“Her magic is the nemesis of all pure mages like myself,” replied Edward. “And she’s attacking the students in your school.”
“What? What do you mean by that?” asked Tohsaka as she stood up from her sitting position.
“She plans to feed off the life energy of the students in the school to strengthen herself. One of your teachers — Souichirou Kizuki — is helping her.”
“Mr. Souichirou? No, we have to stop them,” she said as she remembered something and rushed out of the room. Edward’s lips twitched as he glanced at her, departing back strangely.
On top of a roof, Tohsaka stopped as she sensed a powerful mana fluctuation. Such a clash was definitely the result of two Servants battling it out.
“Wait, that direction— that’s near Shirou’s house.” Her magic circuit appeared in her legs, and she rushed forward.
“Little girl, you need to raise your standard of man,” suddenly said Edward, causing Tohsaka to fall midway through her jump.
“What...what... what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you could do way better than someone like Shirou Emiya,” replied Edward. “Especially now that you will probably be one of the greatest modern mages that has ever lived.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” yelled Tohsaka before continuing rushing forward, and Edward followed. A few seconds later, the tsundere girl asked, “What do you have against Shirou?”
“I have immense disdain for him,” replied Edward casually.
“Why? You don’t even know him.”
“I saw enough of his future and past to form an opinion.”
“And what did he do that was so egregious?” asked Tohsaka.
“He didn’t do anything— it’s his personality,” explained Edward. “The child failed to save one person and developed an extreme version of being a hero.”
“There is nothing with wanting to be a hero.”
“A little defensive, aren’t we?” Tohsaka’s face almost burned with embarrassment, but she decided to ignore that comment.
“In a matter of speaking,” replied Edward before immediately attacking. Hundreds of small blue orbs materialized before his staff and flew toward Lancer with breakneck speed. Lancer responded by waving his red spear in a circular motion to block the orbs before stopping and manually evading because of how fast and frequently they were coming.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Lancer blocked every orb while simultaneously evading. Unfortunately, the orbs were too fast and seemed endless. So, without any more hesitation, he activated his A rank skill: Protection From Arrows. With this skill, he was immune to most projectile weapons. So, he rushed toward Edward with his spear, blazing a path forward.
“Interesting skill,” muttered Edward before tapping his staff on the ground and changing tactics.
Boom!
A powerful explosion forced Lancer backward. Although his battle instinct allowed him to block with the spear, he was still injured. He looked around and saw nothing, but his danger senses were on overdrive. With caution, he moved forward, and as expected, another explosion.
“What a quick and brilliant tactic,” he praised. His enemy knew projectiles were useless to him, so they placed immobile but invisible versions all around him, forming a net.
“Ansuz,” said Lancer, using a Primordial Rune, and with a wave of his spear, a mighty flame busted out and activated the invisible bombs Edward placed around. Lancer then took this opportunity to rush forward, but he underestimated the speed at which these things regenerated.
“Damn it,” he cursed as he was further pushed back. “Ehwaz.” With this Primordial Rune, he boosted his defense and magic resistance. “Berkanan.” This tracking rune allowed him to see the invincible bombs.
“Now, let’s see how you can hide,” commented Lancer as he moved toward his destination.
“Not bad, but you’re underestimating me,” commented Edward. Under this command, the thousands of orbs began to bounce off each other, making their movement so irregular that the tracking spell became almost useless.
So Lancer found himself in a minefield with invisible exploding orbs that moved fast and were as erratic as a drunkard. Oddly, though, he had a smile on the corner of his mouth as he navigated this spell, which used a basic Mana Missile Spell.
“Haha, I haven’t had this much fun in a fight in a while,” he said. “In that case, let me show you what I’m truly capable of.”
As he prepared to use another tactic, he suddenly stopped, which caused him a terrible explosion that almost got him. Luckily, he activated a shield and protected him.
“It’s a shame our battle must come to an end, but I cannot disobey my master,” he said toward Edward before disappearing. Edward did not stop him as he had already got what he wanted: the 18 Primordial Runes inside the latter’s mind. He only failed to find his master’s whereabouts, but he doubted Lancer actually knew.
However, despite his success, he was not happy. Firstly, the Primordial Runes in this world are the same as the Ancient Runes in Harry Potter, but he already knew this. He thought the runes manifested in another form in this universe.
‘If I remember correctly, Odin created Primordial Runes in some lore versions of this universe instead of discovering them. Maybe the true Primordial Runes are even ancient and more powerful than his version.’
Edward decided to check this out as what he learned paled compared to the Primordial Runes in his universe. And considering the level of this universe is not in any way lower than his, they should not be like this.