This main plane actually harbored such a powerful existence?
As long-lived demons, they immediately realized this was no mere "Reality Marble" or "Aura of Terror" type of low-grade sorcery.
—This was a Domain.
This meant that even in Hell itself, the person before them would be powerful enough to crush their true forms. All the more so now, when they were merely projections.
Yet Satsuki, who so casually unfolded this Domain, had never thought to give such a thing a name.
After all, one does not bother to name one's breathing or the swing of one's arm. To her, this level of power was utterly insignificant.
Her prolonged battle with Karna, which had ended seemingly in a draw, was only because neither of them bore killing intent. It had been a match, a mutual probing. Many of their trump cards and true strength had never been displayed.
But before demons steeped in karmic corruption, Satsuki became an unfeeling killing machine.
Confronted with such overwhelming power, the once-arrogant demons felt, for the first time in ages, true soul-deep terror. It was not as if they had never faced stronger opponents before—indeed, every demon who reached their rank had done so by clawing their way up, crushing countless peers beneath their feet.
But resistance has limits. A frog, under the gaze of a venomous serpent, can only tremble in place. Ants, when faced with an anteater's invasion, can only be devoured at will.
When the gap of power crosses a certain threshold, before the will to resist can even arise, fear has already raised the flag of surrender within the heart.
Under this Domain, which surpassed a certain limit, the three visitors from Chaldea finally recovered somewhat. Cold sweat beaded on Ritsuka Fujimaru's face as he barely regained reason, hastily reinforcing himself with defensive magecraft.
El-Melloi's body already bore scorch marks of corruption from Hell's aura. If not for the mysterious soul within him lending its aid at the crucial moment, he might already have been driven mad by the demonic miasma.
This was the fate of mortals briefly exposed to powerful demons. The fiends did not even need to attack—mere presence, aura, and innate passives were enough to slaughter masses of ordinary humans.
In the end, as mortals, they were simply too weak.
In contrast, Mash, as a Demi-Servant, fared far better. Though her actions and mind were somewhat suppressed, she had suffered no actual damage.
The three demons suppressed under Satsuki's Domain roared furiously. A deep soul-bound contract flared within them, casting a faint, dim glow across their bodies. They stiffened in shock, then immediately acted.
Pale blue light flashed across their twisted forms—the talent of high-class demons, Greater Teleportation.
Whoosh… whoosh… whoosh…
As high-ranking demons with noble titles, their intelligence far surpassed their chaotic and bestial kin. They understood perfectly well the kind of strength it took to suppress three greater demons with a Domain. They did not hesitate—they chose to flee.
But as the teleportation effect began to take hold, two of their bodies flickered strangely. Just as they were about to vanish, their forms reappeared in the same place.
"Our teleportation was disrupted?"
"A spatial anchor?"
Before they could process why their escape was thwarted, the place where the duck-headed, lion-bodied, rabbit-tailed demon had stood was filled with foul stench and drifting dust of magical particles.
That demon's projection had been grievously struck down, its form already unraveled.
"What… what is happening?"
They could not fight, nor could they flee.
The cruel faces of the surviving demons were now filled with disbelief. The slain one might have been the weakest of the three, but he possessed a certain degree of foresight over past and future. In terms of survival, he had been the most secure among them.
And yet he had been killed almost effortlessly, without a chance to resist. Even if it was only a projection, the ease of his death was far too unbelievable.
Even Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash were stunned by the sight—Ritsuka, as a Master, could easily tell that the three greater demons before them had average parameters close to those of first-rate Servants. If it came to a straightforward Servant battle, Mash alone would hardly stand a chance.
Meanwhile, the two surviving high-class demons, being far more sensitive to changes within themselves than magi, quickly realized something was wrong.
They could feel it clearly—the composition of this Domain's energy was strange.
The gray energy radiating from the luminous wheel had invaded their inner systems, dispersing the Greater Teleportation they should have been able to use freely.
Even the bull-headed demon, a commander among demons, had only ever experienced this sensation in a handful of sealed worlds. Unbidden, he recalled a whispered phrase once spoken by the Hell-lord he truly served:
—The sacred cast down below, the planet laughing aloud.
The bull-headed commander could not help but ask: "This… power? Just who are you?"
Satsuki ignored the demon's question. She did not strike again, but instead turned to the three travelers from another world.
"The other two scraps are yours. If you cannot deal with them, then your talk of repairing 'aberrant' history is nothing but an empty joke."
"You mean, you are going to…?" El-Melloi faltered for a moment, then asked respectfully.
"Merely to see what kind of tasteless fool summoned them."
Her tone was cold and detached, as though the demons she suppressed were not mighty beings but weeds by the roadside.
As soon as she finished, Satsuki vanished. The luminous wheel of the Domain suppressing the demons vanished with her.
The instant the Domain dissolved, thick, ink-like malice and terror once again seeped slowly into the air. The alley around them began to shift back toward the crimson hellscape.
Only then did the Chaldeans truly realize the overwhelming scale of Satsuki's power—but there was no time for awe.
Demons, as supernatural beings, possessed formidable regeneration and spellcasting abilities. If left unchecked, they would soon recover—and then fighting them would become far harder.
With that in mind, Ritsuka immediately looked to Mash.
The pink-haired Demi-Servant met her Master's gaze in perfect understanding.
"Combat commencing, Master. Please give the order."
Ritsuka at once stretched out his hand, rapidly layering reinforcing spells onto Mash. "Begin the fight, Mash!"
El-Melloi II also moved instantly, deploying the Eightfold Golden Lock Formation around them.
The two demons, sensing Satsuki's departure, made no move to pursue. Their orders were to kill, not to protect the one who had summoned them.
What's more, they were not fools. There was no point throwing themselves into a fight they could not possibly win, just to prove it.
They could only curse their summoner, hoping he would die quickly—for they never wished to face that terrifying existence again…
At the very depths of that alley—
"To think, after I expended such vast mana to summon three Demon Kings, I expected them to at least prove useful in some small way. And yet they cannot even manage the most basic task of cleaning up. Worthless."
"It seems that not only do humans degrade with the passage of ages, but even demon gods grow weak from sitting upon their thrones too long."
The filthy air was saturated with magical energy that far surpassed even dragonkind. It was not merely the limit of phantasmal species—it had reached the realm of gods and demons.
The white-haired man, possessing Clairvoyance of EX rank, halted his work. He turned, stepping into the dim light to reveal his figure, and fixed his gaze upon the intruder cloaked in black.
"A Servant I have never seen before. One detached from the Seven Classes, a void hidden in the mist of mystery across past and future alike. Though unexpected variables have grown many at this point in time, you are the most unique among them. Even compared to the one I most dread, your level of mystery exceeds his."
The white-haired man scrutinized Satsuki, quietly infusing his words with magical power.
"I am the ultimate goal of all magi, the one who commands the Seventy-Two Demon Gods, the King who brings humanity's destruction. My name is Solomon, one of the Seven Grand Caster Thrones standing above countless faceless Heroic Spirits."
"To obscure my clairvoyance and break through my defenses and magical wards with such ease—you must be no ordinary figure in history. Would you not consider, before death, offering your loyalty to the greatest King of Magecraft? If you do, I may yet allow the Holy Grail to grant your wish."
"I had no idea," Satsuki replied flatly, her words carrying no emotion, "that the King of Magecraft also possessed a talent for cold jokes."
The proud king's expression darkened. In those few sentences of verbal magecraft probing, he had discerned nothing—no thought, no mood, no malice.
Complete emptiness. Pure emptiness. Absolute emptiness.
Satsuki only glanced around at the human hellscape that surrounded them.
"So this is the famed King Solomon of history—merely an inhuman shell without feelings, his body seized after death by a jumble of filth."
At last, her calm, water-like eyes locked onto the tall white-haired man before her.
"In that case, this piece of human history truly does qualify as an 'aberrant' one."
"Then your purpose—is it to repair this 'aberrant' history?"
"Others will deal with that. The only thing I am curious about…"
The golden Tenseigan flared open. In her hand, the folding fan transformed into a black blade, reversed in grip at her side.
Her haughty gaze fell upon the Caster beyond the bloodstained ritual dais. A flicker of killing intent flashed in her eyes, and with it a violent gust of murderous pressure swept toward Solomon.
"Hm?"
It was Solomon who uttered the sound of surprise. In that instant when the gale brushed across his body, a vision of the future unfolded before his clairvoyant sight. Yet before he could react, the black-haired girl had already vanished from his view.
This greatly alarmed the King Solomon who had manifested into this timeline under the Caster class. Bound by the constraints of the Grail, his power was but a shadow of his prime. And one of his most vital abilities, Clairvoyance, was helpless against this Servant. Clearly she was no magus; even Solomon's rings had little effect.
In the blink of thought, a cold voice rang out behind him.
"Did your clairvoyance tell you—"
The next instant, the black-haired girl had reached his blind spot with a speed even a Grand Caster could not follow. All he could see was the black sword-light tearing through space.
"How you will die?"
Such speed. Such an ambush. No Caster could resist it.
That sword strike carried the power of the Vipralopa. The intricate magical traps Solomon had so painstakingly arranged were destroyed along with the circuits before they could even activate.
Before Solomon could even register his astonishment, the black blade of light had already pierced through his body.
Splurt—
The sound of flesh being run through echoed, yet Satsuki frowned.
The feeling was wrong.
When she tried to draw back her black sword, she found that the same power capable of suppressing Karna could not move it at all.
Around the wound in the man's torso, the flesh had transformed into writhing red demonic tendrils. Some of them coiled tightly around the blade, secreting corrosive slime that immediately ate into its surface, pitting and scarring it. More tendrils lashed out from beneath and behind him, striking toward Satsuki.
The so-called King of Magecraft only grinned hideously at her.
"Luring you in was easier than I thought."
"Sending you to Hell… perhaps only a little more troublesome."
The next instant, Satsuki raised one hand. A massive surge of repulsion flung Solomon's body away, tearing him free from the sword and slamming him hard into the magically reinforced wall.
At the same time, she shot into the air, evading the attack of a lurking black Demon Pillar from the shadows below.
Five Truth-Seeking Orbs appeared once more in her right hand, spinning rapidly in spiral fusion. With a single thrust forward, she released a raging storm toward the direction Solomon had been hurled.
Boom—!
The entire workshop crumbled like cheap foam before the destructive might, collapsing instantly into ruin.
The power of the strike rivaled an A-rank Noble Phantasm's magical release. Yet Satsuki knew it would not be enough to defeat him.
When she attempted to lock onto King Solomon again with the Tenseigan, she found no trace of the Caster—he was far more cunning than she had expected, slipping immediately into the surrounding shadows.
The Tenseigan could perceive the flow of energy, but the air was saturated with his mana, like a natural mist clouding her vision.
If she wanted to end this quickly…
A luminous wheel appeared faintly behind Satsuki's head, gray light spreading outward once more.
Domain.
That was what the demons had called this ability. To Satsuki, the name was irrelevant. Power was but a tool, unchanged by labels.
As the Domain swept outward, the blood-soaked gloom was suppressed. All magical fluctuations and energy currents were dispersed, and the air grew oppressively heavy.
Even with Clairvoyance EX, Solomon could not have foreseen this. Struck by the Domain, mana drained rapidly from his body. Even maintaining the guise of King Solomon became impossible, forcing him out of the shadows to reveal his true form.
"In this Domain, and still able to move… You do have some strength." Satsuki's gaze fell on him.
Though his flesh rippled grotesquely, Solomon barely held onto a humanoid form. Breaking through the suppression of the Domain was no simple feat.
As the King of Magecraft, a Grand Caster, he comprehended the situation in an instant. He understood just how formidable this Servant was.
"In this Domain, most of my magecraft is sealed. And after that battle's loss, my strength is greatly diminished. To fight one with such power… I must reveal a trump card."
Forcing down the distortion of his body, countless intricate lines surfaced across him, impossible amounts of magical energy surging within. He spread his arms wide.
"Ars Paulina: The Time of Crowning Has Come, He Is the One Who Begins All."
It was Solomon's Noble Phantasm. Within Satsuki's Domain, a vast white temple erupted into being, breaking through space itself. It stood on equal footing with the Domain, granting him ground to stand upon.
"At last, your Noble Phantasm?"
Satsuki's Tenseigan could perceive much of a Servant's nature—that was how she had so easily read the truths of Lancer and Caster.
Thus, the Noble Phantasm was also within her insight.
Ars Paulina: The Time of Crowning Has Come, He Is the One Who Begins All
It was a Reality Marble of such scope that it transcended the rules of the world. Without true name release, the Wheel of Vipralopa could not shatter it.
To deal true damage, one had to enter the temple itself. Otherwise, no strike from the outside could reach into a space cut off from the normal flow of time.
Just as a sword in the present cannot cut one dwelling in the past—so long as Caster remained in the Temple of Time, he was untouchable.
"This method of defense is… interesting."
Satsuki murmured softly, then flew without hesitation toward the temporal temple he had summoned.
The moment she crossed its threshold—
—A fist the size of a cauldron came crashing down to greet her.