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IBHJ 1247
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 22:59:09 +0000 UTCIskandar, Atalanta, and the other Greek-related Heroic Spirits squinted their eyes and gasped in shock. "This divine presence... it's him!"
Countless lightning bolts gathered together like primordial thunder that could split heaven and earth, striking directly at the Incarnation.
Faced with this terrifying divine thunder, the Incarnation calmly raised her hand, which became surrounded by brilliant light. With just that one hand, she blocked the immensely powerful divine attack. Her fingers splayed wide, creating a network of counter-currents that redirected the lightning around her body. She squeezed her fist shut, absorbing the remaining energy before hurling it back at three approaching heroic spirits, vaporizing them instantly.
But just then, a massive hole ripped open in the sky. Through it poured an endless flood of Ether, cascading down like a massive river from many parallel worlds. Seeing their chance, Ritsuka and Kama unleashed their Beast powers, firing death-blow beams at her that glowed like supernovas as they circled the Incarnation, firing from constantly shifting positions, creating a cage of destructive energy that contracted with each passing second. At the exact same moment, Arthur and Saber unleashed another Excalibur blast, all aimed at the Incarnation.
Light streaked in every direction as waves of energy continuously surged, making space itself start to collapse. The endless Ether built up like a tsunami, engulfing the Incarnation from all sides.
"Did it work?" Skadi pushed Scathach to the side, sat up, and stared nervously at the dark area where space seemed to be collapsing.
All eyes turned toward the same spot, the air thick with tension.
"Hmph." A cold snort broke the silence. In that moment, a streak of lightning bolts descended from the sky, taking the form of a tall, intimidating figure.
"Just as I thought... it's Zeus!"
Atalanta and the other Greek Heroic Spirits exchanged glances. Even Heracles, who had just recovered and wasn't in his usual Berserker rage anymore, was looking at Zeus with complicated emotions in his dark golden eyes.
Zeus completely ignored Atalanta and the others. Instead, he tilted his head up to look at the void hanging in the sky above them, clearly annoyed.
"That was completely unnecessary, Magician...!" he growled.
Curious, everyone followed Zeus's gaze upward. There, floating in front of the void in the sky, was an elderly gentleman with a distinctly British appearance, thoughtfully stroking his beard as he examined the dark collapse.
It turned out to be none other than the Second Magician himself. Zelretch had been hiding in the dimensional rift the whole time, but he hadn't made a move because Shirou's team hadn't been able to seriously hurt the Incarnation. The moment Zeus unleashed his powerful attack, Zelretch jumped in with his own assault, connecting to the maximum number of parallel worlds and firing what was currently his limit—a multiple-world ether cannon.
This was a strike powerful enough to obliterate an entire planet.
A literal planet-destroyer!
But even this devastating weapon—combined with Zeus's divine thunder, the Noble Phantasms from all three Grand Servants, the power of Beast III and Beast VII, plus two Excalibur blasts—still couldn't completely pierce through the planet. Thanks to the Empire's barrier phenomenon correction, it only managed to cause a collapse in physical space. Of course, just because the Empire's barrier corrected the environmental effects doesn't mean it reduced the actual damage. Even the Empire's Incarnation must have felt that one, right?
"Did we... did we win?" Astolfo asked, his throat dry.
An attack of this magnitude should have completely obliterated even beings as powerful as UO or Aristotle. Surely the Incarnation couldn't have survived?
But then, emerging from the collapsed space, came the Incarnation—her body still radiating that endless holy light.
Completely unharmed!
And that wasn't all. The moment she stepped out, the collapsed space instantly restored itself to its original state, as if nothing had ever happened.
The Incarnation's calm gaze swept across everyone present. As her eyes passed over each of them, they felt a chill creeping into their hearts.
It was the instinctive fear that a lower-dimensional being feels toward something from a higher dimension!
The Incarnation glanced down at her smoking palm, then looked back up at them calmly. "Not bad," she said. "That actually hurt a little."
That's all she had to say about their combined attack—a strike powerful enough to destroy an entire planet had merely "hurt a little."
The Heroic Spirits just stood there, completely dumbfounded.
Grand Servants, gods, holy swords, Beasts, even the Second Magic... just as the Incarnation had claimed, nothing on this planet—nothing in this entire star system—could pose a real threat to her.
She was powerful. Impossibly powerful.
Her very existence seemed to override the laws of physics and even made fantasy and mythology meaningless!
This wasn't just some strong opponent—this was a transcendent being. And the only thing that could challenge such a being would be another transcendent being.
But what other transcendent entity would even bother with the mortal world like she did?
Despite being completely surrounded by a massive army of Heroic Spirits, she spoke with absolute certainty. "I'll say this one last time. Surrender. You are all completely surrounded... by me."
Her voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact, that no one could find the will to resist. Yet their deep connection to their own world meant they still couldn't bring themselves to give in to her demands.
When she saw no response, she declared, "Then for the revival of the eternal kingdom, all of you shall disappear!"
The sheer killing intent behind her words made everyone's expressions change drastically.
The Incarnation turned her gaze toward Zeus and vanished—reappearing in front of him in an instant, moving faster than the mind could process. But this wasn't just any Zeus. This was the God King from the Greek connection point who had merged with the divinity of all twelve machine gods. His power rivaled even Altera's.
"Perfect timing!" Zeus boomed. "The only omnipotent god worthy of protecting humanity is me! All others are unnecessary!" He immediately activated his divine authority to lock in her defeat as an inevitable outcome, then bombarded her with curses of weakness and death. Using the machine god's power reactor, he began to exponentially increase his own mass, transforming himself into a proton capable of devouring everything. With a mighty swing of his thunder scepter, he unleashed the full force of his divine authority.
Apollo's solar power, Artemis's lunar authority, Hades's death domain—the Chief God's divinity kept surging higher and higher. At the same time, he activated the machine god's otherworldly power, trying to instantly electrocute the Incarnation at point-blank range.
But to everyone's surprise, the Incarnation's body simply radiated with sacred white light, bouncing all of Zeus's attacks back at him. In a lightning-fast lunge, she drove her fist straight through his abdomen, causing blood to pour freely from the wound.
"You fool...!" Zeus roared. His body quickly regenerated as he summoned countless lightning bolts into a massive hammer strike aimed directly at her head.
The battle between the Incarnation and Zeus became a blur of movement and force, but anyone watching could see the truth—Zeus was completely outmatched. Despite having reached the absolute pinnacle of divinity by merging with all twelve machine gods, he simply couldn't keep up with her. After just one exchange, he was already fighting defensively, with death narrowly missing him in every single clash.
Seeing Zeus in trouble, Ritsuka couldn't just stand by. She unleashed her suppressed Beast VII powers and jumped into the fight alongside the three Grand Servants. And where Ritsuka went, Kama naturally followed—she wasn't about to let anyone push Ritsuka around. Soon Abigail, Arthur, Saber, Altera, Scathach, and Skadi all joined the fray as well.
"Let's settle our business once and for all!" Zelretch shouted as he bombarded the battlefield with ether cannons from above.
The fighters facing the Incarnation were no ordinary opponents. Ritsuka as Beast VII, Zeus, and the three Grand Servants—each one alone could stand at the top. Yet even with all of them attacking together, the Incarnation still maintained the upper hand, effortlessly keeping everyone at bay.
Kiara summoned her hands, hoping to defeat the Incarnation through desire and maybe catch a lucky break. But the moment they appeared, the Incarnation's Grail lit up, and those hands instantly turned against their master. Kiara found herself trapped in her own desire, tormented in ways she never imagined possible.
And that was just one example among many. Everyone could see how desperate the situation had become, but there seemed to be absolutely nothing they could do about it.
The Incarnation's strength was beyond anything they could have imagined. Even heavy hitters like Gilgamesh with his Sword of Rupture and Karna with his God-Slaying Spear couldn't make a meaningful impact in the battle. Only by adding two Excaliburs to the mix would they seem capable of dealing enough damage to even matter. But even with that, they were constantly on the verge of defeat.
To make matters worse, while they were all focused on the Incarnation, Londinium made its move. Imperial soldiers began pouring in to counter-surround the Pan-Human forces, cutting through Alaya's mech army that had been fighting on their side.
And leading these imperial troops was none other than Apostle Pendragon!
"If we can't help take down their leader, we might as well deal with these imperial soldiers!" Gilgamesh shouted. “Kill those mongrels!”
The other Heroic Spirits nodded in agreement, quickly splitting their forces to intercept the incoming imperial troops led by Apostle Pendragon.
