57 Chapter 57
(T/N: Probably going fix the errors in the first 40-ish chapters after getting to chapter 60)
The moment the tragic situation on the ground came into view, the three people in the cockpit couldn't help but fall into a brief silence.
Under the sky completely covered by volcanic ash, the mountains in the distance are still spewing hot magma.
The magma flows into the fragmented towns as the flames reflect the wreckage of buildings.
It can be said that the initial earthquake turned this town into ruins but when the giant spiral tower resembling a blooming flower rose, the fully opened crust completely destroyed this area.
A hell that does not allow life to exist.
A desperate world.
Himeko pursed her lips and subconsciously turned her gaze toward Shirou.
Because Shirou failed to complete his bold words the enemy set off a new round of disasters, it even killed more than half of the members of the fifth team.
As the captain of the fifth team, it is reasonable that she should pour all her accusations on Shirou without hesitation.
But having said that, after seeing what Shirou did through the rearview camera, Himeko couldn't blame him no matter what.
She saw the scene where Shirou shot down a total of 100 warships and also witnessed the scene where the strange lightning released by Shirou bypassed all the opponent's defenses, and directly pierced the enemy's heart.
It is precisely because of seeing the whole process, Himeko can understand why Shirou is so confident.
He has indeed done everything he promised.
Apart from not expecting the other party to come back to life after being fatally injured, everything that Shirou has done has made Himeko unable to find any faults.
—Obviously "resurrection" is still a thing that is beyond common sense.
But then again, Shirou himself has surpassed common sense.
Himeko saw the flickering pain in Shirou's pupils but it immediately turned into firmness and composure as usual half a second later.
She understood that even though he looked like a 12-year-old boy, the psychological quality of this "boy" is already strong enough to stand side by side with fighters who of life stand on the edge and death all year round.
After a glance at the tragic situation on the ground, Shirou raised his head and re-locked his sight on the young man suspended in mid-air.
"Heh."
'Did you notice Shirou's gaze?'
The blue-haired young man's pupils flashed an extremely strong sarcasm.
The figure floating in midair remained motionless, looking extremely confident.
As an envoy of God, hiding your body in front of ants can be regarded as a great humiliation.
If it weren't for the lack of control and knowledge retained by this body when he first woke up, the youth wouldn't have copied the technology made by those inferior ants from the beginning.
Therefore, after his lack of strength was made up for the youth's behavior naturally became wild and flamboyant again.
He stretched out his thumb, twisted his arm in the direction of the warship, and then lowered his thumb a little bit.
The crooked corner of his mouth revealed a strong contempt and mockery.
Shirou looked coldly at the young man who challenged him.
Now that they have handed in the contract to kill each other, Shirou would naturally not lose his reason because of this level of ridicule.
However, when he saw the volcano that was still erupting, a wave of unknown anger rushed into Shirou's pupils.
He let out a sigh of contempt, suppressing his anger and then suddenly moved his gaze to a certain direction on the ground.
After seeing the unscathed Elysia from a distance, Shirou's sharp gaze softened at a speed visible to the naked eye.
'Calm down.'
In terms of physical ability alone, the current Elysia is not much weaker than himself at all.
With her level of awareness, as long as Elysia feels the enemy is difficult to defeat, she will not rush in irrationally.
Although the emotions fed back from the "thread" that connects the two parties are a little strange.
However, no matter what, it was still a terrible disaster.
Even for a person like him, it is difficult to maintain a 100% calm mentality in the true sense.
It is only natural that the eight-year-old Elysia will find it difficult to adapt in a short time.
After quickly confirming Elysia's safety and her movements, Shirou refocused all his attention on the blue-haired youth.
Olga had already turned in the direction of the blue-haired youth, but the flight trajectory of the warship did not directly rush toward the blue-haired youth.
The ship moved obliquely, taking the youth's body as the center the ship quickly circled.
The remaining fleets of the fifth squadron have spontaneously dispersed and retreated after the giant spiral tower broke through the volcanic ash.
Before the remaining members of the fifth team brought out the enemy's intelligence, their main task was to keep the youth's activities within their noses as much as possible.
Therefore, rather than having another direct conflict the judgment made by Olga was to delay the youth as much as possible.
Shirou did not launch a second attack on the young man.
The opponent's ability to use the spiral tower to block all the artillery fire and arrows also proved that the reaction speed of the blue-haired youth has also been significantly improved.
Sniping with ordinary arrows will hardly continue to cause substantial harm to the young man.
Of course, if Shirou uses a Noble Phantasm again, it may still produce an excellent effect.
But even after using a Noble Phantasm, he will still be unable to completely kill the opponent like before.
The blue-haired youth who has regained his rationality due to another surprise attack will probably become much more difficult to deal with than now.
Therefore, if Shirou wanted to use a Noble Phantasm he had to take advantage of this guy's sudden gain of great power and complacency.
Kill him with one blow.
At this time, Shirou suddenly felt a murderous intent like a knife cutting his face.
After a short time, he instinctively snatched the control stick of the warship from the palm of Olga's hand.
With a sudden pull -
"What are you doing -" Olga yelled subconsciously.
His words were completely swallowed up by a loud bang.
In just a split second an intense light filled the front window of the warship, intense shocks followed.
The glass of the front window was instantly covered with cracks.
If it weren't for the seat belts that firmly fixed their bodies they would have been thrown out of the warship at that moment.
Shirou's face was gloomy.
As the man with eagle eyes, he recovered his vision earlier than Olga and Himeko.
Therefore, after the light gradually disappeared he had already seen several beams of light falling from the sky.
And those places happened to be the direction where the remaining warships of the fifth team retreated.
"That bastard, is that the reason why he didn't attack the first time?" He murmured in a low voice and quickly glanced upwards.
Although he couldn't see it from the inside of the cockpit, Shirou could still vaguely feel the weapons ready to be fired.
Although he looks extremely arrogant he has no combat experience but that guy's ability is trickier than Shirou imagined.
After realizing that Shirou's emergency action saved his and Himeko's lives, Olga with a little blood in his head immediately confirmed the status of the warship.
In a low tone, he accurately said the news that sounded rather desperate:
"The anti-gravity engine is completely damaged, the nuclear thrusters are damaged, and it is expected to lose all power in ten minutes."
"..." Shirou was silent for a moment.
Facing the ultra-long-distance and ultra-high-speed attack of the space-based laser weapons, even he can barely make evasive actions at the moment before the laser arrives.
But with this degree of evading, the effect is not satisfactory.
Can that guy's copying control his creation so far away?
No...not right.
The image from a few seconds ago flashed by.
The moment before he was subjected to the all-around artillery fire, the blue-haired young man indeed turned his gaze to the sky.
At that time, the giant spiral tower drilled from the surface had not yet fallen.
'Could it be that it was at that time...'
There was no time to think about it, the flight path of the warship began to change rapidly
With a violent weightlessness, the ground outside the window expanded rapidly.
According to this momentum before the nuclear thrusters completely lose power, the main ship of the first team will probably plunge into the town full of magma.
Although the situation was desperate the faces of the three people in the cockpit have not changed much.
Whether Himeko, Olga, or Shirou, the crisis of this level is far from enough to overwhelm them.
But correspondingly, no matter how powerful they are the three experienced fighters still cannot fly recklessly in the sky like the Herrscher.
If the warship just crashes and loses the only means of flying, even Shirou's long-range sniping ability will be helpless against enemies who can infinitely widen the distance between the two sides.
On the other hand—if you want to decide the outcome immediately, you must find an opportunity to deal a fatal blow with a Noble Phantasm before the warship falls.
Click-
With a crisp cracking sound, the window glass located directly in front of the cockpit instantly shattered.
The violent gust like extremely sharp knives hit the three people in the cockpit without hindrance.
Olga clenched his teeth, held his pupils tightly, and narrowed his eyes slightly under the fierce wind.
Himeko couldn't help but raise her wrist.
—Height from the ground, two thousand meters.
Shirou looked around.
As a military aerospace warship, the escape procedure in the cockpit are quite competent.
On the side of the driver's seat is a parachute bag equipped with a jet system.
He projected a short knife casually, took off a parachute bag, and then walked behind Olga who was blinded by the fierce wind.
Shirou grabbed his wrist and cut off the seat belt that fixed the body of Olga with a knife.
Sensing the strange movement beside him, Olga twisted his neck with all his might.
His face instantly became ugly.
"You...you...want...to...why...?"
The extremely violent wind blew the voice of Olga into fragments.
Shirou glanced at the anxious and confused pupils of Olga.
He raised the parachute bag that was shaking constantly by the wind and signaled to Olga to put the strap of the parachute bag on.
"...Don't!"
"Come on!!!"
Before the words could be spoken, a powerful force suddenly came to Olga's wrist.
The millisecond when Shirou handed the parachute bag into the hands of Olga, he poured in all his strength and threw Olga's body out of the broken window.
"Ahhhhhhh!!!"
Heart-piercing screams could be heard and after a while, a dark parachute bloomed in the night sky.
After throwing Olga out of the warship, Shirou turned his gaze to Himeko.
Himeko opened her mouth, hesitated for less than half a second, and then made several shapes with her flaming red lips.
—Give it to me and I will do it myself.
Shirou smiled silently.
He handed another parachute bag to Himeko and then cut off the safety belt binding her body.
Himeko barely stood up straight from the driver's seat, she firmly held the parachute bag that was blown by the wind and kept shaking it in her palm.
She then looked in the direction of Shirou with a complicated expression, and said silently:
"Don't die! You kid."
Shirou nodded with a dumb smile and opened his mouth:
"Who do you think I am, you unreliable old aunt."
Himeko pouted but did not refute Shirou's words.
—Height from the ground, three thousand meters.
The second parachute bloomed behind the rapidly falling hull of the warship.
After letting Himeko and Olga leave the battleship that had begun to gradually collapse, Shirou turned up the power of the nuclear propulsion to the maximum.
He then entered the spiritual state and appeared on top of the warship that was constantly falling.
The space-based laser weapons are quite powerful and the accuracy of their strikes is impeccable but the essence of laser weapons is to burn the opponent with the huge energy contained in its beam.
To allow the laser beam to generate enough energy to burn the target in an instant the laser weapons developed by Fire Moth must have an extremely long charging time.
The attack just now should have mobilized all the satellite weapons copied by the blue-haired youth.
Otherwise, with his violent and domineering personality, he would have inevitably launched a second attack on them immediately afterward.
However, until Shirou threw Himeko and Olga out of the warship, the second laser that was supposed to be fired was still missing.
Shirou raised his head and looked at the blue-haired youth flying afar.
This distance was still within his range of sniping but because the failed sniping not long ago the blue-haired youth had already proved that his reflexes were enough to successfully escape from his arrows.
Although the arrows he holds also include Hrunting [Hound of the Red Plain], a Noble Phantasm that can pursue endlessly.
But this type of Noble Phantasm that always hit has an unavoidable risk.
First of all, in terms of power alone, Hrunting is not a very strong Noble Phantasm.
At least, compared with Gae Bolg with the curses of [Unhealable] and [Instant Death], Hrunting is just a relatively powerful magic arrow.
Shirou can't guarantee whether Hrunting can achieve results beyond Gae Bolg.
Since it is impossible to expect "hitting" and "piercing" to produce effects the only option left is to find a way to burn his body to the point where there are no ashes left.
Of course, there are such treasures in the arsenal of "that heroic spirit", quite a few actually.
However, wanting to use those methods means that he has to give up the long-distance combat "that heroic spirit" is relatively good at.
While releasing a Noble Phantasm that can burn the opponent to ashes in the shortest time is possible.
It is impossible to rely on "that heroic spirit" stored in the class card Archer.
The millisecond when he made this judgment, Shirou dismissed Archer's fantasy summoning and took out another class card that was exchanged from the "Mother Simulator"
—Height from the ground, two thousand meters.
"Class card: Saber—Install."
[Class card: Saber]
Following the immature voice without any emotional fluctuations a burst of sharp light shone above the warship.
At this moment—
in order to save his dying life, Emiya Kiritsugu "assimilated" the scabbard into Shirou's body in a way completely different from "using" the scabbard that has been sleeping until now.
The original owner at the other end of time and space, the "king" who fought her whole life built a "fate" connecting the two worlds.
Although there is no "Holy Grail" here.
Although this world cannot fulfill the king's long-cherished wish.
But after sensing the situation that the contractor was facing, the "king" still lent him her power without reservation.
The wind is surging.
Wearing silver-white armor, he stood up straight in the fierce wind.
—Height from the ground, one thousand meters.
