Despair Savior + Kaio-ken, So-Called Power!

You used the special item, Inner Dead Sea Scrolls.

Key item, Spear of Longinus, missing.

Key existence, Apostle, missing.

Full ritual deployment failed...

Ritual... abnormal.

You activated third-tier Destiny: Life Stripping. You granted the character Gilgamesh the new trait Adam. Trait compatibility: 56%.

You granted the Noble Phantasm Ea, Sword of Rupture the new trait World Tree. Trait compatibility: 73%.

You granted the character White Face the new trait Lilith. Trait compatibility: 59%.

Ritual: Human Instrumentality Project deployed. Effect greatly reduced.

A string of notifications cascaded across the Space Panel like a waterfall.

"How dare a lowly thing like you…"

"What is this?!"

The entwined consciousnesses were still deeply merging. Using the Dead Sea Scrolls, White Face made herself into the sacrifice—or rather, used her incomplete personality as a catalyst.

She dissolved her Wall of Heart and voluntarily fused with Gilgamesh.

A trace of regret lingered in White Face’s heart. Under the effects of her third-tier Destiny: Life Stripping, this ritual should have been far more perfect.

That was why she had not rushed to kill the Servants and Masters. She had even spared Qiu Luo, Man-eating Flower, and the others.

All for the sake of perfectly deploying the ultimate barrier.

She could use powerful Heroic Spirit Servants, reincarnators, Masters, and magi to gather ten coordinate entities, including herself and Gilgamesh’s fusion.

They would ultimately form the shape of the Kabbalah Tree of Life and, like its deployment in EVA, activate a near-perfect Human Instrumentality Project, reversing and dissolving the Walls of Heart of every human on the planet in one stroke.

She would turn all humanity into LCL Fluid—orange juice—and use that to ascend completely into godhood, becoming a… god who surpassed individual humans, Apostles, and demigods!

Even in the Infinite Dimensional World, such an existence could not be called invincible. But by utterly transcending ordinary lifeforms, she would gain the possibility of seizing all power in this world.

She would ascend in a single step, nearly completing the entire Stairway of Spirit and Flesh.

Unfortunately, Root Shiki had appeared…

Thump, thump…

Beneath the ocean of "orange juice," violent heartbeats pulsed like fetal movements. The next instant, a colossal humanoid figure was born from the Soup of Life.

It was a human-shaped being, snow-white from head to toe, with short hair. Half its face was delicate and beautiful, the other half valiant and heroic, and it continued to squirm and change.

With a single motion of rising, its body exceeded ten thousand meters, towering into the clouds as the cloud layer drifted beneath it.

White Face had no choice but to lower her head. Her eyes had become like red gemstones. Because they were so enormous, the humans still left in the city—those whose Walls of Heart, their sense of self, were thicker and who clutched their heads, refusing to merge into the Soup of Life—could look up and see crystalline structures within those pupils.

Those were the eyes of a demigod, utterly devoid of human emotion.

White Face kept lowering her head. The next instant, an invisible barrier appeared, only to be pierced apart in an instant by the intense force field before her.

Crack—snap!

The enormous barrier over Fuyuki City shattered. White Face’s excessively huge face loomed directly over the city, only several hundred meters above it.

Her ruby-like eyes shifted slightly and met the gaze of the man whose glowing white long hair danced in the air.

"Mercenary Tao, haven’t you always been seeking this so-called heart?"

"Countless hearts have now fused together. Join the Instrumentality, and you will naturally be able to feel them…"

White Face’s voice rang directly inside Bai Cangshu’s mind. This was neither magic nor mental influence.

It was the power of the soul. With all of Fuyuki City completely covered by LCL Fluid, the fused White Face could affect almost any individual within it at will.

The Mental Power-specialized reincarnator codenamed Man-eating Flower was already on the verge of collapse. She clutched her head as the barrier around her body grew dimmer and dimmer.

Once that barrier broke, her Wall of Heart would vanish at any moment.

In this environment, only nonhuman entities possessed a unique advantage.

Because they were not living beings to begin with, merely Heroic Spirits materialized through their classes.

The pitch-black giant Berserker Heracles stood where he was, reached into the ocean of Soup of Life, and fished out the white girl’s robe and the white fur hat.

The giant suddenly threw back his head and roared.

Meanwhile, in the sky on the other side, a purple beam streaked away from Fuyuki City at extreme speed like a laser. Rider Medusa wanted to send the pitiful girl Sakura Matou away before everything became beyond saving.

Yet even at her speed, all she could see was an orange ocean.

It seemed that every human had already perished in that single blow.

Root Shiki stepped across the orange ocean, her kimono still spotless. Holding her short blade in a reverse grip, she walked toward the white giant one step at a time.

"Miss Root Shiki, you should know very well that your mission… has failed."

Bai Cangshu spoke while still looking down at his hand. This hand did not possess the power Heracles had displayed in that fleeting instant.

It had surpassed the Binding Vow of his class, surpassed the effects of Madness Enhancement, and even broken free in an instant from the battle frenzy of fighting him.

Root Shiki paused slightly. She saw the Savior’s radiance clearly emerge from Mercenary Tao’s body. Though that radiance differed somewhat from the brilliance of other Saviors, he was indeed a Savior.

Root Shiki lowered her head to look at the knife in her hand, then looked at Mercenary Tao. The Lines of Death on his body had decreased considerably, and more than half of his Death Points had dimmed and vanished.

Correspondingly, she no longer had the Counter Force’s blessing.

Now, he was the chosen one.

Root Shiki’s lips twitched twice. She suddenly revealed a strange smile, then exploded with a bang into a pool of orange juice.

Bai Cangshu understood that smile. It was likely a silent mockery.

He just did not know whether she was mocking him, the Counter Force that had placed this world’s Savior in his hands, or… The Root itself.

Bai Cangshu did not care.

He only felt that, at this moment, his power was unimaginably immense.

And as that layer of barrier shattered, Mantra spread out once more.

Unlike the others, who clutched their heads and resisted the impact of all the imperfections in their hearts, no illusions or images appeared before Bai Cangshu.

Nor did he suffer any temptation.

Neither the father and mother who had once failed to keep him company appeared to gently persuade him, nor did his former teachers and classmates emerge to lecture him.

Even the imperfect objects of fantasy from the raw, aching pains of his youth did not appear.

Bai Cangshu simply stood above the ocean of orange juice, maintaining an identity so complete it was almost proud.

"Human Instrumentality… I don’t need something like that."

Whoosh—

Like a gust of wind passing by, or a breath rising from within Bai Cangshu’s body.

The next instant, the enormous "tentacles" surging into the sky behind Bai Cangshu seemed to pierce into the void in an instant.

Despair Savior Mode activated.

You sensed Counter Force: Gaia.

You sensed Counter Force: Alaya.

You gained Gaia's blessing—upon the planet, you will gain additional immortality enhancement and Hyper Regeneration. You will be immune to the effects of abilities related to the Fate Aspect, Time Aspect, Causality Law, and more.

You gained Alaya's blessing—when attacking targets deemed enemies of primates, your attacks cannot be evaded or negated.

Golden energy seeped from Bai Cangshu’s body, like a layer of golden "film." The next instant, it rose like mist and flame, and then…

Boom!

Golden energy shot into the heavens.

Intense power surged through his body. Flooded by excessively powerful energy, his muscles became nearly comparable to the hardest alloys in the world—no, far beyond them.

His heartbeat vanished completely, its speed so great that no sound could be detected.

As his blood raced through him, vast sections of his blood vessels ruptured. His skin was scorched by boiling blood, and that blood evaporated into red mist as well.

The next instant, everything soared into the sky.

Golden-red currents of energy became a light pillar, blasting skyward from the ground of Fuyuki City, from the ocean formed by LCL Fluid.

The white giant formed by White Face staggered backward, her white hair swept into the sky by the energy mist.

Creak, creak, creak…

A sound like the tightening of massive ship cables and gears erupted from within the white giant’s body.

It was the natural intimidation radiated by an incomparably powerful body in motion.

You used the ability Kaio-ken!

Despair Salvation received a perfect twofold bonus. After Despair Savior was actively activated, it gained another bonus.

And now, through Kaio-ken, everything doubled once more.

Bai Cangshu’s eyes twitched constantly. The excessively surging power battered his body, giving him an almost constant thrill of being completely dominated by strength.

Yes. At this moment, Bai Cangshu felt that if he simply let go of his reason and allowed that unmatched violence to sweep up his subconscious, he would become the most brutal combat machine, utterly intoxicated by power.

"Phew…"

Bai Cangshu exhaled. An endless torrent of powerful breath blasted through the space several hundred meters ahead of him, and in the next instant, the LCL Fluid froze solid.

Bai Cangshu tilted his neck.

Bang!

An inexplicable explosion erupted in the air.

The instant his neck twisted, the excessively violent power compressed and burst apart dozens of meters of air, creating a shockwave.

Various emotions still flickered in White Face’s eyes in the sky.

She had not fully fused yet, but every consciousness within her, including her own, was filled with confusion.

What exactly was happening to that human below…?

That scent, that feeling, that sense of presence…

He did not seem human at all.

Bai Cangshu lowered his head slightly and slowly inhaled. A vast amount of energy within his chest reacted with his scalding blood.

The next instant, he suddenly threw back his head and let out a terrifying roar.

"Hah!"

Boom!

A mushroom cloud exploded in an instant. A blazing white shockwave swept out from him as its origin, rushing directly beyond Fuyuki City.

Rumble!

The city exploded in an instant.

Saber, who was carefully escorting Shirou Emiya toward the urban area of Fuyuki City, raised her head in shock and immediately drew her sword. Golden light flared.

The next instant, she was swallowed by the unmatched shockwave.

Boom!

Everyone was blown away like small boats in stormy seas.

The forests outside Fuyuki City collapsed with a thunderous crash. Mountains trembled, dust obscured everything, and the enormous giant bowing its head in the sky toppled toward the sea amid the rumbling.