"Hoo—!!!"
The exact microsecond the completely silent, reality-severing sword light faded, a deafening, apocalyptic roar abruptly erupted across the sky. Roaring tongues of orange-red fire, moving like maddened dragons, violently churned the atmosphere. Unlike the silent, imperceptible sword aura that harbored absolute lethality within its stillness, the ensuing eruption of Fire Runes instantly incinerated all the oxygen within a six-kilometer radius. Mixing with the suffocating miasma of Tiamat's [Sea of Life], the conflagration dyed the entire sky a horrifying, blood-soaked crimson.
The blazing runic fire fundamentally invaded the Lahmu through the flawless, microscopic cross-sections left behind by the sword strikes. Therefore, regardless of how absurdly high their external physical defense was, now that their biological functions had been perfectly severed and extinguished, they were completely powerless to resist being devoured from the inside out. The moment their severed halves even began to succumb to gravity, they were instantly reduced to fine, white ash, completely scattering into the howling, superheated winds.
Having executed the final strike, Takumi rode his own momentum and the pull of gravity, casually gliding through the apocalyptic sea of fire and scorching winds. His fiery eyes were dead-locked onto the dozens of massive, intersecting sword scars freshly carved across Tiamat's colossal form.
These were the byproduct of his earlier, casual sword swing when he first cleared the sky. He hadn't used his full power; the sole purpose of that strike was to probe and analyze Tiamat's structural integrity.
However, even as a mere probe, the resulting damage could be considered phenomenal. Even against a divine body hundreds of meters tall, the sword aura had successfully carved deep, jagged, and horrifyingly massive ravines into her flesh. If injuries of that proportional depth and severity were inflicted on a normal human, they would currently be geysering blood like a broken fire hydrant and would succumb to hemorrhagic shock within seconds.
But on Tiamat...
In Takumi's vision, the massive, gaping sword scars looked exactly like the very first shallow cut he had inflicted across the ocean. There wasn't a single drop of blood flowing from them. It was as if the very concept of "blood" fundamentally did not exist within her anatomy.
"Aaaaaahhhhhh—!"
The delayed, agonizing roar of pain finally erupted from the Mother Goddess's terrifying maw. The sheer kinetic force of the soundwave violently blasted away the lingering, scattered embers still floating in the sky.
After that single, earth-shattering roar, the airspace immediately surrounding Tiamat was completely cleared. Takumi, currently hovering in mid-air without leverage, effortlessly transitioned back into his ultra-high-speed state the exact moment the soundwave hit, easily retreating to the safe zone where Ishtar and the others were waiting.
"Incredible! As expected of the Savior! To think you wiped out that many Lahmu in a single attack! (★ω★)"
Jaguar Man, the team's entirely unprofessional cheerleader, immediately bounded over the second Takumi returned. Her eyes were practically sparkling with literal stars as she stared at him with unadulterated worship.
While the others felt Jaguar Man's praise was incredibly exaggerated and cringeworthy, none of them had the desire to refute it. They were all staring at Takumi with expressions of profound, genuine awe.
Their current position was roughly seven kilometers away from Tiamat. In the blink of an eye, he had completely eradicated a swarm of Lahmu that had left all of them feeling completely helpless. Furthermore, looking at him now, aside from a slightly elevated breathing rate, he didn't even look winded. Combining that absurd, instantaneous kill-rate with his god-like speed, it was an undeniable fact: if Takumi genuinely wanted someone dead, unless that target possessed an absolute, ultra-high-tier conceptual Immortality, no one in existence could possibly stop him.
"Point one: I am not a Savior. Please stop calling me that. Point two: If you have something to say, just say it normally. Please stop using such incredibly embarrassing, over-the-top praise."
Easily reading the genuine, unadulterated awe radiating from Jaguar Man's mind, Takumi let out a profound, helpless sigh. Being praised so bluntly, loudly, and with absolutely zero subtlety completely bypassed any feeling of satisfaction and went straight into inducing pure, scalp-tingling secondhand embarrassment.
She really needs to go find Diarmuid and ask him for some pointers on how to compliment people properly.
"Yes, sir! There is actually one tiny thing I wanted to ask for your guidance on—how exactly does one become 'Cool'?!"
Jaguar Man decisively dropped the act. She whipped out a tiny notepad from somewhere in her mascot suit and stared at Takumi with intense, burning anticipation.
Now you're asking the right person!
Takumi leaned back slightly, adjusting his posture. Being asked such a profoundly crucial question, a rare spark of excitement ignited within him. He cleared his throat and spoke with absolute, scholarly seriousness:
"Becoming 'Cool' is actually incredibly simple!"
"Aside from possessing a suitably badass, highly conceptual name for your ultimate attack, the single most important rule is this: speak as little as humanly possible, or better yet, don't speak at all! You must maintain the absolute aura of an unfathomable master!"
Of course, the real reason Takumi rarely spoke during combat wasn't because he was actively trying to act like a badass; it was mostly just because he genuinely disliked bantering while fighting.
Jaguar Man furiously scribbled his advice down in her notepad. However, upon reviewing the incredibly sparse, two-sentence guide, she thought about it for a second, then casually tossed the notepad over her shoulder. Deepening her voice to sound raspy and mysterious, she murmured:
"...Is... that so?"
Perfect execution!
Takumi immediately gave Jaguar Man a massive thumbs-up.
Watching this entire, absurd exchange unfold, the corner of Ishtar's eye twitched violently.
Could you please take a look in a mirror and realize you are literally wearing a comedy-relief tiger mascot costume?! And you seriously want to act like an unfathomable, edgy master?! Your identity as the ultimate gag-character is already permanently burned into everyone's retinas!
Jaguar Man, clearly lacking even a single shred of self-awareness, took Takumi's advice to heart. Her gaze instantly sharpened, turning cold and piercing. She crossed her arms over her chest, radiating an aura of absolute, icy detachment, entirely shedding her previous hyperactive, goofy demeanor.
...Well, whatever. At least she finally shut up.
"The Chaos Tide below us is already rapidly spawning a new wave of Lahmu! We need to capitalize on this opening and close the distance to 'Mother' immediately!"
Glancing down at the churning black sea, where countless new, horrific shapes were already beginning to squirm and breach the surface, Ishtar furrowed her brow and shouted urgently.
"Got it."
Knowing that time was literally measured in human lives right now, Takumi nodded. He swung his sword, tearing open a Spatial Gate directly leading to an airspace roughly five hundred meters away from Tiamat. Without a word, he flew straight through.
The remaining four Servants immediately followed close behind.
BOOOM—!!
Before the group had even fully exited the portal, Tiamat—who possessed absolute spatial awareness within her domain—instantly locked her gaze onto the spatial anomaly. In the blink of an eye, a devastating, crimson beam of magical energy erupted from her Star Eyes, instantly crossing the five-hundred-meter gap and blasting directly toward their faces.
VMMMM~!
The beam was instantly, flawlessly dispersed by a casual swing of Takumi's sword, who had been fully prepared for the counterattack. The strike carved yet another massive, jagged scar across Tiamat's divine body.
However, Takumi noticed something deeply unsettling. The dozens of massive sword scars he had inflicted on Tiamat mere moments ago were already rapidly knitting themselves back together and healing.
"She heals from sword wounds that fast... Have you figured out any kind of weakness yet?!"
Seeing this, Ishtar clicked her tongue in frustration, quickly turning her head to ask Takumi.
Regardless of what happened, she fundamentally lacked any viable means of dealing lasting damage to Tiamat. In contrast, Takumi and Gilgamesh seemed to have thoroughly read the "strategy guide" beforehand. They definitely had more tricks up their sleeves than she did.
"Me? Aside from the fact that she is absurdly, horrifyingly tanky, I can't see a single damn thing."
Takumi replied without even turning his head.
Based on the operational logic of his [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception], although carving those massive ravines into her flesh had technically caused the concept of "Death" to inch slightly closer in his vision, the movement was so infinitesimally small it was practically negligible. At this rate, Takumi honestly had no idea how many millions of times he would need to hack her to pieces before a true, fatal "Line of Death" fully materialized.
Furthermore, now that Tiamat had completely regenerated the physical damage, the faint Lines and Points of Death he had managed to expose had instantly snapped right back to their original, unreachable depths.
He could only conclude that a Tier-0 Immortality rating in the Fate universe was genuinely, objectively absurd. While the old adage "If brute force isn't working, you just aren't using enough of it" technically applied... unfortunately, Takumi simply didn't possess a sufficiently massive "brick" to throw at her right now.
Aside from that...
Takumi silently abandoned his attempt to initiate a connection with Tiamat's "Heart," having predictably failed for the second time.
Through the perception of the [Heart of Fire], Tiamat's "Heart" felt as if it were completely entombed within an impossibly dense, chaotic wall woven entirely from pure, unadulterated fury, resentment, and primal negative emotions. Reaching out to her only resulted in feeling the exact same mindless, chaotic malice radiating from the Lahmu. He couldn't even graze the true, hidden "Heart" buried deep within.
There was nothing he could do. At its core, the [Heart of Fire] was an inherently gentle, reconciliatory power. It fundamentally lacked the capability to violently, forcibly penetrate another entity's closed-off mind.
Therefore, facing Tiamat right now, there was only one path forward: a brutal, life-or-death battle of attrition.
"The Goddess Tiamat possesses a colossal, unimaginably massive upper body, yet her legs are incredibly slender and disproportionate. She appears highly top-heavy. Currently, her primary method of locomotion relies entirely on sliding and surfing atop the Chaos Tide she generates. If I can successfully evaporate the black sea beneath her, it might drastically cripple her mobility."
Carefully analyzing Tiamat's anatomy, Quetzalcoatl offered a highly tactical, thoughtful suggestion.
"It won't work. The massive horns atop Tiamat's head aren't just decorative. By utilizing her virtually infinite magical energy reserves, she can easily generate enough thrust to achieve sustained, high-speed flight."
Takumi shook his head, instantly shooting the idea down based on his meta-knowledge.
However, the corners of Quetzalcoatl's lips curled upward. Instead of being discouraged by Takumi's words, she cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders, her eyes burning with intense, eager anticipation:
"It doesn't matter! Let's just try it anyway! At the very least, evaporating the mud will temporarily halt the expansion of the [Sea of Life]!"
Hearing this, Takumi glanced down at the corrosive black tide that was still rapidly expanding toward Uruk. He nodded in understanding.
If they could temporarily sever the frontline of the [Sea of Life], the defensive pressure on Uruk would be massively alleviated.
"Alright. I'll run interference and completely neutralize Tiamat's attacks."
Saying this, Takumi casually swung his sword again, perfectly dispersing another barrage of crimson magical beams fired by Tiamat.
Throughout their brief conversation, Tiamat's relentless, rapid-fire bombardment of Star-Eye beams hadn't ceased for a single second.
"Then I shall entrust my back entirely to you~!"
Hearing Takumi's assurance, the smile on Quetzalcoatl's face grew even more radiant. Simultaneously, she drew the miniaturized Piedra del Sol, gripping it firmly in her hand.
Instantly, a blinding, searing light erupted from Quetzalcoatl's palm. Terrifying, apocalyptic rays of heat shot out from between her fingers. In mere seconds, the air—previously thick and humid due to the evaporation of the Chaos Tide—became unimaginably, suffocatingly hot. It felt as if the absolute core temperature of a star had been forcefully compressed into this tiny, localized area.
Every single wave of heat radiating from the artifact felt like a physical, serrated blade tearing through the space. It viciously roasted everything in its immediate vicinity, violently warping and distorting the air into chaotic ripples. Merely standing near her caused the edges of their clothing to instantly carbonize into ash, and their exposed skin felt as if it were being held directly over a blast furnace.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't just casually start charging up your ultimate Noble Phantasm without a warning!"
Because she was hovering relatively close, Ishtar's skimpy outfit nearly caught fire. She frantically clutched her chest and rapidly flew backward, putting as much distance between them as possible.
"I am so sorry! Everyone, please fall back to a safe distance immediately! If you stay this close, you will absolutely be incinerated to ash along with the mud!"
Gripping the ignited Piedra del Sol, Quetzalcoatl quickly offered an apologetic warning.
Unfortunately, aside from Takumi, no one was listening. The other three had already shown incredible survival instincts, immediately following Ishtar's lead and rapidly retreating.
"Are you not going to fall back with them?"
Watching the other three flee for their lives, Quetzalcoatl blinked in surprise, turning to ask Takumi.
"As long as I'm not directly at the epicenter, ambient heat of this level cannot harm me."
Takumi shook his head calmly.
Besides, even if she fully unleashed the Piedra del Sol with a zero-frame start-up, I'm fast enough to outrun the blast radius.
"Furthermore, I promised to cover you."
Hearing this, the gaze Quetzalcoatl directed at Takumi grew even more fiercely passionate and blazing. It wasn't until Takumi coughed twice in acute embarrassment that she finally tore her eyes away and focused on the black sea below.
"Ahem! It's time to begin!"
"—Oh raging gales, come forth! Oh roaring thunder, descend!..."
Holding the blazing Piedra del Sol high above her head, Quetzalcoatl began chanting her true name release, rapidly accumulating magical energy. As her charge deepened, even more terrifying, apocalyptic waves of heat pulsed outward, and intricate, blazing Aztec glyphs and symbols began to manifest and rapidly orbit her body.
Sensing the rapidly escalating, catastrophic threat, Tiamat immediately commanded a massive swarm of newly spawned Lahmu to erupt from the Chaos Tide and dive-bomb Quetzalcoatl. Simultaneously, the frequency and intensity of her crimson Star-Eye beams drastically increased.
However, despite the overwhelming density and ferocity of Tiamat's assault, every single attack, projectile, and Lahmu was flawlessly, perfectly intercepted and dispersed by Takumi in mid-air. Not a single trace of damage, not even a stray spark, managed to bypass his absolute defense to threaten Quetzalcoatl.
"...The Sun shines brightly even in the distant beyond—Piedra! (Sun!)"
The chanting reached its climax. Tiamat's relentless assault was being perfectly, impenetrably stonewalled—
CLINK-CLATTER—!
Suddenly, the harsh, metallic grinding of heavy chains—a sound both deeply familiar and horrifyingly alien—echoed sharply through the air.
Quetzalcoatl, who had just finished charging her Noble Phantasm and was in the very first microsecond of her downward dive, felt her pupils constrict violently. Without any warning whatsoever, the absolute entirety of her intended flight path had been completely obstructed by a dense, suffocating web of pitch-black chains pulsing with eerie, blood-red veins! Furthermore, one of the chains had already firmly coiled around her ankle!
The Chains of Heaven!
Feeling the distinct, absolute suppression of her Divinity, Quetzalcoatl instantly deduced the identity of her ambusher.
SPLASH~!
At that exact moment, an utterly colossal, hundred-meter-tall monstrosity violently breached the surface of the black sea below, sending massive waves of Chaos Tide crashing in every direction.
Initially assuming it was Kingu, Quetzalcoatl glanced down—and instantly froze in absolute horror.
Wait... what in the fresh hell is THAT?!
The grotesque, towering abomination possessed a single, sleek, black wing. What should have been Gorgon's serpentine hair had inexplicably mutated; the lower halves had fused into massive, spiked black chains, while the upper halves remained a writhing mass of living serpents. However, these serpents were now entirely covered in dense, clustered, wildly twitching eyeballs, resembling a horrifying, eldritch nightmare. Just looking at it induced a profound, sickening sense of psychological revulsion.
If its hair was that horrifying, its actual body was infinitely worse. Its entire torso was warped and distorted, completely covered in those same, randomly blinking, grotesque eyeballs. The only place with relatively few eyes was its actual face. Aside from the two primary eyes, its face featured six narrow, pitch-black slits glowing with malevolent red light.
The physical chassis of Gorgon, the demonic nature and infinite eyes of a Demon God Pillar, and the conceptual Authority of the Chains of Heaven...
It was blatantly obvious: this sudden, horrifying monstrosity was the ultimate, twisted amalgamation of the defeated Gorgon, the First Pillar Baal, and Kingu! Having all been violently dragged into the [Sea of Life] by Tiamat, they had been forcibly fused, mutated, and "upgraded" into this grotesque, eldritch abomination.
Before Quetzalcoatl could even process the horror, the massive, central pair of eyes on the monstrosity's face—Gorgon's original eyes—snapped open. Simultaneously, every single one of the thousands of eyes covering its body bulged violently. A blinding, purplish-red magical light began to pulse intensely, like a cluster of dying, malevolent stars.
The Mystic Eyes of Petrifaction!
Using Gorgon's primary eyes as the focal point, and utilizing the thousands of other eyes as a massive resonance amplifier, the catastrophic, purplish-red petrifaction beam swept across a two-kilometer radius in less than half a second. Even Ishtar and the others, who had retreated quite a distance, were slightly affected by the outer edge of the blast.
As for Quetzalcoatl, who was caught directly at the epicenter, the effect was absolute. Just as she was preparing to swing the Piedra del Sol to melt the Chains of Heaven surrounding her, the petrifaction hit her point-blank. She was instantly paralyzed, her entire body locking up and rapidly turning to stone.
CLANG!
A crisp, piercing sound abruptly shattered the silence. The dense web of chains blocking Quetzalcoatl's path—including the one firmly gripping her ankle—were perfectly, simultaneously severed. The sound of dozens of chains snapping overlapped perfectly, creating a single, sharp resonance.
And it didn't end there. The exact millisecond that sound reached Quetzalcoatl's ears, the paralyzing rigidity infecting her body completely vanished without a trace, instantly replaced by a gentle, yet incredibly resilient layer of golden light.
[Keep going.]
Having flawlessly severed the Chains of Heaven and "killed" the conceptual gaze of the Mystic Eyes of Petrifaction with a single swing, Takumi kept his fiery, deep-blue eyes locked onto the bizarre amalgamation.
He genuinely hadn't expected the enemies he had previously defeated—and the one he had accidentally let escape—to return and confront him in such a horrifying, mutated form.
However... do you really think mashing a bunch of losers together somehow creates a winner?
That is incredibly naive.
—Furthermore, possessing such a pathetically low level of Immortality... exactly who do you think you are trying to intimidate?
Takumi tightened his grip on his weapons.
"Del Sol! (The Sun!)"
At that moment, Quetzalcoatl—her face breaking into a wild, ferocious grin—clutched the miniature Sun in her hands and violently collided with the blackened sea.