Chapter 478: Gathering Storms — Return to Fuyuki

Antarctica.

As one of the Earth’s two polar extremes, this last continent discovered by humanity is blanketed in endless snow, as though the entire Antarctic landmass is buried beneath a massive, thick ice sheet.

Everywhere the eye can see, frost-white dominates the land—a barren, colorless world where heaven and earth become one.

Blizzards howl, gales spiraling in the sky chase after darting snowflakes with shrill, piercing cries.

In such a frigid environment, plant life is extremely scarce. Only small amounts of lichens and mosses can survive. If an ordinary person were to step into this land unprotected, they’d have no future beyond becoming a human-shaped ice sculpture.

To mankind, this is an uninhabitable, bitter land.

As the only continent without a permanent human population, it is far removed from the strife of human society. In some sense, that has its benefits.

Things that are not meant to be exposed to the public eye often find refuge here.

For instance, the special research facility built on a 6,000-meter snowy mountain in Antarctica: Chaldea.

Chaldea—formally the Finis Chaldea Human Order Preservation Organization, commonly referred to as the Human Order Security Organization, Chaldea.

Simply put, Chaldea is a covert agency established by the nations of the world to prevent the extinction (Bad End) of humanity.

With the purpose of preserving and safeguarding human history, so that mankind’s legacy can endure long and strong, Chaldea disregards the line between magecraft and science, gathering researchers from every field into one observatory-research institute hybrid.

It is said that within Chaldea lies a unique magical workshop untouched by any nation. Its observatory isn’t one that looks up at the stars from Earth, but rather, a “Mythic Astronomy Tower” that peers down upon Earth from the void.

While the founding of Chaldea was a collaborative investment by many nations, over 70% of its funding came from the Animusphere family, the head of the Astronomy Department of the Mage’s Association in London.

Thus, while Chaldea was nominally a shared global asset, real control lay in the hands of the Animusphere lineage.

Of course, that was in the past. After the deaths of the first director, Marisbilly Animusphere, and the second director, Olga Marie Animusphere, Chaldea is now led only by an acting director.

On the mountain peak, the swirling snow dances with the storm winds. The frigid gales, like blades of steel, slice through every inch of cliff face without mercy, creating what seems to be a natural ice vault—a fortress shielding the high-altitude research facility.

Chaldea’s Control Room.

This white chamber, resembling a special operations command center, was extremely quiet. Only the beeping of monitoring equipment and the occasional clatter of keystrokes from staff echoed through the space.

The room’s decor featured alternating shades of silver and cool blue, radiating a distinct sci-fi aesthetic. But the centerpiece that truly drew the eye was just outside the control room’s glass viewport: a massive, glowing blue spherical device suspended in mid-air.

Multiple asteroid belt-like rings coiled around it. A close look at the globe’s surface revealed patterns of the seven continents and four oceans—an accurate scale model of Earth.

At this moment, multiple views from various locations were displayed on the central projection screen of the control room.

The image showed a sky-blue planet, with lines connecting specific points on its surface, marking key locations by name.

On the eastern edge of Japan’s island chain, a location was marked as “Fuyuki City, Third Holy Grail War.” Corresponding to it in Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula in Romania, was the “Holy Grail Great War,” while prominently highlighted among them was the “Musik Family” located on the British Isles.

“Clock Tower, a familiar place, but… Fuyuki City’s Third Holy Grail War, Romania’s Holy Grail Great War, and the Musik family… What ties them together? He fled to this timeline, yet stopped at all three locations?”

The speaker was a stunning beauty, seemingly in her twenties, with tea-brown medium-length hair and sky-blue eyes. She wore a lavish, wide-sleeved European-style robe—a blue dress matched with a crimson cape, giving off an oddly artistic flair.

Her left arm was encased in an armguard with a heavy punk-industrial aesthetic—a dark-toned piece with thick joints, sharp angles, golden engravings, and dazzling gemstones. Despite the clashing styles, the overall look blended into an unexpectedly harmonious design.

Anyone familiar with Heroic Spirits or Servants could immediately sense from the unique magical energy she emitted: this woman wasn’t human. She was a Servant.

“The last location detected was London…” she muttered, playing with a strand of hair while resting her chin on her hand.

“Da Vinci-chan, any new discoveries?”

At that moment, a handsome young man in a white lab coat walked in through the door, yawning and holding two steaming cups of tea. His long, slightly curly orange hair was tied in a ponytail.

“Mmm… Ah, Roman-chan, thank you kindly.”

Accepting the offered tea, the woman named Da Vinci smiled. “It smells wonderful… Darjeeling?”

“Yes.”

With practiced ease, Da Vinci shifted from the command seat in the control room and accepted the cup with her gloved right hand. She took a light sip, then spoke casually.

“Roman, just now, [Chaldeas] detected the magical trace of Lev Lainur Flauros.”

“What puzzles me is that he deliberately exposed his position, almost as if he’s inviting us over.”

Da Vinci cradled her teacup and glanced toward Dr. Roman, whose expression was growing increasingly serious as he read the data on the command terminal.

Click!

With a hiss, the automatic door opened. “Apologies for the one-minute delay!”

From the corridor, a black-haired boy in Chaldea’s custom Master uniform rushed into the room.

Following close behind was a soft-spoken girl with short pink hair, glasses, and a strand of hair neatly covering one eye. She wore a short white lab coat over a black skirt and tights. As she jogged in, her youthful figure and legs were highlighted.

“Ritsuka Fujimaru, reporting in.”

“Mash Kyrielight, reporting in.”

“Fou~ Fouuu!”

No sooner had they finished speaking than a small white creature leapt from behind the girl. This being—something between a white dog and a white fox—let out a cheerful cry of “Fou Fou” as it pounced onto Mash’s face.

It then circled around her back before settling comfortably on her shoulder.

Seeing the pair and their companion, Roman’s previously furrowed brow finally relaxed.

“Ritsuka, Mash. Since everyone’s here, let’s begin the operation briefing.”

These two were none other than Chaldea’s last Master—Ritsuka Fujimaru—and the demi-Servant, Mash Kyrielight.

After the foundational restoration in the Seventh Singularity, Babylonia (Absolute Demonic Front), the team had only just returned to Chaldea and barely had time to rest. Then, they detected traces of Lev Lainur Flauros, who should have been cleaved in half by Saber Attila back in the Second Singularity: the City of Seven Hills.

Following the clues left behind—deliberately and overtly by Lev—Chaldea’s gaze tracked him into this special timeline, one bearing the traces of an outer deity.

“Is it the last King Solomon?” Ritsuka said as he approached the command terminal, a determined glint in his sky-blue eyes.

“Uh… Ritsuka, I understand your resolve, but something unexpected has happened. The enemy is…”

“Lev,” Da Vinci added from where she leaned against a desk, cradling her teacup.

“Professor Lev?!”

Mash’s eyes widened in shock. Clutching Fou tightly, her voice trembled. Though they had only known each other for two years, Lev had once been her teacher in Chaldea’s Department of Magecraft.

When others had treated her as a monster, Lev had been one of the few to treat her like a person from the very beginning.

So even though he had betrayed them, fought them multiple times, and tried to kill her, Mash’s kind heart still held a measure of gratitude toward him.

“Fou~ Fouuu~”

The white creature leapt from Mash’s arms and licked her face, gently rubbing its tiny paw against her cheek as if to comfort her.

“Hey hey, Da Vinci, did you have to say it that bluntly—ow!”

“What, did your brain break again?” Da Vinci jabbed Roman in the side with her elbow and gave him a pointed glare.

“Mash-chan and Ritsuka will have to face this sooner or later. What’s the point of hiding it?”

“If we kept it from them, they’d just get upset later. Better to be upfront.” She smiled warmly. “Besides, when there’s a problem, we work together to solve it, don’t we?”

“But still…”

BANG!

“No ’buts.’”

Da Vinci had slammed Roman’s face down onto the desk. Neither Ritsuka nor the other Chaldea staff in the control room so much as blinked.

They all knew this dynamic well.

Despite their bickering, their closeness made them seem like a squabbling married couple. But any deeper relationship was out of the question for one simple reason:

They were both men.

Leonardo da Vinci.

The name alone conjures images of masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

A towering figure of Italy’s Renaissance era in the 15th and 16th centuries, he was a globally renowned painter, scientist, and engineer. Deep-thinking and profoundly talented, he excelled in painting, sculpture, invention, architecture, mathematics, biology, physics, astronomy, and geology. A true polymath, one of the rarest geniuses in human history.

While he wasn’t a warrior, he left an indelible mark on mankind. He was often called the “Universal Genius.”

Historical records described him as a stunningly beautiful youth in his early years, later becoming a scholarly gentleman with silver hair and immense wisdom.

But in truth, this… was his current form.

Before true genius, the soul knows no bounds. Gender and age mean nothing!

As Chaldea’s third prototype Servant, Da Vinci possessed the innate skill “Golden Rule (Body): B.”

This gave her a goddess-like, perfectly beautiful body, which she maintained effortlessly. With that as her foundation, Da Vinci completely “redesigned” her own body into what she considered her ultimate masterpiece. Emphasis on completely.

As for Chaldea’s chief medical officer, Romani Archaman? That was even more impossible. Everyone knew about Roman’s ill-fated online romance—a romance scam, no less. When he met the person in real life, he was left with an emotional scar that would never heal.

Oh, and the name of his online love? Merlin the Mage.

“Take a look yourselves… We may be heading out again very soon.”

Da Vinci’s exquisitely beautiful, painting-like face softened into a gentle smile. She playfully winked and raised her mechanical-looking staff, pointing toward the enormous spherical device outside the window: [Chaldeas].

This was the Simulated Earth Environmental Model—[Chaldeas]. It stemmed from the Astronomy Department Head Animusphere’s hypothesis: that a planet could be regarded as a living organism, a being with a soul. Chaldeas was a miniaturized Earth model created by replicating that very soul.

It was a dense, information-rich construct that could not be touched due to its phase difference with physical matter.

It served as an unshakable map of human history and could be used as a support system for pseudo-spiritron conversion and Rayshift operations.

When paired with the Near-Future Observation Lens [SHEBA], it allowed for historical observation of this planet.

“Hmm…” Da Vinci tapped a few commands onto the transparent interface. Three locations lit up on Chaldeas.

One was a small island nation on the edge of the Pacific. The other two were in continental Europe: one in the Balkans, the other in Britain.

“Look here. According to the images captured by [SHEBA], after visiting these three locations, Lev disappeared.”

“His last stop was London, where he stole something from the Musik family of the Clock Tower’s Law and Politics Department. But what exactly…?”

“Musik family… that name sounds familiar. I think Director Olga Marie used to mention them…” Roman murmured.

Then suddenly: “Could it be the Holy Relic used to summon King Solomon? The legendary ten rings of Solomon?!”

Spit cough! Roman choked violently on his tea at Da Vinci’s suggestion.

“Tch…”

Da Vinci clicked her tongue and tapped a few more times. A live feed appeared—Thames riverside, atop a rain-swept tower, and unmistakably Lev, clad in an eye-catching green coat. In his hand, a radiant purple-glowing relic in the shape of a double-headed eagle practically screamed for attention.

Ritsuka and Mash leaned closer to the console, hands pressed down as they peered over the edge of the glass.

“A double-headed eagle? Holy Roman Empire?”

At that, everyone present exchanged glances.

That couldn’t be right. Even the singularity of Uruk—where the Age of Gods had not yet ended—had already been restored. What point was there for Lev to steal a relic like that to create a new singularity?

Something was off.

“Still, oddly enough, history here hasn’t been distorted, and there’s no sign of a singularity forming. It looks like Lev merely passed through, took what he needed, and left this timeline altogether.”

Da Vinci turned to look at Dr. Roman.

“Lev never acts without purpose. Everything he does is for a reason. There must be something in this timeline that draws him. That double-headed eagle sculpture… I have a very bad feeling about it.”

Roman sat at his desk, fingers poised on the keyboard. “Continue tracking.”

Da Vinci gave a small nod and resumed operating [Chaldeas].

As expected, Lev made no effort to hide his movements.

“Coordinates: A.D. 2004, Japan…”

Da Vinci locked onto Lev’s approximate location.

“This place is… Fuyuki City?”

Fuyuki again?!

“Fuyuki City, Fifth Holy Grail War…” Roman sighed unexpectedly. His emerald-green eyes glimmered with unreadable emotion.

“Full circle. So this is where he wants his final battle to take place?”

Ritsuka’s expression shifted. Though he didn’t understand what Roman was thinking, his own mind immediately recalled the first time he underwent Rayshift.

After all, Ritsuka’s journey as a Master began there.

That city, burning under a sky of pollution and flame… “Fuyuki City, huh…”

Da Vinci, ever curious, let her gaze flicker back and forth between Ritsuka and Roman.

Then Mash’s sudden gasp pulled everyone’s attention to the present.

“What is that?!”

While observations of the physical universe appeared stable for now, a deeper analysis from the mystic side—within the realm of Imaginary Numbers Space—revealed a striking anomaly.

From this perspective, the chosen timeline by Lev was glowing ominously along the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, specifically near Japan.

Though it should have been nighttime in Fuyuki, from this mystical viewpoint, it shone like midday.

Above the city, a violet-red comet blazed a long trail across the sky before crashing into the outskirts.

And the strange energy signature—clearly discernible to all present—was unmistakably linked to the “Holy Relic” Lev had stolen.

Moments later, [Chaldeas] began to rapidly fluctuate as if it sensed impending danger.

Dark red-purple patches of light began to crawl over its surface, like a disease devouring the globe. Bit by bit, the simulated planet was swallowed by this corruption, until it seemed the entire world was aflame.

“Senpai, that energy feels so… oppressive. Cruel, arrogant, cold, and violent—like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Whoever Lev is trying to summon, they’re definitely not a hero.”

Due to the pure and noble spiritual foundation she bore from Galahad, the perfect knight, Mash had a heightened sensitivity to such tyrannical energies.

“Fou~ Fouuu!” Fou cried out twice, clearly agreeing with Mash.

“…”

“Dr. Roman, Da Vinci-chan, we’re ready to Rayshift.”

In the end, it was Ritsuka who broke the silence. His eyes held no fear.

“We’ve cleared seven Singularities. One more, and humanity’s future will be secure.”

“See? I told you. The moment he heard, he’d be insisting on launching immediately,” Roman sighed with a helpless smile.

Da Vinci chuckled as if she’d predicted the outcome from the start.

“Ritsuka, Mash, come back alive, okay?” Roman couldn’t help but remind them, his gaze darting between the two.

As the pair turned and left to make preparations, Roman’s smile slowly faded.

He let out a deep, uneasy sigh. “Sigh…”

…

Year 2004, England. The headquarters of the Mage’s Association, known as the “Clock Tower.”

The Clock Tower, headquartered within the British Museum in London, was a nexus for mages from all over the world—those who prided themselves as unrivaled sovereigns over the long history of magecraft, and ambitious spellcasters looking to carve their mark.

In one dimly lit, seemingly empty room, all sense of spatial perception was warped. It felt impossibly vast and oppressively cramped at the same time.

“Lord El-Melloi II, what are your thoughts?”

Seated behind a glossy, artfully carved wooden desk, an elderly man with a small stature but impeccably straight posture broke the silence.

Under the scrutiny of the aged mage’s eyes, the younger man—his long hair tousled and an irritated frown on his sharp face—sighed.

“Who issued the mission?”

With a raspy laugh like an owl’s hoot, the old man raised a gnarled, yellowed finger and pointed toward the ceiling. “From above.”

“You participated in the Fourth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki, didn’t you, Lord El-Melloi II?”

“Hmph…”

Lighting the cigarette between his fingers with a flicker of flame, the man addressed as Lord El-Melloi II set down the papers in his hand and slowly exhaled a ring of smoke.

If someone as influential as Lord Rocco Belfeban—Director of the Department of Summoning and one of the Twelve Lords—referred to the ones “above,” it could only mean a handful of possibilities. Could it be one of the remaining True Magicians?

“What do you need me to do?”

“Investigate the Holy Grail War in Fuyuki…”

…

At that very moment, in the eye of the storm—Fuyuki City.

Under the shroud of night, acting on nothing more than a vague gentleman’s agreement, the Lancer of the Fifth Holy Grail War materialized. Clad in his favored blue battle attire, his crimson spear rested casually on his shoulder as he crouched atop a skyscraper, scanning the city below.

Then a surge of tremendous summoning energy snapped him to attention.

“Heh! What kind of amateur mage holds a summoning ritual without even putting up a boundary field?”

In an instant, the blue lancer shot forward like a bolt of lightning, racing toward the careless fool.

Time to forcibly wean another modern mage off their bad habits.

He blitzed through the cityscape in mere moments and arrived at a forested park, where he caught sight of the summoner—a figure clad in green.

Still etching out the summoning circle… Wait, is he using his own blood? Seriously?!

Just as the lancer landed, he watched the man in the tall green hat slice his own arm’s artery. Blood sprayed like petals in a dramatic curtain call.

Either a reckless lunatic or a total badass—either way, this guy had to go.

Just as he prepared to launch a javelin strike, a crazed scream rang out:

“Descend!”

Voom!

Blinding summoning light erupted into the sky, casting the stunned expression of the Celtic hound into stark relief.

No way. That was your entire summoning chant?! Just one line?! So half-assed!

Do you even know how to summon a Servant properly? If some real Heroic Spirit actually answers this clown…

In the very next moment, Lancer saw a blur—

“Internal shock!”

WHAM!

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