144: Chapter 144 The Sixth Party

"Boom—!!!"

The tanker truck slammed into the billboard, instantly igniting the residual fuel in the tank and triggering a violent explosion!

"Ah—!" Two shrill screams were cut short in the flames.

The physical bodies of those two completely unprepared players were blown into mincemeat along with the billboard by this "Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm" in a literal physical sense!

In the center of the plaza, Saber and Archer, who were just fighting a fierce battle against Uncle B, suddenly stiffened.

Having lost their Masters, the two of them looked bewildered and helpless, their bodies quickly turning into golden stardust and dissipating in the wind.

Logically speaking, many Servants with the [Independent Action] ability can survive in the physical world for a long time even after losing their Master.

However, in this "Holy Grail War" game mode, where [killing the Master means absolute elimination] is the fundamental rule, no Heroic Spirit's privilege could defy the system's forced ruling.

Amidst the ruins of the sea of fire, two magic crystals emitting a dazzling golden light and two bright red Command Spell marks slowly emerged from the corpses of the two eliminated players.

In this mode, to prevent the winning side from snowballing by accumulating over a dozen Command Spells and breaking the competitive balance with infinite Noble Phantasm releases, Gu Yi specifically added a patch to the rules: although every player starts with three Command Spells, they will drop at most one "Masterless Command Spell" upon death.

But even if it was just one, it was the most core strategic resource in Deathmatch Mode—by killing other Masters, one could plunder their Command Spells and supplies. These could not only be used to restore a Servant's status or force a Noble Phantasm release, but could even temporarily boost a Servant's six-dimensional stats!

Everything happened too fast.

From a battle of gods to total annihilation, it took less than ten seconds.

PD, hiding in a trash can, swallowed hard, feeling a chill run down his spine.

And his livestream, after a brief silence, completely erupted into a frenzy:

"Holy shit! Holy shit holy shit holy shit!"

"There's no sportsmanship in e-sports! This way of dying is too damn frustrating!"

"The Servant is fighting for their life in the front, while the Master is losing theirs in the back! This is what happens when you don't hide your body well!"

"Incredible! Killing a Master drops Command Spells and upgrade materials?! Isn't this just encouraging everyone to slaughter each other?!"

"This Uncle B is too fierce, I gotta get out of here!" Taking advantage of Uncle B roaring at the sky in the plaza and his Master being busy picking up loot, PD carried his trash can and, under the cover of shadows, scurried out of the city center in a flash.

...

Fuyuki City, Mion River Bridge.

If Uncle B was a bulldozer on land, then the one standing at the highest point of this bridge right now was a true god.

"Hahahaha! Who else?! I'm asking, who else?!"

The skinny "European" player who had snatched the [Ancient Snakeskin Fossil] in the preparation hall was currently controlling the Hero King, Gilgamesh, standing atop the bridge's steel cables and laughing arrogantly.

Behind him, golden spatial ripples lit up as densely as the stars.

[Gate of Babylon] fully open!

Countless blades, spears, swords, and halberds poured down like a torrential rain, aimlessly bombing the large blocks of streets below the bridge into ruins.

Just a few minutes ago, an Assassin player who thought he had mastered the "essence of stealth assassination" tried to use the cover of night to control Hassan and climb up the cables to assassinate this arrogant guy.

As a result, before he even got within ten meters of Gilgamesh, he was sensed by the Gate of Babylon. Dozens of Noble Phantasms instantly shot out, turning that unlucky assassin into a hedgehog on the spot!

This kill caused the "European" player's confidence to swell to the extreme.

"This passive defense is simply invincible! As long as I have this Gate of Babylon, who dares to take a single step toward me?!"

He provoked arrogantly in the regional voice chat, "I'm the god of this match! Are there any more who aren't afraid to die? Come out and meet your end, you mongrels!"

He was completely immersed in the fanaticism and invincible pleasure of being the "strongest Heroic Spirit," to the point that he had completely forgotten about his Master's physical body, which he had haphazardly stuffed into a bridge tunnel and was currently in a "sleepwalking" AFK state with closed eyes.

"This Gilgamesh's firepower is too intense, who would dare go over there?"

"Looks like this match belongs to the 'European'."

The viewers in PD's livestream shook their heads and sighed as they watched the dazzling golden light on the distant bridge.

However, PD didn't say a word.

Controlling Angra Mainyu, he had already silently crept into a dark tunnel beneath the bridge.

Setting down the trash can, he stared intently at the deep part of the tunnel not far away, where the Magus's physical body stood motionless with closed eyes.

"Brothers."

PD's voice was very low, yet it carried an irrepressible excitement and madness. "You guys say that Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon indeed has an automatic defense function that can sense the approach of any Heroic Spirit with magical power."

"But..."

As PD spoke, he opened his control panel and completely withdrew his consciousness from the [Spiritron Synchronization] state.

In this unique "dual-track operation" mode, although Servants have independent AI personalities and can even bicker with players normally, a player's mental strength (computing power) is ultimately limited during intense combat.

This is similar to a concept called "Stand User" (though Blue Star players might not have seen it). When a player concentrates 100% of their consciousness on the Master's physical body to perform high-precision micro-management, the Servant side loses its guiding soul, and vice versa. It's like how it's difficult for an ordinary person to draw a circle with their left hand while drawing a square with their right.

Right now, the "European" player on the bridge was completely immersed in the extreme excitement of controlling a "max-level, god-geared main account," concentrating all his consciousness and computing power on Gilgamesh.

Even though there were no more enemies on the bridge, he was like a brat with a new toy, controlling the Gate of Babylon to bomb the empty ground, having the time of his life.

Stimulated by that feeling of invincibility, he had long since thrown that fragile "Master's body" under the bridge to the back of his mind.

Below the bridge, Angra Mainyu, stripped of the player's consciousness, instantly entered a low-intelligence standby state, standing dazed on the spot.

Meanwhile, the lid of the green trash can next to him was slowly pushed open from the inside.

PD, controlling his own physical body which had zero magical fluctuations, struggled to climb out of the trash can.

In his hand, he tightly gripped that broken wooden stick issued by the system at the start, which didn't have even a hint of magical reaction.

"But, what if a normal person with zero magic, holding a physical wooden stick with no magic, goes to ambush his Master?"

Hearing this, the livestream viewers suddenly gasped, their scalps tingling!

"Holy shit?! What a camper!"

"Boss P, what are you doing?! Don't be impulsive!"

At the top of the bridge, Gilgamesh was still frantically pouring out a rain of Noble Phantasms, his wild laughter echoing through the night sky.

In the deep shadows beneath the bridge tunnel, PD was like a seasoned assassin, holding his breath and tiptoeing toward the skinny Master who was currently AFK.

One step, two steps, three steps...

No alarms were triggered, and no defensive counterattacks from the Gate of Babylon were provoked.

Because in the system's fundamental judgment, PD's current body was nothing more than a "Carbon-based lifeform" with zero magical threat!

When PD walked up behind the Master and could even see the strands of hair on the back of his head...

Without any hesitation!

PD raised the broken wooden stick high and, using all his strength, swung it down hard against that head!

"Bang!"

A dull thud that made one's scalp tingle!

That Master's body let out a scream like a slaughtered pig, instantly seeing stars from the blow and collapsing to the ground with a thud!

"Who?! Who's hitting me?!"

Gilgamesh on the bridge suddenly stiffened. He had clearly sensed the pain of his physical body and was preparing to forcibly cut the synchronization to return and defend.

"Die for me!!" PD wasn't about to give him the chance. He lunged forward like a mad dog, pinning the other person down, gripping the rough wooden stick with both hands, and started a frantic "Whac-A-Mole" mode on the back of the man's head!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Accompanied by these dull sounds that shattered everyone's worldview.

High above the bridge, Gilgamesh, the Hero King, who had been laughing wildly a second ago and was preparing to charge up the Sword of Rupture for a grand fireworks show, suddenly fell like a kite with a broken string.

"Damn it... A mongrel using such underhanded methods... This King is... unwilling..."

In extreme bewilderment and humiliation, this oldest of kings let out an angry roar.

To the very end, he couldn't understand why his Gate of Babylon, which was supposed to be an absolute defense, would miss a living person.

In fact, this was also a patch Gu Yi had specifically added for competitive balance—to prevent an all-knowing, all-powerful cheater like Gilgamesh from ruining the game experience, his automatic enemy-detection radar had been significantly weakened to [only being able to sense creatures with magical fluctuations within a certain range].

As for PD, because he had been chased across half the map like a dog by Uncle B while clutching his trash can since the start, he was so poor he hadn't even had time to pick up a single low-level magic crystal. The magical level of his physical body was a pathetic "absolute zero"!

This pathetic "zero magic" actually allowed him, on this battlefield full of gods, to form a bizarre natural counter—much like the mouse that beats the elephant in Jungle—completing an unprecedented assassination!

With the disappearance of the Master's vital signs, Gilgamesh, forcibly sent back by the system, could only turn into a sky full of golden spots and dissipate frustratingly into the night wind.