Back in the cedar forest, Rozen had already discovered the true location of the Holy Grail through the sight of his Wise Eye and Mind's Eye.
He had also learned that it was Kingu, not Gorgon, who held the Holy Grail.
Gorgon had merely been summoned and used in this war, the same as any other Servant.
However, the one who obtained the Holy Grail from the Magus King, created this Singularity, and sought the destruction of mankind—was not Kingu either.
The reason was simple.
"Kingu was nothing more than a next-generation divine weapon, created from Enkidu's corpse. He was not an existence that had been there from the very beginning."
Thus Rozen corrected the others' assumptions.
"The true culprit should be the one who created Kingu, and handed him the Holy Grail."
And who was that person?
The answer had been there from the very start.
Kingu laughed.
A laugh twisted with malice.
"Could it be…!?"
Seeing this, Merlin seemed to have realized something, his composure suddenly breaking into agitation.
But that agitation only lasted a moment.
"…Hm?"
Rozen's expression suddenly shifted.
His Mind's Eye had reacted—violently, more than ever before.
"This is—"
Rozen focused all his attention, pouring his concentration into his Mind's Eye to observe the era.
What he saw caused his face to pale further and further.
In that instant, under the observation of his Mind's Eye, the entire land of Mesopotamia was struck by a terrifying tremor.
The tremor was not physical in nature—it was in time and space themselves.
Time and space quaked, even fracturing apart.
Then once again, Rozen glimpsed that black sea.
Within it, the figure that had been endlessly weeping before—moved.
As though awakening from slumber, it first sat upright, and then opened its eyes.
Rozen did not see what kind of eyes they were.
But he heard Its voice.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa————!!"
A sound, like song yet like wailing, burst forth from Its mouth, reverberating across all.
The voice slammed into Rozen's mind, the shock tearing apart his Mind's Eye's observation in an instant.
"Urgh…!"
Rozen clutched his head, staggering, his voice strained in pain.
"Senpai!?"
"Rozen!?"
Mash and the others, seeing Rozen's sudden agony, were stunned.
But the anomaly did not affect only him.
"Gah…!"
Merlin suddenly coughed blood, as though struck by invisible wounds, collapsing to one knee, his life force visibly fading.
"Merlin!"
Seeing this, Artoria [Alter]'s face changed drastically.
At the same time, Chaldea fell into chaos.
"Observation of the Seventh Singularity has been severed!"
"The SHEBA system has turned black! It's no longer transmitting light!"
"SHEBA terminals 02, 06, and 09 have broken down in succession!"
Inside the command room, Chaldea's staff shouted their urgent reports as they worked frantically.
"Wh—What's happening!?"
Olga Marie was in total panic.
Even Roman and Da Vinci wore expressions of shock and gravity.
"This is… a temporal quake!?"
Da Vinci's eyes widened at the data flashing on the instruments.
"The entire Mesopotamian region is undergoing spatial collapse!?"
Roman too was aghast.
Alarms blared ceaselessly through Chaldea.
Mesopotamia was undergoing an unprecedented transformation—the heavens and earth alike twisting in aberration.
Kingu floated in the sky, spreading his arms as if he had long awaited this moment.
"So, you've finally awakened? Our true Mother!"
His words pulled the terrified crowd back to reality.
"What did you do!?"
Artoria [Alter] roared, her mana surging like a storm.
"Is this your doing!?"
Jeanne [Alter] too was ablaze with wrath, her entire body wreathed in flames.
The others likewise readied to strike Kingu down.
But Kingu was utterly unfazed.
"Don't overreact. It is only that Mother has awakened. What is there to be so surprised about?"
He sneered, making the situation clear.
When combined with Rozen's earlier deduction, they could now understand. Everything happening now was because of the "Mother" Kingu spoke of.
"The Mage King sent the Holy Grail into this era to awaken Mother. But before she could awaken, that incubus manifested, discovered her before anyone else, and used its power to trap her in a dream, delaying her awakening and sparing this era from premature destruction."
Kingu cast a cold glance at the blood-spattered Merlin.
"But before Mother fully sank into slumber, she not only created me, but also entrusted the Holy Grail to me."
Thus, in order to awaken his true Mother, Kingu had used the Holy Grail to summon Gorgon, turning her into a composite divinity.
"Because I could not awaken Mother no matter what, I devised another method—to have her die once. By letting death impact her consciousness, she would awaken completely."
Kingu laughed with perverse pride.
"The reason Gorgon possessed Tiamat's authority was not because it was granted through the Holy Grail, but because she was synchronized with the true Tiamat through it."
In this way, Gorgon not only held Tiamat's power but also shared senses with her.
"Now that Gorgon has died, her death has been conveyed through that synchronization to Mother, releasing her from her deep sleep."
"And with the dream that consumed most of its power broken, that incubus must have revealed its true body within Mother's dream, only to be crushed miserably by her."
"The temporal delay wrought by the Three Goddesses is over."
"Now behold—our true God, our true Mother, the original sin itself!"
Kingu rose higher into the air.
"Pity. Before Mother awakened, I had wanted to grant Gorgon's wish, to destroy humanity alongside her. But it seems that cannot be realized."
"Truly… such a shame…"
With those words, Kingu shot across the heavens like a jet.
None of them pursued him.
For Rozen and Merlin were both in dire straits.
"Haa… haa…"
Rozen labored to steady his breath, struggling to quell the backlash from what his Mind's Eye had just glimpsed.
"I really… miscalculated…"
Merlin, coughing blood, gave a bitter smile. His body began to glow faintly, dissolving into light particles, slowly dispersing.