Zongman: Evolution Paradise Chapter 173

In the world of Fate, the strength of a Heroic Spirit isn’t solely determined by their stats. After all, despite both having Strength B, Medusa’s power is simply not on par with Saber’s.

When Steve and Medusa collided, a wave of air rippled around them. The Vibranium shield absorbed the kinetic energy, then instantly released it, sending a kinetic shockwave outwards in a 180° arc. Medusa, leveraging her superior agility, had already spun around and appeared behind Steve.

Medusa’s short dagger, still attached to its chain, thrust towards Steve’s nape. Behind him, a Hydra emerged from the shadows, a construct of magic and divinity, its maw agape.

However, in the Holy Grail War, all Heroic Spirits except for Caster possess a power called Magic Resistance. This level of magical power was not something Medusa, with her B-rank Magic Resistance, needed to dodge as a serious injury.

Choosing to endure the Hydra’s attack, Medusa twisted her blade, and Steve’s head fell to the ground.

The chain-blades swayed in Medusa’s hands, blood dripping from the swords onto the ground.

“May no one in this world be harmed, and may no one suffer injury, and may all flaws be mended!”

Holding a staff resembling that of a magical girl, Lily unleashed her Noble Phantasm. With a surge of magical energy, Medusa’s injured back, along with her clothes, instantly returned to their pre-injury state.

Clutching the Noble Phantasm named “All Flaws Must Be Mended,” Lily leaned against Xu Lun, exclaiming in delight, “Sister Medusa is amazing! She defeated the enemy so quickly…”

“It’s not over yet.”

Facing the inexperienced Medea Lily, Medea spoke in a reluctant tone.

“Not over?”

Lily didn’t mind Medea’s tone, or rather, she understood the tsundere-like affection behind it.

“Regardless of the outcome, common sense dictates that if that Heroic Spirit could be defeated so easily, the enemy player would have already fled.”

Yukino Yukinoshita lectured her, while Saber vigilantly watched Souichirou Kuzuki, constantly preventing him from getting close again.

Since Xu Lun already had three Heroic Spirits ready to fight Steve, Saber, who preferred 1v 1 duels, perfectly served as a guard.

After all, with Medea and Lily’s close-combat capabilities, getting close to Souichirou Kuzuki would be quite troublesome, making it difficult to protect the two Masters.

Steve’s head fell, but Medusa didn’t relax her guard. While Lily’s Noble Phantasm repaired her injuries, the chain-blades in her hands had already slashed down again. Apart from the indestructible shield, Steve’s body was completely torn into pieces.

Even so, Souichirou Kuzuki remained expressionless, calmly observing the battle. Feeling Saber’s gaze, he showed no intention of re-entering the fight after his initial strike.

At this moment, Steve’s scattered flesh and blood began to mutate. A powerful torrent of magical energy repelled Medea, who had intended to attack again.

A semi-materialized Hydra was born from the blood flowing on the ground, letting out a monstrous roar. Steve’s body parts recombined, flesh writhing as they rose. Picking up the last fragment, what appeared before Xu Lun and Yukino Yukinoshita were two brand new Steves.

Hydra has many legends: Xiangliu and Jiuying in China, Hydra in Greek mythology, Azhi Dahaka in Persian mythology, and even Hydra legends in Africa and Cambodia.

The Hydra organization in the Marvel worldview uses the Greek mythological Hydra as its name. It is a monster born from Typhon, the father of monsters and a hundred-headed giant, and Echidna, a half-woman, half-snake monster. It lives in swamps, has nine heads, is extremely poisonous, and when one head is cut off, two immediately grow back in its place.

“Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place.”

The two new Steves clapped their hands, shouting the widely known Hydra motto at Medusa.

Each of them held a Vibranium shield. Under this power, even Noble Phantasms were duplicated.

“The effect of the Noble Phantasm?” Xu Lun speculated.

Because Captain Hydra was not a native Heroic Spirit of Fate, Xu Lun couldn’t know Captain Hydra’s various attributes, the rank of his Class Skills, or the specific details of his Personal Skills.

Before, in Demon Slayer, he could leverage intelligence advantage to overcome everything. Now, encountering the Heroic Spirit form of Captain Hydra, Xu Lun could only cautiously investigate.

However, a Heroic Spirit’s Personal Skills and Noble Phantasm effects are formed from legends and great deeds. Through this basic principle, even though Xu Lun didn’t know which version of Captain Hydra this was, or if it was simply a corrupted Captain America, he could roughly guess the type of Personal Skills and Noble Phantasm.

The Vibranium shield’s Noble Phantasm effect was likely immunity to single-target physical damage and reflection of it. Judging by Medea’s use of magic to attack, it probably also had special aggro-attracting and magic resistance effects.

As for Steve Rogers’ legendary status in the Marvel universe, it was probably something like the will of the nation, or being able to go toe-to-toe with anyone…

“Steve, kill them.”

“Medea, cast reinforcement magic on me.”

Xu Lun and Souichirou Kuzuki’s commands rang out simultaneously, and black and purple magical energy surged.

[You have received the effect of Reinforcement Magic]

[You have gained a Strength B bonus]

[You have gained an Agility B bonus]

[You have gained a Endurance B bonus]

The Paradise’s prompt sounded. Medea’s reinforcement magic had already been applied to Xu Lun, bringing all three basic attributes to B-rank.

A single magical buff transformed a Master to the level of a Servant. While it couldn’t reach A-rank, for a single reinforcement magic to achieve this level was extremely high-tier.

Unlike Lily, who only specialized in healing magic, the complete Medea had too many things to do.

On one hand, she needed to maintain the crowd-dispersing magic, ensuring that no ordinary people inexplicably wandered into the vicinity of the battlefield. With Rule 6 in place, Xu Lun was probably the one least willing to violate it in this Holy Grail War.

The two penalties were: immediately settling the game with an E-rank evaluation if disengaged from combat, and being assigned to a penalty mode for the next game.

Xu Lun didn’t care about the latter, but the former was crucial. Xu Lun was just one game away from becoming an S-rank cultivation target in Paradise. If he failed this time, he would have to start over. It was important to note that Paradise required three consecutive S-rank evaluations to become S-rank.

While dispersing the crowd, Medea was also using her A-rank Territory Creation to transform Homurahara Academy into a special territory, thereby unleashing more powerful magical effects.

Dispersing the crowd, creating a territory, and now needing to maintain reinforcement magic on Xu Lun.

As a Divine Era Magus, these tasks were far from enough to make Medea feel fatigued.

The real problem was Xu Lun. As the Master, he had to provide the magical energy for the Servants. Even with Xu Lun’s impressive Constitution and Intelligence at 23 and 26 respectively, simultaneously supporting three Heroic Spirits in combat already gave him a slight feeling of being unable to perfectly control everything.

It was like a phone, and the Servants were the apps on it. Each app opened would consume a portion of the phone’s operating memory. When the apps ran at high power, they required even more operating memory.

Xu Lun was experiencing a taste of what Shirou Emiya felt during the Holy Grail War when he couldn’t provide enough magical energy to Saber.

Fortunately, Lily wasn’t involved in combat and only needed to use her Noble Phantasm at critical moments.