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IBHJ Chapter 568
🕑 Added 2023-11-12 05:59:33 +0000 UTCMordred was caught off guard as the black hand sneak attacked and threw her out of the cafe. She tumbled across the ground before flipping up to stand.
She hadn't expected a Heroic Spirit to ambush her like that. Even more unexpected was that it was her old man!
At first, she didn't pay close attention, but after exchanging blows, she recognized his face. Without a doubt, this was the man she had once admired and looked up to the most - the source of all her boundless knowledge, the Eternal King!
Mordred was really surprised to encounter him here in Vâlcea as she was investigating the new servant. This was really...too exciting!
In the distant past, while reading the books of wisdom left behind by the knights and absorbing the boundless wisdom of Eternal King, Mordred had imagined an enemy.
That imagined enemy was none other than the origin of this wisdom itself - the Eternal King.
Within Eternal Kingdom, all the knights worshipped the wise Eternal King, but Mordred didn't feel the same way.
The unruly her, she wanted to surpass him!
The wisdom of predecessors is inherited to be built upon, not just repeated, isn't it?
To take what came before and develop it further.
If the later generations cannot eclipse their forebears, wouldn't that disappoint those who came before?
With this thought, Mordred had extremely complicated emotions towards Eternal King.
Especially since this king was also her old man whom she had only met once and did not know well.
Admiration, respect, understanding, sadness, hostility, disgust...
Her emotions towards him had become too complex to describe.
Now that she had met this old man here, she absolutely could not pass up this opportunity.
Yes, she wanted to defeat him.
And doing so was key to obtaining the Holy Grail.
Shirou walked out of the cafe, looking at Mordred, and said: "That face... you are Artoria, right?"
He guessed this might be another parallel version of Artoria.
It couldn't be helped, people with Artoria's face...
There were just too many!
From what he knew, there was Gray, Nero, Okita Souji... Even here in the black camp there was a Saber who was a parallel version of Artoria.
So he asked, "Are you another Artoria?"
However, Mordred did not answer. She only licked her lips, her small face taking on a mad look as the sword in her hand began emanating a terrible energy.
"Rest in peace--"
Seeing the sword glow with increasing black and red light, he hurriedly said, "Wait a minute!"
"--and slumber eternally!"
The sword blasted a cannon-like crimson beam at Shirou, as if emitting thick, black blood.
He quickly summoned [Shield of the Gods (False)] from [Unlimited Blade Works] and erected several black walls, barely managing to block the attack.
Dismissing the walls, he frowned and glared sharply at her. "Does this mean you don't want to talk?"
Mordred only stared strangely at her sword.
"I won't hold back if you keep attacking," he warned.
His gaze hardened as four arms suddenly emerged from his back, each one grabbing a Caliburn and slashing at Mordred.
She waved her sword in graceful arcs, blocking the attacks from the four black arms.
The trajectory of her techniques looked very familiar, causing Shirou to frown slightly. "Lancelot's swordsmanship?"
He recognized the style as belonging to Lancelot. Lancelot had often asked Merlin for advice to improve his sword skills, so he had witnessed many sparring matches between Lancelot and Merlin. There was no doubt this "Artoria" was using Lancelot's techniques.
He stretched out another black arm wielding a Caliburn, slashing at Mordred.
He didn't use giant arms or his sixty-meter long Ig-Alima, as there was no room for such weapons here.
Facing the fifth black arm, Mordred became overwhelmed.
In truth, her swordsmanship was actually not very good.
She had just copied the forms without achieving Saber's or Lancelot's mastery.
Against the attacks from his five arms, her stance grew clumsy and panicked.
Sensing an opening, the five arms stabbed towards her with their swords.
However, in the next moment, he was surprised to see her melt directly into the ground, causing the five swords to miss their target.
"Earth dive?" Shirou said in surprise.
The ground rumbled and he instinctively took a step back.
In the next moment, a blast of black and red light erupted from the earth, narrowly missing Shirou as it shot towards the sky.
"Interesting...a Noble Phantasm for diving underground."
"But there's something even more interesting here." A muffled voice came from below before a hand suddenly grabbed his ankle.
Having hidden underground, Mordred playfully smiled, about to repeat her trick of dragging Shirou under like she had done to Saber.
Grinning gleefully, just as she prepared to execute her plan, a huge hand grabbed her body.
Before Mordred could react, the hand dug her out from the ground like a sweet potato.
"This, this is..." she looked astonished.
After being dug out, she was shocked to see Shirou's body churning with black mud, which had formed the huge hand, blending into the soil to dig her out.
"Surprised?" He smiled. "I found it quite interesting myself."
Shirou had put on sinister black armor on himself, sticking All the World's Evil onto him, which could effectively enhance his insufficient strength.
He used the giant hand to pick her up, to prevent her from diving into the earth again. He then tightened her restraints and questioned: "Tell me, who are you?""
She didn't struggle, but remained motionless.
However, she didn't answer his question.
Mordred was frustrated. She hadn't expected to be dug out by him so easily! Before she could do anything, before even taking out her Grail, she was restrained.
It was very dissatisfying. Most importantly, why hadn't her Noble Phantasm worked?
"Are you really Eternal King or not?" she questioned.
He raised his eyebrows. "You attacked because you think I'm Eternal King?"
She didn't answer.
Just then, Saber came chasing from the other direction. He glanced up and was about to attack when Saber quickly said, "Wait, Assassin, it's me!"
Shirou stopped, startled. "Saber?"
Saber nodded.
This was her chance! Mordred's eyes lit up and she violently burst free.
Shirou raised his eyebrows, exerting more force to restrain her. Though Mordred had a dragon's strength, Shirou's sinister armor amplified his own. He still overpowered her, though not as easily as Saber.
Unexpectedly, Mordred grabbed his wrist and bit down hard on his palm.
"Ah!" The pain made him reflexively loosen his grip. She broke free of the black hand and tried to escape.
He instinctively slapped her back.
"Ow!" she cried out but didn't linger, quickly diving underground again.
"I'll be back!" she shouted.
Shirou shook his bitten hand, the deep teeth marks visible on his thumb pad.
"She bit me so hard - like a dog." He frowned at the injury.
Though not his main body, the pain transmitted completely!
Shirou gazed at his palm, slowly blowing on it to try to ease the pain.
But it didn't help - it hurt too much, like a dog bite. Though he'd repaired the marks with black mud, the pain remained.
Shirou grit his teeth. She dared bite him and still wanted to escape?
He wouldn't let her get away with this.
Though he couldn't earth dive, he had other methods.
Shirou lay prone, letting the black mud within him surge out like tidal waters, seeping into the earth.
He couldn't dive underground, but his evil could permeate it.
Did she think she could escape by diving? How naive!
Shirou's eyes flashed with irritation. As one who held grudges, how could he not take revenge after being bitten?
Unable to see where Mordred had gone, he relied on Intuition to catch her by adding [Instinct] to himself.
To Saber, this looked very strange. "Assassin, what are you doing?"
"Fishing!" he said, still lying on the ground.
Comments
JeanMartin Freites
Really curious to see why a bite hurts so much.
