"Chase-nii? Mira-nee? That's strange. Wasn't I just..." Lucy said, feeling a sense of unreality until she was safely set down from Chase's arms. "Wasn't I just dead?"
The feeling of death had been so real that she wondered if this was heaven.
"Kuri kuri~" A soft, cute voice answered her question.
A brown furball floated in the air.
Lucy immediately recognized it. "You're... Kuriboh? You saved me? Thank you!"
"Kuri kuri~" Kuriboh waved its little paw cutely in response.
Mira and the others, as well as Erza who had just hurried over, also had Kuribohs floating beside them.
After their effects were triggered, they gradually dissolved into golden specks of light.
Even a cornered rabbit would bite, let alone Acnologia.
Even in its near-exhausted, critically wounded state, a desperate final strike was more than their fragile bodies could withstand.
Chase couldn't refuse his comrades' request to fight alongside him. Nor could he allow any of them to be in mortal danger. So, he had given them Kuribohs in advance, which could block one fatal attack.
The result proved that this precaution had paid off beautifully. Not only had they successfully bought enough time, but they had also further drained Acnologia's power!
"What's going to happen next..." Makarov clenched his fists tightly, looking at Mira and the others, who were already unsteady, barely able to stand by leaning on each other.
As their parent, his heart ached.
"This monster's vitality is incredibly tenacious!" Gildarts, who could still stand somewhat steadily, watched the two dragons violently brawling ahead in horror.
Because he couldn't use his "table-flipping" skill, which would be devoured, and because Acnologia, now crazed, was squeezing its power at the cost of its life, covering its body in attribute-less magic power, Gandora couldn't gain the upper hand. The two were locked in a stalemate.
Dammit. Wasn't it ready yet?!
Chase looked gravely in the direction Natsu and the others had retreated.
After all, Gandora's power was limited by his own. At the current rate, it could only hold on for a little longer.
If Igneel and the others couldn't break free by then...
Chase took a deep breath. Ignoring the tearing pain throughout his body, he activated his God Slayer Magic once more.
The phantom of Slifer behind him slowly opened its lower jaw, beginning to accumulate magic power.
He felt he couldn't bet everything on Igneel and the others. He had to prepare for the worst!
"Damn it! When I get back, even if I have to beg, I'll make Slifer teach me its divine power!"
As he expected, the restricted Gandora was still pierced by the Black Dragon's roar, dissipating into specks of light amidst a string of curses.
ROAR!!!
Acnologia, bathed in blood, stood on the broken ruins and roared to the heavens.
It seemed to have lost all reason, its eyes holding only the most primal instinct for slaughter.
"God Slayer Secret Art: Superconducting Wave!!"
The exploding thunder drowned out the dragon's roar. Divine light surged out like a tide.
Chase's all-out God Slayer Secret Art struck Acnologia dead-on. The energy beam exploded, completely annihilating the surrounding area!
Smoke filled the massive gap. Collapsing debris continuously fell into the rapidly back-flowing sea.
This time, even after the smoke cleared and the whirlpool stabilized, Acnologia didn't reappear. It had sunk deep into the ocean with the currents.
Even so, Chase wasn't reassured. He wanted to confirm Acnologia's fate. But the moment he took a step, a violent wave of dizziness hit his brain. His body uncontrollably pitched forward.
His body had long since reached its limit from repeatedly overloading his magic power.
The expected pain of hitting the ground didn't come.
"That's enough, Chase. You've done enough. We won..." Mira's beautiful eyes shimmered with tears as she caught him and held him tightly.
Chase didn't push himself. He let out a soft sigh and leaned into the girl's embrace.
It wasn't that he was taking advantage of the situation. He simply didn't have the strength to stand anymore!
As for "confirming the kill," he would leave that to Igneel and the others.
Just as Chase was thinking this, Slifer's voice from the Card Space suddenly made his relaxed nerves tense again.
"Little brat. Something foul is coming."
At the same time, on the other side of Tenrou Island.
"So hot! So hot! So hot!!"
Under his comrades' worried gazes, Natsu knelt on the ground, his face contorted in pain, bathed in an extremely high-temperature red light.
"Natsu."
A sudden voice in the depths of his mind made Natsu instantly forget the pain of the heat.
"Igneel? Is that you, Igneel? Where are you?!"
"I'm sorry for all these years. I've actually been—"
Mid-sentence, as if cut off by a mysterious force, Igneel's voice abruptly stopped.
Along with it, the rapidly rising heat within Natsu quickly cooled. All his discomfort vanished.
Gajeel and Wendy beside him also returned to normal.
"What happened? Igneel! Where are you?!" Natsu, completely confused, stood there shouting.
Meanwhile, within a magical space filled with lava and volcanoes.
Igneel stared, his dragon eyes wide with horror.
"How is this possible? The connection with Natsu... the induction to the outside world... it's—"
"—Severed?! "
CRACK.
A sound, not particularly loud, like breaking glass, came from the sky above.
Then, an evil, sinister, cold, nauseating terror aura descended from above, completely enveloped Tenrou Island, and even the entire sea!
"Hey, hey... no way..."
"If this is a dream, please... let me wake up now!"
"How is that possible?! Is Chase summoning something else?!"
"No. This kind of terrifyingly cold, evil aura... it absolutely couldn't be Chase!"
Everyone instinctively looked up. One glance, and their bodies began to tremble uncontrollably.
Following their terror-filled gazes, a rift in the abyss, spanning tens of thousands of square meters, had torn open the entire sky.
Like a shattered mirror, spatial fragments continuously fell from the edges of the abyss, reflecting bizarre lights in the sunset's afterglow.
Deep within, a red light flickered, as if an unimaginably vast shadow was swimming.
Accompanied by a sky-covering surge of black mist, the red light rapidly approached, instantly becoming as large as Tenrou Island itself.
That was...
The eye of some kind of being?!
Five giant eyes, engraved with extremely complex magical arrays, shot out from the abyssal rift one after another, hovering at different positions in the sky above Tenrou Island.
Endless black mist surged, condensed into five indescribably vast bodies, standing tall on the sea, blotting out the sun and sky.
Before them, Tenrou Island was as insignificant as a small boat!
"This scene... this image..." In Wendy's arms, Carla was pale, her mind blank.
Chase's blood-soaked back, dragons fighting under a crimson sky, massive black figures standing on the sea, their full forms impossible to see, a shattered, fragmented space... All the unease from her earlier vision had now become reality!
On the broken Tenrou Tree.
Mavis stared intently at one of the dark shadows.
Even in her spiritual form, she could clearly feel that despair yet familiar aura of death.
"The God of Taboo and Death..."
"Ankhseram... "
***
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