Aozaki Aoko Case File

Fourteen thousand years ago, a human priestess once pleaded with a kind and benevolent god.

"Don't trust those fairies," the priestess begged. "Please don't attend their banquet."

But the kind god did not heed her warning, and at the feast, drank the poisoned wine offered by the fairies, dying with anger and regret.

The fairies built the first land upon the god's corpse and even tore the priestess who warned the god into countless pieces, using these fragments as the base to endlessly create new humans and food for their spirits.

But the fairies did not know that, even in death, the gentle Cernunnos expended his last strength to preserve the priestess's soul, letting her be reborn as a kind fairy in this sinful land.

Thus, a weak, teal-haired fairy with beautiful butterfly wings began to wander Britain.

At first, she only encountered weak fairies from the northern forests. These fairies had no power or wisdom, were rejected, driven out, and abused by the clan fairies, and finally arrived in this forest.

The reincarnated priestess fairy spent a difficult yet fulfilled childhood among them.

But happy days are always short. The clan fairies fought fiercely for scarce land, and the flames of war spread to this forest, burning the last refuge of the weak fairies to ashes.

Thus, the priestess fairy set out wandering again, and without the forest's protection, no fairy group in Britain would take her in.

No matter the clan, the moment they saw the priestess fairy, an inexplicable fear would rise in their hearts, making them instinctively despise her.

Thus, through endless rejection and abuse, the priestess fairy suffered greatly, dying countless times over the ages—only to be reincarnated again and again, returning to Britain's land.

Her final reincarnation as a fairy happened 2,400 years ago before Camelot was built.

As in the past, she was pushed to the brink by the other fairies' hatred, gravely wounded and nearly broken. At last, she arrived at the edge of the Great Hollow.

There, she felt a warm, familiar power flowing from the Great Hollow, gently wrapping her dying body, letting her sink into peaceful darkness and eternal sleep.

Thus, after ten millennia, the priestess was reunited with her god. This time, her body and soul became the core of Cernunnos, driving the resurrection of this dead god.

But the reincarnated priestess was far too weak—her body and mind ruined by the fairies' cruelty, utterly incapable of shouldering the duty of powering a god's corpse. So, the gentle god gave up awakening immediately, instead using the last of his divine power to heal his priestess.

Now, the priestess had finally recovered enough to serve as the god's core. She and her god would seek vengeance on this world—on those cruel and naive fairies.

—Dividing line—

"It seems this fairy has replaced Cernunnos's god core," Aoko messaged Artoria. "Holy Spears aren't enough now. We need something special."

Aoko's magic was pure violence without special properties, and while Morgan and Artoria's Holy Spears had anti-humanity bonuses, their inclinations were too divergent to truly kill a god or destroy its core.

Chaldea's Black Lance could work... but it required the user to sacrifice some lifespan. If possible, Aoko would avoid using such a thing.

"Artoria, for the sake of Britain and this world," Aoko maintained her barrage while extending a fist toward Artoria, "use the Sword of the Stars against him!"

At the same moment, one of the many Command Spells stored on Aoko's arm vanished. Even for her, supplying Artoria with enough mana to use the Sword of the Stars at full power while suppressing Cernunnos simultaneously was impossible.

Riding Dun Stallion, Artoria quietly sensed the vast power surging within her, put away the Holy Spear, and drew the Sword of the Stars from Avalon, gripping it tightly.

"Thirteen Seals Released—Round Table Conference, begin!" Artoria's voice rang out as a storm gathered around the Red Dragon of Britain.

"Recognize—Bedivere, Gareth, Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan, Kay, Geraint, Gaheris..."

As the unknown feminine voice recited the names, the hearts of many fairy knights in Fairy Britain stirred—including Gareth in the Ark World, the unconscious Barghest, and Mash, inheritor of Galahad's Saint Graph—all instantly understood the intent of the King of Knights and agreed to the Round Table's decision.

Artoria: "This is the battle to save the world!"

"Recognize—Arthur."

"Oath—Excalibur!"

The Sword of the Stars, in the hand of the last eternal king of the Age of Gods, unleashed its full radiance with all seals removed.

From the moment it was forged by the planet, this sword had only one purpose: to eliminate threats to the planet itself.

Morgan's Holy Spears, originally designed as fairy-made Salvation Spears, had anti-human special effect only. But Cernunnos's actions now went beyond human threat—as the trigger for the destruction of the planet's hollow, in this moment he was indeed a planetary threat.

With this dual targeting bonus, even if the output was not as high as Aoko's Earthlight Starbow, it was uniquely effective against Cernunnos and his god core.

The innocent, tragically slain god and his priestess were finally erased in the cleansing light of the Sword of the Stars. All witnesses on the battlefield breathed a sigh of relief—this godly corpse, bearing the power of all three calamities, was not something any single method could easily defeat. Perhaps this was the worldline's counterattack against outside interference from the likes of Aoko.

But Aoko and those she had confided Britain's secrets to did not relax—because they knew that, with the Calamity of Curse eradicated, the true mastermind behind Britain was about to reveal themselves. The final, decisive battle needed for a happy ending was still to come.