Stepping through the Spatial Gate, the Servants immediately caught sight of the apocalyptic calamity looming in the distance. Jaguar Man instantly sucked in a breath of cold air.
"Hiss! It's absolutely massive! And to be honest, it looks incredibly cool—so, uh, is it too late for me to surrender?"
Staring at the towering, mountain-sized monstrosity while perched atop her Quetzalcoatlus, Jaguar Man turned her head and asked with genuine, terrifying sincerity.
This time, neither Ishtar nor Quetzalcoatl bothered to snap back at her or scold her for "destroying morale before the battle even started." Instead, both Goddesses stared at the colossal entity with profoundly grim expressions.
Hearing that a divine body was "hundreds of meters tall" sounded impressive in theory, but it was difficult to truly grasp. It wasn't until one actually stood before an existence that massive—watching her casually trample across the earth and casually churn up tsunami waves of pitch-black mud towering hundreds of meters high—that the sheer, suffocating terror of those "hundreds of meters" became reality.
Under the continuous operation of Tiamat's absolute Authority, the [Sea of Life], the highly corrosive, pitch-black tide was expanding outward at a speed far exceeding her actual physical movement. Wherever the tide washed over, human architecture, forests, and even small hills were instantly swallowed and dissolved. Because the Mesopotamian terrain was predominantly flat plains, the expansion of the [Sea of Life] met absolutely zero resistance. Judging by its current velocity, it would likely crash against the walls of Uruk in a matter of minutes.
"King Gilgamesh's Fangs of Utnapishtim can likely withstand one or two direct impacts from the Chaos Tide, but anything beyond that will cause the defensive line to inevitably collapse. It seems that even if our sole objective is merely stalling Tiamat, we are operating under an incredibly strict time limit!"
Staring down at the aggressively churning black tide expanding beneath them, Ushiwakamaru gently guided her Quetzalcoatlus higher into the sky.
With the corrosive black ocean rapidly swallowing the earth below, there wasn't a single safe place to land anymore. If it weren't for the flying mounts, they would already be doomed. She absolutely refused to get corrupted and altered by that horrific mud.
"Before I left my temple, I made sure to bring along the Aztec Calendar Stone (Piedra del Sol). If I fully unleash its power, my raw firepower should be more than sufficient to completely evaporate and sever the advancing front of Tiamat's [Sea of Life]..."
Mentally calculating the density and expansion rate of the black mud, Quetzalcoatl pulled out a miniaturized version of her divine construct, the Piedra del Sol. As long as she could close the distance slightly, she possessed absolute confidence in her ability to instantly vaporize massive swathes of the Chaos Tide.
This was a feat that even Takumi, utilizing his Fire Runes at absolute maximum output, could not achieve. His previous [Bounded Field: Nine Dragons Returning Fire] was functionally similar to the Fangs of Utnapishtim—it was designed to stall and defend. In fact, shortly after Takumi had left to retrieve Ushiwakamaru and Leonidas, that massive Runic barrier had already been completely overwhelmed and shattered by the endless, concentrated assault of the Chaos Tide and the Lahmu swarm.
In stark contrast, Quetzalcoatl—who possessed legends of literally governing the Sun itself—could accurately be described as a "Sun Goddess." The absolute temperature and sheer destructive power of the divine flames she could unleash vastly eclipsed the output of Takumi's Fire Runes.
"However... as long as those Lahmu are present, even I cannot guarantee I can safely deploy the Piedra del Sol without interruption to sever the Chaos Tide."
Looking at the suffocating, black cloud of Lahmu—a swarm so impossibly dense it had essentially turned the entire five-kilometer radius surrounding Tiamat into an absolute dead zone for any living creature—Quetzalcoatl's eye twitched violently.
Tiamat had genuinely taken the concept of a "zerg rush" to its absolute, horrifying extreme. Not only was the sheer volume of the Lahmu swarm utterly incomprehensible, but the combat prowess of a single individual Lahmu vastly exceeded that of normal demonic beasts or elite soldiers. Unless you were a Heroic Spirit or a Divine Spirit, fighting them was completely impossible.
In the brief moment since the team had arrived, several sharp-eyed Lahmu from the outer perimeter of the swarm had already locked onto them and initiated an attack dive.
Seeing this, Ishtar immediately raised her hand, forming a finger gun, and began rapidly firing dense magical bullets at the incoming targets. However, after firing over a dozen consecutive shots, not only did several completely miss due to the Lahmu's erratic, blinding speed, but the ones that did hit seemed to deal absolutely zero damage. Infuriated by the sight of the Lahmu giggling mockingly as they absorbed her attacks, Ishtar was forced to drastically crank up her magical output before finally managing to blast the arrogant creature out of the sky.
"Tch! They're ridiculously sturdy... This isn't just an issue of whether or not we can safely deploy Noble Phantasms anymore. Rather than worrying about that, we should probably figure out how the heck we're supposed to break through their absurd defenses first!"
Having finally swatted the vanguard annoyance, Ishtar complained with a profound headache.
Given the sheer numbers and overwhelming lethality of the Lahmu swarm, even if she fully mobilized Maanna and flew at absolute top speed, she estimated she could survive inside that meat grinder for roughly a minute before being violently shot down. And if she crashed into the Chaos Tide below... whether she could even be summoned back to Chaldea was highly questionable.
Ushiwakamaru, having just barely managed to hack down another incoming Lahmu, strongly agreed. As a Rider class Servant, she had manifested without a proper, dedicated mount. While her phenomenal agility and footwork usually more than compensated for this flaw on the ground... up here in the sky, she was severely restricted.
At this moment, Takumi finally stepped through the Spatial Gate, casually sealing it shut behind him. Utilizing Runes to stand firmly upon thin air, he looked toward the distant, towering figure of Tiamat. A faint, profound blue light slowly began to swirl within his glass-like fiery pupils.
Their current vantage point was significantly closer than when Takumi had observed her across the Persian Gulf earlier. Although it was still quite a distance for a normal human eye, with the temporary [Clairvoyance] buff provided by his Runes, observing her clearly was not difficult.
I can see it, but... the conceptual depth is entirely too far away...
After analyzing her for a moment, his gaze specifically lingering on the Lines of Death etched across Tiamat's colossal form, Takumi quickly deactivated the [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception] and withdrew his focus.
The level of absolute Immortality Tiamat possessed was completely absurd. At this conceptual "distance," even if you gathered fifty fully-buffed Kingus and stacked their Immortality on top of each other, they wouldn't even come close to rivaling her.
Fortunately, the mass-produced Lahmu did not share this divine privilege. They possessed absolutely zero conceptual Immortality.
"Let me try something."
Having rapidly assessed the distribution, density, and exact numbers of the surrounding Lahmu swarm, Takumi let out a slow, controlled breath. He flawlessly adjusted his internal aura to its absolute peak state. Simultaneously, his eyes narrowed into slits, and he lowered his center of gravity. Holding his flag forward with his left hand, he slightly rotated his wrist. He then rested the blade of the [Sword of the Heart] firmly against the flag's pole with his right hand, slowly settling into a highly unorthodox, deeply focused combat stance.
"So cool! (Kakkoii!) As expected of the Savior! Even a casual, throwaway line sounds incredibly badass when he says it!"
Watching Takumi strike such an imposing, flawlessly focused stance, Jaguar Man felt an overwhelming wave of sheer awe wash over her, her eyes literally turning into sparkling stars.
Even though she was fully committed to the path of the gag-character, there were times when she genuinely fantasized about being an overpowered, ultra-cool protagonist!
Jaguar Man's sudden, absurdly loud interruption nearly caused Takumi to break his absolute focus. Fortunately, his mental fortitude had been thoroughly tempered, preventing him from losing his accumulated momentum and forcing him to start the wind-up over.
Seeing this, Ishtar immediately flew her Maanna over to Jaguar Man and delivered a sharp, reprimanding punch to the top of her head, her face completely dark as she violently shushed the feline Servant.
It was in this exact second that Takumi, his kinetic and conceptual energy fully gathered, snapped his eyes open.
—[Limitless Sword Domain: Severing All Creation]!
In that fleeting fraction of a microsecond, the entire world centered around Takumi seemed to instantly drain of color, turning entirely black and white. Every single entity, movement, and physical law within this domain was violently, forcefully brought to an absolute standstill.
And in that exact same frozen instant, Takumi moved.
The [Sword of the Heart]—a blade forged of neither gold, iron, nor jade—transformed into a blinding streak of lightning. It scraped violently against the metal pole of his flag, igniting a brilliant shower of sparks as he swung it forward. Simultaneously, Takumi's physical body dissolved into an utterly imperceptible blur of pure kinetic energy, launching forward like a fired railgun shell—
The flawless footwork imparted by Scáthach and Li Shuwen. The primal, explosive sprinting technique he had observed from Atalante. Even the gravity-defying "Eight Boat Leap" maneuver he had recently asked Ushiwakamaru to teach him. The absolute culmination, refinement, and flawless synthesis of every single movement technique he had ever encountered was perfectly executed in this single, impossible sprint.
Driven by this god-like footwork, further amplified by his ultra-high-speed state, the conceptual ability to compress the earth beneath his feet, and the [Sword of the Heart]'s inherent property of forcefully severing the spatial distance between him and his targets...
At this exact moment, Takumi had fully unleashed the absolute culmination of everything he had learned in his life. He had achieved absolute unity: body and sword as one, sword and footwork as one, footwork and body as one—the perfect, flawless fusion of absolute Speed and peerless Technique!
Combined with a certain profound, indescribable conceptual Authority he now possessed, the ultimate result of this strike was...
There was no earth-shattering explosion. There was no apocalyptic shockwave or howling gale. There wasn't even a blinding flash of light pollution.
From the perspective of the four Servants who had remained in their original positions, all they witnessed was this: within a single, paradoxical instant that felt both like an eternity and less than a microsecond, a completely incomprehensible, sky-filling tempest of sword light abruptly materialized within the dense, suffocating swarm of Lahmu orbiting Tiamat.
The horrifying, eerie giggling of the dark, cloud-like swarm was instantly cut off. The deafening hum of millions of rapidly beating wings violently ceased.
Before the paralyzed creatures could even begin to plummet from the sky, a single, synchronized shhhk echoed across the heavens.
Every single Lahmu within the five-kilometer radius had been flawlessly, perfectly cleaved into at least two separate pieces.
Immediately following that—fearful that Tiamat might reabsorb their corpses to rapidly spawn a new wave—Takumi unleashed an apocalyptic, sky-spanning sea of Fire Runes, instantly incinerating the millions of severed corpses into completely irrecoverable white ash.
In the span of a single, drawn-out breath, he had flawlessly executed an all-inclusive, express "Slaughter-and-Cremation" delivery service for an entirely uncountable swarm of hyper-lethal monsters.
Watching this absolutely incomprehensible, reality-breaking display unfold—without actually being able to perceive how it happened—the four Servants froze in place, their eyes bulging out of their skulls in sheer, unadulterated shock. They slowly turned to look at each other in stunned silence.
Isn't this level of power... entirely too absurd?!
One had to understand: this wasn't a traditional, massive AoE energy beam attack like a standard Noble Phantasm. Within that infinitesimally small fraction of time, Takumi had literally, physically swung his sword an untold number of times, manually executing and severing every single one of those hundreds of thousands of Lahmu individually!
If that level of concentrated, hyper-speed physical violence were directed at a single, normal opponent... they would likely be reduced to absolute, microscopic dust before they even realized they had been attacked!