Chapter 1640: Berserk

Before Su Xiao could speak, Illya on the opposite side took a small step back. Judging from her expression, she was ready to let the berserker step forward at any time.

Seeing this, Su Xiao first checked his own Charm Attributes. Due to the effect of the Traveler title, his 28 points of charm had temporarily increased to 50 points. After completing one negotiation, his charm attributes would return to 28 points and accumulate at a rate of 1 point per hour until they reached 50 points again.

Confirming that the charm attribute was fine, a smile appeared on Su Xiao’s face.

“Rin’s Servant, do you have… something you need?”

Illya’s eyes also showed some confusion; for some reason just now, she had inexplicably taken a step back, which seemed like an instinctive action.

“Regarding this negotiation, it seems the Einzbern family has some misunderstanding.”

Upon hearing Su Xiao’s words, Illya and the group of homunculi maids behind her secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although Su Xiao was filled with blood energy, his tone was unexpectedly ‘kind’.

However, upon hearing these words, Rin Tohsaka felt a chill in her heart, knowing that things were not going well.

“Considering the ongoing Holy Grail War and our different stances, I ask you to make a choice: kill me, hand over the communication tools for contacting the Magic Association, or I will kill all of you.”

As Su Xiao spoke, he grasped the hilt of Dragon Slash. The failure of Rin’s negotiation essentially meant the complete failure of this negotiation. After testing the effect of the 50 points of charm, Su Xiao was prepared to engage in physical negotiation, thus ignoring the impact caused by charm attributes.

Blood energy spread around Su Xiao, forming a fierce beast above him, grinning at the Einzbern family members.

Illya’s expression became serious, and she looked towards Rin Tohsaka behind Su Xiao, as if asking with her gaze: “Rin, is this why you’re here?”

To Illya’s surprise, Rin Tohsaka was signaling to her, and from her lip movements, Rin might have been saying: “Agree, quickly agree, I can’t control him.”

“You bold madman, Serra, protect the young lady.”

Several homunculi maids stood in front of Illya, each holding various long weapons.

“Puppet.”

As Su Xiao’s words fell, the ground beneath his feet began to crack.

“Roar!”

The berserker behind Illya roared, a towering figure over two meters tall, with knotted muscles all over his body and dark skin. He wore only a metal battle skirt, bare-chested, giving off a wild—or one might say berserk—impression.

This berserker’s name was Hercules, a demigod more commonly known in mythology as Heracles, the offspring of Zeus and a mortal, who had completed the twelve labors considered impossible.

If it were Hercules from after death, crowned as the great hero, even the golden flash would have trouble matching him. Clearly, the current Hercules was not from that period, and moreover, he was imbued with berserk as a berserker.

Berserk doesn’t necessarily boost a Heroic Spirit’s combat strength; take the current Hercules for example, he is weakened by berserk. Without the berserk trait, he might even be the strongest Heroic Spirit in this Holy Grail War.

Nonetheless, even a berserk Hercules is a formidable existence. In the original work, when Heroic Spirit Emiya fought against him, aside from using his ultimate move, none of his attacks could pierce Hercules’ defense, and he got quite the beating.

Hercules wielded a massive blade, though referred to as an axe in mythology, it was essentially a large and robust sword, with a jagged stone blade.

Do not underestimate this stone giant blade; it was polished from the foundation stone of a temple, worthy of Hercules’ status as a great hero.

When the golden flash with others in battle often blurts “scum!” to refer to them and even lumped within the berserker class as mad dogs. Yet, against Hercules, he had to acknowledge him respectfully as the great hero Hercules.

Those pitch-black eyes of Hercules fixed on Su Xiao, who in turn stared right back at him; however, Su Xiao only saw anger in his eyes, leaving him somewhat disappointed. Without the berserk trait, this would be a rather tricky Heroic Spirit to handle.

“Berserker…”

Illya spoke urgently; she clearly didn’t want to engage in a fight with Rin Tohsaka just now.

Boom!

Debris flew behind Illya, and she exclaimed, instinctively raising her hands in front of her. The nearby homunculi maids staggered back.

Hercules surged forward, his silhouette like a black shadow, heading straight for Su Xiao, swinging the black stone blade down.

Zing.

The blade sang as Dragon Slash was drawn from its sheath. Su Xiao stood with his legs slightly apart, the long knife poised horizontally before him, left hand pressed on the blade’s spine.

A thunderous crash, the black stone blade chopped down on Dragon Slash. Su Xiao’s right foot sank into the earth, the force from the impact transmitted through his body, grounding into the earth through his right foot.

The muscles on Su Xiao’s arms slightly bulged; his hand shifted the long knife, seemingly sucking in Hercules’s black stone blade, guiding it off-course from its path engineered by Su Xiao, eventually slicing past his left side, embedding into the earth.

Where Hercules struck, it was like a bomb had exploded on the ground, with dirt and rocks scattering like a celestial maiden dispersing flowers.

The edge of Dragon Slash glided over the black stone blade; Su Xiao exhaled slowly, executing an extraordinarily simple lateral slash.

Whoosh—an enormous head flew off, Su Xiao had beheaded Hercules. Witnessing this, Illya showed a moment of stupefaction which quickly faded, as Su Xiao appeared behind her, pressing a single hand on her head.

Hercules wasn’t a Heroic Spirit that could be felled by a single strike; his head rapidly regenerated, soon restored as before. This guy could resurrect 11 times in total, equating to 12 lives.

More terrifyingly, due to the vast magic power within Illya, Hercules could replenish his resurrection count, meaning unless Hercules was killed 12 times within a set period, his resurrection times would soon rise again, returning to a maximum of 11.

Unfortunately for Hercules, being the berserker class, he lacked rationality, reducing his combat strength by at least 60%.

Su Xiao wouldn’t compete with Hercules in sheer strength; that previous strike was proof. Using Dragon Slash as a conduit for power transmission, he deflected Hercules’s mighty chop into the ground and, using the opponent’s slicing force, destabilized his stance, leaving the opponent open for attack. After that, it became straightforward—behead him. With the sharpness of Dragon Slash, breaking through Hercules’s tough body was not difficult.

“Roar!!”

Hercules, almost totally missing his strike, let out a roar, with sound waves propagating outward, making Rin Tohsaka stagger a few steps nearby.

“Now, let’s negotiate in another way.”

Su Xiao pressed one hand on Illya’s head, sliding Dragon Slash to her neck. As the blade touched Illya’s delicate skin, a trace of blood emerged, proving that physical negotiation was more reliable.