Fate: I Will Eventually Become the Hero of Justice

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "Your book? I think there's been a mistake. This is my friend's book."

Her eyebrows furrowed slightly. "There's no mistake. This is my book."

After a glance at her determined face, he looked back at the book and asked, "Do you know what language this is written in?"

"...No."

"If you don't recognize the language, how can you be sure you wrote it?" He was a bit perplexed. It seemed like she was just making things difficult for him.

Seeing his expression, she said, somewhat displeased, "I don't know the language, but I know this is my book!"

"Then I suppose you were likely channeling Scathach. She is quite knowledgeable, so it's not strange that she would recognize this language. And since my friend is also a Master at Chaldea, this book was probably written by Scathach..."

He noticed Skadi's eyes go blank, and he couldn't help calling out, "Skadi? Skadi!"

She blinked, returning to her senses. Her confused expression faded back to normal as she said plainly, "I see...that is possible."

But he detected suppressed panic hidden in her tone. He raised an eyebrow, sensing something odd. Had something happened outside?

Skadi clearly had no intention of continuing the conversation. She rolled up the book, turned to leave.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Hearing Kiara's moans while chained up, he hastily called out to Skadi, "Even if you won't free me, at least get this pervert away from me!"

Skadi didn't respond verbally. Her mood was clearly unsettled, but regarding his request, she didn't reject it. With a snap of her fingers, a wall of wind, snow and ice erected between Shirou and Kiara, blocking them from each other.

He breathed a sigh of relief, while Skadi hurried off with the book.

She was in a terrible mood. Even though she couldn't recognize the words, she instinctively knew this was her book. What's more, the mention of Scathach made her irrationally more irritated.

How to describe this feeling? It was like standing on a hot floor - she felt an urgent need to do something but also felt lost about what exactly she needed to do.

In Shirou's words, this was a deviation between cognition and reality, leading to anxiety. Of course, Skadi couldn't explain her feelings using such terminology. But she instinctively felt anxious.

Skadi walked out of the prison while Ortlinde and the others gathered around outside. But she ignored them, lost in her own thoughts.

She stood on the platform of the grand temple, overlooking all of Midgard. Just like her heart - vast and white, yet chaotic.

"What is happening to me?" Looking at the endless white land, she was at a complete loss.

Why did the mere mention of Scathach make her so restless?

She took out the book, slowly unrolling it to the only readable line of text. She was even more baffled. She didn't recognize the language at all, so why did she instantly know she had written it and understand its meaning?

Why? 

Skadi's mind raced, her emotions spiraling out of control...

...

Inside the prison, Shirou stretched lazily.

Although Skadi hadn't let him leave, at least she'd created an ice wall between him and the super pervert. It probably wouldn't do much, but it was mentally reassuring.

Of course, the most reassuring thing was Skadi arriving when she did, preventing the Devil's Bodhisattva from making a move on him.

After such bad luck so many times, it seemed he'd finally gotten a stroke of good luck.

Leaning against the icy wall, its cold sensation helped ground him in reality.

Come to think of it, how did he fall into that strange dream in the first place?

Shirou was quite self-disciplined. Even if he enjoyed sleeping, it would have been impossible for him to have fallen asleep so defenselessly while staying in the same room as Devil's Bodhisattva!

In other words, was there some outside interference?

Shirou stroked his chin thoughtfully, his gaze seeming to look through the ice wall at the super pervert on the other side. Could this guy have messed with my mind?

Devil's Bodhisattva had lost some of her Authority after being killed by Shirou, and Kiara had taken more. But she was still a Beast. So it wasn't out of question for her to hypnotize him.

Most people would likely think this way and draw that conclusion. But he dismissed the seemingly right answer. His reason was simple: with his Indomitable Will and the black mud inside him, basic mental interference couldn't affect him—even if he couldn't block it, he would at least be aware of it. Furthermore, he'd had this dream earlier at the Gate. At that time, he hadn't met Devil's Bodhisattva.

"Could the cause of that strange dream lie within me?" Shirou mused, lightly stroking his chin in his habitual gesture of deep thought.

He quickly analyzed where the crux of the issue lay. If the problem stemmed from within himself, then it was actually quite simple - because there were only two parts of his whole being that were beyond his control. One was the man-made legend that had birthed the Eternal King. Though he could now bend the constraints of that legend somewhat, he hadn't yet transcended the legend itself.

The other was the still unidentified vortex in his soul. This Mortal Awakening was the other potential culprit.

Shirou was clear that the man-made legend of the Eternal King had constrained his personality and behavior, but it could never have given him such an erotic dream. On the contrary, the legend would have suppressed his desires and sensibilities, stifling any possibility for him to have such dreams.

So the answer was clear - the culprit was that Invisible Vortex of Mortal Awakening!

"Wait a minute...!"

He remembered now - at the end of the dream, when he finally broke free, it was because the vortex had swallowed him.

As soon as he realized the root of the problem, he immediately closed his eyes and focused his mind, entering deep into his own consciousness.

His psyche was a black sea of mud. [Evil] protected his mind from external attacks and violations.

Shirou walked into the interior of his own mind. It was a void where nothing could be seen. But one could sense an anomaly there, generating an endless whirlpool.

This was the depth of his consciousness - it could also be said to be Shirou's mental embodiment.

His mental embodiment was a void, even more so a Vortex.

Fortunately, because this was the depth of his mind, whether before detecting the vortex's existence or after, the black mud protecting his mind never came here. Otherwise, like that bizarre dream, his black mud could also have been swallowed by this vortex.

Shirou stretched out his hand slightly towards the vortex. His hand bounced back with a "thud".

This vortex could swallow everything - fragments of Crimson Moon, the stone slab of Nidhogg. Those things had been swallowed by the vortex, even the fragments containing Crimson Moon's residual consciousness unable to escape.

It was practically like a black hole!

No, there were still some things that could come out of this vortex. There had been three streams of information flowing out before.

That was his three Innate Skills - the Mortal Series.

"So what exactly is this thing?" He furrowed his brows, looking at the vortex.

The mind and psyche were not physical, but spiritual and soul-related.

This invisible vortex did not exist within "Fujimaru Shirou's" body or Eternal King's Saint Graph, but on Shirou's soul as the transmigrator.

So even if he descended as Eternal King, this vortex would still exist. And it could swallow other things to generate magical energy to feed itself. Using web novel terminology, this would be the protagonist's exclusive cheat. But Shirou never saw himself as the protagonist. The path he had walked so far wasn't crossed using any cheats, but by relying on himself, relying on his own brain.

And the abilities he had were not obtained through any system or cheat, but accumulated bit by bit through his own efforts and achievements.