"Resolved? That's my line." Morgan looked at Tezcatlipoca and said, "I don't know what game you're playing, but the Tezcatlipoca standing here now has appeared in human form as a Pseudo-Servant..."
"Sharp eyes. You saw right through that." Tezcatlipoca wore a careless smile. "I made a human body to use as a vessel, then transferred into it. The soul is divine, but the flesh is human. Even without a Master, I can still act as a 'human living in the present.'"
Morgan understood at once. "So this is how Daybit skipped the troublesome process of summoning a god and had you manifest as a Servant."
"Don't get it twisted. I just used one of my specialties to give Daybit a little help. Of course, this body was designed by Tezcatlipoca himself to suit the current age."
"In the end, that makes you Black Tezcatlipoca." Morgan confirmed the conclusion and prepared to strike.
"To be honest, after hearing about the existence of a 'Unity God,' I also considered becoming one myself." Tezcatlipoca's expression turned savage. "But unfortunately, there isn't a soul that can withstand Tezcatlipoca, and there wasn't time to find someone and spend tens of millions of years synchronizing."
"Isn't it a little late to be saying all that now?"
Morgan raised a hand. In an instant, the ceaseless rain froze in place, then twisted into a vortex gathering in the sky directly above Mexico City.
In that same instant, she stole Tlaloc's control over rainfall and turned it into a weapon for herself.
Countless drops of rain fell from the clouds and continued gathering overhead, forming a giant sphere of water large enough to cover the entire city.
"Not too late. If you'd killed me the moment you attacked earlier, it might have gone faster." Tezcatlipoca spoke as if they were chatting casually. "Of course, that assumes you were confident you could finish me in one blow."
There was no doubt Marduk's Axe had been aimed at exactly that.
But most of the Noble Phantasm's power had been neutralized by Tezcatlipoca's protection, so it had not spread across all of Mexico City. It had only destroyed the temple and the section of the city behind it.
"Then let's find out."
The accumulated rain had already reached its limit. With a single movement of her hand, Morgan could unleash a great flood over Mexico City.
"Daybit! It's fine, do it!"
Suddenly, Tezcatlipoca raised his voice and barked an order at Daybit, who by rights should have been his Master.
At some point, Daybit had already arrived. He raised his right hand high, and the Command Spell on it flared red.
"By Command Spell, I order you! Even in a human body, use your authority, Black Tezcatlipoca!"
Daybit issued the order through a Command Spell.
When Master and Servant were of one mind, and the command itself was clear, a Command Spell could produce an enormous effect.
And if the Master himself was exceptional enough, no one could predict the upper limit of what a single Command Spell might accomplish.
Morgan had not asked about it, but the possibility she had already guessed at was now confirmed.
Even in a human body, if Tezcatlipoca wanted to fully exercise his authority, he would inevitably need some method he approved of.
A Command Spell was the perfect option.
"Of course. At the cost of two of my organs, awaken the Corrupted Sun." A bloodier edge entered Tezcatlipoca's smile. "The golden age of a seed growing without end is a nightmare. Life vanishes. The world is destroyed. The planet burns."
He lifted his chin and looked at the Unity God, who was about to call down a cataclysmic flood.
"Let me show you what true extinction looks like, fledgling gods."
Shiomi realized at once that the situation was even worse than expected and immediately urged Morgan to strike.
As the Unity God's hand came down, a flood powerful enough to wipe out Mexico City descended from the sky.
But before the torrent could swallow the city and engulf Tezcatlipoca's body, an impossibly thick smoke spread out from him.
It merged with the flood in an instant, then covered the flood, and finally spread across the whole of Mexico City.
Their vision was completely stolen.
Even within the dense smoke, the Unity God's senses remained keen. Any opponent who tried to attack at that moment would have died without even knowing how.
Precisely because there was no sign of attack, there was no way to relax.
The smoke did not last long.
And yet when visibility returned, what appeared before Morgan and Shiomi was an entirely different sight.
Not the wreckage left behind by a flood tearing across the land.
Instead, all of Mictlan was visibly collapsing. Before long, this underground world, together with the Lostbelt itself, would disappear.
"What happened?!" Artoria demanded.
Scáthach and Artoria, who had been staying hidden and waiting to confirm Tezcatlipoca's combat ability before joining the fight, had no choice but to rush to Morgan's side once the smoke cleared.
"Is this an illusion?" Scáthach looked around. "I can't sense any trace of Magecraft. Is this Tezcatlipoca's authority?"
"No, it's real. Both my husband and I can say that with certainty." As Morgan spoke, she grabbed both of them by the arm and instantly moved through a Water Mirror to another position.
A jade-green beam immediately came crashing down, striking the Water Mirror that had not yet vanished and catching the nearby corpse of an Ocelomeh in the blast.
The Water Mirror and the Ocelomeh alike turned into emerald water and swiftly scattered into the wind.
"Even Magecraft..." Scáthach fell silent.
"Look below!"
Standing atop the broken ruins, Artoria called out to them.
Shiomi and Morgan, now out of the Unity God form, together with Scáthach, all noticed what Artoria was pointing at.
Among the rubble beneath their feet, the Ocelomeh who a moment ago had been fully armed and ready for battle were now all dead.
They had not died in the flood.
They had died in war, pure and simple.
"Phenomenon substitution." Shiomi pressed a hand to his forehead. "You swapped the near future that was about to happen with the present."
A faint smile appeared on Tezcatlipoca's face. "Quick reaction, newcomer. Black Tezcatlipoca is an omnipotent god who manipulates all things, but not an authority that creates everything. That's the fundamental difference between you and me."
"'If it's something that can happen within the rules, then it can be used freely,' right?" Morgan stood back-to-back with Shiomi, turned sideways toward the Smoking Mirror. "For phenomena that are certain to happen, you can reorder when they occur."
In other words, this phenomenon was going to happen in Mictlan a few days from now.
Tezcatlipoca had merely forced that fact to manifest ahead of schedule.
"That is...!"
Scáthach pointed into the distance, where a gigantic spider-like figure stood upon the collapsing earth.