He tore through the Holy Grail War, and you still call him a dragon?

"Something's… off about the Shinshi!"

Emiya yelled toward Sakegami Mai, who alongside the others, was unloading bullets from her MP7 in a deafening barrage.

"Their target isn't us! I think they're trying to escape!"

"Great insight, Emiya-kun! I can see that too! But can you ask them to not kill us on the way out? Maybe tell them to slow down a bit and let us move aside first? Maybe not swipe at us in passing?"

Sakegami Mai shouted back over the roar of gunfire.

"How the hell would I know what those things are thinking?!"

"Then we're back to the old rule: fortune favors the bold!" she snapped, her logic leaping like lightning.

"...Shouldn't there be a follow-up to that?" Emiya wondered briefly.

The chaotic back-and-forth lasted mere seconds. There weren't that many Shinshi, and the corridor wasn't wide. With nowhere to dodge and bullets flying point-blank, they were swiftly wiped out under the team's combined firepower.

By the time Sakegami Mai's boots crunched onto a floor littered with brass casings, the Shinshi were reduced to heaps of gore, twitching remains, and grotesque chunks.

Everyone held their breath, noses covered, as they passed through the makeshift butcher's den. Meanwhile, the fleeing behavior of the Shinshi was reported to the Wamiko.

Her response came swiftly: they were authorized to continue exploring but must retreat immediately upon encountering unknown threats. Reinforcements would be stationed outside.

Their steps echoed through the narrow corridor. Surprisingly, it grew silent. No more desperate monsters leaping from the dark.

But along the way, pools of black blood, sticky fluids, shredded flesh, and scattered bones testified to recent carnage. The stench clung to the air.

Even in retreat, the Shinshi couldn't suppress their bloodlust. They had turned on each other, cannibalizing one another as they fled.

Putting them down had clearly been the right move.

They walked on quietly, light emerging in the distance. Emiya, spotting it first, enhanced his vision with magic.

A vast underground chamber lay ahead, open and brightly lit—but its contents were in utter disarray, like it had been hit by an invisible storm.

Coffins were overturned, shattered. Inside lay half-decayed corpses—some blackened and shriveled, others reduced to ash as if cremated.

But all of Emiya's attention was captured by the figure in the center:

A massive dark silhouette, mounted on a warhorse.

The horse had eight legs.

And atop it sat a warrior clad in dark-gold armor, draped in a blue-black cape. He wore an iron mask that hid his face, save for one glaring golden eye that glowed like a sunken spotlight from the abyss.

This image screamed a single identity:

Odin, Allfather of the Æsir, chief god of Norse myth.

Emiya threw up a hand to halt the group, his face pale.

What the hell? A main god-class divine spirit in the modern day? Isn't that against the rules?! Wasn't the divine side sealed away? Unless… someone summoned him.

Time to go. Right now.

Emiya silently mouthed and gestured for everyone to retreat quietly.

In his memory, only two places had ever summoned full gods in modernity—FGO's chaos timeline, and the North American Holy Grail War from Fate/strange Fake, which featured the summoned goddess Ishtar.

That Ishtar—not the Rin-possessed one, but the real Mesopotamian goddess—was infamous. She once destroyed Mount Ebih, sacred to all gods, just because she was annoyed. Her divine bull, Gugalanna, could drain the 2,045-kilometer Tigris River.

When summoned in modern times, Gugalanna's body took the form of a thunderstorm cloud hundreds of kilometers wide. Its appearance caused hurricanes across U.S. states, and unleashed thousands of lightning strikes—one stomp could flatten a city.

Yet even that didn't compare to Odin. As the chief deity of his pantheon, Odin's level was closer to Ishtar's father, Anu—the god of the heavens.

In other words: Allfather-tier danger.

Understanding this, Emiya didn't dare test his luck.

He didn't care if this Odin was real or a projection. He wasn't about to play the action hero bluffing empty bullets.

Clop. Clop. Clop.

Not long after they started backtracking, hooves echoed behind them—getting closer.

Emiya stiffened. Odin had noticed them.

"He's coming! RUN!!"

Emiya roared. Seeing his serious face, the others didn't question—they bolted without hesitation.

As they fled, Emiya grabbed a spare sword bag from a Zhou clan youth, slung it over his back, and drew a blade from his own arsenal:

Tai'a.

Also known as Taia, the blade was a national treasure of ancient Chu. When Jin besieged Chu's capital for three years, the Chu king refused to surrender. He climbed the city walls, drew Tai'a, and unleashed a sword force so powerful it toppled the enemy banners and annihilated the invaders.

Emiya raised Tai'a and poured Mahō (magic) into it, awakening its alchemical domain. The blade rang sharply and summoned the elements.

Whooosh!

Raging wind burst forth, carrying countless sharp fragments from the corridor—shards, debris, high-pressure gusts.

The gale thundered forward down the passage like a storm, crashing toward Odin.

It swallowed the Norse god in dust and debris. The air filled with slicing winds and crackling impacts.

(End of Chapter)

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