Chapter 117: The Chains of Heaven Restrain the Heavenly Bull – Death God Thanatos Is Shocked!
"As you said,"
While the crowd was still shocked by Shirou's statement, Death God Thanatos nodded with a smile. He slowly explained: "This chessboard is designed based on real-world proportions, so everyone's movement speed is affected by their own attributes. Likewise, battles on the board are determined based on various attributes. You can think of it as another dimension of real combat."
Thanatos's explanation deepened everyone's understanding of the nature of this divine beast chess game.
Following Shirou's move, Thanatos immediately declared: "Then it's my turn. Charge, Heavenly Bull!"
Like Shirou, Thanatos activated his strongest piece, the Elephant, for a frontal assault. Although the Elephant can't strengthen itself by devouring other pieces' souls after a kill, according to the rules of the game, victory can be achieved if any piece breaks into the enemy's Beast Den.
"ROAAAAR!!!" Under Thanatos's command, the Heavenly Bull burst forward at incredible speed. As a construct born from corrupted Spirit essence, it was nearly comparable to a Labyrinth King from the dungeon. Its stats far surpassed those of normal adventurers.
"BOOM!" With its explosive movement, the Heavenly Bull instantly charged more than 20 tiles, smashing through from Thanatos's side directly into Shirou's territory. In just one breath, it reached the area in front of Shirou's Beast Den. If not stopped, it could end the game in a single round.
Faced with this development, the members of the Loki Familia panicked, unsure how to stop the monstrous advance.
But Shirou remained completely composed and issued his commands decisively: "Gareth, Bete, intercept from the left! Tiona, Tione, block from the right! The rest, support!"
"Eh?" His commands left the Loki Familia members confused. They clearly didn't understand how Shirou was able to give so many simultaneous orders.
From afar, Thanatos chuckled with a subtle expression and said: "You saw through it this quickly? Even though I carefully tried to mislead you."
"Yes, you've indeed been trying to mislead me," Shirou said, waving his hand. "From the beginning, with all this talk about 'chess' and your emphasis on attributes, you wanted me to believe this was a traditional turn-based board game—one move at a time.
But you never once explicitly stated that this is turn-based.
In truth, this isn't a turn-based board game at all—it's a real-time battle between two forces, where the players act as remote commanders."
"You're absolutely right." Thanatos, now exposed, no longer hid the truth. "This is the true essence of this game of death. What this game actually tests is the quality of the pieces and the ability of the chessmasters to control them. Shirou Emiya, in the end you're just a human. When it comes to manipulating souls, you're no match for me—a Death God."
As he spoke, Thanatos didn't even use his voice—he began manipulating all of his pieces simultaneously with just his mind, launching an all-out assault toward Shirou's territory.
Thanatos sent his strongest [Lion]—the masked figure—and [Tiger]—Valetta—to block Shirou's [Elephant], Ais. The rest of the pieces were ordered to assist the Heavenly Bull in invading the Beast Den.
Faced with the unreasonable multi-threaded control of the Death God, Shirou could not imitate that level of coordination.
At the same time, the charging Heavenly Bull brought a direct threat with it.
"RAAAAGGHH!!!" The Heavenly Bull let out a furious roar.
Despite Shirou ordering Gareth and the others to intercept the creature, its overwhelming stats made it a near-unstoppable force. Just one piece alone threw Shirou's entire formation into chaos.
"Damn it!"
Bete furiously tried to attack the Heavenly Bull, but his full-powered strike couldn't even break through the creature's defenses. Tiona and Tione's attacks were similarly ineffective.
Among the Loki Familia, only Gareth, as a Level 6, could barely hold back the beast's steps—but only just. He couldn't fully stop it.
Seeing the situation, Shirou immediately began to micro-manage the battle and gave rapid instructions.
He ordered Gareth to serve as the vanguard blocker, and then instructed Bete, Tione, and Tiona to lure the Heavenly Bull into the river.
The moment the Heavenly Bull stepped into the water—
Shirou shouted: "Lefiya, Alicia, unleash your largest-range ice spells—NOW!"
"Yes!" Upon receiving the command, Lefiya and Alicia acted immediately. The two began a swift chant and cast their ice-type magic, freezing the Heavenly Bull from head to toe the moment it stepped into the river.
"Such sharp judgment." From the viewing platform, Riveria, who was still restrained, offered praise.
After waking from unconsciousness, she had been informed of the divine duel between Shirou and Thanatos—and that he undertook all of this just to rescue her. Naturally, Riveria felt deeply conflicted inside. But unknowingly, her previous prejudice against Shirou had completely vanished—all that remained now was gratitude.
Meanwhile, on the other side, when he saw the Heavenly Bull frozen in place, Thanatos remained completely unfazed. He calmly smiled and said, "How unfortunate. Such mere magic can't possibly affect that beast."
The moment Thanatos finished speaking, a loud crack resounded from the river on the battlefield.
"Crack!" Although Lefiya and Alicia had successfully frozen the enemy with their magic, the Heavenly Bull forcibly broke through the magical restraints, shattering the ice and rising to its feet.
"ROOOAAAAR!" The monster roared and, in one unstoppable charge, smashed through all the ice covering the surface of the river, charging once more toward the Beast Den!
"What!?" Seeing this, the members of the Loki Familia all widened their eyes in disbelief. Even Lefiya and the others hadn't expected that their magic would be completely ineffective.
They quickly realized that the Heavenly Bull must possess an extremely high level of magic resistance as part of its innate abilities—only such resistance could negate such powerful spells.
Amid the confusion, the Heavenly Bull was already approaching the front of Shirou's Beast Den. As long as it stepped inside, Death God Thanatos would win the game without question.
"Haaaaaah!" At that critical moment, the dwarf Gareth, wielding his great axe, charged to the front of the Heavenly Bull, determined to serve as a human shield to block the monster's charge.
Since Ais was being held up by Thanatos's two strongest pieces, Gareth, as the only Level 6 left available, decided to sacrifice himself to halt the bull's advance.
"Stand down, Gareth!" However, Shirou issued a firm order for Gareth to fall back.
As the chessmaster, Shirou's command carried absolute authority—Gareth had no choice but to obey.
"Why?" Both Gareth and the rest of the Loki Familia were baffled. They couldn't understand why Shirou would order the only one possibly able to stop the Heavenly Bull to retreat.
Even if Gareth would suffer serious injuries from trying to stop the beast, wasn't that better than letting it reach the Den and losing on the spot?
"Are you surrendering?" Thanatos sneered at Shirou, clearly believing that his opponent had no moves left.
After all, placing a broken monster like the Heavenly Bull onto a battlefield governed by such restrictive rules was practically cheating. Even Thanatos himself couldn't think of a way to stop the bull under normal conditions.
He thus assumed that Shirou had accepted defeat and said with a smile: "Very well then—I'll claim victory in this game!"
With that, Thanatos decisively directed the Heavenly Bull to charge straight into the Beast Den.
However— Just as the Heavenly Bull was about to enter the Den, it suddenly froze, as though it had stepped into a trap. Its movements became sluggish.
"..." "Did you forget the trap I laid earlier?" Shirou spoke calmly in response to Thanatos.
"Trap? I almost forgot about that setup," Thanatos said, still unfazed. "But as you know, no magic has any effect on the Heavenly Bull.
Even if you laid some high-level magical trap in advance, there's no way it could stop that beast from moving!"
"You're right," Shirou said, "these monsters created through corrupted Spirit essence have extremely high resistance to magic. I've seen it multiple times." "But… all of that only applies if the trap I laid was magical in nature."
"What?" Thanatos froze in place for a moment.
Then he noticed— A golden chain had wrapped itself around the Heavenly Bull's feet at some unknown point in time.
"Bind it— Enkidu, Chains of Heaven!"
As Shirou spoke, the golden chain rapidly expanded, coiling around the Heavenly Bull's massive body. The very same beast that had shattered layers of ice without effort— was now completely immobilized.
"What… is that?!" Thanatos's eyes widened in shock.
This was the first time Shirou had truly revealed the Chains of Heaven in front of everyone. He had fully unleashed this Noble Phantasm capable of restraining divine power, and used it to completely bind the Heavenly Bull.
Because the Chains of Heaven are specifically designed to suppress godly powers, they were essentially a natural counter to creatures like the Heavenly Bull—beings powered purely by divine energy.
No matter how strong or high their attributes were, under the restraint of these chains, they couldn't move at all.
"There's actually an item like that?!" For a moment, not only Thanatos— but even the members of the Loki Familia on the board— all showed expressions of astonishment, shocked by the special nature of the Chains of Heaven.
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