Lucy sucked in her breath deeply with her eyes closed, avoiding herself to look into those irritating eyes of Astreaus'. Her friends were right, he was trying to piss her off so he would have a reason to hurt her. She repeated a mantra inside her head and held the tree trunk besides her just for stability. With her anger rising up like this, she was bound to get uncontrolled. That was one thing about herself that she disliked, she was too emotional. God forbids for her to handle situations calmly for 12 minutes or more, she would snap too quickly. Ana had calmed herself down too, considering she rarely loses her temper, trying to dispel her rare outbursts could be a piece of work.

Lucy opened her eyes to see Astreaus wearing the grin she had always hated. His arm was pointing at her past Fairies and he fisted his arm. The sound of Wendy choking made Lucy snap her head at them, seeing the pentagrams below them. She took out a dagger and threw it at the pentagrams, her other traitors following her actions. The Fairies dropped to their knees and coughed, gasping for air desperately. Lucy glared at Astreaus in a way he never seen before and she casted her attack at him. A dagger made of light materialized and she quickly sent it to Astreaus' way. Ana gasped loudly as she watched Astreaus avoiding the dagger in a flash.

"Lucy! What have you do- AGH!" Ana yelled in pain as she held her hand that bear the Traitor's Mark.

Lucy was suffering the same thing, so were the other traitors.

"STOP! I WAS THE ONE THAT ATTACKED YOU, YOU BASTARD! LET IT BE ONLY ME, NOT MY FRIENDS!" She yelled in a desperate attempt to save her friends the pain she caused them.

"You know the rules, sweetie. If you have a band of traitors and one slips up, all of them taste my wrath." He barked out a laughter right after.

"FINE! THEN LET ME FEEL ALL OF THEIR PAIN AT ONCE! STOP THEIR SUFFERING!"

"NO! ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY? DO YOU WANT TO DIE EARLY!" Loy yelled out through his pain, holding his cheek.

"No, that's a good idea. Good thinking Heartfillia, smart as ever." He gave her a backhanded compliment and directed his hand at her.

Lucy screamed in pain while her traitors screamed in agony as they watched their friend writhe under the demon's wrath. She was angry for him hurting her precious loved ones, they begged of him to stop her suffering all at once. Loke gritted his teeth as his face contorted into a pained expression when he watched his dear friend bending down as she held on her chest. It was not only her chest that burned anymore, no, her whole body felt like it was burning. She was feeling 5 times worse than all of them and all they could do was crying for her.

The Fairies stared at her in incredible disbelief. Why did she saved them? Wasn't she the one that tried to hurt her own team two years ago for being weak? Was it because of the GMG? Did their reclaimed title as the strongest guild in Fiore made her regret all of it? They were sure as hell not letting her back into the guild, but right now she was actually in hell for them. Smoke was actually protruding from her trembling body, this was too much for her to handle.

"Alright, punishment time is up." Astreaus cheerfully stated and snapped his fingers.

Lucy stopped trembling and instead of getting back up, she fell off the branch. Loke left Gray's side and ran to catch her. Once Lucy fell into his arms, she couldn't have looked more... fragile. She was like glass in his arms. She looked like she was going to break if he made the wrong move and god did it hurt him when he saw the painful expression still lingering in her features, even though she was already unconscious from the tremendous torture she was put through. The girl he loved with all his heart was deathly pale and it frightened Loke how much of a corpse she was in his arms. His heart broke into two when she muttered a beg under her breath. Was she still hurt? Is the pain not gone yet? He begged for her to wake up and answer his questions but she only kept quiet with her eyes closed.

He buried his face into her and cried. He cried at his inability to help her while she was in great pain. He felt so useless watching her suffer all alone. He swore that he was gonna kill Astreaus, he was gonna help her send him to the deepest part of hell.

He was going to make sure he stayed in his hell hole for causing such pain for Lucy.

First it was forcing her to hurt her only family, then it was the incident when Lucy almost lost her arm, now this. This was the most unforgiveable thing yet.

Natsu stared at the Lion Spirit and his blonde owner. It was disturbing for Natsu. It looked like Loke was literally holding Lucy's corpse and grieving for her death. He hated Lucy for the thing she'd done to them but he never wished for her to die. Especially dying in front of them. She was still the girl that he held past memories of. The kind, sweet and weird Lucy Heartfillia. Even if she changed, he still held those dear memories of her and their time together when she was still their Lucy. His Lucy.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU ASTREAUS! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU WILL DIE!" Loy yelled out in a beastly way.

He was going to fulfil his own words if it wasn't for his younger brother holding him back begrudgingly.

Lèon wanted to send that damned ghost to hell too, so he was not going to kill him like his brother wanted. It was a damned ghost. It was already dead in the first place. But he decided not to insult his brother, Loy was uncontrollable when mad. Still, it seems like Astreaus couldn't pass by a good joke.

"Kill me? Boy, I'm already dead. Your idiocy couldn't amuse me more than Heartfillia's sufferings just now." Astreaus gave a him another crazed grin.

The Fairies' blood run cold. This ghost wouldn't even be considered a ghost in their books. He was a demon. Maybe the Devil Lord himself. Who would enjoy such ear piercing scream of a tortured soul? That's sick. It made their stomachs churned in an unpleasant way, it made them hurling the breakfast they just ate this morning. Was Lucy facing him all these time? He could be considered as one of the demons from Zeref's book. He was so inhumane for someone who was once humans like them.

"Look, as much as I want to linger around for any longer, I can't. I'm a busy ghost, I'm always productive by trying to create more new ways of torturing you. So for now, goodbye traitors and fairies, hope we would meet again soon." With his last snicker, he disappeared.

Some of the traitors fell on their knees, feeling drained from all that drama. Then they remembered about Lucy's condition so they looked over her in worry. How did she even survive that pain? How was she still alive. These were the questions that were running through both of the fairies and the traitors at the same time as they looked at the unconscious celestial mage. They were silent, the traitors silently grieving for their friend's pain that she had to go through all by herself. Then-

"Loke?" Her voice croaked out.

And he screamed her name in relief.