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"Command Seal — release! MHX, return to my side!"
A golden shadow streaked across the sky.
Ushi Gozen's twin blades swung hard into empty air — and then into the back of the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger itself as the momentum carried through. The Noble Phantasm let out a sound that wasn't a roar and wasn't a groan — something between the two, deep enough to shake the air in Randy's chest and send a tremor rolling through the clouds in every direction.
The heavens and earth rattled.
[Chat]:
[Shocked]: did she just — did MHX actually run?
[Catfight_Enthusiast]: this is the most vicious Servant duel I've seen in this whole game. every single exchange was aimed at killing
[Randy_Appreciation]: the fact that Randy survived standing three feet away from that is statistically remarkable
[Moon_Spirit_Elixir]: wait — can that item actually launch you like Spider-Man? I didn't know it worked that way
[Use_Imagination]: use your imagination
[Tactical_Assessment]: MHX retreating doesn't mean Ushi Gozen won though. she took serious damage — and Randy can't heal her in FA Chapter mode. no skill learning either. she's fighting hurt with a timer running.
[Sword_Question]: what even IS that dual-wielding Artoria variant?
[Heard_Something]: I heard she was designed specifically as an Artoria killer
[Huh]: ...huh?
The chat kept churning. The battle had hit a natural pause, and the audience was catching up.
On the back of the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger, Randy was doing the same.
"Are you alright?"
Ushi Gozen didn't answer immediately. She stood with one hand pressed against her waist and abdomen — the wounds from MHX's dual-blade slash were still open, deep enough that blood had soaked through the black armor in a spreading dark stain. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the particular irritation of someone who'd just won a round and found it unsatisfying.
"Don't worry, I won't die yet." A short pause. "But that swordsman has some nerve. She clearly radiates more destructive intent than I do, and she had the audacity to call me the demon."
Anyone who'd been through a Holy Grail War before understood the basic rule: when your Servant is fighting, stay back. The residual shockwaves alone could kill a Master who got too close.
Randy had figured this out early. The moment MHX and Ushi Gozen had started trading blows, he'd retreated to what he'd estimated was a safe distance — stopping every few steps to check over his shoulder, calculating the radius of collateral damage with the focused attention of a man who very much wanted to continue existing.
It had been the Moon Spirit Elixir that saved him from the lightning. The item's effect had thrown him clear of the worst of it, buying him enough air between himself and the strike to avoid anything worse than a bad scare.
Otherwise—
He didn't finish the thought.
He watched Ushi Gozen pick up the black blade from where it had landed, straighten up with visible effort, and then — without any warning — swing it directly at his ear.
[Clang!]
The flat of the blade stopped a hair's width from his face. The wind off the edge stung his cheek. The sheer proximity of it — the instant, total certainty that he was about to die — hit Randy somewhere below conscious thought.
For one full second, he forgot entirely that he was playing a VR game.
Then Ushi Gozen stepped past him, unsteady on her feet but moving, and Randy's gaze dropped to the ground.
A bullet casing. Split cleanly in two where the black blade had intercepted it mid-flight.
His legs gave out. He sat down on the Ox-King's back with his full weight and stayed there, breathing hard.
[Chat]:
[WAIT]: WAIT. WAIT. WHO FIRED THAT?
[Spotted_It]: that was a sniper shot — someone on Red side tried to pick off Randy while MHX had Ushi Gozen occupied
[Maverick_Watch]: ...was that Maverick's shot? did MHX's retreat give him a clean angle?
[Counter]: Maverick's aim is famously terrible
[Counter_Counter]: he finally hit something and Ushi Gozen blocked it on reflex. his one accurate shot. intercepted.
[Sighing]: the ONE time
[New_Fan]: hold on — Ushi Gozen just saved her Master on pure combat instinct while bleeding through her armor?
[Yes]: yes
[Complicated_Feelings]: I don't know how to feel about rooting for the world destruction lady but here we are
[Ushi_Gozen_Defender]: she's not rooting AGAINST Randy. he's her instrument. protecting the instrument is just good practice.
[Still_Moved]: I'm still moved
"Are you — are you alright?"
Randy's voice came out smaller than he intended.
"Thanks."
Ushi Gozen glanced at him with something that might, in a different context, have been amusement. Her heavily dark-circled eyes settled on the four distant figures standing at the edge of Trifas City — Maverick's group, tiny at this range but unmistakable.
The smile that crossed her face was brilliant and completely wrong for the situation.
"Master. I'm going to use my Noble Phantasm."
Randy got back to his feet.
"Use whatever you need. I'll back you up with everything I've got."
"Hmph." The smile sharpened. "Excellent."
She turned to face the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger beneath them — the vast, headless body still crackling with residual lightning, the golden horns floating above where a head should have been, the whole structure rumbling with contained power.
Her voice rose.
"Ox-King Great Divine Messenger — the scars they put on you are our shared wrath." She raised the black blade. "Let them witness the thunder of our vengeance. This world is a place of extreme distortion — correct that distortion! The twisted shapes, the terrible groans — this is the supreme blessing of the Bull-Headed Heavenly King! And what is correct — is the destruction of everything!"
The air pressure dropped.
"Noble Phantasm — release!"
"[Bull King's Reversal: Evil and Unrighteous]!!!"
Ushi Gozen carried five things that qualified as Noble Phantasms.
The first were the twin blades — Dōjikiri Yasutsuna, the tachi historically used to subjugate Shuten-doji of Mount Oe. Specialized against mysteries, capable of cutting through divine protections that other weapons couldn't touch.
The second was the black armor itself — structurally similar in function to the Berserker Armor from another, adjacent legend. Its purpose wasn't protection in the traditional sense. It was continuation. Shattered bones, ruined flesh — the armor would hold the host together and keep them operational regardless. Pain didn't register. Structural damage didn't register. The host continued until there was nothing left to continue with.
Those two alone, combined with Ushi Gozen's native control over lightning, made her a nightmare to face in a straight fight.
But the core of what Ushi Gozen was — the demonic nature, the lightning affinity, the inheritance from the Bull-Headed Heavenly King — that foundation expressed itself through the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger. Her remaining three Noble Phantasms were all built around it.
The first was the mount itself, simply as a weapon.
The second — Bull King's Reversal: Swift Thunder and Fierce Wind — was Anti-Fortress in classification. Ushi Gozen would personally direct the Ox-King to channel a concentrated burst of Bull-Headed Heavenly King-level power into a single devastating stomp. Pure mass, targeted lightning, and the shockwave generated on impact combined to reduce everything within the effect radius to rubble.
The third — the one she was using now — was Bull King's Reversal: Evil and Unrighteous.
Anti-City classification.
The method was simple. Ushi Gozen would push the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger to operate at the outer limit of its power capacity — forcing it to channel the Bull-Headed Heavenly King's full berserk output rather than a controlled fraction of it. The Noble Phantasm would run on the edge of self-destruction. And while it ran — at a speed the naked eye couldn't follow — it would release every coil of lightning stored in its body in all directions simultaneously, indiscriminately, continuously.
Width: one kilometer.
Length: tens of kilometers.
No targeting. No precision. No exceptions.
Just continuous, wide-area destruction across everything in its path until the timer ran out or there was nothing left to destroy.
This was what the Avenger version of Ushi Gozen had been shaped for. Not strategy. Not dueling. Not point-capture objectives.
Just this.
She didn't hesitate.
The lightning split the sky open.
The Ox-King Great Divine Messenger's four legs — each one the height of a building — shifted from their slow, mountain-moving pace to something that had no right to exist at that scale. The ground below cracked with each impact as it accelerated. The golden horns above blazed. The lightning coiling around its body unwound and spread outward in every direction at once, and the thunder that followed was less a sound than a physical force that flattened everything it touched.
It was moving toward Trifas City.
At a speed the naked eye couldn't track.
[Chat]:
[MAX_PLEASE]: MAX. COMMENTARY. NOW.
[Watching]: the Red side is going to hear this from anywhere on the map
[Maverick_Update]: Maverick's group is directly in the path of that thing
[Math]: one kilometer wide. continuous lightning. anti-city Noble Phantasm. Maverick has MHX back. is that enough?
[Not_Enough]: MHX just got hit by a river of lightning and had both hands go numb. she needs time she doesn't have.
[Danny_Servant]: what about Danny's Servant? the Mage said he'd block it
[Remembering]: oh right. the Mage.
[Waiting]: ...
[Waiting_2]: the Mage is still in the jeep isn't he
[Oh_No]: he's still in the jeep
[End of Chapter 157]
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