Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

When the black energy ball in Arjuna's palm expanded to a diameter of 100 meters, the live broadcast began to flicker wildly, with static covering the screen like a blizzard.

That's not a signal malfunction, but simply a gravitational distortion—this man-made black hole is greedily devouring all photons and matter within its event horizon.

"Glara—"

A sickening cracking sound echoed across the crystal-clear land.

Vlad III's once-proud forest of wooden stakes now resembles a wheat field harvested by a hurricane.

Tens of thousands of blood-red spikes broke off at their roots, and along with countless flying shards of glass, were irresistibly drawn towards the destructive black sun in the sky.

"Damn it... this is definitely not up to the standards of a normal Servant!"

Vlad III knelt on a main stake five meters in diameter, his hands gripping the "King of Extreme Punishment" which was sunk deep into the ground.

Dark red magic surged forth from his body like a flood, attempting to anchor this collapsing realm.

But his jet-black armor was flashing at an extremely high frequency, and the Spirit Origin Overload alarm was exploding in his mind like tinnitus.

Faced with this gravitational pull strong enough to flatten tectonic plates, the concept of "protecting the nation" is being crushed by absolute physical force.

At the edge of the battlefield, the air currents were violent enough to tear steel apart.

Radu Petrescu's faded gray jacket fluttered in the wind, but he remained motionless, like a stubborn rock welded to the ground.

He pulled a bullet from the innermost pocket of his tactical vest.

That was no ordinary ammunition, but a 14.5mm depleted uranium armor-piercing projectile with a total length of 114mm and a projectile with a special etching process.

This was his last legacy as a "lone wolf," a glorious bomb he originally intended to keep for himself.

"Click."

With a blank expression, Radu loaded the bullet into the anti-materiel sniper rifle with its ridiculously thick barrel.

He didn't rush to raise his gun, but slowly took off his right glove, revealing the three bright red Command Seals on the back of his hand.

At this moment, one of them had dimmed, while the remaining two were slightly warm.

"Grand Duke".

Raju's voice was broken in the gale, but it was clearly conveyed to Vlad III through the contract.

"Lend me some blood."

Vlad III's crimson eyes narrowed sharply as he turned in the eye of the storm to look at the figure that seemed as insignificant as an ant.

In that instant, the Wallachian tyrant understood the madness in his Master's eyes.

That was the look in the eyes of someone of the same kind.

"Hmph... Arrogant servant."

Vlad III's lips curled into a sinister smile, a supreme compliment to such madness.

"Take it! Don't embarrass me!"

Om-!

A dark red magical power, carrying a strong bloody stench, flowed into Radu's body through the contract channel.

Radu's palms instantly turned bright red, like branding irons, with veins bulging under his skin as if they were about to burst.

But he did not tremble at all.

He compressed this magical power belonging to the heroic spirit, along with the concept of "piercing" bestowed by Vlad III, into the bullet inside the gun barrel.

On the depleted uranium warhead, the dark red lines instantly lit up, like blood vessels coming to life.

Radu set up his sniper rifle. In his intact right eye, there was no fear, no hesitation, only absolute stillness.

Through the scope, the black sphere, capable of destroying a city, filled the entire field of vision.

He doesn't need to aim at Arjuna.

Because gods cannot be hit by mortal bullets.

What he wanted to kill was that "ball".

Just as the main pillar beneath Vlad III let out its final, mournful cry, and the entire Noble Phantasm domain was about to collapse—

"Bang!"

There was no firelight.

The moment the trigger was pulled, the modified sniper rifle exploded into scrap metal, its barrel melting into molten iron on the spot due to the terrifying chamber pressure.

But a bullet, carrying a dark red spiral of energy, had already left the barrel.

Twenty times the speed of sound.

This is a speed so fast that even the air doesn't have time to scream.

In the live broadcast, all people could see was a thin red line that, without warning, pierced through the dim, yellowish sky distorted by gravity.

next second.

That mortal-made metal object crashed violently into the event horizon of a black hole created by a god.

"Zzz—BOOM!!!"

It wasn't that the bullet pierced the black ball.

Rather, it was the "King of Extreme Execution" concept attached to the bullet—the kind of madness that would stop at nothing to penetrate the enemy—that was detonated the moment it came into contact with the "purifying" energy field.

It was like a red-hot needle piercing a balloon filled with high-pressure air.

The perfect energy cycle on the surface of the black sphere was disrupted by a bug in that 0.01-second instant.

For a destruction spell as precise as a miracle, this gap is an insurmountable chasm.

Rumble, rumble, rumble—!!!

out of control.

The black sun, still a hundred meters above the ground, detonated prematurely due to an imbalance of internal energy.

At that moment, a second sun rose over the ruins of New Delhi.

The destructive torrent of energy was no longer under Arjuna's control, but was pulled by out-of-control gravity, raging wildly in all directions.

What was originally a deadly vertical strike turned into an indiscriminate energy storm.

The massive shockwave, like God's bulldozer, instantly ripped up the ground over a radius of several kilometers.

Vlad III was sent flying, gun and all, and coughed up blood mid-air as his black armor crumbled under the turbulent energy currents.

Meanwhile, Radu, in the distance, was swept hundreds of meters away by the blast wave like a rag doll, crashing heavily into a pile of ruins.

The world was filled with a deathly white light.

It took a full ten seconds for the blinding light to gradually fade away.

Billions of viewers around the world stared intently at their screens, their hearts nearly stopping.

Arjuna remained suspended in the air amidst the billowing smoke and dust.

His pristine white robe was spotless, and the divine halo behind him continued to rotate slowly.

The explosion, powerful enough to flatten a city, seemed to be kept at bay by some unseen force field.

Unharmed.

A sense of despair began to spread online, and everyone felt a suffocating sense of powerlessness.

But Arjuna moved.

For the first time, he looked away from Vlad III.

Those dark, abyss-like eyes pierced through the billowing dust and locked precisely onto Radu, who was struggling to climb out of the rubble hundreds of meters away.

"variable."

Arjuna's voice was no longer as grand and divine as before; instead, it had a cold, mechanical quality.

"Mortals, this is not a realm that you ants can set foot in."

He slowly raised his right hand, his index finger pointing at Radu, who was covered in blood.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

In the void behind him, hundreds of small black vortexes reappeared.

Although not as large as the previous world-destroying black sun, each black arrow emerging from it was wrapped with a curse powerful enough to erode the soul.

The gods decided to first crush the biting ant.

"Purify".

Whoosh whoosh whoosh—!

Hundreds of black arrows shot off in an instant, whistling sharply, weaving a black net of death that covered Radu, who had no defenses whatsoever.

Radu leaned against a broken concrete slab, watching the death sweep in, his blood-stained face expressionless.

Just as the first black arrow was about to pierce Raju's forehead—

"roar!!!"

A roar that was not human, accompanied by a scarlet blood shadow, crashed ruthlessly into this doomed game of chess.

boom! boom! boom!

The sounds of flesh tearing apart rang out in rapid succession.

Radu was stunned.

In his blurry vision, a tall figure stood in front of him like a mountain.

Vlad III.

This king, who valued dignity more than life itself, now resembled the most humble shield bearer.

He didn't use any fancy techniques; he simply used his A-level agility to teleport directly in front of Radu, and then—with his own body—he took the fatal blow head-on.

Black arrows were deeply embedded in his shoulder, thigh, and back.

The divine curse flames instantly ignited his spiritual foundation, emitting a sizzling burning sound.

But he did not back down an inch.

The "King of Execution" in his hand swirled into a black whirlwind, shattering all the arrows aimed at Radu's vitals.

"Pfft!"

The last black arrow pierced Vlad III's left shoulder, the arrowhead dripping with black blood as it emerged from his back.

"Grand...Duke?"

Radu's voice trembled for the first time.

Vlad III abruptly pulled the arrow from his shoulder and crushed it with his hand.

He didn't turn around, but let out a heavy sigh, his voice filled with barely suppressed rage and arrogance.

"You are my subject!"

"No one but me has the right to sentence you to death! Not even God!"

Boom!

Vlad III stomped his foot on the ground, and the crystal earth beneath his feet instantly cracked.

Using this recoil, the heavily injured Lancer once again transformed into a streak of crimson lightning, advancing instead of retreating, launching a suicidal charge towards Arjuna in the air.

"Just you wait, Raju!"

"This is—the judgment of the King of Extreme Execution!"

The distance was instantly shortened.

Arjuna seemed not to have expected that this "villain," who was already at his last gasp, would still have the power to retaliate, and hastily summoned several black barriers.

But Vlad III at this point had completely gone mad.

He completely abandoned his defenses, letting the cursed fire on the barriers scorch his skin, while the spear in his hand burst forth with an unprecedented light.

"You are the invader!"

"This place—even if it turns to scorched earth—is still my land!"

Noble Phantasm effect activated.

The special attack attributes targeting the concept of "aggression" were brought to their fullest potential at this moment.

Under the breathless gaze of hundreds of millions of viewers, the blood-stained black spear easily pierced Arjuna's divine shield, carrying with it all the rage and obsession of the Grand Prince of Wallachia, and fiercely—

puff!

It pierced Arjuna's chest!

The spear tip pierced through the chest and emerged from the back, precisely penetrating the pulsating divine core.

The world seemed to stand still at that moment.

In any Holy Grail War, the destruction of the Soul Core means the departure of the Servant.

This is an ironclad rule.

Vlad III remained in the thrusting position, panting heavily.

Black divine blood dripped down the gun barrel, scorching his gauntlets.

however.

A soft sigh suddenly rang out on the deathly silent battlefield.

"So... this is the pain of being pierced?"

Vlad III's pupils dilated suddenly.

He looked up and saw a face that, though pale, showed no signs of death.

Arjuna looked down at the spear piercing his chest, and for a brief moment, a trace of human warmth, tinged with compassion, appeared in his normally cold and ruthless eyes.

That was Arjuna, the one with the "good side," the hero who still remembered Karna and that he had once been a dance teacher.

But this gentle warmth lasted for less than a second.

call--

A ball of pitch-black flame erupted from Arjuna's body without warning.

That's [Soul's Lamp: EX].

The seed of destruction is also proof of immortality.

Enveloped in that eerie black fire, Arjuna's fatal chest wound began to heal at a nauseating speed.

Broken blood vessels reconnected, severed muscles healed, and even the shattered divine core was reborn in the black flames.

In the blink of an eye, the wound disappeared without a trace.

"Monster..." Vlad III gritted his teeth, trying to pull back his spear.

Not moving.

Arjuna has turned from "good" back to absolute "evil".

He stretched out his hands expressionlessly and gripped the gun barrel stuck in his chest tightly.

Black mud spread wildly along the gun barrel; it was the resentment of countless Indian gods he had devoured, frantically eroding the concept of national protection on the "King of Extreme Execution".

"Got you?"

Arjuna raised his head, his eyes devoid of any human emotion.

His left eye is Shiva, the destroyer, and his right eye is Vishnu, the protector. And within the halo on his forehead, it seems as if countless gods are wailing.

Rotate, accelerate.

The divine pressure, surpassing even the EX level, pressed down on Vlad III like a mountain, rendering him immobile.

Arjuna spoke slowly, his voice overlapping a thousand tones, directly striking the depths of Vlad III's soul:

"In the name of devouring all gods."

"I have the final say—"

"Your very existence is 'evil'!"

[For Evil (Special): EX], judgment begins.

The heroic radiance that Vlad III once possessed was forcibly distorted and tainted in that instant.

The countless enemies he had pierced to protect the country, and the forests of corpses he had created to deter invaders, had now all become evidence against him.

Even the most desperate act of violence is, in God's eyes, original sin.

"Aaaaaaahh ...

Vlad III let out a piercing scream.

This is not physical pain, but a kind of conceptual torture.

His spiritual foundation began to crumble, and countless black runes crawled all over his long silver hair. The once noble and virtuous guardian ghost general was being forcibly dragged into the abyss called "Dracula".

And in the ruins not far away.

As Radu watched this scene, at the king who had fallen into a desperate situation to protect himself, the last glimmer of reason in his one intact eye finally went out.

He raised his right hand, trembling.

"The gods want to judge you..."

Radu's voice was low and deep, like the howl of a wild beast, carrying a resolute determination to destroy everything.

"Then become a real monster and... devour the god."