The huge cross-shaped blade, summoned by Nightingale's Noble Phantasm, crashed down on Cú Chulainn and Deadpool. The blow possessed colossal physical power: both were cut diagonally.
"Oh! Oh-oh! Oh my goddess! My leg! My leg! No-o-o-o! I'm dying! Ouch, ouch! I'm kicking the bucket! Help… help… Haha! Just kidding. I'll weld it back on now."
Deadpool, whose body now consisted of two separate halves, crawled laboriously with his hands towards the lower part lying in the distance. Cú Chulainn, though not completely severed, staggered from the deep wound.
No matter how great this "King of Slaughter" was, even the breaking point of the strongest lancer showed itself under the burden of the damage accumulated during the battle.
However, Cú Chulainn, despite his severe injury, showed no sign of fatigue. He merely smirked:
"You're good, senior nurse. Decided to cut us to pieces without worrying about the consequences, since this guy will recover anyway?"
"You are perceptive," Nightingale retorted. "All the better. I will cut you down too, to completely eradicate the source of the disease."
Nightingale and Saber Alter repositioned themselves for an attack. Deadpool hastily joined them, having managed to attach his legs, but he looked… strange.
"Wade, your ass is in the front," Ritsuka observed, watching the scene.
"What? Ass? Oh, damn. No wonder I feel uncomfortable walking."
Having mixed up the sides in the heat of battle, Deadpool attached himself backward. Such a ridiculous appearance left no choice but to ask the nurse for a repeat operation.
"Am-pu-tation!"
Nightingale split him in two again with a short blow, and this time Deadpool joined the parts of his body correctly.
"Haha! That's better. Let's quickly finish off this guy, deal with Medb – or whatever her name is – take the Grail, and go home. And the final blow… I cede to His Majesty."
Deadpool demonstratively bowed in a gesture of submission. At that moment, Saber Alter, having finished replenishing her mana, gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, around which a vortex of dark energy swirled.
"Hammer of the Iron King. Aurora Borealis reverses. Absorb the light…!"
Saber Alter brought down her blade without hesitation.
"The Sword of Promised Victory!"
"Excalibur Morgan!"
A furious gust of dark mana rushed towards Cú Chulainn. Sweeping away everything in its path and literally grinding space itself, the stream of light engulfed the King of Slaughter.
"We won, Senpai! Now only Queen Medb remains…"
"No. My balls are still clenched, which means it's not over yet."
MASH was ready to celebrate victory, thinking Cú Chulainn had been pulverized, but Deadpool, relying on his specific senses, realized the enemy was alive.
When the sword's radiance faded, ruins appeared before their eyes near the White House. But in the center of the crater stood not Cú Chulainn, but Queen Medb.
"Medb?"
"The Queen covered Cú Chulainn with herself!"
"Hmm… Let's see what the official plot of the fifth chapter of the first part of FGO says… Ah, right. The Queen shields Ku-chan. Everything is fine, the timeline is not violated. Continuing filming."
The sudden intervention stunned Ritsuka's group.
Cú Chulainn himself remained indifferent to her gesture. Nevertheless, Medb, looking at him with eyes full of distorted tenderness, touched his cheek.
"Why did you do that?"
"Hmm-m. I just wanted to protect you. I'm used to dying, but my Ku-chan must live. Ku-chan is invincible. He is the unholy king and the strongest lancer I created with the Grail."
Only now did Ritsuka and the others realize the truth. The King of Slaughter Cú Chulainn – Cú Chulainn Alter – was the embodiment of Medb's desire, born from the Holy Grail.
Her simple request to create an "evil king" had transformed the noble Azure Lancer, Hound of Culann, into a bloodthirsty berserker obsessed only with slaughter and battles.
"My Ku-chan must be infinitely evil and cruel. That's how I wanted to see you. And when we conquer this world and I erect my empire, you and I will spend all day…"
Medb continued to whisper something hotly, but Deadpool quickly covered Ritsuka's and MASH's ears, so the most "important" details remained unheard.
"Ku-chan… I'll leave you a gift for the last time. For you and these kids. Don't celebrate too soon that you've defeated me. My gift will be truly enormous. Accept it with gratitude, okay?"
Medb, with an expectant smile, raised the Grail high.
"Twenty-eight warriors."
"Appear, my Clan Kalatin! Descend upon this land and crush all living things to dust!"
As soon as she fell silent, the earth trembled with a slight tremor. Ritsuka had a bad premonition, and at that moment, the transmitter came alive – it was an emergency call from the northern front.
"Master! What's happening?! Something is crawling out of the ground! Some kind of pillars… Ah-a-a!"
Edison's voice cut off, as if covered by an avalanche.
"Clan Kalatin… are those the twenty-eight warriors that Cú Chulainn defeated in his lifetime? She summoned them?!"
Medb answered MASH's question with the same venomous smile:
"Did you think I would summon ordinary warriors? No. I summoned what you are well familiar with. Pillars of malice, erected from clumps of hatred and prejudice…"
"Demonic Pillars!"
The connection was restored, and Ritsuka heard the terrible news: twenty-eight Demonic Pillars had manifested at the northern front simultaneously. This was Medb's "gift."
"And to you, Ku-chan, I give this. Take the Grail and kill them all. Become king. Ascend the throne as the most unholy and powerful lord and destroy this world."
With those words, Medb handed the Grail to Cú Chulainn and vanished.
Cú Chulainn, despite retaining his clarity of mind, remained cold to her demise.
"Yeah. I have as much luck with women as a drowning man."
A hint of the former Cú Chulainn flashed in his voice, but the King of Slaughter's form remained. He took the Grail and literally pressed it into his own chest.
"What is wrong with you spear-wielders from Ulster?!" Deadpool shouted. "Is 'suicide' some kind of national sport or local superstition for you guys?!"
But Cú Chulainn wasn't killing himself. He was sealing the cursed spear, unleashing the true power of his spiky armor. Fueled by the Grail's boundless mana, the energy around him swirled in a furious torrent, changing his very form.
A fanged beast of punitive death.
"Curruid Coinneach."
Cú Chulainn's transformed form finally lost the few human features that remained. Now, the embodiment of "evil" itself stood before them.
"Oh, I've seen this in 'My Little Pony'!" Deadpool exclaimed.
"That's not a pony at all," Roman said. "It's a full-body armor that has taken the form of the sea monster Curruid. A Noble Phantasm, representing the manifested spear Gáe Bolg, sealed in armor form."
"No, it's not," Wade insisted, picking at his nose, which wasn't even itchy. "That's Nightmare Moon. Princess Celestia's twin sister."
Even though Roman tried to correct him, Deadpool didn't even twitch an ear.
"This is my true Phantasm... Come on... prepare to die."
Although Cú Chulainn had turned into a maddened beast due to Medb's disappearance, he still retained remnants of his sanity, interspersing his words with wild, primal breaths.
"G-R-R-R-A-A-A-A!"
But a moment later, he fully transformed into a wild predator and lunged at Ritsuka's group, swinging the enormous spikes on his arms.
"Master! This is dangerous!"
Nightingale, pushing Ritsuka and Mash aside, tried her best to block Cú Chulainn's spike attack. However, under the monstrous power of the activated Phantasm, she began to be slowly pushed back.
"Such... a wound... I... will perform... amputation..."
"R-R-A-A-A-A!"
Despite her desperate resistance, Cú Chulainn lashed out with his tail, hitting Nightingale in the side. The powerful shockwave sent her coughing blood, flying back and crashing into one of the outer columns of the White House.
"Nightingale!" Ritsuka cried, seeing her lose consciousness.
"Damn it!" Saber Alter clicked her tongue and, raising her sword, began to gather magical energy again.
Sword of Promised Victory!
"Excalibur Morgan!"
A furious storm of black magical energy erupted. Her Phantasm, possessing the power to erase a great dragon or Queen Medb herself from the face of the earth, descended upon the black beast Cú Chulainn had become.
"G-R-R-R-A-A-A-A!"
But even after taking Saber Alter's Phantasm point-blank, he didn't get a scratch. It was completely incomprehensible how he survived such a collision. Letting out a distorted, unnatural roar, Cú Chulainn lunged at her.
"Watch out!"
Under the swift onslaught, Saber Alter was helplessly sent flying back. After plowing through the ground and rolling a couple of times, her spiritual body, like Nightingale before her, was embedded in a column of the White House.
"Even Saber Alter... this... this is unthinkable..."
Mash stared fearfully at the black beast consumed by madness. Her legs trembled. She wanted to run. This was fear – a real, primal terror she felt for the first time. But if she succumbed to fear, she wouldn't be able to protect Master... her Senpai!
"Mash!"
Leaving Ritsuka behind, the girl overcame the trembling in her legs and raised her shield.
"Senpai, I will protect you!"
"G-R-R-R-A-A-A!!"
Cú Chulainn lunged at them. Before she could deploy her Phantasm, Cú Chulainn's scarlet spikes were already right in front of her.
"Hmm. And what should I do in this situation?" Deadpool, watching the events unfold, pulled out a remote, pressed "pause," and sank into thought. "Maybe attack him? Or, as usual, dramatically shield them with my body? Or, like in Rome, use pebbles and Command Spells... ah yes, I threw the pebbles away."
"Use me!"
Suddenly, a voice rang out, one that was just begging to be silenced with something heavy.
"Throw me!"
Following the source of the sound, Deadpool's gaze fell upon a fluffy creature – Fou.
"Hey, wait a minute. You can talk?! No... wait... how did you even get into the 'pause zone'?!"
Deadpool jumped in surprise: it turned out there was another being capable of directly breaking the Fourth Wall. And it had to be this cute fluffy creature that he liked so much.
"Oh, damn! This is a major plot twist. But seriously – throw me?"
Surprise turned to bewilderment as he considered Fou's offer.
"Just trust me and throw. Otherwise, these children are doomed. They will die."
Something sharp cut through Fou's tone, making Deadpool feel awkward. It wasn't the voice he expected from a cute chirp in a flower meadow. Well, whatever the case, he decided to follow the fluffy creature's advice.
"I was pretty good at serving balls in my day!"
As soon as he pressed the "play" button, Deadpool launched Fou with all his might towards Ritsuka and Mash.
"Fou! Fo-o-o! Fou-fou!!" the creature shrieked.
The throw landed right under his arm...
Flying with incredible acceleration, the fluffy creature collided with Cú Chulainn's scarlet spikes.
"Mister Fou!" Mash cried.
In that instant, Fou disappeared, and everything around them was enveloped in a thick fog, as if by magic. Sensing something was wrong, Cú Chulainn retreated, widening the distance.
"Fou?"
Ritsuka and Mash, searching for the little creature that saved them, froze. Before them stood a white-haired mage in a snow-white robe.
"This disgusting presence... Pff. An incubus offspring, I see."
Cú Chulainn apparently recognized the mage and menacingly raised his hands.
"Oh~ have I come out for a stroll after so long? I'm so glad, kids, that you weren't hurt."
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Ritsuka and Mash were completely bewildered: the mage spoke as if he had known them for an eternity, but they were seeing him for the first time.
"Stop your pathetic tricks," Cú Chulainn growled. "If you stand in my way, I'll kill you. If not, then get lost."
The mage didn't even blink at the threat. He just smiled carelessly.
"Yes, yes, I'm leaving now. I'm a subordinate being, after all, and I only got out for a second. Please take care of our Fou from now on. And... uh... Mister Irregular?"
The mage shifted his gaze to Deadpool, who had launched him with an "underhand serve." Wade, with a completely stunned face, flew up to him, holding out a pen and a piece of paper.
"Sir Ian McKellen! Please sign! Mithrandir! I'm your eternal fan! The muscle mage!"
"Oh, sorry. That's someone else... and I'm not that old," the mage awkwardly scratched the back of his head and dissolved into the air.
"Fou!" In the spot where he stood, only the small fluffy creature sat again.