NABC Chapter 132 The Believer Embracing the Abyss
Chapter 132 The Believer Embracing the Abyss
Deep within consciousness lies a suffocating, blood-red swamp.
Kiritsugu Emiya suddenly opened his eyes.
He found himself not lying in the cold, damp pile of fallen leaves behind the Tohsaka residence, but standing on a white altar made of countless corpses.
In the center of the altar stood a person.
Irisviel was dressed in a pure white dress, holding a golden cup that radiated golden light, and giving him an extremely gentle smile.
"Kiritsugu, you've finally arrived. Come, make a wish. If you accept it, your miracle of 'saving all of humanity' will immediately come true."
Kiritsugu stared at the illusion before him, which bore the face of his wife. In those dead fish-like eyes, there was no joy, only endless coldness and despair.
In the brief instant he was pulled into this mental space, he understood.
He realized that this system called the Holy Grail had long been corrupted by a pure curse.
That wasn't a miracle at all; it was a hell that would destroy the world!
"You are not Alice." Kiritsugu's voice was hoarse.
He slowly raised his hand and aimed the blood-stained pistol at the phantom Irisviel's forehead.
"Kiritsugu? What are you doing?" The illusion's face showed sadness and confusion.
"You abandoned everything for this miracle, are you now going to deny your own great aspirations and my sacrifice?"
"Alice..."
Kiritsugu's tears mingled with the blood on his face as he slid down his cheeks. His heart, already riddled with holes, had made its decision.
"Bang!"
Gunshots echoed in the blood-soaked world of the mind.
Irisviel's head shattered with a deafening roar, her gentle face instantly twisting into a hideous, pitch-black swamp.
"Emiya... Kiritsugu! I curse you... I curse you so badly!!!"
With that extremely shrill scream, the illusion collapsed like shattered glass.
On the edge of the ruins of the Tohsaka residence.
Kiritsugu was suddenly jolted awake from the mud, spitting out a mouthful of black blood.
He clutched his broken ribs and struggled to lift his head. What came into view was a black waterfall that shot straight into the sky, turning half of the Fuyuki City night sky dark red.
He successfully rejected the Holy Grail, but the black mud in reality had completely erupted out of control.
However, just as Kiritsugu was struggling to get up, he saw a scene that horrified him.
Kirei Kotomine was standing in front of the gushing black waterfall.
Instead of running away, he deliberately stepped into a pool of thick, black mud that was spreading outwards.
"Hiss!"
A pure curse, powerful enough to instantly drive a Heroic Spirit to madness and melt the flesh of a living person, climbed up Kirei's boots and enveloped half of his body.
Countless wails, curses, jealousy, and murderous intent, seemingly emanating from the depths of hell, surged wildly into Kirei's mind.
If it were an ordinary person, their soul would have already collapsed by now.
But Kirei Kotomine did not.
Instead of collapsing, a chillingly fanatical light began to shine in his eyes, which had been empty for nearly thirty years.
"I see... Is this what you've been calling for?"
Kirei raised his head and stretched out his hands toward the towering black mud.
The instant he touched the black mud, he heard a kind of "fetal movement".
That was the fetal movement of a life that embodies all the evil thoughts of humanity—"all the evil of this world"—about to be born.
In this world, nothing can understand Kirei's twisted soul, which is incapable of empathy with ordinary people.
Only this pure evil resonated perfectly with his empty soul!
"Hahahaha... Hahahahaha!"
Kirei let out a low, hoarse laugh that eventually escalated into a terrifying, fanatical laugh:
"I've finally found it! This sacred object, which will cleanse this hypocritical world of evil, is the proof of my existence!"
"He's gone mad..." Kiritsugu gritted his teeth, but due to the severe injury to his lungs, he didn't even have the strength to lift his gun.
"He's not crazy, he's just found his own abyss."
With a calm voice, Arthur, holding the Star Sword upside down in one hand, slowly walked past Kiritsugu.
His battle robe, a blend of silver and dark blue, fluttered in the foul wind stirred up by the black mud.
In his clear eyes, there was no fear of this immense malice, only a profound depth that seemed to see through to the soul.
"Kirei Kotomine, you have indeed fallen into darkness." Arthur looked at the priest who stood in the black mud as if being baptized.
"Because they cannot understand the emotions of ordinary people, they beg for a sense of existence from the abyss..."
You think playing the role of a malicious midwife will make you whole? No, your emptiness cannot be filled by any curse in this world.
"shut up!"
Kirei's face contorted with ecstasy, which turned into a ferocious killing intent.
"Radiant Knight King, let me see if your so-called Holy Sword of Stars can sever this malice that has gathered from all of humanity!"
"boom!"
At that very moment, as if sensing the power within Arthur that threatened its birth, the instinct of "all the evil in this world" was completely enraged.
From within the massive black waterfall, an incredibly terrifying swamp tsunami split off, like a raging beast opening the gaping maw of an abyss, crashing down upon Arthur with overwhelming force!
Beneath this black tsunami capable of swallowing everything, Kirei Kotomine, using the black mud as cover, unleashed a speed far exceeding human limits.
Holding three black keys, he was like a deadly serpent lurking beneath the raging waves, launching a deadly charge.
Faced with this catastrophic blow, Arthur did not stop moving forward.
He didn't adopt any defensive stance, but simply closed his eyes slowly and slightly turned his right hand, which was holding the sword.
"Buzz!"
There was no earth-shattering burst of magic, nor any dazzling light cannon sweeping the ground.
A peerless holy sword, its entire body flowing with the purest, unadulterated golden starlight, simply radiated the brilliance that was inherently its own.
As the embodiment of starlight, Arthur himself is enough to draw upon the purest exorcising light on this planet.
Arthur opened his eyes and, facing the black tsunami crashing down from the sky and Kirei Kotomine hidden within it, swung his sword forward.
"laugh!"
There was no loud explosion.
The moment that pure golden sword light touched the black mud, it was like a red-hot iron probing into the first snow.
The black swamp, which seemed capable of swallowing everything, couldn't even resist the starlight that struck like a dimensional reduction attack.
It was instantly evaporated and vaporized, and a golden corridor of absolute vacuum was forcibly cleaved open in mid-air.
"What?!"
Kirei Kotomine, who was preparing to launch an attack, suddenly had his pupils contract.
The cover of black mud was instantly stripped away.
Before the black key could be thrust out, and before he could even unleash his prized Bajiquan, Arthur's figure had already appeared in front of him as if by teleportation.
"Your evil is too shallow."
The golden holy sword, carrying a judgment devoid of any warmth, smoothly pierced through Kirei Kotomine's sturdy robes and penetrated his heart.
"Well……"
Kirei froze, and the black keys in his hand clattered to the ground.
He lowered his head and looked at the holy sword radiating dazzling golden light on his chest.
The light was so pure and so warm that it created an extremely strong repulsion between him and his cold, empty nature.
At the very end of his life, Kirei Kotomine did not feel any pain.
Under the pure starlight, he looked into Arthur's calm green eyes and suddenly forced an extremely ugly, bitter smile.
He spent his whole life chasing pleasure, chasing answers to fill the void.
He believed the answer lay within the black mud...
"What a...boring farce..."
With that faint sigh, Kirei Kotomine's body completely disintegrated in the sacred starlight, turning into a fine cloud of gray embers.
The believer who embraced the abyss met his most complete end here.
Arthur slowly sheathed his holy sword, his gaze passing over the spot where Kirei had vanished, and fixed on the black waterfall behind him that was now boiling over and beginning to cascade wildly outwards.
"Next, it's time to clean up this last mess."