Both of their movements paused slightly.
But the release of the Noble Phantasms could no longer be interrupted.
They couldn't be blamed.
It was like drawing a bow to the full; the arrow had already left the string, and right then someone suddenly jumped out and said, "Wait, I'm not ready yet"—it was too late.
Especially since this unidentified object appeared without any warning.
There were no space-time fluctuations, no warnings of Magical Energy, and not even the slightest wind-up.
It was as if someone had forcibly photoshopped a person in using editing tools.
And that photoshopped person—
Her long, silvery-white hair danced wildly in the storm.
She even adjusted her stance, trying to make the angle her Cape flared up look a bit cooler.
Then.
An emerald green beam blasted up from below.
A black-red storm smashed down from above.
Olga Marie stood right in the middle, the smile on her face freezing for a tenth of a second.
"W-Wait—!"
The two pillars of light solidly blasted the figure that had suddenly appeared dead center!
"Ugh! Guh...!"
A short, miserable scream.
Then, an even more blinding light.
"What the...!"
Olga Marie clenched her teeth.
If she had descended here with Olga Marie's true body, this strike might not have been much of a threat to her, even without any defenses.
But the situation was different now. In order to prevent the world from reacting aggressively, or the Human Order from going crazy, she could only descend here in a downgraded Heroic Spirit state, her strength greatly discounted.
Suddenly being hit by two super-high-tier Noble Phantasms simultaneously, even she found it hard to parry for a moment.
"However... if you think you can take me out just like this... you're a million years too early...!"
The shockwave of the explosion expanded outward in a spherical shape. Wherever it passed, waves of earth tens of meters high were lifted from the ground, and those newly bloomed flowers were instantly turned to dust.
Spatial cracks spread like a spiderweb.
The distant hills were directly leveled.
The nearby sand was completely vitrified.
And the figure at the very center of the explosion vanished along with it.
...
The light gradually faded.
The smoke and dust slowly settled.
Everything returned to calm.
If it weren't for the bottomless giant crater on the ground, over five hundred meters in diameter and still emitting green smoke, everything that just happened would have seemed like a hallucination.
Enkidu stood in place, blinking.
They looked down at their hands, which were still maintaining the posture of releasing their Noble Phantasm.
Then they looked up at Gilgamesh opposite them, who had an equally bewildered expression.
The two looked at each other.
Silence.
Ultimately, Enkidu spoke first, their tone carrying a rare sense of bewilderment:
"...Gil."
"Hmm?"
"Just now... did we... hit something?"
Gilgamesh slowly descended from midair, his feet stepping onto the scorched earth.
He raised a hand and stroked his chin.
He crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed so tightly it could crush a fly.
"...Mongrel."
He finally spat out the word, the disgust in his tone almost tangible.
"If she wants to die, she should go die somewhere far away. Who allowed her to trespass onto This King's battlefield without permission?"
Enkidu tilted their head: "But she seems to have indeed... gone far away?"
"That's not the point!"
Gilgamesh waved his hand in annoyance, turning around to leave.
"Tonight's mood is completely ruined. We're going back, Enkidu."
"Okay."
Enkidu nodded obediently. Emerald green light particles rose from beneath their feet, and their body slowly sank into the earth.
Before leaving, they turned back for one last look at that empty patch of scorched earth.
"...I just feel like we've wronged her a bit."
"Hah? Wronged who? That idiot who didn't even figure out how she died?"
"Because she looked like she was in a lot of pain."
"She brought that upon herself!"
The voices of the two gradually faded away as their figures dissipated.
Leaving behind only a deathly still battlefield that looked as if it had been smashed by meteorites eight hundred times over.
...
Meanwhile, the various factions observing the battle from afar simultaneously fell into silence.
That kind of silence wasn't an ordinary silence.
It was the silence of a philosophical triple-question: "Are my eyes playing tricks on me," "What did I just see," and "Was that thing logically possible?"
Somewhere in Snowfield City, an underground facility.
Faldeus stood in the Central Control Room, his hands propped on the console, leaning forward, staring intently at the largest screen in front of him.
On the screen was a slow-motion replay of the explosion that just occurred.
Once, twice, three times.
With every viewing, his brow furrowed a fraction tighter.
Behind him, over a dozen staff members sat at their respective terminals, their fingers clacking away on keyboards as data streams cascaded down their screens like waterfalls.
The smell of coffee permeated the air.
"Just now..." Faldeus spoke. "Did we get a clear shot of the person who appeared?"
A female staff member wearing glasses immediately pulled up a video clip and paused it on a specific frame.
"This is the clearest video record."
"The rest... were all scrambled by the intense Magical Energy Fluctuations generated by the clash between King Gilgamesh and Enkidu's Noble Phantasms, rendering them unidentifiable."
Faldeus nodded, saying nothing.
He stared at that frame.
The image was very blurry. One could only barely make out a humanoid silhouette, silvery-white long hair, strange horns, and that bodysuit that looked wrong no matter how you looked at it.
But the facial features—
Faldeus's eyes shifted.
He leaned closer to the screen.
"Zoom in."
"Zoom in on the facial area."
The female staff member tapped the keyboard a few times.
The image zoomed in locally, and the pixels began to reorganize and repair themselves.
Although it was still blurry, certain features could already be identified.
Silver hair.
Horns.
And that face—
"Sir."
Another male staff member's voice rang out.
"Facial feature comparison complete...
87% match... with Olga Marie Asmylate Animusphere, daughter of the Lord of the Clock Tower's Department of Astromancy, Marisbury Animusphere, according to our files."
"However, due to the influence of Magical Energy, most of the features are blurred and unidentifiable. We cannot determine if it is the person herself or a Magecraft product like a Puppet."