Fate/Ultimate Antagonist

[104] The Best Old Man Is Back!

"The summoning circle in our house has vanished..."

"Shinji, what the hell are you saying?!"

The gaunt and shadowy old man leaned on his cane, staring in a daze at the worm pool in his basement.

Within the dimly lit worm pool lay a heap of desiccated, leaf-like corpses of his precious engraving worms.

Zouken Matou bent down, trembling as he picked up one of his prized engraving worms.

The worm's corpse wriggled feebly a couple of times, then crumbled into dust like a pile of ashes.

Completely drained...

First came the stupor.

Then... rage.

Zouken Matou's eyes twitched violently, and his already shadowed face turned a sickly liver color.

Thud!

The old man struck his cane against the ground, letting out a roar of impotent fury.

"Damn it! Who the hell did this...?!"

Damn it, the magical energy I've accumulated for so long!

Do you know how troublesome it is to produce even one crest worm? No, you don't! You only care about yourself!

The seaweed-haired youth beside him, Shinji Matou, couldn't care less about the summoning circle. Looking at the pile of withered worm corpses, Shinji felt an urge to laugh but restrained himself.

He had been disgusted by these worms for a long time, and his schadenfreude was evident, but he couldn't show it in front of Zouken Matou.

Shinji still didn't comprehend what the death of all the worms truly meant.

"What happened, old man?"

"...I don't know."

Activating the Matou family's summoning circle, Solomon's clairvoyance had noticed the crest worms and thus drained all the accumulated magical power from the pool, leaving nothing for the old bastard.

This level of skill was beyond Zouken Matou's understanding.

Even after surviving for five centuries, how could the old man compare to the might of the King of Magecraft?

After the rage came...

Fear.

As reason gradually returned, Zouken Matou felt... fear.

What kind of power is this?

Overnight, his entire worm pool had been destroyed without him even noticing. This meant that if the perpetrator wanted to kill him, it would have been just as easy.

A purple-haired girl stood timidly in the dim basement, her hands nervously clutching her chest.

The fading Command Spells on the back of her delicate hands still bore faint red marks.

"I-I'm sorry..."

Sakura Matou didn't understand what had happened, but she could sense the grave atmosphere. Instinctively, she began bowing and apologizing in a pitiable voice.

She must have done something wrong again, right?

Zouken Matou, glancing at this useful tool, started to regain his composure.

There were still fragments of the Lesser Grail embedded in Sakura's body... In other words, he still had a chance to turn the tables.

After collecting his thoughts, the old man began to see things more clearly.