Fate Of A Gamer

[Quest [End of Zero] has become active!]

[Quest: End of Zero]

Once you have banished the evils of the world, and it has sent itself to the past, carrying you and your companion along the way. New allies have been met, stories have been changed, enemies defeated, and worlds beyond one's wildest imaginations have shown itself to you.

Now you stand at the cusp of the end. The evil tainting the Holy Grail has appeared once more, stronger than ever before, larger than ever before, and it knows of you and the danger you pose. All its effort are drawn to destroy you, to send you back into the root where you came from.

Push forward, [Gamer]. Whether you live or die, the end shall come, and all will return to zero.

Requirements: Destroy the [Tainted Heart of the Grail]

Rewards: [Fragments of heaven]

Extra Mission: Destroy the [Tainted Heart of the Grail] without destroying the [Holy Grail]

Extra Rewards: The [Holy Grail]

...Well, the recent quests have been laying it a bit too thick, don't you think?

But it's true. This one's going to be a doozy, and there's no retries (and even if there is...well, I don't really want to think about it). The grail's activated and surrounded most of Fuyuki in a pseudo reality marble, creating a perfect battleground for it to thrive in. It's got the magical energy from Ryoji's defeat and the many leylines it's taken over, and it's slowly spreading its tainted mud to swallow us whole.

Oddly, I don't feel too threatened by it, maybe because I've seen this sight before?

It is doing literally the same thing as last time, just with more prana to back it up. Then again, it isn't human, so it probably doesn't feel like it's doing something repetitive anyways.

"Fuu…" I take a deep breath, letting the prana inside my circle around my body to try and repair what zero gravity had done to my internal systems. It's not completely wrecked, mind you, but my skirmish through space caused several of my arteries to pop. My important organs are mostly safe, but they're not in the best condition either, and it didn't help that I basically pushed past my body's speed limit for far too long.

Oh, and I'm freezing right now, with how low my internal temperature is compared to the outside.

Still, there's no permanent harm, so I've avoided the worst case scenario.

Francis and Caster are unharmed but fatigued, their battle against the ancient hero Arjuna needing them to spend quite a large chunk of their magical energy. Francis was doing better, considering she has me as her giant prana battery, but Caster isn't so lucky, as Waver, though he's grown, can only provide so much.

"Honored priestess!" Someone calls from behind, and I turn to see Amarilla returning, only slightly injured with my Brimstone Elemental tailing just behind her. None of them looks ready to fall like the two servants by my side, which makes sense, considering their opponent was much weaker when compared to Arjuna, and they had items and stats from me to boost them.

"Amarilla. Stay with them and fight back any incoming enemies." I say, and the dragoon nods. I turn to the Brimstone Elemental, my intent transferred through our link, and the being nods. "I'll go in."

"You sure you'll be okay, Hanami?" Francis asks me, and I go silent, unsure what to say. After a while, I simply turn to her and grimace. "No, but this whole thing won't end if I don't go. Might as well finish it for good."

With my piece said, I generate a bubble of gravity around me and fly forward, making sure to go slower so I won't just outspeed my Brimstone Elemental. .

Now that no one's around, I can sigh, doing my best to repair as much of my body as I can before the fated encounter. My mystic eyes activate, scouring the vicinity to find Shirou, and I do find him, being brought along inside a car with Kiritsugu and his companions, and with Sakura safely retrieved.

I smile at that.

However, one objective may have been completed, but the mission is far from done. In fact, if I fail, then all the work Shirou and I had done would've been for nothing.

So I just need to not mess this up.

No pressure, right?

Of course, if things go far too south, then I have one last trick up my sleeve, one I'm not even sure what it'll do, but I'll save the explanations for when it actually happens. For now, getting into the grail's inner systems is the current objective. Any and all other things can be shelved for a later date.

[WARNING! APPROACHING UNKNOWN LOCATION. ESCAPE MIGHT BE IMPOSSIBLE. WARNING! APPROACHI…]

I blink at the sudden warning, but I dismiss it, already knowing the gist of it.

As I near Mount Enzo, where the body of the grail is currently situated, I begin to feel an opposing force trying to push me away, an invisible barrier trying to stop me from going any closer. I give a single thought to it, and burst through the opposing force with my gravity. The barrier gone, I continue flying forward.

[WARNING! Escape will be impossible. Quest [End of Zero] will activate and cannot be deactivated]

With no hesitation, I press the [Yes] option and continue on,

And then, the world twists. The night sky becomes a sickly, disgusting purple, with a giant hole situated high above. Veins of red and black stretch all over the ground, slowly becoming longer and expanding their reach. The front half of Mount Enzo is gone, instead replaced by a giant rib cage, with a deep red, beating heart protected inside it.

[TAINTED HEART OF THE GRAIL]

HP: 500.000.000/500.000.000

MP: -

Stamina: -

The core of what was once the Holy Grail, now twisted by the curses of all the evils of the world. It holds the power of the true magic, having a path towards the [Throne of Heroes]. Both alive and not, it beats with magical energy gathered from the world, intent of enacting the end like it'd been foretold to do.

And yet, you've stood in its path, with powers that it fears. Rid you it could not, taint you it could not, weaken you it could not.

So now, here it is, ready for its final act, with you as its spectator.

There it is, the one and only. The damned thing that's been a thorn in my side for the entire story and the thing that's been trying to kill Shirou and I.

I bring my Noble Phantasm into my hands, taking a deep breath and letting my prana flow freely.

"[Call of Lightning]."

A spark lights, shooting into the sky above. Clouds gather at my command, growing turbulent as winds begin to pick up and lightning begins to snap through the growing clouds. The darkness surrounding me grows even darker, and winds of great power blow through the area, throwing away anything too small to hold on.

A storm has arrived.

My stats increase from my skill's passives, and I soak it all in, letting the power settle inside me before doing anything else. Of course, the grail sees my lack of movement and immediately begins attacking, firing dark purple bolts of magical energy created from the refined evils that Angra was cursed by in his life.

My Brimstone Elemental swiftly moves to defend, firing her own streams of accursed fire to counter the grail's deadly magical bolts. The two sides clash in bright explosions, with my Brimstone Elemental slowly being pushed back as the grail continues to increase the ferocity of its magical barrage.

But the time my elemental has granted me is enough, and I begin the chant of my Noble Phantasm.

Because, hey, why should I hold back my strongest attack until the end? That just doesn't make sense, kid.

"An eternal song, a melody as old as time!"

To be honest, I'm not quite sure where the words are coming from, nor where I'm getting the ideas from, but they just seem to be flowing out my mouth without any previous thoughts.

Each words spoken pulses with power, and the air around me begins to glow with an ethereal blue. My magic circuits light up brightly under my skin, spreading all over my body.

"A battle that never ends, a tale that goes on forever!"

Clearly detecting the sudden spike in power, the grail's attacks grow faster and more plentiful, covering the skies and racing towards them. The Brimstone Elemental begins to struggle, the chunks of brimstone she sits on beginning to crack from the amount of prana she's expelling at every moment.

"A beast of nature, one that the world could not rule!"

Distantly I begin to see a mirage, of a giant dragon soaring through the skies, its breath scorching everything in its path and its roars tearing apart the grounds. I see its magic, an iridescent light that shot through the skies like a shooting star.

"On your grave a world was made."

An unholy screech resounds from the grail as it fires everything it has at that moment. All the mud it was slowly raising suddenly rushes up into the sky to overwhelm me. Every leyline it's connected to explodes up violently to try and burn me. Every single magical bolt it was firing is stopped, instead gathered into one and amplified, before being fired at me as a giant beam of curses of decay.

"And atop it, legends were told."

My Brimstone Elemental prepares a counter, gathering as much flames as it can possibly handle at that moment and coiling it all into one tout sphere, filled with flames of the accursed underworld it comes from.

"Upon the stars, I have wished."

Everything slows, and the last words of my verse are spoken.

"So I call upon you, being of old!"

"[Hearth of Daedron]!"

A loud roar sounds from the skies above, and down from it descends a dragon of gargantuan size, its body made from crackling, green electricity, with its green beating heart visible through it all. It looks down to the heart of the grail, and to the cage of bones it'd shielded itself with, and narrowed its eyes.

[Heart of Daedron]. The dragon I conjured from the lightning gathered in the storm I generated was as close as I came to recreating the legend of the dragon whose death created the world the dragoons now lives in. A superpowered figure of lightning, enchanted by the essence of dragons and fueled by the legends I had gathered when I absorbed the energy of Daedron's core back in the [Hearth of Daedron] ID.

Daedron roars, the sheer volume of its sound creating winds that rivalled tornadoes. With my control and intent, Daedron dives downward, jaws opening as lightning begins to build inside its mouth. The grail doesn't remain silent however, firing beams of malevolent curses at the descending dragons.

But the sheer amount of energy and heat Daedron was outputting burns and blasts away the grail's attacks.

Then, Daedron finishes charging, the electricity it's been gathering in its mouth has fully turned into violent plasma. With what looks like a smile, it opens its mouth as wide as it can,

And lets go.

Out from the dragon's mouth comes a giant beam of green light, burning away anything in its path. All the beams the tainted heart fired are overpowered in an instant. All the mud even remotely close to the beam suddenly disappears, evaporating and leaving nothing behind. Not even the rib cage protecting it, one made from pure, crystalized energy, is able to withstand the beam's power, holding out for seconds before they melt away.

An unholy screech sounds when the beam impacts the tainted heart, burning and searing through the tainted flesh that it's built up. The muscles of the heart are burned, the blood vessels popped, and purplish black blood flies out from the wounds before being burned away by the heat of Daedron's attack.

Soon, Daedron's attack finishes, leaving the surrounding a melted, charred mess and a giant burn mark on the tainted heart. A hefty 150 million HP is lost from that one strike, a product of my increased stats due to the storm above and me combining both my [Morningstar] and [Attribute Enchant: Dragon] to drive up my damage to insane levels.

And as one extra gift for the thing that's been harassing me for so many chapters now, I direct Daedron to rush down and crash into the tainted heart, causing it's form to become unstable and explode in a brilliant flash of iridescent green light. The tainted heart of the grail cries out again as its already injured self is damaged even more.

The resulting explosion soon dies down, and with it, almost 30 million HP from the tainted heart is lost.. The tainted heart's HP has dropped just above 300 million, and its once pristine self is now a black, charred mess with purplish black blood flowing out from the many popped blood vessels, leaking the curses that created it down into the earth below.