Continuation of a battle for America (171) (Patreon)

Angrboda felt the appearance of the Servant that’s right now chasing after Archer, at the same instant that Archer had tried to escape from him, the only difference between them was their distance to the Servant. When Archer sensed the appearance of the scarred Berserker, he was only a couple of tens of meters away. Angrboda, on the other hand, was tens of miles from her target.

It barely took Angrboda ten seconds to cover that distance.

Yes, she had promised Edison to obey his orders, to stand with his army and prepare to act on his orders. But who was Edison to her that she would even contemplate following his orders?

Ainz was the only one she was willing to listen to unquestioningly. And he had only instructed her to ‘get inside one of the Servants’ camps’, an instruction that she had obeyed and completed adroitly.

There were no further orders from Ainz.

And so, when it came time for a change of plans, in her opinion anyway, she changed them, that's all. If Edison seriously expected her to fit into his plans, he was definitely even dumber than Tesla described him.

Besides, Ainz knows her and absolutely knows that there exists a Servant in this Singularity that she would do almost anything to kill. Her actions were already something that he had accounted for.

Angrboda's thinking, after all, was not too mysterious, it was surprisingly simple in fact, well at least in the matter of her attitude toward humans and monsters. The way humans treated other humans is similar to the way she treated monsters, if actually a lot more kindly. And the struggle between humans and monsters was the same for Angrboda as it was for the rest of the human race. Except in this case, Angrboda herself was on a different side from the one Humanity usually took.

How could people relate to a monster that prided itself on killing people? One that boasted of tearing humans apart and devouring their flesh? That they had become famous as a ‘man hunter’?

For Angrboda, that monster was just a precocious child.

That's why Angrboda had traveled the entire distance separating her from the Servant, disregarding all of Edison’s plans.

And that's why she didn't care about the Archer, who was now running away from both her and the Servant, or the other Servants and the other battles going on around her. She only cared about getting her hands around the neck of the Servant, the Berserker, who had been blown away by her first strike.

The Servant, Berserker, after passing through several buildings, finally stopped flying like a cut kite.

Watching her target, Angrboda could see the Servant rising from the cloud of dust and stone crumbs, his bluster nowhere to be seen.

There was no sense of relaxation or even firmness in his gait; in his steps, Berserker, a Servant of great power and beastly fury, staggered slightly before his face emerged from the cloud of dust.

His face, however, was twisted into a smile, not the kind he'd shown Archer before, but the beastly grin of a beast that had just smelled blood. There was nary a faint spark of reason in his eyes left, now drowned with rage, mirth, and…  Anticipation.

“I know you,” A moment after these words, there was a sound of dry crackle coming from Berserker's sides. Leaning on his leg, Berserker didn't even pay attention to the fact that one of his legs could barely keep its straightness, bones poking out in several places.

Instead, his full attention was on Angrboda, a wicked grin plastered on his face. “You are the Mother of Grendel… No, something more, you are like the beast that birthed Grendel, but you are much, much stronger.”

Angrboda did not deign to respond to the Berserker's guess, or she did, but not in confirmation of anything. “I know your kind, monster hunter. You’re even the one with the most of my children's blood on his hands.”

“So," The Berserker took another step forward, coming out fully of the building’s shadow, and Angrboda could see that nothing remained of the Berserker's body where she'd struck. The flesh and bone were gone, leaving only a huge hole in Berserker's center torso, retaining only the small crosspiece that connected the top and bottom of the man.

And yet, Berserker still lives. In fact, he looks as if he was having the best time of his life.

Contrary to all laws and logic, the Servant, who should have been dead by now, continued to stand his ground. And more than that, he began walking forward, as if wanting to punch Angrboda in the face.

“That would make you the largest prey," Berserker smirked even more as he cracked his neck, causing the breach in his body to spurt out a rush of blood.

“Prey?" Angrboda only blinked at Berserker's words. "Don't overestimate yourself, human. You're just a light snack.

“Huh, really?" Berserker, not paying attention to the streams of blood gushing from the very real hole in his belly, held out his arms to the side, where a moment later two of his trusty blades appeared. "Well, let's see if you just bit off more than you can chew!”

Angrboda responded to Berserker's boast with a glance without a drop of mockery, but also without a drop of respect. "Don't compare yourself to me, Beowulf of this world.”

***

Four against four… along with his brother.

Karna knew that, one way or another, wherever he ended up in the world, his brother would end up standing against him. That was exactly what was called destiny.

Karna would always stand against Arjuna, brother always against brother. Great hero against great hero, warrior against warrior.

But the fact that there would be many other great warriors on his side and against him, Karna could not have foreseen.

The three other Servants on his side and the three Servants on Arjuna's side were of no interest to either of the two brothers. Whatever the battlefield they might find themselves in, they only had an eye for each other,  their battle was always going to be a duel.

At this moment, there was a delicate balance, as each side sized the other up, no one present was prepared to break it, as they watched their opponent for an openin…

A shot from Nobunaga's primitive, for the modern world at least, but so destructive in nature, rang out. Her musket, created from her pure mana, was the starting signal for the start of the battle.

Karna rushed forward, ignoring the other combatants as they did him, as if by an invisible rule allowing him to face his brother without any distractions.

Karna could not hear it being invoked, but he knew Arjuna. He knew that he would by no means cajole and underestimate Karna. He knew that right now, his lips were whispering the name of his Noble Phantasm.

Agni Gandiva, the divine bow that was beyond the power of mortals. The divine weapon in Arjuna's hands was the power of the god of fire himself, Agni, enclosed in every shot, the might of a god. Each arrow carried within it the power of the Divine Spirit, of destruction and death.

Karna was from birth clad in his indestructible armor, Kavacha and Kundala, the golden armor a symbol of his heritage as the son of Surya, the Sun God. His armor was virtually indestructible, like the armor of Siegfried or the blessing of Achilles.

Karna was virtually invulnerable in his golden armor.

But that was only true of human heroes, and every arrow Arjuna fired carried the power of the fire god. Even Karna's indestructible golden armor was not invulnerable to that power, tinged in Divinity.

He could withstand one, or even ten arrows, but what could he do if the eleventh arrow still hit him, breaking through his defenses? And he could certainly not count on lucky circumstances, not in his life, not in his legend, especially not against Arjuna.

Besides, Arjuna, his brother, was a great archer, and was not known for misses or lacking in alacrity.

The only thing Karna could do to counter, was to break through from the front to his brother, his Noble Phantasms.

“Brahmastra,” Karna whispered his attack alongside his brother’s a moment later, unleashing his power.

***

Somewhere ahead of Nobunaga, a new sun seemed to appear, and to those with an eye for details, they saw a flicker of a focused light also shone for a second. Nobunaga cared little for this fact, her full focus was reserved for the oncoming Scáthach.

Though Nobunaga has an ability to become intangible at the drop of a hat, her invulnerability was not a terrifying trap for Scáthach. Even the fact that Nobunaga had never once demonstrated her abilities before, did not make Scáthach hesitate for a second.

As Nobunaga herself would soon find out, Scáthach also never fully revealed her abilities.

And though the first red spear pierced through Nobunaga's body, Scáthach only paid for it with a tangential projectile of pure mana that barely wounded her. Instantly regrouping, she deftly evaded all the other shots, the deadly projectiles leaving only potholes in the ground and holes in the walls of buildings.

Scáthach’s dexterity was far superior to Nobunaga's barrage, even if the latter made up for her not-so-high accuracy with enormous volume of fire. Turns out, blotting out the sun was not an effective tactic against the Lancer.

While for Rama or even Cú Chulainn Alter, Nobunaga would be an almost insurmountable opponent, resisting almost all of their attacks with her ability to turn physically intangible, this was hardly a big problem for Scáthach. After all, in addition to being a master of the spear, Scáthach was also a master of magic.

And so Nobunaga nearly paid the price for her carelessness when a flickering rune spear sliced through the air near her neck, aimed eerily to behead her entirely.

Fortunately for Nobunaga herself, though she couldn’t teleport, her ability was ‘non-existence as a real Servant’, and that was enough to change her position in space for a brief moment, turning into pure mana and returning. Had she failed to notice that the rune spear could affect her, her head would be off of her shoulders.

In any case, her attack failing didn’t bother or even surprise Scáthach at all, she'd lost any ability to be surprised at anything in battle after living for thousands of years. So, retreating after a moment to plot her next attack, she rushed forward again.

Nobunaga had no particular bitterness about it, neither at her attack failing nor even at her erstwhile friend fully committing herself to kill her. In the end, they had simply found themselves on different sides of the trenches.

Perhaps the Nobunaga of the past could have done things differently, thought differently, to arrive at a different conclusion, but…

In order to become the one who stands at the top, she had to first understand what it was like to be subordinate. And if she had to fight the Scáthach to achieve it…

Well, I guess that was just fate.

***

Tesla would be the last person in the world willing to accept help from Edison, the reverse was also probably true, Edison would sooner admit that he’s a furry than to accept help from Tesla.

But against Cú Chulainn Alter, the red-skinned, puffing, unstoppable power and fury, and Rama, the great sage king of ancient India, even a long-running feud between irreconcilable adversaries was quickly forgotten.

Edison was a Caster, but thanks to some cosmic joke he fought best in close combat, without actually casting any magic, swinging his fists instead. Though his strength wasn't great, it didn't matter; it wouldn't have mattered even if he'd had the strength of Heracles, with his slowness he couldn’t hit anyone. What was far more important to Edison’s fighting capability was the fact that he had tremendous stamina and mana reserves. These factors allowed him to perform a function that Tesla was willing to force him to do, and Edison himself not so much.

To serve as a living shield.

Cú Chulainn Alter's spear was swung almost haphazardly, or rather mechanically. There was no emotion on Cú Chulainn Alter's face even reminiscent of his Berserker essence, not the frenzy of bloody rage, not the joy of a maniac, just placid nothingness. It was more akin to that of a sewing machine, disinterestedly punching one stitch after another. That is, if not for the fact that each ‘punch’ of the needle was so destructive that it could destroy entire buildings with ease.

Edison, on whom these stitch-like spear strikes were targeted with unenviable regularity, however, does not have the ease of mind whatsoever to make such an observation. The figure of a lion-maned man spinning furiously, trying to suffer as little as possible from the blows of his adversary made for some fine comedy.

It’s too bad that Tesla wasn’t able to enjoy it.

Tesla was otherwise similarly occupied, though in his own opinion he cut a much more fine figure than Edison haphazard dodging.

Rama's blade glittered as it cut through the air, the vicious swings seemingly out of place to the beauty of Rama. If it were not for the simple fact that the blade was metal, and that Tesla had the ability to protect himself from any metal, the battle would have been over very quickly. But since Tesla had the powers that he did, even while being barraged by deadly attacks, the situation was in fact not at all in the favor of the legendary King of India.

Rama's blade had no way of touching Tesla's body, while the latter was free to strike Rama with boundless lightning, methodically chipping away his opponent's ability to fight. Even Rama himself, a legendary divine king the Modern Prometheus was not a bug to be easily dismissed, and even Rama's lauded stamina were slowly but inevitably draining in his battle with Tesla.

Without help, his situation could turn dire, no that Rama could count on Cú Chulainn's Alter support; he did not see the battle as an exercise in tactics or sanity, trying to destroy Edison blow for blow simply because he saw him first. In the battle with Tesla, Rama was one on one.

And he could not win.

And what depressed Rama most about the current situation was one simple fact.

Rama, the reincarnation of Vishnu, one of the Trimurti, was defeated in his own element, lightning, against  a man who denied the divine!

He was a brilliant king, a sage, but that did not mean that there was no room in his mind for anything non-divine. Rama was, after all, a Servant, and part mortal even, and therefore he was disgusted to be defeated in battle by someone who denied the powers of the divine so vehemently. Even worse when his demise was caused by lightning, when his greatest strength carried the power of a thunder god!

And so, realizing that, one way or another, he would still be forced to use his Noble Phantasm, Rama had no doubt, he might as well use it now to gamble for a chance of victory. “Brahmastra!”

***

The name of the shot, the name of Sita's Noble Phantasm, was Haradhanu Janaka.

The giant bow, handed down from generation to generation of her family, was granted to them by the God of Destruction, Shiva. This huge bow was King Janaka's most valued treasure, as formidable as it was useless.

No one could even pick it up even less could they use this bow, even the gods themselves could not use this powerful relic.

Only Sita, King Janaka's adopted daughter, had been able to lift it from the ground, but even she was not strong enough to use this relic. And this formidable weapon, a weapon fit for the Gods., which had become the King's treasure, remained waiting in his vaults, unused.

With such an artifact, the King then proclaimed that he would only give Sita away in marriage to someone who could demonstrate an achievement no less than, and even greater than, his adopted daughter. He would only accept Sita to be courted by someone, who could not only lift the bow, but make a shot with it.

Is it any wonder that no one could accomplish a feat that even the Gods could not?

No, rather, it was so until the future great King Rama arrived. Not only was he able to pick up the bow, in his attempt to string the bow, he accidentally broke it, his strength too much for the bow.

In other words, Sita's Noble Phantasm was a bow ‘so powerful that even the gods could not use it, so powerful that the world itself would not allow a single shot to be fired from it’. Not even Sita herself would be able to use this Noble Phantasm… Or it would have been if not for Rama’s help.

Sita and Rama were separated by their curse in life and even in death, such was their fate. They were destined to never be together, to be happy, or to forget each other. And yet…

The Grail grants wishes, doesn't it?

And so in this war, if either Rama or Sita won, she would wish for the same thing as he would.

To be together again.

And so, even though Sita did not possess enough strength herself to use this Noble Phantasm, or even to be summoned as a Servant in the first place, she was here due to Rama’s sacrifice. A part of himself sacrificed, some of his strength to give Sita strength, to give her a chance to be summoned as a Servant of the Archer class.

In other words, Rama and Sita were two parts of the same whole, like two sides of a coin that could never meet each other, serving only as a reflection of each other.

And if there was any ghostly chance, no more than fiction, that they might meet again…

Sita, soft and submissive, meek and gentle wife, was ready to do anything.

Even if it meant wiping all her opponents to atomic dust.

***

Mashu, even from behind the walls of her indestructible castle, could feel the power of Sita’s Noble Phantasm. Lord Camelot was capable of even withstanding a Grand Servant’s noble Phantasm, that however did not mean that Mashu herself could.

Even when the towering walls of Camelot surrounded her enemy, protecting them from her attack, Sita certainly wasn't going to stop.

“Haradhanu Janaka!”  A moment later, she activated her Noble Phantasm yet again, ignoring all restraints or even any negative effects it might have on her.

The arrow of Sita's Noble Phantasm struck the walls of Camelot once more. And though the walls of Camelot were like phantoms, it did not crumble, nor did it show any cracks, its walls as pristine as it always was.

It is unlikely that Sita could use her Noble Phantasm indefinitely, but in a confrontation between a powerful Servant, who received some of Rama's own powers, and a random unknown girl, no one would bet on the latter winning.

For their part, Medea and Cú Chulainn, who knew that thanks to Ainz' mana, Mashu could hold her Noble Phantasm almost indefinitely, had no leeway to tell their allies about it. And so, the first to react to the confusion that had arisen on the battlefield was Saber.

The huge, muscular figure of the warrior, with the scar on his chest as if left by a wild beast, and short blue hair, rushed forward, a blade flashing in his hand… It was probably a blade? The weapon that appeared in his hand was not much inferior in its grotesqueness to the swords of Beowulf.

It was more a drill set on a sword’s hilt than an actual sword, but Nero, who a moment later took the blow of that weapon on her blade, did not care for its appearance at all.

“What horror, no aesthetics ~ umu!” - Or cared, considering that it was Nero.

However, Saber failed to build on the success of his surprise attack. A moment later, he was forced to duck to the side, dodging on pure instinct from the bullet that tore through where his head had been a moment before.

Henry Antrim, the boy in the cowboy hat that was holding the smoking revolver, smiled only slightly at his missed shot before seeing a spear moving toward his neck.

The young Servant, who looked like he stepped right off of a playboy poster, except aimed at a different demographic altogether, with a mole just above the corner of his mouth, looked so… enticing. So much so that he almost let himself be skewered by the spear. In more ways than one.

“DON'T SLEEP!” A slap from Florence caused him to fall to the ground and shake off his obsession, seeing Berserker in her red camisole holding the young man's spear that had almost killed Henry. “A PATIENT IS STILL JUST A PATIENT!”

A moment later, a revolver appeared in Florence's hand, a much more primitive design than Henry's, but still just as powerful.

The Lancer with the distinguished appearance had to retreat, but Henry's gaze was immediately fixed on a different Lancer, one with long golden hair and a look not at all as attractive as the other Lancer of the past. More importantly, whose spear was already headed for Florence's back. Henry, however, did not fail to react, instantly firing his revolver, forcing that Lancer to halt his attack.

A moment later, Henry felt a slight chill, which a moment later turned into a dreadful ice creeping inside him. His gaze locked on Medea, who, with her cold gaze directed at him, continued to utter spell after spell after spell in his direction. That, at the distance he’s at, sounds more like a curse.

A moment later, though, when Henry was almost completely subsumed by the chill, it was as if a scalding heat touched his body, saving him. As he turned around only to see the silent Caster, the tall Indian, only smiling silently at him, while the smoke from his pipe, smoked in the middle of the battlefield, enveloped Henry's body, interrupting the actions of Medea's magic.

For long, that would remain the case however, was questionable, as the Indian was struck by Archer's arrow, who had returned to the battlefield. The young fellow in green cloak certainly did not want to be drawn into the fight, but he had reasoned that the faster he could get the fighting done with, the faster he could return to his state of idleness.

“Colonel Olcott! Your time has come!" As if to add to the chaotic melee, the young voice of a girl sitting on the shoulders of a huge Servant caused Henry to shift his gaze again.

The young girl seemed ridiculously small when compared to the huge Servant, the comical sight almost making Henry guffaw out loud. Thankfully his sense of self-preservation stopped him from insulting the prospective ally, as a moment later the magic that the small girl had cast was released, making Henry forget any taunts he might have wanted to send her way.

Though Henry was a Servant that had lived extremely close to modern times, and thus had no great knowledge of magecraft, he could appreciate a light show. The magic seal that had appeared out of thin air was so majestic that it even made him want to take a closer look.

His reverie, only broken when he managed to catch Medea's voice. “What…  Who thought of assembling such a seal?!”

He didn't manage to react to that though, because a moment later he had to cover his eyes, which were stabbed by the bright laser light hitting Medea's figure.

On the other side of the battlefield, Cú Chulainn didn’t have better luck as he looked at the face of the huge Servant, Bunyan. Her gigantic cherub-like face would make for an amusing sight, especially when she frowned, that is, if not for the gigantic leg now swinging to crush his face in.

The strike, while lacking any martial acuity, and telegraphed to hell and back, did not lack any destructive force, her sheer size making the amateurish strike into one that could end any fight.

However, before he could even appreciate the sight of a building sized leg aimed at his face, a projectile slammed into Cú Chulainn's body.

More accurately, Cú Chulainn regarded it as a projectile. A quick glance confirmed to him that it was in fact a magic doll summoned by Blavatsky. The small automated drone is half the size of his arm, looking as if it were a plush doll dressed in an outdated police uniform of an old man.

A moment later, the doll in Cú Chulainn's hands exploded.

Had it not been for his speedy reaction, which instantly shielded him from the blast with magic, it might have been the third time that Cú Chulainn would have died in the Singularities.

Which is just inhumane.

The doll wasn't the only one of its ilk, however, instantly Cú Chulainn could see dozens of flickering dots in the sky falling towards him, and he cursed.

“Go, my soldiers!" Never in the past had Cú Chulainn been so pleased to hear Medb's voice calling to her soldiers with gushing boastfulness. "Go!”

Cú Chulainn didn't even have to look to know what was happening behind him.

Medb and her sorcerer's tricks… Or was it more her feminine wiles?

Though Medb herself wasn't a magus of any renown, that didn't mean that she didn't know a trick or two. And so, right now, Cú Chulainn knew that she had just pricked her finger, and from every drip of her blood rose soldiers.

Unreasonable homunculi they might be, of flesh but without blood, their heads beat only one thought: ‘To fight for their queen’. Even without the battles, they would still die after only a few days, as the magic-generated puppets live short lives anyway, but now their help was invaluable.

As meat shields if nothing else.

“Medb!" Cú Chulainn turned to Medb, who was spawning more and more soldiers, rushing into battle with Blavatsky's army. "I need help getting to the big one!”

“Sure, my dear!" Medb immediately turned to Cú Chulainn with the most enchanting of smiles. "I'll give you a ride in my chariot!”

Cú Chulainn could scarcely refrain from making a joke about riding her, with or without any chariot involved.

Well, no, actually, Medb would be the last girl he would ever address with such an offer. Even if he knew for sure that she would accept it. Because he definitely knows that she would accept it, now that he thinks about it…

At this particular moment, however, sending a spell somewhere in the direction of the advancing army of golems rushing toward Medb, Cú Chulainn was engrossed with another more important thing.

When was Ainz planning to intervene in this mess?!

***

Ainz took three more pictures, nodding in satisfaction to himself at their quality.

The Taj Mahal was done with, next in line was, um… Probably Nijo Castle?