Juvia suddenly crossed her arms over her chest! All the water vapor surrounding her that hadn't dissipated was instantly sucked dry and condensed!
Her body, in the nick of time, seemed to transform into deep blue liquid amber, flowing with a life-like luster!
This wasn't pure magical protection, but her 'Water Element Affinity' instinct-driven, water-integrated evasive form!
"Boom—!!!"
The dark ray, powerful enough to pierce the stone walls of a castle, violently impacted the center of Juvia's liquefied body!
A piercing sound of energy annihilation rang out!
Deep blue water light and murky darkness fiercely clashed, eroding each other!
Juvia's liquefied body was like a water balloon struck hard by a heavy hammer, violently deforming, boiling, and evaporating! Blood mixed with the vaporized water element instantly splattered!
"Ah—!"
A stifled, painful groan, impossible to suppress, escaped Juvia's lips!
How terrifying was Jose's furious strike!
Even though she used her innate constitution to withstand it and elementalized to weaken most of the physical impact, the terrifying dark magic erosion that came with it still left a dreadful wound on her soul and body!
Excruciating pain instantly swept through her entire body!
But Juvia's grey-blue eyes burst forth with an unprecedented bright light!
Now is the time!
Using that terrifying impact force, Juvia, whose body hadn't fully solidified, was like a water bullet that had been fiercely flung, its elasticity and resilience pushed to the limit, directly shattering the sturdy arched stone window!
Broken stones and wood splinters gushed out with her into the empty night sky outside the castle!
"Stop her! Kill her!!!" Jose's furious, exasperated shriek came from inside the castle!
"Storm—Barrier Strangle!" Aria reacted the fastest, instantly appearing at the edge of the broken window, violently waving both hands forward!
The invisible wind, like countless high-speed rotating sharp blades, instantly condensed into a giant, rapidly shrinking net of death, cutting through the air, and lightning-fast, covered Juvia's figure, who had just fallen from the castle and was still in mid-air!
Its scope was so vast, its speed so quick, it gave the heavily injured Juvia no chance to dodge at all!
At the same time, Tutu Maru's figure also appeared ghost-like beside Aria, seemingly eager to show off or to avenge his teacher's resentment.
His face, which always carried a playful smile, was now filled with 'fury'!
"Damned traitor! Pay the price for your foolishness!"
He drew his sword!
"Fire Element Slash · Crimson Lotus Karmic Fire Slash!"
Accompanied by an angry shout, scorching fire-attribute magic violently poured into the crimson long-handled katana at his waist!
The blade instantly turned red-hot, as if just taken from a forge!
A crimson flame sword energy, about ten feet long and condensed to the extreme, carrying the scorching roar of burning air and a sharp whistling sound, like an enraged red dragon, struck later but arrived first, fiercely slashing at Juvia's defenseless back in mid-air!
With this strike, Tutu Maru gave his 'all'!
In front was Aria's compressed air, a storm barrier capable of grinding metal into dust, and behind was Tutu Maru's lightning-fast, lethally hot flame slash!
Heavily injured and suspended in mid-air with nowhere to leverage herself, Juvia, to anyone, seemed to be in an inescapable death trap!
At the castle window, Sol's eyes were wide, Aria's hands maintaining the magic without slackening.
The shadow of death instantly descended!
The flame sword energy, carrying the aura of annihilation, fiercely struck Juvia's back!
"Ugh—!" The intense pain made Juvia's vision go black!
She could clearly feel the scorching sword energy tearing through her already severely damaged defensive water flow and clothing, cutting through her flesh, the terrifying high temperature scorching her nerves and bones!
However!
Amidst this tearing pain, a powerful thrust, strong enough to push her body violently forward and completely beyond what she could endure in her heavily injured state, without warning, was wrapped within the violent flame sword energy, fiercely impacting her body!
This power...!
Juvia instantly understood!
That seemingly fatal strike, beneath its scorching appearance, actually hid a powerful, extremely clever, pure impact force!
It wasn't to kill her! It was... pushing her!
The burning pain from the flame sword energy was a real injury, but this impact force became her... glimmer of hope before Aria's deadly wind blades closed in!
Right at this moment!
"Boom—!!!"
Juvia's body, like a baseball hit for a home run, was accelerated by this powerful thrust, completely changing her falling trajectory, barely scraping past the very bottom edge of the invisible, high-speed rotating cutting wind net!
A few strands of hair, swept by the edge of the wind blades, snapped!
Splash!
Almost brushing the edge of death, Juvia, with a charred wound on her back, deep enough to expose bone and still burning with residual flames, plunged headfirst into the turbulent, dark seawater dozens of meters below the castle!
The huge splash that erupted where she entered the water was instantly churned into a spray of mist by Aria's subsequent surging wind blades!
"Damn it! She got away!" Aria's voice carried a hint of surprise and unwilling anger; he scanned the churning sea with sharp eyes, trying to catch sight of his target.
Tutu Maru stood beside Aria, his sword already sheathed.
The 'fury' on his face instantly vanished, replaced by his usual lazy smile, even with a hint of an almost imperceptible playfulness; he looked at the still-churning sea, as if that all-out strike had exhausted his strength, and shrugged: "Oh dear... how cunning, she used the water element to escape. The sea is so vast, Guild Master, are we still pursuing her?"
A very subtle hint of relief and ease flashed in the depths of his eyes.
Jose's almost insane roar came from inside the castle: "Useless! All of you are useless! Find her! I want her to suffer worse than death! Block the coast! She must not leave alive!!!"
The cold, salty seawater instantly overwhelmed all of Juvia's senses.
The bone-chilling cold intertwined with the burning pain on her back, almost causing her to faint instantly.
Salty seawater poured into her mouth and nose, choking her lungs, bringing a suffocating pain.
However, the moment she touched the seawater, the dormant instinct in her bloodline was completely awakened!
A familiar, intimate, yet boundless power gently but firmly enveloped her.
That wasn't the power of magic; it was a part of her life's essence!
She didn't even have the strength to look back at the jagged castle cliff.
Tutu Maru's last complex and blurry gaze was imprinted deep in her mind, carrying a question, but she couldn't afford to delve into it.
No... I can't faint now!
The enormous impact pushed her several meters deep into the ocean.
Aria's storm was still raging on the surface of the sea, emitting a muffled roar.
Juvia endured the dual pain of soul and body, summoning her last shred of clear consciousness.
"Water flow... Assimilation!"
Her body was no longer a passive receptacle for damage, but truly, completely merged with this vast ocean!
Her deep blue long hair drifted like seaweed, the boundary between her body and clothes completely disappeared, transforming into a rapidly flowing, dark current merging into the deep sea.
The grotesque wound on her back, soaked in the icy seawater and in an elementalized state, no longer gushed blood, but spread a small patch of faint red in the water like ink, which was then quickly diluted and swallowed by the endless sea.
The wound still existed, but this was the ocean!
It was the birthplace of water elements, and now it was also the only home that could shelter her—Juvia, the Rain Woman!
She plunged deeply, desperately, towards deeper, darker, and more turbulent currents.
The last ray of crimson moonlight cast from the surface of the sea reflected her final figure as she sank into the deep sea.
Her consciousness in the cold darkness was like a flickering candle in the wind, wavering precariously.
The lonely oppression of those long, gray years, Jose's grotesque face and roars, Tutu Maru's incomprehensible gaze... all quickly blurred, faded, and were swallowed by the boundless ocean tide.
Only one incredibly strong thought supported her shattered body and disintegrating will:
Free.
Escaped.
Survive... Must survive... Live... to see the clear sky outside... Those once dead grey-blue eyes, before being completely swallowed by darkness, seemed... to flash with a faint light.
It was the exhaustion of surviving a catastrophe, the real feeling of having escaped Jose's shadow, and an intense, even unfamiliar yet remarkably real longing—a pure longing for sunlight.
She didn't even realize that before transforming into water, the corners of her lips seemed to curve upward ever so slightly, like a silent farewell before sinking and... a faint yet stubborn hope for an unknown clear sky.
------------------------
I've posted 70+ chapters in advance on Patreon.
Webnovel updates will still be daily, as usual.
It might not seem tempting right nobut who knows what the future holds?
[email protected]/TripleCrown
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"