บท 1049: 63
063 - Power of FEAR
[Reinforcement] has hard limits. Since it works by 'filling up' the openings on the structure of the object to reinforce, there's only so much 'space' to be 'filled up'. If you keep pouring, you'll make the whole structure burst like an overfilled water balloon.
The base object matters though.
On the one hand, a higher quality base can bear more 'pressure' before it actually bursts. A steel pipe can be reinforced much further than a rolled-up newspaper. On the other hand, a sufficiently strong object won't have that many 'openings' for [Reinforcement] to 'fill up' in the first place, but that's a different matter altogether. Things always have some room for [Reinforcement] and you need to get all the way into the high-level mysteries to find objects and creatures so well made, the benefit of further [Reinforcement] isn't worth the effort at all.
Perfection is an everdistant utopia, after all.
What I'm trying to get to with this, is that my body is at the level of stretching the limits of what's biologically possible. Meaning it can take a lot of 'pressure'. But it also means I'm way behind having an actual [Natural Body] the likes of Altera's or Kintoki's, so there's more than enough room for [Reinforcement], to work with.
By pushing all my physical parameters to a carefully balanced maximum, I can survive Gilgamesh' onslaught as well as Heracles could… not. If the golden bastard decided to go full tilt on me, no amount of reinforcement is going to get me out of it.
But he's taking his time, slowly upping the pressure and watching me barely survive every extra turn of the torque. [Invictus] isn't a meta-domain Perk, he has to know I won't break under the pressure. But he's still stretching this out, cruelly and pointlessly, with a smile on his lips that only seems to grow sharper everytime I fail to die.
If this isn't [Mr. Steal Your Girl] in action, I don't know what it is.
"Don't worry, Stray. You'll still die today." He holds back the next barrage to speak out, seemingly reading my mind. "It's not worth the King's sufferance to keep you alive for long term torture."
"But I'm worth the sufferance of being kept alive for short-term torture?" I taunt back, hoping to stretch the moment of respite long enough to catch my breath. "I guess that's high praise coming from you."
"I'm just toying with you, Stray." He dismisses smugly. "Having fun is no effort."
"Wow, high praise indeed." I fire back, crossing my arms as I nod to myself. "When was the last time you had fun by failing to kill someone through chucking swords at him? Wasn't it that guy who was actually a lump of clay?"
Gilgamesh freezes in place for a whole second before the smirk on his lips stretches unevenly and gains a twitchy quality.
… Something tells me I shouldn't have said that.
"Congratulations, you've just changed the King's mind." He announces cheerfully, the twitching having spread from his lips to his right eye. "Die now, Stray."
Gilgamesh' feet leave the ground as he rises into the air, golden portals lining up behind him to form a veritable wall of light from where row upon row of mystically empowered death implements show the tips of their magically sharpened blades, edges and tips.
I was right, even combined with my [Corrosion], no amount of [Reinforcement] will allow me to survive this.
Me and my big mouth.
Barbatos?
Enemies.
I emerge from underground to find myself facing enemies already prepared to oppose me.
This is not how I had hoped things would go, I am not comfortable in the spotlight. The darkness of narrow passages and forgotten hidey-holes fits me much better. I'd rather be an unseen threat, cultivating the discomfort and trepidation of my prey. The stranger amongst them, always barely out of sight, a threat that cannot be ignored but cannot be pinned down.
Initiative was stolen from me when I failed to take down the Empty One and, with it, my ability to dictate the terms. They know what I am and they know what I'm not. In the current circumstances, I can't count on their uncertainty to cripple their initiative and slow down their reactions.
But I still need them to keep their attention on me, away from the Golden One who wants to play undisturbed. Failure is unacceptable. Flight is unviable. Hiding is impossible. We don't want to die, so we need to face the enemies head on instead.
So the Golden One won't kill us… me.
As w– as I'm thinking this, the Red-Black One turns around to run away. The action is so unexpected I fail to properly react in time. They are…? But I am…?
They are scared? Of me?
But I'm just…
No. Only one is– Only two are running away. This is not fear. They have a plan. A plan that involves… This is bad. I need to keep them all here, so the Golden One can entertain himself without interruptions. Failure… failure won't be tolerated.
"Ah." I reach with a hand towards the retreating figure, taking a step forward to try and catch up to her before she leaves.
There's a loud humming noise followed by a sizzling hiss, and two of my fingertips fly away. Black smoke rises from my hand, stinking black smoke that hurts my nose and sting my eyes. I take the severed stumps to my face. They burn, they hurt.
I look ahead, towards the small Yellow One that's now standing in my way, a blade made out of red light on her hands and a determined glint on her draconic eyes. I didn't even see her move. The message in those determined yellow eyes is clear. To reach the Red-Black, I'll have to go through her.
My fingers had begun healing before I even looked, but the pain remains. That blade is dangerous. I need to be better. Sturdier, more resistant. To heat and blunt trauma. And faster, with sharper eyes, so I see her move the next time.
Because I'll have to go through her. If I don't, the Golden One… We don't want to die.
We lunge at the Yellow One, keeping an eye on the blade of red light that burns our flesh. She's fast and skilled, and her blade strikes us many times. Before we can really get used to her fighting style though… more join the fray.
The Feline One is fast and mighty, and can strike from both nearby with her wicked claws and from a distance with her arrows. The Artificial Human remains on the sidelines, throwing deceptively flimsy-looking wire-creatures at me everytime the actual combatants give her an opening.
The Purple One also darts in and out of combat with her chained nails, though she at least seems disinclined to use her Mystic Eyes again. That's good. That frees up resources to shore up other fields. I need to be aware enough to divide my attention between the many opponents, fast enough to keep up with them, sturdy enough to take the hits I cannot dodge, fluid enough to regrow anything important we lose in the process.
The Witch and the Head Wife remain on the sidelines and I worry they're up to something, but I cannot afford to try and drag them into the fray. It's taking all we have to just stand afloat here.
It's a delicate balancing act, a game of compromising and educated guesses to allocate my resources effectively so I can stay on top of the fight. But, as we struggle, as I do my best to break the encirclement, we can feel the Red-Black and the small White One getting further away. At this rate we will…
Despair and rage course through our body. In my rush to break free and catch up to them, I let my cognitive functions slip. We don't need to think unnecessary thoughts, we don't need to articulate our feelings. We just need to fight, to overwhelm the enemy before it's too late, to stop the Red-Black and the White One before they get in the way of the Golden One.
We don't want to die.
Pain, harm, fury, fear, chance, frustration, urgency, fear… our mind descends into a whirlwind of primal sensations as we dedicate more and more of ourselves to the task at hand, abandoning rational thought in favor of mindless efficiency.
By the time we recover our wits, there's no trace of the Head Wife or the Witch. Nor the Artificial Human, the Feline One, the Purple One or the Yellow One. As we register the fact we're alone, we barely notice the way the skies have darkened. The shapes of the buildings around the courtyard have blurred out and become indistinct. There's a thick mist covering everything around us, obscuring the world around and turning it into a confusing realm of twisting shadows.
One by one, I close my eyes, allotting wasted resources to more productive pursuits. My hearing sharpens to compensate, but my ears fail to catch any actionable sound through the mist. My sense of smell improves, but that only serves to make it more painful to breathe in the noxious fumes. This is no mist, but poisonous smog. Heavy, dark smoke that smothers everything within.
I'm well and truly blind within this mist, so I give up on my senses. I boost my sturdiness and recovery instead to try and endure the incoming attack. I don't know if this will be enough, but there's nothing else I can do. As I stand in the middle of the courtyard, feeling exposed and defenseless once again, a shiver goes down my body as a sense of foreboding fills me with dread.
"Hell is starting. We are flames, rain, power... Let there be a slaughter..."
I don't want to die.
"[Maria the Ripper!]"
Medea of Colchis.
Even before Jackie collapses exhausted into my arms and the mist dissipates, I already know it didn't work. This thing, this… Demon Pillar… It's still there. Diminished, but rapidly recovering. The twisting, ever-shifting quality of its presence makes it hard to tell it apart in a crowd, but it does nothing to mask it when already isolated like this.
And the fact there's something alive at all within [The Mist] is more than proof enough of its continued survival.
Truly, such a fascinating organism, if only we weren't trying to brutally slaughter each other, if only I had the time to properly study it…
And such a cutie too! Though that doesn't fit Haku-chan's knowledge at all. Is it some sort of mutation? Another layer of protection? An… evolution, maybe, towards a more pleasant and relatable nature we wouldn't want to destroy on principle? This creature would make for a fairly decent infiltrator.
But then… Why attack at all? Why not even try to communicate? Is it truly beyond its capabilities? Judging by what Haku-chan knows about the Demon Pillars, they should possess a human-level intellect at the very least.
I feel like we're still missing half the puzzle.
As I'm thinking this, the creature comes into sight again. Crumpled on the floor, pale body covered in slashes, [Extremis Armor] torn open and torso cut up like someone without an idea of what he was doing just tried to perform a vivisection. There's an extremely dense fluid that might pass for the creature's blood forming a small puddle on the floor.
And yet, it's not dead. Before our very eyes, the blood rushes back into the body, the wounds close back without leaving a mark and the creature gets on its feet again. The [Extremis Armor] rebuilds itself too, but that's just part of the Mystic Code's standard functionality.
Damn, but I do a good job when I have some time and half-decent tools.
"Well… That didn't work." Illya-chan points out numbly, looking more than slightly shaken. "What now?"
"That's some ridiculous level of regeneration on top of everything else." Haku-chan adds with a soft whistle. "I knew Demon Pillars were strong but damn, they're not supposed to be this strong. Three half-powered Servants should be capable of taking one on, nevermind that Berserker is still at full power!"
"They were pushing it back at the start, but it appears capable of adaptation in response to external threats." I point out with a frown. "I find it unlikely for that ability to be limitless, but we don't really know what those limits are and it has held its own against us so far."
"Still, it has been fighting pretty recklessly, relying heavily on both adaptation and healing factor." Illya-chan points out. "Where's it getting the power from? It certainly isn't coming from me. And hopefully it isn't coming from Fake Grail-chan there."
Sakura-chan flinches at Illya's dismissive nod but hurries to shake her head in denial. Not that the accusation had any base, Illya is just as tense and snippy as everyone else and taking the chance to get some petty revenge for Sakura's earlier passive-aggressive attitude towards Rin.
Which really isn't what we should be doing now, but I can't exactly butt in without making things worse, so we'd be better served by redirecting the conversation towards the real problem.
The creature is positively hemorrhaging energy. Even if Sakura-chan was feeding it -which she very much isn't- she would have trouble keeping up with that rate of attrition. There's a very simple explanation for this mystery, though.
"Well, since it was left unsupervised in my workshop before coming out, it must've hijacked the Greater Grail's energy reservoir for summoning a second set of Servants." I point out dryly. "It's still burning through it quite fast, but not fast enough to make a difference in our current predicament."
"Because it couldn't be as easy as outlasting it." Illya-chan grumbles, a considering gaze in her face as the fight-capable Servants confront the creature again. "Of course."
"On the bright side, that means the Grail can't go behind our backs to summon new Servants anymore." Small mercies, but I'll take solace in them since I'm not sure how well my containment measures would have fared now that my Workshop is trashed. "So that's a plot twist we won't have to worry about anymore."
"Right, right… Hey, Onee-chan?"
"Yeah, Little Big Sis?"
"I know you're not at your best at the moment, but how much can you actually do?"
"Without compromising my trump card?" Haku-chan muses with a hum. "A single strong one, I guess. Or a good pile of fodder."
"And while compromising your trump card?"
Haku-chan turns her head to send an unamused look towards her adoptive sister. "I'd literally let the world rot and die before compromising my trump card." Her voice is matter-of-factly and deadly serious, causing a shiver of excitement to go down my spine. I wasn't planning on ever questioning Haku-chan's devotion but if I ever fall into the temptation…
Well, I'll just have to remember this moment.
"... I'm starting to understand why Rin complains so much about you." Illya-chan answers with a sigh after a long pause. "Alright, Assassin and Caster are down for the count, but Saber and Rider are still at half power and Berserker can keep going for days. A single strong one will have to do."
"Avoid fire-related artifacts." I point out cheerfully, arching an eyebrow when the two of them turn to send me a questioning look. "What? The creature has been building resistance to Ecchan's sword for a while now, so I doubt heat will be of much use at this point."
"Speaking of that…" Illya continues in a suspiciously light tone. "The thing's wearing your armor."
"Yes?" Way to poke at the wound. "I still don't know how it bypassed my security measures, by the way."
"Can't you… dunno. Make it self-destruct, or turn it against the wielder or any of those countless things a properly paranoid witch is supposed to weave into their creations so they can't be used against her?"
"I no longer put emergency override protocols on gear intended for allies." I protest indignantly. "I'm trying to turn a new leaf!"
It took a lot of self-control to beat my natural paranoid instincts into submission! It's not fair that they just happened to be right this one time! That armor was for Ayako-chan! I don't need an emergency override protocol for something surgically implanted into Ayako-chan's body!
… Cursed tentacle armors are hot enough already, okay? I can do without the extra temptation!
"Is this how Rin feels all the time?" Illya groans. "If we survive this, I'm taking her out for cake. And alcohol. And Onii-chan. Preferably at the same time."
"Aren't you physically a minor?"
"The law doesn't care about physical age."
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