"Cough... hack..."
Mordred pushed herself up from the dirt. The impact had rattled her ethereal lungs, forcing a few ragged coughs from her throat.
For a normal human, losing an arm and having their chest armor cleaved open would be a fatal, battle-ending injury.
But a Servant is not a normal human.
They are familiars woven from magic and history. As long as their Spirit Core remained intact and their Master supplied them with enough mana, even a severed limb was just a temporary inconvenience. It would regenerate.
But her pride? That had taken a direct hit.
Mordred stared at the violet-haired girl standing calmly in the distance. Her eyes locked onto the weapon in the girl's hand, and her vision swam with a blinding, absolute fury.
"I'll ask you once," Mordred growled, her voice trembling with barely contained rage. "What the hell is that in your hand?!"
There, in the stranger's grip, was a silver broadsword. Aside from a faint golden hue interwoven into the metal, it was a flawless, one-to-one replica of her own Noble Phantasm, Clarent.
"..."
Stell offered no reply. She simply stood there, as still and silent as a graveyard statue. Because the hood of her cloak cast a deep shadow over her face, Mordred couldn't see the cold, glowing eyes analyzing her every movement.
That absolute silence only poured gasoline on the Knight of Treachery's fiery temper.
"Hah! Good. Very good! You've got guts, I'll give you that!"
Mordred barked a harsh, jagged laugh. She raised her own Clarent with her remaining left hand, pointing the heavy blade straight at Stell.
Wielding a two-handed greatsword with one arm would significantly reduce her striking power, but she didn't care.
To create a fake of a knight's sacred sword right in front of them was the ultimate insult.
The veins on Mordred's forehead pulsed. She wanted nothing more than to grind this arrogant mage into the dirt. However, despite her wild, berserker-like fighting style, Mordred's mind was incredibly sharp.
She knew a head-on charge was a bad idea. The enemy's attacks were precise, and that golden, dome-like shield was absurdly tough. She currently had no viable strategy to break through it one-handed.
As frustration boiled in her chest, a voice suddenly echoed in her mind.
[Mordred! Pull back! I repeat, fall back!]
It was Kairi, using their telepathic Master-Servant link.
Mordred blinked, momentarily distracted. Retreat? Now?
...
Across the clearing, Stell was quietly processing the data she had gathered from their brief clash.
Fascinating, Stell thought, her internal processors working overtime.
The biology of a Heroic Spirit was a marvel that defied the laws of physics. Scans indicated that Mordred's physical structure was roughly equivalent to a standard human, yet the kinetic output of her muscles was astronomically high. It was a physical impossibility powered entirely by mystery and mana.
A new emotion flickered within Stell's logic circuits: Curiosity.
She wanted to dissect a Servant. She wanted to understand the structural integrity of an ether-based body. Unfortunately, there were no willing test subjects available, and the explosive knight currently glaring at her would certainly decline the invitation.
Conclusion: Combat is the only efficient method of data extraction.
Stell weighed the replica Clarent in her hand. She had cross-referenced its properties with her own Pseudo-Sandalphon. Because both were manifested through her Dimensional Energy based on physical contact data, their base parameters were quite similar.
But this sword was incomplete.
Thanks to Pseudo-Rasiel, which was currently hogging the vast majority of her processing power, even more than the time-altering Zafkiel, Stell knew the truth.
The true value of this weapon lay in its Anti-Army ultimate release: Clarent Blood Arthur. A devastating beam of red lightning, functionally similar to Sandalphon's Halvanhelev.
Stell watched the red knight. She couldn't see Mordred's face beneath the heavy helmet, but the aggressive posture spoke volumes. She is angry because I replicated her weapon.
Stell waited for the counterattack, but the knight stayed put. Perhaps she realizes she cannot break my defense one-handed.
Then, Stell noticed it. A tiny, microsecond shift in Mordred's stance. A subtle loss of focus.
She is receiving a telepathic transmission.
It was the perfect opening.
"Endo Armament: Activate"
"Velocity Override"
Clack-hiss!
Two sleek, mechanical thrusters materialized out of thin air, bolting themselves to the sides of Stell's thighs.
Golden energy flared from the exhausts.
In a fraction of a second, Stell vanished. There was no warning, no build-up. She crossed the distance between them instantaneously, appearing right in front of the startled knight.
Too fast!
Mordred had kept her guard up, but the sheer, blistering speed of the approach caught her completely off guard.
Stell swung the golden replica sword, aiming a brutal horizontal slash directly at Mordred's left shoulder. The intent was clear: sever the remaining arm and completely disarm the threat.
But Mordred was a top-tier Servant for a reason.
BOOM!
A massive surge of magical energy erupted from her core. Crimson lightning exploded outward in a violent, spherical shockwave, creating a powerful repulsive field around her body.
Mana Burst.
By infusing her body and weapon with a massive amount of volatile prana, Mordred temporarily skyrocketed her physical parameters. Fighting through the shockwave, she swung her sword with her left hand, aiming to intercept Stell's descending blade.
However...
Just a millisecond before the two swords collided, Mordred's vision caught a subtle movement.
In Stell's empty left hand, a tiny, golden object had suddenly materialized. It was small, unassuming, and completely silent.
But Mordred's Instinct, a Rank B personal skill that functioned like a sixth sense for danger, began to scream like a blaring siren.
If I block the sword, that little thing is going to hit me. And if it hits me... something terrible will happen.
The premonition was absolute. It was a threat far worse than a simple physical wound.
But she was out of time. Stell was moving faster than she could track, even with Mana Burstactive. If she aborted her block to dodge the small object, Stell's sword would sever her left arm. She would be completely armless, weaponless, and at the mercy of this mechanical monster.
It was a perfectly engineered, inescapable trap.
"Tch!"
….
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