Chapter 51. [Nuclear Explosion Sword Immortal] is Really No Joke!
"ROAAR—!!!"
The monster's roar was as piercing as fingernails scraping a blackboard, carrying a soul-tearing magical frequency. Even if it was just a low-quality mimic-summoned version, the Juggernaut's speed was still so fast it looked like frame-dropping teleportation.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The twin blades in Shirou Emiya's hands danced into a black-and-white whirlwind, barely parrying the frantically swinging bone claws. Every collision felt like a direct hit from a battering ram. Sparks flew everywhere, and the webbing between his thumbs and forefingers split open.
"Is this thing... really an Agility type? Isn't this strength a bit illogical?!" Shirou gritted his teeth, his feet plowing two deep furrows into the ground. His Lv. 3 (All Stats SSS) physical fitness could only manage a defensive posture against his opponent.
"Hahahaha! It's useless! Useless!" Jura hid in the distance, waving his single remaining hand and laughing wildly. "The Destroyer is invincible! It's the ultimate weapon evolved specifically for slaughter! Give up resisting; turning into meat paste is your destiny!"
"You're too noisy, one-armed uncle." Shirou's eyes sharpened, and [Mind's Eye (True)] fully activated.
"Left... no, a feint, the right!"
"Trace—Overload!"
Kanshou and Bakuya instantly expanded in his hands, transforming into their massive feathered-wing forms. Shirou didn't choose to block; instead, he opted for a direct trade.
Boom!
A massive sound erupted. Shirou was blown back, snapping a giant tree. But the Juggernaut didn't have it easy either; a crack actually appeared on its indestructible bone claw.
"Emiya!" Ryuu shouted anxiously, clutching the silver-white longbow [Sirius].
"Don't worry about me! Shoot!" Shirou leaped up from the debris, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. "That thing's 'Magic Reflection' only covers its body surface! Its joints and eyes are the weak points!"
"But..." Ryuu's hands were trembling. The nightmare from five years ago resurfaced. Her companions—Alise, Kaguya... everyone had been turned into fragments under this monster's claws. That fear was etched into her very marrow.
"Ryuu Lion!"
Shirou's sudden roar broke through her memories.
He stood before the monster, his back to Ryuu. That figure, though not particularly tall, felt like a mountain in that moment, blocking out all fear and despair.
"Look at me!" Shirou bellowed.
"Don't look at the past! Look at the now!
I am here! I am still alive! As long as the sword in my hand hasn't broken, you have no reason for despair!
Leave your back to me... and then, use your arrow to pierce through it!"
Ryuu was stunned. In those sky-blue eyes, the image of the youth fighting a bloody battle was reflected. He was clearly a human she had only recently met. He was clearly a meddling fool. But why... did his words bring such peace of mind?
"You're right..." Ryuu took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the fear had vanished. In its place was the sharp intensity of "Gale."
"I am... an Elf.
I am the wind.
The wind will not be bound by fear!"
Vrrr—
[Sirius] seemed to sense its master's will, emitting a crisp chime. Green patterns lit up on the silver-white bow's body. The surrounding air began to flow, gathering at Ryuu's fingertips.
There was no need for a physical arrow. Her mana was the sharpest arrow of all.
"Luminous Wind—Form."
Green brilliance condensed into a slender arrow of light, notched upon the string.
"Go!"
Shiu!
The arrow of light shot out. It didn't travel in a straight line; instead, it traced an incredibly eerie arc in the sky, like a celestial wolf hunting prey, bypassing the Juggernaut's frontal defenses to strike directly at its right leg joint.
"Roar?!" The Juggernaut sensed the mana fluctuation and instinctively tried to use its shell to "reflect" it.
But right then—
"Don't even think about it!"
Shirou moved. He threw the twin blades in his hands, precisely wedging them into the Juggernaut's line of movement. Though they couldn't deal damage, they caused its movements to stall for 0.1 seconds.
That 0.1 seconds was all it took.
Puchi!
The arrow of light precisely pierced the gap in the monster's knee joint. There was no reflection armor there, only vulnerable tendons.
"AWOOOOO—!!!" The Juggernaut let out a scream, its right leg giving way as it collapsed to its knee.
"Beautifully done!" The corner of Shirou's mouth curled up. "See that? That's the value of a 'Sure Hit'!"
"It's not over yet!" Ryuu didn't stop. Now that she had overcome her fear, she would—shatter it completely!
Shiu-shiu-shiu-shiu!
A rapid-fire volley. Every arrow carried the blessing of the wind; every arrow precisely hit the monster's joints and blind spots. Shoulders, wrists, ankles... Though the Juggernaut possessed terrifying defensive power, under this "surgical" strike, it was beaten into total immobility.
"How is this possible... how is this possible!" Jura, watching from afar, was dumbfounded. "That's the Destroyer! How can it be suppressed by a human and a crippled Elf?!"
"Because you're too stupid."
Shirou's voice suddenly appeared near Jura's ear (psychological warfare). Although he was fighting the monster, his peripheral vision had been locked onto this mastermind the whole time.
"This monster might be strong, but it's a heartless puppet." Shirou leaped high into the air, mana gathering once more in his hands.
"But we... are 'fools' who have things we must protect!"
"Trace—On!"
This time, what appeared in his hand was no longer a blade. It was a massive, spiral-shaped longsword that looked like a drill.
[Pseudo-Spiral Sword (Caladbolg II)].
But this time, he didn't fire it as an arrow. He used it as a drill.
"Since your shell is so hard... then I'll open a hole in it!"
Shirou descended from the sky, using gravitational potential energy to drive the Spiral Sword violently toward the top of the Juggernaut's head—where a crystal that looked like a control core was located.
"Roar!" Sensing a fatal threat, the Juggernaut desperately raised its intact left arm, trying to reflect the strike.
"Ryuu!" Shirou shouted.
"Understood!"
Ryuu's eyes became ethereal. She poured all her remaining mana into [Sirius]. The bow emitted a blinding moonlight.
"This strike... is for everyone."
"Arrow of Inevitable Destruction (Failnaught)——!!"
Boom!
A beam several times thicker than before shot out. It precisely slammed into the Juggernaut's raised left arm. Though a portion of the massive impact was reflected, the remaining force still violently knocked the monster's left arm half a meter off course.
The opening was wide.
"Take this!!!"
Shirou's Spiral Sword, carrying a rotating roar, pierced into the crystal atop the monster's head without obstruction.
"Broken Phantasm—Internal Detonation!"
BOOM——!!!
It didn't explode outward. Instead, it funneled all the destructive power directly into the monster's internal body.
The Juggernaut's body expanded violently like a balloon being blown up. Its shell remained hard, but its internal organs and skeleton were ground into powder by the mana storm.
"......?"
The monster let out one last meaningless syllable. Then, that massive body collapsed, turning into a cloud of black dust. A giant, crack-filled magic stone fell to the ground.
The battle was over.
"......"
Shirou landed on the ground, the Spiral Sword dissipating. He felt every muscle in his body twitching, his mana once again depleted. He had fought too many hard battles these past few days; it was practically like burning through his life.
"Emiya..." Ryuu lowered the bow, her body swaying. But on her face was a long-absent smile of relief.
"We... won."
"Yeah, we won." Shirou walked over and supported Ryuu before she could fall. "Good work, partner."
"......"
A trembling voice came through. Jura sat paralyzed on the ground, staring at the pile of ash with hollow eyes.
"My masterpiece... my revenge... how could I lose to a brat like this..."
"Because you messed with the wrong people."
Shirou looked at him coldly, walking over step by step.
"Using the corpses of companions to create a monster, and then trying to use it to kill the last survivor... Jura, your crimes are so vile even hell won't take you."
"D-Don't come any closer!" Jura backed away in terror, waving his whip frantically. "I'm an executive of Evilus! I still have trump cards! I still have—"
He suddenly pulled another magic stone from his robe. It was a spare summoning stone.
"Heh!"
"If I can't live... then let's all die together!" A flash of madness crossed Jura's eyes as he prepared to crush the magic stone.
A wind blade flashed. Jura's hand was severed at the wrist. The magic stone rolled to the ground.
It was Ryuu who struck. She stood before Jura, holding a kodachi with ice-cold eyes.
"This time... I will be the one to end it."
"G-Gale... please... for the sake of the past..." Jura wailed for mercy, clutching his stump.
"For the sake of the past?" A hint of sorrow flashed in Ryuu's eyes.
"Precisely because of the past... I cannot let you continue to tarnish the name of the Astraea Familia."
A flash of a blade.
No blood sprayed. Ryuu merely used the back of the blade to strike Jura heavily on the back of his neck.
Thud. Jura fell unconscious.
"Eh?" Shirou froze. "You're not killing him?"
"...Killing him would only dirty my hands." Ryuu sheathed her blade, looking at the unconscious Jura with clear eyes.
"Moreover, rather than death, letting him face the Guild's judgment and spend the rest of his life in prison is the greatest punishment for him.
This is also... the 'justice' that Alise and the others would want to see."
Ryuu turned around and looked at Shirou. Moonlight spilled through the broken ceiling onto her, as if draping her in a silver veil. In that moment, she was no longer a vengeful ghost bound by hatred, but a truly reborn "Fairy of Justice."
"Thank you, Emiya," Ryuu said softly, a touching blush on her face. "If not for you... I might have turned into a real monster."
"I didn't do much." Shirou scratched his head, feeling a bit embarrassed. "It was mostly because that bow was quite useful."
"No." Ryuu shook her head and walked up to Shirou. She stood on her tiptoes, and before Shirou could react... she gave him a light embrace.
"You are my... hero."
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"Um... though I don't want to interrupt this touching atmosphere..."
A helpless voice suddenly came from the nearby woods. Ais Wallenstein stepped out with her sword, followed by a gossip-hungry Lili.
"The Guild's support unit will be here soon. If we don't want to be arrested as accomplices... we'd better withdraw now."
"Ais?!" Shirou was startled. "What are you doing here?"
"Finn sent me to 'clean up the mess'." Ais glanced at the unconscious Jura, then at the bow in Ryuu's hand (her gaze lingered on the bow for a long time, as if she had sensed something).
"It seems... my intervention wasn't needed."
"Hmph, Emiya-sama really is a big playboy!" Lili puffed out her cheeks. "He said he was coming to save someone, but he ended up conquering another one!"
"What do you mean 'another one'!" Shirou cried out in protest.
"Alright, let's go." Ais took Shirou's hand (claiming her territory). "Jura will be left for the Guild to handle. We... are going home."
"Yeah." Shirou nodded, then looked at Ryuu. "Miss Ryuu, coming with us?"
"No." Ryuu shook her head and put her hood back on. "I still have things I must do (referring to washing dishes at the pub as an apology). And... right now, I still cannot stand in the sunlight."
She held up [Sirius] and gave it a little wave toward Shirou.
"I'll keep this bow for now. As... proof of the 'secret' between us."
With that, her figure flashed, and she disappeared into the depths of the forest. Free like the wind, yet no longer lost.
"A secret, huh..." Shirou rubbed his nose, feeling two gazes (Ais and Lili) burning into his back.
"Um... shall we head back too? I'm hungry; how about I make some late-night snacks when we get back?" Shirou tried to change the subject.
"Fried potato puffs," Ais answered instantly.
"I want a high-grade steak!" Lili took the opportunity to make a demand.
"Fine, fine, anything you want."
Under the moonlight, the three walked toward the exit. Though they had been through a fierce battle and were covered in wounds, their steps were light.
Because they knew that in this cruel Dungeon, there was still a light called "Hope."
And in the shadows of the 18th floor, a masked figure (Hermes) watched the scene, revealing a satisfied smile.
"Beautifully done, Shirou Emiya. You didn't just save that Elf; you saved... the conscience of Orario."
"However..." Hermes glanced at the intelligence report in his hand...