“What if this hole leads to the Fairy Realm, or somewhere close to it…? What if the place that it leads to is more dangerous than the Age of the Gods…?”

Soon, we were able to catch a glimpse of it in the darkness.

There was light at the bottom of the hole.

To be more precise, there were six glowing eyes. That meant that there were three giant beasts waiting to devour us whole.

“Huh…?”

Strange. We should have been getting closer and closer, but the monsters didn’t get any larger.

“Is it because…they’re too big…?”

If that was the case, each of the eyeballs would be tens of meters wide. There was a contradiction between the size of the beasts and the size of the Pit of Oblivion. Our senses struggled to process this contradiction as we continued to approach them.

“Is it… Cerberus…!?” My mentor exclaimed. “No, it can’t be. Is it a monster of the same origin..? Depending on the situation, it might be…”

I felt my throat dry up as my mentor continued frantically guessing in a broken voice.

It was as if my soul would dissipate if those eyes turned to look at me. That creature was more than just a Phantasmal Beast. It wasn’t some creature that had evolved into a monster because of the strange qualities of Albion. The authority it had over its domain could not even be compared to modern magecraft.

…I remember dealing with something that made me feel a similar way— the thing that had been in Touko Aozaki’s briefcase, or perhaps her body.

They were definitely different, but they both felt alien. The being sitting at the bottom of the pit was not something that a human could comprehend.

In a sense, that beast was the ruler of Albion.

“S-sir…” I managed to say.

“Stop breathing…” my mentor replied. “We can’t…let it notice us…”

As we continued to glide to our demise, my mentor tightened his grasp on the gold coin and clenched his teeth in desperation.


---


We continued to glide silently, afraid to make the smallest noise. I tried to keep my use of Magical Energy at a minimum. The conclusion that had been reached in the Grand Roll was less impactful than a fairy tale in the face of the all-consuming darkness that slowly filled my heart.

The name of the darkness was terror. In its face, I finally understood where we came from. We had been born from a dark, hopelessly empty void. The abyss that was darker than night was our cradle.

I felt as if we had been released into the vacuum of space, except our souls was about to freeze instead of our bodies or minds.

And yet, we had no choice but to continue gliding. I saw a couple of smaller tunnels on the side of the pit. One of them was probably connected to the Heart.

It was not sufficient to call my mentor’s face pale anymore. He continued to stare at the golden coin in his hand, trying to stop himself from trembling. Some people may have called his demeanor pathetic. But for me, seeing him persevere was endlessly reassuring, like a fragment of a star in the midst of unsurmountable darkness.

“Just…a little more…” I said as quietly as I could.

Neither of us had the courage to look down.

From the perspective of the creature, we were probably no more than a few grains of sand. It lived in a completely different dimension from us. It was the embodiment of the world beyond the farthest reaches reaches of Albion. Had people created the existence of the myth of the guard dog of hell because they could not forget about this beast?

The wind carried a faint stench.

Though it wasn’t very loud, its roar shook every loose rock on the walls of the Pit of Oblivion. I was sure that we would pass out if we had been any closer. All I could do was summon all my willpower and wrench myself away from it.

My mentor’s gaze quivered as he clutched the coin in his hands.

“Gray…!”

He gestured to one of the tunnels. Suddenly, I saw hope again. But it only lasted an instant.

One of the six eyes turned to us.

—Time ceased to exist.

The beast of Albion did nothing.

It only stared us with its eye that wasn’t magical or evil. Nevertheless, it was enough to tear us apart, crushing our nails, our skin, muscles, internal organs, bones, and brains until it reached our soul

My breathing completely stopped, as did the blood in my veins. Each of my cells froze as if they were never part of a living thing in the first place.

Someone said that fear was born of the unknown. I didn’t agree. Fear didn’t come from things that we didn’t know, but things that we couldn’t know. In the face of such an immense presence, all of my senses closed themselves off and brought about their own demise before I surely would as well.

“…Sir…”

Of course, my mentor was going through the same thing.

“It’s gaze…was drawn to us by someone…”

He said in a voice that was indistinguishable from panting, as if he knew that these were his last breaths.

“I finally understand…what Heartless’ Mystic Eyes are…”

Just before I lost consciousness, I finally realized where we had gone wrong.

Despite all our preparation, we had badly underestimated Spirit Tomb Albion.


---


Darkness.

That is what I would soon become. It was a harbinger of death, the sign that we had fallen from the Texture of the Human Order and were about to be wiped out.

I could feel the memory of the person named Gray fading away, crushed by the beast until not even a fragment of me remained.

(……)

It shattered, shredded, dissolved. I felt as if the fibers that made up my being were being slowly unraveled as it stared at me.

“—I ask—”

…Somehow, I heard something.

A voice that could not have reached me.

“—I ask you.”

It was not an actual voice, but something that came from a place as far away as the earth’s center. But it must have been a place connected to a Ley line.

“—Are you my Master?”

My body screamed at me that somewhere, someone had made a contract.

A tremendous vitality filled me as if each cell in my body was being replaced. This power continued to grow, far exceeding the limits of a human vessel, awakening my consciousness even though I should have been dead.

(…Ah.)

So that was why Sir Kay had said that in my dream.

—“You’re probably here because that person’s getting close.”

In that case, the other thing he had spoken of was the fate I could not escape.

—“The end is almost here, so I hope fate goes easy on you.”

Even the tips of my fingers burnt with energy. Each breath I took sent fire coursing through my body. Upon opening my eyes, thousands of times more information than I was used to entered my brain, which somehow managed to receive it all after being energized.

I let the flood of information surge through me as I activated the Mystic Code on my back. I did not know how far I had fallen. Time and space were both fuzzy here. My mentor would probably hypothesize that time had stopped while I was dead.

I could see my mentor beneath me, still plummeting into the void.

“Sir—!”

He did not respond to my call. I knew that he would die if I didn’t do anything. No human could withstand the gaze of that monster. His soul would be crushed and returned to nothingness, just as mine had been.

“What point is there to holding back now, Gray?” Came a piercing voice from the hook at my right shoulder.

“Add!”

“Unseal it! I’m sure you can now!”

I didn’t need to ask to know what he meant. More Magical Energy than I could imagine was propelling me, yet I was shuddering like a terrified fawn.

“I…”

“Get a move on, Gray!”

“But that means you’ll—“

“That doesn’t matter! You’ve left your hometown! Time to be brave!”

The scolding of the box that used to be my only friend ignited something within me.

I poured all my emotion into my right hand. The box I was holding dissolved into a vortex of light.

“Gray(Darken)…Rave(Celebrate)…Crave(Want)…Deprave(Corrupt)…”

The incantation of self-suggestion flowed naturally from me. However, I didn’t enter a trance like usual. This was the only time that the secret techniques that Bersac Blackmore had drilled into my head failed to work the way I wanted them to.

And yet, I continued to chant, just as he taught me.

“Grave…me(Engraved in me)…”

“Pseudo-personality suspended. Mana yield exceeds regulation. Second stage restraint rescinded.”

Add’s voice turned mechanical as it usually did, signaling that its pseudo-personality had stopped so that as much Mana as possible could be taken in from my surroundings. Though the Magical Energy of Spirit Tomb Albion was different from that of the surface, Add consumed it without any problems.

“Seal Thirteen, Decision—”

(—No—!)

I barely managed to maintain the final restraints on the holy lance.

“Grave…for you(A grave for you)…”

The Magical Energy that should have been released rushed back into my Magic Circuits, tearing the flesh surrounding it. Blood gushed out from my right shoulder. If not for the “power” that had entered me earlier, I might have died then.

As I felt the slight warmth of my blood dripping down my right hand, I announced the true name of the spear.

“—Rhongo(The Lance that Shines)—”

This was the first time I had uttered its name with such despair.

An intense light surrounded my right hand. It was the anchor that held the world together, the tower at the farthest end. The Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm that should not have existed in this age of diminished mystery roared to life.

“—myniad(to the End of the World)—!”

For just a few seconds, the radiance of the lance filled the Pit of Oblivion.

Each molecule of air burnt up as all the Magical Energy in the area was eradicated. And then—

—A tiny sound came from the lance itself.

I should not have been able to hear it amidst the carnage, but I did.

I understood what it meant. It was the sound of a final blow that could not be mended, like the breaking of a heart or a delicate castle made of glass that I could never put back together again.

Just as quickly as it appeared, the light from the lance disappeared again. Not even it was able to harm the beast that lived at the bottom of this hole. It could only divert its attention.

That was all we needed. Lunging toward my falling mentor, I dived toward a cavern that opened from the side of the Pit of Oblivion.

*

I landed on my knees.

“Aghhh…!”

I felt like my entire body was being put through a blender. It was a hundred times more painful than growing pains. The outside of my body was already identical to hers. Now, the inside that connected to Mystery was shifting as well.

The foreign organs inside me now were not made from my existing cells. Each breath brought more Magical Energy cycling through my chest cavity like magma.

However, none of that seemed to matter now.

I needed to talk to someone.

“…Add!”

“Yeah?” It replied.

If I ignored the exhaustion in its voice, it almost sounded the same as usual.

“Why do you sound like you’re crying?”

“…I’m not… I’m not crying.”

I shook my head, but I understood.

No matter how Add tried to hide it from me, I knew what would happen.

By some miracle, Add managed to stay in this shape. I knew it would not last. If I had unsealed the Seal of Thirteen, nothing would have remained of this strange, talking box.

“…Gray…”

My mentor looked at me with a tense expression, as if he didn’t know what to say.

When would he learn not to make that kind of face? I really think he is a fool sometimes. I wanted to tell him that he had done nothing wrong. We had entered this maze knowing that we would lose our lives or the lives of our friends. This was all to be expected. It was stupid of him to think that this journey could be completed without making any sacrifices.

“Sir,” I said, changing the subject so I could say what he could not. “I think the last Servant of the Fifth Holy Grail War has been summoned.”


Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Grand Roll (Lower); Chapter 4, Part 2; Chapter 4, Part 3; Chapter 5, Part 2