61 Moment of Truth

Fuyuki, Japan,

Underground Cavern,

A sharp deafening crack resounded throughout the dim underground cavern.

"Hahaha, manipulating the forces of nature isn't enough." With a toothy grin etched across his face, Lev stepped back a bit, eyes shining in barely concealed excitement, "We can bring her back for you, you know? All you need do is aid us in our noble goal!" He shouted, a hand on his chest, the other holding out a cane to stop Roman's onslaught.

"How dumb do you think I am?" Roman somewhat deadpanned, increasing the force exerted on the Demon God's 'flimsy' barrier with a mere flick of his hand, "And you think I'd need help from you to do it?" The Magician waved his hand and a new force, stronger than others before it crashed through the barrier, ripping it apart and slamming into the Demon God, sending him or it or whatever it was hurling away from him.

The Trambelio put a hand on his chin, humming a bit as he thought to himself, resurrection was a feat largely impossible in this world, souls seemed to just disperse into nothing once a being died, gathering them back was more like remaking the souls entirely from scratch. Sure the memories and such could be granted back, but, at that point, calling it a perfect copy would be more apt. The Third True Magic was rumoured to be able to resurrect but he doubted it, it would be like bringing back what was never there but then again, it was a Magic and Magics weren't grounded in reality in the first place.

"Nothing is impossible, human. A Grail is essentially a wish granting device. Why not simply try?" Lev suggested, dusting off his green coat with a somewhat annoyed look on his face, it was getting fairly repetitive to be doing this. What reason did Roman have to not accept his deal nay, offer in the first place?

"Unless.." The Demon God grinned savagely, "You never cared in the first place." That would make more sense, humans were vile and uncaring beings. The answer to that was something that made the Demon God stumble and fall back, narrowly avoiding a ray of black light that threatened to remove his very existence, "....How?"

"Trick of the trade." Roman's lips curled in a small smile, a brilliant black light with a golden hue covering his hand... The Magician wanted to reaffirm that whoever had sent that servant his way, had given him an incredibly powerful tool,

"Now....."

The Magician knelt down, putting the same glowing hand to the ground with a thoughtful look on his face, thinking up the output necessary and how much he could effectively destroy without affecting the Grail as he ran a structural analysis on the entire land.

"Bye."

"You!" Lev's annoyance reached it's peak, a human dared to behave towards him this way, what folly! "Our aid would have you safe from the dogs of mankind and the planet's hate for you but nay. It no longer matters. I shall take my leave, you will certainly come to regret this."

"You have demon in the name, I somehow doubt that." Roman replied, smiling annoyingly as certain occurrences throughout the war all suddenly fell into place.. He'd been right in his assumptions, there WAS something trying to actively hinder or remove him.

"You still have the gall to joke?"

"I think you're the bigger one but sure."

The cavern's walls cracked, rays of light erupting from all over made Lev realise that his brethren were right, the Magicians were indeed a threat to even them. The 'light' was one that would eradicate him entirely, not that that in itself would be anything more than a temporary hindrance but still, the fact was that a living human could do that much..... Cutting his losses, the Demon God dissipated, "This isn't the last you'll see of us."

Roman chuckled to himself once he was certain Lev was actually gone, the man had unintentionally given him information he would never have had otherwise... "Still.... Will of humanity huh?" The Magician looked up, a twitching smile on his face.... There was also a will of the planet apparently? This verse really was fucked... Well, at least it had beautiful women. Roman sighed to himself, coming up with something that could possibly make the two leave him be.... why stop at that though.

The white/grey haired Saber was the 'dog' wasn't it? Roman didn't understand what he'd done to irk humanity as a whole, he had zero interest in even concerning himself with them, much less planning to harm them... Or was it because he did whatever he felt like? If that was the case, Roman didn't like humanity's will as much anymore.

As for the planet hating them,.. It didn't really take a genius to figure out that one with man's constant ruining of nature, pollution and whatnot.. not that the Magician really had anything against it though. That would mean the planet just hated humanity as a whole, which completely checked out.

Roman laughed to himself again, rising to his feet and slowly making his way to the centre of the cavern to find a massive ugly horned pillar with streaks of red running all over it.... It gave off a nauseating feeling that would perhaps even suffocate a normal man but, it barely hindered the Magician as he came closer and closer, right up until his face was right next to it.

"Moment of truth." Roman guessed, smiling as he touched the 'Holy' Grail, releasing massive amounts of prana that he himself would use to access the energy held by the Grail before proceeding forward.

"I still can't believe you're actually doing it." Angra Mainyu's sultry voice whispered in his ears, but went completely ignored, leaving the Evil God a bit befuddled, the Magician usually talked a lot... Was it perhaps being reminded of the death of Berserker that made him so unusually silent?

"..Think for a bit, I know you're gonna use me as the vessel, I would too." The Magician gestured to their surroundings, pointing out the fact that there was literally nothing else there that the Evil God could house lest he be sent off to wherever the other Gods were. Roman's smile widened as he felt a connection with the Grail, granting him access to all the magical energy gathered in it over the course of 4 wars.

"Then why?" Even Angra Mainyu could only come to the conclusion that the Magician somehow had something to gain from what was about to happen.. Only, the facts suggested completely otherwise, bluntly put, he didn't know.

"I wonder why too." Roman grinned pensively, immensely pleased that this was turning out the way he'd surmised.

A bit of an explanation, if a God takes a being as a vessel, their personality, to some extent, ends up affected by the host which in itself never made sense and Roman didn't bank on that possibility.

The logical assumption to make was that a far older deity could easily overwrite the experiences and personality of a mere 'vessel' with their own. This was what Roman was going with at least.

Now then, a relatively understandable theory to come up with in light of this was, what would happen if the God that took him as a vessel had no personality or self in the first place? No memories, no self, nothing other than their existence.

A divine husk so to say..

Of course making this husk would be a feat impossible or too 'out there' but therein lay a mistake even he had made in his younger days and that was to assume a 'Magic' would ever have something conventional to their operations. Simply put, there were no 'rules' to them other than those they themselves defined.

Using the magical energy of the grail, Roman would wipe the being that was Angra Mainyu then make whatever was left incarnate into him with the leftover energy... Something impossible to accomplish even if a meagre factor was changed.

The end result, Divinity.

The Divine Core of an Evil God.

The Divine Core of All The World's Evil.

What mattered was the 'God' part of it. With Divinity, reality itself would bend over for him and coupled with his Magic, he'd have far more power than ever before. An actual God in the flesh.

In this regard, his own Magic far outclassed all the known others so far.

Roman smiled to himself, having left nothing up to his chance. That wasn't the way he operated, everything would go as it should have. If he succeeded, it would be because he planned right and if he failed, that meant his own incompetence had made him fail, an experience to learn from.

An ominous feeling overtook the Evil God residing in the Grail, startling and alarming him as he tried to grasp what could be causing it before,

"...."

Everything just stopped.

'He' didn't remain. His self no longer remained to be precise.

Roman felt a massive fraction of the Grail's gathered energy disappear as the cost but that was to be expected. Angra Mainyu was incredibly old, ancient and deleting his 'self', what made him him wasn't going to be easy... Or maybe it was, considering the prana used wasn't even his in the first place.

The Magician laughed, gripping his cane tightly, "Now for the grand finale."

The air seemed to shift, a dreadful wind permeated the Japanese city of Fuyuki then and there.

For a God would be born.

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Share thoughts mfs.

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If you find any flaw whatsoever in Roman's logic, point it out so I can rectify it.

For confirmation of the 'personality' thing, you can cross reference this with Ishtar in the Babylonia Singularity, Astraea in Luvia's body etc.

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You can find up to 7 chapters ahead at patre0n.com/stoned_face