"Boil—my blood!!"
With the chant spoken once more, violent detonations erupted again and again through the forest near the Einzbern castle.
After regaining a bit of stamina, Kayneth's presence turned even more savage. Volumen Hydrargyrum twisted into ever-changing forms under his control, lashing wildly through the woods and shredding everything that dared block his path.
He intended to drag Fujimaru Ritsuka and Irisviel out of hiding—and end them here.
Decision made, Kayneth no longer bothered conserving strength. He pulled out additional vials, emptied them onto the ground, and summoned even more mercury.
In an instant, the already terrifying number of silver whip-blades doubled, their momentum turning feral. Under Kayneth's precise control, the mercury shifted shape again and began to ravage the forest below.
Wherever those blades swept, stone, trees, soil—even insects in the underbrush—were torn apart and flattened as if a storm were chewing the world to pieces.
Then, at Kayneth's command, the mercury dispersed into countless tiny water-cutters, spraying outward in every direction to scour the forest and force his prey into the open.
Kayneth was certain of one thing: his speed was too great. Those two couldn't possibly have shaken him off so quickly. They had to be hiding somewhere nearby.
If he couldn't locate them precisely, he would simply smash the entire area—cover, terrain, and all—until they had nowhere left to hide.
"A barbaric tactic… but efficient," Ritsuka muttered.
The moment Volumen Hydrargyrum flared, he read Kayneth's intent. He also knew hiding was no longer an option.
So Ritsuka responded with his own magecraft—summoning the familiar insects he used most often—and launched a counterattack under the cover of night.
The first to appear were the wing-blade bugs he'd dug out of the old man's collection vault.
Bzzzz—!!
A high-frequency hum filled the air. Countless flashes of cold silver cut across the night as the insects surged forward under Ritsuka's control—pouring down like a flood toward Kayneth, eager to tear him into pieces.
"So you finally stopped hiding?!" Kayneth's voice rose with contempt.
"Insect magecraft… as expected. The Matou line has fallen to filth all over again."
Disgust flickered in his eyes at the oncoming swarm, but his movements never paused. As if he'd been waiting for this, he raised his hand just before the insects arrived—and snapped several gemstones into the air.
Every magecraft had strengths and weaknesses. If you observed carefully and planned accordingly, countering a style wasn't difficult—especially against a family that relied heavily on familiars.
And Kayneth, a Clock Tower Lord, had an eye far beyond ordinary magi. Combined with memories from another life, he had a working grasp of the contestants' typical approaches.
Tohsaka: jewel magecraft.
Einzbern: homunculi.
And last time… Matou Kariya had fought with insects.
So this time, Kayneth had prepared for everything—including anti-familiar measures.
The gemstones he released were three different colors: a topaz, a ruby, and an emerald. When they collided midair, all three flared with the sheen of activated mystery.
The ruby unleashed suffocating heat.
The emerald released toxic gas.
The topaz whipped up a dry, frenzied wind.
As the three forces mixed, they formed a lethal tide.
The instant that tide touched Ritsuka's swarm, the carefully cultivated wing-blade bugs died in droves—like ants drowned in boiling water—dropping as corpses from the sky. The air filled with a corrosive stench.
Ritsuka nearly wanted to curse the "old man" for raising useless stock, but it was obvious this wasn't the breeder's failure.
Kayneth had simply come prepared.
And from the gemstones clenched in Kayneth's hand, Ritsuka could tell a hard truth: Matou insects weren't going to work on this Lord tonight.
"So it's on me, then," he said under his breath.
Bang—bang—bang!
Three gunshots cracked through the dark.
Three golden beetles clung to the bullets, guiding their flight as the rounds streaked toward Kayneth's points of death.
"Again with that cheap trick?!" Kayneth sneered—yet he didn't dare relax for even a second.
He immediately drew Volumen Hydrargyrum into layered shields around himself.
The sudden mercury cover completely blocked his points of death from view. Ritsuka's bullets—and the guiding familiars—slammed into the shield and were crushed in an instant.
Worse, the muzzle flash and sound had exposed Ritsuka's position.
Kayneth whipped his head toward the source.
Ritsuka didn't bother hiding anymore. He sprang down from the tree.
Nearby, Irisviel watched Kayneth closing in—and watched the black-haired boy who had been shielding her the entire time.
Something inside her shook.
Since the day she was "born," no one had ever protected her so desperately.
In her eyes, Ritsuka looked like a knight from a storybook—standing between her and death.
Irisviel clenched her fists, wanting to help.
But before she could speak, Ritsuka refused her with a single look, telling her to keep herself safe and nothing more.
He didn't need to see her skills to know the reality: putting a newly awakened Einzbern homunculus against an actual Clock Tower Lord was suicide.
Ritsuka stared at the gemstones in Kayneth's hand, inhaled slowly, and drew a second dagger from his waist as he finalized his plan.
If the enemy was prepared, insects were worthless.
He had originally planned to chain explosions with fire-ant rounds and blast-bugs, then use the temperature swing to disrupt the mercury—but Kayneth's preparations were far more complete than expected. The gemstone magecraft had effectively created a zone that annihilated familiar swarms on contact.
That plan was dead.
A typical Matou insect-user would turn and run at this point.
Ritsuka, however, felt oddly fortunate.
Because for him, insects were only ever support.
He had grown up in the Matou pit, yes—but the thing he truly excelled at had never been those revolting bugs.
Now it was time to get serious.
His opponent was a Lord. There was no room left to hold back.
Ritsuka activated his Mystic Eyes again. The icy blue gaze—an embodiment of death—locked onto Kayneth, and in an instant, every line and point of death on the man's body snapped into Ritsuka's vision.
"So it really is Mystic Eyes…" Kayneth murmured.
The moment he felt the mana from Ritsuka's stare—felt that skin-crawling sensation of being "locked" by something that promised an ending—Kayneth finally understood.
The way his magecraft had been destroyed before it could trigger.
The wall that had been "killed" cleanly as if stone had a fatal point.
It all came from those eyes.
And now that the pale-blue eyes were fully revealed, Kayneth's pores prickled with dread—as if "death" itself had remembered his name.
His fist tightened.
A question forced itself into his thoughts:
What rank of Mystic Eyes are those?
—
Meanwhile, as Kayneth and Ritsuka faced each other in the forest, and the other battlefields also stalled into uneasy balance…
A red figure hidden in the darkness felt urgency of his own.
He watched Kayneth.
Then Ritsuka.
Then Irisviel.
"One… two… three," the man murmured quietly. "All the targets… in one place."
One night. One forest.
And three world-designated objectives had gathered in front of him at once.
His gaze turned strange.
"What is going on…?"
And unlike the red-haired man who lived for assassination, another participant arrived in this area during the lull created by Saber and the Conqueror King restraining each other.
Cu Chulainn—no longer in the Lancer class—looked over the absurd scene and clicked his tongue.
"Tonight's turned into a real festival."
But the moment his eyes landed on Ritsuka, he paused—then curled into a smile that carried far too much meaning.
"Huh. That kid is…"
"Lucky bastard," he muttered. "Guess I'm finally getting a change of fortune this time, since I'm not stuck as Lancer."
Cu Chulainn lowered his head, quickly opened the communicator Tachibana had given him, and reported to the girl who'd been waiting for news.
"Hey, kid. Found your little brother."
The other side exploded with excitement.
"Really?! Mr. Cu Chulainn, you really found Ritsuka? Where is he?!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 120)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 95)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 85)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter85)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter81)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter60)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter66)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 40
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 50
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