Why bother with the Holy Grail War? Let's play cards!

"You just said it damaged my health, didn't you?" Beast unhurriedly watched the red mana surge toward him. A trap card depicting the awkward situation of a Grand Knight releasing a counter-target Noble Phantasm and then realizing they had misidentified a target, lit up from the Graveyard. "I banish [Noble Phantasm Mistakenly Activated] from the Graveyard and return the damage to you! Farewell, King of Heroes!"

The surging red magic power overwhelmed Tohsaka Tokitoki, who screamed and spat out a large amount of blood.

Because of the previous price transfer, the price of the Dark Game will be paid by Gilgamesh.

"As my fourth tail, Gilgamesh, you really come to my rescue. Otherwise, I really don't know how to deal with that crown servant." Beast watched as the arm in the darkness slowly pulled Gilgamesh towards him, expanding the range of his magic influence again.

The magical fluctuations exploded with Mt. Yuanzang as the center. It wouldn't take long for the entire Fuyuki City to be transformed into another world.

"Then it's time to start building my own temporary kingdom and bring this whole story to an end before that person returns."

Gilgamesh used all his magic to summon Vimana, and the expansion of the alien world gave Tōsaka Tokitoki the opportunity to leave Mount Enzo. The golden chariot, like a stream of light, quickly carried Tōsaka Tokitoki away. "Tōsaka Tokitoki, go find Lancer!"

"... Never mind, it doesn't make any difference." Beast wanted to stop her, but Gilgamesh's desperate drive made her attack miss.

Looking at the fourth tail that had grown from engulfing Gilgamesh, Beast began to summon a mimicry of Servants. "It's time to prepare to entertain the Crown."

……

When Jiang You logged in, he opened his eyes and saw a passerby being torn apart by a floating wolf head. Organs were scattered everywhere, and in the distance, he could hear unknown roars and human cries for help.

The sky looked like it had been splashed with purple dye, with irregular blocks of color rolling in the clouds.

Jiang You even logged off to check if he had opened any COC-like games.

Unfortunately, no. This is indeed Fuyuki in 1994.

"Wasn't the Holy Grail War supposed to be conducted in secret? What's going on?" Jiang You was initially relieved that the company had given him the afternoon off because they needed to maintain the internal system, but when he logged in, the game's storyline had suddenly gone completely off track.

[[Humanity Survival·Fuyuki Defense] event has started. Players are requested to protect the surviving humans as much as possible before defeating the final BOSS. Rewards will be distributed according to the number of surviving humans at the time of settlement.

Current remaining humans: 51411

Jiang You decisively summoned all the characters he could use. The event had finally begun.

Illya, Sakura Matou, Lancelot and Hassan the Hundred Faces appeared at the same place as Jiang You threw the cards.

"I have a very uncomfortable feeling. What happened to Caster?" Illya, as the Lesser Holy Grail's holder, had a strong connection to the Holy Grail's magic, and she was the first to sense the strangeness within the spirit veins. "It feels like this space is rejecting humans..."

Just when Jiang You wanted to explain the current situation, the intercom left by Emiya Kiritsugu rang.

"Caster, where have you been! Come to the Fuyuki Civic Hall quickly, because you summoned Berserker away and we can't defend this place anymore!" Kiritsugu Emiya's anxious voice came through the intercom along with the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

"It seems there is no time to explain. We have to go there immediately." Jiang You looked at the decreasing number of remaining humans and directed everyone to rush towards the Fuyuki Citizens' Hall.

The Fuyuki Citizens' Association, a building that symbolizes the development of the new city, has been temporarily rebuilt into a fortress. Due to the sudden outbreak of "Warcraft", the magicians hidden in Fuyuki are unable to escape alone and have united to fight against these murderous creatures that appeared out of nowhere.

The space available for movement was repeatedly squeezed by the "monsters", and a large number of civilians and magicians retreated to this iconic building. The existence of the spiritual vein could also provide support for the battle.

Lancelot and Illya returned to the battlefield. Fierce knights, their silver-woven swords whirling like lawn mowers, slashed through the hordes of "monsters." Several Assassins crisscrossed the battlefield, providing support. Their prowess brought a sigh of relief to those on the front lines.

"Caster!" Kiritsugu Emiya, holding a submachine gun, cleared a painful path for Jiang You. Jiang You seized the opportunity and rushed to the rear of the front line with Sakura Matou.

Emiya Kiritsugu picked up his intercom when he saw Jiang You had arrived. "Maiya, it's time to blast!"

With two deafening explosions, the building in the direction of the monsters exploded. The calculated explosion direction caused the building to collapse, and a large amount of debris buried the attacking monsters. The barrier formed by the ruins temporarily delayed the monsters' attack.

"When you disappeared, you weren't aware of what was happening in real life, were you?" Emiya Kiritsugu had long been accustomed to Jiang You's elusiveness. Every time Jiang You logged in, he would ask about the plot's progress. This revealed something of his peculiarities to Kiritsugu. "Two hours ago, all of Fuyuki City suddenly began to see these monsters, resembling ordinary animals. Their combat power was only slightly stronger than that of an average adult, but their numbers were immense. I teamed up with the city's magicians to create a temporary base here."

Emiya Kiritsugu coughed violently, a few drops of blood oozing from the corners of his mouth. He'd activated his inherent time system to quickly establish his position, and the intense fighting had stretched his body to its limits. "Unfortunately, we can only rescue the surrounding civilians. Our Fuyuki Citizens Association has only managed to gather around 20000 survivors. We've also gathered a group of magicians and survivors through the familiars of other magi, the Hyatt Hotel where Master Lancer is, and the Fuyuki Church."

Jiang You looked at the number of survivors, which had dropped to around 3, and thought that many of the survivors in the other two locations had probably met with disaster. Passive defense would only lead to more deaths, so he had no choice but to attack. "Can you determine the source of this disaster?"

"This disaster occurred after the abnormal fluctuation of magical energy at Mt. Enzo. Assassin's intelligence reports that his clone sensed that Gilgamesh's spiritual base reaction suddenly disappeared."

"Even Gilgamesh is out?" Jiang You thought carefully about what in FZ could have caused this situation.

Could it be Tiamat attacking?

Chapter 45: Gilgamesh gets shot in the head again

Just as Jiang You was thinking, a monster broke through the glass and rushed in, followed by the second and the third. The defense line formed by the two heroes and several magicians seemed to be broken.

This is a monster that looks like a cat, but it has hard, forked horns like a deer.

Jiang You was about to kick them. With his control panel, he could easily deal with the monsters' physical strength. However, a chain blocked his movement. The chain's appearance was so recognizable that Jiang You immediately recognized what it was. "Heaven's Chain!?"

Jiang You turned to look in the direction the Sky Chain had come from. A golden Heroic Spirit was gazing at him with hostility. Meanwhile, in the direction of the breach in the building, several identical golden Heroic Spirits and a large, red-haired Heroic Spirit were battling Lancelot and Baimao outside.

"Gilgamesh?" Jiang You was initially puzzled, but quickly realized what was happening. Gilgamesh's attacks would be recognized by the Noble Phantasm as duel invitations, but this creature, who looked like Gilgamesh, hadn't triggered it. Furthermore, Gilgamesh's inherent arrogance was something this creature couldn't replicate. Considering there were other creatures out there that looked just like Gilgamesh, this creature was probably a replica of Gilgamesh.

Even though it was a fake, the attack method was no different. Several treasures were used as throwing props and thrown towards Jiang You by the fake Jin Shanshan. Jiang You could feel that the attack momentum of this fake was not even half of the original one.

But it was not something Jiang You could resist, so he decisively challenged him to a duel.

【Caster has invited you to a duel. Do you agree?】

【Duel/Battle】

The imposter seemed to lack sufficient intelligence. He felt doubt in his mind as the duel prompt suddenly popped up. This prompt could not be ignored, and even the mandatory rules made it impossible for him to launch an attack. He could only silently wait for the duel invitation countdown to zero.

After the countdown ended, the duel was forced to begin.

Jiangyou LP4000

Gilgamesh? LP4000

"Now that I think about it, my Heroic Spirit panel is pretty pathetic. I can't even directly deal with a clearly weakened fake. Next time, I'll just fill out the feedback questionnaire. They've already implemented a combat-like system, so it's understandable to give players a little fun." After complaining about Konami's overly complex system, Jiang You took advantage of the fake's intelligence and immediately took the initiative. "My turn!"

"I Normal Summon [Matou Sakura], then activate [Sakura's Dream] to send a Holy Grail to the Graveyard as a fusion material, fuse it with Matou Sakura, and Special Summon [Black Matou Sakura]."

[Kuromatou Sakura] Attack Power 2400

Sakura Matou, filled with evil thoughts, fell onto the field.

"By the effect of [Kuro Matou Sakura], Special Summon as many 1000 ATK tokens as possible in Defense Position on the field!"

A large amount of black mud flowed out from under Sakura Matou's skirt, and in the black mud, black objects crawled out.

[Shadow] Defense 1000*4

"I cover 3 cards in the backfield and end my turn." Gilgamesh's deck does not have a very high attack frequency. The main thing is to be careful of the large number of Noble Phantasms pulled out from the backfield at once and combined with his own body bombardment. Black Sakura's summoned derivatives can just serve as a defense against the Noble Phantasm bombardment.

I just don't know if this counterfeit card will be the same as the original one.

Driven by the knowledge forced into him by Jiang You's treasure, the imposter began to act on his own.

A very conventional Hero King deployment, [Heroic Epic] discards the hand card to search for weapons and send them to the graveyard, specially recruits [Gilgamesh], and then [King's Treasure] pulls equipment cards to fill the backfield.

However, the fake's bond didn't seem to be strong enough, so Enkidu couldn't summon it easily.

"What a shame, what a shame!" Although the imposter couldn't speak, the Gilgamesh he summoned was still his original self. When he opened his eyes and saw that he was being driven by the imposter, his neck turned red with anger. "Caster! Look at what your Noble Phantasm has done!"

"Isn't this the Hero King? Why are you so lame after not seeing you for a few days?" Jiang You was extremely dissatisfied with NPCs that didn't provide rewards, so he directly retorted. "I want to ask where you went to give away your kills, and why are you being treated like a mass-produced machine?"

Gilgamesh was about to retaliate against Jiang You's taunts when his mind suddenly connected the dots between Romulus and Beast. He kept sizing Jiang You up, as if trying to see through him.

Gilgamesh stopped himself from revealing all the information and instead picked out some to warn Jiang You: "This king is kindly reminding you: Don't take it lightly. It's a beast. A [Beast] has descended upon this Holy Grail War!"

"Beast?" Jiang You had never considered this possibility, but now everything that happened made sense. "So Tiamat really attacked?"

As expected, she knew about the Beast. Gilgamesh confirmed his assumption. Judging by Jiang You's spiritual power, she should know very little about the Beast, or even nothing at all. "It's not the mother, it's Beast IV. And she's a little special. She can absorb Heroic Spirits as her tail. That's all I know. If you dare lose to this imposter of mine, I will never let you go!"

"Gao Yanskaya? No, why is she here?" Jiang You thought to herself that there was no squinty-eyed person here to pack her up and launch her into space. "As for losing, it's impossible. He is a simple human-machine, even simpler than you."

After using the same trick again to trick a Noble Phantasm with [Magician Killer's Intelligence Gathering], the imposter used up all of his Noble Phantasms. Jiang You's frontcourt player, Sakura Matou, and a token were destroyed by [Gilgamesh's] Noble Phantasm.

Three successful liberations reduced Jiang You’s LP value by 1500.

Jiangyou LP4000→LP2500

The pain made Jiang You grit his teeth, and he made up his mind not to play the blood-selling deck in the official server.

The fake Gilgamesh manually took down two more equipment cards, liberated them, and destroyed the other two derivatives on Jiang You's field. At this point, there was only one derivative left on the field.

Jiangyou LP2500→LP1000

Just when the impostor was commanding Gilgamesh to launch an attack to defeat the last shadow, the classic [Support Shooting] was launched. Gilgamesh was shot in the head again and was sent to the grave with a humiliating expression.

There was only one lonely [King's Treasure] left on the counterfeit Shining's field.

"There's no point in bullying simple AIs. I'm in a hurry to save people. It's my turn, draw a card!" In order to prevent Illya from being away from the field for too long and putting too much pressure on the battle line, Jiang You summoned [Illya (Clothes of Heaven)] in the conventional way, and pulled out Illya in her normal form to launch an attack directly.

[Illya (Heaven's Clothes)] Attack Power 2500

【Illya】Attack Power 1500

Gilgamesh? LP4000→LP0!

Chapter 46: Found the activity guide

When the fake Gilgamesh was defeated and turned into burning hair and disappeared into the air, a large number of monsters wailed together and turned into thinner hair and disappeared with him.

"No wonder these monsters appear all over Fuyuki at once." As a magus assassin, Emiya Kiritsugu understood the principles of various magecraft. "These monsters are chain summoned through the clones of these Heroic Spirits. Killing the clones will quickly dispose of them!"

"So it's a core-type monster? Then quickly notify the other bases!" Jiang You looked at the ever-decreasing number of survivors with dismay. These were all worthless rewards. "Save as many as you can!"

"I've already arranged for someone to send a signal!" Emiya Kiritsugu pulled over a civilian with relevant experience and told him to quickly send intelligence to the Hyatt Hotel and the Fuyuki Church. "But the actual help is limited. Apart from us, they don't have any Heroic Spirits to provide combat power."

"No Heroic Spirits?" Jiang You was puzzled by Emiya Kiritsugu's answer. "Then how did they stop it?"

"The Church has cultivated the area for many years and naturally possesses the means of defense. However, the Hyatt Hotel relied on the positions prepared by the Clock Tower Monarch for the Holy Grail War and the cooperation of other magicians to withstand the attack."

"I mean, what about Lancer? Romulus's Noble Phantasm is most suitable for this kind of large-scale battle. He has a spear that embodies the concept of nation-building. He is the most suitable candidate in terms of both attack range and defense, right?" Jiang You thought of Romulus's existence. He should be the strongest among the surviving heroic spirits.

"Lancer had already headed for Yuanzang Mountain, the source of the magical fluctuations, the moment the magic power erupted." The golden-red light that streaked across the sky was unforgettable. Based on the intelligence Kenneth had sent earlier, it seemed Lancer intended to directly decapitate the culprit. "After so long, with no results, I'm afraid the situation is very bad."

"Don't be so pessimistic. Since Lancer hasn't appeared in the clones here yet, it means Lancer is still in a stalemate with the culprit. Don't waste the time Lancer has bought for us!"

Even though the clones' abilities and attributes had been weakened, the original Gilgamesh and Iskandar's attributes were too superior, and the clones' youthful attributes were still a dead heat against the unweakened Lancelot and Hassan. Even with the stat boosts from the summoned Pseudo-Servants, Illya still wasn't strong enough to compete with the Heroic Spirits.

Ilia?

Jiang You flipped through his extra deck. Currently, he only had about three cards that could be considered "Big Brother." Illya (Cloak of Heaven), Joan of Arc, and Yustiza, the Winter Saint. Black Sakura had almost no resistance, so if you had to say it, it could barely be considered "Big Brother." Currently, the only card with a chance of reaching three was Illya.