IBHJ Chapter 613 (Patreon)

Mordred looked at the chalice Shirou had retrieved from two thousand meters underground, disbelief flooding her face.

Impossible... How could he have possibly found this chalice?

Could it be that he had seen through her scheme from the very beginning?

Then why did he keep attacking her right side during their fight?

Had that attacks been a bluff as well?

Clenching her fists in frustration, she gritted her teeth. "Did you see through my Noble Phantasm from the beginning?"

"No, that's not it," he shook his head. "I just thought it was strange that you always had that chalice during our fight back then, yet now it was missing. And after you admitted to having a weakness, I grew suspicious of its importance. So I searched the area and found it buried underground."

"Most importantly, when I tried to fly away, you didn't chase me. Instead, you attacked from a distance - supposedly a reasonable choice, but actually meant to hide the fact that you can't move far from this chalice," he said. "I measured it - the radius around this area is about five thousand meters, with the chalice hidden at the very center. In other words, your movement is limited to a five thousand meter range after activating this chalice. Unless I'm mistaken, it should be a bounded field Noble Phantasm."

This time, she made no attempt at pretense.

Because she had been seen through by him.

Could it be that even the side incarnation of eternal king can see through everything?

But...but even if that's the case, he shouldn't have been able to see past the veiling effect of her chalice, right?

As if reading her thoughts, he gave a gentle smile. "I don't have any special skill to see through everything. I simply never intended to fight you, which allowed me to notice what was really happening. When you're too focused on winning, it's easy to lose clarity. But since I had no desire to fight you, I saw things very clearly."

"You didn't have the chalice, yet tried repeatedly to draw my attention, to make me think your body housed the weak point. The harder you worked to misdirect me, the more obvious it became that the weakness lay elsewhere."

"Why?" she asked aloud. "Why could you see so clearly?"

"Because," he replied gently, "you are not a child who would so easily expose her own weakness."

She jolted at his words.

"You may not have noticed, but you exposed this 'weakness' far too easily. Yet I know you are not a simple child."

Mordred was left speechless.

She really didn't expect to be so utterly outmaneuvered by him.

This should have been an impossibility. In any battle, whether one is arrogant or cautious, one's thoughts would instinctively focus on the fight itself because this was a matter of life and death. Yet he had somehow slipped free of these constraints.

She was certain that anyone else, even with all-seeing eyes, would fall victim to the chalice's deceptive aura. There was over a 99.9% probability they would fail to see through her Noble Phantasm. Not even Karna would be an exception.

After all, who could possibly guess that her true weakness was hidden so deeply underground? That the weakness she paraded was simply lethal bait?

Yet as she stared at the man before her, she clenched her fists in frustration.

He had done it. He had seen through to the truth behind her tricks.

But how? Was it because he possessed unparalleled wisdom and transcendent eyesight?

No.

It was because, from the very start, he had trusted her. He believed that she wouldn't expose her weakness so easily.

Therefore, her bait was useless.

Most importantly, he had never intended to fight her in the first place. From the very start, his perspective was that of an observer. And so, he noticed many details—he noticed the chalice that had always accompanied Mordred was missing.

Just as he guessed, her Noble Phantasm drew its power from the chalice to function.

Why could it pass through all attacks unscathed? Why could neither earth nor sky, neither matter nor energy touch her?

Because her Noble Phantasm’s dimensional swap effect placed her true body into the chalice itself. The body that fought on the battlefield was merely an illusion.

And since it was just an illusion, an intangible phantom without substance or entity, no attack could affect her.

Yet when she attacked, her true form hiding within the chalice would change places with the phantom to deal damage.

That was the reason behind her invincibility.

However, this Noble Phantasm also had its limits.

As Shirou observed, it functioned as a barrier with a bounded range. Once Mordred moved beyond a certain distance from the chalice, her Noble Phantasm would automatically dispel.

Additionally, if someone found the chalice itself, the dimensional swap effect would be undone, exposing her real body to harm.

During her clash with Saber, she had hidden the chalice two hundred meters underground, then knocked her opponent out.

And back then, when Shirou chased her all the way to her hideout, she had not yet reactivated her Noble Phantasm and his black mud filled the earth below, leaving her no place to conceal the chalice.

But this time, she hid it well—two thousand meters underground in fact.

Yet he still found it in the end.

Why? How?

Such an immense depth—two kilometers deep. Why was he so certain her weakness would be the chalice, that he kept patiently searching downward?

Looking at Mordred, he asked, "Can we stop fighting now?"

She pressed her lips into a thin line before questioning, "Why were you so convinced this cup was my weakness?"

He smiled, "Because that was my choice."

"What?" she was perplexed.

He elaborated, "Because I chose to believe it would be your weakness. So I would keep searching until the end, no matter what. Any clues or deception from you meant nothing. Since my goal, my resolve, was set early on."

As she looked at him, she finally understood.

She understood why this man could find her chalice two kilometers deep beneath a five thousand square kilometer area.

It was because this man had such unshakable faith in himself, in his decisions, in his judgment... Only through this could any confusion fail to obscure his vision or resolve.

And perhaps this too was why he would establish his eternal kingdom in the end.

"Can we stop fighting now, Mordred?" he gently asked again.

Defeat.

Perhaps so.

Yet...

Mordred pressed her lips into a thin line and whispered, "Let me...see him..."

Indeed, she sincerely wished to meet that king—the one she had yearned for her whole life, resented for her whole life...been curious about for her whole life.

The fleeting glimpse in her childhood was so brief, it could barely be called a moment.

And that was the sum total of her memories regarding her father.

"Let me...see him," Mordred whispered, her tone a little soft yet also a little forceful. Her gaze...seemed both demanding yet pleading at the same time.

However...

"I'm afraid not, Mordred," he declined, shaking his head. "If I transform, what you'll see won't be the person you wish to meet, but merely...merely the 'Eternal King'."

Of course. That's how it was...

A trace of disappointment surfaced on Mordred's face.

What meaning would seeing him hold anyway? The real Eternal King was already asleep in Avalon. Even a summoned version would only be Eternal King shaped in people's minds by legend, history, and myth.

Yet in this moment, Mordred realized something.

Her summoning by the Holy Grail was no coincidence. Freeing her mother was just a surface desire. Deep down, she had a wish that belonged to her alone.

The Grail had unearthed her true wish, concealed deep in her heart, thus allowing her descent into this world.

That wish was neither to defeat Eternal King nor free her mother, but a desire belonging solely to her—one that brought both happiness and longing.

A foolish dream she had cherished since childhood, eventually buried away.

Yes, what she wanted was just a complete family.

No king, no duty to the realm, only a...complete family...