Chapter 137: Projection, Gae Bolg! The Shock Brought by Reversed Causality!
The Xenos surged from underground and swept across Orario.
Although the Loki faction led by Finn initially blocked most of the Xenos, as their attention was drawn to the Sword Demon attacking the Babel Tower, the Xenos finally broke free from restraint and brought great chaos to the labyrinth city.
However, although the Xenos are monsters, their intentions are even simpler than humans'.
Their purpose in attacking the surface is not to cause meaningless destruction, nor to assault innocent ordinary people, but to force humans to give in and release most of the captured Xenos.
Therefore, they established a tempOrario base on Daedalus Street and sent subordinates to threaten humans, stating that if the captured Xenos are not released, they would launch all-out attacks on human cities regardless of harming innocents, and would never compromise.
The fact that the Xenos acted so rationally and adopted proper means to fight for their rights was undoubtedly thanks to Shirou's strategic advice and many suggestions.
He had Ranye unite the compromise and moderate factions of the various Xenos tribes and had Asterios suppress the extremist factions within the Xenos.
Through various means and operations, they transformed the Xenos's attack on the surface from a loose and insane terror assault into a grounded, struggle-for-peace racial protest.
This behavior both correctly expressed the Xenos's demands without provoking the hatred of ordinary people in Orario and exerted extreme pressure on the Ouranos faction.
Most importantly, this could invalidate Hermes' plan.
Although Shirou did not know Hermes' true goal, he guessed that the other party hoped the Xenos would bring unprecedented chaos to the labyrinth city Orario, from which they wanted to gain something.
If so, as long as the Xenos maintain order and organization, without being affected by reckless impulses and wanton destruction, it could greatly avoid Hermes' scenario.
That is why Shirou proactively attacked Babel Tower, drawing away the strongest Loki faction, preventing the Xenos from colliding head-on with Orario's strongest faction.
Without the Loki faction, the Xenos's actions would not be too affected, and the confrontation with the gods had a chance to succeed.
.
.
. On the high platform, Hermes also seemed to notice that the Xenos's actions were deviating from his expectations.
Too many contradictions happened this time, causing his script to go completely off track. In response, Hermes almost immediately judged that someone must have predicted his script and affected his divine authority.
"Heh heh, so you're still alive, Emiya Shirou."
Even without seeing the tremendous sword appearing at Babel Tower, Hermes already realized that Emiya Shirou, or rather the Sword Demon, was still alive.
It was precisely that influence which caused Hermes' script to deviate, resulting in unforeseen developments.
But Hermes was not panicked about this.
On the contrary, he showed a calm smile and slowly spoke: "If you think this will invalidate my script, you're thinking too simply. Since the story has already strayed from its course, it will rush without any suspense toward the final direction. This war's madness is not something you alone can stop!"
Hermes began writing in the empty void.
[Although the Xenos's degree of organization is quite high, and they want to use threats to make humans compromise and release the captured Xenos, the humans' silence has caused much anger among the Xenos. Their underlying resentment toward humans started to flare like flames, eventually turning into a blazing fire.]
['We must show the detestable humans some color. If they don't feel fear, how could they listen to us?' Similar voices started appearing in the Xenos camps and soon caused turmoil among the extremist Xenos.]
[A large organization cannot be managed by a group of Xenos who grew up underground. Several units immediately disobeyed orders, acted on their own, and attacked Orario's shelters. Coincidentally, they attacked the camp where the Hestia faction stayed.]
"As I have written!"
The moment Hermes finished writing, a certain power began influencing reality, forcing it to develop in the direction Hermes described.
Chaos almost immediately broke out in the Xenos camps. Ranye and the other Xenos had no control over the entire organization and could not suppress the riot, only helplessly watching the chaos unfold.
.
.
. Orario residents' tempOrario shelter.
"What exactly is happening?"
Hestia spoke with a pale face.
Originally, she was just searching Daedalus Street with her followers to find Shirou, who had been missing for a long time.
Unexpectedly, a large group of monsters suddenly rushed up from the underground of Daedalus Street and attacked the surroundings without warning, forcing Hestia to evacuate with Bell and others and hand over the scene to the Loki faction for handling.
They had originally thought that with the strength of the Loki faction, suppressing a group of monsters emerging from underground would be easy.
However, unexpected chaos suddenly broke out at Babel Tower, where a gigantic sword nearly visible throughout all of Orario struck the tower symbolizing the gods.
This forced the Loki faction to withdraw from Daedalus Street and prioritize defending Babel Tower where the gods resided. Thus, the underground monsters successfully occupied the entire Daedalus Street.
What surprised people was that they thought the monsters would attack Orario after occupying Daedalus Street.
But the monsters did not take such action.
On the contrary, they almost all stayed inside Daedalus Street, and like humans, sent flying members to negotiate, demanding that surface dwellers release their captured comrades.
This ridiculously strange development made almost everyone feel utterly shocked, even questioning their sanity. After all, no ordinary person would think to hold talks with monsters from the underground.
Because of this, the Xenos's demands received no attention.
Undoubtedly, this was also due to Hermes' influence, causing Orario's side to let their hostility toward the Xenos overcome their rationality to engage in dialogue.
The only faction reacting to the Xenos's existence was the Hestia faction.
When Hestia and the others learned of monsters that could speak, they immediately thought of Wiene, realizing that these monsters were probably Wiene's companions.
But since this matter was completely beyond the Hestia faction's capability, neither Hestia, Bell, nor Lili could step forward to do anything.
Time passed gradually.
Mortals spent time in fear, everyone fed up with the sudden despair, unable to vent it. At that moment, several adventurers suddenly pointed toward the distant sky in surprise, shouting: "Look, look! Monsters! Monsters are coming!"
"!!!" The adventurers' voices attracted everyone's attention. People present looked toward the horizon, then saw countless black shadows attacking from afar, flapping wings and approaching the refuge camp.
"Oh my god!" "Help, help!" "Run away!!!"
Seeing the monsters rushing in, people in the camp cried out in alarm.
The helpless residents wailed as their suppressed fear erupted completely. The monsters launched their assault without hesitation.
As the rising dust swirled, a violent collision immediately erupted. Stone claws crushed the ground with a deafening roar.
Seeing this scene, the adventurers present immediately grabbed their weapons and charged forward, but the monsters, devoid of any rationality, simply swatted the adventurers aside. "Die, all of you, damn humans!" Just as Hermes' script predicted, this batch of attacking monsters had been completely ignited by their anger toward humans, left with nothing but the impulse to destroy everything.
Seeing the adventurers instantly killed, the crowd panicked even more. Many adults collapsed onto the ground, guild staff turned pale and were stunned, while women and children clung tightly to each other, pleading for the arrival of heroes.
"Someone, please! Someone save us!" A shout arose from the crowd.
However, since the main forces like Ganisa were currently on Daedalus Street confronting the bulk of the heretics, there were no high-level adventurers present to fight the monsters. At this moment of despair, a white-haired boy acted on instinct and charged toward the monsters in front of him. "Be-Bell?" "Bell!?"
Hestia and Lili didn't expect Bell to take such action; they were so surprised they couldn't stop him in time.
By the time they reacted, Bell had already reached the monsters' front lines. For a moment, everyone's eyes focused on the boy, showing expressions of admiration.
However, only Hestia sensed something strange. She inexplicably felt that everything before her was like a stage.
The square was the theater, the residents were the audience, and the monsters and adventurers were the supporting cast.
On the cruel battlefield stained with blood and foam, continuous cries of sorrow echoed, fear steadily rising, and the audience eagerly awaited a turning point. Now, the protagonist — the hero — rushed onto the stage—
"Damn it, was this your doing, Hermes!"
Hestia guessed the truth behind the scenes and abruptly raised her head, protesting to the god manipulating everything behind the curtain.
But in the end, she couldn't change any of it. No one could interfere with this battle's progress, nor could anyone stop the boy from running toward the battlefield to 'become a hero'.
Yet, neither the audience on stage nor the god controlling the stage noticed one thing. A pitch-black Minotaur had somehow climbed to the top of the stage.
As the only being outside of the script, it held a black axe-sword in one hand and a strange military armband in the other, its gaze firmly fixed on Bell in the battlefield like a hunter who had found its prey, baring its fangs in battle intent.
.
.
.
In front of Babel Tower, Shirou collided head-on with the Loki faction, and undoubtedly, the two sides immediately engaged in an unprecedented fierce confrontation.
As the strongest adventurer faction in Orario, the Loki faction had fought countless powerful enemies in the labyrinth and even killed several labyrinth lone kings below the 50th floor.
Their comprehensive strength ranked as the absolute strongest in the entire Orario, especially in hunting monsters — far stronger than even the Freya faction.
Therefore, the Loki faction was actually not very skilled at fighting humans.
Most of their opponents were monsters in the labyrinth; fights against fellow human adventurers were rare.
But this did not mean the Loki faction members wouldn't fight humans.
Monsters and humans were essentially similar; as long as they used the same methods as against monsters, killing humans was just a very similar task.
"Die, Sword Demon!" Bete the Werewolf rushed to Shirou at top speed.
He was the vanguard of the Loki faction, even faster than Ais without magic. Hence, Bete arrived before Shirou fastest and kicked a flying kick with full force straight at Shirou's face.
"Bang!"
Then, something unexpected happened to Bete. Shirou simply blocked Bete's full-power strike with one hand, expression cold, and suddenly flung him away like a bowling ball!
"Boom!" Everyone gasped as Bete collided heavily with a distant wall, suffering serious injuries on the spot.
"Bete!!!" The others in the Loki faction were shocked to see their level 5 Bete defeated instantly and showed confused expressions.
Finn immediately commanded: "Everyone, keep formation! Don't approach that guy even half a step!" Finn judged this based on the Sword Demon's strong melee abilities.
But he apparently forgot that the Sword Demon was called so not because he only had one sword, but because he could freely create any weapon at will.
"Thinking you're safe by keeping your distance? How naive." Shirou looked at the Loki faction members and suddenly raised his right hand.
"Trace On!" "Phoebus Catastrophe- Complaint Message on the Arrow!"
Previously, when Shirou dealt with the Icarus faction, he had used this projection — a Noble Phantasm from the heroic spirit Atalanta, invoking the Moon Goddess's blessing to unleash a tide of arrows. This power was even more potent when a bright moon hung in the night sky!
With Shirou nocking an arrow on his longbow, a visible rain of arrows shot out densely and massively!
It's worth noting that this time, Shirou didn't see the strange vision he had witnessed during his previous projection.
But he didn't think it was a hallucination; he assumed that due to some reason, the moon goddess Artemis he saw in this world appeared different. From that Artemis's appearance, it seemed to have been swallowed by some horrifying monster.
Though he didn't understand why, Shirou silently took note, planning to investigate the truth about the moon goddess Artemis when he had the chance.
Of course, compared to Artemis, his current focus was still the fight against the Loki faction.
After Shirou released the Phoebus Catastrophe, countless arrows rained down from the sky, covering the Loki faction members and turning the battlefield into chaos.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
Under the thick smoke, Shirou couldn't tell the condition of the Loki faction, and he had no intention to underestimate the strongest faction of Orario.
One attack alone was not enough to crush the Loki faction.
As expected, when the smoke cleared, Shirou found the Phoebus Catastrophe had not broken the Loki faction's formation.
On the contrary, they used this time to complete their formation — Gareth, Tiona, and Tione in the front line, Finn, Ais, Bete and others providing mobile support, and Riveria, Ais, and others giving magic support and bombardment.
This was the Loki faction's specialty — a strong cooperative formation capable of defeating labyrinth lone kings below the 50th floor.
"Charge, everyone!" With Finn's order, the entire Loki faction moved as one unit, demonstrating astonishing coordination.
Shirou was almost instantly engaged in close combat with Gareth and others, dragged into a war of attrition against the Loki adventurers.
Meanwhile, Riveria, a level 6 great mage, continuously buffed her allies and applied weakening curses on Shirou.
With such gains and losses, Shirou was forced into a prolonged battle quagmire. If exhausted over a long time, there was even a real risk of defeat by the Loki faction.
However, since he had decided to make such a grand display, Shirou had naturally prepared thoroughly before returning to the surface. Facing the Loki faction's charge, Shirou decided to start by attacking the closest — Tione.
"Trace On!" "Gae Bolg!"
Shirou raised his right hand.
After concentrating tremendous magical power, a scarlet long spear appeared in his hand, which he swung with extremely skilled movements.
The reason he could wield a spear so skillfully was because Shirou used his projection reloading technique during the process.
This allowed him to copy the weapon's original user's skills along with the projected weapon — a nearly bug-like special ability.
"Tch, he's called the Sword Demon but can actually use a spear!?" Tione watched Shirou's movements, slightly raising her eyes. She lifted two curved daggers ready to defend.
However, at that instant, Finn suddenly shouted nervously from afar: "Dodge, Tione!"
But Finn's warning was obviously too late. The moment his sharp voice sounded, a dazzling red light suddenly flickered on the spear in Shirou's hand. Then, a beam of light almost piercing everyone's pupils suddenly flared.
With a cold voice, Shirou declared—
"Gae Bolg, release!"
The moment the voice fell, although Shirou hadn't yet swung the spear, everyone's eyes saw Tione's body pierced through first.
It was like a movie rewind. The spear piercing Tione happened first, then Shirou's spear swing followed.
The causality of the world had been reversed!
Read ahead (60 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting