"A shadow warrior cannot see the light. She is impossible to appear in a regular Holy Grail War. Only this chaotic method can summon her. Am I right, Hatteras?"
After finishing his analysis, Weber looked at the architect of the technique, waiting for his answer. From the previous interaction, it was not difficult to see that Hatteres was a typical researcher. When talking about this matter, he would talk endlessly and would never keep silent.
However, the red-haired man who was named did not react at all, and remained face to the ground, silent.
"Hatres? Hatteras?" Weber shouted twice again, but there was still no response from the other side.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?"
Faker, who was closest, stepped forward to investigate, but as soon as his hand touched the man's body, that body turned into tiny particles like sand and dissipated into the air.
"Huh?"
"Run away?"
Shinji frowned, and flashed to the place where Hatres disappeared. She radiated her mental power outward, but found nothing. In desperation, she could only ask for help from Her Royal Highness the Princess.
"Arquette."
The princess who was named did not disappoint her. She came to the conclusion as soon as she closed her eyes and opened them again: "He didn't run away. He's dead."
Shinji's first reaction was that it was impossible.
"With his vitality, such a skewering could not have killed him. Even if he died from excessive blood loss, he should have left a body. How could he turn into ashes?"
"It's some kind of secret sacrificial ritual."
The person who answered was not Elquet, but Faker.
"Sacrificing one's life and soul to activate some powerful spells or enhance the effects of spells is particularly popular in times of war."
"Sacrifice?" Shinji's heart trembled, and his soul power connected with "Origin", ready to build a barrier at any time, "Can you tell what type of ritual it is?"
Faker pressed his hand on the ground, observed it carefully for a while, and answered uncertainly: "It doesn't look like an offensive spell."
As soon as they finished speaking, they both felt their feet go soft at the same time. Looking down, they suddenly discovered that the soil under their feet was drying up and turning into sand at an alarming rate. The softness under their feet was the result of their feet sinking into the sand. Not only where they were, but also the ground nearby showed varying degrees of desertification.
"It's just ordinary sand."
Loreleija bent down and reached her hand into the sand.
"Although the range is large, what's the point of doing this? Simply changing the terrain will not pose a threat to us."
A magician's ability to survive is much stronger than that of an ordinary person. Moreover, there is a helicopter of the Law and Politics Department nearby. Even if the area within dozens of kilometers is turned into a desert, they can still evacuate from the air.
"No, changing the terrain is just a side effect."
Weber shook his head. His keen insight, known as the "Eye of Insight", was the first to see the secret.
"The real purpose of the ritual is to drain the spiritual veins underground. The entire spiritual vein - look over there."
He was pointing at the remains of the "Frozen Throne". Although it was nailed to death by Shinji with thousands of rafters and its core was taken away, the forest itself, which served as its body, did not die due to the powerful vitality of the Phantasma and the Vampires, and was still lush and flourishing.
But that was only just now. Now the thriving forest was withering and decaying at a speed visible to the naked eye, and finally turned into ashes like Hatteras's body. This was a typical manifestation of having its vitality drained away.
In a sense, the spirit vein can be seen as the life of the earth. Draining the spirit vein is equivalent to draining the vitality of the earth. The drying up and desertification of the earth is a symbol of the loss of vitality. Fu Hailin relied on the spirit vein to grow, and was also affected and drained of vitality. Because he lost his core, his huge body completely lost its resistance and became a victim of the technique.
"But that still doesn't explain the man's intentions."
Luvia spread out a few gems and used her own method to detect the condition of the spiritual veins. Her attribute was earth, and she was very good at this kind of technique.
"It's confirmed. The spell is not offensive. It simply extracts magic power and sends it somewhere."
"Where is it?"
Shinji asked hurriedly. He had a strange feeling in his heart, as if something unexpected and big was about to happen.
Luvia glanced at him, her expression changing for a moment before she answered, "I don't know the exact location, but I can be sure it's in the east, and it's not short. I can feel a huge distortion underground."
"distortion."
"East!"
Shinji and Waver looked at each other with horror at the same time. They thought of the worst, but also the most likely answer - Fuyuki City, Japan.
Hatteras had done this once before. He used the encounter between the Mystic Eye Collection Train and the Son of Fukarin to create a distortion, connected it to Fuyuki, and created a false subspecies Holy Grail. It wouldn't be surprising if he did it again.
As for the reason, it is not difficult to guess.
Hatreth lost his Servant, his limbs were pierced by rafters, and he was seriously injured. He was surrounded by powerful enemies like Shinji and Lorelea who could not resist even in their perfect condition. The possibility of his escape was close to zero.
What's worse is that Hartress himself has committed many crimes over the years for his own research and interests. The bizarre serial murder case seven years ago was just one of them. Once he is sent to the Law and Politics Department, he may face a fate a hundred times more cruel than death.
Rather than living a life worse than death, it is better to face death calmly. A qualified magus is not afraid of death as long as his death is valuable. Therefore, Hatteras chose to take revenge on Shinji Matou, the culprit who caused him to fall into such a situation, at the cost of his own life.
Generally speaking, a dying counterattack would be presented in the form of direct damage or curse, but Hatteres gave up because he couldn't see through Shinji, let alone Elquet, and who knew if it would be in vain. In order to ensure that he could cause trouble to the enemy, he chose to take a roundabout route.
It is not difficult to know from the conversation between Shinji and Waver that the Holy Grail War is about to begin and is extremely important to both of them. It happens that he has conducted a thorough investigation of the Greater Holy Grail and can interfere to a certain extent. It is obvious what choice he will make.
The first thing Shinji did when he realized what was happening was to ask Elquet for his cell phone and call back.
As soon as the call was connected, before I had time to speak, an anxious female voice came from the other end.
"Shinji, you called at the perfect time. I was just about to contact you."
That was Yustisa's voice. She had a calm personality and rarely spoke in such a tone.
Shinji's heart skipped a beat and he quickly asked, "Is there something wrong with that?"
"You know? Is it related to you?"
"I'll explain to you later what happened, let's talk about that first."
"Just now, a huge amount of magic power poured into the spirit vein, causing a considerable impact on it. The specific impact is still under observation, but one thing is certain - with the replenishment of this magic power, it has been activated. In other words -"
"—the war has begun."
Shinji answered first, his face so gloomy that water could drip out of it.
PS: Some people ask why Red A is Faker? It's very simple, there are two reasons. First, Red A's Noble Phantasms are all projected, which means they are pirated. Second, in UBW, the animation is around episode 16. In the episode where Erye plays the Rin Kick, Red A and Shining collide, Shining directly said Faker - this is the earliest Faker. Along with this title, there is a more classic saying - there is no truth that a fake is not as good as the real thing - said by Shirou Emiya, but Red A undoubtedly thinks so. This is simply the power of Faker to the extreme.