You are very strong, but my painting style is better than yours!

clang!

The steel projectiles hurtled through the air, only to be blocked by the flying bird familiar that suddenly appeared from the void.

Those are threads made from mithril and refined steel, woven into the shape of a flying bird using superb alchemy, and are familiars that can self-disciplinedly protect their masters.

"As expected, reconciliation is impossible!"

The silver-haired girl grabbed her suitcase and ran quickly, a series of sparks chasing after her. The magician hidden in the shadows was very experienced in combat and would not easily waste his magic power and magical artifacts. Instead, he would first use convenient automatic weapons to pressure the girl, forcing her to reveal her trump card before using his killing move.

call out!

call out!

call out!

The familiar birds also fired magic bullets one after another. They had an automatic target acquisition function and could lock onto enemies regardless of the darkness.

One familiar wasn't enough, so the girl summoned another, but this time it transformed into the shape of a shield to protect her from attacks from all sides.

"sword!"

This is the third familiar, which transformed into a magnificent longsword that pierced through the darkness, penetrated the enemy's defenses, and successfully took away a target.

But this seemed to enrage the hounds. A rustling sound came from the darkness, and one after another, medium-sized spiders fell from the ceiling. One of them almost covered the girl, but was shot through by the flying bird familiar at the critical moment.

"This is... dangerous."

The girl endured the burning pain emanating from her body, as if her nerves were being roasted on an iron plate, which made her pale and covered in cold sweat.

Her alchemy skills are excellent, and her magic circuits are top-notch, but unfortunately her body is too fragile. Once she uses magic beyond her limits, she will gradually collapse... If this continues, she will be worn down to death by her enemies.

But she absolutely cannot die here!

Finally... after sixty years, the Greater Grail has started to operate again, and a new trial has begun. This is the last chance to fulfill the destiny of generations!

As an artificial human, she was created for this day!

"Open the door!"

The shield transformed into a circular protective barrier to defend against the spider's attack, while the girl opened her briefcase. Its outer shell automatically deformed, and after a period of expansion, it pressed tightly against the ground, revealing crimson patterns inside that formed a complex magic circle.

The relics were prepared long ago; they were scales of the strongest fantasy species. Although there was a lot of randomness involved, those related to "dragons" were generally powerful Servants!

"Announcement—ah!"

hum!

It was as if flames had exploded from within her body. The magic circuits forcibly extracted a large amount of magic power from her frail body, like a hydraulic press crushing flesh and blood, causing the girl's eyes to bleed, her skin to crack, and her nerves to burn. Before she could even utter a few words, she could barely see anything in her right eye.

But even so, we must continue!

"My destiny—"

Bang!

The powerful wind pressure and heat caused the demon to explode, interrupting the girl's chanting. Her body flew out like a broken puppet, collapsing slumped onto the cold ground.

……it's over.

The enemy was a veteran, perhaps even a participant in the Subspecies Holy Grail War. They recognized the summoning ritual and intervened in time to stop it... The silver-haired girl closed her eyes in resentment.

The rustling sound drew closer, and the hideous, demonic spider bared its fangs at her—

hum! ! !

Suddenly, a strong white light was released from the magic circle. The arthropods, who were used to the darkness, struggled wildly as if they had been doused with hot oil and quickly retreated into the darkness, while the hidden "hounds" also sounded alarms.

Oh no! The summoning ritual started on its own!

But it was too late to escape. The world reversed in the next moment. The ground seemed to be coated with a thin layer of ice, clear as a mirror, reflecting all the truth. The darkness was swept away, and the hounds hidden in the magic had nowhere to hide.

Zheng!

A short, sharp sword sound rang out, followed by complete silence...

Then a mysterious figure lightly touched the ground with its toes.

"Let me ask you, are you my master?"

"……Yes."

The girl managed to prop herself up and use her perfectly good left eye to see the boy in front of her, while her magic circuits felt connected to another entity.

With her delicate and beautiful face, and loose black Wu-style clothing... is she a Servant from the East Asian lineage?

At the same time, the boy was also sizing up his Master:

Although her body was covered in wounds and her face was obscured by blood, and her elegant white dress was tattered, her original beauty was still evident.

"My name is Sera von Einzbern... and I am your Master!"

"Contract established~"

Servant Berserker, Aizen Iori, has rushed forth from the Wheel of Suppression to protect you!

Free: Basic Background of the FA World

To educate those unfamiliar with the subject, and to avoid making it seem superficial, I'm including a free chapter to introduce the basic settings of Fate/Apocrypha:

(I don't think I need to explain the definition of the "Holy Grail War" anymore...)

Sixty years ago, during World War II, Fuyuki City hosted the Third Holy Grail War, but as everyone knows, it cannot be called a true Holy Grail War without an unexpected incident.

So, just as the contestants were about to be decided, one of them, "Daniel Preston Yggdrasil (Yggdrasil)," unexpectedly discovered the hidden Greater Grail.

Then he made a very "brilliant" decision:

Instead of seizing the Lesser Grail as a prize for the winner, they took the Greater Grail, which underpinned the entire competition system!

The Greater Grail is the foundation for holding the Holy Grail War. It is responsible for storing magical energy and supplying it to Servants (the Master's supply is only a small part). The "wishing machine" that eventually appears is essentially the vast amount of pure magical energy inside the Greater Grail.

The act of stealing the Greater Grail is probably similar to a monkey entering the Tushita Palace and, instead of stealing the elixir, stealing the alchemy furnace instead...

He kept this very secret at the time, and all those involved were silenced. No one knew that he had hidden the Greater Grail in his hometown of Romania.

Over the next sixty years, Danic secretly gathered the descendants of various magical families, expanded his power, and prepared to use the Greater Grail and the summoning of Heroic Spirits as his trump cards to separate from the Mage's Association and go it alone, thus becoming a rival to the Clock Tower.

However, the conspiracy was exposed, and the Mage's Association, of course, could not tolerate anyone challenging its authority. So it sent assassins to infiltrate Romania and tamper with the Greater Grail, thus beginning the Fourth Holy Grail War.

This Holy Grail War is not a seven-player battle royale, but a direct confrontation between the "Thousand World Trees" family of Darnic and the Magic Association of the Clock Tower in London!

Each side has seven Master slots, which means there will be two factions, red and black, with a total of fourteen Master-Servant pairs participating in the battle!

Regardless of how the Yggdrasil family internally manages the Master slots, the Mage's Association has put a lot of effort into recruiting Masters. They mainly recruit elites who are well-known in the industry, or mercenaries from outside (like Kiritsugu).

The Mage's Association's position has been challenged, so it naturally has to do everything in its power to establish its authority. Therefore, it has prepared the best relics and is just waiting for an overwhelming victory to declare its authority!

On the other hand, Danic wasn't afraid, because the Greater Grail was under his house, which meant that the trophy was already in his hands before the competition even started.

In addition, he had more time to prepare than the Mage's Association, and found a Servant who was almost invincible in Romania as his trump card in advance, namely Vlad III.

Chapter 96: I don't want to replenish my mana!

Who understands? We've fallen on hard times, family!

Iori had imagined what kind of Master she would be summoned by, but she never expected to encounter the Einzbern family, which had declined to the point of near extinction!

If it's the Fate main story timeline, Ai-Ieyasu is a good partner. As one of the three starter families, they can exploit system loopholes, and they have plenty of resources, so they can make various preparations in advance.

Moreover, the female masters who love their homes are generally very beautiful, with silver hair and red eyes that perfectly appeal to a certain group of people. Whether it is an innocent and naive one-year-old wife, a cunning and arrogant legal loli, or a quiet, big-breasted, and cute girl... all kinds of attributes are available.

Cough! Of course, all of that is secondary. Iori is here to fight the Holy Grail War, not to go on a blind date, so she doesn't care about her Master's looks at all!

However, in this "FA (Extratext)" timeline, the course of the Holy Grail War is greatly altered, and Ai's fate also undergoes significant changes:

The Einzbern family has now been virtually wiped out of the mystical realm!

Darnic did steal the Greater Grail, but this thing was built with the Winter Maiden's magic circuits as its core, with the Jewel Elder as a witness, and was completed after a series of complex magical rituals.

Its precision far exceeds the comprehension of ordinary magicians, essentially equivalent to a particle collider in the physics world. Although Danic is also an academic giant, he cannot research this thing on his own... sorry, he is powerless.

In order to obtain the original data, he chose to target Einzbern, the main builder of the Greater Grail.

The Einzbern family are very traditional magicians, meaning they focus on academics but are not good at practical combat, and their ability to fight head-on is average.

In addition, Danic was in Germany at the time and got in touch with a local organization called Nacui. With its strong manpower and resources, Danic easily overthrew Einzbern and seized a large amount of data and the method of cultivating androids.

After their homeland was destroyed, Einzbern lost most of his wealth and could only flee with a few precious items.

In the sixty years that followed, the descendants of the Einzbern family tried time and again to restart the Holy Grail War, to fulfill the destiny of their family's inheritance, and even wanted to create another Winter Maiden and the Greater Grail, but that gamble, which involved a huge amount of resources, also failed completely.

After years of ups and downs, the artificial humans who inherited the legacy of Einzbern have lost most of their leverage, and have even lost their value in the eyes of the Magic Association.

Sera von Einzbern is one of the few homunculus created by this family using their last resources. Her mission is to wait until the day the "Fourth Holy Grail War" begins, and then win as a Master!

In order to complete this mission, his comrades sacrificed themselves one after another, and in the end only Sera remained as the last spark.

She was chosen because her magic circuits are the best among everyone, and her brain has enough capacity to store the family's inherited knowledge.

Her weak physique is a big problem, and as a homunculus, Sera's emotions are too rich... But the Einzbern in this timeline doesn't have enough resources to create a perfect homunculus like "Irisviel".

Even their participation in this war was extremely unexpected:

Although she came to the Mage's Association to try and get a Master position, her chances were actually slim, and even the three founding families, including the Einzbern family, had little hope.

In the normal course of events, she would have been targeted by some hound-like magicians because of the holy relic she was carrying, and then died in a London Underground station, thus erasing the Einzbern family from the world of magic.

But Iori's arrival changed her fate...

"What should I do with you?"

In a suite at a London hotel, Iori, dressed in a smart black suit, stood by the window with a glass of red wine, turning back to scrutinize the silver-haired girl lying on the bed.

—The items mentioned above were all "taken" by Iori from the store for free, so it can't be considered stealing, since no one stopped him when he took them openly.

"Her sleeping face is quite cute."

Sera managed to treat her injuries, at least making herself appear unharmed, then went to the city, booked a room, and went in. She then collapsed from exhaustion, and it was Iori who carried her to bed.

The tall, slender, silver-haired girl had changed into a British-style women's cloak to cover the bloodstains on her body. Her fair and delicate face, with her eyes closed, resembled Sleeping Beauty waiting for a kiss from true love.

But Iori knew that beneath that seemingly neat disguise lay a body on the verge of collapse.

This does not refer to things like skin, muscles, or internal organs, but rather to the magician's unique "magic circuits" and the nervous system that is temporarily used as an auxiliary circuit.

Homunculi generally have excellent magic circuits, and Sera is particularly outstanding, but her physical body is far too fragile to match.

The Einzbern family has passed down almost all of its knowledge to this day, which is engraved in the circuits and brain of Sera's body. When activated, it is like an ordinary car burning aviation fuel - as long as it does not explode, it is lucky if it is torn apart.

This time, Sera's overclocking and use of magic has caused her physical body immense and irreversible damage. As an android, her lifespan has begun to run out.

"I finally got to participate in the Holy Grail War, but my Master is a fragile porcelain doll that breaks at the slightest touch."

Iori muttered to herself, "Should we just kill this one and find another Master?"

"..."

"Ah!"

The black-haired boy placed his wine glass on the bar stool and strolled to the bedside: "I know you've been awake for a while. Are you just too shy to see anyone, my master?"

"...I was just assessing whether I was safe."

Sera slowly opened her left eye, straightened up and leaned against the headboard, cautiously and carefully watching Iori, and intentionally or unintentionally hid her right hand—strictly speaking, the three Command Seals on her right hand—at an angle that Iori could not see.

"It's quite unexpected that you possess rationality for the [Berserker] class."

"You're just making a fuss over nothing. As all sorts of strange Servants increase in the future, irrational berserkers might become even rarer."

Noticing Sera's subtle movements, Iori smiled and calmly said, "Don't worry, although I'm not some 'partner of justice,' I'm by no means a villain either. Now that we've formed a contract, I will protect my Master until you achieve final victory."

“That would be best,” Sera said seriously. “I will also keep my promise… Tell me, Berserker, what is your wish for the Holy Grail to grant?”

"Physical body," Iori said frankly, "I want to live in this world in another form of life."

"Is that so... It's not such a difficult wish. For the power of the Holy Grail, it's very simple to make a Heroic Spirit take on flesh, without even needing to consume a wishing slot."

Sera breathed a sigh of relief: "I promise you, your wish will be granted."

"Then, to increase our understanding, I'll confirm it too:"