They've already fought their way through the Holy Grail War, and you still call them dragons?

The hem of her skirt was lifted, but her legs were not visible, only her curved limbs covered with scales, like a snake's tail, were exposed.

----

That night, in a city in southeastern China.

The city is divided into two parts by an invisible dividing line. One part is the old city where the large commercial district is concentrated, also known as the CBD area.

There are many mirrored buildings with excellent reflective effects. Under the light of night lights, they turn into crystal spires with a luxurious atmosphere. People in bright and beautiful clothes look like devout believers of money worship.

At the other end of the city is the new district - a newly developed residential area in the suburbs, full of affordable housing. The roads are muddy and transportation is inconvenient, but it has a strong urban atmosphere, which is a world apart from the colorful CBD area.

A little boy in a handsome suit and bow tie stood alone on the rooftop of an affordable housing building.

The sound insulation of this cheap house was not very good, or perhaps his hearing was very good. Even though he was on the rooftop, the boy could still hear the sound of his brother Lu Mingfei, who was living with his uncle and aunt on the floor below, being ordered to do work.

The boy seemed to have his eyes half-closed, with a hint of gloom on his face. His emotions were not directed at his uncle and aunt, but originated from the little fat boy who had taken his name for no reason, Lu Mingfei's cousin "Lu Mingze".

Dark clouds quietly covered the moon.

Suddenly, the boy opened his eyes wide, looked up at the sky, and uttered words filled with incredible emotion:

"Hmm? Who…changed the script?!"

"A massive world line shift! A magician? A sage? The Holy Grail War... Chaldea...?"

What kind of messed up future is this?

----

Shirou Emiya didn't know that many people lost sleep, ran around, and even changed their future because of his words tonight.

He slept soundly anyway.

After waking up the next day, Emiya, feeling refreshed, began to prepare for the mission.

But even though he was preparing, it wasn't a big deal. With his original body's cold weapon proficiency, he carried his usual mission-related gear, a reinforced longsword and shortsword, a black bow, and a stack of arrows (these reinforced weapons wouldn't be detected by metal detectors, making them easier to inspect, and he could even buy more at a store once he arrived at the mission location).

Put them into sheaths, classify them, tie them with rubber bands, secure them with buckles, and put them into a black box shaped like a cello case.

As for the preparation of hot weapons, that is usually the job of his partner, Lao Tang.

Next comes the task.

According to the employer's requirements, they need to arrive at the site one day before the official start of the task and find a contact person.

Emiya thought this was some kind of special treatment, but Old Tang swore that he was overthinking it, and that simply playing games alone was not enough to get Wa to use his connections.

Old Tang explained that every time they encountered a large-scale ruins exploration mission like this, it was very difficult. Those ancient ruins were often haunted and people died. Bounty hunters like them were the vanguard, used to detect mines and pile up heads.

With that little relationship with Lord Wa, it's not enough to deserve special treatment.

At most, when you survive the mission, you will have more benefits than other teams.

Seeing that the experienced Old Tang had said this, Emiya was not worried.

Old Tang always had good luck, automatically avoiding danger during exploration, so there was no need to worry about accidents when traveling with him. Emiya only needed to memorize the route through the ruins to avoid being led astray by Old Tang, who was a directionally challenged person.

By now, Old Tang who is far away in North America should have already left early, Emiya thought to himself, closed the piano case, and suddenly frowned.

Wait, could it be that before the mission started... Old Tang had already gotten lost because he couldn't find the meeting place?

----

That night, Emiya looked at the prominent banner outside the closed conference hall: "The Xth Jingchu Culture Academic Seminar." That was the meeting place, no doubt. But he didn't see any familiar figures.

I opened my phone and looked at Old Tang in the address book.

"I'm here, where are you?"

After a long while, the other party finally responded: "Help! Damn it! I'm going to be murdered! Coordinates xxx...!"

"what?"

Chapter 6 How did you get here? Go to the rooftop!

Su Jiannan, dressed like a successful man, had just stepped out of a black luxury car when he met a middle-aged man with a ruddy face and a fat body.

"Boss Su! Nice to meet you!"

The middle-aged man came up and shook Su Jiannan's hand enthusiastically. His rough palm, as big as a palm-leaf fan, was full of strength, as powerful as a ferocious beast. Su Jiannan's face twitched slightly, and he shook his hand lightly and quickly let go.

"Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. I didn't expect that Mr. Zhou would come to greet me personally. It seems that you attach great importance to this project."

"of course?"

The corners of Mr. Zhou's fat face curled up into a smug smile, and his words kept coming out like a machine gun.

"After all, this is a recently discovered site of the Jingchu culture. The municipal government treats it very preciously, talking about 'developing cultural industries and building cultural confidence.' They've already started planning an academic seminar before the site has even been fully explored. As soon as those experts finish their meeting, we construction investors will have to jump on board immediately. Haha, fighting for GDP these days is like a war..."

Then, Mr. Zhou slapped his head and said proudly, "Oh, I got carried away for a moment. We can't let Mr. Su—the client who contracted our big project—stand and talk all the time. I'll treat you tonight, Mr. Su, let's go to that time-honored Tianxianglou!"

Su Jiannan observed Mr. Zhou's expression and saw that he was very enthusiastic, so he did not refuse. "Okay, okay, then I will accompany Mr. Zhou to drink to his heart's content——"

When he was about to leave, he felt someone pulling on the corner of his clothes.

A girl had stepped out of the back seat of the car. She was wearing an elegant dress, her skin as smooth as goat fat, and her face had the distinct features of a European combined with the gentleness of an Oriental woman. She was charming yet proud.

The girl frowned and said, "Dad, drink less and take care of yourself."

"Okay! Daddy's listening!" Su Jiannan promised his precious daughter Su Xiaoqiang, "It's getting late. Xiaoqiang, you should go for a walk outside and come back early. Let Uncle Li drive you. Daddy has booked a presidential suite at the hotel..."

The two bosses then happily ran away to the wine table, but Su Xiaoqiang thought that his father would definitely not listen to him and continued to drink despite his illness.

"Boring, what's so good about this place..."

Su Xiaoqiang saw Uncle Li waiting by the car like a motionless sculpture, and turned to walk towards the brightly lit area.

Suddenly, a red-haired man came from the side of the road, stopped Su Xiaoqiang, and asked in standard Mandarin, "Excuse me, do you know how to get to this place?"

Su Xiaoqiang stared at the phone screen the other person was showing and blinked. It was a foreign brand of phone she had never seen before... But seeing that the other person looked hurried, she didn't talk much and just pointed in a direction.

"Strange, on his phone screen... I seemed to see some words about killing and silencing someone just now... Maybe I saw it wrong."

Su Xiaoqiang buried his inexplicable feelings and wanted to ask the other party if he needed a ride in his sports car.

When I looked up again, the red-haired man had disappeared.

Damn it, how did he slip away so fast?

----

Old Tang felt like he was going to die.

"Brother, you've got the wrong person. My name is not Emiya Shirou! Um, spare my life, sir!"

As soon as Old Tang emerged from the ruins and said something, he was ruthlessly sniped by the opposite side.

The violently flying bullets formed multiple straight metal jets, smashing the glass windows into pieces and creating dense shallow pits in the thick concrete layer.

After secretly cursing him as a pervert, Old Tang turned around like the wind and slipped away quickly.

This ruined place is an abandoned building area that is much more remote than the Chu Culture Venue. It can be identified at a glance as the location of an unfinished project where the developer ran away and no one took over.

Lao Tang got lost while looking for the mission location and unknowingly walked here. As a result, he was sniped by the enemy just as he was about to sneak into a building.

Walking towards him was the thin young man Zhou Yuxuan. Under his feet, countless exposed concrete and steel bars decomposed and gathered, forming sharp and rotating projectiles.

Power Word: Iron Flow - Also known in the West as Sequence 80, Word Spirit: Iron Flow.

This ability can control the metal elements within the range to attack or create objects.

Zhou Yuxuan combined the projectiles created by his Word Spirit with the self-loading magical tool (alchemical gun) crafted through his family's refining techniques to create a supercharged shotgun effect. Combined with the dense surrounding steel, this created a near-infinite supply of ammunition—though even without the steel, fired bullets could be retrieved by the Word Spirit.

"Emiya Shirou, are you afraid to step forward and fight?"

The hiding Old Tang complained loudly, "You got the wrong guy! You're talking about my buddy, he's not here, and he's from Japan, and I don't speak a word of Japanese!"

"..." Zhou Yuxuan stopped. He had only read Emiya's information, and had overlooked the insignificant character like Old Tang. After searching for a while, he finally found a happy face among the pile of hunter information.

"Are you Ronald Tang?"

"Ah, right, right. I, Old Tang, am the die-hard partner of the Emiya brothers."

"Then why didn't you come here alone, leaving your companions behind? Emiya is fine, but this isn't a place for a hunter like you. Or did you get some information you weren't supposed to know?"

Zhou Yuxuan's face was stern. This was originally the meeting place for the Zhou family and several other mixed-blood families tomorrow, not far from the ruins. Hunters and other outsiders were not allowed in; their meeting place should be at a venue further away.

"Brother, I was wrong! I just got lost, it's not that complicated!" Old Tang said with a sad face.

"Your profile shows you're a seasoned hunter who's completed numerous high-level missions. How could you make such a simple mistake as getting lost?"

"...I'm so sorry for making such a low-level mistake!"

Old Tang secretly groaned in his heart. No one believed the truth these days!

Zhou Yuxuan was about to say something.

Suddenly, a strong sense of warning emerged in my heart.

whoosh-

Zhou Yuxuan only had time to retreat half a step before a metal arrow shot into the ground. The arrow easily penetrated the reinforced concrete block a few centimeters away from his feet. Its power and accuracy were incredibly high.

He looked up and saw a red-haired man on the roof of a building, holding a black bow and an arrow.

"Your Excellency is Emiya Shirou?"

Zhou Yuxuan spoke. He was a little puzzled. He hadn't seen Emiya rush upstairs from any nearby transportation. Could it be that he had run all the way from the rooftop?

Emiya Shirou on the rooftop stepped forward and responded, "That's me."

Then a dusty head with droopy eyebrows popped up from the middle of the building. "Hey, brother Emiya, you're finally here! Damn, you used to be so lucky, but this time, Old Tang, I'm the one who suffered for you!"

"What's going on?"

"Brother, come down and talk first."

So Zhou Yuxuan witnessed Shirou Emiya jumping off the roof, and then using the balcony to flip over and sway into Lao Tang's floor.

Chapter 7 I really practiced it for you

"It turned out to be a misunderstanding!"

The three of them reunited downstairs, and Zhou Yuxuan bowed to Emiya Shirou. "It's not entirely a misunderstanding. Lord Wa was very interested in your previous statement about the 'circuit'. I followed Lord Wa's orders and came to challenge you to verify the truth."

"Oh, so what you mean by bounty hunters aren't allowed here?"

"Lord Wa values ​​you very much, so it's okay if you want to know more."

Zhou Yuxuan simply spoke frankly. This attitude was completely different from the difficult one he had when facing Old Tang.

"Although Lord Wa is nominally leading this Chu Kingdom ruins mission, the hunters are only doing preliminary exploration and have no right to obtain core benefits. Our family will need to control and protect the ruins in the future."

"The specific executors include not only my Xiangyang Zhou family, but also the Wu, Wang, Jiang, Chen, Sun, Bai, and other mixed-blood families in the surrounding areas. They have jointly dispatched personnel, using their connections in the political and business circles to exercise control in the name of developing the cultural industry...

"It's still early for the scheduled time. Lord Wa sent me here to meet you in advance. If your so-called Western magic is indeed real, my Zhou family promises to grant you one request within our capabilities."

"Ah? You value me so much?" Emiya was a little confused.

Or is it that the mixed-blood family intends to transform into the field of magic?

"That's how important it is... But the prerequisite is that you have to show off your true abilities!"

Zhou Yuxuan's body trembled, and Emiya Shirou realized that he had a ring-handled broadsword strapped to his back, almost sticking to his back. It looked extremely heavy at first glance, and the ring was connected to a long, rusty bronze chain.

When Old Tang saw Zhou Yuxuan suddenly take out a weapon that looked very heavy, he exclaimed, "That's not possible."

But Emiya Shirou was a little excited.

Shenzhou's ring-handled swords were first developed during the Han Dynasty and continued into the Tang Dynasty. Historically, during the Three Kingdoms period, Guan Yu wielded a ring-handled heavy sword called "Wanren Di" (reimagined as the Qinglong Yanyue Blade in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Therefore, with Emiya's eye, it was easy to tell that this was a weapon of long standing.

This is worthy of being called a Noble Phantasm!

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yuxuan did not draw out the heavy sword from the broad black scabbard, but swung the bronze chain to attack!

Ping——!

Emiya Shirou pulled out two katanas of different lengths from his weapon box that looked like a guitar case, and blocked the incoming chains with a diagonal slash.

Before he could fight back, the opponent continued to step forward and swing the chain. Shirou held two swords in his hands and played ping-pong with him.

The two seemed evenly matched, but Zhou Yuxuan's attack continued. He used the bronze chain as a ferocious whip, swinging it with impenetrable force. He advanced steadily, the chain's attack angles wide. Emiya's katana could only protect his body, being suppressed within a fixed range. Sparks flickered in the air.

"Is that the only extent?"