"Sure enough, in the Holy Grail War, swordsmen are very common... isn't it?"
Regarding Ayaka who confirmed this to herself, Rin took a tactful approach.
"I saw him standing in a police car giving a speech before, and I thought there was something wrong with my eyes and head."
"...That's it..."
Ayaka immediately understood what she meant and sighed deeply.
On the other side, the swordsman remembered something and spoke.
"Oh, so...it's almost time to prepare for the repair costs of the opera house."
However, she only said half of what she said before she stopped abruptly.
A strange chill passed through the bodies of everyone present.
"……What's wrong?"
"Be careful!"
The person who warned everyone was a young man named Sfen.
"Now...the smell around me has begun to reverse."
Although she didn't know much about the so-called smell, Ayaka could understand what happened.
"Is this coming from the southwest?"
The squinting swordsman warned everyone around him.
"Yeah, my magician also issued a warning."
"This underground...has received some kind of invasion...no...is it being swallowed up?"
············
The upper area of the Temple of Ishtar.
■■■■Start turning the world upside down.
It is obviously different from black smoke and fog.
Rather than emerging, it is better to say that the surrounding light is sucked into a single point, and as it penetrates into the temple, it expands the realm of darkness.
Darkness surrounded Ishtar, snatching all light from his sight.
With even the flow of wind that touched the skin disappearing, a black sharp blade was approaching from Ishtar's back.
But - the attack was easily neutralized.
Part of the wall of Ishtar's temple was controlled by 'charm', and Ishtar resisted the invisible blade while remaining motionless.
The sound of the blade bouncing off the wall was sucked into the darkness, and the two sharp blades approached Ishtar from completely different directions at the same time.
However, it cannot be touched.
Ishtar still did not move, using the stones and decorations floating in the air around him due to the charm effect to block the blade's combo attacks.
The blade of darkness released by the assassin has no concept of thickness. Logically speaking, whether it is a steel shield or the armor of a chariot, the blade can penetrate and take away the opponent's life.
If you are a heroic spirit or a magician with strong magic defense, you can resist this kind of attack. So far, the battle between heroic spirits is within the scope of common sense.
However, the wave of secret attacks did not stop.
After the two blows were sent out at the same time, the invisible blade struck at the goddess's head, feet and back at the same time.
There were three collision sounds and he was sucked into darkness again.
Before the sound completely disappeared, the four slashes attacked Ishtar.
However, it cannot be touched.
Five slashes.
Six thrusts.
Ten Blades.
twenty.
one hundred.
one thousand.
In the end, the assassin used all-round attacks. Not only the stones and decorations, but also the air itself, or the laws of physics, were charmed by the goddess, eliminating the cause and effect of the blade touching her skin from the world.
If the opponent is an ordinary heroic spirit, such an attack should have turned the opponent's spiritual base into darkness.
However, even though the person in front of me is just a remnant stained by this world, it is still a part of God's divinity that remains in this world.
There is no existence that a heroic spirit can deal with.
"I thought you were going to do some trick... What a boring trick."
In the darkness, Ishtar told the assassin.
"Do you think that by hiding my figure and voice in the shadows, I won't be able to cast my charm on the surrounding people? It's useless. My charm has nothing to do with the five senses. Because the world is destined to be charmed by my presence."
The 'shadow' caused the color and brilliance of the space itself to disappear, and the area expanded accordingly. Ishtar raised his hands, intending to disperse it.
"You are so arrogant, the boatman of the dark world."
The words spoken by the goddess have transcended the category of words and spirits and become the principles of the world itself.
"If the opponent is an ordinary heroic spirit, he should be able to understand it to some extent. If you are determined, you might be able to kill the master without being discovered by the servants. For example, I don't think about that Avenger who looks too strong.
I know very well whether you can deal with him, but his master is a human, so you should be able to deal with him with this trick."
It does not matter whether this is a human ideal or an ideal of other animals and plants.
The words of the goddess are ideal for the surface of the planet.
"but……"
The goddess Ishtar said that crows are white, so black crows will disappear from the world.
As a result, even if the crow species disappeared from the earth, no one would notice.
"Don't think that there is a realm of shadows in front of the sky."
In the form of negating the seeping darkness, light appeared in the passage leading to the temple.
Blue, clear light.
A firmament was formed on the ground, and a star-like, light-colored and dazzling light illuminated everything around it.
And——a shadow appeared in the light.
"You look much better now."
It was an assassin wearing a skull mask, and his body was penetrated by countless lapis lazuli stones that had been reorganized into blade forms.
His spiritual core was shattered, and he could no longer feel the pulse of being a heroic spirit.
"It seems that it is your ears that hear the evening bell, right?"
Shadow is a shadow, a phenomenon, and therefore cannot exist in light itself.
Not from the eyeballs but from the world itself, the assassin tried his best to steal the light, but was easily defeated by the power of the goddess.
Or rather, that’s what the goddess thinks——
The goddess has a fundamental misunderstanding.
The assassin's expanding shadow.
Invisible slashes that appeared countless times.
This is definitely not the nature of this assassin.
"...?"
The expression on the goddess Ishtar's face disappeared.
At this time, he finally noticed something unusual.
The feeling of destroying the assassin's spiritual core is unmistakable.
However, no fragments of the spiritual base's collapse can be seen.
No, it’s not just that—
First it was doubt, then a little wavering, and finally turned into bitter anxiety. The goddess's expression and demeanor changed.
"Are you... intending to distort 'reason'?"
"No."
The shadowy assassin made a sound.
The voice of the person who was supposed to be dead rang out.
The spiritual core was shattered, and the voice of a person who should not exist whispered in Ishtar's ear.
The voice coming from the goddess's ears is like the reverberation of a whisper somewhere in the distant past. Because of the distance, it reaches the goddess's ears in layers (valley echo).
"I will end here the (temporary) journey of the Servant who was burned as a copy."
The words should be spoken completely new, but it gives the impression that they are words that were told a long time ago.
"...!"
"Borrowing a fragment of the infinite shadow, now is the moment to return to the realm of Youming"