BXBX NOVEL Chapter 72 - New Guests.
In a dark void outside the time and space, this is a place where nothing should exist or even have a sign of manifesting.
This place is a special area of Type-Moon called the Imaginary Number Space which is an alternative dimension, apart from normal space and reality.
However, even in this endless darkness, some rocks were floating and forming an island. But that wasn\'t an island, it was a giant temple standing outside of the universe, beyond space and unaffected by the flow of time.
The time was huge and had a lot of giant pillars at its sides, there was only one road in the temple which formed stairs leading to its top. At the top, there was a throne and behind it, there was a giant ring of light, but it was grey.
On the throne, a man was sitting on it, a man looking a lot like Solomon, but he wasn\'t. The man was closing his eyes calmly and waiting for something, but his squeezed first showed that he wasn\'t calm at all.
This temple is actually a Noble Phantasm in the form of reality Marble, a workshop built by the king of magecraft. But it was occupied and re-created by someone else after Solomon left everything for his wishes.
Death in this space does not \'count\' in reality, so it is possible to revive those who die in this space with enough magical energy which shows its power as an Anti-World Noble Phantasm.
Suddenly, the light ring behind the throne moved as the man opened his eyes in shock and looked at it before rage covered his face.
"CURSE YOU, SOLOMON!!!" The man screamed as the temple was shaking with his magical power getting out of control.
There were some figures under the throne, some of them had the shape of humans and some were giant tentacles with a lot of eyes, or some creatures, but all of them were speechless while looking at the screaming man on the throne.
The man looking like Solomon or rather be called Beast 1, Goetia, which took over Solomon body after his wish. And all the people or creatures were the 72 Demon Gods Pillars.
"Hey, Flauros, how long has he been like this?" Baal, one of the Demons Gods, asked Flauros who\'s usually has the responsibility of the outside operations.
"*Sigh* After the recent accidents, the king was very angry… Chaldea\'s surprising fall, feeling two of his kins(Beast VI and Beast IV), losing connection with Human Order Incineration Ritual, and… Him(Solomon)" Flauros lowered his hat before he stood silently and watched his King in the distance.
A lot of things happened during this period even if calculating time is impossible inside the temple.
First, Chaldea got a hard hit beyond all expectations of Goetia and the other Demon Gods, they don\'t care about lowly humans and their boring struggles, but that accident exceeded everyone\'s calculations.
To be able to link all the timelines with the last master of humanity from each timeline and then killing them one by one, was a feat that Goetia\'s Clairvoyance didn\'t detect at all.
The existence of human salvation disappeared more and more with each kill as timelines were crumbling before CounterForce desperately reversed the time to where it began to preserve one timeline, at least.
That\'s all that the Demon Gods know about the situation before they were banned from existing outside of the Temple because Solomon came back to the state without a wish.
With the existence of Solomon, Goetia was locked in a paradox that he never took Solomon\'s body and did at the same time, so if he left the Temple then he\'d vanish from existence until Solomon made the wish again. Demon Gods were in the same situation, but their power lowered to less than 10% because Solomon has the 72 pillars concept with him now.
But what\'s worse, is that Solomon took control of the Third Noble Phantasm, which means all Goetia work and preparations were stolen easily, and that was by Solomon, which almost made him lose his mind as he banged his head against the pillar multiple times now.
Beast VI and IV existence were also a problem. Beast IV was hidden all these years, but Goetia wasn\'t worried about him.
However, Beast VI was another story. The Demons Gods don\'t know, but their king\'s face wasn\'t well after he knew about the existence of this Beast.
After screaming for a while, Goetia took a deep breath before he sat down on his throne again and closed his eyes. The other Demons Gods didn\'t dare to bother him, so they all disappeared and left him alone.
"Dammit, Solomon, do you want to torture us more, even after all this time" Goetia clenched his fist before he realized it and sighed.
"Two of my kins manifest in the world, are the CounterForce blind or something?!" For the first time in history, a Beast was complaining to Counter Force for not doing their job.
"And it has to be Beast VI… The one who knows all humanity sins from the genesis to the end" Goetia frowned before he tried to use his Clairvoyance to look at the world, but Solomon\'s existence made that impossible.
Goetia knew about the existence of the Beast that the CounterForce desperately tried to split apart across the world, but for him to exist in his full form is something ridiculous.
Humanity desires and greed knows no limits is the best description Goetia can give for Beast VI.
"*Sigh*... I really hate this" Goetia said before he tried his best to control his other Noble Phantasm which is the Temple even if he knows that\'s almost useless to do so.
Meanwhile, above one of Fuyuki city hotels, Gilgamesh was standing there as he felt the new guest at the party.
"Ho? Even the machine of kingship was summoned. But this is indeed very fitting" Gilgamesh grinned as he felt Solomon\'s presence in this Holy Grail War.
"For the machine to come for this ruined world, how ridiculous, and boring" Gilgamesh took a golden cup from his treasury as he felt this war is boring.
Solomon might be the Grand Caster, but for Gilgamesh, he\'s just a machine forced to do what it had to do with no free will at all. But that doesn\'t mean he\'ll not join the fight.
"Pointless. Mongrels bickering in my garden is in their nature, and something to be ignored. However…" Gigamesh looked at the snow in the air as he felt the presence of some of those mongrels(Players) before he said " If they dare to attempt and steal my treasures, that\'s another matter…"
But at that moment, the earth… Screamed out. A huge roar, coming from all directions. And yet it was too beautiful and more like a lullaby singed by the earth itself.
"... Is it you?" The shock of Gilgamesh\'s face wasn\'t hidden as he looked in a certain direction before he smiled slightly and said " To run into an old friend like you in such a manner, I thought you should be singing the praises of me, your king!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Gilgamesh exploded with laughter as he looked at a certain direction and said " Very well, until our reunion banquet"
However, at that moment, he also felt some sort of chill that he didn\'t know the reason for.
At a certain forest around Fuyuki, far from Gilgamesh place, a person with a white robe and long green hair was looking in his direction.
"That sounds fun…" the person seems to have heard Gilgamesh\'s voice from here before he heard a voice behind him.
"Lancer, let\'s go…" A man with a cigarette said, but he wasn\'t calm, even if he had those command seals in his hand.
Lancer glanced at his Master before he followed him without saying a word.
Meanwhile, around Fuyuki business street, people already changed to winter clothes and went back to their business.
However, outside a clothes shop, two men, one with a black hair and the other with white hair, were staring in Gilgamesh\'s direction as they had different expressions.
Leo was grinning and Merlin was smiling brightly, but strangely, each of those expressions contained a huge sarcasm. Even Ritsuka, who was in the shop with Nero, felt a chill just by looking at them.
"Now, what to say about this?" Merlin said as his smile didn\'t fade.
"What to say? Well, it\'s not gay if it\'s clay" Leo said as his grin was wider before he looked at Nero and Ritsuka in the shop.
"Splendid, I couldn\'t describe it better myself" Merlin said as he saw Nero and Ritsuka coming with a lot of bags.
Although they said they are going to battle, Merlin and Leo stopped everything and went strolling in these areas instead. This received a huge welcome from Nero, but Ritsuka felt all her build up vanished suddenly, even if she was quickly drawn into shopping with Nero.
Merlin also used his magecraft in the best way he knew which is concealing himself or the other people with illusion.
"Umu! There\'s a lot of new things in this era!" Nero said with high spirits while looking at her bags and Ritsuka felt slightly ashamed from joining and taking a lot of Leo\'s money.
Yes, these two didn\'t have any money and Nero can\'t take something from her Golden theater to the outside, so they asked Leo, which told them just one phrase \' Shopping? Is it necessary? Well, do as you please, money is just a number for me\'
Ritsuka felt something hurting inside of her when she heard that phrase about the money.
"However, can we focus on the enemies, now?" Ritsuka said as the group went to a dessert shop and started ordering random stuff.
"Worrying a lot won\'t do anything good for you" Leo said as he sat down and looked at directions randomly with Clairvoyance.
"Learn to enjoy your time more" Nero sat next to Leo before she picked up the menu as she was interested in Japanese sweets.
"Indeed, coloring your life with gray is horrible" Merlin sat down before Fou continued his light attacks on him, it seems that Fou will never forgive Merlin.
"But we are facing the Grand Caster" Ritsuka sat down as she felt this team was taking it way too easy.
"Yes, I know, so what?" Leo looked at his side before he picked Nero\'s menu and rotated it because she was holding it backward. He has no idea how she was able to read it even when it was backward, is this a true genius?.
"*Sigh* Don\'t tell me you are very sure of defeating the Grand Caster now" Ritsuka felt that she can predict this question answer before Leo said " No, I\'m not very sure about that"
"Huh?" Ritsuka stopped as before she looked at Leo and said " Can you repeat that…"
"... I\'m not very sure about defeating him, even the odds aren\'t in my favor now" Leo said calmly while Ritsuka was speechless as she didn\'t know if this calm was confidence or arrogance.
"Umu! Your confidence is indeed splendid, my Praetor" Nero nodded proudly while Leo felt strange to have someone like this next to him.
"Ah, Solomon is very troublesome now, after acquiring(Stealing) what Beast 1 left" Merlin said as he looked at the ring of light in the sky functioning again.
"Let me tell you something about Solomon or magi like him. They usually make them powerful, then they nerf them by something like low mana supplies, but now, he has a mana equivalent to the human history as a whole" Leo said before his infinite cup of coffee appeared in his hand.
"If we counted Beast 1 danger as 10, then Solomon danger with that mana is 20, and can even be 30 based on his emotionless state now" Merlin dropped another hard truth as he wanted to have a cup like that.
"Not to mention his Clairvoyance, which is superior to mine, Revelation from God, and the ten rings are more troublesome" Leo said as he felt something approaching and started to calculate the best moment.
{First, it was the ten crowns and now it\'s the ten rings, isn\'t this too connected to be a coincidence?!} Ritsuka massaged her forehead from this information.
"As the king of magecraft and in the case of all ten rings present, any and all kinds of magic performed by mankind is invalidated and put under his subordination. Including all the incomplete True magic" Leo said as Ritsuka felt her headache increase.
True magic is the highest class of Mystery that surpasses Magecraft and all current sciences of that age. It represents the actualization of events that are impossible to reproduce in a certain era, whether by humans or the planet, even if given an infinite amount of time and resources.
"Did you think I\'m overpowered? Look at Solomon, I wouldn\'t be surprised if he started spamming True magic at me" Leo said as he took a sip from his coffee.
"To think about it, don\'t all of you(Beasts) use a subtype of True magic in your Noble Phantasm?" Merlin said as he was also calculating stuff with his Clairvoyance before he looked at Leo and Fou.
"Yeah, I can use subtypes of 3rd, 4th, and 5th True magic, even if I\'m the best at the 4th True magic" Leo said as Ritsuka felt her head hurt even more.
"The linking Fourth concealed itself… The hidden link, it has been a while since I heard about that" Merlin nodded before he looked at the building next to them.
"Well, Goetia can use 3rd and 5th True magic, but I believe Solomon can take it to the next level" Leo said before he looked in the same direction as Merlin.
Nero felt strange before she looked in the same direction as them. Ritsuka put her head on the table because of the crazy information, when did the True magic become cheap?.
"Prepare yourself" Leo said as Ritsuka woke up quickly as something interesting happened to the building next to them.
*BOOOOOM!!"
The building\'s upper floors exploded as rocks and rubbles were flying everywhere. People around were screaming and running away as chunks of rocks were falling down.
Merlin summoned his staff as he used his magecraft to protect some people around, which made Ritsuka relax a little.
*CRASH*
However, before anything calmed down, a red shadow flashed before a man and woman landed near the group.
"Archer, what the hell?!" a girl with black hair in twin tails style screamed at the man in the red outfit holding her.
"Not now, Rin!" The man with tan skin and white hair said before he felt something and looked at the side to meet the eyes of everyone in the group, but he only focused on Leo, Merlin, and Fou.
"..." Looking at Leo\'s wide grin, the man named Archer received information from his boss in his mind as he stood there silently for a second before he said"... Fuck"
The girl named Rin looked around as she wondered what happened to her servant, but she didn\'t know that the partner of justice was having an internal conflict now.