In Britain, the Noble Phantasm: Divine Key

Vortigern raised the Holy Grail, and a golden torrent flowed from its rim, easily breaking through the white halo and connecting to the black dragon slumbering beneath the World Tree.

Then the torrent suddenly reversed direction, and streams of blood-like black liquid flowed from Nidhogg's body into the Holy Grail.

"He's stealing my power!" Nidhogg's voice was filled with obvious panic. "What do we do? If he succeeds, I'll disappear!"

A strong sense of crisis suddenly welled up in Yanan's heart. His intuition told him that if Vortigern really stole Nidhogg's power, unimaginable things might happen!

We must find a way to stop him!

He looked ahead at the golden chains; now, his only hope lay in Judah's zeroth rated power!

However, the activation of the zero rated power requires that the Divine Key be under his control, but both he and Judas are currently bound in place by the power of the Holy Grail and cannot move at all.

Yanan used all his strength, but he still couldn't move even a single finger.

Although the distance is less than ten centimeters, it feels like the ends of the earth.

I beg you, Judas, you are my last hope now. Please, move, just a little...

Whether it was because they had truly heard Anaen's call, in this world where time and space were frozen, the golden spear suddenly trembled slightly.

A look of ecstatic joy flashed in Anahn's eyes as he continued to call upon Judah in his heart.

Yes! Yes! That's it! Keep going! You're almost there!

The golden spear stubbornly advanced inch by inch, and after an unknown amount of time, the golden spearhead finally gently touched Anan's armor! Then—

"The Oath of Judah, Zero Rated Power, [Divine Grace Barrier], unfold!!"

Click!

Like shattered glass, the light that had frozen the entire world vanished instantly, and the twelve golden spears standing on the cross shot out on their own, piercing the surrounding ground and forming a barrier a hundred meters in diameter, encircling Anan and Vortigern.

Immediately afterwards, the spiral spear shaft unfurled and transformed into enormous golden gears, which floated in mid-air, completely obscuring the sky within the barrier!

"What is this thing?!"

For the first time, Vortigern showed a look of utter astonishment. How could there possibly be a power in this world that could rival the Holy Grail!

That's simply impossible!

Slud, Artoria, and Zhu Yue stared blankly at the sky filled with golden gears; it was a scene more mythical than any myth!

Suddenly, an even stronger [binding] force descended from the sky, completely suppressing Vortigern's power. All the abnormalities on his body returned to normal, and his aura immediately became extremely weak.

Then, golden chains emerged from between the gears and immediately bound the defenseless Voodoo.

"Damn it, what on earth is going on?!" Vortigern looked panicked; this whole situation had completely exceeded his expectations.

Vortigern was in such a terrible state, and Anahn was naturally in no better shape. The power within his body was instantly suppressed, rendering him unable to move. The bone wings on his back and the black markings on his body also immediately dissipated. Intense pain surged throughout his body, as if he had been torn apart alive.

Now, like Vortigern, he has become an ordinary person without any power.

He gritted his teeth, enduring the excruciating pain, pulled out the last remaining spear from the cross, and walked step by step toward Vortigern.

Zhu Yue's pupils suddenly contracted, and she leaped into the barrier to rescue Vortigern, but Artoria once again blocked her way.

"I told you, with me here, you can't go anywhere." Artoria's dark golden eyes revealed utter indifference, and the golden sword in her hand shone with brilliant golden light once more.

"Get out of my way!" Zhu Yue's eyes flashed with barely concealed rage. With a flick of her wrist, thousands upon thousands of sharp swords appeared out of thin air and stabbed toward Artoria.

However, for Artoria, who possessed the "distant utopia," such attacks were completely useless. The swords passed right through her body without any effect.

Zhu Yue conjured another mountain, intending to suppress Artoria, but the girl simply wielded the Star Holy Sword, which had already broken four seals, and easily cleaved the mountain in two.

Attacking was useless, and trapping them was impossible. Zhu Yue was so angry that she almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Damn Gaia!!!"

......

......

Inside the divine barrier, Anahn, holding a spear, stood before Vortigern.

Vortigern gritted his teeth, his eyes, now a deep blue, fixed intently on Anan.

"Why did you do this?!" he roared at Anan, his expression ferocious and crazed. "Britain's future is only destruction! Only annihilation! Only the revival of the Age of Gods can give Britain hope for survival! I just wanted to save Britain, what did I do wrong! Why must you and Uther both stop me?!"

"Stop talking nonsense, Vortigern. You're just using seemingly noble excuses and tragic words to cover up your despicable heart."

Anan looked coldly at Vortigern: "Perhaps you once harbored a vision to save Britain, but from the moment you transformed into the white dragon, from the moment you let the Angles and Saxons into Britain, from the moment you betrayed Camelot, you embarked on an inhuman path of no return."

"What do you know! Knowing we're at our wits' end, are we just going to sit here and wait to die? Besides, this is the only way to save Britain!"

"You fart!"

Anan rebuked Vortigern mercilessly: "Because the road ahead is difficult, you choose to stand still, look back, and become a puppet bowing down to the authority of the gods. Your weakness is the source of all this tragedy. The road to the future can only be paved by humanity itself. Even if the road ahead is long and dark, man will conquer nature! Without even this awareness, what makes you think you can save Britain? What do you have to save Britain!"

Anan's dark, deep eyes gleamed with icy indifference as he raised his spear without hesitation and brought it down toward Vortigern's head.

"Let this end here!"

*Pfft!*

The sharp spear pierced through Vortigern's brow in an instant, and gushing blood mixed with brain matter flowed down, gradually covering his lifeless eyes.

Anan drew his spear, and Vortigern's corpse swayed slightly before collapsing to the ground with a thud.

"cough!"

A red flower bloomed on the ground, alluring and beautiful.

Yanan knelt on the ground, covering his mouth with his hand, his mouth filled with a rusty taste.

The towering golden gears vanished into countless points of light, the heavy oppression gradually disappeared, and a familiar feeling once again filled my body.

A shimmering white light enveloped his entire body, allowing the injuries Anan had sustained within the divine grace barrier to heal rapidly. After about two or three minutes, his condition returned to its peak.

He stood up, looked at Vortigern lying on the ground, and after a long while, let out a complex sigh.

He crouched down, picked up the Holy Grail that had fallen to the ground, and examined this legendary relic.

However, at this moment, the Holy Grail, which had been dimmed, suddenly shone brightly again, and that familiar feeling of stiffness surged into Anahn's body once more.

What's going on here?!

To Anahn's astonishment, the Holy Grail slowly floated up and came to the side of Vortigern's corpse, which immediately disintegrated into countless points of light and merged into it.

Then it instantly appeared beside Zhu Yue, who was engaged in a fierce battle with Artoria. A flash of light appeared, and both the person and the object disappeared from this world at the same time.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Beautiful Girl Nidhogg

The moment the Holy Grail disappeared, Anahn regained his ability to move.

At the same time, he could also sense that the confinement that had blocked the Norse kingdom had disappeared without a trace.

Looking at the dark and somber sky of death, he sighed helplessly.

"I was still careless..."

If you think about it carefully, you should know that after preparing for a full fifteen years, Vortigern would not have been able to easily reveal the Holy Grail unless he had a certain degree of control over it.

That so-called "establishing contact" was probably just something he said to lull him into a false sense of security.

To still hold back under such circumstances, he is truly a formidable enemy.

"teacher."

"Lord."

Artoria and Slud came to greet them.

Anan looked at Artoria and paused for a moment, then asked, "Lily, what's wrong...?"

"Is there a problem, teacher?" Artoria, with her dark gold eyes, looked at Anaen with a puzzled expression.

“No, what I mean is—” Yanan paused for a moment, “How are you feeling right now?”

“I feel great,” Artoria replied without hesitation, a pleasant smile even appearing on her lips. “Greater than ever before.”

...That's the worst thing.

Yanan sighed.

He put his arm around Artoria's shoulder and, using the power of the Black Abyss White Flower, examined her body, finally finding the real cause.

The flower that grows in the underworld.

This plant, imbued with the aura of the underworld, can unknowingly stir up the dark side of the consumer's heart. Consuming too much at once can cause considerable trouble.

As expected, things of unknown origin should not be eaten casually... Yanan shook his head helplessly in his heart.

Artoria's red dragon body helped her offset a large part of the effects of the Netherworld Flower, and her past experiences did not taint her soul, so the actual impact of the Netherworld Flower on her was not significant.

That's roughly equivalent to frankly showing the other side of yourself that you usually suppress.

If the target is Artoria... that sounds pretty good?

Therefore, Anaen immediately abandoned the idea of ​​using Feather of Dust to restore Artoria.

The three of them walked together to the World Tree and gazed at the black dragon that stretched across the land like a small mountain.

Its body, forged from molten iron, was ancient and awe-inspiring. Even in its slumber, it exuded a majesty surpassing even that of gods. The ultimate reality and fantasy, the ultimate beauty and blasphemy—countless contradictory characteristics converged on this colossal beast. This was—

The despairing dragon that devours the world.

“Nidhogg…”

Slud's eyes were filled with complex emotions, a thousand thoughts swirling in her mind like a tangled mess.

Without a doubt, Nidhogg was the instigator of Ragnarok, as it devoured the roots of the World Tree, leading to the final apocalypse.

However, on the battlefield, it did not attack the gods, nor did it kill a single person.

Recalling the giants on the Rainbow Bridge, their eyes filled with anger and hatred, a strange thought suddenly surfaced in Slud's mind:

Was Ragnarok truly caused by Nidhogg?

Artoria glanced at the black dragon before her, then at Anahn beside her, and murmured in a voice only she could hear:

"Black dragons and red dragons should be different, right?"

Yanan gazed at Nidhogg's massive dragon body and slowly exhaled. After all this trouble, it was finally over.

He stepped forward, placed his hand on Nidhogg's cold scales, and said in his mind, "Alright, let's begin."