Chapter 6: Painted Command Seals
Su Xiao wasn’t sure if the subsequent modification would succeed. For an ordinary person, being injected with these substances meant certain death.
However, Matō Kariya was originally Berserker’s Master, bearing the Command Seals to control Berserker, and had a close connection with the now-dead Berserker.
Earlier, Su Xiao had collected some blood from Lancelot’s corpse. At that time, Lancelot was already dead, but the Mad Enhancement state had been attached to him.
Using his storage space, the blood of Lancelot in his Mad Enhancement state was preserved. In the Naruto World, Su Xiao had used this method to obtain Tailed Beast blood.
Su Xiao originally planned to inject this substance into his other Servants to test if a Mad Enhancement reaction would occur, but now he was using it on Matō Kariya.
First, Su Xiao injected Lancelot’s blood into Matō Kariya. The Mad Enhancement blood was black, like ink.
As soon as the Mad Enhancement blood entered Matō Kariya’s body, all his blood vessels bulged, and the Command Seals on his hand flashed with a blood-red light.
After waiting a moment, Su Xiao injected an extremely high concentration of RC cells into Matō Kariya.
“Ah!!”
Matō Kariya writhed on the ground in pain, but his internal injuries were rapidly healing.
Stepping on the writhing Matō Kariya, Su Xiao picked up the diluted Hashirama Cells and injected them into him. These were Hashirama Cells that had undergone several modifications by Su Xiao. If they were simply diluted, the moment they were injected, Matō Kariya would turn into a ‘plant’ (woodified).
Crack, crack, crack…
Saplings grew wildly on Matō Kariya’s body. Cyan Steel Shadow energy gathered at Su Xiao’s fingertip, and he pressed his finger onto Matō Kariya.
The Cyan Steel Shadow energy surged into Matō Kariya’s body, beginning to destroy the RC cells and Hashirama Cells.
Su Xiao wasn’t aiming for a perfect fusion of these two types of cells. With his current conditions and scientific research level, that would be a pipe dream.
He was simply using these two energies to enhance Matō Kariya—an extremely crude enhancement, regardless of consequences. That was why he was devouring these energies.
As for the Mad Enhancement blood, it was used to ensure Matō Kariya wouldn’t die.
After convulsing on the ground for a few minutes, Matō Kariya’s legs stiffened, and he stopped moving.
Matō Sakura witnessed this scene, seemingly reminded of Matō Zouken’s modifications to her. She instinctively shrank back.
“Hm?”
Su Xiao noticed Sakura’s reaction and was quite surprised. The girl actually still had emotions like fear—this caught him off guard.
But when he saw Matō Sakura’s small hands tightly gripping Bubu Wang’s fur, Su Xiao realized it was Bubu Wang’s Charm attribute at work.
For the already despairing Matō Sakura, the sudden appearance of Bubu Wang, whose Charm attribute was as high as 53 points, was almost equivalent to mental comfort + mental support + reliance.
The power of the Charm attribute was demonstrated here. As one of the six main attributes, how could Charm only increase others’ favorability?
In fact, the Charm attribute had the most functionality: increasing favorability, mental comfort, disguise, and even control.
There was a saying in Reincarnation Paradise: a powerful control class is never Intelligence-specialized, but Charm-specialized.
Charm-type strong control abilities were all very overpowered, but such abilities were extremely rare—at least, Su Xiao hadn’t seen any yet.
From Matō Sakura’s current mental state, one could see the power of the Charm attribute.
At this moment, Bubu Wang was somewhat helpless. Matō Sakura’s small hands were tightly holding onto him. Wherever Bubu Wang went, Matō Sakura followed, step for step.
This was a good thing. If Matō Kariya’s modification failed, Su Xiao would rely on Matō Sakura to continue staying in the Holy Grail World.
“Kill… kill them all!”
Dark red smoke surged from Matō Kariya’s body as he slowly stood up. At this moment, Matō Kariya’s eyes were blood-red, his muscles somewhat woodified, covered in dark red veins.
“Success?”
“Roar!”
Matō Kariya roared at Su Xiao.
“Looks like it failed.”
Su Xiao stood up, Dragon-Slaying Flash appearing in his hand, Cyan Steel Shadow energy enveloping the long blade.
Seeing the lightning-like Cyan Steel Shadow energy, the drastically changed Matō Kariya instinctively stepped back twice, his red-glowing eyes fixed on Dragon-Slaying Flash.
“This is… fear of Cyan Steel Shadow energy?”
The modification was somewhat successful, but Matō Kariya had lost his sanity. Gaining power through several types of cells while maintaining sanity was a pipe dream.
Now, Matō Kariya wasn’t too strong, nor too weak. If he fought Su Xiao, he could probably last a few minutes, but defeating other Servants was wishful thinking. Hashirama Cells + RC cells = extremely durable.
Strength increased, but sanity was lost.
“How many fingers is this?”
Su Xiao held up three fingers to Matō Kariya.
“Roar!”
Clearly, three fingers didn’t equal ‘roar,’ so Su Xiao charged forward and kicked Matō Kariya in the face.
With a bang, Matō Kariya was kicked from the living room into the kitchen, smashing a large hole in the wall.
Uncontrollable, uncommunicative. In Matō Kariya’s current state, he wasn’t suitable to keep around, because ‘this thing’ might, when Su Xiao was off guard, bite him on the back of the neck.
If these flaws were ignored, Matō Kariya’s current appearance was somewhat similar to Lancelot in his Mad Enhancement state.
His eyes were blood-red from RC cell erosion, and black smoke drifted from Matō Kariya’s body, caused by the Mad Enhancement blood.
After being kicked flying by Su Xiao, Matō Kariya was unharmed. Although some parts of his body were woodified, causing stiff movements, his defense had greatly increased.
Matō Kariya stood up, his blood-red eyes fixed on Su Xiao. When his gaze shifted and saw Matō Sakura, his body actually paused.
Seeing Matō Kariya’s reaction, Su Xiao narrowed his eyes.
“Tōsaka Tokiomi.”
“Roar!!”
Hearing this name, Matō Kariya roared, the black smoke on his body becoming denser.
“It’s all… Tokiomi’s… fault.”
Matō Kariya actually spoke, his voice dry and hoarse.
It seemed Matō Kariya hadn’t completely lost his sanity. His brain had been eroded by three types of cells or energies: Mad Enhancement blood + RC cells + Hashirama Cells (diluted), resulting in his current state.
“You, come here.”
Su Xiao looked at Matō Sakura. Sakura hugged Bubu Wang tightly and shook her head.
This surprised Su Xiao even more. Matō Sakura actually had the emotion of refusal. It seemed the Charm attribute was more powerful than he imagined.
“…”
Su Xiao stared at Matō Sakura. After hesitating for a moment, the small girl stood up, tightening the rag on her body—after all, Bubu Wang had given it to her.
“Command him. Make him take a few steps forward.”
Su Xiao pointed at Matō Kariya. After Matō Sakura stood up, Matō Kariya had been staring at her.
“Take… a few steps forward?”
Standing beside Su Xiao, Matō Sakura’s mental state began to deteriorate again. Beside Bubu Wang, she could recover, but beside the fierce Su Xiao, she showed signs of returning to her previous state. If this repeated, the little girl would eventually be broken.
Crack…
Matō Kariya stepped forward, but he didn’t just take a few steps—he walked right up to Matō Sakura.
“Sakura…”
Matō Kariya raised a hand emitting black smoke, seemingly wanting to touch Matō Sakura.
Still not fully controllable, but Su Xiao noticed one thing: Matō Kariya wouldn’t harm Matō Sakura and would somewhat obey her words.
Su Xiao immediately understood what was happening. Matō Kariya actually had two obsessions, not just rescue. The second obsession was destruction—destroying Tōsaka Tokiomi.
Two things could trigger emotional fluctuations in the current Matō Kariya: protecting Matō Sakura, and killing Tōsaka Tokiomi.
However, Matō Kariya was currently unstable. His body was slowly collapsing, and he would die soon. This process might take a few days or a month.
Even so, Su Xiao was already satisfied. If he hadn’t intervened earlier, after Matō Zouken’s death, the Crest Worms would have lost control. Whether or not he used Cyan Steel Shadow to kill the Crest Worms in Matō Kariya’s body, Matō Kariya would have died. The moment he accepted the Crest Worms, his death was sealed. Although the result wasn’t as expected, the current situation wasn’t bad.
To some extent, Su Xiao had helped Matō Kariya, giving him the possibility of completing his revenge. Death wasn’t scary; dying meaninglessly like in the original story was truly terrifying.
The now Mad-Enhanced Matō Kariya stood still, while Tōsaka Sakura trotted back to Bubu Wang’s side.
Su Xiao gave a few instructions to Bubu Wang before quickly leaving the house.
Five minutes later, Su Xiao returned to the house, carrying a set of armor and a bucket of black paint. He painted the armor black with the paint and, maintaining appropriate caution, put the full-body armor on Matō Kariya.
As long as the armor wasn’t broken, any Magus seeing Matō Kariya, covered in black smoke, would immediately think of a Berserker with Mad Enhancement.
After doing all this, Su Xiao looked at the back of his right hand, where he had painted Command Seals.
Now, Matō Kariya was disguised as Berserker, and Su Xiao was disguised as Berserker’s Master.
In most cases, it was Servant against Servant, Master against Master. But if any other Master came after Su Xiao, he would definitely cut them down until they doubted their existence.
The Master was Mad-Enhanced and wearing armor, while the Servant had painted Command Seals on his hand. Without a doubt, Su Xiao’s team was the most peculiar of all the combinations.