SKREEEEEEEE—!!
A crimson-purple torrent of blood rained from the sky.
The black fighter shuddered violently, letting out a mournful cry eerily reminiscent of a bird of prey.
"What?"
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed.
At the very instant the black fighter's fuselage cracked apart, he sensed the presence of something that felt like a natural predator.
Was it the creature itself...
Or the one who had summoned it?
As Gilgamesh pondered the question, the gigantic Sea Demon formed by Caster had already surpassed two thousand meters in height.
Its endlessly repeating regeneration, coupled with the nearly inexhaustible supply of human "reserve fuel" provided by Fuyuki City, allowed it to expand like a malignant cancer, growing larger with every passing moment.
It had already become so enormous that even Iskandar's army of tens of thousands could barely restrain its advance.
"Saber! We can't keep dragging this out!"
While directing his soldiers, Iskandar called out to Leon, who was busy cutting down the countless smaller Sea Demons continuously emerging from the corrupted mire.
"The moment it reached land and began devouring people, we lost our best chance to destroy it!"
Leon cleaved another Sea Demon in half, buying more time for civilians to evacuate before replying.
"That's exactly the problem."
The colossal tidal wave that had devastated the coastline had already subsided.
What remained was an endless sea of dark violet corruption slowly spreading inland.
Its sheer scale nearly enveloped the entirety of Fuyuki City, advancing like an unstoppable plague.
There was a saying:
A godlike enemy is frightening—but an incompetent ally is even worse.
If his confrontation with Archer hadn't delayed him earlier, Caster would never have been given the opportunity to snowball into the monster it had become.
In the original timeline, the beam released by Artoria's Excalibur – Sword of Promised Victory had been enough to annihilate Caster's Sea Demon.
But now...
Even if that same blast struck the monster head-on, it would probably do little more than peel away a thin layer of flesh before the wound regenerated completely a second later.
How did Leon know?
Simple.
Even if someone handed him a kitchen knife sharp enough to cut through a two-thousand-meter-tall pig's hide with ease...
He would still be chopping until the end of time.
And before he could carve a meaningful wound, the pig would already have healed.
That was the situation they were facing.
"Saber!"
From atop the Gordius Wheel, Waver Velvet shouted,
"Can't you release your Holy Sword the same way you did during your first battle with Archer? That attack was far stronger than what you're using now!"
He had already contacted his teacher, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, who had proposed exactly this solution.
The true power of the Sword of Salvation, once fully unleashed, was beyond the imagination of ordinary magi.
The greater the crisis...
The greater the Holy Sword's power became.
As one of the Twelve Lords of the Clock Tower, Kayneth possessed at least some knowledge of the legends surrounding the Holy Sword of the Planet.
"No."
Leon shook his head immediately.
"That would cause unpredictable damage to the planet's surface."
"I can't recklessly fire Excalibur at a target that's still on the ground."
"Even if it's only for an instant, we have to get it into the sky before destroying it."
"Otherwise, if even a fragment of its body survives..."
"With its current regeneration speed, it'll recover completely within seconds."
"Then all the mana spent on that attack will have been wasted."
That was Leon's reasoning.
He could indeed invoke the Judgment of the Holy Sword.
A single blast would most likely obliterate Caster's gigantic Sea Demon outright.
The problem was...
Even Leon himself had never tested the destructive power of Excalibur after activating the Judgment.
Compared to the clash between Prototype Saber and Prototype Gilgamesh in Fate/strange Fake, the resulting devastation wasn't something as simple as the blast radius of a nuclear explosion.
It was genuine, ultra-long-range destruction capable of tearing across the planet's surface itself.
The casualties would probably be ninety-nine percent Japanese.
Even so, whether acting as the King of Knights or simply as Leon himself, he wasn't the sort of person who would indiscriminately slaughter an entire nation simply because it happened to be Japan.
Nor did he believe that wielding Excalibur made him invincible.
Somewhere beyond the cracks between parallel worlds...
That old man might very well be watching.
"I see..."
Iskandar fell silent for a moment before asking again,
"Saber."
"If we can get that giant monster airborne..."
"And if the timing is right..."
"Can you destroy it in a single strike?"
"Yes."
Leon answered with absolute certainty, giving a firm nod.
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