In the original timeline, Morgan's strongest knight in Camelot was Fairy Knight Lancelot—Melusine, the Dragon Fairy, whose true form was a hunk of flesh from the Boundary Dragon Albion's claw, who was born after being awed by Aurora.
The Boundary Dragon Albion was the last dragon to linger on the planet's surface, the pinnacle of the dragon species. In fantasy novels, this would be a rebirth from a drop of blood level being; creating a Fairy Knight from a chunk of flesh was no big deal.
If Grand is the pinnacle for heroic spirits, then Albion is the Grand of dragons—the dragon among dragons, existing since the Earth's creation. Its life information is about 4.6 billion years old.
Albion, wanting to return to the Sea of Stars before the Age of Gods ended, tried to dig down from the surface—but its body was too vast, and time too short. In the end, only its head broke through the barrier, letting its soul return to the Sea of Stars, while its body remained outside. This is the origin of Albion's grave under the Clock Tower.
In Fairy Britain, Albion's corpse was buried in the northwest lake district, very close to the former capital of the Rain Clan, Orkney. This area is also where the Phantasmal Tree is rooted. Getting close is even harder than it was in the Queen's Calendar.
"So that's the Phantasmal Tree..." Artoria murmured, gazing at the immense gray-white trunk in the distance. "...It's incredible."
"In a way, Marisbury was something—using Chaldeas to create this thing," Aoko remarked. "No... it's too soon to say the Phantasmal Tree was created by Marisbury. Maybe he just discovered it."
"Could something like this be made by magecraft...?" Toneriko said, awed. "Magecraft studies the past, but for humanity to create something like this in the distant future—surely that's the power of progress?"
"Not necessarily," Aoko shook her head. "Chaldeas was completed in the future, but the Phantasmal Tree is different. Don't forget places like the Wandering Sea, which hid in the Age of Gods."
— Divider —
"...This land is probably made from Albion's dragon corpse," Aoko said, gazing across the marshy lakes. "How does it feel, Artoria?"
"...Ah, my heart is pounding," Artoria said gravely, gripping her sword and looking toward the tree roots. "It's like... it's like I've come home. Very strange."
"Your heart was made by Merlin, right?" Aoko said. "But I doubt he could create a dragon's heart from nothing. So the origin of your heart is probably also a part of Albion's remains."
"In a way, the dragon fairy about to appear here could be considered your sister, Artoria," Aoko said with a smile.
"Eh?!" Toneriko looked a little panicked at the thought of digging up Artoria's sister but quickly calmed herself.
"We'll probably have to fight our way in from here," Aoko said, stretching and taking out her Scarlet staff. "Because of Albion's remains, the Moss here are much stronger. Look over there."
Following Aoko's finger, the other two saw black, crawling shadows in the depths of the marsh—Moss, but much scarier than those in the south.
"I remember there weren't Moss like this before," Toneriko frowned. "Could it be..."
"Yeah," Aoko said. "Probably because the Rain Clan was wiped out and so many northern fairies died—their grudges and curses mixed with Albion's dense mana to create these Moss."
As she spoke, the dense Moss shadows fused into a huge black dragon—Moss with dragon power, roaring as if battling something nearby.
"What's it fighting?" Toneriko asked, puzzled.
Aoko was puzzled too. As far as she knew, there shouldn't be any enemies in these marshes besides the Moss. She squinted at the area the giant dragon was attacking, searching for possible foes.
"I get it," Aoko said. "That's the seed of the Phantasmal Tree!"
"The seed?" Artoria asked, confused. "Can something like the Phantasmal Tree reproduce itself?"
"Who knows," Aoko shrugged. "But I guess these seeds are just the tree's defense mechanism. Think of them as its guards."
"So what do we do—take them all out?" Toneriko asked.
"Hmm... I think there's no need. Let them fight it out," Aoko said, casting magic to conceal the three of them. Then she used a spell to make them invisible—a double safeguard.
"If you want to communicate, just think in your mind. We'll all hear each other," Aoko's voice sounded in Artoria and Toneriko's minds. They quickly grasped the technique.
The three floated quietly, wrapped in Aoko's Wind Soaring Realm—about five or six meters above the marsh, high enough to avoid most Moss but still see what was in the swamp and not miss any of Albion's flesh.
"...Guess I was overthinking it," After about half an hour of flying, they reached the hollow roots of the Phantasmal Tree—the center of the lake district. "There's no way we'd miss this."
"Is that... the remains of Albion?!" Toneriko was stunned by the endless, gigantic life form before her, imagining what it must have been like when alive.
Artoria was silent, staring at the colossal remains, her heart thundering so loud that even Aoko and Toneriko could hear it.
"...Over there," Artoria said quietly after a long pause, pointing to one end of the remains. "The being we're looking for is over there, in the depths of this corpse-lake."