Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

The lion dies, the man lives.

At the cost of losing both legs, one hand, and numerous internal injuries, both minor and severe, Fujimaru Ritsuka survived to the end.

“I won’t die here.” She struggled, crawling toward the lion’s gaping maw and stabbing her intact hand into it. When she pulled it out, she had grasped a blood-soaked gland—she knew what it was. It was a hemostatic gland that Ugal used to ensure its prey wouldn’t die, and it was from here that the fluid that had stopped her broken leg was secreted.

She poured the liquid onto her severed limbs and abdominal wounds. As the medication took effect, the wounds closed, and the sharp pain flowed through her body once again.

pain.

Really hurts.

She was in so much pain she almost cried.

Of course she would cry, because she had no reason to stop herself. And as she wept, she tried to use the lion's claws to cut open its soft belly so she could devour the still-warm internal organs, which were most likely edible and not poisonous in wild mammals.

"I won't die," she whispered to herself as she ate raw flesh. "I'm going to rescue Mashu."

"Mash can only rely on me, so I absolutely cannot fall."

"I cannot fall."

"I can't..."

Her voice gradually faded, and her movements gradually slowed.

"I……"

She slowly collapsed to the ground.

She defeated the Sun Lion; she killed a powerful divine beast with her mortal body.

She overcame her pain, using her willpower to triumph over suffering. She used her mutilated limbs to destroy whole flesh and blood.

She had overcome many obstacles, but her body was no longer strong enough to continue fighting. The blood she had lost, the magic she had exhausted, and the surge of adrenaline had all become the blades that were hastening her death. She could neither withstand them nor endure them.

The remaining half of the 'gun' rolled out of the lion's eye socket and fell beside her hand, which hung limply to the ground. Blood seeped from her previously sealed wound, mingling with the purple blood of the sun lion as it flowed to the ground.

She collapsed.

She did not close her eyes.

“…Mash.” Her hand trembled slightly as she tried to raise it, but this time her body overcame her will.

“Mash…”

She still didn't close her eyes.

Strange birds flew in the sky, cooing and watching over the land—if Fujimaru Ritsuka could stand, she would know that this place was once a brutal battlefield, where countless demonic beasts once clashed. A blood temple once stood on this land.

During the four hours she was unconscious, the representatives of the ancient gods from the north destroyed the land, driving away and pursuing the clay-cast people and the womb of the serpent god.

But she couldn't stand up, so she couldn't see or know.

Unbeknownst to her, her blood was dripping from the rubble amidst the ruins, mixed with fragments of a 'gun,' and falling onto an inconspicuous square stone slab.

A faint chill emanated from the ground, and frost gradually began to form.

The unidentified birds continued to circle in the sky, watching, and only watching, everything that was happening on this land.

The dying girl still did not close her eyes.

Her consciousness had long since faded, but her mutilated body still twitched slightly, instinctively turning towards the southeast.

“Ma...shu…”

Section 59. Second Cycle: Overcoming Cowardice

"The only thing that mortals can rely on to defeat the extraordinary is their own courage and determination. By displaying qualities that even the extraordinary beings themselves cannot achieve, they can defeat them mentally—I have to admit that this is indeed an effective strategy."

"So, did she defeat you, Alice?"

"What a joke! You know perfectly well whether I could do what she did. You know perfectly well how many times I have done it. The reason I am amazed is simply because she is so similar to me at a certain point in the past. Although it is a kind of empathy, you know that it doesn't mean much to the true God."

"That's true. Without enduring a hundred kinds of suffering, a thousand kinds of pain, and ten thousand kinds of torment, and ultimately gaining nothing, even a superhuman being would find it difficult to become a true god. But painful memories are not something to boast about. You're emphasizing something meaningless, Alice. Although it may not mean much to you, it has indeed made you waver a little."

—What am I wavering about?

—"You are wavering, you are doubting your own judgment, you are considering whether Fujimaru Ritsuka is truly the protagonist chosen by fate."

"...I will verify it again."

....................................

Unlike last time, this time, when Fujimaru Ritsuka opened her eyes, she was not greeted by pain and weakness. Instead, she was met with an even greater emptiness and a bone-chilling cold.

My body no longer aches, because I can no longer feel it. But the coldness remains, as if it originates from deep within my heart and has replaced my nerves and flesh.

Where is this? The underworld?

But does it snow in the underworld?

Ritsuka felt that she must have made a reaching motion, and then she saw herself lying on her back on the ice, stretching her hand out towards the clear sky.

Left hand, right hand, two intact hands. But the color of the hands was unexpectedly pale, pure white, bone-chilling white, so transparent that you could see the bones and blood vessels through the skin, as well as the outline of the sky obscured by the hands.

"Am I...dead?" the girl asked uncertainly, slowly sitting up from the ground. She then discovered that her legs had returned to their knees, and her shattered Chaldean armor was completely restored—her body was completely back to its unharmed state. The only difference was that she couldn't feel them at all, and they were all translucent, white like jade.

She had been to the underworld of Mesopotamia and met the goddess of the underworld, Ereshkigal. But the underworld there was just a series of dark valleys and mountains, and the souls there were like floating blue fireballs, without fixed form, texture, or substance.

"No matter what, I have to go back," she told herself. Although she couldn't feel her body, she could still control it. She stood up and tried to look around. "Since I still have consciousness, I can move. Since I can move, I can go back."

“I will come for you, Mashu.” She tried to make a fist. “Whether you are waiting for me or not, I will rescue you.”

As far as the eye could see, there was an endless expanse of ice. Beneath her feet lay ice, thick, pale blocks of ice piled up in massive formations. Because of its pale color, which caused diffuse reflection, it wasn't very smooth. This allowed Fujimaru Ritsuka, who couldn't feel her own body, to stand up from the ice and walk around, looking in all directions.

All around was ice, an endless expanse of ice. In the distance, there were icebergs of varying heights, while silvery-white snow drifted down from the sky.

White snow, cold snow.

There was a faint sadness in the snow.

It's strange. Snow is just a mixture of ice crystals and water droplets. It's just a natural phenomenon common in cold weather. But Ritsuka can read a sense of 'sadness' in the snow.

The snow symbolized sorrow, while the icy plain beneath her feet represented regret and self-reproach. She could vaguely see a raging snowstorm in the far distance, which she felt was a manifestation of anger and hatred.

what happened?

Where exactly is this place?

The girl from Chaldea didn't know the answer to either of the two questions, but that didn't stop her from heading towards the direction of the raging blizzard. She sensed that emotions were most intense there, and since it was a place of such intense emotion, there must be something like a source there.

So she took a step in that direction.

Step by step.

Snow gradually piled up on the ice beneath her feet, and the snow slowly rose from her ankles to her knees. She kept walking forward, not knowing how long she had been walking.

One hour? Two hours?

One day? Two days?

When a person can no longer feel their own body, nor can they find any reference points to prove the passage of time, measuring time becomes an extremely difficult and troublesome task. She only knew that she was moving towards the storm, endlessly moving towards the storm. She couldn't feel her body, so naturally she couldn't feel tired or hungry, and she continued forward.

The snow fell from knee-deep to ankle-deep, and then from ankle-deep to a calm, icy expanse.

At some point, the blizzard cloud in the sky disappeared without a trace, and in its place appeared a huge, cold sun, as white as jade.

Han Yang, the cold sun.

It shines like the sun, but it intensifies the chill that springs from the depths of the soul.

She didn't know how long she had been walking; she felt that she might have walked for a month, or even longer, on this endless ice field.

Then, she saw the end.

Beneath the piercingly cold sun, atop a solitary ice rock standing on the icy plain, she saw a pale girl sitting alone, hugging her knees.

She was a really beautiful girl.

Her long, pure white hair and icy blue eyes, the interplay of blue and white, and the cloak and veil adorned with countless stars added an air of elegance and mystery to her. And the moment she slightly turned her gaze to Ritsuka, her form seemed to become the very essence of winter.

She has a name.

Ritsuka felt she should know her name.

And that thought surged in Ritsuka's consciousness, stimulating her completely unfelt throat, forcing her to speak with her vocal cords, which she didn't even know if they still existed...

“Anastasia…” she said in a tone that even she found strange.

Then, she heard the pale girl's melodious voice, like the flowing of a cold spring.

“Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.” She shifted her gaze from Ritsuka, turning it once more to the distant horizon. “I know you. You are Fujimaru Ritsuka. The messenger of Chaldea, one of the last two remaining Masters of humanity.”

"Can you help me?" Ritsuka looked directly at her. "My companion is trapped, and she needs my help."

“I can,” the winter girl, hugging her knees, replied calmly. “But why should I do it? You are neither my Master nor my friend. Or do you believe that you must agree to a request just because you receive one, or that you must accept a request made to you?”

Her tone carried a clear sense of detachment and rejection, a feeling unlike any other Servant she had encountered since embarking on the Grand Order path with Fujimaru Ritsuka. Perhaps this was the first time she had received such explicit rejection and resistance from a Servant.

No, this wasn't the first time. The first time was with the Pale King who lived in the misty, decaying city. She was the first Servant to directly attack Ritsuka and her group without a word. Before that, even the ruthless King Solomon and the indifferent Cú Chulainn would always give Ritsuka a chance to speak before making a move, and even when they did attack, they wouldn't consider Ritsuka their primary target, always holding back.

— As the Master of Chaldea, Fujimaru Ritsuka had almost become accustomed to this kind of thing.

Perhaps it was precisely for this reason that she acted irrationally in that decaying city, leading to a complete defeat and the loss of the initiative. She believed that, like in many previous singularities, she could 'talk' when facing an enemy who was a Servant.

Let's talk.

I'd like to talk.

Not everyone in this world is willing to sit down and talk calmly, and reasoning doesn't always guarantee a reasonable argument. Only now, at this very moment, has she finally understood this truth after paying a heavy price.

This is a mistake. It is a mistake to presume to have expectations of others or to take for granted certain preferential treatment from others.

And mistakes should not be repeated.

"So I really am no match for Senior Flora..." the girl sighed deeply.

"I'm so sorry, I was being presumptuous." She then bowed earnestly to the Winter Maiden on the ice rock. "Then, could you please tell me how to get out of here? If you can't, then please allow me to take my leave, as I need to continue exploring this place."

The pale-faced girl on the ice rock did not answer, but simply basked quietly in the cold sun, gazing at the extreme horizon.

A moment of silence.

The silence lasted for perhaps five minutes.

Just as Ritsuka bowed to her again and turned to leave, the girl's voice rang out behind her.

"Leave here, and you will die." The girl's voice was as cold as ever, revealing no emotion whatsoever. Yet, the moment she spoke, snow began to fall from the distant horizon.