Hey everyone, I saw the trailer for the new Spider-Man movie, and let me tell you, it's awesome! This is how Spider-Man should be: broken, poor, and alone; that's his true essence.
Thank goodness they got rid of that director who used CGI for Spider-Man's swinging scenes and ruined the character.
Based on what I saw in the trailer, I have faith in the movie, especially since I really like the character—top 3 superheroes of all time, and I won't say any more.
Let's get started.
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The three of them stared at the door, a little impatient.
"How are the two of them doing upstairs?" Kenji asked.
"Assassin isn't responding, but he's still alive," Akane commented, sounding worried.
"It's the same with my Servants; I'm trying to send mana signals to see if they respond, but nothing so far," Albus explained.
Once the door opened, the first form that had appeared before the three of them was seen, its back to them.
"After pretending in this body for so long, I've gotten used to it and I prefer it to my original body." At that moment, it turned to face them; it didn't look like a puppet, but it was quite obvious that it was, able to move its soul along with its life force and consciousness between the interconnected puppets that allowed it to move between them. "Here I am before you; face me at last."
"Not to mention that it's your last puppet," Akane said.
"..." The Berserker Master stared at Akane, then looked at the others without saying a word. "You know, the good thing about this not being my body is that I can modify it at will." As he said this, his hands transformed into razor-sharp blades. "I created this puppet to be able to face a Servant."
"Watch out," Albus warned, throwing two scrolls that summoned two birds, one of fire and one of ice.
And without wasting a moment, he launched himself at the three of them, reaching Akane first. Using magic with lightning speed, she managed to leap back, dodging the attack.
Seizing the opportunity, Albus ordered his summons to attack, causing both to unleash a simultaneous fire and ice attack. But the puppet extended its arm, which transformed back into a hand. An opening appeared in the palm, from which a magic bullet shot out, intercepting the attack.
Albus, seeing this, could only click his tongue.
The puppet looked ahead to see Kenji ready to attack with his gem weapons.
The Berserker Master had spent sixty years crafting this puppet, imbuing it with numerous functions and features, including magical resistance. As a result, Kenji's attacks weren't as effective as he'd hoped. After all, the puppet was filled with magical circuits, seals, and runes that aided it in any type of combat, whether physical or magical.
In the distance, Akane hadn't remained still. Already charging a large magic bullet in her hand, she fired it.
To everyone's shock, four more arms sprouted from the puppet, and a face contorted from the back of its head.
Using two of its six arms, it launched two magic bullets to neutralize Akane's.
"I've seen you fighting in the tunnels this whole time. Do you think I don't know how you fight and how you work as a team?" As he said that, a bound field activated where they stood, massively expanding the room, within which magical beasts reappeared.
Behind Akane, a giant wyvern appeared, ready to attack. She turned to attack, but a fire and ice attack stopped the dragon.
Seeing that the situation was spiraling out of control, Albus could only summon his strongest summon.
"天界的守護者, 跟隨你的人的保護者, 請到我這裡來," Albus began reciting in Chinese as he removed his gloves to reveal half a magic circle on each palm; he brought them together and patted the ground. "I幫助我平衡這場戰鬥,作為回報,所有的寶藏都將屬於你,風之龍.."
As he finished reciting his magic spell, a giant summoning circle appeared behind Albus, from which a colossal serpent began to emerge—a long and magnificent creature with yellow scales and fur only seen on the garments of Chinese royalty, its long whiskers adorning its elongated snout. Anyone familiar with Chinese culture would recognize this beast.
In the skies, a magnificent oriental dragon could be seen.
Before coming to the Holy Grail War, Albus had traveled to China several months in advance, attempting to forge a contract with a mythical beast. He eventually managed to make one with the strongest phantom creatures possible, but at a hefty price. His search for this being caused him considerable delay, nearly making him late to the war.
The great Chinese dragon narrowed its eyes at the summoned wyverns and attacked them.
Unlike the other summons, Albus couldn't control the dragon, so it did whatever it wanted, but as long as it helped, that was fine.
"Ha, a dragon, but do you think it'll help you?" "I just need to cancel the bounded field and the dragon will have to return to its lair or the other side of the world," he sneered, and he was right. Albus had taken advantage of the Berserker Master's bounded field to summon it.
At that moment, a magic bullet struck his side, causing him a little damage; he glanced up to see Akane staring at him, pointing with one eye.
"That doesn't matter, since it won't change the fact that you'll fall here, monster."
The puppet glared furiously at Akane.
The four ignored the Chinese dragon that was killing all the phantom beasts in the surrounding area and continued their battle.
...
Berserker was holding his staff when he realized it had stopped, only for someone to grab him by the other end and send him flying with the staff and another person to the other side of town, crashing violently to the ground.
He quickly got up and brushed himself off before heading towards Assassin.
After a few steps, he saw his opponent standing motionless, staring into space.
In Assassin's mind, it was a different story.
"OUCH PAIN!!" Assassin screamed in his mind.
"It's a good thing your transformation doesn't reflect your actual damage to your current physical state, or you might not be able to continue fighting," Kiss-Shot reminded him.
The Devil Fruit, being focused on death, makes it so that the user, while fully transformed, cannot die, and blunt force damage is not reflected; only slashing or similar attacks are visible. Once the user transforms back, all that damage appears on their body.
"As long as I don't fall unconscious, I can keep fighting, but that doesn't mean I won't feel the pain," Assassin complained to himself.
"Your passive regeneration is already at work, but if you keep this up, I don't think it'll do much good; one more hit and you'll be defeated or even killed," Kiss-shot informed him.
"Luckily, the two hits were in different places, so I can keep going as if it were just one; I have no choice but to give it my all now."
The first blow Assassin received was to his torso, while the second one took all the damage to his arms.
Assassin glanced to the side only to see Berserker already ready to attack.
The moment the monkey lunged forward, a rope of fire shot toward him, leaving him no choice but to dodge, leaping and landing far away from everyone.
The two looked in the direction the attack had come from, only to see Archer walking with his body covered in dried blood, his gaze fixed and determined.
Thanks to Albus's mana signals, Archer was able to regain consciousness much sooner than expected, quickly returning to where Assassin and Berserker were.
Archer walked over to Assassin and stood beside him.
"Hey, how's the situation down there?" he asked as quietly as he could.
"Hmm," Assassin paused thoughtfully for a few seconds. "It's not great. There's a fenced-off area that's blocking my view, but something tells me we'll have to use as little mana as possible."
"There's no other option then," Archer grumbled, staring intently at Berserker.
"Two against one, again?" With that, Berserker tried to pull out another lock of hair, but with otherworldly speed, Assassin reached him, slammed his fist into the ground, grabbed Berserker by the foot, and threw him toward Archer, who retaliated with his own blow.
Archer and Assassin then launched themselves at Berserker, taking turns fighting relentlessly.
Berserker didn't stand still; drawing his staff, he tried to strike Archer with it, but Assassin struck him in the legs, causing him to double over and miss the blow, leaving an opening for further attacks.
And so began a brutal fight where Archer and Assassin began to battle in perfect sync, using only their fists to attack and defend against Berserker.
...
Akane quickly created a large magic bullet, splitting it into five smaller bullets and firing it like a shotgun.
The puppet barely used all of its magic bullets before having to block Kenji's next attack and distract Albus's summons.
The puppet used two arms to fight each of them, but it only had four eyes, so there were times when it lost sight of one, allowing one of them to strike or even slightly damage it.
It extended one of its hands toward Kenji, and a blast of freezing gas erupted from a hole, capable of freezing anything it touched.
This caused Kenji to jump back, creating a wall that prevented the puppet from approaching.
The firebird approached to try and damage the puppet more effectively, but in doing so, it allowed the puppet to grab it, immobilizing it in one of its hands.
Albus tried to give his summoning an order, but the truck quickly crashed the bird into the ground, creating a crater and severely damaging the bird, causing it to end its summoning and return to the other side of the world.
Inside the puppet's body, thanks to magic circles and runes, it can perform a series of magical spells of various types in rapid succession.
Magic bullets, ice magic, fireballs, electric shocks, light blasts, etc.—different types of attacks, including barriers.
Upon seeing Akane's repeated magic bullets, it would launch an anti-magic barrier that would mitigate her attacks.
Upon seeing this, Akane clicked her tongue and retreated, as it would be pointless to expend more mana to break the barrier.
Moving her arms around her body as if they were in fixed positions, she began attacking everyone, forcing them to take cover.
The three sorcerers had to start dodging every attack they could.
The puppet noticed that Albus had left an opening, so it extended its arm and, with a mechanical clang, flew toward him.
Albus realized this and reacted, but too slowly, as the mechanism managed to grab the hand that held his last remaining Command Seal.
The mechanism began dragging Albus toward the puppet, which used two of its arms, transforming one into a saw and the other into a gag.
The summoned man had no way to remove the mechanism from his hand, but halfway there, Kenji appeared and, with a single movement, severed Albus's hand, saving him from death but temporarily removing his last Command Seal.
"Ahh," Albus let out a quick, short cry before beginning to groan silently.
Meanwhile, the puppet's attacks continued, and one of them struck the Chinese dragon, diverting its attention to the puppet, which it noticed.
A ball of wind formed from the dragon's mouth and was launched at great speed.
The panicked puppet deactivated the barrier, forcing all the phantom beasts to retreat, including the dragon. Unfortunately for the puppet, the dragon's attack did not disappear.
The dragon's attack destroyed the barrier and, with a single blow, slammed the truck into the wall, shattering it and sending it plummeting to the other side into the tunnels.
This gave the three of them a few moments of respite. Albus took advantage of the moment to try and stop the bleeding from his severed hand while he focused on where it had fallen.
Among the rubble, the truck emerged with several parts of its body destroyed; some of its circuits and runes had been shattered, rendering it unusable.
This greatly angered the berserker master, so he extended his hands toward the three of them and began launching several mana bullets and fireballs.
This forced the two to react quickly, throwing themselves to the side. While all this was happening, the puppet realized something: one was missing.
Akane, taking advantage of the distraction, slipped through the wreckage; her plan was to take the puppet and, using her abilities, alter the magical circuits so they overloaded and exploded from within.
With all the agility she could muster, she approached, and just as she was about to touch it, one of the six hands grabbed her and slammed her against the wall.
The impact knocked the wind out of Akane's lungs, leaving her breathless, and the puppet seized her with two of its hands, ready to kill her.
Kenji and Albus were too far away; running wouldn't be enough to save them.
"這需要多年的生命和攻擊," Albus said as he placed a small outlined field near him.
In a summoning circle, the Chinese wind dragon reappeared, and with a roar and supersonic speed, it attacked the van.
The dragon's griot distracted the Berserker Master long enough to prevent him from immediately attacking Akane, and the dragon bit him, sending him crashing against several walls before vanishing as quickly as it had arrived.
Akane was affected by the dragon's speed, sustaining a few cuts, but nothing compared to the state of the puppet.
All the runes and basic circuits had been destroyed; luckily, she now had the option of getting up and walking.
Half of the puppet was destroyed, revealing its core, where the Berserker Master's soul resided.
The three stood at a distance, staring at the dying puppet.
"It's time," Kenji declared, calming himself before stabbing it with his gem sword.
...
On the surface, Berserker could be seen laughing and fighting as best he could against the two Servants.
Assassin, using spectral chains, sent two pieces of rubble flying at his opponent, who tanked them head-on. Once they were destroyed, Archer appeared out of nowhere and kicked him upward, sending him flying.
Up above, Assassin, still wielding the chains, threw them to the ground and, using them for momentum, kicked Berserker, sending him crashing to the ground and shattering the floor.
Archer quickly lunged at Berserker, but the latter tried to strike him in the torso, only to be blocked by chains.
Archer's punch sent him flying straight toward Assassin, who kicked him aside and retaliated with another Haki-infused blow that slammed him into the ground, creating a gigantic crater that destroyed everything around it.
Berserker lifted him up, half his face destroyed but already regenerating, only to receive another direct blow to the chest from Archer that nearly split him in two, sending him flying.
Neither of them followed, as he was taking advantage of the moment to catch his breath and rest for a few seconds.
Panting, they watched Berserker walk beyond their reach, but his regeneration was already slowing down.
"Almost there," Archer said, panting.
"I see that," Assassin replied.
Just as the three were about to throw him again, something happened.
A light enveloped Berserker first, and almost simultaneously, the same thing happened to Assassin. They both vanished, leaving only Archer.
"What happened?"
...
*Moments earlier*
Kenji walked over to the truck.
He placed a foot on it and pointed his sword.
"It's over," he said.
"Hehe," the puppet chuckled mockingly, something Kenji and the others didn't understand. "Right, it's over for you, Command Spell."
Upon hearing those words, the three of them gasped in horror, as they didn't believe it still possessed Command Seals.
Kenji quickly tried to stab it, but Akane, knowing what could happen and remembering Assassin's words, recited.
"Command Spell," Akane said.
"Come here and get rid of these nuisances." With the truck's words, a force was generated that pushed Kenji back, only for Berserker to appear where he was, his staff ready, and with a single movement, he destroyed everything.
They were all thrown in every direction, leaving only chaos in the place.
The truck quickly lifted up and sped off to the surface where they were.
All the tunnels and secret lairs began to crumble.
Kenji was in the middle of it all, gravely wounded; he was missing both arms and had several pieces of rock embedded in his body.
He simply stared at the sky, watching as a giant chunk of rock crashed down on him. Before it hit, he closed his eyes and thought of his wife and family. And so ended the life of Kenji Tohsaka, crushed to death as the entire Berserker Master's guard was completely destroyed.
...
Akane's eyes were closed, only to open them to find herself outside on the surface, being held like a sack of potatoes by Assassin.
Seeing him, she didn't shudder much; having grown accustomed to her reaper form, she surveyed the scene, taking in the devastation.
"It's a good thing you acted quickly, or you might not be alive anymore," Assassin told his master.
"I..." Akane tried to speak but was stopped.
"There's no time; the Berserker master is escaping. Only you can stop him. I just need you to hold him still; I'll take care of the rest. Do you think you can do it?" Assassin quickly explained the situation.
"I... can," Akane said firmly, to which Assassin nodded.
At that moment, Berserker appeared, completely healed and his body brimming with mana, not far from the two of them.
Before the Berserker Master's lair was destroyed, he used up all his mana batteries and sent them to Berserker, overloading him with mana, restoring his accelerated regeneration, and giving him the energy to fight again in all his glory.
"There's no time; it's time to end this," Assassin told her, pointing to where the puppeteering was. Akane saw it and, without thinking, ran toward the direction.
Just as she was about to disappear, Akane stopped and turned around.
"Command Spell: Restores Assassin to his best possible fighting condition."
With that, Assassin's body was completely restored, his energy and mana fully replenished.
Assassin couldn't thank his master, as Berserker had already launched into battle.
He dodged, delivering a kick that sent Berserker reeling a few meters, allowing Berserker to draw his staff and aim at Assassin.
Just as he was about to strike, a chakram engulfed in flames collided with the staff, deflecting it and causing it to miss its target.
"Remember, I'm missing, trash," Archer retorted, staring into the distance.
Berserker didn't stare for long, as he had to dodge the slash of Dante's scythe, who, taking advantage of his full mana reserves, summoned him.
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I want to apologize for the frequent delays in posting chapters. So many things have happened these past few weeks: getting sick, not having a mouse, having visitors and not being able to write, among other things.
Well, I don't know what else to say, since I don't think you care about my excuses, and there's nothing more I can do.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and the next one will be the end of the battle and this Holy Grail War. See you.