Chapter 144: Tearing Through Orario's Darkness, Shirou Defeats the Artificial Angel!
The confrontation between Shirou and the Artificial Angel resumed once again.
On one side was a monster strengthened by the Beast of Shattered Death Fangs, possessing superhuman strength.
On the other side was a monster from the very beginning beyond human power and intelligence, composed purely of divine power.
If their battle continued endlessly, it could even turn into an astonishing storm that would completely destroy the labyrinth city of Orario. And this was undoubtedly something Hermes, as a god, did not want to see.
For this reason, Hermes decisively issued an order demanding the Artificial Angel to finish the battle quickly, ideally ending the duel in an instant.
As a tool without self-awareness, purely serving as the sword of the god, the Artificial Angel promptly obeyed Hermes' command.
Its wings suddenly spread wide behind it, like burning flames, soaring upward and rushing towards Shirou's direction.
The power between them was completely in favor of the Artificial Angel. Shirou's strength could not rival a monster composed of divine power.
Therefore, when faced with the Artificial Angel's active assault, Shirou chose to retreat, trying to keep as much distance as possible, and relied on continuously projecting magical spears to attack the angel from afar.
But even though the magical spears he created could instantly kill the Aveger state Ais, they were utterly ineffective against the Artificial Angel made by a god.
The Artificial Angel only slightly flapped its wings behind it, and its figure instantly disappeared from the spot.
When Shirou came to his senses, it was already behind him like a phantom.
"Boom!!" The angel's hand blade mercilessly swung at Shirou's chest. Its movement was so natural, as if it were just picking up the knife and fork on a table to eat dinner's grilled meat.
This was because the long battle had caused Shirou's wounds to accumulate increasingly; his injuries were beginning to affect his movements.
Compared to the Artificial Angel, which constantly used divine power to recover, Shirou's own healing ability could not keep up at all.
In fact, humans absolutely cannot compete with monsters composed of divine power in recovery ability.
Even if Shirou projected Avalon or sent monsters like Revis or Filvis to fight, their recovery could never match the terrifying healing capability of the Artificial Angel.
Therefore, facing the Artificial Angel's active strike, Shirou had no ability to dodge or block it.
For this, he chose to fight with his life, raising his fist in a mutual destruction stance, attacking the Artificial Angel.
In response to Shirou's approach, the Artificial Angel neither dodged nor avoided.
Because it was very confident in its recovery ability far surpassing Shirou's.
At the same level of mutual destruction, the one who would be further damaged was definitely Shirou himself.
"Boom!" Thus, the impact between them erupted.
The Artificial Angel's hand blade, as usual, cut through Shirou's chest, this time also chopping off his left arm as if to remove the mortal's only fangs, rendering him utterly unable to resist, falling to the ground like a miserable ant.
At the same time, Shirou's right fist, concentrated, suddenly stabbed through the Artificial Angel's chest.
He mercilessly punched straight through the heart area of the Artificial Angel, causing its chest to instantly explode into flying chunks of flesh, falling to the ground.
The Artificial Angel did not care about its injury at all. Instead, it revealed a mocking smile, seemingly ridiculing the mortal's meaningless struggle.
In fact, it was true—although Shirou's fist pierced the Artificial Angel briefly, as Shirou collapsed due to his severe injuries, the Artificial Angel's body almost instantly recovered.
In the blink of an eye, the big hole in its chest was completely restored.
In contrast, Shirou's severed left arm was recovering extremely slowly.
The more he fought, the slower his healing became, to the point where he could no longer fully restore his body, leaving only tragic wounds behind.
"Heh, mortals, even if like Icarus, they have wings to fly into the sky, they are destined to fall to the earth under the blazing sun," Hermes muttered the old myth of this world, showing a cold expression.
"Because mortal wings are ultimately false, not real! No matter what, mortals cannot cross the chasm between gods.
From the start, to challenge the gods is a madness destined to end in a fall to the earth!"
After muttering this, Hermes coldly gave the Artificial Angel the order: "Kill this man. Kill Emiya Shirou!"
"Yes!"
The command reached the Artificial Angel's ears, and it immediately acted mechanically, attempting to finish Shirou completely.
However, just as the Artificial Angel was about to move, its body suddenly became stiff as if some part had broken down, unable to perform any effective movement.
!!!
It was like a puppet whose controlling strings had been cut, or a robot with a short-circuited terminal.
The Artificial Angel's actions became extremely stiff, and a clear look of confusion appeared on its face, as if it did not understand the strange changes happening inside itself.
Faced with this bizarre scene, not only the Artificial Angel itself but even Hermes and Hestia, who were watching from the side, showed expressions of surprise and doubt.
The two gods did not expect this at all and were confused.
Meanwhile, Shirou, who had been unable to move on the ground due to severe injuries, was slowly getting up.
He took a deep breath, suddenly burst forth with all his strength, and charged fiercely forward, reaching right in front of the Artificial Angel.
"Bang!"
A full-power, unreserved strike.
Shirou's iron fist smashed directly onto the Artificial Angel's face, instantly smashing its head, and like a kite with a broken string, it was smashed flying away.
"Boom—!"
Shirou unleashed all his anger and hatred in the attack, like a battering ram breaking down a castle gate, knocking the Artificial Angel down from the sky to the ground, finally collapsing like a tattered rag.
This outcome was unexpected to everyone.
The one falling to the earth was not the mortal Shirou, but the Artificial Angel with real wings.
This absurd development was like the myth of Icarus, who did not fall because of the sun's rays but flew up to the sky on false wings, shoulder to shoulder with the gods.
"What, what exactly happened!?"
Hermes found it hard to understand and could not accept this result.
Shirou, however, had neither the thought nor the time to explain. He had to seize this only chance and bet everything on this moment of explosion.
"Piercing Killing Spear!"
A crimson magical spear appeared in Shirou's hand, entwined with his blazing belief and mad attack, rapidly condensing into a scorching attack that tore through everything.
"Click!"
The space was instantly torn apart by the thrown magical spear.
At the same time, when the spear reached the position of the Artificial Angel, the latter was completely unable to make any resisting move and was instantly pierced through by the crimson spear!
"Cough!!"
However, Shirou himself spat blood first.
The Beast of Shattered Death Fangs was a powerful treasure tool, but it also had huge side effects.
If the battle could not be ended quickly and dragged on for too long, the beast's power would instead consume the user's own body.
But now, Shirou obviously would not choose to give up at this critical moment.
He was willing to risk his body's damage, charging again towards the Artificial Angel's damaged body, launching a series of continuous additional attacks, planning to completely destroy the core before its recovery ability could take effect.
Yes, just like Shirou once destroyed a Spirit clone, inside this divine-made creature there must be a core condensed from divine power, something like a golden magic stone.
As long as that core was completely destroyed, no matter how strong the recovery ability, it would no longer function and be utterly crushed!
The Artificial Angel seemed to realize Shirou's intention.
It struggled desperately, trying to regain full mobility before Shirou could further destroy it or break its core.
But the Artificial Angel quickly noticed something it could not understand.
The more it struggled, the weaker the feedback from its body became, until eventually it could no longer take any action at all, as if its connection to its own mind was completely severed.
This strange condition baffled the Artificial Angel.
Until suddenly, it discovered that from under its skin, one sharp spike after another had appeared, like countless protrusions slowly bursting out from beneath the skin!
"!!!"
In an instant, the Artificial Angel finally realized the source of the anomaly.
It desperately tried to use divine power to destroy the spikes inside its body, but doing so further damaged itself, causing its core to be further exposed, revealed right in front of Shirou.
"Finally catching on, huh? Too bad it's already too late."
Not far away, Shirou looked coldly at the Artificial Angel, who no longer had any chance of turning things around.
When he first used the power of the Devouring Death Fang Beast to create magic spears inside the Artificial Angel's body and tear it apart, he realized something.
Although the Artificial Angel had a powerful recovery ability and was extremely insensitive to pain, lacking any true sense of self — which was indeed its advantage — this was also its weakness.
After all, the Artificial Angel's self-awareness was so weak that it couldn't even perceive its own abnormalities.
The lack of pain itself meant it couldn't notice its own distortion or mutation.
Of course, because the Artificial Angel's recovery power was so strong, even if its body changed, it could quickly correct and heal itself.
However, that only applied to automatic healing of wounds.
If an attack could be launched that the Artificial Angel couldn't perceive as a wound, or even recognize as damage, it would bypass its self-healing mechanism and deliver an unavoidable blow to its core.
That was the method Shirou discovered to defeat the Artificial Angel.
During the battle, he had repeatedly injected miniature magic spears into the Artificial Angel's body, subtly causing internal decay without the Angel noticing, gradually embedding an astonishing number of magic spears inside it.
At the same time, since the Artificial Angel's sensitivity to pain was extremely low, it hardly noticed the foreign objects inside its body.
It was in these tiny increments that Shirou filled the Artificial Angel completely with the miniature magic spears, until its critical bodily nodes were almost completely severed and it could no longer maintain movement — finally revealing the entire truth.
Ultimately, although the Artificial Angel was a creature made from divine power, it was no different from the Spirit Clan.
Although its body was suffused with divine power, its physical structure was no different from that of a mortal.
Therefore, compared to truly invincible gods, the Artificial Angel's mortal-like body was its greatest flaw and the only weakness that could be exploited to defeat it!
"Trace On! Full Barrage!! Disappear!"
Due to the fierce close-range combat just now, Shirou's hands were near collapse. So he simply canceled the Beast of Shattered Death Fangs's state, returning to his specialty — projection — and engaged in a final duel with the Artificial Angel, which was also on the brink of collapse!
In an instant, under Shirou's projection, countless swords and blades appeared floating in midair, then solidified and began raining down from the sky!
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
Shirou unleashed mercilessly, repeatedly piercing the Artificial Angel's body, striking at its core.
But the Artificial Angel's will was also exaggerated; even though its body was shattered countless times, and its flesh cracked like a smashed watermelon, it still climbed back up!
It seemed that because Shirou had canceled the Beast of Shattered Death Fangs's power, the numerous magic spears created inside the Artificial Angel's body also vanished.
This gave the Artificial Angel a chance to finally regain the ability to move.
However, since its body was too damaged, even the Artificial Angel's recovery ability was barely able to restore it completely.
Therefore, instead of creating distance, it chose to fight to the death with Shirou at this extremely close range!
"ROOOOAR!!!!"
A roar erupted from the Angel's mouth, like a wild beast.
A puppet without will, wielding the sharpest sword, seemed determined to eliminate the enemy before it at any cost!
But Shirou had already anticipated the opponent's move.
He did not fight the frenzied beast head-on; instead, while keeping distance, he threw out his last trump card — the chains capable of binding even gods!
"Bind it, Enkidu -Chains of Heaven!"
Shirou unleashed the power of the Chains of Heaven, which he had never used before in this fight.
Though the Chains of Heaven were powerful relics that could bind divine power and divinity, the Artificial Angel's speed had been too fast previously for the chains to catch it, only exposing Shirou's hand prematurely.
So until this moment, the crucial climax of the duel, Shirou finally used his true trump card: the chains that bind gods, to restrain the divine incarnation before him!
"..."
The golden chains tightly ensnared the Artificial Angel's body.
Even though it was a creature composed of divine power, it was completely unable to break free from the Chains of Heaven's grip, rendered utterly immobile.
"Trace On!"
Shirou decisively initiated projection, creating The Golden Sword of the Victorious .
He raised this strongest projected holy sword and instantly pierced the Angel's body.
But it wasn't over.
While stabbing through the opponent, Shirou suddenly activated the true power of the Golden Sword of the Victorious and unleashed its true name!
"CALIBURN!"
"Boom!!"
Suddenly, golden light illuminated the entire city of Orario's night.
The pitch-black night sky was torn apart by the astonishing brilliance, like the dawn light piercing through darkness, swallowing everything in its radiance.
The monster created by divine power was utterly destroyed.
"Hah~ hah~"
Watching the moment the Artificial Angel's figure dispersed, Shirou felt a surge of emotions and noticed a streak of golden light rising from it and merging into his own body.
Previously, Shirou didn't understand what that light was, but now he completely knew — it was divine power.
Whether it was the tainted Spirit's clones, or monsters like Revis, or the Artificial Angel he just faced, they were all just experiments by the gods, infused with divine power.
Thus, when they died, a portion of that divine power would burst forth.
Finally, the divine power was absorbed by Shirou himself, raising his rank.
Although he didn't understand why he could absorb divine power, this process was clearly changing his essence, making him a being completely different from his original self.
For a moment, Shirou even recalled what Revis said before she died.
She once said, "Emiya Shirou, you and I are the same kind, and sooner or later you will realize our true mission."
At the time, Shirou didn't understand Revis's words, but now he somewhat understood that strange woman's thoughts.
The so-called Spirit Clan, the so-called monsters, the so-called Artificial Angels — they were merely guinea pigs in the gods' divine power experiments, and Shirou, by absorbing the divine power dispersed from them, had indirectly become a new guinea pig.
The gods would never let Shirou go once he absorbed divine power, which meant his hostile relationship with the gods would further intensify.
However, up until now, Shirou had basically torn the veil with the gods; he wasn't worried about that at all.
As for the divine power that escaped from the Artificial Angel's body, its quantity far exceeded all the divine power Shirou had absorbed before combined.
Although Shirou's strength did not show an obvious increase, his rank clearly jumped several levels at once.
He might even have reached above level IV.6 in one go.
At that time, not far away, Hermes's mood was undoubtedly complicated.
He had never expected Shirou to truly defeat the Artificial Angel, to defeat the killing weapon created by the gods, and even to absorb the divine power escaping from the Artificial Angel's body.
This absurd result completely exceeded his expectations, showing a flicker of doubt and disturbance on his face.
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