Chapter 699: Excalibur! The Great Light Cannon Bug-Killing Method!
The heavy iron door of the dark basement groaned, its rusted hinges protesting as it was forced open.
Instantly, a blinding golden light pierced the suffocating darkness of the worm pit, slicing through the gloom like a divine blade.
Sakura Matou, curled up in the fetal position amidst the filth, slowly lifted her head.
Her eyes were dull, devoid of light, blurred by unshed tears and a despair that had long since numbed her soul. Through the haze, she saw two silhouettes standing in the doorway, framed by the radiance behind them.
A tall man, and a woman clad in silver armor.
To the little girl, they didn't look like humans. They looked like gods descending into hell.
Ren stood at the entrance, his gaze sweeping over the basement. The floor was alive. Thousands of Crest Worms wriggled, hissed, and churned in a sea of vile biological fluid. The stench of rot and dark magecraft was enough to make an ordinary person vomit instantly.
Ren's expression remained calm, but his eyes turned cold. He merely glanced at the disgusting bugs.
Hum.
An invisible, intimidating pressure—pure, sovereign will—swept through the room. It wasn't magic; it was the crushing weight of a higher existence.
"Gah... Gaaah!!!"
The screeching of the insects was cut short.
In an instant, thousands of Crest Worms didn't just die; they evaporated. They vanished into thin air, erased from existence before they could even attempt to burrow away.
Matou Zouken, the ancient, withered head of the Matou family, had just turned to leave the room when he felt the sudden annihilation of his familiars.
He sharply turned his head, his sunken eyes widening in shock. "What—"
Boom!
He didn't get to finish his sentence. A shockwave of pure force slammed into him.
"Cough!!!"
Matou Zouken's frail, wooden-like body was sent flying backward like a ragdoll. He crashed through the corridor wall, the sheer momentum carrying him through the plaster and wood, smashing through the outer wall, and finally tumbling into the courtyard of the Matou estate.
Dust and debris filled the air.
Back in the basement, the air was suddenly clear.
Artoria, holding the invisible sword—Invisible Air—walked out from the broken door frame. Her armored boots stepped firmly on the stone floor, now cleared of the filth.
Her beautiful, stoic face was twisted into an expression of unmasked disdain and fury.
She was the King of Knights. She lived by a code of honor, protection, and chivalry.
What she saw in this room—the torture of a child, the vile misuse of magecraft—was the antithesis of everything she stood for.
"Disgusting," Artoria spat the word out. "To use such methods on a helpless child... You are not a Magus. You are a monster."
Sakura stared blankly at the man who had walked up to her. He was tall, handsome, and his presence felt warm, dispelling the lingering cold of the worms.
"Big brother..." her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "Are you... here to save me?"
Ren smiled slightly. He crouched down, disregarding the grime of the basement, and looked her in the eyes.
"That's right," he said softly. "I'm here to save you, Sakura."
He reached out and gently rubbed her small head. Then, with a fluid motion, he picked her up into his arms.
Although she didn't know Ren, and although she had been taught to fear strangers, Sakura was unusually compliant.
Her instincts told her that the person in front of her was safe. He was the one who had made the scary, biting bugs disappear. Compared to the hell she had been living in, his arms were the safest place in the world.
"My... grandpa..." she trembled, burying her face in his chest. "He is scary."
"Hehehe... Kukuku..."
A rasping, grating laugh echoed from the courtyard, interrupting the moment.
"Someone actually dared to trespass into the Matou territory. And to interfere with my education of the spare vessel..."
Matou Zouken stood up from the settling smoke and dust.
The sight was horrific.
The impact had torn his skin open, but there was no blood. Underneath the withered human skin, there was no muscle or bone. Only wriggling, black worms.
Thousands of them, knitting together to form the shape of a man. Bug legs poked out of his cheek, and a mandibles clicked where his eye should have been.
Sakura saw this over Ren's shoulder and gasped. She instinctively shrank further into Ren's arms, gripping his shirt tightly.
"Are you scared?" Ren asked, feeling her tremble.
"Mhm." Sakura nodded softly, closing her eyes.
"In that case," Ren looked at the knight standing beside him. "Ria, deal with him. Make it quick. And make sure he doesn't disturb the child's eyes anymore."
"As you command, Master!"
Ria straightened her back. Her turquoise eyes burned with righteous fire. She could no longer tolerate the existence of this old bug in her presence.
Artoria closed her eyes for a brief second, centering herself. She exhaled a breath of white mist.
She released the wind barrier around her sword.
Whoosh!
The wind died down, revealing the majestic, golden blade of the Holy Sword.
She held Excalibur with both hands, raising it high above her head.
Hum...
The world seemed to respond. Golden specks of light—prana condensed into physical form—began to converge from all directions. They floated towards Artoria's sword like fireflies drawn to a divine beacon.
For a moment, Artoria appeared incredibly sacred, bathed in a pillar of golden radiance that illuminated the dark night of Fuyuki City.
"!!!"
In the courtyard, Matou Zouken's confidence shattered.
He had originally thought it was just some ignorant Enforcer from the Clock Tower or a stray Magus who had intruded.
But now, sensing the sheer density of the magical energy gathering at the sword's tip, he realized something was terribly, fatally wrong.
This power... it's a Servant!!!
No, it's more than that!
"This density... implies a Master and a Servant participating in the Holy Grail War? But the war hasn't officially started!"
Zouken's mind raced. Who could it be? Saber?
But in just that one second of thought, his expression twisted wildly.
The gathering light wasn't stopping. It was growing. It was exceeding the limits of what a normal Servant should be able to output.
His already disgustingly terrifying face contorted into a mask of pure panic.
"Magical Energy Release!"
"Noble Phantasm... Unleashed!"
BOOM!!!
A golden pillar of light, reaching to the heavens, erupted from the sword in Artoria's hand. It tore through the clouds, turning night into day.
Matou Zouken, filled with terror, screamed against the roaring wind of mana: "Who exactly are you?! This amount of magical energy... even a Grand Servant couldn't possibly possess it effortlessly!"
However, Artoria paid him no mind at all.
She opened her heroic eyes, her gaze sharp as a hawk.
She shouted the name of the greatest Mystery.
"Ex—calibur!!!"
Artoria swung the blade down.
The light... the massive, disintegration beam in her hand crashed down towards the Matou estate.
"Damn it!!!"
Matou Zouken cursed under his breath, not understanding why such a powerful entity had suddenly targeted him with an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm.
Run! I must discard this body!
Before the light cannon struck, his body suddenly dispersed into countless insects, attempting to scatter in a thousand directions to survive.
Unfortunately, it was meaningless.
The light of Excalibur wasn't just heat; it was holy energy.
Zzzzt!
All the insects were annihilated upon contact with the light cannon's impact. They didn't even burn; they were erased on a molecular level.
This was the benefit of immense magical energy; sheer power was enough to overcome any trickery.
The light engulfed the courtyard. Then the house. Then the walls.
Along with the insects, the entire Matou family's buildings—the gloomy mansion, the dark secrets, the bounded fields—were reduced to ashes.
Usually, a Servant would conserve mana. But Ria dared to cause such a huge commotion precisely because Ren had told her two things:
"Everyone here has been thrown out by me. No innocents."
"Don't worry about mana. You have an infinite supply."
Since it was insect extermination, it naturally had to be done with grand, sweeping motions!
"Haaaaaah!"
Due to the ample magical energy supplied by Ren (via their earlier 'replenishment'), Ria didn't stop the beam after one second.
She kept it going.
The Excalibur light cannon continuously swept through Matou Zouken's home, back and forth, like a high-pressure washer cleaning a dirty sidewalk.
For a full 10 minutes.
It was absurd. It was overkill. It was magnificent.
Sakura, peering through the gaps in Ren's fingers (he had shielded her eyes), watched this scene in shock. The terrifying house of nightmares was disappearing into beautiful golden light.
"So... so amazing!" she whispered.
Ren looked at her in surprise. "I thought you'd be scared by the destruction."
"Scared?"
Sakura tilted her small head in confusion, her purple hair falling over her eyes. "How could that be?"
She pointed at the ruins. "The bad place is gone."
Then she looked up at Ren with a hint of life returning to her eyes. "Both Big Brother and Big Sister saved Sakura, didn't they? Heroes destroy monster nests."
"Haha, what a sweet talker."
Ren was delighted. He pinched her little face gently. "You have good instincts."
Sakura blushed slightly in shyness, burying her face in his shoulder again.
And at this moment, Ria's light cannon finally, gradually subsided.
Steam rose from the melted earth. The ground was glowing red.
Even Artoria herself was shocked. She looked at her sword, then at her hands.
"I... I maintained a Noble Phantasm release for that long?"
This amount of magical energy was simply too exaggerated. It felt like she was connected to the Root itself.
Looking at the Matou family's ruins—which was now just a flat, smoking crater—Ria retracted her sword, making it invisible again.
She walked back to Ren, stepping over the molten slag. She stood at attention and stated seriously: "Master, the enemy has been eliminated. Justice has been served."
Ren raised an eyebrow, a playful smirk on his lips. "Are you sure, Ria?"
"Huh?"
Artoria blinked. Although she didn't understand his distrust, she still insisted with confidence: "I can confirm that not even a single insect survived that blast. I vaporized the soil to a depth of three meters!"
If even the microscopic bacteria couldn't survive, let alone Matou Zouken. His body was reduced to ashes, and not a single piece of his remains could be found.
Hearing her insistent reply, Ren showed a disappointed expression. He shook his head theatrically.
"Naive. Too naive, my dear Knight King."
"It seems that magical energy alone can't solve everything if you don't know the trick."
He gently put Sakura down for a moment (shielding her with a barrier) and walked towards a specific spot in the crater.
He hooked a finger at the ground.
"Come out."
Squelch.
Something drilled out of the scorched earth, pulled by an invisible force.
Ria looked over and was immediately startled, stepping back defensively. "An insect?!"
How could an insect possibly survive a 10-minute continuous blast of Excalibur?!
"Let me go!!! Let me go, you monster!"
Floating in mid-air, trapped in a telekinetic bubble, was a single, grotesque worm. It looked different from the others—fatter, with a strange, almost human-like face on its head segment.
Insects were already disgusting enough; a talking insect was utterly repulsive.
And the insect writhing madly in mid-air emitted Matou Zouken's phlegm-filled voice.
"Grandpa?!"
Sakura's mouth widened in fear, her hands trembling.
Why would an insect's mouth emit Grandpa's voice?
"He's not dead!"
Ria was stunned. Her jaw dropped slightly.
She had just guaranteed that the insects had been eliminated, placing her knight's honor on it. But now... looking at the wiggling worm... she understood why Ren was disappointed. She felt a flush of embarrassment color her cheeks.
Ren walked over and inspected the worm with the look of a biologist studying a particularly nasty specimen.
"I told you," Ren said coolly. "The moment you attacked, his main body burrowed deep underground, masking its presence."
That's right.
That insect was Matou Zouken's true main body.
He had long ago abandoned his human form. The old man walking around was merely a puppet—a shell made of hundreds of worms that he parasitized and controlled.
Because the physical body continuously wears down and rots, he had to frequently replace his body or consume the flesh of others to maintain the shell.
Matou Zouken continued to survive by constantly moving his soul from worm to worm, or staying in the primary worm.
This "Brain Worm" served as the vessel for his soul.
As long as this specific worm remained intact, and as long as his soul remained anchored, he could continue to survive, multiply, and parasitize new hosts forever.
However, there was a price. The soul would rot.
The soul's memories would continuously deteriorate, affecting the aging of the body and his sanity. The lifespan of the physical body part became shorter each year.
Now he had no choice but to change bodies every few months.
To restore the soul's memories and blueprints, he needed a Grail. Or a perfect vessel.
His current target was the girl trembling behind Ren—Sakura.
If nothing unexpected happened, and they had arrived a bit later, Matou Zouken would have already planted this Brain Worm into Sakura's nervous system, turning her into his puppet and eventual successor.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]