[After her initial defeat, Artoria quickly shed her disdain for Shadow Ywain and Shadow Ash, and called you all to join her in battle.]
"No need to talk morals with these monsters! They're not even human. Let's take them down together!"
[After half a day of rest, under Artoria's command, you all rallied and launched a group assault on Shadow Ywain and Shadow Ash.]
However, even with everyone fighting side by side and ganging up on the enemy, the battle didn't go nearly as smoothly as Artoria had hoped.
At the very beginning, she had already transformed into her Sovereign form and summoned multiple versions of herself from other classes to swarm the enemy.
But before her alternate selves could even complete the encirclement of Shadow Ywain, a water mirror appeared in front of him. Without hesitation, he dove into it and instantly emerged from the other side—right in front of the real Artoria. Her expression twisted in panic.
"Help help help—!"
Just as the Knight Sword of Kariya in Ywain's hand was about to slash into her face, Guinevere's Vyk Spear struck from the side, blocking the blade just in time.
But in the next second, Shadow Ywain tossed aside his sword without hesitation, reached into the air, and pulled out a long, slender silver katana. The moment it left its sheath, a brilliant blue slash swept horizontally toward Guinevere.
Seeing this, Guinevere's eyes narrowed slightly. She bent backward swiftly, narrowly dodging the arc of the blade.
Shadow Ywain moved to pursue, but Redra and Gareth closed in from the left and right, cutting off his path. Simultaneously, Artoria's dispersed selves regrouped and surged in to surround him once more.
But again, the water mirror shimmered. Ywain merely leapt lightly, slipping out of the encirclement with ease, returning to Shadow Ash's side.
His fluid combat style—striking swiftly, retreating freely—was maddening to Artoria. She turned to Banshee and shouted:
"Banshee! Think of something! You both use water mirror magic, right? I'm not asking you to match her skill, but can't you at least slow her down?!"
But Banshee's expression was one of complete bewilderment.
"Wait... what's going on? Why does that Shadow Servant know water mirror magic too? And use it so fluently... she feels exactly like—like Mother."
"Oh, that? Don't worry about sensing it. She is."
Grimm, standing nearby, replied casually:
"You're Fairy Knight Tristan, true name Banshee, daughter of Queen Morgan, right? That Shadow Servant behind them is indeed a shadow left behind by your mother."
"Back then, she wasn't yet the Winter Queen ruling over the Fairy Kingdom. She was still the savior Ash, endlessly wandering Britain in vain attempts to save it. That shadow is a remnant she left here before giving up entirely on saving the fairies."
"The past version of Mother..." Banshee murmured, slightly dazed.
In her memories, her mother had always looked the same. She never imagined seeing such a different side of her mother—like a glimpse of the woman she was before despair set in. That phrase—"before giving up on saving the fairies"—was enough to stir echoes of a sorrowful sigh from millennia ago.
But as Banshee spaced out, a barrage of Astea Meteor Showers summoned by Shadow Ywain rained down on their position.
"Hey! I didn't tell you all that so you could just stand there daydreaming!"
Grimm quickly summoned a giant fiery golem using his Noble Phantasm to shield the group from the incoming meteors, shouting in frustration:
"At least try to be useful! You're Morgan's daughter, right? Didn't she teach you water mirror magic? Then make yourself useful and try to restrict the enemy!"
"Eh? You want me to face off against Mother? Are you serious?" Banshee pointed at herself, then at the cool and calculated Shadow Ash ahead, her expression blank. "No way... I can't possibly fight Mother..."
"You say that," Guinevere suddenly chimed in, "but you've always wanted to prove to Morgan that you've grown strong enough to stand on your own, haven't you? If you manage to defeat the shadow of her past self, wouldn't she be proud?"
"—You're right!" Banshee's eyes lit up instantly, and she bounced to her feet, reinvigorated. "I'm going to make Mother proud of me!"
But just as she leapt up, fired up to face Shadow Ash, Grimm's fiery golem, already weakened from shielding them from the meteor storm, finally collapsed.
And at that moment, everyone realized that in the distance, Shadow Ywain had once again switched weapons—this time to the Song of Night and Flame.
A wild torrent of magic surged forth in streaks of starlight. Mimicking the Primeval Sorcery "Comet Azur," the derived spell "Night Comet" burst out, fanning wide with each slash of the twisted blade. Artoria's Sovereign-form clones were instantly wiped out.
As he prepared for another strike, Banshee stepped forward. A scrying orb floated above her, spilling blood-tinged lakewater in waves toward Shadow Ywain. But he simply reached into the air, drew a massive Greatsword of Adula's Moonlight, and with a few lazy sweeps, his slashes turned the deluge and the orb itself into a frozen sculpture—nullifying the attack and halting any further spells.
And when Shadow Ywain cast his next spell, the comet that burst forth this time was no mere imitation—it was the true Comet Azur.
—Yet even this devastating comet was redirected by Shadow Ash's reactivated water mirror, chasing down each person who tried to flee. Like guided missiles, they struck all of you squarely, hurling the entire team off the platform in front of the Bell Tower.
[You were swiftly wiped out. Thanks to Grimm's farewell buff, no one died, but the team was thoroughly crushed by the combined might of Shadow Ywain and Shadow Ash.]
In other words... they hit a wall.
...As expected of me. Damn, that's way too OP.
Lying flat on the ground, limbs sprawled out, Guinevere stared at the sky and thought to himself.
...Makes sense though. After all, he'd used that same skill, Elden Lord, before. He knew all too well how strong Shadow Ywain really was.
It felt like fighting a late-stage, power-creeped boss from a gacha game. Completely mismatched stats and mechanics. Even if this was just a weakened "Shadow Servant" version, not the real Ywain, it was still a monster far beyond their current strength.
The only saving grace was that he didn't have an absurd HP pool—it meant they still had a sliver of hope.
But precisely because of that, Guinevere was confused.
With this level of power, how the hell did his past self die?
As far as he knew, Ywain's end had been tragic—he and his followers were annihilated by the united fairy clans, and Londinion remained a ruin until Percival formed the Round Table Army and slowly rebuilt the city from its ashes... Even when Guinevere had lived there, he couldn't find a single room with a proper ceiling.
But seriously, with this kind of firepower, shouldn't Ywain have soloed all of Britain? He'd fought the fairy clans before—there's no way they could match him.
Even just the "Blood Lord" was enough to steamroll them, and Ywain's skillset was even more broken. Add in support from a pre-Winter Queen Morgan? It should've been easy.
Guinevere thought hard. The only possible explanation... was that Ywain got tricked by those damn fairies.
He knew firsthand how underhanded they could be—poison, assassination, dirty tricks galore. In his first simulation, the Sword Saint had been poisoned with wine during her coronation.
So if Ywain had been secretly poisoned to death... yeah, that would check out. If he'd had a skill like the Sword Saint's "Bloody Crown," which granted massive curse and poison resistance, maybe he wouldn't have died.
The only thing Guinevere didn't know was: was that version of Ywain his past self? Or had he traveled back from the present?
If it was the latter, maybe he could preemptively prepare defenses and change history...
He fell into deep thought.
Just then, Artoria, who had also been flung off the platform and was lying flat on the ground, suddenly sprang up with clenched teeth.
"This dog couple is way too strong! This is unplayable! I'm skipping the boss fight!"
She had finally given up on brute-forcing the battle and decided to use the same trick she'd used in the Sword Saint simulation—challenge Shadow Ash directly to a one-on-one prophecy duel. Shadow Ywain would go to Guinevere.
After all, their synergy was utterly ridiculous—her ragtag team couldn't keep up. But in separate duels, their odds improved a little.
Even better, if either of them won, the other Shadow Servant would perish from grief.
Naturally, Guinevere had no objections. They were just here to ring the bell, after all. No need for another forced fusion with Shadow Ywain—doing so would reduce his remaining lifespan to single digits. Unless absolutely necessary, he wanted to avoid that.
But right then, a system message suddenly popped up in front of Guinevere:
[Ding! You have triggered a Special Mission: Challenge the Shadows of the Past.]
[Mission Description: After countless simulations, you and your team once again stand before the lingering shadows of past heroes. And once more, you raise your weapons in challenge.]
[But now, having grown so much, don't you want to defeat them head-on—fair and square?]
[Mission Objective: Defeat Shadow Ash and Shadow Ywain in co-op mode, fair and square.]
[Mission Reward: All simulator system holders participating in this battle will receive a free "Soul World Weapon Pull."]
As Guinevere stared blankly at the message, Artoria suddenly went quiet as well.
"What's wrong? Weren't you just about to challenge them to a one-on-one?" Grimm asked. "Honestly, I think your plan might work... want to try it?"
"Uh... on second thought, never mind," Artoria scratched her head and backpedaled. "When I think about it, fighting the heroes of the past like that feels disrespectful. Besides, didn't Banshee want to prove herself against Morgan's past self? We shouldn't take that from her."
With righteous conviction, Artoria declared:
"So let's stick to the plan. We challenge them head-on!"
[And so, your team once again launches a frontal assault on Shadow Ash and Shadow Ywain.]
[And once again, you get stuck.]