IBHJ Chapter 789

"What's so strange about that? I'm human, aren't I? Of course I smile sometimes."

"No, no, no. It's normal for other people to smile, but if you do it, you must be possessed or something. Master, you better check on him. He might be cursed," Taiga said, turning to Skadi.

Skadi had a completely bewildered expression, not knowing how to respond.

He leaned forward a bit, cutting off Taiga's question, and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because I haven't seen you smile in ages. Not since those giants showed up, you haven't cracked a smile once. You've been totally on edge," Taiga sighed. "It really takes me back to when I was a kid. Back then, the streets were packed with people coming and going, and everyone's faces were lit up with smiles..."

Shirou didn't say a word. All of this was the Council's fault. As he glanced at the front of the car, his eyes widened in alarm. "Taiga, watch out!" he shouted.

Taiga, lost in her own thoughts, seemed oblivious to the impending danger. Hearing his warning, she hurriedly yanked the steering wheel, but the sudden movement sent the car screeching and spinning out of control.

His face hardened with disbelief. Could it be that this version of him would meet his end in such an ordinary way, a mere car crash? The thought seemed too lame, too mundane for the life he had lived. However, just as the car was about to inevitably slam into a utility pole, Skadi stretched out her palm, her eyes glowing with divine light, and a Primordial Rune symbolizing "wind" appeared in the air.

A powerful gust of wind lifted the car from underneath, sending the frenzied vehicle rolling through the air. Only after the wheels stopped spinning did Skadi set the car back down on the ground.

"I got too careless and had to trouble Master to save the day again," Taiga stuck out her tongue.

"You're almost 40 years old, don't try to act all cute like a young girl, it's just embarrassing," he said coldly.

"As long as you've got a young mindset, even an eighty-year-old can be a young girl," Taiga said, clearly displeased. "Just look at Master. She's thousands of years old, but she still lives like a young girl..."

Shirou: "!!!"

The memory of Scathach nearly killing him when he mentioned her age flashed through his mind, and he instinctively glanced at Skadi to calm her down, only to be surprised when she didn't show any reaction at all. That's weird, he thought, eyeing her suspiciously.

Taiga drove past the Fuyuki Bridge and into the suburbs near Miyama Town. This was an industrial area. Large machines hummed and workers were busily going about their tasks. The smell of steel hit them as soon as they stepped out of the car. As he got out, the passing workers greeted him.

Shirou looked around at the familiar factory buildings, feeling a wave of emotion wash over him. These were the same factory buildings he had seen at that strange Fuyuki City Connection Point before. At the time, he had felt that the factory was very familiar, and now the truth was revealed. That factory, that entire production zone, belonged to none other than him!

Shirou's mind drifted back to the Fourth Holy Grail War of the reset world. Angra Mainyu had tried to corrode his sense of self, but ended up being counter-killed by the invisible vortex. Of course, that was a different world. In the present world, Shirou had empathized with Angra Mainyu's resentment, accepted his own human imperfections and evil, bearing all the world's evil and walking a new path of awakening.

He also understood the truth about that strange Fuyuki City connection point. It was his world, the former Pan-Human History, the world before the reset! But now, everything had been destroyed.

The conversation on the way to his office had already helped Shirou piece together the cause and effect of this world. In the Fourth Holy Grail War of 1993, he had become the winner with Scathach's help. The following year, he met Odin disguised as Mother of Mifune. Around 2003, he and Skadi traveled to Greece and met Odin again. That same year, they defeated the remnant of Vanir god, Skadi, who had invaded Iceland.

Then, on July 20, 2003, the day of the invasion, the Frost Giants broke through the Valkyrie Legion's defense line at the Nordic Connection Point, conquered Asgard, and hundreds of millions of them crawled out from the breached branches of Yggdrasil, shattering the dimensional barriers and launching a full-scale invasion on Pan-Human History.

As Shirou settled into his office, the factory's sales department manager immediately approached him with a document. "President, here's the list of supplies purchased by the military this time. Please take a look."

Shirou skimmed the military's order for compressed food supplies. His thoughts wandered back to July 20, 2003, when the Frost Giants began their invasion of this world from Iceland. Humanity had been caught completely off guard. The areas closest to Iceland - the British Isles, Northern Europe, North Africa, and Australia - were the first to fall, turning into a living hell.

It wasn't long before humanity reacted. Countries and nations from various ethnicities put aside their past grievances and joined forces with the Mage's Association and the Underworld to resist these mythical creatures together.

More than a decade of struggle had passed, and most countries had fallen, with countless lives lost. Only parts of South Asia and North America were still holding out, but hope was fading fast. The extinction of humanity seemed inevitable. This was a complete reenactment of mythology, but instead of the end of the Age of Gods, it was the end of the Age of Man - the day of humanity's destruction.

It was in the face of this disaster that Shirou had become the owner of a factory specializing in producing military compressed food supplies. But there was one thing that didn't add up: why hadn't the Counter Force's emergency response kicked in? This was a massive crisis threatening the survival of humanity. It was impossible for the Counter Force not to react.

As Shirou pondered the situation, he couldn't help but think back to when the extraterrestrial invader had attacked Fuyuki. Back then, the Counter Force had summoned Heroic Spirits to help him, but in this world, apart from Scathach, there were no Heroic Spirits at all. If the Counter Force was unwilling to intervene, that was impossible. If humanity was a body, with each person being a cell that made up the body, then the Counter Force would be the body's immune system.

The immune system would resist foreign pathogens that harm the body in order to keep it healthy. It would even kill individual cells of its own. But now, humanity, which was like the body, was under attack by the Frost Giants, which were like foreign viruses. Yet the Counter Force, which was the immune system, wasn't playing its corresponding role.

There were two possibilities for this. One was that the virus was so powerful that it could ignore the immune system; the other was that the immune system had been destroyed and stopped functioning.

The extraterrestrial invader from thirteen years ago was the former, while the most likely reason for this world was the latter. Shirou was pretty sure this happened because the Council was causing trouble behind the scenes. It's just that if you look at it this way, the Counter Force seemed way too fragile.

But he knew that the Council's power couldn't be underestimated. The Council was a cross-dimensional criminal organization, and among its known members were some of the most formidable beings in existence. Goetia, who had accomplished the feat of incinerating human history, the World Tree Yggdrasil, and the Sixth Seat who didn't even take Odin, who had repelled the White Titan, seriously. And then there was the Demonic Bodhisattva...