars.
The chains tangled together in the air, pulled taut, and locked into a stalemate.
Ye Sizhen was stunned.
Even she, who had seen countless artifacts, could not guess the origin of this pair of chain-blades.
From the blades Shirou had projected, she seemed to feel an uncontrollable fury.
Divine Construct. The term surfaced in Ye Sizhen's mind.
No, but... wasn't Shirou supposed to be unable to project Divine Construct weapons? Why...
Less than ten seconds had passed since just now, yet Ye Sizhen's mind was already filled with countless questions.
Only then did she realize that she knew nothing about Shirou at all.
She had fallen in love with him on her own, decided on her own that she wanted to die for him...
And in the end, she had put Shirou in such danger again.
How foolish...
"Hey, hey... what's going on here?"
Wuzhiqi spoke with a frown.
Ah, right... Compared to the weapon, there was something even more shocking.
"Why can you match me in strength?"
Shirou Amamiya's trained body was exceptional.
But that was only by human standards.
Though Wuzhiqi had the appearance of a demonic beauty, her physical body alone surpassed Dragonkind and Divine Beasts. She was a natural disaster, the embodiment of The Great Flood, the Demon King of the Yellow River.
And yet Shirou held her off with ease, locking chains with Wuzhiqi in a deadlock where neither side could advance.
"Yes, I wonder why."
The boy smiled with faint mockery. "Maybe you just happen to fall within my special attack range."
"Interesting. But don't get too full of yourself."
Wuzhiqi twisted her upper body.
As if to declare that she was only getting serious now, she yanked Shirou into the sky with her chains.
Before that overwhelming violence, the boy's body was dragged by the chains, tracing an arc through the sky before smashing heavily into the ground.
"Boom—!"
Just how much power had she poured into that strike? The dust thrown up from the ground formed an inverted waterfall.
Wuzhiqi smiled in satisfaction.
"What's wrong? Can't move anymore? That's why I told you not to get carried away.
Well, I don't dislike it..."
Halfway through, Wuzhiqi suddenly widened her burning golden eyes.
The next instant, dozens of swords shot out from the dust.
Wuzhiqi immediately understood. Shirou had let go of his weapon at the very instant he was about to be slammed into the ground.
For a warrior, releasing one's weapon was absolutely unacceptable. But Shirou was the sole exception.
Possessing the Infinite Swords, he could discard his weapons without hesitation, then create new ones immediately afterward.
"What a pain...!"
Wuzhiqi frowned.
Every sword flying toward her contained astonishing power. A single one was enough to blow away a building.
Even Wuzhiqi could not hope to come out unscathed if she did not defend herself.
She moved while swinging her shackles, blocking the rain of swords.
"..."
Not far away, Latio, the girl from the Atlas Institute, wore a stunned expression.
Although she already knew about Shirou's ability, seeing it with her own eyes still left her shaken.
What was that?
A human-shaped perpetual machine?
As a Magus, Shirou Amamiya's performance was low.
If Latio's Mana value was 1,000, then Shirou's was probably only 50.
Yet he could instantly create dozens of swords with over 100 Mana, at virtually no cost. All because he had read their prototypes.
Latio clenched her fists.
She was certain.
If she could obtain Shirou Amamiya's power and develop it further, the Atlas Institute's long-cherished dream would surely be realized!
Among the three major divisions of the Mage's Association, the Atlas Institute had long taken saving the world as its mission.
Led by Crudelis of the Six Sources, the alchemists of the Atlas Institute had spent thousands of years searching for a path that would avoid destruction.
Even now, to resist the inevitable destruction that would one day come, they thought, thought, and thought again, devising countless measures.
Yet the methods of the Atlas Institute had only given rise to even more destruction.
Each time they created a countermeasure to avert ruin, that countermeasure itself was replaced by ruin.
Despite possessing the sharpest minds in the world, the alchemists of the Atlas Institute had become the greatest failures on this planet.
The ancestors of the Crudelis family had sought to put an end to that destruction.
Latio inherited her ancestors' wisdom, and she inherited their obsession as well.
She was determined to create, within her own generation, a Mystic Code (supercomputer) that could avert annihilation once and for all.
For that, that power, Projection Magecraft, was necessary.
"...Shirou Amamiya."
The blue-haired girl called out to Shirou, who was currently tangled up with Wuzhiqi.
"What?"
Calling it a struggle would be generous. In reality, he was being completely suppressed.
Shirou was starting to regret taking the initiative in close-quarters combat against Wuzhiqi. Both of them were moving so fast that even reinforcing his eyes with Mana wasn't enough to follow them.
He only glanced at Latio out of the corner of his eye, and Wuzhiqi nearly kicked his head off for it.
"Who are you?"
"Latio. This individual's name is Latio Crudelis Hiram."
"Huh?"
Shirou was utterly speechless. It felt like he was talking to a machine.
"Am I an opponent you can afford to look away from?!"
Wuzhiqi swung her arm, her nails grazing Shirou's cheek.
The bewitching smile that spread across her red lips could have captivated even another woman.
The word "peerless beauty" must have been made for women like her, assuming she hadn't just punched a crater more than ten meters wide into the ground.
"Look at me… You are not allowed to look at anyone else, Shirou Amamiya!!"
"Guh…!"
Shirou let out a muffled groan.
His instincts as a warrior told him he must never meet this woman's eyes, but in the middle of close combat, their gazes inevitably crossed.
An abnormal gaze.
Wuzhiqi's irises shone gold, while her pupils burned a vivid crimson.
Within those flames, a golden ring seemed to drift.
The Golden Eye…!
Even in Japan, it possessed the highest level of renown.
The Mystic Eyes possessed by the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong, who would not falter even against all of the Celestial Realm. Eyes that saw through every truth.
The instant those eyes caught him, Shirou's body stopped moving altogether, and a single punch sent him flying more than ten meters away.
"Hmph."
Wuzhiqi lifted her slender neck and said, "…If you die because you lost focus in battle, I won't forgive you, you know."
"Ugh… cough, cough, cough! That's asking way too much, big sis."
Shirou crawled out of the rubble.
Luckily, he had managed to block at the very last instant, which was the only reason he hadn't died on the spot.
Not only that, but as a desperate last counter…
"…Oh."
Wuzhiqi raised an eyebrow and looked at her lifted arm.
A wound had appeared on the snow-white skin of her arm, and blood was flowing from it. Clearly, it was the counterattack Shirou had made as he was blown away.
Although she was currently only in her Yang Divided Spirit (Divine Fragment) state, this was still the first time since Wuzhiqi's battle with King Yu…
For the first time in three thousand years, her jade-like body had been wounded.
Wuzhiqi brought her arm to her lips, stuck out her tongue, and licked the trickling blood.
"Truly… I'm liking you more and more, Shirou Amamiya."
"…Ngh."
Shirou climbed to his feet and brushed the dust off himself.
Damn it. What is that woman trying to do? Is she distracting me on purpose?
"Let's make a deal, Shirou Amamiya."
The blue-haired alchemist turned toward Shirou and spoke.
"Latio will help you drive Wuzhiqi back. In return, you will assist Latio with her research."
"?"
Shirou blinked.
His gaze shifted between Wuzhiqi and Latio, then he asked,
"Aren't you two allies?"
Wuzhiqi swept back her slightly disheveled long hair. "Don't be ridiculous… Does something like that deserve to be my ally?
"I do have some history with her ancestors, but right now, I'm only bound by the name of a pact.
"Once I crush you, I'll go kill her too."
"!"
The alchemist from the Atlas Institute snapped her gaze toward Wuzhiqi.
She endured it as though forcing every bone in her body into the ground like a wedge.
The Immortal of the Summit Court paid no attention whatsoever to the blue-haired girl's fury and spoke as if it were only natural.
"So, you really are a complete failure, aren't you?"
"If you have even the slightest sense of shame left, go find a place to bury yourself."
"Yes, how pitiful."
"To think that the descendants of a fellow researcher I once worked with, of a technique I once acknowledged, would end up in such a miserable state. It's honestly hard to look at."
"…Wuzhiqi."
Faced with Latio's silent threat to shut up, the demonic woman merely shrugged.
"How sad. Is this the wretched end of the Atlas Institute's Six Sources, the Six Sages?"
"You spent all your time researching the end of humanity, only to wind up like this. I suppose the Crudelis family line is as good as dead."
"In that case, perhaps I should clean house myself. It would serve as a farewell offering to an old friend."
"You… bastard!"
Latio bit down on her lip in humiliation.
She suppressed her killing intent and did not act recklessly. Instead, she turned a questioning look toward Shirou.
"Shirou Amamiya, join forces with Latio… Let us defeat Wuzhiqi together."
"I refuse."
Shirou answered without the slightest hesitation. "I don't care about your infighting, and I'm not interested in it. But…"
"I'm not teaming up with someone who hurt Sizhen."
"Shi-Shirou♡"
Ye Sizhen pressed her lips together.
She knew this was hardly the time, but she still couldn't stop her cheeks from burning.
"Here we go… Why don't the three of you just come at me together?"
Shirou pulled a sword from the ground and pointed it straight at the Wandering Sea Magus watching from the sidelines.
"That'll save me the trouble of taking you down one at a time."
"......You little brat."
Wuzhiqi's red lips twisted slightly, revealing fangs whiter than a tiger's and sharper than a wolf's.
She finally realized it.
Just as she herself had been fighting with a playful attitude from the start, Shirou had also been holding back because he was wary of the other two.