[FDJ]Chapter 139: A Plot Within a Plot

Breaking free from the numerous talismans on his body, Caster Asclepius encountered the sealing magic of yellow paper talismans for the first time. He couldn't discern the dark red symbols on them, but he could feel the heavy malice within. It seemed that the simplified shapes might themselves be a kind of script.

For safety's sake, Caster immediately ignited the talismans with his magic power to prevent any lingering effects from influencing him.

"Over there?!"

As he burned the paper, Caster, now regaining his mobility and vision, remained highly vigilant. He noticed a disturbance in the shadows behind a tree and immediately controlled a nearby snake, sending it flying like a sword toward the source of the sound.

The snake found nothing out of place, only plunging into the soil. Caster looked around, still hearing the roars and shouts of monsters and soldiers fighting outside the forest, but he couldn't find the person who had ambushed him.

Caster was more than seventy percent certain that the opponent was also a Servant. The talismans used did not belong to any known local magecraft, and the level of magecraft or curse was very high, almost unattainable by humans. However, the Servant roles had long been filled, and if this was another unauthorized Servant, it couldn't appear without any prior information.

After probing suspicious shadows with the snake to no avail, Caster temporarily gave up the search and returned to the forest's edge to aid the soldiers facing a formidable enemy.

The forest quickly regained its peace, and two demons quietly appeared at the spot where Caster had been restrained. They looked in the same direction, weapons already in hand.

"He escaped so quickly! If I had a bit more time, I could have forced him to stay," said the male demon Elligos, retracting his massive spear and signaling his airborne mount to calm down.

"Shall we pursue?" asked the female demon Katina, taking a few steps forward and swiftly slashing open the gap that had just closed. "I can still locate the special Servant suspected to be Ashiya Douman, who fled to BC 1348. The Apennine Peninsula."

Katina easily saw through what Caster Asclepius could not perceive and directly captured the endpoint of the gap.

"We might have already alerted him. The most logical move is to chase immediately, to prevent him from contacting his allies," Elligos, not showing his usual battle-hungry side, quickly formulated a plan.

"He will try to contact his comrades and inform them of a force secretly opposing them."

"So we let him run for a while and then capture them all at once?"

Katina, rarely seeing her companion interested, decided to play a strategic game with the unknown Servant. She agreed to let the opponent go, as this emerging singularity was entirely under their control.

"We know little about them, and they know equally little about us. Chasing now would reveal not only our ability to traverse time and space but also our capability to easily deal with Servant-level enemies. Let's see how they react to encountering an unknown enemy. If their base is truly around AD 2000 in the East, we shouldn't be dealing with figures like Ashiya Douman, who was active during Japan's Heian period."

Elligos rummaged through the layers of his chest armor and pulled out a blood-red snake fang. He walked to the time-space gap reopened by his companion and tossed the fang through it.

"We need to show some weakness while also warning them. If we can provoke conflict and disrupt their judgment of us, all the better."

"If they don't take the bait?"

"Didn't I just throw down the bait?"

The two demons watched as the gap closed again, then simultaneously looked towards the Crusader camp. They could already sense that a troublesome presence was about to descend once more.

"Aren't you going to help the humans, Katina?"

Elligos asked his companion with a tone of playful urging. He seemed eager to see the female demon beside him use her katana-like sword to slash at colorful bubbles.

"Humans can handle their problems. I'm not their babysitter. If the avatar of 'Yogg' that descends is a swordsman with a weapon, I'd be willing to spar with him."

"I can't tell if you're making things difficult for the humans or for the eldritch god from another world."

The two shared a knowing smile and disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

...

After drawing the magic from the fourth underground leyline, Richard felt his power almost full. The process had gone smoother than he expected. It was around 9 AM, and he only needed to absorb magic from one more potent location. Then, the golden box in his hands would meet the required magical capacity. With the fragments of the Ark of the Covenant inside, it would transform into a high-grade holy relic.

Although the current golden box could already be considered a holy relic, the fragments of the Ark within were still greedily seeking more magic, like an awakened, ravenous beast.

To Archer Tristan, his Master's actions seemed redundant. But Richard disagreed. To please the angels about to descend and to perfectly separate this region from human history, forming a unique parallel universe, it was crucial to upgrade every ritual item to the highest grade. No step could be neglected, regardless of any enemy plots or schemes.

"What is going on? Why isn't Caster responding?!"

Using his Command Spell, Richard tried to ask if Caster had chosen the fifth location and where the snake familiar's coordinates were. But after several seconds, he received no reply.

Just as Richard was about to use the Command Spell to forcibly summon Caster back, he felt a strange terror creeping from an unknown direction. His mind was suddenly filled with useless, unsolvable knowledge, and maddening whispers permeated his entire being, attempting to destroy him through the Master-Servant contract.

The golden box emitted a bright light, dispelling all the abnormalities that had suddenly appeared on Richard.

Archer noticed his Master's unusual state and was about to leap down from a high place when he saw a distant golden light flare up. Although the light lasted only a moment, it formed a pillar that pierced the sky. The direction was the Safuria camp.

"Damn, Caster is being unraveled! That monster is also trying to affect me through the contract."

Richard stood up from the sand, urgently taking out the Holy Grail.

"Are you alright, Master?"

Archer understood where his Master intended to go and prepared for battle himself.

"The camp outside Safuria Town was attacked. Caster couldn't have been defeated without any defense. The soldiers there are also quite strong. How could Caster suddenly..."

Richard was puzzled. Just a few minutes ago, he had confirmed that the camp was merely under concentrated attack by monsters. Even if a bubble-like eldritch god avatar appeared suddenly, a Servant should at least have had time to send a message back.

Lancer had been fighting alone for quite some time. Even if Caster wasn't that strong, with the support of the soldiers in the camp, he should have been able to hold out for a long time.

...

While Richard was in a panic, all the soldiers in the Safuria camp saw a burst of golden light shoot up from the edge of the northeastern forest. The soldiers in that direction especially witnessed the monster corpses strewn about and the few remaining monsters that could still fight dissolve and disappear in the golden light.

The pseudo-Ark, nearly filled with magic, unleashed a holy power in retaliation for its master. This overwhelming force directly obliterated all the otherworldly monsters in that area, alive or dead, disintegrating them completely under the influence of this high-grade holy relic.

The soldiers, who had been fighting valiantly moments before, erupted in astonished cries and fell to their knees, worshipping the holy miracle. There was no doubt in their minds—they had witnessed a near-miraculous level of magic, which was highly effective against the monsters that the holy power could eliminate. To the soldiers in the camp, the monsters attempting to invade and threaten the Holy Cross had provoked the Lord and were instantly eradicated by His divine power.

However they chose to interpret it, the monsters inside and outside the camp left not a single trace.

Except...

Colorful bubble-like spheres began to float out of the forest after the golden light faded. The initial dozen or so that had appeared from the "gate" were all destroyed by the golden light, but the brief impact didn't affect the subsequent "spawned" bubbles. One after another, they floated towards the jubilant soldiers who were loudly praising God.

Suddenly, countless chaotic noises, whispers, and madness poured into these devout warriors. The last remnants of Caster also disintegrated into particles of magic at the forest's edge. Underestimating the curse, Caster Asclepius realized too late that the enemy's curse wasn't simply intended to bind him for a few seconds but to use his body as a medium to summon even greater evil entities. Even though the descending entity was just an avatar of an eldritch god, it was enough to defeat a single Servant.

Before Caster could step out of the forest, the curse's mark activated. What he had to resist wasn't just a simple summoning spell. Taken by surprise, his consciousness was swallowed by chaotic whispers. Even if he could recover after a few seconds, it was already too late.

From the beginning, he should never have left the powerful legion. Excessive anxiety and overconfidence led to his premature demise before any soldiers fell in battle.

"Everyone, snap out of it! Don't listen to the heretical hypnosis!"

"Those are enemies too! Form ranks! In the name of the Lord, destroy all enemies!"

As a few soldiers first regained their senses and called out, the others gradually shook off their astonishment. Most of them felt discomfort, and a few even lost their sanity on the spot, falling into madness. However, the loss of a handful of men couldn't prevent these fervent, devout Crusader elites from reorganizing their forces.

Meanwhile, soldiers from other directions were also rushing to the northeast under the command of their higher-ranking knights. Even though they only had various melee weapons, their confidence remained undiminished. They had just witnessed a holy miracle, the Holy Cross was right behind them, and their courage and faith became their ultimate anesthetic.

As humans, they saw with their own eyes the strange, glowing bubble-like spheres and charged towards these incomprehensible entities.