Tia was a little surprised that they had arrived even earlier than her.
"King Arthur, Knight of the Lake, long time no see," Diarmuid greeted first.
"Tia, Emiya Kiritsugu, you guys are the last to arrive," Kenneth also said.
"Looks like everyone is here," Gilgamesh said, appearing out of nowhere.
Tia looked up and saw Gilgamesh standing on his flying ship, holding EA in his hand, and EA was clearly in the activation state.
At this time, Tia suddenly noticed a large crack in the distant sky, where the Greater Grail hole was originally located. The strange aura of the Fantasy Tree was seeping out of that huge crack.
"Hey~ Gilgamesh, that crack wasn't blasted out by you with EA, was it?" Alexander the Great said, looking at the crack.
"Hmph! So what if it was? This king won't wait for you to gather here so slowly. As the first hero king, the first king of mankind, the Grand Order Archer, this king has the duty to launch the first attack! It's been 10 years, this is the best chance! It will be too late if we delay!" Gilgamesh suddenly spoke eloquently, especially emphasizing the last sentence.
As he spoke, Gilgamesh activated EA again, launching a huge fan-shaped attack towards the crack, but it did not cause any damage to this underground Great Hollow, not even causing it to shake violently. However, the space where EA's attack passed was visibly distorted, and the huge crack completely shattered under this attack.
"~~~~"
A strange feeling surged into her heart. Although no sound was made, she seemed to hear something. The Fantasy Tree rushed out of the shattered, huge crack. Countless roots swarmed out and went in all directions. Some directly took root in the ground, some tried to break through the Great Hollow to go outside, and some attacked the crowd.
Without needing to say more, everyone took action.
The Fantasy Tree was clearly no match for the many Servants. Countless roots were like countless thin ropes rushing into a fire, turning to ashes in an instant.
The Servants quickly rushed to the bottom of the huge crack. The roots of the Fantasy Tree were still pouring out from inside.
At this time, King Arthur launched her Noble Phantasm without hesitation, and a beam of light shot straight into the huge crack. The light beam cut off all the Fantasy Tree roots along the way. The Fantasy Tree roots that had stretched outside lost their source and stopped growing in place, either stuck in the wall or in the ground.
However, before the Servants could speak, the next wave of Fantasy Tree roots rushed out.
This attack was different from the previous one. Before, only a small number of Fantasy Tree roots attacked the crowd, but now a large number of Fantasy Tree roots rushed out from inside. Only an attack like King Arthur's earlier one, covering the entire crack, could eliminate all the roots in one fell swoop.
But everyone had not forgotten that this huge crack was blasted out by Gilgamesh, so the Servants all looked at Gilgamesh with dissatisfaction.
"Hmph!" Gilgamesh stood on his flying ship and quickly flew to the front of the huge crack. He snorted coldly, and then activated EA again without hesitation.
Countless roots were destroyed again, but what followed was that the huge crack was blasted open into an even bigger gap.
At this moment, everyone saw what the inside of the Greater Grail hole looked like.
A huge white tree trunk appeared in front of everyone. Countless cracks split open on the trunk, and the starry sky could be seen in the cracks.
However, the tree trunk was too tall and too large. The people standing outside could not see the entire picture of the Fantasy Tree inside through the huge gap.
"Gilgamesh! What exactly are you doing!" King Arthur couldn't help shouting.
The others also did not understand Gilgamesh's actions and complained.
"Shut up, you mongrels, you can't guess what this king is doing!" Gilgamesh didn't look at the others, but unfolded an extremely huge Gate of Babylon, directly covering the entire huge gap. "Hmph! A mere tree, be destroyed under this king's treasures!"
As Gilgamesh spoke, an overwhelming number of Noble Phantasms rushed into the Greater Grail, covering and attacking the entire incomparably huge Fantasy Tree.
The people outside could not see the entire picture inside, but they could see the dense attacks of Noble Phantasms inside and the counterattack of the Fantasy Tree roots.
After an unknown amount of time, Gilgamesh's attack stopped.
At this time, the part of the Fantasy Tree they saw through the huge gap had become tattered. Obviously, even after growing to this point over the years, this Fantasy Tree was still no match for Gilgamesh alone.
But Tia felt confused.
Could the Gilgamesh who had been given the Grand Order be so powerful? This Fantasy Tree had grown in the Greater Grail space for 17 years!
"It seems that the Hero King has also become stronger in these 10 years," Waver said at this time.
Tia was stunned and turned to look at Waver.
"Haha, Tia, you don't think it's incomprehensible that the Hero King alone defeated this unprecedentedly powerful Fantasy Tree, do you? Don't forget that the Hero King has also stayed here for 10 years, and he is also in the Grand Order Archer class, not in the class that gained a body due to being polluted by the mud of the Black Holy Grail," Waver explained to Tia.
Did Gilgamesh get a powerful magical power from somewhere?
Just then, the tattered Fantasy Tree inside began to shrink.
"Huh?" Tia said in surprise.
The others also looked surprised.
Because the Fantasy Tree finally shrank into… Angra Mainyu!
What's going on?
"Just as I thought~~" Waver said, looking as if he had guessed it long ago. "When the Hero King took the initiative to open a crack when we first arrived here, I found it strange. Why did he act ahead of time? Just now he said it was the best time, and it would be too late if we delayed. Now that I see this, I can roughly understand. That Fantasy Tree is simply Angra Mainyu himself transformed! 10 years ago, his words were simply self-directed and self-acted! And Gilgamesh, as the Grand Order Archer, is bound to deal with human evil or something of the same level. Then Gilgamesh hasn't left for 10 years, so human evil must have always existed. A mere Fantasy Tree could not have made the Hero King who was given the Grand Order willing to stay for 10 years! Have you forgotten, are those Fantasy Trees in the Lostbelts strong?"
Tia remembered the fate of the Fantasy Trees in the seven Lostbelts…
(End of this chapter)