The towering building of flesh and blood began to shake violently as if stimulated. Blood-red eyes burrowed out from the walls of meat, staring fixedly at Akatsuki as if they shared an irreconcilable blood feud.
After a long while, a person emerged from the skyscraper of flesh.
"Aptitude Holder No. 0."
"Don't call me that. It's been many years since I stopped following the Eldest Miss."
Akatsuki looked at that somewhat familiar face, the smile on his lips growing wider. He hadn't expected to have the chance to communicate face-to-face with a test subject that used to only soak in nutrient solution; in his memory, he had only ever dealt with subjects that had mutated and gone mad after failure.
"However, this is the first time I've seen you in this form. Did you evolve after merging with Angra Mainyu?"
"No, you're not Aptitude Holder No. 0!"
"Oh?"
The man stared at Akatsuki with a gloomy gaze and revealed a smile. "Aptitude Holder No. 0 wouldn't waste so many words on me. Moreover, Aptitude Holder No. 0 is a complete mute! He wouldn't say this much at once to anyone other than the Eldest Miss!"
"So you knew."
Just as Akatsuki finished speaking, the building of flesh collapsed with a crash. Endless flesh and blood piled up within the massive air wall, and the person at the center of the meat stared deathly at Akatsuki.
"People change. Of course, this is also what my girlfriend... ex-girlfriend... right, though we haven't officially broken up, both she and I have been dead for a while, so she should count as an ex! Yes, it's what my ex-girlfriend expected."
"Girlfriend?!"
The man atop the mountain of flesh looked at Akatsuki in shock. He even forgot his current stance and immediately cursed, "Who the hell would take a liking to a blade from a latrine like you! If it weren't for the Eldest Miss, you probably wouldn't have lived a normal life in your entire existence!"
Akatsuki looked the man up and down, then sneered. "One look and I can tell you've never been in a relationship. As for my ex-girlfriend, she and the Eldest Miss were originally the same person anyway."
"What?! You actually... with the Eldest Miss..."
His voice stopped abruptly. Countless invisible threads within the air wall became clearly visible now that they were stained with blood. Akatsuki looked disdainfully at the shredded meat within the wall. "Trash. Did you really think I was some brainless idiot who only thinks about making out with beautiful women?"
The flesh within the air wall squirmed. Akatsuki's expression froze, her gaze showing a look of annoyance as she watched the man's outline gradually reorganize and reappear.
For this kind of monster that could reorganize without limit, the most direct method was to eliminate him all at once, leaving not even a speck behind—just like Saber dealt with Caster in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Unfortunately, Saber had already been swallowed by that mass of flesh and was out of this Holy Grail War.
"The King who wanted to avoid the fate of her country's destruction ended up being eliminated without achieving anything..."
The next moment, the reorganized man was shattered again, flesh scattering everywhere. If not for the air wall blocking it, Akatsuki would have had a hard time washing the smell of blood off her body even after soaking in the Pacific Ocean for days.
"Damn it! Why! Why am I still no match for you after giving everything! We both passed the final test! I am also a Chosen One who broke the limits of the human body! Why won't Dr. Night or the Eldest Miss even look at me!"
Endless resentment and curses gathered on that massive mountain of flesh, shooting straight into the sky as if to break through some shackle and reach a place that human power could never attain.
The sky turned black.
This time, it wasn't just the sky over Fuyuki City that was covered in dark clouds; the sky over all of Japan and even half the globe turned dark. A certain consciousness within the mountain of flesh was forcibly extracting magical energy from the Earth's Greater Source to achieve a certain purpose.
"Hey, don't waste your effort. According to the setting, entering the root will only result in being erased. Just like a pebble thrown into the sea, you won't even be able to cause a ripple."
"Oh, right, you haven't seen Fate, nor do you understand the relevant settings. After all, you were thrown into a nutrient solution by old man night the moment you were born."
Akatsuki looked at the maddened man expressionlessly. As long as she did nothing, this crazy man would bring about his own destruction by entering the Root—though all this was predicated on him draining the Earth's Greater Source dry.
"This is..."
Kirei Kotomine arrived late. Looking at the massive mountain of flesh, his lips couldn't help but twitch. Whether it was the students of the entire school falling unconscious or the monks of an entire temple, he could try his best to gloss it over and hide the existence of the supernatural.
However, at this moment, he finally fully understood the mindset with which his father, Risei Kotomine, had maintained the existence of the Holy Grail War ten years ago.
"Yo, Kirei Kotomine, you're here to watch the show too? It's quite spectacular, right? Draining the Earth's Greater Source with everything he's got, attempting to gather all the mysteries into his pocket to reach the root. Although I don't know what he's going to the root for, just watching it is spectacular enough!"
"Vampire, do you have any way to stop it?"
Akatsuki blinked, her gaze showing confusion. "Why stop it? Isn't the character of completing something even if it means burning oneself out quite rare?"
"In other words, you don't intend to stop it?"
At this point, Kirei Kotomine instead showed a look of great interest. "Do you intend to destroy this world and kill everyone in it?"
Akatsuki was stunned. "Hiss, I actually forgot that Tohsaka Rin and the others are also natives of this world... No choice then, I'll give up this time."
Under Kirei Kotomine's puzzled gaze, Akatsuki raised her arm and began to chant.
"Blood Prison. Crime Field."
"Inherent Reality—Infinite Dead Prison!"
When Akatsuki chanted the incantation of only two verses, an unparalleled power directly enveloped everything, including Kirei Kotomine and the mountain of flesh.
In an instant, the sky cleared.
Inside the Inherent Reality.
The blood-red firmament was like a giant eye staring fixedly at the mountain of flesh. A soul deep within the flesh was locked onto by a will from the depths of the blood-red sky and dragged directly out of the massive mountain of flesh.
A purely pristine soul separated from the ugly, deformed flesh.
"To have such a distorted appearance yet possess such a pure soul?!"
"This is exactly one of the experimental results. Maintaining the soul's purity and innocence as if it were newborn, keeping it active to ensure that the soul is not contaminated during the subsequent experiments."
Akatsuki's voice pulled Kirei Kotomine's attention back to reality. Looking at Akatsuki, a hint of admiration appeared in his gaze for some reason. Perhaps even Akatsuki herself hadn't noticed that a faint, subtle smile played on her lips.
"What is this?!"
The man's voice was panicked. Upon hearing it, Akatsuki narrowed her eyes and casually asked a question while looking at the struggling man in the air, "Are you Angra Mainyu or Test Subject No. 4?"
The man was stunned.
"I am, of course..."
"Heh, peering into my memories and simulating the limit of what you can simulate from them. But don't forget, when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
Angra Mainyu, the existence known as all the worlds evil, saw its own failure the moment it peered into Akatsuki's memories. To allow itself to be born using the greater grail as a womb, it chose an existence from Akatsuki's memories as a vessel, using some means to transfer its consciousness into that individual.
However, the individual in Akatsuki's memory was not an inanimate object; it had its own consciousness. The moment it was parasitized by Angra Mainyu, it was also eroding Angra Mainyu's consciousness.
"Impossible, I am..."
The man opened his mouth but could not speak a name.
In the depths of the blood-colored sky, countless chains like a spider's web rapidly crawled over the entire world.
The next moment, the man felt the restraints on his body disappear.
"This is..."
Akatsuki loosened her collar. "This is my Inherent Reality—Infinite Dead Prison. Here, discard everything and decide the outcome solely with physical strength. Death does not exist here; only when the soul is worn away and one gives up the hope of living can liberation be attained."
The next moment, Akatsuki shattered the man's head with a single punch.
Once the man's body recovered, Akatsuki threw another punch.
Here, death was not liberation, but the continuation of pain.
The pain of the soul being worn away was like putting a finger into a rotating grindstone, making the man so pained he was about to go mad.
One punch, two punches, three punches... As the endless fists continued to fall, the man's body was constantly restored and shattered, and his soul became weaker and weaker through each bout of torture.
However, no matter how many times he endured it, the man did not give up the hope of living. For him, having been thrown into a nutrient solution since childhood, everything else was void; only the act of living was real. This bit of pain was nothing compared to past experiments.
Through the long cycle of death and rebirth, the man's eyes gradually became crazed. Akatsuki's attacks would not stop; just as she said, under this blood-colored sky, only one person between him and Akatsuki could walk out.
The memories regarding Angra Mainyu in his mind gradually revived. As his body was continuously dismantled and reorganized, he used his last bit of strength to reach out and grab Akatsuki's fist.
The two were deadlocked in place, neither able to break free for a moment.
"?"
Akatsuki looked at the man who seemed to possess infinite strength and exerted force again. Her fist broke through the man's arm and directly smashed his head. Blood and flesh splashed onto Akatsuki's face again, but she remained expressionless.
Unlike before, this time the man's head did not restore after being smashed by the punch. A chain extended from the depths of the blood-colored sky and dragged him into the firmament. He became part of the sky, and immediately after, a section of memories regarding the man in Akatsuki's mind became blurred until it disappeared completely.
Looking at the boundless sky, Akatsuki sighed.
Inherent Reality is something True Ancestors are born with. The one before her was her own Inherent Reality, while her ability to freely enter and exit Arcueid's Millennium Castle and take any treasures from it was because she had used some small tricks.
As for what those tricks were, they were not worth mentioning.
The man's soul had vanished, yet the mountain of flesh still existed. Akatsuki frowned as she looked at the flesh that was still squirming, wanting to devour life.
"Kirei Kotomine, can your Church's Baptism Chant purify this thing?"
Kirei Kotomine shook his head. This mountain of flesh was not affected by the Baptism Chant, and it was too large; moreover, it would actively devour any living beings that approached it, making it truly difficult to handle.
"Can't you leave it in your Inherent Reality? I see that this shouldn't be an ordinary Inherent Reality; even if you deactivate it, it won't disappear but will be hidden somewhere, right?"
Akatsuki nodded. "But my Inherent Reality isn't a garbage dump. It wouldn't be good to keep it here."
Saying this, Akatsuki walked toward the mountain of flesh, preparing to deal with a small portion first.
However, when she approached the mountain of flesh, she was stunned.
Like an infant still in the womb, a figure was curled up inside the mountain of flesh. Looking closely, the skin was soft and white, with shoulder-length golden hair and a very pretty face that needed no makeup.
Her stature was petite, appearing to be only about 15 years old. Beside her lay a jet-black holy sword.
Who could this be if not Black Saber?
-------------------------------
Hope you enjoy this fanfiction if you do and would like to read the next 30 chapters in advance, pls do check out my Patreon.
patreon.com/TLScarlet
Also don't forget to give me a Power Stone if you do like this fiction. Your support really motivates me to continue doing my best in translating, Thanks!!