Final battle of Camelot continued yet one more time (217) (Patreon)

Rhongomyniad is the anchor that holds two inseparable but incompatible poles of the same reality. The World and the Reverse Side of the World.

The Age of the Gods did not perish overnight, there was no one event that could be considered just the absolute point of reference and cause for this event. Some thought that the death of Gilgamesh, the first king, the greatest of all, could be considered that, but that was only a tentative date, if a well-reasoned one.

After all, Gilgamesh was born as a king unequaled to any in all the earth, his armies conquered the whole world and his treasuries were filled with all the riches of the world. His kingdom became the prototype to all empires, and he became like the gods. So much so that at his death hundreds of monsters and creatures passed into legend, no longer able to live in a world where there was no source equal in its legend to Gilgamesh.

But even so, the Age of Gods, of Legends, Magi, Monsters and Heroes did not end overnight.

If it did, how would other heroes, just slightly inferior to Gilgamesh, like Ozymandias, Heracles, or how would the ‘Magus of all Magi’, Solomon himself, have been born? And thousands of years after Gilgamesh's death, great heroes still existed, and the gods still extended their hands in the course of history? Albeit less frequently and openly as time passes, until many felt that the influence of the gods on the world had waned altogether.

But it did peter out, so that people began asking, when the legendary monsters no longer batters the city walls. When heroes no longer rose to fight against impossible odds and complete great feats. When even the secretive Magi, those who felt the waning of the Age of Gods most clearly, began asking the simple question, ‘where are they now?’.

What had happened?

Where are the legendary dragons about whom legends were written, immortal gods and heroes, where are the unseen countries, powerful artifacts and hidden secret groves? The mages of the present were well aware that the legends of the past existed in reality as well. But if Avalon did exist, why couldn't any of humanity's ships reach it?

The reason was simple, and yet damning all the same.

Because these things had no place on Earth.

When the Age of the Gods passed and there was no more room on Earth for the legends, they had not died nor not died. Avalon still existed as did the great magics, the ancient dragons, they all continued their lives – on the Reverse Side of the World.

A place where the magic of legends, the creatures of yore, and the immortal gods of the past were still preserved, a place connected to the world as the reverse of a coin should be. Existing in the same place, yet they would never meet.

However, as a coin had two sides, it also had a rib that connected them to each other.

In the case of the world, it had Rhongomyniad. A tower that was the only way from one side of the world to the other, and an anchor that ensured the existence of the two sides in an inseparable connection between the two.

Also – a spear in the hands of King Arthur, the Goddess of Camelot.

In the end, King Arthur was a paradoxical creature. Being the King of the Age of Men, born after the greatest legendary accomplishments and battles, he still plunged into the legendary strife of Britain, facing dragons, wizards, witches and remained ‘the King that was promised’. The only one to be recognized as worthy of the Sword in the stone, the sword of selection, Caliburn. And the only one to rightfully bear the holy blade Excalibur, a Last Phantasm.

As a King of the Age of Men, his accomplishments kept pace with those of the Age of Gods.

Having fought his enemy and died in the legendary battle, paying his last respects to the Lady of the Lake, to return to Avalon and sleep in that eternal sleep, waiting for Britain to need her legendary king once again.

But what happens if King Arthur's story doesn't find its finale?

If the blade, Excalibur, is never returned into the waters of the lake, if the legendary king never returns to Avalon for his eternal sleep. If the epic never manages to conclude in the end, leaving King Arthur to eternally await his own end? What if King Arthur, Artoria Pendragon, finds herself trapped in eternal limbo, torn between two immutable truths?

‘King Arthur has returned to Avalon, for his story is over’ and ‘King Arthur lives, and his tale is not over, for the final step, the return of Excalibur to the lake, has never been accomplished’. In hundreds of years, Arthur wandered, existing like Schrödinger's cat, in a state between life and death. Existing in endless uncertainty, until the two tugging wheels of history can step forward, until the cogs of those wheels break each other.

Thus, a Singularity is born.

In the end, Artoria Pendragon was locked away, divided into two parts, the legendary King Arthur resting on Avalon that never was, because the story of King Arthur was never finished. And the very real, living King Arthur, who surely died in battle on the cursed hill of Camlann, wandering forever through the world that was her own and yet now forever alien. An untamed spirit on the border between life and death, fiction and reality, between the World and its Reverse Side.

Thus, Artoria Pendragon, locked on the frontier, encountered Rhongomyniad. After all, Rhongomyniad was no more an anchor than it was a tower, a state, or a way. And speaking of ‘the dividing line of bygone legendary ages and the world of men’, who better suited the role than King Arthur's soul locked in eternal limbo?

And so, Artoria Pendragon's Noble Phantasm worked in its full force. The tower, the way, the anchor, the spear, all the power holding in eternal unresolvable contradiction and with it the delicate balance of the bygone era of great magic and the world of modern men, embodied in a single blow.

The sky above the Singularity, above Camelot, rippled. And in the black, impenetrable darkness of the ruined territories around them, which had the misfortune to be outside the territories of the rulers of the Singularity, there was a glow that could be called angelic. As if from the dawning sun on an impossibly distant, unattainable horizon.

A golden light piercing the sky and the earth, and in it, like the gates of heaven, a tall, luminous tower appeared. Rhongomyniad.

The embodied power of the Reverse Side of the World, brought to a place where it was never to reappear, the human world. Cities, countries, and mountains were all petty targets for such power. The doom of the entire world was not far from fulfillment at all if Rhongomyniad was directed against it.

And that power had been directed by the Goddess of Camelot against her adversary.

Artoria knew who her adversary was, or rather, knew him as much as it was possible to know the unknowable horror from beyond the edge of this world. Ascended through her suffering and locked away as the Goddess of Rhongomyniad, she knew that the Singularity Crisis that had occurred, the clash with Grand Caster, Solomon, or whoever called himself that, meant the end of history, the end of the world, the end of humanity…

But it would end just the same, should she falter here against the horror from beyond the edge.

And yet she had chosen the path of battle over shameful surrender.

Artoria Pendragon barely remembered who she had been before. Centuries of wandering, torn apart by the two irreconcilable facts of her existence, living and dying, Artoria had long since forgotten who she had been before she found herself in this state. The oaths, smiles, tears, joys, sorrows, all washed from her soul, leaving her with only a meager set of memories.

Memories of her knights, of the Round Table of Camelot, of their battles, and of the one goal that had once led her through this life.

"At any cost, I will save my people!"

And Artoria Pendragon, summoned by mere ordinary chance, a paradoxical Servant who had come into a world where she had no place, resolved to fight again for her people, to save those who could still be saved. Utilizing Rhongomyniad, Artoria raised Camelot once more, summoned her loyal knights, and gave them the opportunity to once again kneel in her service, all for the same purpose they did in life.

To save her people. To save her humanity.

Together with her knights, the Goddess of Camelot raised her spear, then pointed it forward, humanity was to be saved from the looming threats, from Solomon and from the creature from beyond the brink. Each of their people was presented with a chance for salvation, each could come to the gates of Camelot and be judged worthy of salvation or not. After which the worthy were allowed to take their place in Camelot, in the physical embodiment of Artoria's will, in the mapped shell of Rhongomyniad, and be saved at the moment of the Singularity's demise.

Artoria, after all, had fought to save humanity, but not in pointless wars.

She lacked the strength to fight Solomon or the horrors from beyond the edge of existence, and so she chose to save what she could still save. Everyone worthy would be safe in Rhongomyniad, like her, they would live on the eternal brink between a world doomed to death and its Reverse Side, existing beyond all threats. But they would live, they would survive.

And when Ozymandias and Semiramis would return to seize the remnants of dying history, she would simply… Give them away, as one gives away unwanted trash to those who are silly enough to ask. She would have left the cycle of human history altogether.

Certainly, this would have caused the logical chain of human history itself to collapse. No force could hide the appearance of a new goddess responsible for humanity's own connection to all magic, especially during the Crusades. A time period, that even the most uncertain of Magi historians, did not classify as the Age of the Gods.

Let alone her departure with hundreds of humans along with the holy city, Camelot, gathered forever under her protection and as paradoxical creatures on the border of life and death. But so what? If history was already doomed, wasn't it her duty as king to protect those she could protect from their imminent doom?

Predictably, however, the creature from beyond the edge was unwilling to give up its prey so easily.

Having dispatched the mad servant of the Black Goat, the creature arrived to meet her, along with its retinue. A creature of illusions, akin to the noble fae of her nearly forgotten past, yet bearing the stigma of creatures from beyond the fringe, as Artoria had come to expect.

This was why Artoria had to utilize this power, her Noble Phantasm.

Initially, Artoria had hoped that she would not have to call upon the power of Rhongomyniad - the power of all the ancient magecraft and all the legends of the past that it held. She thought that she might have to, to ward off the maddened ‘Blade of the Lord’, the first Assassin who did not realize that only Artoria's actions and plan could yet save even the remnants of humanity.

But the situation did not allow her to restrain herself this time.

Her spear, glowing like a pillar of light, pointed towards her opponent, though the very idea of ‘direction’ or ‘distance’ for a weapon of such caliber was ludicrous.

The embodied power of the Reverse Side of the World, its activation alone made the Singularity shudder, and once it was used, nothing would remain. Neither the Singularity nor her target.

Rhongomyniad would destroy the Singularity completely, interrupting human history, allowing Artoria and her chosen people to retreat to the frontier of existence, shielding them from the gaze of the horrors that now ruled the ruins of the world. Her knights would perish outside the confines of her Camelot, yet such was the fate of her loyal followers. Each of her knights knew what they were doing, and if they had once been willing to sacrifice their lives for King Arthur, then it follows that they must be willing to sacrifice it again.

All Artoria needed to do was to activate the power of the Rhongomyniad to its fullest potential.

And so when the spear in her hands, glowing with golden light, crashed into the enemy, Artoria rejoiced as she felt the collision with the heavy, seemingly almost impenetrable armor of her enemy. For this meant that her plan had been executed.

Artoria's spear plunged into her foe, colliding with an almost insurmountable barrier. Magic and Will sustained her foe, even the full power of the legends gone by would not be enough to destroy a creature from beyond the edge, but Artoria didn't need it. She didn't even need to wound her opponent, or even a second of distraction.

The very fact that the Rhongomyniad had been used meant that she had won. When the tower between the World and its Reverse Side was unsealed by using its full power, Artoria had already won. Her plan had been executed, perhaps not as perfectly as Artoria herself had hoped, but faced with a creature from beyond the edge she was not going to be greedy. She was ready to retreat with the victory she had already won.

All that was needed was to activate her Noble Phantasm, which Artoria had done. Any moment now, all would come to an end.

Moment by moment, though a hundred thousand such moments would have passed imperceptibly for any observer, for Artoria, time stretched into an endless line, moving at an inexpressibly slow speed, as if each second contained a millennium. It was as if, slowly, like a giant waking from an age-old slumber, the power of Rhongomyniad was connecting with her essence. Slowly, it filled her with strength, as her spear, moment by moment, continued to press against her opponent's defenses until… Everything stopped.

For a moment, Artoria was even relieved to feel the action of her Noble Phantasm stop, for it meant that it had come to full strength and now her plan had reached its conclusion.

Before, with a start, she realized that something was wrong.

Her Noble Phantasm had not activated in full force. Had not reached the end. The Tower was unable to manifest fully into reality.

It was as if her Noble Phantasm had crashed into a wall, unable to manifest its power to its fullest, as if something had gotten in its way, and the embodied power and magic of the Age of God… Had simply could not overcome the obstacle that had arisen in its path.

Her spear continued to shine, but instantly Artoria felt as if the string taut in her mind, soul, body just broke, unable to sustain the tension.

And then came a second. A third. Four. Ten. Twenty.

One by one, the invisible threads that bound the Goddess of Camelot and Rhongomyniad, her tower, her Noble Phantasm, seemed to begin to break. It was a feeling of powerlessness, it almost felt as if her Spear had lost its strength. That she simply couldn't overcome the obstacle in front of her, as if her Noble Phantasm couldn't activate simply because… That it couldn't do it.

As if something had simply stopped its action in its path. An immovable object to her unstoppable spear, and her spear had been found wanting.

Moment after agonizing moment, Artoria felt her Noble Phantasm stop working, returning to its sealed form, before the glow of her spear faded altogether. Artoria, still pointing her spear at her opponent, was left alone, standing in a silly pose as if threatening someone using a toy weapon, pointing it at the center of her enemy's chest.

To which, slowly, the latter uttered words that Artoria could not understand logically, but whose power and embedded meaning she sensed without any prompting.

"World Class Items have no effect on other bearers of World Class Items."

***

Rhongomyniad’s power, which had not yet activated to its full potential, was silent, but a moment later there seemed to be a rumble throughout the Singularity. A wave that shook the ground as if an angry giant had decided to leave its footprints on it, and a grinding sound that engulfed the surrounding area for a long moment.

The Hanging Gardens of Semiramis, her soaring palace, fell to the ground and exploded into a small dust storm that engulfed miles around it in an instant.

And yet Semiramis did not allow herself to be embarrassed, instead, allowing an angry grimace on her face, she clung to her throne, enduring the impact to the ground. The same could not be said for Sanzang. Not having realized the need to hold on to something for the hard landing, she was swept from her seat with a surprised and indignant exclamation. And then, after describing a large arch in flight, landed on the slanted wall that had been turned into the floor by the impact of the Garden on the ground, letting out an unhappy, and undignified groan. "Ouch… I’m hurt.".

Semiramis no longer reacted to her companion’s disgrace, taking a few moments to find a suitable support for herself and assume a more regal posture befitting her title. And, having found one, finally raised her gaze to greet her opponent.

“Richard Lionheart… Few have been allowed to stand in my presence, and fewer still have succeeded in toppling my soaring palace from the heavens. I suppose you're proud of your accomplishments.”

As one might expect, Richard had targeted the throne room after his leap. Now, the room practically laid on its sides, as the Palace fell. Having traveled the miles separating the ground and the Hanging Gardens, he then just as quickly traversed the ornate corridors of the castle, finding himself facing its ruler.

It was not particularly surprising to Semiramis to see his facial expression, too, impassive to the point where it couldn't even be called bored. That is, except for the 'blank' look that one gets from people who have been through Hell and squeezed dry, left without a single emotion that they could feel.

Whatever, Semiramis doesn’t care about Richard’s story, as long as he didn't attack and gave time for Sanzang to get up and stab him in the back, Semiramis was willing to bide her time with meaningless conversation. Of course, even if her Hanging Gardens had fallen, while inside its walls, she still retained her much-increased combat power.

But, few Servants were truly prepared for a combat encounter with Richard, especially one that could match, or even surpass, the speed of Achilles.

“I would offer wine under any other circumstances, but I'm afraid the current situation does not lend itself to such an exchange of courtesies… Not to mention that taking wine from the hands of the greatest poisoner of mankind is a bad idea in itself.” Semiramis smiled the arrogant smile that had seduced all the men she had encountered before, but Richard's gaze did not change at all, a blade appeared in his hands a moment later.

And Semiramis leaped away from her throne.

Although Semiramis was a member of the Assassin class, known for her agility, she had nothing to boast about in that department. To put it bluntly, her D rank agility rather discredited her as an Assassin… However, it was unlikely that there would be many Servants capable of reacting in time to Richard moving at a speed that seemed simply ridiculous, so it was simply a moot point.

So a moment later the blade that flashed in Richard's hands reaped its harvest, the palm of Semiramis' left hand was cut in half in its center, depriving Semiramis of four fingers, but Richard himself was also hit in return. The jaws of the magical portal beneath his feet opened a moment later, and another jaw appeared, this time quite alive and full of teeth.

Richard, however, did not wait for the jaws to collapse on him and moved away, allowing the summoned creature to snap its giant mouth shut with the loud slam of an iron trap, missing its target entirely. With the ambush failing, the creature fully appeared, first its hands, gripping the edges as if it was pulling itself.

Or at least, it tried.

The monstrous creature that emerged from the black void was like a dragon with huge clawed forelegs whose body extended into a long serpentine tail, or at least it should have, judging by its appearance. But the creature emerged only halfway out of the open portal, opening its mouth to exhale a huge cloud of heavy, dense, sickly green mist towards Richard.

Basmu was the spawn of Tiamat, a dragon that spread poisons and disease across this land, the appearance of this creature alone could be the cause of a Singularity's creation. And that was why Semiramis could not summon him fully, even from within the heart of her palace. Semiramis could only summon half of his body, and for most Servants, though, that was enough.

But for Richard?

Well, even Richard needed to breathe, and as fast as he was, he couldn't reach Semiramis through the veil of poisonous mist fast enough to avoid being affected by Basmu's breath. Or, at least, Semiramis hoped so.

The pain in her left arm made Semiramis grimace angrily, but at least she wasn't going to be distracted from her opponent at this point by the pain, this was a fight, after all.

And so, because she was focussing her attention fully, at least Semiramis had time to see the moment Richard disappeared from her sight. Not that it would have allowed her to dodge his attack, but it did allow her to use her powers. A moment later, a multitude of chains ending in sharp blades struck in all directions from Semiramis at the speed of a bullet, as if trying to entangle Semiramis in a sharp cocoon.

It was a defensive measure, to protect her from all directions, and with Basmu’s poison, no one could hurt Semiramis easily.

It was not enough.

Richard's blade delivered its blow, and a moment later, a significant portion of Semiramis’ stomach ceased to exist, cut down by Richard's blade. Semiramis though found herself smirking despite the grievous wound that was dealt to her.

At the end of one of her chains, she found a few drops of blood.

‘So, for all his Speed, he doesn't have too much maneuverability…’ Semiramis didn't bother with wiping the blood dropping out of her mouth, with the waterfall of blood from her midsection, what was the point of it?

Semiramis realized that she was going to die, for all her reluctance of such a thing, so at least she could die fighting rather than licking her own wounds.

Richard appeared behind Semiramis' back, but fortunately for her, at least at this moment, her ‘guard’ finally decided to fulfill their obligations.

“Buddha's Blow!”

A giant's palm appeared out of nowhere for a moment. Semiramis imagines that this was how Buddha looked from the meathead, Sanzang's point of view. It literally dented the quick but extremely straightforward Richard into the wall, after which he was enveloped in the miasma of Basmu's pathogenic breath.

“Semi-I mean, Assassin!” The idiot had oddly managed to simultaneously give away the secret of Semiramis's identity, as if it hadn't been obvious the moment Semiramis had appeared on her floating palace, and irritate her to no end. Not to mention the fact that her identity was already known to all the Servants of this Singularity, it still irritated Semiramis at the involuntary abbreviation of her name and her class.

That and the accidental, she hopes that it’s accidental at least, referring to her as a Semi-Assassin really sounded like a grave insult. Well, that, and it distracted her from her enemy, a grave mistake to make for a Servant like Richard, but more of the first thing.

Had Sanzang not been an ally right now, and Semiramis herself not been preoccupied with her opponent, the Queen of Assyria would surely have tested Caster's resistance to all the poisons in Semiramis' repertoire. And she has a lot of poisons indeed.

This time, however, Semiramis chose not to react to her annoying ally's actions, and aimed a dozen of her chains towards Richard, who was still nailed into the wall, hoping to turn his body into a needle pad. Richard, however, quickly coming to his senses after Sanzang’s attack, managed to evade the projectiles directed towards him, and quickly leaped towards Semiramis.

Semiramis didn't expect anything else, being so close to the Goddess and supported by her mana, Richard was too difficult an opponent for her to face alone.

Richard was instantly at Semiramis's side, this time from the side lest a repeat happens, not attacking directly to avoid being impaled on the blade in front of him, but Richard was determined to take her head off.

Sanzang, who was nearby, in contrast to everything that constituted the core of Caster's class, intended to knock Richard out with a punch. Richard evaded easily, leaving a wound on the nun’s body in return, a huge ugly bleeding wound. The nun, however, did not give up and tried to attack again, to no avail, Sanzang was simply too slow.

So, stepping aside from the nun, Richard once again aimed for Semiramis’ neck… Before he stopped as suddenly as a mouthful of brackish blood slipped through Richard’s mouth.

The blood was accompanied by slimy black flesh burned by the poison, Basmu's breath, and Semiramis' carefully poisoned blades, had finally shown its effects. But that was the only good news so far. Semiramis was still peppered with wounds that continued to bleed, in the seconds since the clash began, Semiramis had already lost so much blood that she could feel her breathing becoming more labored as black dots began to dance in front of her eyes.

But the deed was done, the poisons of Semiramis, humanity's oldest and most legendary poisoner, were strong, not to mention Basmu's poisonous breath. Perhaps those two were enough to destroy a Servant of the Goddess so close to her center of power, but at least now Richard is weakened enough that Sanzang could now end the battle.

And Richard understood this as well as anyone, and so, assessing his chances, raised his blade upwards, it was now or never.

“Excalibur!”

Semiramis only had time to open her pupil in surprise, how? Why… Why was Richard able to reuse Excalibur on such short notice?!

If Richard had been in a more reasonable state of mind, then surely he would have been able to explain about the fact that being a Servant on the very border of 'mythical' and 'real' he was a paradoxical Servant. His Excalibur represented only the ‘legend’ of Excalibur, having caught the last crumbs of the events of the past and the ‘legendary’ he had entered the age of the real and the ‘legend’.

His Excalibur merely represented the ‘legend’, the ‘story’ of King Arthur. The Excalibur did not represent the real ‘miracle’, the ancient blade, created by the hands of fairies, fighting the dragons of the past, but only a ‘story’, an ‘attempt’ to repeat past accomplishments.

And an ‘attempt’ could have been made many times.

However, as if one unexpected turn in the battle was not enough, suddenly a shadow appeared behind the Servant's back, a shadowed figure holding a dagger. The dagger was at Richard's throat, soon it would end his life.

But it wasn't enough to prevent the fastest of all Servants from activating his Noble Phantasm in time, engulfing Semiramis and Sanzang in the glow of his blade. In a mutual kill, Richard would kill Semiramis and Sanzang, and the Assassin would kill Richard.

Richard was a straightforward, if, naive man. Acting quickly, he was deprived of the ability to react quickly to what was happening around him, and so the Assassin’s blade had reached him. A small black blade with no distinguishing features or stand out features cut a small scarlet arc across the Camelot Knight's neck, slitting his throat.

It was enough to kill Richard. It wasn't enough to escape his retaliatory strike.

Richard, without even attempting to clamp down on his mortal wound, turned to split the insolent assassin in two with a single blow, achieving its end a moment later.

The figure in the black robe and with the bone mask on his face was dead before he could even realize what had happened to him. Richard had only seconds left to live, perhaps if he left now, he could reach the sanctuary of Camelot and he might survive.

The Assassins would deny him even that sliver of hope.

In the next instant, a throwing blade, equally black and utterly unremarkable in its simplicity, plunged into Richard's head, ending Richard’s life for good.

As the knight finally fell, leaving in its wake a shattered palace that, without being fueled by the power of Semiramis, instantly began to turn into loose particles of mana. Immediately a dozen black invisible shadows slipped out of the crumbling palace. One of these figures paused for a moment, before a girl with anthracite-black skin and violet hair came into view, looking around at her host.

Hassan of the Hundred Faces. A hapless and insignificant Servant who had taken on the impossible burden of ruling the Assassin sect in this Singularity.

Among all the Assassins, she didn't stand out in any special way. No skills, no knowledge, no leadership, or perhaps because of that she did stand out? If she did, it was definitely nothing good.

A hundred personalities in her head, that's what made Hassan of the Hundred Faces stand out.

As a simple assassin, Hassan could use this ability to always find the most appropriate personality for each of her kills, the most appropriate skills for each situation. After becoming a Servant, however, Hassan gained the ability to use multiple personalities at once, by directly summoning them as material beings.

Someone was always watching over the base, someone was watching over Camelot, someone was organizing the refugees. And someone was sacrificing themselves, every day and hour.

Hassan was a third-rate Servant, and she made no secret of it. Even with her full power she barely stood out from the many far more worthy Assassins, and summoned with the help of her Noble Phantasm, Zabaniya - Delusional Illusion, her alternate personalities didn't even possess that.

Each of her personalities carried a fraction of her power, should she summon all hundred, each one of them would not surpass a mere trained human. And each slain personality disappeared forever, taking with it a fraction of her tiny powers. It was a Noble Phantasm that could almost be called the worst Noble Phantasm, fighting for last place.

Hassan shifted her gaze to Richard's slain form, then to the spot that had held the bodies of Semiramis and Sanzang a moment ago, she nodded her head as a gesture of respect to her slain allies. Then turning around, she canceled the effects of her Noble Phantasm, absorbing the pitiful remnants of her powers concentrated in her other personalities.

A fifth of what she possessed at the peak of her abilities, and to be honest, she originally already possessed little.

However, in succeeding at sacrificing people? In that, Hassan had no equal.