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

("Berserk mode" is an enhancement for weak Servants, but a weakening for powerful Servants from the Age of Gods. Hercules and Lancelot are typical examples. However, both of them are masters of technical skill. Even without reason, they can be invincible in melee combat based purely on their physical instincts.)

This small chapel alone cannot withstand King Arthur, because unlike a Berserker like Iori, the Rider, like the three Knights, possesses the [Magic Resistance] skill, making them natural magician killers. Even the Great Witch of the Age of Gods could not shake the Black Knight King at his peak!

After all, without the "Hanging Gardens," the Empress is merely a second-rate Servant skilled in poisoning; her direct combat ability is rather pathetic.

It was precisely because of the vast difference in strength that Iori's thoughts began to change:

If the Black Faction Servant is only able to hold out against Empress Semiramis, then he will naturally take advantage of the situation. But now it is clearly a crushing defeat, and Iori might even have to lend a hand to the priest!

These two things are not contradictory. Whether it's taking advantage of someone's misfortune or lending a helping hand, it's all a decision made by Iori for the sake of "balance".

He is not an arrogant person. Although he is strong, it is too early for him to think that he can be invincible in the Holy Grail War. It is a pipe dream to fight against the entire faction of Servants by himself.

Only by pitting Kotomine Shiro (Amakusa Shiro Tokisada) against the two major factions of Yggdrasil, gradually weakening their power, can the combination of Iori and Sera have any hope of victory.

Iori came here for two purposes:

First, to create singularities; second, to seek the materialization of the soul, and incidentally, to boost one's own prestige.

As a Servant, he didn't want to let Sera down, and he wasn't lying when he said he would help her, so he also wanted to help Sera win the Holy Grail War.

Creating singularities is easy. No matter which side wins, the red or black can deviate from the course of history, especially Amakusa's side... With a little effort, they can even create a side story.

However, if we want to satisfy the needs of Gudako, Iori, and Sera at the same time, we absolutely cannot go along with Amakusa's wishes and must get the Greater Grail into our own hands!

To achieve this, the red and black sides must not be in a one-sided situation!

...By the way, what the heck is Black Gunner Alter?

Has the Servant lineup of Yggdrasil changed? Is the butterfly effect really that obvious?

"No, the church won't be able to hold on if this continues!"

Just as Iori was about to attack Saber Alter, a dazzling red light suddenly appeared in the sky!

Like the scorching sun, golden-red magic flowed and gathered into a magnificent and handsome figure, holding a golden spear, and his whole body transformed into a scorching fireball, crashing into the black doll on the other side of the sky!

The Black Knight King, however, was equally resolute. Even facing an attack as powerful as a meteor, he spurred his horse forward and thrust his spear head-on. The two weapons, beyond human control, clashed—

boom!

Pitch black as fog and scorching hot as fire, the two magical forces were evenly matched, and the shockwaves that erupted swept across the forest, bending the trees over.

This is not a Noble Phantasm; the two sides merely released their magical energy. However, if it were placed on the ground, its power would be enough to easily shatter a building!

“Command Seals? It looks like… Karna?” Iori was also impressed by the power of the two, but unlike Sera, who was stunned, he was still able to remain calm and think.

It seems he was right not to rashly ambush the priest earlier. Amakusa Shiro has already recruited at least one more Servant. Even if he can defeat Semiramis, he can't get past the demigod-like Little Sun.

However, now that Artoria Pendragon (Black Lancer) is holding Karna back, we can continue with Iori's plan.

……

"Lancer holding off Rider isn't a problem. If Black Rider fights to the death and refuses to retreat, we can even try to keep her here... Semiramis?"

Amakusa Shiro turned his attention back to the assassins from the sky and asked Semiramis, who was lost in thought, with concern, "What's wrong?"

"Someone has trespassed into my garden!"

The Empress's composure vanished for the first time: "Damn it! It's that guy from the forest... There wasn't anything important there, what does he want?"

"perhaps--"

"Whatever his intentions, daring to covet my garden is unforgivable!"

"Calm down, Semiramis."

Amakusa Shiro emphasized the assassin's name, which calmed her down a bit.

"Think carefully, Your Majesty. The presence of two uninvited guests at the same time is certainly not a coincidence. Acting rashly will only lead us into the enemy's trap."

"Hmm...you mean, this is a trap?" The Empress lowered her eyelids, then snapped out of her reverie. "It's to test us!"

“That’s right. Although you are an assassin, your fighting style is closer to Caster. You can only unleash the full power of a first-rate Servant in specific locations, otherwise…”

"Are we just supposed to stay here and wait for them to leave?"

Semiramis was indignant: "How dare they make a scene in my garden?"

"Those things are important, but we must give up some of them."

The priest was also in a bad mood. If Semiramis's anger stemmed from his possessiveness towards women, then his annoyance at the intrusion of outsiders was understandable.

So Amakusa Shiro's reason was very practical:

Over the past sixty years, he endured hardships and used various means to excavate and purchase numerous ancient architectural components, as well as some precious cultural relics, which have been placed in a protected church cemetery.

What if the intruder has some ulterior motive? Wouldn't he have wasted half a century of his life?!

Thinking about this, the priest even felt that the Command Seals weren't such precious things after all:

"Since neither you nor I can leave the church, let us use a Command Spell to summon Archer back!"

Chapter 101: I, Ta-Miao, will shoot it all! (Two chapters combined)

"This is the original stone tablet, which records important sacrificial events of the temple."

"take away!"

“A gold cup and a silver plate! This is a precious ritual vessel, and this style... is at least two thousand years old.”

"take away!"

"Ancient Babylonian-style stone pillars... um... I can't take these with me, can I?"

"Smash it!"

……

Western churches often have cemeteries beneath or around them, and some devout nobles and even royalty would store their coffins in churches. This custom even influenced mythology. For example, there is a saying about the whereabouts of the great Irish hero Finn, that he was buried under a church, waiting for the day he would awaken.

(This legend is similar to that of King Arthur, and Finn is indeed one of the prototypes for Arthur. For example, both of them were tragically cuckolded by a handsome and virtuous knight...)

Father Kotomine was a low-key person, and the church he chose was not a famous building, but the cemetery was very spacious, enough to accommodate his "collection".

At this time, the once peaceful and serene cemetery had been filled with all sorts of things, big and small, strange and unusual.

Among these miscellaneous items are extremely expensive gold and silver utensils, bronze and pottery with an ancient charm, and rough earthen bricks and stones. In particular, there are various building materials that look severely weathered, as if a light touch would wear off a layer of sand and gravel...

At first glance, there are no uniform features, and to the average person, it looks like entering a garbage dump.

But magicians see it differently, because no matter their value, they all consider these things to be "genuine"!

These are not props made by a movie crew, or cheap imitations produced by modern technology. Every brick and every tile is a legacy of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization, which has a history of over two thousand years!

Of course, old things are not necessarily antiques, and having thousands of years of history does not necessarily make them very valuable. At least from a magician's perspective, there are very few treasures that possess "mystery" and can be used as research objects or spellcasting mediums.

Most of them are just cultural relics in the secular sense, but they are very valuable to archaeologists or governments.

...What's truly shocking is that there's just too much of this "useless stuff" piled up!

If you were to convert the contents of this place into money, it could probably buy a small country.

This was enough to make even the twelve monarchs of the Clock Tower take notice.

The scene before us is something that ordinary people rarely see. It would require an extraordinary amount of wealth, or the perseverance and willpower spanning several generations, to continuously collect such a large quantity of goods.

Such wealthy families do exist, but their assets are workshops, sacred relics, magical inscriptions, spiritual veins... existing in various forms that are priceless in the mystical world.

No one would ever exchange this level of wealth for a pile of "historical" earthen bricks!

It's also impossible for any magic family to maintain this hobby for several generations, because such foolish people could not possibly continue the family line.

Indeed, the person who amassed such a large amount of ancient Babylonian heritage was not a true magician, but merely a priest capable of performing "miracles."

—Shiro Kotomine!

His true form is the special class [Ruler] summoned during the Third Holy Grail War. His real name is "Amakusa Shiro Tokisada". Due to special reasons, he obtained the body of a living person and spent the next sixty years accumulating strength for the Fourth Holy Grail War.

He dedicated half a century of his life and blood to collecting these cultural relics, transforming himself from a handsome young man with black hair and fair skin into a non-mainstream figure with white hair and dark skin...

However, as we all know, civil engineers have a tough and tragic life. For example, right now, Amakusa Shiro's hard-earned savings of decades are being wantonly plundered and destroyed by a person with no sense of morality.

"Take everything you can!"

Iori and Sera were as happy as if they had entered a department store for a free shopping spree. Sera, who had a good eye, picked out the items, while Iori would pick up any small, valuable items that were easy to carry. For the larger items that she couldn't take with her, she would just throw a punch or a sword at them.

In less than three minutes, the cemetery was in complete disarray, with many innocent gravestones affected... Iori could only apologize for this.

"Hmm, that's about right." Iori weighed the large package in his hand. The weight of over a hundred kilograms felt light in his hands, but he knew he should call it a day.

It wasn't that he was kind-hearted or felt sorry for Amakusa, but he simply couldn't keep up the act any longer... He was currently dressed in a black suit, and in his hand, he had materialized a Shinigami robe to use as a bag. Although the Shinigami robe was of good quality and had a large design, it was ultimately not a storage bag that could hold internal space.

'It's too troublesome not having spatial items. I wonder if [Shangri-La] can be modified...'

"Berserker, my box can hold some too!"

Sera's face was flushed as she ran around among the artifacts. The physical exertion left her exhausted, but she was also incredibly excited... It's probably true that no woman can resist the thrill of a big shopping spree, even androids.

"No, we should retreat. That priest isn't dead. Although Rider is drawing our fire, we can't be sure he still has some tricks up his sleeve."

"Hmm... okay then!"

Since Iori had spoken, Sera did not object, but she still took the opportunity to pick up a few rune bone fragments that looked like divination tools from the ground.

Having successfully raided the base, the two victoriously moved into the forest. Iori suggested carrying Sera and running away. The silver-haired girl initially disagreed, but she quickly realized that she was a hindrance and readily jumped into Iori's arms.

Huh-huh-huh-

The scenery on both sides rushed past, the tall trees forming a continuous shadow, and the strong wind pressure made it hard for Sera to open her eyes. But she inexplicably realized that this was not Iori's limit. The Berserker had already been very restrained in running in order to take care of his weak Master.

That should be far enough away from the church, Sera thought to herself.

Suddenly, the android girl felt a tightness in her heart. A chilling pressure emanated from Iori, causing her to hold her breath.

Then Iori suddenly accelerated—

call out!

An arrow gleaming with emerald light traced a graceful, smooth arc through the gaps in the forest, narrowly missing Iori from behind and striking a large tree. Its force was long and powerful, the arrowhead disappearing completely, leaving only the tip trembling on the outside.

In the blink of an eye, the arrow vanished into a shimmering light, a creation woven from magical energy.

"Is it the enemy Archer?" Sera immediately realized, her fair and slender fingers gripping the servant's collar tightly.

"No, it's more likely to be 'friendly forces'... They're not going to let us off so easily after all!"

Iori spoke casually, her body turning sharply without slowing down, leaping abruptly to the treetop and nimbly traversing the dense canopy.

Whoosh!Whoosh!Whoosh!

The passing branches and leaves made it impossible for Sera to see what was happening. She could only hear short, dangerous whooshing sounds as the arrows whistled through the air. Judging from the timing of Iori's turn and dodge, the arrows were even faster than the sounds!

Sera didn't know how Iori dealt with arrows that traveled faster than the speed of sound, but it was clear that she didn't rely on hearing; she always managed to act just in time to avoid the arrows' impact.

However, the archers lurking in the shadows were clearly no ordinary soldiers. Even though the target used the dense canopy to conceal his figure and was moving rapidly, theoretically disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye and impossible to pursue with flying items, the arrows still came accurately and persistently, like maggots clinging to bones, making it impossible for Iori and the other two to shake him off.

Is it "clairvoyance"?

As a descendant of the Einzbern family, Sera is quite familiar with the characteristics of Servants of various classes. As the Servant who is best at long-range sniping, Archer usually has the skill "Clairvoyance". Combined with the ability to "Act Alone" that allows her to stay away from her Master, she can become the strongest scout and hunter.

Seriously speaking, an Archer who abandons his reserve poses a threat to the enemy Master no less than an assassin.

To put it bluntly, the reason Assassin became the MVP in the subspecies Holy Grail War was simply because the makeshift system couldn't summon the three powerful knights, and the Masters were generally of low skill level.

However, relying solely on [Clairvoyance] is still insufficient to achieve such precise and continuous sniping across the forest. The enemy Archer's archery skills are also superb, and he likely possesses considerable tracking abilities, allowing him to constantly monitor Iori's location within the forest.

Hiding in the shadows, he pressured the enemy with long-range shots... The enemy's tactics were simple and efficient, and Iori, who was escaping with one person, had no chance to fight back!

Realizing she had become a burden to Iori, Sera frowned and quietly clenched her fist, the crimson Command Seal on the back of her right hand displaying its silent presence.

"no!"

Iori's voice echoed in her mind. When she looked up, she saw that the boy was calm and showed no signs of being chased.

Despite the immense power of those arrows, capable of easily piercing tree trunks and embedding themselves in rocks from hundreds of meters away, the boy showed no fear.

"Using Command Spells now would be a waste; we're far from being at our wits' end!"

bass!

Before she finished speaking, Sera felt a moment of weightlessness, as if she were passing through a film of water. She was momentarily disoriented. When she regained her senses, she found that Iori had stopped, and the arrows were no longer following. The surrounding scenery had also changed drastically, with the trees being much denser than before.

"Is this... teleportation? Spatial displacement?"

Sera, with her family background in education, quickly realized that the two had used an unconventional method of movement.