Ending Maker: Fate Wizardry
Chapter Intro:
This fic's premise is inspired by the webtoon titled Ending Maker/엔딩메이커 by Chwiryong and their illustrator chyan. Please check them out.
Story Starts
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Ch. 6.2 - Marauder?
I Hardly Knew Her
(2 out of 4)
'Shit.' That was all Harry could think as he stared up at the wall of muscled predator looming directly in front of him, its bulk blocking out what little sunlight filtered through the canopy above. His mind raced, cataloguing details even as panic threatened to overwhelm his senses. He didn't even know what the bloody fuck this creature was—the human face crowned by that crimson mane, the leonine body, the scattered barbs littering its body, the chitinous scorpion tail. The sheer size of it made his stomach twist with dread, and the feral intelligence gleaming in those predatory eyes suggested this wasn't going to be a simple fight.
He'd already started tracing swords above the beast whilst it stood there smiling its feral grin, the familiar heat of active circuits warming his core as he worked. He hoped desperately that it didn't have any particular sensitivity to magic—though that hope felt increasingly futile. The entire area was already magically saturated; perhaps it wouldn't immediately notice the dozen swords he was tracing just above it. His additions might blend into the ambient magical noise. It was a slim hope, but it was all he had.
First, though—before anything else—he needed to secure Pettigrew. The bastard was his entire reason for being in this nightmare forest to begin with.
'Oh—what is today's lunch planning, I wonder? I can feel your magic weaving within your body, little morsel.'
The creature's voice was wrong—so fundamentally wrong that it made Harry's skin crawl. It could speak. It could think. He'd known that from their brief exchange, but the reality only fully registered now as the words sank in. This wasn't some mindless beast. It was intelligent, aware, and it had sensed his magecraft.
'Shit!' The curse exploded through his mind even as his body moved on pure instinct. He released the twelve claymores he'd already traced above the beast, letting them fall like silver rain upon its muscled back. Without waiting to see the result, he leapt towards Pettigrew's bound form, slinging the plump man wrapped in spider silk over his shoulder—gods, the man was heavier than he looked—and leapt away from his previous position with all the strength his magically-enhanced legs could muster.
'ROAAAARGH!!!' The pained, furious cry of the monster echoed through the trees, reverberating in his very bones. Behind him came the distinctive sound of stone being utterly pulverised—the rock he'd stood on moments ago reduced to powder and fragments. His heart hammered against his ribs.
He could feel the beast leap behind him with enough force to shake the ground. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he immediately turned, ducking low and twisting his body as the beast's massive claw swiped through the space where his head had just been. Instead of retreating, he ran straight towards the monster.
The beast paused, clearly stunned that its prey had suddenly rushed in closer rather than continuing to flee. It hesitated for just a second, recalculating. But that single second was all Harry needed—he'd learnt long ago how to make the most of the smallest opportunities.
He traced two more claymores with a thought, adding a vector modification to the projection as he sent them hurtling towards the beast's broad chest. The blades sank deep into muscle and sinew. Simultaneously, his right hand wove the familiar forms of Kanshou and Bakuya into existence, the married swords manifesting in a shower of blue sparks. He threw them in a wide arc around the monster's flanks, and the attraction between the married blades created a spinning barrier that carved into the beast's hide, eliciting angry snarls.
'You insolent—argh!'
'KREACHER!' Harry called desperately, his voice cracking slightly with the strain. He hoped the Black family house-elf could hear him through whatever interference this place generated. But nothing happened. No crack of displaced air, no grumbling elderly elf appearing to extract him from danger.
He ducked low, making himself as small a target as possible as he pushed forward with renewed desperation, running underneath the belly of the beast. His shoulder ached from Pettigrew's weight. The monster cried out again in pain—whether from the two additional swords now embedded deep in its skin or from the spinning barrier of Kanshou and Bakuya circling it, Harry couldn't tell. Those married blades with their anti-monster properties were doing good work. He threw two more pairs with his free hand.
Then, without warning, the stinger peeked out from the beast's hindquarters, appearing from between its legs with serpentine grace. The barb was primed and ready, dripping something viscous and undoubtedly toxic. The liquid sizzled and smoked ominously as it came into contact with the forest floor, eating through the organic matter like acid through parchment.
Harry's eyes widened in alarm, and he immediately changed direction, his reinforced legs straining as his feet skidded on the forest floor. He turned sharply to his right, boots tearing through moss and leaf litter, leaving a noticeable gouge in the disturbed soil.
The stinger thrust forward like a spear, just missing him by mere centimetres—close enough that he could feel the displaced air against his cheek, could smell the acrid reek of the venom coating its tip—as he ran again, his muscles screaming in protest. He adjusted Pettigrew's weight, the dead bulk shifting awkwardly against his shoulder, and prepared his next move. But he'd focused too much on forward momentum. His vision flipped suddenly as the tail swept low, catching his legs and sending him airborne. His body flipped mid-air, the world inverting as his head dropped closer to the ground than his feet.
Peter flew from his shoulder. The silk-wrapped cocoon tumbled through the air, bouncing and rolling several metres across the forest floor until it collided heavily with one of the ancient trunks. The impact produced a dull, sickening thud that echoed through the trees.
Harry didn't waste a single second. His mind raced ahead to his next move. He traced more Kanshou and Bakuya into existence, feeling the familiar weight and balance of the married blades materialise in the air around him. Then, drawing upon a different memory entirely, he traced a copy of Berserker Heracles's massive stone sword-axe. The weapon manifested beside him with a shimmer of green light, appearing just where he needed it.
The crude blade materialised parallel to his body, facing outwards. Its timing couldn't have been more perfect—the roughly sharpened edge intercepted a vicious swipe from the beast's jagged claw with a shower of sparks and a grinding screech of stone against claws.
He wrapped his arms tightly around himself, tucking into a defensive position as he twisted mid-air, desperately trying to orient himself to land on his feet. But the momentum was too much, the angle all wrong. Instead, he settled for hitting the forest floor in a controlled roll, using the technique to bleed off the worst of the force. Leaves and dirt scattered around him as he tumbled. Behind him, the beast roared again in agony—the sound raw and primal, echoing through the trees like thunder.
"KREACHER! KREACHER!" Harry shouted again as he pushed himself upright, his voice hoarse with urgency and frustration. Where the bloody hell was the house-elf?
His back now faced Pettigrew's position. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder at the still-paralysed rat Animagus. Through the gap he'd cut earlier in the silk cocoon—the opening he'd made to verify the traitor was still breathing—he could see Pettigrew's watery eyes had opened. They were wide with absolute terror, tears streaming down the visible portion of his face. The man was clearly conscious enough to understand the mortal danger they were both in.
But Harry couldn't afford to care about the coward's fear right now. He dismissed the emotion with cold practicality and instead traced Archer Emiya's bow into his hands, feeling the smooth black alloy and familiar weight settle into his grip. Then, drawing upon Berserker's arsenal again, he traced several more copies of Heracles's massive stone sword-axes, this time positioning them strategically around both Pettigrew and the tree trunk.
The weapons materialised one after another, forming a crude but effective cage with no gaps between the blades—no space through which the monster, or another spider, or whatever opportunistic creature lurked in this forest, could reach its prey. For good measure, Harry traced even more sword-axes perpendicular on top of the embedded weapons, creating additional layers of protection. He was partially entombing his parents' betrayer in a makeshift fortress of projected stone.
The beast turned its massive head towards him, pausing in its attack to lick at its wounded paw with a long, rough tongue. The gesture was almost casual, disturbingly calm.
"Ah, interesting," it purred, its voice a disturbing mixture of cultured intelligence and predatory menace. "A wizard who actually has a bite behind its bark—but you don't really feel like a wizard, do you? Not quite right. An elemental, perhaps? Or something else entirely?"
The monster rose up on its hind legs like some grotesque parody of a great cat, towering above Harry as it continued to lap at its bleeding paw, seemingly unconcerned by the injury.
Harry's eyes quickly scanned the battlefield, taking stock. He could see several of the claymores still embedded deep in the creature's hide, the blades jutting from its flesh at odd angles. In stark contrast, the myriad copies of Kanshou and Bakuya he'd traced earlier were embedded up to their hilts in various tree trunks scattered throughout the clearing, their handles visibly shaking and vibrating. The attraction between the married blades remained active, each sword yearning for its opposite half.
Harry dismissed them with a thought, allowing the traced objects to fade back into motes of green light. All the while, he was still wondering where the fuck Kreacher had got to. The house-elf should have been here by now.
"Say, little prey," the monster continued, its tone almost conversational, mocking. "What's your name? I want to cherish the memory of a truly challenging morsel for once—it's been so very long since I've had proper sport. Your name shall be immortalised within my memories, a testament to the hunt."
But Harry didn't care to respond to the creature's taunts, didn't care about its games or false courtesy. Instead, he opened his mouth and began, his voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins: "I am—"
The beast immediately perked up, leaning forward eagerly, clearly anticipating some grand introduction, some formal declaration.
"The bone of my sword," Harry intoned instead, the first line of his aria falling from his lips like a hammer blow.
With those words, everything changed. The beast's entire body went rigid, its muscles tensing visibly beneath its hide as it sensed the shift in the air, the gathering of power—but in reality, it was just his inner world overlapping with reality, the feeling of wrongness triggering flight instincts within the beast. Harry didn't give it time to react further—he traced another copy of Hrunting into existence, the demonic beast-slaying sword materialising in a flash of crimson light. His hands moved with practised efficiency as he quickly notched the blade onto his bow, feeling the weapon settle into place, thrumming with barely contained power.
"Hound of the Red Plains, Hrunting," he declared, drawing the bowstring back with deliberate precision and releasing the noble phantasm. The recoil shuddered through his arms.
The instant he invoked that first line of his aria, the monster's predatory instincts screamed danger. It immediately leapt backwards with surprising agility for something so massive, creating precious distance between itself and what it had thought would be easy prey. As the crimson arrow streaked through the air towards it, the beast didn't hesitate—it batted the projectile away with one enormous paw, utterly heedless of whether it was using the same already-damaged limb. The creature's singular focus had shifted entirely. It charged directly towards Harry with murderous intent gleaming in its eyes.
Harry's mind raced. He couldn't allow the monster to crash into the entombed Pettigrew behind him—couldn't risk the petrified traitor being crushed or the protective magecraft being shattered. With swift, calculated movements, he rotated his position, then rushed forward to meet the beast head-on, redirecting its trajectory.
The creature's head swivelled frantically from side to side even as it charged, its supernatural senses clearly detecting that Hrunting hadn't simply vanished upon being deflected. The demonic sword was still pursuing, still hunting. This time, the beast diverted Hrunting with a mighty sweep of its tail, the impact sending sparks flying.
"Steel is my body, fire is my blood," Harry continued, his voice unwavering despite the chaos.
It reared back slightly, gathering momentum with its whole body as he closed the remaining distance between them. Then one massive claw came falling vertically downwards, aiming to crush him entirely. Harry met the full, devastating force of the beast's attack with an enlarged pair of Kanshou and Bakuya, the married blades reinforced—almost dangerously—to their absolute breaking point. His arms screamed in protest, muscles straining against the tremendous pressure, his boots digging down into the dirt.
The beast bore down with all its monstrous might, attempting to crush him utterly beneath its weight. Harry's ears caught the whistling sound of its tail whipping through the air towards him—a secondary attack meant to catch him off-guard. With desperate precision, Harry manoeuvred around the assault, letting the massive paw crash down into the earth where he'd stood mere moments before. He twisted his body sharply, dodging the tail strike, and sparks erupted where Bakuya—its blade forged from meteorite—met the chitinous armour plating the appendage.
The married blade carved through. Harry slashed viciously at the beast's exposed forearms once more, feeling the resistance of flesh and sinew parting beneath his strikes. Twisting his body, he landed a boot at the human-like face.
But he had focused too intently on his own offence. The sweeping attack of the creature's other paw caught him squarely, and unfortunately, he was far too late to avoid it.
Harry flew backwards at tremendous speed, his body crashing through several trees in succession. Each impact sent shockwaves of agony through his reinforced spine and shoulders—the magical fortification preventing his bones from shattering entirely, but doing precious little to mitigate the devastating force behind the blow. Splinters of wood exploded around him as several trees gave way beneath the momentum.
'That's going to bruise,' was the strangely detached thought that drifted through his mind as he tasted something distinctly metallic flooding his mouth.
The damage, however, wasn't entirely one-sided. The beast had been too preoccupied with launching Harry away to properly redirect Hrunting's relentless pursuit. The demonic sword finally found its mark, skewering clean through the creature's torso from side to side. An ear-piercing roar of fury and pain split the air, the sound so intense that Harry felt it reverberating in his chest even from his distant position amongst the shattered trees.
Harry pushed himself up from the shattered tree trunk, wincing as fresh pain lanced through his torso. His fingers came away slick with blood when he pressed them against his side—three parallel gashes carved deep across his torso, the torn fabric of his shirt already soaked through with crimson. He felt the cool air against his exposed flesh. The reinforcement had prevented the claws from disembowelling him entirely, but the damage was still substantial. His breathing came shallow and ragged, each inhale sending fresh agony radiating through his chest.
Harry winced as his body began stitching itself together in typical fashion. Tiny blades formed and knitted pseudo-flesh on his torn skin, damaging the surrounding flesh in the process, as steel slowly morphed back into flesh.
"I have created over a thousand blades," he continued, the third line of his aria resonating through the clearing.
The beast had already somewhat recovered, but growling hard, its breathing ragged as Hrunting was still embedded within the creature. Those intelligent eyes locked onto Harry once more, and despite the numerous embedded swords jutting from its hide, despite the blood matting its fur, the creature looked far from defeated. If anything, the injuries had only made it more dangerous—more focused, more furious.
Harry's structural analysis flickered through his mental catalogue, searching desperately through the crystallised experiences stored within his reality marble. He needed weapons with anti-beast properties, needed anything that could turn the tide.
The monster charged, the ground trembling beneath its weight, and Harry responded by flooding the space between them with steel. Swords, spears, axes, hunting blades—all manifested and fell like a metallic hailstorm, each one oriented to pierce downwards. The beast weaved between some, batted others aside with its paws, but several found their marks, embedding themselves deep into muscle and sinew. Still, it came forward, relentless despite the growing collection of weapons protruding from its body.
Harry traced Archer's bow again and notched an arrow—this one shaped like a barbed hunting spear he'd analysed from some long-dead monster slayer's arsenal. The shaft hummed with purpose as he drew back the string, his damaged ribs protesting the movement. He released, then immediately traced another, then another, peppering the charging creature with projectiles whilst simultaneously creating more melee weapons above and around it.
The beast's tail lashed out, intercepting one arrow mid-flight. Its claw swatted another aside. But the sheer volume was overwhelming even its supernatural reflexes—arrows punched through its shoulder, its flank, one glancing off its hide near its spine.
"Arrogant whelp!" it snarled, abandoning any pretence of cultured speech. "I'll tear you apart slowly for this!"
Harry's hands moved in a blur, tracing and releasing, tracing and releasing. His body was heating up rapidly—his circuits burning hotter with each traced weapon, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool forest air—but he couldn't afford to slow down. Each weapon he manifested carried with it the conceptual property of beast-slaying, years of successful hunts crystallised into steel. Each arrow bore the purpose of bringing down creatures exactly like this monstrosity before him, that single-minded intent woven into their very structure.
The beast suddenly pivoted mid-charge, its wounded body twisting with surprising grace. Instead of continuing straight, it veered sharply left, then bounded upwards onto a massive tree trunk, using the vertical surface to launch itself at an unexpected angle.
Harry dispelled his bow as he sent enlarged Kanshou and Bakuya flying towards the descending beast. With minute movements, he dodged the long tail of the monster as he slammed the hilt of another sword-axe into the forest floor, blade up, aiming to impale the descending beast.
But the beast was agile and feline. It caught itself against the tip of the large weapon, its legs balancing easily, as it smiled mockingly at Harry, licking its lips. Still, Harry didn't care—he dispersed the weapon, leaving motes of blue light. As it fell, he traced more weapons with their hilts embedded on the forest floor. This time, the beast's underbelly was impaled several times by the upward-pointing blades.
The beast roared again in anger. "I will make sure that your death is as slow and agonising as it can be!" It lashed out again, but this time it wasn't playing—it was significantly faster. Harry dodged at the last minute, but its stinger caught his clothing by the collar as the beast slammed Harry several times into the forest floor.
One. Two. Three times the beast slammed Harry into the unforgiving ground, each impact driving the breath from his lungs in explosive gasps, stars bursting across his vision like scattered diamonds. On the fourth descent, Harry finally managed to plant his feet firmly against the earth, muscles coiling with desperate strength. His left hand shot up, fingers wrapping around the venomous stinger that had pierced his collar, yanking it free from the torn fabric with a sharp jerk that sent a fresh wave of pain through his shoulder.
He winced as the toxic substance dripping from the stinger's point made contact with his exposed skin, the caustic liquid burning through flesh like acid, leaving angry red welts in its wake. The pain was sharp and immediate, but Harry forced himself to ignore it—there would be time to worry about poison later, if he survived long enough for it to matter.
Without allowing himself a second thought, without giving fear or pain any purchase in his mind, he traced Heracles's sword-axe once more, feeling the familiar weight materialise in his grip. With a massive twist of his entire body, channelling every ounce of strength he could muster through his core, he swung the enormous blade in a devastating arc and slammed its sharpened edge directly into the beast's leering face.
The monster stumbled backwards, clearly unprepared for such violent, immediate retaliation. Its human head snapped to the side from the sheer force of impact, and Harry could see its yellow eyes lose focus, becoming glassy and unfocused—clearly dizzy and thoroughly dazed.
The beast recoiled further, shaking its massive head in confusion as dark blood began streaming freely from the deep, ragged gash Harry's brutal blow had carved across its face, splitting skin and muscle in equal measure. But Harry didn't give it a single moment to recover, wouldn't allow it even a heartbeat to regain its bearings. His circuits flared with renewed intensity throughout his body, burning through his magical reserves like wildfire as he pushed his reinforcement magic to its absolute limits, perhaps even beyond what was strictly safe.
This was something he hadn't actually witnessed from the gigantic wall of pure muscle and barely-restrained fury called Berserker Heracles during their brief, terrifying encounter, but the technique was embedded deeply within the 'sword's' recorded history, written into its very essence. It was an adaptation of a legendary technique originally designed to simultaneously attack every one of Hydra's regenerating heads with god-like speed—the original method had been created for bow and arrow, raining death from above, but the principle could be adapted, transformed, applied to a bladed weapon with devastating effect.
"Trigger off," Harry declared, his voice carrying an edge of cold finality, and the beast suddenly began backing away with what might have been genuine fear in its inhuman eyes, even as he continued raining spectral blades upon the creature from multiple angles, carefully selecting and prioritising the target of each strike with calculating precision.
"Set. Nine Lives Blade Works." The incantation fell from his lips like a pronouncement of inevitable death.
Harry's body moved on its own, possessed completely by the muscle memory embedded deep within the traced weapon's very essence. It was as though Heracles himself had seized control of his limbs, guiding them with the lethal expertise of a thousand battles.
The first strike cleaved through the beast's right foreleg with terrifying precision, severing tendons and shattering bone in a single devastating arc. The creature roared in agony and confusion, desperately trying to leap backwards to create distance, but the second strike was already descending—a brutal diagonal slash that opened its chest from shoulder to flank, exposing muscle and viscera beneath.
The third. The fourth. The fifth. Each blow landed with absolute, merciless precision, each strike targeting a vital point with the hard-won expertise of a demigod who had slain monsters beyond counting.
Harry's arms screamed in furious protest, muscles burning like molten iron, his damaged ribs grinding against each other with every violent swing, sending fresh spears of agony through his torso. But he couldn't stop, wouldn't stop—he couldn't give the monster any quarter, any chance, no matter how infinitesimally small. He wouldn't yield. Not to this creature. Not to anything.
The beast's tail whipped towards him with desperate, wild fury, seeking to impale him one final time, but the sixth strike sheared clean through the chitinous appendage with a sound like breaking glass, sending the deadly stinger crashing uselessly to the disturbed forest floor where it twitched spasmodically and oozed viscous venom onto the dead leaves. The seventh blow crushed brutally through the creature's spine with a sickening crunch, paralysing its hindquarters instantly. The eighth carved through its throat in a spray of arterial blood, nearly severing the grotesquely human head from the leonine body entirely.
The ninth and final strike split the monster's skull vertically, the massive blade cleaving through bone and brain matter with a wet, sickening crack that echoed through the suddenly silent forest like a death knell.
The beast collapsed, its massive body hitting the ground with a tremendous, earth-shaking crash that sent tremors through the soil beneath Harry's feet. Blood pooled rapidly around the corpse, dark and thick, soaking into the disturbed earth and painting the scattered leaves crimson. The various blades Harry had embedded throughout the desperate fight remained jutting from its hide at odd angles like some grotesque, nightmarish pincushion.
Harry stood there, chest heaving with ragged, painful breaths, the axe-sword dissolving into motes of fading green light as he released the trace. His vision swam alarmingly, dark spots dancing at the edges. His legs threatened to buckle beneath him, trembling with exhaustion. The adrenaline that had sustained him through the entire brutal fight was rapidly draining away like water through a sieve, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion and throbbing pain in its wake.
"KREACHER!" he bellowed one final time, his voice raw and desperate and nearly breaking. "KREACHER, GET YOUR ARSE HERE NOW!"
This time, mercifully, the familiar sharp crack of displaced air finally sounded behind him.
"Filthy half-blood is disrupting the Most Ancient and Noble—" Kreacher's predictable grumbling complaint died mid-sentence as the house-elf's bulbous eyes landed on the scene before him. The mangled corpse of the massive creature sprawled across the forest floor in a spreading pool of its own blood, surrounded by a graveyard of traced weapons slowly fading into glittering nothingness. Harry himself stood at the centre of it all, covered head to toe in blood both his own and the beast's, swaying dangerously on his feet like a tree about to topple.
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END