Lorelei's title as the Pinnacle of Modern Magi was indeed well-earned. She predicted that the battle between Matou Shinji and Scathach could last ten days, and sure enough, they fought for ten days straight.
No sleep, no rest, no food, no water.
The only pauses were for occasional conversations and when both fighters were so grievously injured that they couldn't move, requiring time to recover. Otherwise, the battle was relentless.
And this was no exaggeration—in fact, it downplayed the brutality.
The inability to move didn't just refer to simple paralysis or being stunned. It included heart destruction, severed legs, and heads being blasted apart—injuries that would instantly be fatal.
According to rough estimates, both combatants had their hearts pierced more than a hundred times, lost over a thousand limbs combined, and had their heads blown off dozens of times. There were even more than ten instances where they were reduced to nothing but ashes.
As for severed arteries, veins, and damaged vital organs, the number was beyond counting. If not for Scathach's Health-locking in the Land of Shadows and Shinji's Third Magic constantly regenerating his body, both would have died thousands of times over, instead of continuing this ceaseless, all-consuming battle.
They fought until the mountains crumbled, until the sky darkened until space itself shattered.
From the very center of the Land of Shadows, they fought all the way to the outer walls, circled back, and fought through the entire magical realm. The land was overturned by their battle, and countless dead spirits were caught in the crossfire.
First, the dead were awakened by the battle's noise, then they were obliterated by the shockwaves, reduced to dust, leaving nothing behind—no screams, no cries, just swift annihilation.
Perhaps these dead spirits had been formidable in life, but no matter how strong they were, they couldn't compare to the ruler of the magical realm or the master of soul magic. Their fate was the same: to be reduced to spirit particles.
During these ten days, Scathach for the first time unleashed everything she had accumulated over millennia.
Her most proud spear techniques, and the various weapon skills she had honed over the years.
The primordial runes from Norse mythology, on the level of gods, and the various magecrafts she had learned from observing the world.
And the wisdom she had gained from standing outside the world, touching the knowledge of the Abyss.
Anything known to mankind or unknown—if it could be used, she used it.
On the other side, Shinji also unleashed all his power to confront her.
The knowledge imparted by Scathach.
The teachings of Chiron.
What he had learned from Touko Aozaki, Justeaze, Waver Velvet, Kayneth Archibald, Lorelei Barthomeloi, and others.
The insights gained from interacting with the Throne of Gods and the Throne of Heroes.
The Third Magic artifact, the Greater Holy Grail, the pinnacle creation of the Einzberns.
The heroic spirits of the five great Heroes.
These were external sources of power.
Internally, he drew upon even more:
The thirty-two magic circuits in his body.
His innate attribute of Water.
The direction his soul had been set upon at birth, the culmination of countless lifetimes—his Origin: Transformation.
And, of course, the Third Magic, one of the Five True Magics. It was a vast system that surpassed any magecraft or martial skill. Even after five years as a Magician, Shinji still couldn't claim to wield it perfectly.
All these elements—those within the realm of common sense and those beyond it—were unified by Shinji, becoming his strength, and supporting him in this battle.
After ten days of intense fighting, this battle finally neared its end.
The Land of Shadows had been ravaged, full of holes and scars, and even the space itself had become increasingly unstable.
Shinji's most relied-upon source of mana, the Greater Holy Grail artifact, showed signs of damage and depletion. After all, he was only the master of the Third Magic, not the Second Magic, and couldn't draw infinite mana from parallel worlds.
More importantly, after such prolonged and intense combat, both Scathach and Shinji had reached their mental limits.
This wasn't about quantifiable mental or soul energy—both still had plenty of reserves in that regard. It was the unquantifiable fatigue and focus that were wearing thin.
No matter how transcendent or how adept at magic they were, no matter how detached they were within this magical realm, mental exhaustion was unavoidable.
At their core, they were still human.
Without realizing it, the rhythm of their attacks and defenses slowed. Though their spear thrusts remained swift and their scythe swings powerful, the sharpness of their movements was diminishing, and their reactions were no longer as exaggerated as they had been at the start.
The intervals between attacks became longer.
After an exchange of life-threatening blows that left both of them gravely injured, Shinji leaned on his scythe for support and grinned provocatively:
"Shishou, your attacks are getting easier to handle. I used to defend you when Dog-san said you were getting old, but now… it seems he might've been right."
Scathach snorted but didn't strike him like she usually would.
"More embarrassing is that you, a young man, still can't surpass this old hag."
"Well, I'm still young. Compared to you, even with two lifetimes added together, I'm just a baby."
"Heh, a baby, huh? A baby fighting an old woman for ten days and nights—doesn't that seem a little strange?"
"Uh… yeah, it's pretty weird. Fine, I'll give you this round."
Similar exchanges have happened many times over the past ten days. At first, they were just evaluations and analyses of each other's skills, but as they grew more familiar with one another, it became another battlefield—a verbal one.
After all, people often say that trash talk is also part of combat.
"I wonder how much longer this battle can go on," Scathach said softly. She was well aware that her control over her body was weakening. Shinji, thanks to his magic, might be holding out a little better, but only marginally.
"Not much longer. Your defeat is coming next."
"How did you suddenly get so confident?"
Scathach was a bit surprised. After ten days of fighting to a standstill, what gave him such certainty?
"Because the conditions are in place," Shinji straightened up, and the scythe in his hand dissolved into spirit particles.
"Conditions?"
Scathach sensed danger but couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. Her declining state significantly dulled her reactions.
"The instability of the Land of Shadows, your exhaustion, and the distance between the Earth and the Moon—the time needed to project something outside the world—"
"That is—?!"
Scathach finally understood the source of the danger.
A prismatic light, composed of red, yellow, and blue, quietly gathered deep within the Moon. It broke through the surface, ascended into the sky, and streaked across the vastness of space like a shooting star.
The rainbow-colored light spanned the 384,000 kilometers between the Moon and the Earth effortlessly. It entered Earth's atmosphere without slowing down, then pierced through the boundary of the world itself, plunging into a different dimension beyond reality.
Finally, it descended through the cracks in the unstable Land of Shadows, arriving at the battlefield where Scathach and Shinji stood!