Chapter 24: I Originally Just Wanted to Weaken It
Returning to Hinata Inn, Hikigaya began to implement his plan to weaken the Holy Grail.
Taking precautions to avoid damaging his room, he first cast a levitation spell on the Holy Grail and brought it to the waterfall on the back mountain. Placing the Grail within the cascading water, he released the seal.
In an instant, the Holy Grail began to manifest its true nature, once again utilizing its unknown mechanism to devour the life force of the Great Mother Goddess.
As a Campione who mastered the power of life, life appeared as "light" in Hikigaya's "eyes" when he activated his authority. Athena's light of life appeared abruptly in the surroundings, gathering from trickling streams into a river, swallowed greedily by the Holy Grail.
However, the most intense light came from within the Grail itself. It contained more than just Athena's life force; clearly, its user had made good use of the Grail before encountering her.
Hikigaya watched the reboot and preheating of the Holy Grail's functions with indifference. After observing for a while and estimating that the object was sufficiently "warmed up," he beckoned with his hand. Light suddenly flared within the waterfall's water that was battering the body of the Grail.
Osiris nurtured life with heat and moisture, ordering the cycle of life and death to become the Lord of the Underworld in Ancient Egypt. The best natural physical entity for this power is river water. It was for this reason that the Nile was gradually regarded by the ancient Egyptians as Osiris himself.
When Hikigaya used the life force filling the river water, the Holy Grail began to siphon it. Once activated, this object would actively absorb any form of life force from its surroundings, regardless of the source.
But there was one catch: surely no Campione had ever actively "nourished" it before.
Although forged from the life of a god, the Holy Grail itself possessed no independent consciousness. Its essence was life, yet it was not a living organism; it merely absorbed all life force according to the will of its creator. This provided the condition for someone to "adulterate" it with their own goods. Since the creator who could control it and truly unleash its power was not present, the Grail was defenseless against this intrusion.
It accepted the input stolidly.
As time passed, an hour later, the vitality nurtured by Hikigaya's authority began to surpass that from Athena. Six hours later, the proportion of Hikigaya's life force within the Grail's reserves was second only to Athena's. By the time a full day had passed and the sun was about to set, the life force provided by Hikigaya exceeded the sum of all other sources combined.
It was not in vain that he had stayed by the waterfall for so long without eating; Hikigaya had finally reached this moment.
It was exactly as the Dongyi gods had treated other suns in the past. Kua Fu used this power to chase down suns one by one, making them fall and then devouring them to achieve his own greatness. Hou Yi also used this power to shoot down nine suns, seizing them to strengthen himself.
In the Shang Dynasty, which originated from the Dongyi, the monarchs used the title of Di (Emperor/Deity) to signify they were both kings of men and incarnations of the Celestial Emperor, governing both the human and divine realms, bringing all things under the rule of the One Sun. There cannot be two suns in the sky; anything else is an alien species, a prey, something to be conquered and consumed.
The essence of the Holy Grail was life, so to Hikigaya, it was prey. It was now deeply stained with Hikigaya's "brand." Regarding this method of using power, the ancestors of this world had once imitated it to invent practical sympathetic magic. Whether it was the Law of Similarity represented by Kua Fu or the Law of Contact represented by Hou Yi, once the conditions were met, there was no escape for the prey.
And Hikigaya's "arrow" was now firmly and deeply lodged within the body of the Holy Grail.
In the next moment, his hand penetrated the outer wall of the Holy Grail without any resistance. The life force created by Hikigaya that had sufficiently accumulated within the Grail no longer belonged to the Grail at this moment; instead, it became an accomplice in Hikigaya's seizure of the Grail's essence.
The Holy Grail finally stopped its gluttony of life force. It shook violently, attempting to tear through space and flee. Clearly, its controller had realized that the Holy Grail was facing the greatest crisis since its creation.
But at this point, that was impossible. The life force from Hikigaya had infected the Holy Grail too deeply. Nourishment from a Campione is, after all, not so easy to take.
At least half of the Grail's surface was now covered in Jinwen (bronze inscriptions). These characters were sacrificial texts used during the Yin-Shang era, representing that more than half of the control over the Holy Grail had fallen into Hikigaya's hands.
After a struggle, the controller seemed to realize that completely escaping Hikigaya was impossible, and the Holy Grail began to transform. The parts where the bronze inscriptions had not appeared began to melt from their solid state, flowing down like sludge.
Seeing this, Hikigaya immediately increased the input of power, and more bronze inscriptions began to manifest. However, approximately one-fourth of the Holy Grail's physical entity managed to escape. Taking advantage of the gap while Hikigaya was stabilizing the portions he had already seized, it didn't even wait to reform its shape before tearing through the air and vanishing into the horizon.
The remaining portion, under Hikigaya's further transformation, eventually turned into light and merged into his palm.
Then, Hikigaya sat down and began to "digest."
After a long while, he stood up again. With a wave of his hand, a Holy Grail only three-quarters the size of the original appeared on the ground before him. Looking at this "one size smaller" Grail, Hikigaya smiled with satisfaction.
This result was even better than he had originally anticipated. He had only intended to seize a portion of the Grail's power and coincidentally strengthen his own life force. Instead, the Holy Grail had been split in two, and he had obtained an extraordinary divine artifact. This was a Holy Grail that belonged entirely to him; it was no longer just a matter of strengthening life force.
As for exactly how to use it, that would wait until he became familiar with it. Of course, the fastest way would undoubtedly be to find the original user of the Grail and learn everything. As long as the opponent was not a god, this would not be difficult to achieve.
On that front, he decided to wait for news from Alexander. What he looked forward to even more was that controller showing up at his door in a fit of rage on their own initiative.
After watching it for a while longer, Hikigaya recalled the Holy Grail, patted his backside, and returned to his room.
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