All the remaining Knights of the Round Table had received the king's "Gift"—except for one.
Agravain.
Even so, he was still a Knight of the Round Table, and his strength was undeniable. Yet Morgan had sent him flying with ease.
The others, witnessing this, were all visibly shocked to varying degrees.
"It wasn't entirely the wrong decision to strike at me first."
Morgan glanced briefly at where Agravain had landed, then turned to face the rest of the Round Table—excluding Mordred. Her gaze settled on Lancelot and Gawain.
"But letting your personal grudges cloud your judgment in battle…"
Before she could finish, the magic spear in her hand began to glow with a ghostly blue light, the same hue spreading beneath her feet.
Mana.
A surge of overwhelming mana condensed in an instant—the next spell was about to be cast.
Both Lancelot and Gawain sensed it at once.
The dry, yellow sand suddenly transformed into a shimmering lake, glowing faintly blue. Water surged up to lightly cover the tops of their boots.
"Divide."
Morgan casually raised her spear and slashed diagonally through the air, as if cleaving something apart.
The lake beneath them instantly surged into sharp waves that crashed toward the two knights.
But they were not ones to stand still and await death.
Their Holy Swords blazed with different auras as they slashed forward to meet the waves.
The "Excalibur Galatine" burned with solar intensity; "Arondight" gleamed with the clarity of a deep lake.
The power behind their swings collided with Morgan's Magecraft and exploded. Water sprayed into the air, momentarily blinding everyone's vision. They flicked their cloaks to shake off the spray.
Suddenly, chains shot out from the lake and coiled around the two of them, binding their movements.
"This is... Agravain's..." Lancelot strained with all his strength, but the chains resisted any attempt to break free.
"No. His mother taught him that," Morgan corrected him, as if commenting from the sidelines.
Even if the chains were snapped, new ones would immediately take their place.
"His mother, isn't that you—" Gawain began to say.
But he stopped.
Among the Knights of the Round Table, several were Morgan's children.
Including himself.
There was no point in debating it. Morgan had come here to sabotage the king's plans.
In life, he had resented Lancelot so deeply that he could never let go of his grudge—and regretted how immature that made him.
That's why, now, he fought alongside Lancelot to defeat these foes aligned with Morgan.
He couldn't let himself be restrained by something like chains, not here.
"Holy Sword, be freed!"
It was mid-afternoon—Gawain's time. The special constitution of the "Knight of the Sun" allowed him to triple his strength.
Because of that, Morgan had cast more chains on him than on Lancelot.
So Gawain unleashed a portion of his Holy Sword's power.
He didn't invoke its true name, but poured the sun's power into it, extending the blade and incinerating the chains woven from mana.
The instant they melted, he swung the now-lengthened, flame-wreathed sword.
The Holy Sword's blaze instantly drove away the lake at his feet. The dry desert reemerged, and Lancelot, too, was freed from his bonds.
"Much appreciated, Gawain."
Now freed, Lancelot gripped his Holy Sword tightly as mana burst from his body.
"Blessing of the Lady of the Lake!"
Raised by the Lady of the Lake in his youth, Lancelot had long benefitted from her blessing. Once invoked, it substantially doubled all attributes except for Luck.
Morgan having so effortlessly taken Agravain out of the fight meant that this battle was even fiercer than anticipated—though it had already been intense to begin with.
"Oh? Living up to your name, I see you've received a proper blessing too."
Scáthach's voice came from the side.
"But it's not good to forget about this side just because Morgan distracted you."
She tapped her crimson spear against the sand. The desert winds, which had just calmed, whipped up once more—but this time it wasn't a sandstorm. Dark clouds suddenly appeared in the clear blue sky, thickening and spreading in an instant until the entire sky was covered, blocking out the sun and plunging the area into gloom.
"This is… weather-altering Magecraft!"
Lancelot was no longer surprised. When fighting the Queen of the Land of Shadows, neither her close combat nor her Magecraft was ever something to be underestimated.
Then came the rain. At first just scattered drops, it quickly turned into a steady drizzle.
"So that's it. You're trying to block out the sunlight to weaken my power," Gawain realized.
He leapt forward, raising his sword and slashing toward Scáthach.
As expected, she dodged—but the force behind the blow hadn't lessened.
"But! I carry the 'Nightless' Gift bestowed upon me by my king! No matter the weather or time, I can still unleash my full power!"
Gawain declared with thunderous vigor.
"You thought changing the weather would be enough to weaken me? You've underestimated me, Queen of the Land of Shadows!"
The crimson spear and the Holy Sword clashed again and again. Scáthach was never one to rely on brute strength, and Gawain's full-force strikes left her dodging repeatedly.
Of course, she had never intended to match him head-on in strength to begin with.
After narrowly dodging another of Gawain's swings, the damp sand beneath them abruptly froze into solid ice, spreading through the air and forcing Gawain to take a step back. He responded by swinging his flame-wreathed Holy Sword at the advancing ice.
The ice swallowed the flames, only to be melted by them a moment later. But then the wet sand, now compressed to a hardness like iron, transformed into countless sharp spikes that surged toward Gawain.
With Scáthach's lance moving too fast to track with the naked eye and a barrage of physical Magecraft attacks to avoid, Gawain held his ground with disciplined precision, never exposing an opening.
Just as Morgan had declared at the outset, he and Lancelot had been separated.
Now Lancelot faced Morgan alone.
He had never imagined Morgan would be so adept at close combat. She seemed entirely uninterested in continuing her Magecraft assault. Her spear's unique structure allowed her to alternate freely between thrusts and slashes with each strike.
It didn't appear to be a Noble Phantasm, yet its performance rivaled that of a Holy Sword.
He had originally planned to strike in the moment Morgan invoked a spell—but now, he was forced to settle into a familiar rhythm of melee combat.
"This power is completely different from Agravain's… Did he receive Artoria's 'blessing'?"
Morgan casually confirmed after deflecting Lancelot's counterattack.
"Of course. All the Knights of the Round Table here, except for him, received the king's blessing."
Morgan nodded in understanding.
"I see. No wonder he's such a handful."
As she said this, her eyes flicked toward Shiomi in the distance—where every last one of the Enforcement Knights had already fallen.