Abyssal Wanderer.

"Absolutely brilliant!"

V responded to Theta's unexpected counterattack with a smile in his voice.

"You still have the mind to praise your opponent?"

As Sita spoke, the Aegis module in her hand began to transform—the cannon barrel retracted, the internal circuitry was rearranged and the energy configuration was redistributed, and after about five seconds, a directed energy projection device was completed.

Perseus's Path is really useful...

Xita couldn't help but sigh.

"You managed to put me in such a predicament without even summoning your own Servant. How can I not praise you?"

V spoke with great sincerity.

"That's because you're too weak, that's all."

Energy began to fill the cannon barrel, Theta said.

After saying that, she leaped up, and the next second, the spot where she had been standing was engulfed by a burst of dark blue flames.

To Theta, the opponent's attack intentions are now completely transparent.

And that's not all...

Even with the most perfectly suited combat prosthetic, Theta's reaction speed was far slower than V's, who was a Servant. The instant she leaped into the air, the strange man wearing Guy Fawkes' mask immediately threw two throwing knives at her.

The eerie blue flames followed the trajectory of the flying knife upwards, and at this moment, Xita, who was in mid-air, seemed to have no way to avoid it.

"Hey!"

Suddenly, V heard Theta's voice coming from the other side.

As soon as he turned his head, he saw a fist wrapped in dense Nyx energy rapidly enlarging in his field of vision.

"Oh!"

Sita's fist slammed into V's porcelain white mask, sending him flying backward.

The instant his fist made contact with the mask, intense gamma rays illuminated his entire head.

At the same time, a blazing white directional energy strike precisely pierced through his body from the spot he had previously thought was the West Tower.

Although it was very slight, the plucking of the "seven-stringed lyre" distorted his perception for a moment.

After completing its mission, the Aegis module, which had transformed into a drone turret, was completely engulfed by the hydrogen-oxygen explosion carried by the throwing knife.

Beneath the flames of the explosion, Sita, surrounded by buzzing Nyx Factors, coldly watched the memetic entity.

The opponent's mask was covered with fine cracks, and a large hole had been pierced through his chest—revealing the black core buried deep within his body.

Multi-purpose printer, Holy Grail fragments, Soul Core.

Once it is separated from the opponent's body, it is considered to have eliminated one Servant.

As Sita thought this, more Nyx Factor began to surge from her body.

"That's really impressive..."

V straightened his body, holding his mask. He first touched his chest, where a large hole had been cut in it, and then sighed:
"I thought the Orpheus Path could only pull off some underhanded tricks, but I didn't expect it to be so effective. The methods for deciphering firewalls and the external prosthetics that enhance its combat capabilities... it seems that you have made ample preparations for this Dionysian War."

Sita did not reply; the combat prosthetic stood ramrod straight in the rain.

At this moment, her sensor matrix locked onto the masked monster opposite her—the monster's mask was cracked, and the edges of the hole pierced through his chest were still flickering with the residual arcs of a directed-energy weapon, while the black surface of his spirit core was exposed to the humid air.

Now was the perfect opportunity. Without hesitation, the leaden Nyx factor surged from her body like a tide, spreading out an invisible net in the rain.

Relying on AR decryption and its own action model, Theta is now able to predict the opponent's actions 0.7 seconds earlier.

A perfect 0.7-second prediction was enough for her to establish a decisive advantage.

Just then, she sensed an intention from the other party's mental matrix.

V is currently communicating remotely with someone, seeking some kind of permission from that person.

Then, Theta and V heard the answer almost simultaneously.

The man said, "Allow the liberation of memes."

V tilted his head, the expression on his mask replacing his smile.

Liberating memes, that is to say...

Knowing what the prototype of this thing was, Sita inwardly cried out in alarm.

"What deserves praise is that, before this, I never imagined that the first person I would release a meme onto would be a Master. This is truly... truly admirable, madam."

V thus says.

As he spoke, he reached directly into the dark "spiritual core" in his chest.

"Since your power is so great, and this power is the ultimate tyranny that can control minds, then... it wouldn't be unreasonable to use the means to eliminate tyranny against you, would it?"

As memetic entities with universal printers embedded within them, Servants possess the ability to condense their own deeds or cultural elements into ultimate attacks—this is known as memetic liberation.

This is the Servants' trump card, their last resort, their final reliance... or you can describe it however you like.

Even disregarding the immortality granted by the universal printer, Servants are nothing more than special constructs. Masters, relying on their own modifications and alterations, might be able to fight against Servants; and with proper tactical arrangements and countermeasures from their prosthetic bodies, they might even gain the upper hand—just like how Theta suppressed V earlier.

But once the Servant is freed from the meme, it becomes a completely different matter.

That is the manifestation of the Dionysian framework of power, a power that transcends human intelligence, a power that concretizes the power of culture and thought into reality, the ultimate violence used to crush the individual human being—a power that cannot be resisted by anyone below Depth 8 or above.

Sita, who knew exactly what "meme liberation" was, suddenly felt a chill in her heart.

Although he has seized the initiative in this battle by revealing all his trump cards, tilting the scales of victory in his favor, can the Master, as a Coordinator, truly defeat a Servant who is a memetic entity?

Without mocking Theta's current wavering, V directly chanted:
November 5, 1605 AD.

At this moment, V's voice lost its usual playfulness. He straightened up and slowly withdrew his fingers from the spirit core.

A wisp of pale blue light was drawn out between his fingers and the spirit core.

“A man named Guy Fox, along with a group of unyielding companions, smuggled thirty-six barrels of gunpowder into the cellars of the Capitol.”

V speaks in a solemn and authentic tone.

As he spoke, the air around the spirit core began to distort.

V completely withdrew his finger from the spirit core, pulling out the wisp of light—or rather, the glowing fuse.

Then Sita saw V's "spiritual core" begin to emit countless extremely fine, invisible lines in all directions.

Those fine lines pierced through the rain curtain, through the puddles, through every space where water molecules and organic matter still existed... and even through Sita himself.

These are not energy beams, but rather the traction path for printing—before the general printer can actually print, it needs to first calibrate the spatial coordinates of the materials, and then pull all those materials into the printer.

At this moment, the universal printer inside V's body is reversing this process.

It doesn't involve absorbing materials into the printer, but rather having the printer directly "process" externally labeled materials!
Upon seeing this, Xita turned and ran without a second thought.

Although the specific effects are unclear, this is definitely not something that one can fight against on one's own.

Behind her, V's speech continued.

"In the end, they failed, but the way they failed was more powerful than any success, because every tyrannical ruler since will remember it..."

V raises the volume.

At the same time, everything that had been pierced by the luminous threads began to shimmer with a hazy white light.

In an instant, the entire port, including the fleeing Xita, was shrouded in this white hue.

And in this hazy white expanse, V's chanting continues:
"—The explosives may be buried beneath the Parliament building."

With the last sentence uttered, V unleashed his meme release.

Gunpowder Plot: The Revolution of Ten Thousand Flames

Fawkes' Fireworks

In an instant, the entire harbor was set ablaze.

This is not a metaphor.

The violent explosion affected the entire harbor.

Including Sita herself, who was fleeing, all the objects previously marked by the light filaments began to explode. Sita had witnessed the memetic release of the Avatar of Terror on the tenth floor of the Nord Resettlement Area—it was the release of countless viscous liquids from the Avatar of Terror, which constantly transformed into different forms.

You can avoid these things, defend against them, or use your structure to withstand them.

But V's meme liberation is not like that.

Not only were there explosions on the outside, but flames were also burning inside the West Tower.

No sign.

The industrial lubricant circulating in the joints of Theta's prosthetic body—those high-purity hydrocarbons—suddenly began to break down in molecular structure when the external heat source was insufficient to ignite them. As the carbon chains broke, they released methane, ethane, and ethylene; hydrogen atoms also detached from the carbon skeleton and suspended as free radicals in the microchannels within her body.

Then, these gases are ignited at the same instant.

Sita didn't feel the flames burning in from the outside; what she felt was a sudden high temperature of over a thousand degrees inside her prosthetic body.

The servo motor is melting, the hydraulic pipes are boiling, and the titanium alloy skeleton is cracking under thermal stress.

The data transmitted by her internal sensors showed that dozens of independent hydrogen-oxygen deflagration reactions had occurred within her body, each precisely located at a key component.

And this is just the beginning.

The hydraulic fluid in her thigh—a specially formulated silicon-based high-temperature resistant fluid—would never burn under normal operating conditions. But V's memetic release dissociated the silicon-oxygen bonds, releasing oxygen atoms that then recombine with hydrogen from water vapor condensing outside the hydraulic lines, igniting the fluid.

In addition, around her, water molecules in the atmosphere also broke down under the influence of meme liberation, and dark blue flames burned fiercely all around, constantly exploding.

Thousands of ignition points, thousands of flames.

They appeared at the same time.

"—Ughhhhhh!!"

Sita's screams came from the throat speaker, distorted by the high temperature into a piercing noise.

She attempted to manipulate her Nyx Factors, intending to cover them on her body to isolate her from oxygen and extinguish the flames.

But she can't.

The essence of Nyx factors is nanoscale electromagnetically manipulated particles that continuously ionize the surrounding air during operation.

Therefore, continuing to manipulate them will only further fuel the fire.

Damn it!

Sita cursed loudly.

Even more critically, her communication with AR was completely blocked by the massive energy fluctuations, making it impossible for her to even use the Nyx Factor to manipulate the other party's behavior and take a desperate gamble.

Amidst the continuous burning and explosions, Sita constantly compressed his Nyx Factor, gathering it within the deepest heat insulation layer of his prosthetic body.

Even if the entire prosthetic body is destroyed, as long as I still have these Nyx Factors, I will be able to...

As she was thinking this, Theta's sensors transmitted a message that made her extremely uneasy:

Her fission furnace core is now gradually approaching the critical temperature due to overheating!

Could it be that I'm really going to be here—

"To be honest, this is not a glorious victory."

At that moment, V's voice came from the other side of the flames.
In the fiery storm he instigated, he stood unharmed atop a nearby container, overlooking the performance.

"But you are far stronger and more difficult to deal with than I expected."

He tilted his head, and rainwater evaporated into white mist on his mask.

"However... a Master who has no Servants cannot make up for the lack of Servants, no matter how strong they are."

As he spoke, he gave a graceful bow to the West Tower.

"What a pity. If your Servant were here, even if it was just a weak C-rank Servant, you could have held out a little longer. And if the summoned Servant were strong enough, it might even have turned the tables and killed me..."

As Sita listened to the other person's incessant chatter, her anger was no less than the flames around her.

They're taking advantage of the fact that they haven't even summoned a Servant yet, and they're acting all innocent here.

Since that's the case, I might as well abandon the core cooling and go all the way to detonate the fission reactor!
Even if we can't kill him, we must severely injure this noisy person with histrionic personality disorder!
Xita made a tough decision and was just about to remove all the insulation layers.

"Tsk—"

Amidst the constant crackling of flames, Sita heard a very loud click of her tongue.

"This lady is right, you really talk a lot of nonsense."

A man's voice came from not far away.

V only realized there was someone there the moment the sound ended.

A humanoid object somehow bypassed the spirit core's scan—no, it was scanned, but the scan results were blocked by some unknown mechanism.

But how is that possible? The scanning of a universal printer works directly on mass sensing. It does not rely on electromagnetic waves or sound waves. Unless the other party is covered with tiny gravity manipulation devices that can act at the cellular level, it is impossible for it to miss him!

V turned around and looked.

The newcomer was a young man who looked to be in his early thirties. He was well-proportioned, wearing a dark casual jacket, and had his hands in his pockets.

The young man had no powered exoskeleton and no signs of any prosthetic modifications.

They weren't even carrying any weapons.

He stood there in the flames, yet not even the edges of his clothes caught fire.

It was Alex; he had been observing the battle the whole time.

"You are--"

Before V could finish speaking, Alex emerged from the flames.

He only took one step forward, but that one step covered a distance of tens of meters—his speed was so fast that even V's dynamic vision could only barely catch some afterimages.

Then, Alex punched V directly in the chest.

With a loud bang, V's body flew backward, smashing through one container, two containers, three containers—until he barely stopped at the fourth container.

The moment it stopped, the memetic release from the spirit core ceased with the violent tremors, and the threads that had been maintaining the thousands of ignition points in the port all broke down in that instant.

Those ignition points are still burning, but they are no longer a chain reaction actively maintained by the spirit core; they are just some chemical flames that are gradually weakening.

V was embedded in the dent of the container, and a few more cracks appeared on the mask.

"Why...why..."

V opened his mouth with difficulty.

Compared to the opponent's strength, what he couldn't understand was why this guy suddenly intervened to save Sita when this was clearly a good opportunity to eliminate one of the contestants.

Alex stood on the harbor pier, letting the rain soak his shoulders, splashing water that reflected the firelight.

Say it again.

Alex began to speak.

V asked, completely bewildered:

"say what?"

"Let me repeat: 'A Master without Servants, no matter how strong he is, cannot make up for the lack of Servants.'"

Alex put his hands in his pockets and said.

Only now did V realize that the other party had absolutely no Servant aura.

"You are...Master? The Coordinator of the Hercules Path?!"

He was incredibly authentic.

But are you kidding me? What Master can be completely immune to their own meme release and then punch themselves that far away?!

V didn't say this aloud.

"Also, aren't you disappointed that she didn't summon a Servant?"

Alex didn't answer the question, but instead squinted at the masked man and continued:
"In that case, let's try having her summon it again." (End of Chapter)