After their defeat, Melusine and Barghest were confined outside the grand hall of Camelot Palace.
Though it was called confinement, all it really meant was that their wrists and ankles were bound with chains before they were made to sit on the platform between two sets of stairs, waiting for whatever would be done with them next.
"Mm… these chains are ridiculously strong. I can't break free at all." Barghest used every bit of strength in her body, yet the golden chains didn't so much as tremble.
For someone defined by brute strength to be restrained so completely by chains barely two fingers thick was absurd.
"Stop wasting your strength, Fairy Knight Gawain," Melusine said, unusually compliant. "No—since we're both defeated, I suppose I should call you Barghest."
Unlike Barghest, Melusine had already realized these weren't ordinary magical restraints. They were the manifested power of some kind of Noble Phantasm—an object closer to divine authority than Magus tools.
It was why that pure-white knight who resembled a lion had been so casually comfortable leaving them here.
They had assumed she was merely a normal Londinium knight. But it seemed she was… something closer to a goddess. Even if she couldn't draw out her full power, what she could use was already incomparable to that of the Fairy Knights.
"The God King's army is no joke. Those two women are stronger than anything Britannia has ever seen." Barghest's shoulders sagged. "If the God King himself fought me… I probably wouldn't last a few exchanges."
"Of course," Melusine said, a hint of pride slipping into her voice.
After all, he was the man who had granted her life. There was no reason he should lose to Barghest—even if Barghest was, among the fairies, only slightly weaker than Woodwose and Melusine, fully deserving of the title of Fairy Knight.
"But what?" Barghest asked, suddenly interested.
To her memory, Melusine was always like a cold blade—direct, efficient, emotionless as she carried out her missions.
But the moment the God King was mentioned, something in her tone wavered.
"Nothing. It's not important."
Melusine's expression dimmed further. Even she didn't know whether "not important" referred to one side… the other… or all of it.
"…I see."
Barghest sensed she had stepped somewhere she shouldn't and dropped the subject immediately.
Despite her brutish, muscular frame and icy demeanor, Barghest's heart was surprisingly delicate—she knew when to leave someone's wounds alone.
Nearly a day and night passed with them left outside the palace. They had food, but Barghest still felt uneasy. For two defeated knights to be sitting here chatting instead of trying to escape seemed far too relaxed.
Before that lax mood could spread any further, the sounds of shouting carried news that the clans were attacking Camelot.
Not long after, the tiny fairy Habetrot—always hovering near Queen Morgan, yet seemingly never required to do anything—ran out to pass on the order that Ector was to prepare a breakout retreat and abandon Camelot.
Before Melusine and Barghest could understand what was happening, they saw Habetrot halt abruptly on her way back.
"Ah… here are two more. Morgan forgot about you." Habetrot tugged at the chains binding them. "No good, I can't undo these. We need the one who made—"
Before she finished the sentence, the chains dissolved into nothing.
All three were taken aback.
Before anyone could speak, a massive, overwhelming surge of Mana erupted from deep within the palace—followed instantly by the dense stench of a Curse and an ominous pressure that rolled over them like a storm.
"Catastrophe?" Melusine blurted out.
"Anyway, you two need to run! Get out of Camelot, now! This place is about to be swallowed by a calamity!" Habetrot shouted, flustered. "Go anywhere—just don't stand here! If you stay, you'll die!"
"Wait—wasn't the calamity already—?"
For Barghest, born two hundred years ago, the calamity existed only as a story preserved in records. Ever since the 400th year of the Queen's Era, no calamity had appeared.
But Britannia had been ravaged by war ever since, leaving the fairies no chance to celebrate its disappearance. All they could do was record it in passing.
Even the documents Barghest had seen were stained with the recorder's blood—darkened by time into something like dried black ink.
A massive shadow, larger than the royal palace, descended from the sky. Even without seeing its body, anyone could tell something grave was happening.
Realizing vaguely that something unprecedented was about to unfold, Barghest hesitated only for a breath before turning and sprinting toward the west gate.
Once a calamity appeared, it would never stay confined to Camelot. She had to regroup her scattered troops and protect her own domain—Manchester.
Habetrot also turned and dashed back into the palace to regroup with the others. Only Melusine remained standing where she was, staring blankly at Camelot and the palace grounds.
That looming shadow was none other than the Beast God Cernunnos' remains—released back into the Great Hollow the moment the seal within Shiomi was undone.
The Divine Spirit's soul had long since perished, but the remains retained their activated state. Their burning rage persisted, becoming a Curse-laden disaster that now threatened all of Britannia.
Originally, without a new divine core, Cernunnos could not reawaken.
But after being consumed by Shiomi, the remains had been exposed to the Life Power he carried—something Cernunnos never possessed even when alive. This process had continued for 1600 years.
Now the Beast God was like a waking corpse, crawling up from the Great Hollow. Its Curse had already begun spreading along the Hollow's walls, racing toward Britannia.
And those first to face it were Morgan and her group—who had just broken the seal releasing Cernunnos.
Mash, prepared in advance, rushed to the front at the perfect moment. With Sakura and Ritsuka supporting her through Magecraft, she invoked the true name of her shield.
'Lord Camelot.'
The White Wall City blocked the first wave of Cernunnos' cursed hand, buying precious moments for counterattack.
Morgan fell to one knee, breathing unsteadily.
To recreate the Third Magic in a single attempt, she had drawn out and used eighty percent of the throne's Mana.
Not for its original offensive function, but for a different purpose. Even with a spell system of her own design, optimized for herself, the operation required extreme precision and allowed no room for error.
She calmed her breath and looked at Shiomi lying nearby.
"Spirit particle scan complete. Shiomi's soul has been completely separated from the Beast God's curse, but—" Romani's anxious voice came through.
"One look is enough," Scáthach said sharply as she slashed through an approaching cursed hand. "The Beast God's remains are instinctively seeking my disciple's Life Power, trying to drag him over and turn him into its core!"
"But why? Tenkei still hasn't awakened?" Artoria fired her partially-released Holy Lance, blasting apart another cursed hand reaching from afar.