"Tokiomi, you bastard—how dare you use a Command Spell to restrain this king!"
Because Emiya Kiritsugu and the others were present, Tōsaka Tokiomi did not dare expose Gilgamesh's true name. He could only address him by class.
Moreover, given the special circumstances—and the fact that the other Red-faction members were watching—Tokiomi had no way to placate that terminally chūnibyō king by lowering himself and acting the part of a loyal retainer.
Using a Command Spell to forcibly bind Gilgamesh had been a last resort.
Tokiomi knew full well that doing so would earn him the ancient king's deep resentment afterward.
But as Kiritsugu had pointed out, judging from how easily this Assassin had dealt with the King of Heroes, the threat he posed was simply too great.
Rather than letting Gilgamesh run wild and escalate the battle into an all-out clash between both factions, it was better to burn a Command Spell now and force this troublesome Assassin to withdraw on the spot.
Behind him, countless Noble Phantasms rained down.
In front of him, a Saber clad in full plate armor raised a massive greatsword and brought it down in a crushing arc.
"Hear the howl of the divine wind—swift as the gale, shattering the army!Swift as the Wind: Break the Vanguard!"
A roaring tempest erupted from Ren Kuroda's blade.Wind blades wrapped in a spiraling vortex surged outward, instantly blowing away every Noble Phantasm Gilgamesh had just fired.
With the threat behind him erased, Ren twisted his body and raised his Nichirin blade horizontally in front of him.
At almost the exact same instant, the armored Saber's greatsword descended.
"BOOOOOOM—!"
A colossal force slammed into the blade. The ground beneath Ren collapsed instantly under the pressure, exploding into clouds of sand and debris.
Those outside the dust curtain couldn't see what was happening—but the sharp, continuous clang of weapons colliding rang out clearly from within.
The sounds didn't last long.
A white figure suddenly came skimming low across the ground, flying backward straight out of the dust cloud.
It was the fully armored Saber.
If one looked closely, they would see that her once pristine white armor was now marred by numerous deep slash marks.
Bound by the Command Spell, Gilgamesh fought back his fury and—against his will—coordinated with Saber.
The instant Saber was blasted out of the dust cloud, Gilgamesh raised his hand and unleashed another wave of Noble Phantasms.
This time, he was no longer holding back.
Once the Noble Phantasms closed in on Ren's position, Gilgamesh detonated them outright.
Noble Phantasms were the very foundation of a Heroic Spirit's power. Their self-destruction produced devastation that needed no explanation.
Explosions roared one after another. The ground was left utterly ravaged.
Yet none of the Red-faction Servants present looked relieved.
Instead, every single one of them wore a grave expression.
As Heroic Spirits, they could all sense one another's presence.
And from within the dust storm, they could clearly feel that the Assassin was not only unharmed—but that his aura hadn't weakened in the slightest.
If they were being honest, had any one of them taken that bombardment head-on, they would likely already be heavily wounded.
Yet the presence they felt from the dust cloud… wasn't weaker.
If anything, it felt stronger.
"He handled Lancer and Archer's relay assault with ease," Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, said slowly."And now he's facing Archer and Saber together—and still looks completely unstrained.
In my era, Archer, Saber, and Lancer would all have been rare monsters among men.And yet this Assassin can fight them so effortlessly…
I find it hard to believe that someone like him failed to leave a name in history."
As a ruler who once conquered vast swaths of the world, Iskandar had commanded countless elite warriors.
What Saber, Lancer, and Archer had displayed earlier was plain for all to see.
He was certain that any one of them, dropped into his era, would have stood among the strongest of that age.
And yet, against this Blue-faction Assassin, they were repeatedly pushed back.
It was simply inconceivable.
As the dust gradually settled, Ren Kuroda's figure emerged.
Just as the Red faction had predicted, a faint golden sheen covered his body. Gilgamesh's earlier Noble Phantasm bombardment had clearly failed to inflict any serious damage.
"Is that magecraft…?" Diarmuid murmured, staring at the golden glow."Not only does he possess such terrifying martial skill—he's also accomplished in magic?"
Diarmuid could easily tell that the golden light was a defensive enchantment.
What shocked him wasn't that Ren was unharmed—but that someone with such supreme swordsmanship had also mastered high-level magecraft.
A person's focus was finite.
Once someone reached transcendent heights in one field, it was exceedingly difficult to achieve similar mastery in another.
Yet from the technique Ren had just used—the Golden Armor Charm—Diarmuid judged it to be at least a sixth-tier, high-grade spell.
Anything weaker could never have blocked Noble Phantasms.
As the golden light faded, Ren looked at the Red-faction Servants slowly closing in on him, his expression finally turning solemn.
He knew it now.
This time, he had pushed things too far.
No matter how confident he was in his strength, he couldn't honestly say he could break out unscathed under these conditions.
He had suppressed Saber and Lancer earlier—but neither of them had even unleashed their Noble Phantasms yet.
They hadn't gotten serious.
The only consolation was that the situation wasn't at its absolute worst.
Matō Kariya, Berserker's Master, would love nothing more than to see Tōsaka Tokiomi humiliated. He had little interest in the Grail itself and clearly had no intention of cooperating.
As for Rider and his "beloved consort" Waver, Rider was always the one in control.
And Rider admired heroes above all else.
Impressed by Ren's display of valor, he showed no desire to intervene.
Diarmuid, bound by chivalry, also disliked fighting with numbers—but under Kayneth's harsh command, he ultimately placed his Master above his principles.
As Kayneth argued, this was a faction war, not a duel.
Ren was alone purely because of his Master's poor decisions. This was not bullying—it was strategy.
Which meant that, aside from Rider and Berserker…
Ren Kuroda now had to face five Heroic Spirits alone.
"Tokiomi! Just to kill a sewer rat, you force this king to cooperate with a bunch of mongrels?!I alone am more than enough! The rest are nothing but dead weight!"
If there was anyone most enraged at this moment, it was undoubtedly that chūnibyō king.
Despite all being Heroic Spirits, Gilgamesh had never once placed the others on the same level as himself.
Needing help to deal with a mere rat?
To him, that was humiliation.
"O great king, please quell your wrath," Tōsaka Tokiomi said hurriedly, bowing in panic."I do not doubt your might. It is simply that this Assassin is exceptionally troublesome.
If we drag this out, we will only fall into his trap. That is why I was forced to act."
No one understood Gilgamesh's arrogance better than Tokiomi.
Frankly speaking, if he didn't still have two Command Spells left, the King of Heroes might already have turned on him.
Facing five Heroic Spirits alone, even Ren knew that if he continued holding back, he might not leave this place today.
Just as he was about to go all in—activating Oni Rampage, the evolved form of his original Half-Oni Transformation—
Something unexpected happened.
Among the five Heroic Spirits surrounding him, the fully armored Saber suddenly began to tremble violently.
After hearing Gilgamesh's words, her emotions seemed to spiral completely out of control.
"A self-proclaimed king… calling me a mongrel?"
Gilgamesh had indeed called all the other Red-faction Servants "mongrels."
That was simply his habitual way of speaking—and he truly believed none of them were worthy of standing as his equals.
The others hadn't taken it to heart, dismissing him as merely arrogant and overbearing.
But the word "mongrel" had clearly struck a nerve.
In an instant, a terrifying surge of magical energy erupted from Saber's body.
She abandoned Ren entirely, gripping her greatsword with both hands as she charged straight at Gilgamesh.
A massive torrent of mana wrapped around her blade.
Her Mana Burst, ranked A, exploded outward as she swung—releasing a shockwave that tore a deep, gaping trench into the ground.
"Saber, calm down!" Kiritsugu shouted urgently."He wasn't targeting you specifically!
If you let yourself be provoked so easily, how are you supposed to defeat him and prove you're superior?!"
Watching Saber lose control, Kiritsugu could only curse inwardly.
Only he, as her Master, knew that this outburst was completely understandable.
To others, Gilgamesh's words were nothing more than arrogant bluster.
But to Saber…
They struck the most forbidden nerve of all.
And as for why—
The Saber Kiritsugu had summoned this time bore the true name:
Mordred.
..
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