Two golden-haired girls, one tall and one short, stared at each other wordlessly.
After several seconds, Lancelot sighed. "Guinevere, how did even you fail to escape? Didn't we agree to act according to the situation?"
She still clearly remembered Guinevere's confident appearance before her own departure.
——"Uncle, while Marquis Voban is attacking, you go observe the new king's battle. Remember to act according to the situation and be sure to hold them back."
——"I'll go rescue King Arthur. If successful, we'll have another fighter on our side. Even if I fail, I can retreat in time."
——"With the Marquis causing chaos, with our strength, we definitely won't be at a disadvantage, so don't worry!"
At that time, Guinevere had sworn so confidently.
In their view then, no matter how strong the new king was, it should have been limited. His strength might not necessarily surpass the veteran Campione, Marquis Voban.
So Lancelot's duty initially wasn't actually to hold back Ryuga, but to hold back Marquis Voban.
It's just that no one expected Ryuga to be this capable in battle.
Regarding her own defeat, Lancelot had no complaints, but she hadn't expected that even Guinevere couldn't escape.
Why was this?
Her gaze involuntarily lingered on Artoria's face for a few seconds.
"It's hard to explain on my end."
Guinevere showed a bitter smile.
As a Divine Ancestor, she wasn't a powerless flower vase, but facing the Heretic God version of Artoria, she was far from being a match.
In terms of being a Steel Hero God, as the Last King's disguise, King Arthur's steel attributes weren't inferior to Lancelot's. If not for lacking the divine speed authority, she wouldn't have been defeated so easily back then.
Not to mention, at that time she was confused by Artoria's gender and identity, thinking this Heretic God was an ally, and rashly chose close combat.
This left her no chance to resist, directly being instantly defeated by Artoria's red dragon strength.
If not for her possessing Earth Mother Goddess attributes and vigorous vitality, she'd probably still be unconscious.
Explaining this was too troublesome, so she skipped this point and asked back.
"What about you, Uncle? I was still waiting for you to rescue me. How did you also get defeated?"
Guinevere truly couldn't understand.
When captured by Artoria, she still held hope, thinking Lancelot should come to rescue her.
After all, no matter how strong the new king was, he couldn't possibly face both a veteran Campione and a first-rate Heretic God at the same time, right?
Unexpectedly, as soon as she was carried in, she found the equally captured Lancelot, and quite possibly, the other party had been defeated even before her.
What was going on?
"It's hard to explain on my end too."
This time it was Lancelot's turn to show a bitter smile.
"In any case, the new king is very strong. I'm completely no match for him. This was an unquestionable defeat."
"Even you say that—?!"
Guinevere's expression was very surprised.
As far as she knew, in battle, aside from the Last King, Lancelot had never admired anyone.
She hadn't expected that the Campione before them could receive such high praise from her.
"In any case, Guinevere, don't make futile resistance—"
After understanding each other's situations, Lancelot couldn't help but want to give a warning.
Those who haven't witnessed Ryuga's battle with their own eyes cannot comprehend the absolute strength of this Campione. Language alone isn't sufficient to express even one ten-thousandth of it.
So, the optimal strategy when facing Ryuga was to give up resistance.
She herself couldn't survive, that was fine—the defeated should rightfully exit.
Guinevere was just a Divine Ancestor, not a Heretic God. As long as she didn't anger the new king, she still had a chance of survival.
Lancelot's suggestion wasn't without merit, its only flaw was—it came too late.
Before her warning, having obtained sufficient intelligence, Guinevere immediately realized they had both become meat on the chopping block.
Lancelot as a Heretic God would naturally be killed by the Campione, and whether she herself could live depended only on the other party's whim.
Guinevere didn't want to place her life under another's control, so as long as there was a chance to escape, she had no reason not to gamble.
On this point, Lancelot and Guinevere's thoughts were actually consistent, but due to different perspectives, Lancelot understood that any act of resistance against Ryuga would be futile, while Guinevere didn't understand this.
So—
"Uncle! We still have a chance!"
The previously listless Guinevere suddenly burst into action, and beneath her feet rose a massive golden disc over a meter high.
——The Magic Grail.
This was precisely the precious divine tool that had accumulated the life force of multiple Earth Mother Goddesses, possessing dozens of times the total curse power of an ordinary Campione.
When facing Artoria earlier, she hadn't had time to summon the grail, so Artoria didn't know she had this divine tool, naturally having no guard against it now.
After summoning the Magic Grail, Guinevere used high-speed divine words to recite the spirit words controlling the grail.
"O Grail! Spring of life left by the White Goddess! Please respond to the daughter of the goddess's descendant!"
"King of Crete, father of the Minotaur, priest who offered living sacrifices! Here Guinevere appeals to heaven, prays to earth, and entreats the sea—please heed the maiden's request and dispatch only its fragment to the earth!"
Under the Divine Ancestor's call, a divine shadow appeared through the grail's curse power and gradually became solid.
A bull-headed, human-bodied monster—Minos, the god-king of Cretan civilization, also called Minotaur in Greek mythology.
In the end, this massive bull-headed monster actually emanated waves almost identical to a Heretic God, with divine power on a nearly equivalent scale.
"How dare you attack in front of Master!"
The moment the bull-headed monster appeared, Artoria's eyes turned cold, and her gaze toward Guinevere finally carried hostility.
As a knight, when presenting captives to her lord, to be deceived by the captives was not only a knight's shame but also disrespect toward her lord.
Such disrespect naturally had to be washed away with the enemy's blood.
So without hesitation, she raised her gorgeous holy sword, her curse power needing no accumulation to be sufficiently abundant.
So what if it was a Heretic God? There weren't many gods who could withstand the complete Sword of Promised Victory.
"Ex—"
Without holding back at all, Artoria intended to completely slay the Heretic God before her.
The authority would ultimately be judged to belong to her Master anyway, so there was no need to worry.
Just as the Sword of Promised Victory was about to strike down.
"Saber, stop."
The command from Ryuga made Artoria pause, unable to strike down.
"Master?"
On the other side, though not knowing why Artoria suddenly stopped, Guinevere didn't miss this crucial opportunity and turned her gaze to Lancelot.
"Uncle! Quickly accept the grail's curse power, let's get out together!"
Obviously, this was Guinevere's escape strategy.
Knowing Ryuga's strength was great, she had no intention of fighting Ryuga with the grail.
Joking aside, with just the grail she couldn't even defeat Artoria, let alone the Campione before them.
She just wanted to use the pseudo-god manifested by the grail to attract some attention, then use the grail to strengthen Lancelot.
Though normally she was very reluctant to use the grail's magic power, wanting to save it for the Last King to help his revival, this was a critical moment—for the sake of escape, she couldn't care about such things.
It must be said that Guinevere's escape plan wasn't too problematic. At least from her perspective, it was the result of maximizing current resources.
However, she obviously didn't know Ryuga's true strength, naturally not knowing Lancelot's current state either.
So when she reached this step, hopefully offering the grail, wanting Lancelot to recover her strength.
It wasn't as she expected—being taken away by Lancelot who had recovered lightning divine speed.
Instead, Lancelot took the grail, shook her head, and set it aside.
"Give up, Guinevere. You can't escape!"
Saying this, she extended her wrist, letting Guinevere observe the extremely heavy golden shackles on her hands—chains constructed by the Golden Sword's spirit words.
"My divine core has been completely sealed. No matter how much curse power I have, I can't exert even half a point of strength. Your resistance was impossible to succeed from the beginning."
Though it was too late to say this now, she still wanted to enlighten this friend.
"Ah, this!"
Realizing that Lancelot indeed couldn't use divine power, and that no matter how much she charged it would be useless, Guinevere showed despairing eyes.
Only now did she understand why Uncle had tried to stop her.
Facing Ryuga, she didn't even have a chance to escape.
The moment she was subdued by Artoria, her fate was already decided.
She clearly hadn't been able to awaken the Last King yet, hadn't even found traces of the Last King—was she really going to leave this world like this?
After a thousand years of waiting, could she only end up with such a result?
Thinking this, Guinevere couldn't help but collapse to the ground, powerlessly awaiting the Campione's blade.
She already had a premonition that today she would not escape death.
However, one second, two seconds, three seconds... a full dozen seconds passed, yet she didn't feel the Rakshasa King's killing intent.
Guinevere couldn't help but look up in surprise, only then noticing that Ryuga's gaze hadn't fallen on her from the start, but was looking at the pseudo-god she had manifested with the grail with an interested expression.
"Is this an existence you purely simulated with curse power?"
Ryuga suddenly asked.
"Yes."
Guinevere nodded dazedly, then reflexively added a sentence.
"He only looks like a god. He only possesses basic instincts and doesn't have a god's will. His strength is only thirty percent of an ordinary Heretic God."
She naturally didn't have the ability to create gods from nothing.
Even with the grail, she could only simulate a pseudo-god.
"But he possesses divine core and divine power, with power scale not much different from Heretic Gods."
Ryuga carefully observed Minos's divine core, his tone clearly very interested.
"To actually use simulated divine cores for pseudo-god creation—worthy of being an Earth Mother Goddess descendant. In magical attainments, you may not be inferior to Pandora."
Hearing this, Guinevere was still somewhat confused.
She didn't know why the new king suddenly started discussing magical issues.
But Lancelot's heart leaped with joy. She realized that Ryuga seemed very interested in the knowledge Guinevere possessed.
This way, this troublesome child might have a chance to survive!
To be continued...
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