Three days passed quickly.
All the Masters participating in the Holy Grail War felt it simultaneously—a shared, instinctive realization that the war was finally drawing to an end.
Yet for Kayneth, the Master of Lancer, his heart was filled with emotions too complex for words.
"Sorry for troubling you, Master."
Those were the first words Karna spoke to his Master after three days of absence, upon returning to the material world.
At that moment, Kayneth—having received secret alchemical treatment from the Clock Tower—had only barely recovered about a third of his shattered magic circuits. The rest would take much longer to heal.
"Lancer…"
A look of relief crossed Kayneth's face, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"You didn't hide your promise with Saver from me—that's good. But as your Master, I still need to know… where have you been these past few days?"
Karna materialized from his spiritual form and bowed respectfully to his Master.
"Master, I went to meet a few old friends and made some preparations—for a battle I intend to give everything to."
"I see…"
Kayneth raised his hand, glancing at the Command Seals upon it before turning to Sola.
"Let's begin, Sola."
"Kayneth, are you sure about this? In your condition, you still intend to provide Lancer with mana?"
"Sola—" Kayneth looked tenderly at the woman he loved. Only in front of her could he set aside his pride and speak his heart. "If my intuition is correct, this will be my final battle. For the sake of victory, I, Kayneth, will not repeat my mistakes again and again."
"Karna's Saint Graph has undergone a complete transformation in these three days. To draw out his full strength, one person's mana alone won't suffice…"
"And I've already lost the ability to fight other Masters head-on."
Though his tone carried a trace of bitterness, Kayneth's expression remained firm and resolute.
"As his Master, I am naturally responsible for supplying him with mana. Now, I'm merely returning to my rightful place—not as a genius, but as an ordinary Master should."
Watching the proud Kayneth slowly humbled by reality, Sola felt a surge of emotion. At last, she walked to his bedside and clasped his hand.
"Have you truly decided? For magi, mana and life force are the same. If you expend too much, your circuits may collapse completely."
"Then perhaps I'll have time to visit Atlas Institute to develop those so-called [Spiritron Transfer Systems for Servant Summoning] and [Spiritron Calculators], don't you think?"
"Still joking, are you? Looks like your injury isn't as bad as I thought."
For the first time, Sola smiled in front of him. Though her fiery red hair burned like flame, she had always been an icy, dignified beauty. That smile—pure and fleeting—was as breathtaking as a snow lotus blooming atop a frozen peak.
"Then let's begin."
A radiant glow of magecraft soon illuminated the room.
...
When Satsuki stood once again by the seaside warehouse district where she had first met Lancer, everything felt as vivid as if it had happened only yesterday.
"I didn't expect that the first Heroic Spirit to answer my call for battle would also become my final opponent."
A familiar voice rang from behind her. Unlike before, Karna's sudden appearance came without the slightest warning—even the Tenseigan barely managed to catch his movement.
His sharp eyes burned with fighting spirit. The crimson cloak behind him billowed under the pull of his golden shield. His radiant armor gleamed brilliantly, the ruby embedded in his chestplate pulsing with overwhelming magical energy.
Satsuki regarded him calmly. In her golden eyes flickered a faint glimmer of admiration. "Compared to last time, you've certainly undergone a tremendous transformation."
"Indeed. And compared to before, I can now sense your power more clearly than ever—Satsuki, the Demon Buddha, Māra."
"Oh? What a rare sight—so the Hero of Charity now shows true fighting spirit, and even the resolve to face death without hesitation."
As Satsuki spoke, the crimson gem on her forehead emitted a radiant glow, and a gray domain began to expand outward.
The Hero of Charity instinctively adopted a guarded stance, his golden spear raised in a familiar battle-ready position.
As the domain spread, the world before his eyes abruptly transformed.
It became an infinite plain—barren, devoid of anything. The only things that existed were the stars above serving as the light source, and the formidable foe before him: Māra.
"Don't worry. I haven't cut off your Master's mana supply. On the contrary, I've granted you permission—to draw upon the surrounding mana freely and unleash any technique you wish. So, Lancer, hold nothing back."
"I see… then I must thank you."
Sparks of fire began to scatter from Karna's body. Unimaginable heat and magical energy surged around him like nuclear fusion, endlessly amplifying his Saint Graph to an exponential degree.
A faint, confident smirk appeared on his lips.
"After all—I'd rather not accidentally destroy the world, you see."
Golden light coiled around him. With the enhanced mana supply, his power surged to an even greater height.
His once-white hair turned a brilliant crimson. The golden armor enveloped his entire body, and the spear in his hand transformed into a divine weapon over four meters long—a violet spear of god-slaying might.
His emerald eyes shifted, one turning gold and the other crimson—divine pupils radiating overwhelming divinity.
Already striking before, Karna now shone like the sun itself.
The very earth trembled under the heat and magical power he released. The gray-white Vipralopa Domain was instantly illuminated by his radiance.
Before Satsuki now stood a being who had completely transcended the limits of a Servant—reaching the level not merely of a god, but of a god king.
"Excellent. Truly excellent. You're the second Servant in this world who has managed to pique my interest. Only in this form are you worthy of being defeated by me."
At that moment, Satsuki's tone turned icy cold.
"So—let's begin, Lancer. It's been a while."
In her hands, nine Truth-Seeking Orbs manifested, and a raging storm began to form between her palms.
"With pleasure!"
Having assumed the form of the [Perfect God], Karna was now surrounded by six golden spears, while the violet god-slaying lance in his hand shone with a blinding light.
"—Silver Wheel, Reincarnation Explosion!"
"—O' Brahma, Curse Me!"
BOOOOM—
A deafening roar erupted as the two forces collided, storm and flame intertwining like two raging dragons locked in a frenzied struggle.
The shockwave rippled outward violently, and from where they stood, the ground split apart in all directions—cracks stretching for several kilometers.
With just one strike, a mushroom cloud no less powerful than a tactical nuclear explosion rose high into the sky.
The terrain within this isolated dimension was completely transformed; the ground melted into flowing magma, and the surging heat waves tore through the atmosphere. Infinite heat surged skyward.
Then came Karna's unhesitating charge!
With his newfound power, Karna's speed was utterly beyond compare. Riding the torrents of flame and light, even Satsuki found it difficult to fully track his movements.
In the next instant, red lightning flashed across his hands. Satsuki instantly sensed several spears of god-slaying light forming above her—manifestations forged from solar fire and crimson thunder.
"Oh? Interesting—Shiva's destructive power, is it?"
Satsuki gazed at the descending spears with no visible emotion. She raised one hand, and a golden sword materialized before her. Then, her figure flickered rapidly through the air, slashing apart every spear that sought to strike her.
The unleashed heat and divine destructive power exploded uncontrollably, but since none struck her directly, their unleashed energy was far from enough to threaten her.
Yet Satsuki did not relax.
—For the next instant brought forth an even greater threat: the [Perfect God] himself, Lancer.
The god-slaying spear tore through space with the sound of thunder and storm, its speed beyond what mortal eyes could follow. Still, with the keen insight of the Demon Buddha capable of perceiving all things, Satsuki foresaw the movement in advance.
Clang!
The familiar sound of steel meeting steel echoed again.
Satsuki's golden sword caught Karna's spear at the very last moment. But this time, instead of using brute force to repel him, her weapon emitted an enormous suction force that forcibly halted his advance.
"Another new ability?"
Startled, Karna's eyes widened just as a massive wave of violet energy surged from Satsuki's body.
An ominous sense of danger welled within him. Instinctively, he looked up—only to see dozens of glowing violet orbs materializing around him. From within them, he felt a strange, familiar sensation.
Before he could think further, Satsuki clenched her other hand, and the dozens of purple spheres—Truth-Seeking Orbs imbued with the power of the end—shot toward him all at once.
"The power of Vipralopa?"
Karna's surprise lasted only a heartbeat—this was not his first encounter with it.
At once, the golden armor covering his body radiated immense heat, like an endless ocean of fire. Six divine spears behind him began rotating at incredible speed.
The power of Vipralopa neutralized all elaborate magical constructs—any attempt to resist it with mana-based techniques was futile.
So—Karna simply transformed all his mana into pure, concentrated heat.
His body ignited like the blazing sun, burning with incandescent fury. The unimaginable heat was absorbed by the golden sword's gravitational pull—transmitted directly to Satsuki's hand.
A miniature sun was born before her, swallowing her completely!
Pure white radiance bloomed like a spark, filling the entire gray-white Vipralopa Domain with the brilliance of the sun.
At such extreme temperatures, any ordinary Heroic Spirit lacking solar divinity would have been utterly annihilated.
However—
Karna, now incarnated as the sun itself, looked solemnly ahead… only to see that the golden sword had vanished from Satsuki's grasp.
In its place stood a black shield made of an unknown substance.
That thin layer of material completely nullified the scorching heat and divine energy radiating from his solar form.
"Is that all?" came Satsuki's calm, almost teasing voice from behind the shield. "Is the glory of the sun only this bright?"
"To perfectly block both heat and divine force… such a thing should be impossible. As expected of the Demon Buddha…" Karna muttered under his breath, his mismatched eyes glowing with divine light. "Then—what about this!?"
At point-blank range, twin beams of searing, world-boiling light, infused with Shiva's destructive power, blasted forth toward Satsuki's defense.
"—O' Brahma, Cover the Earth!"
Faced with the concentrated, purer beam of solar divinity, Satsuki neither dodged nor retreated—or rather, at such close range, evasion was impossible. She simply allowed the beam to strike directly against the shield formed by her transformed Truth-Seeking Orbs.
The two of them, already bathed in sunlight's fury, now stood as though within the core of the sun's nuclear fusion itself. The air trembled with blinding white radiance and the sound of ceaseless explosions.
As they clashed, distortions began to ripple across the surface of the shield, its structure gradually softening under the immense heat, showing signs of melting.
"It seems the defensive power of a shield made purely from Truth-Seeking Orbs has its limits."
At that thought, the crimson gem on Satsuki's forehead flashed once more, and the Dead Line manifested—shooting forth along the path of Karna's solar beam, reversing its trajectory and forcibly driving back the Sun God's radiance.
After the explosion of energy, it was Karna—still in his solar form—who first chose to retreat. Using the force of the backlash, he propelled himself backward thousands of meters before the warning in his heart finally subsided.
"What was that just now?!"
Halting his mana release, Karna was astonished—his opponent had unleashed a technique reminiscent of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.
But before he could gather his thoughts, Satsuki was already upon him, her figure streaking forward like a storm.
Continuous use of Noble Phantasms and mana bursts placed immense strain on any Heroic Spirit—especially one of Karna's caliber. Even with two magi supplying him mana, such an extravagant offensive would normally be impossible.
However, thanks to Satsuki's manipulation of the [Brahma Creation Wheel] and her control over [Energy Control], she had transformed this entire space into a realm saturated with magical energy, allowing Karna to unleash his full, awe-inspiring might.
The two collided again and again, like twin comets crashing in the cosmos. Each impact released enough power to send a small satellite spinning out of orbit, each explosion strong enough to shatter a meteorite into fragments…
The longer they fought, the more exhilarated—and alarmed—they became.
After a series of blindingly fast exchanges, Karna, relying on his immortal golden armor, endured one of Satsuki's slashes head-on. Then, seizing an opening, he thrust his god-slaying spear straight toward her waist.
Yet Satsuki showed not the slightest trace of fear. Instead, she extended her free hand, attempting to seize the colossal spearhead directly.
That sight made even Karna's composure waver.
To try and catch the god-slaying spear with bare hands—what arrogance, what terrifying resolve!
"Brahmastra Kundala!"
In that critical moment, unwilling to take any chances, Karna transformed his spear into pure solar energy.
The moment it turned into blinding light, Satsuki's grasp met only emptiness—followed by the oncoming divine strike of the god-slayer.
BOOOM!
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