Uruk, South Gate.
This place had originally been under fortification—widening the moat and erecting defensive palisades and the like.
To keep the southern jungle forces from breaking through here into Uruk, Gilgamesh had recently sent many master builders to labor day and night on the defenses to oppose the jungle's power.
But before the work was finished, half the defenses here had already been destroyed.
Look closely and you'd see the entire area had become a battlefield, a melee raging at full tilt.
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
Those were the bellows of the great dragons and wyverns wheeling through the sky, as well as the howls of all kinds of monsters and beastmen on the ground—an unending chorus rising and falling across the field.
The great dragons and wyverns chased and harried one another in the air, spewing scorching flames and gale-force blasts, thunder booming as they clashed again and again like water and fire.
On the ground, the army of monsters Rozen had summoned was likewise slaughtering all manner of beastmen, painting a scene of exceptional bloodshed.
Uruk's soldiers had fallen back behind the defensive line; amid shouts, cries, and roars they cut down beastmen who tried to seize the chance to raid in, barely holding the South Gate.
And in the center of the field, a battle of a completely different caliber was underway.
"Mya-hahahaha!"
With a laugh utterly out of place on a battlefield—no tension, no nerves, as if this were all a joke—a leopard-like figure flashed in like a streak of light, brandishing a weapon and launching a furious assault.
"Ugh…!"
Anna panted, her whole body covered in wounds, raising her scythe with all her strength to meet the predator's onslaught.
"Clang-clang-clang-clang…!"
The two figures crossed and recrossed in rapid succession, their weapons carving the air at blistering speed and crashing together with ringing steel, sparks flying as they chased each other back and forth across the field.
But that exchange didn't last long.
"Not enough! Not enough! This level can't even make my fur stand on end-nya!"
The leopard-like figure kept laughing, twirling the weapon with feline agility until it became an afterimage, the whistling arcs making Anna's vision blur—her target vanished entirely.
"Damn it…!"
Anna gasped.
Just then, the light above her head was cut off. Sensing something, she snapped her head up.
There, the enemy dropped as if falling from the sky.
"Jaguar Heavy Strike!"
Shouting a rather silly move name, the foe raised her weapon high and brought it crashing down toward Anna's skull.
"Oh?"
But before Anna could react, the foe's body halted, then, defying gravity, scampered back up into midair as if climbing.
"Boom!"
At almost the same instant, a bolt of mana tore through the sky, lancing just over Anna's head and streaking through the spot where the leopard-like figure had been a heartbeat before, then on into the distance.
"You all right, Anna?!"
Merlin stood behind, staff raised, his expression uncharacteristically grim.
"I'm…fine…!"
Only then did Anna catch her breath. After several deep gulps of air, she glared ahead.
There—
"I'm saying, isn't it about time you two gave up? I'm getting bored of this jungle chase game—though there isn't even a jungle here!"
The speaker was a lively girl in a pelt that looked part tiger, part leopard, gripping a club shaped like the claw of the same beasts. She moved with nimble grace and had a disarmingly cute face.
Yet despite her cutesy looks and teasing, goofy tone, an extraordinary divine aura rippled from head to toe.
That aura told everyone how far from ordinary this girl was, while her winsome presence lulled one's guard without notice.
At the very start, both Merlin and Anna had suffered for underestimating her.
"Can't believe that joke of a Servant is this troublesome…!"
Anna bit her lip.
"An unbelievable creature indeed—but unbelievable as she is, we still have to admit this Servant isn't a Heroic Spirit but a god."
Merlin smiled wryly.
Yes.
Strictly speaking, the charming Servant before them was a bona fide deity.
Though she hadn't displayed any divine authorities, nor was her divinity as overwhelming as the Three Goddesses or Ishtar, there was no doubt she was a god.
And she herself confirmed it.
"That's right! I'm a god, a beautiful maiden, and the apex predator of this battlefield—Jaguar Man!"
The self-proclaimed Jaguar Man twirled her club and flashed a mouthful of pearly teeth.
"Human sacrifices, be good and stop struggling. Let me prepare you properly and turn you into some delicious instant chow!"
She spouted nonsense as wild as the wind.
Merlin aside, Anna was thoroughly infuriated by this idiotic, utterly un-serious prattle.
"You're just an idiot…!"
Anna hurled her scythe with all her might. It became a razor-edged cutting wheel, spinning at high speed as it sliced toward Jaguar Man.
"I swing!"
Jaguar Man hefted her club like a baseball bat and took a mighty cut at the incoming scythe-wheel.
"Clang!"
With a crisp ring, the spinning scythe was smacked away like a home run.
"Yes—now that was a perfect hit."
Like admiring her own handiwork, Jaguar Man shaded her eyes with one hand beneath her bangs, gazing up at the scythe she'd knocked into the sky, face full of bliss.
"Take this seriously!"
By then, Anna had blitzed right up to Jaguar Man, bullet-fast, snapping into a sudden flying kick.
"Dodge!"
As if she had a third eye, Jaguar Man read Anna's move exactly. With a backflip, she slipped past the kick and sprang to a point directly above Anna.
"Kick!"
Then both her feet crashed down like a thunderbolt.
Thud!
Catching Anna just as she swept beneath, the blow slammed her into the ground, dust billowing.
"Kuh…!"
A pained breath escaped Anna's lips.
"Mya-hahahaha!"
Jaguar Man already had her club raised again, bringing it down hard toward the fallen Anna.
"Anna!"
Merlin's face tightened in alarm—but he could do nothing more.
"My mana…"
Feeling the scant mana left in his body, Merlin could only grimace.
At that moment—
Whoosh!
A sharp sound split the air.