MMMS 106

In far-off Macedonia, a young king had done the unthinkable—overthrown his own father and seized the throne. Within months, he was tearing through neighboring kingdoms like wildfire, his sights set on something even bolder: the mighty Persian Empire across the water.

The defenders who stood against him were no cowards. These were warriors who'd die before they'd let foreign boots march through their home soil. They came at Iskandar's forces with everything they had—honor, fury, and generations of military pride backing every sword stroke.

But something was wrong. These hardened fighters, men who should have fought to their last breath, found themselves backing down. The Macedonian soldiers didn't just fight—they blazed with a kind of wild joy that made no sense. They weren't defending anything sacred, weren't answering some divine call. They were just following one man's hungry dream of conquest.

So why did they fight like they were touching something holy?

When the dust settled and prisoners knelt before their conqueror, Iskandar didn't give the speech they expected. No grand proclamations about empire or divine right. Instead, he crouched down like he was talking to old friends, grinning like a kid with a secret.

"Keep your countries," he said. "I'm not stopping here anyway. I'm going east—all the way east, until I run out of world to cross." His eyes lit up. "I want to see Oceanus for myself. I want to stand on that beach where the world ends and feel that endless water under my feet."

And just like that, he handed the territories back to their noble families and marched on.

East. Always east. Anyone who tried to block his path got swept aside, but not destroyed—just moved, like obstacles in a river's flow. Because Iskandar wasn't just conquering anymore. He was hunting something bigger.

Word of him spread like fever. Young men heard the stories and felt something stir in their chests—that old ache to see what lay beyond the next mountain, the next horizon. What secrets waited past the edge of every map they'd ever seen?

His army didn't just grow. It swelled with dreamers, each victory pulling in more souls hungry for that same impossible shore their king was chasing.

Gilgamesh tapped the rim of his cup with a finger. The soft ring of metal on gold broke the stillness of the night.

“The endless sea you chased, Rider...” he murmured, watching the surface of the wine shift. “You found it. Just before you died.”

Iskandar frowned. “The Indian Ocean?” He shook his head. “That wasn’t endless. I knew there were lands beyond it—more islands, maybe whole continents. I just…”

His voice dropped. “…I ran out of time.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was honest. Even now, centuries later, summoned as a Heroic Spirit, the regret still lingered. He’d carved his name into most of the known world, and it still hadn’t been enough. He’d never reached the true edge.

“You’re wrong,” Gilgamesh said. “Your journey didn’t end in failure. You simply arrived too late.”

Iskandar turned toward him. “Too late for what?”

Gilgamesh lifted his cup, watching the wine catch the moonlight. "What the Greeks called Oceanus—the water at the world's end..." His grip tightened on the gold. “If you’d been born a few thousand years earlier, you might’ve seen it.”

"Imagine this," Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes. “The Persian Gulf, but twisted. Seventy-two million square kilometers of black mud, stretching to infinity. No waves. No shore. Just a stain on the world so vast, it drowned the sky.”

…

The castle battlements caught the moonlight, turning everything silver and sharp. Morgan stood close enough to Ryuuto that her shoulder brushed his arm when she moved.

"You know," she said, voice casual but eyes glinting with mischief, "most men like to spend their last night before battle doing something... memorable." She glanced meaningfully at her Master. "The bedroom's much warmer than up here. We could leave my dear sister to handle things alone—I'm sure the legendary King of Knights can manage two opponents."

"Caster," Irisviel's face went red. "That's terrible. Artoria would be completely outnumbered."

"Ignore her, Iri." Ryuuto flicked Irisviel's forehead gently, making her scrunch up her nose. "She's just trying to get under your skin."

"Yes, Lord Ryuuto," Irisviel mumbled, but her hands twisted together anxiously.

The truth was eating at her. While they'd been... distracted earlier, she'd forgotten to tell him about Avalon. The scabbard was still tucked away inside her, useless. If Artoria needed its protection and Irisviel was stuck on the sidelines like dead weight...

"If we lose tonight," she whispered, "it'll be my fault."

Suddenly, the air itself seemed to shiver. In the distance, trees bent and snapped as something massive crashed through the forest. Above them, wind roared.

"Well," Morgan said, smile turning sharp, "looks like playtime's over."

The bounded fields around the Einzbern grounds hadn't just been broken. It had been obliterated, torn apart by forces that treated magical defenses like paper. Two Heroic Spirits were coming fast—one through the sky, one carving a path straight through the earth.

Something carved through the night sky above Einzbern Castle. Its golden hull gleamed like captured sunlight, emerald wings beating like clockwork, but alive—Vimana looked like some god’s fever dream of what a ship should be when it learned to fly.

Gilgamesh stood at its prow like he owned the air itself, one hand resting casually on the armrest while ancient machinery hummed beneath his feet. The Gate of Babylon held more than just weapons—it held every marvel humanity had ever dreamed of building, and this flying treasure was one of its crown jewels.

Below, the forest was getting murdered.

Bucephalus tore through the treeline like a black hurricane given hooves and fury. The legendary warhorse that had once carried Iskandar across half the world was now raging across the land, each step creating shockwaves that sent century-old oaks toppling like toys.

Then the wind changed.

"What's this now?" Gilgamesh glanced up as the first drops hit his face. Rain? On a clear night?

The stars disappeared. Black clouds boiled out of nowhere, swallowing the sky piece by piece until the suburbs below vanished into shadow. The temperature plummeted, turning each breath visible.

The air began to rotate. Slowly at first, then faster, pulling moisture and debris into a spiral that stretched from the clouds to the earth. Lightning spider-webbed through the darkness, each flash revealing the massive tornado taking shape directly above the castle.

Blue fire crackled as they raced through the storm clouds. Then the sky split open.

Lightning hammered down from the heart of the vortex—not the clean, distant flash of natural storms, but something raw and hungry. This was pure electrical violence given form, the kind of power that could punch through steel and melt stone. Morgan had stripped away every mystical protection, every magical defense, leaving nothing but ten thousand pounds of concentrated destruction plummeting toward the forest.

Even Knight-class Servants would struggle against this. After all, Morgan le Fay hadn't earned her reputation by being average magus.

She stood openly now on the castle battlements, no longer hiding in shadows. Her hands still sparked with residual mana as she watched her lightning tear through the night air, aimed straight at the two kings below.

The bolt screamed toward Vimana.

Gilgamesh didn't even blink. He stood there like he was watching a mildly interesting sunset, one hand still resting on the ship's rail as white-hot death rushed toward him.

BOOOM!

The lightning exploded thirty meters above his head, splitting into a thousand smaller bolts that scattered like deadly fireworks. Light seared the air, turning night to day for one brilliant moment.

Gilgamesh barely glanced up at the light show.

"Ooh, Archer!" Iskandar's voice boomed from the forest below. "Did you just tank that thing?"

"Obviously. Did you expect anything else?"

Iskandar squinted up through the explosion and spotted them—metal discs spinning around Vimana's hull like deadly satellites, electricity arcing between them in protective webs like automated defense systems. The kind of precaution the old Gilgamesh would have scorned as cowardly.

This Gilgamesh had learned better.

"Not bad," Gilgamesh mused, settling back into his golden throne as if he were watching street theater. "It's been ages since anyone forced my defenses to actually work."

The sky erupted.

Morgan wasn't holding back anymore. Lightning bolts thick as tree trunks hammered down one after another. Streams of black water that ate through whatever they touched. Laser beams that left afterimages burned into the retina. Fireballs that turned the air itself into furnace heat.

Each spell carried enough power to level a city block, and she was throwing them like confetti.

"An appetizer." Gilgamesh smirked as golden ripples opened around him. "How thoughtful of the witch to provide entertainment before I put her down."

The first sword that emerged from his Gate was simple steel—if you could call a blade that had probably slain gods "simple." It spun through the air, deflecting a lightning bolt like it was swatting a fly.

Then came the spears. The axes. The legendary weapons of a dozen dead civilizations, each one worth a kingdom's ransom, flying out to meet Morgan's spells like he was clearing his attic.

"Come then," he called toward the castle. "Show me what the greatest witch in history can actually do."