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

Three thrilling matches have come to an end, and a full 24 hours have passed. Instead of calming down, the world has fallen into an even deeper level of frenzy.

The aftershocks are still reverberating.

Twitter, Weibo, Reddit, 2ch... the servers of all social media platforms are running at full capacity.

#Li Bai VS Arjuna#

This term, in an unreasonable manner, swept the trending lists of 193 countries around the world, crushing all entertainment gossip and political news under its feet.

"The next round will definitely be a clash between the Poet Immortal and the Dark-skinned Indian! Eastern swordsmanship versus Western mythology—this is the true ultimate showdown!"

"The person upstairs knows nothing! Didn't you see that Newton was still holding back? That Realized Boundary wasn't fully activated yet! I bet Newton against Li Bai, the ultimate showdown between the arts and sciences!"

"Stop arguing! I just want to know, who exactly is that Funina who got a bye? Why was she able to advance directly? There's something fishy going on!"

Debate, prediction, analysis.

Humans, creatures forever filled with curiosity and competitiveness, have completely regarded this war as an unprecedented World Cup final.

They cheer for their favorite "contestants" and engage in fierce online battles with "rival fans," completely unaware that the planet beneath their feet is suspended on an invisible thread.

Tokyo time, 11:59 a.m.

The live broadcasts from over 300 mainstream media outlets worldwide once again focused on that desolate city center.

That enormous black hemisphere, with a diameter of over fifty kilometers, completely engulfing Tokyo's most bustling core area, lay silently on the earth.

The whole world is waiting.

They waited for the list of players for the next match to appear on that huge black curtain.

However, when the time jumps precisely to 12:00:00.

Everyone miscalculated.

The expected match schedule did not appear.

Instead, a huge line of white light formed the text.

At the same moment, all screens around the world that were broadcasting the message were forcibly covered by this line of text.

The Holy Grail War - Phase One: The End

The curtain falls?

What does that mean?

The brains of billions of viewers worldwide collectively froze for half a second at that moment.

Countless people subconsciously rubbed their eyes, wondering if they were seeing things.

That's it? There are still four more who will advance! What happened to the final battle?

Before people could react to this sudden turn of events, and before the internet was flooded with question marks, the situation was far from over.

The second line of text follows immediately.

[The manifestation of 'human evil' has been detected. The threat level has been determined to be 'Beast.' The Holy Grail War agreement is hereby forcibly terminated.]

"Human evil"?

"beast"?

These two unfamiliar words cast a shadow over everyone's hearts.

Immediately afterwards, light and shadow shifted on the surface of the black sphere.

Berserker Arjuna's cold and indifferent half-length portrait slowly appeared.

However, unlike before, the label representing his class is no longer "Berserker" in English.

Instead, it consisted of two ferocious words formed by a crimson light like blood.

【Beast I】

At the same time, a system voiceover resounded in everyone's minds.

"The target, 'Arjuna,' underwent an irreversible and corrupting mutation in his spirit origin after consuming 'the innocent monster.'"

"Its Noble Phantasm, 'This body is the Greater Grail,' has become a closed-loop logic that has transformed into a rule-based calamity with a self-replicating consciousness."

"Its existence has been redefined from 'Heroic Spirits' to 'Beasts that threaten the survival of humanity'."

"Their behavior will ultimately aim to devour and assimilate the entire world."

The meeting has ended.

The world was in uproar.

On the White Elephant Kingdom's internet, those extreme nationalists who were just a moment ago boasting about the unparalleled fighting power of "Black Arjuna" were now as if someone had choked them, unable to utter a single word.

"Impossible! This is slander! It's a conspiracy by China and the West! They're afraid of our great Arjuna, so they've tampered with the system!"

"How could our hero become a monster! He merely purified evil! That vampire is the evil one!"

"Protest! We demand a retrial!"

Just as global public opinion was about to be completely ignited.

The image on the surface of the black sphere refreshed again.

Arjuna's image disappeared, replaced by the third proclamation.

In response to the calamity, the Ruler protocol has been upgraded.

[The final class, "Saver," has been locked.]

New storms followed.

"Saver? Savior? What is that?"

"Wait a minute! Beast, Saver... I feel like I've seen these words somewhere before!"

In countless corners of the global internet, gamers and researchers who are usually immersed in the world of anime and manga felt their DNA stir the moment they saw these two words.

A post published on the anonymous Japanese forum 2ch was translated into seventeen languages ​​and spread across the entire internet in just three minutes.

The post's title is simple yet chilling.

Stop guessing, we might be doomed—A background explanation of the 'Beast' universe.

The post included screenshots of game settings from the mobile game "Fate/Grand Order".

"【Beast】, also known as 'human evil', are seven calamities rooted in human civilization itself that will ultimately destroy it. They are not simply enemies, but rather 'cancer cells' that inevitably emerge when human civilization develops to a certain stage."

"Each Beast represents an extreme, twisted kind of 'love.' They do not hate humans; on the contrary, they choose to 'save' humans through destruction because they 'love' them."

"...They possess independent spirit origins and classes, existing on a completely different dimension from the regular seven classes. Ordinary Holy Grail Wars are like children playing house in front of Beast."

"Most importantly, Beasts possess the ability to manifest independently, meaning they can disregard the limitations of time and space, descending upon any era. They are 'living' disasters, walking natural calamities!"

When these settings are listed one by one and compared with Arjuna's behavior, a chill runs from the tailbone of seven billion people around the world straight to the top of their heads.

"Holy crap! Devouring Dracula, multiplying itself, polluting the world... Isn't that exactly the characteristic of the Beast in the game?"

"So, what the narrator said was true? Arjuna is no longer a Heroic Spirit; he's become a...super virus that keeps devouring the world?"

"That battle wasn't a victory at all; it opened Pandora's box!"

Panic spread like a plague.

People finally realized that the nature of the Holy Grail War had fundamentally changed.

This is no longer a "war of the gods" that can be watched from the sidelines.

It is not a war of life and death for all mankind, but a war to defend human reason.

Just as this emotion, a mixture of fear and despair, reached its peak.

The text on the surface of the huge black hemisphere over Tokyo slowly faded away.

The light faded.

Only a huge, blood-red countdown number remained, hanging in the center of the black sky, like a devil's eye staring at the entire world.

[Time remaining until the "Beast" is fully born: 71:59:58]