Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 65: The Towering & Solemn Spectral Tower! Lucy & Sting vs. Hatankyō & Yūrei! Spiritual Flames & Incenses! Stormy & Frigid Fury With Brightness!
As Lucy and Sting sensed high levels of magical power coming from the direction where the Wine Woods had been located, Lucy looked worried about Kūkiatsu. She recalled that Nioi had given him a prediction about his fate, claiming that it would be perilous, and the energy from a powerful spell pertaining to Wind Magic had been sensed by multiple mages in this area. That wasn't the final spell, however, and Lucy had sensed that Kusabue's Sound Magic delivered the final blow to one of her enemies.
However, she started to look concerned at how she could only sense the general direction of Kusabue's magical power while Kūkiatsu's magical power seemingly vanished. It seemed like his signal vanished from a radar, as Lucy couldn't even detect where the green-haired teenager currently was in the Wine Woods. That caused Lucy to have a bad feeling about this strategy, as she didn't foresee that any of her friends would possibly perish on this mission, and the breeze of wind that blew past the group had a mint green aura within it.
Sting also took notice of that aura, prompting him to simply frown in a manner that displayed frustration and shock. He sniffed that air for a moment, realizing that the magic belonged to Kūkiatsu, but there was also the unfortunate situation of not being able to hear the wind-wielding wizard's voice anymore. Sting's enhanced hearing couldn't even pick up on a heartbeat from Kūkiatsu, which sadly informed him that the young man was now dead. Kūkiatsu didn't even get mentored by Sting on how a guild war was different than an ordinary mission, and this circumstance only made Sting narrow his eyes.
He felt a sense of displeasure at the fact that his group of friends had to deal with an actual war between Sabertooth and Hexing Enchantress, and guild wars usually resulted in some guilds having their mages end up being deceased. In Sting's opinion, Kūkiatsu was an analytical and brave wizard who probably thought that his high level of intelligence could help him deal with battles during his hobby of researching the plants of Gunjou. However, fate didn't display much kindness to him and Kusabue today. Upon hearing Kusabue's voice earlier, Sting looked serious as he turned to face Lucy.
"After we're finished with fighting the commanders in the Spectral Tower, we need to check on Kusabue." Sting told Lucy with a stern facial expression, hoping that no one would try to kill her during any moments of grieving.
That prompted Lucy to reply with a worried facial expression, as she started to think about Kusabue's mental state, "Yeah, we'll have to see if she's in shock or severely traumatized by Kūkiatsu's death. If she doesn't want to come back to Gunjou, then she can stay at the guild tomorrow."
"I really hope that the dark goddess will show compassion to Kūkiatsu. Without him, two layers of dark magic wouldn't have faded away." Miko commented in a worried and barely optimistic manner, having her hands in a praying stance as she closed her eyes.
Lucy looked curious about Miko's last sentence, and she took a few steps back from the Spectral Tower for the purpose of looking over to the path on the left. On that particular path, the northern path seemed to strangely reveal more of its buildings that were seemingly invisible before. They were actually concealed by the Darkness Magic that had been wielded by Ayame and Tsuki using their dark magic to manipulate the appearance of the street. By making it look busy with no mages acting suspicious, no one would've been able to see past the illusion to find out that there were mages standing near the still-guarded checkpoint gates that were in different shades of purple. In order to make those mages leave the area, it seemed like they would just flee if their top commanders were taken down.
Therefore, Lucy walked back to the Spectral Tower and took notice of the grape purple building. Glancing up at all of its lavender-colored windows for a moment allowed Lucy to see that the windows were shaped like round ghosts that had menacing-looking eyes with jagged mouths, and the window paneling bordering the glass was in a regular hue of purple. There was a violet orb at the very top of the tower, and Lucy could see that it was connected to the large satellite dish that had been in a grape shade of purple.
Getting to the top of the tower was Lucy's priority right now, and she wasted no time with making the light blue aura of Ice Magic surround her feet. Lucy ran at faster levels of speed to quickly enter the first floor of the tower, seeing that it was a room with grape purple square tiles that had the designs of lavender purple orbs on them, and there were two large tombstones on the left and right sides of the room. The tombstone on the left was in a grape purple color, and the tombstone on the right was plum purple.
Lucy asked aloud with a curious facial expression while Sting and Miko walked into the room, "Whose deaths were so tragic to where their tombstones had to be here?"
Upon walking up to the plum purple tombstone, Miko replied with a concerned look on her face, "Some of Maruberiki's soldiers must have recently created these large tombstones, since they weren't constructed at a previous point in time."
As Sting heard some footsteps make hollow waves of sound be transmitted from the upper floor to this lower ceiling, he calmly and quietly told his friends, "Well, we need to explore this tower while keeping our voices down."
Lucy and Miko both nodded in agreement, but Miko quickly found herself stepping back to avoid what seemed like a light plum purple hand transparently emerging through the tombstone. She proceeded to build up a high amount of magical power for a violet aura to surround her body, but the hand showed its palm in a stunned manner from touching Miko's aura. It didn't seem like the spell or the wizard casting it could absorb shades of Darkness Magic that differed from their own, evidenced by how the ghostly hand was now set ablaze.
The ghostly hand started to melt down into puddles of plum purple goop, prompting Lucy to unleash the spell known as Ice Snowflake. Lucy shot out a sky blue snowflake from her mouth, and it struck the ground to create a rectangular slab of sky blue ice. Lucy watched the ice attempt to freeze the plum purple puddles, only to see them become transparent, and that simply made Lucy analyze the ghostly effects of this spell in a manner similar to analyses that would be conducted by Kūkiatsu. The puddles didn't contain any fire, evidenced by the ice not melting, and they started to pass through the ice at a slower rate than when the hand emerged from the tombstone.
That made Lucy look a bit curious about the spell, but she chose to ignore it for now. She shifted her focus over to the grape purple stairs, which were accompanied by elegant plum purple railings that contained the designs of plum purple flowers bordering tombstones, and the railings looked very sturdy. That prompted Lucy to hastily run to the railings with a happy smile on her face, and her friends were right behind her. Miko looked slightly optimistic while Sting started to smile in a confident manner, and the guild master of Sabertooth felt that he and Lucy would be able to deal with the enemies that were upstairs.
When Lucy reached the second floor with Sting and Miko, the three wizards noticed that the plum purple tombstones were arranged in a way that made them form a small maze. Anyone who arrived at this floor would have to walk straight towards the other side of the floor, which had orchid purple walls, and they would need to make a left turn. After making that left turn, Lucy and her friends would need to go down the path to the far left and they would need to make another left turn. This path actually led to the stairs, instead of the closer left path that led to a white vase containing plum purple roses.
Lucy took notice of how the plum purple roses were interestingly the only source of light in this room, as their slight amount of brightness made some thin purple beams of light reflect off of the tombstones. That prompted Lucy to silently make a hand motion for Sting and Miko to follow her, but they soon heard the sounds of footsteps in this mostly dim room. The footsteps belonged to women who all had plum purple hair that reached down to their hips, and they all wore dark plum purple robes with violet headbands to match.
These women also carried plum purple Gohei, which were wooden wands that had two zigzagging paper streamers bordering them, and they seemed to just be turning to look in different directions. Lucy passed by the first row of tombstones, preparing to activate a spell of Ice Magic as she made eye contact with one of the priestesses who smiled kindly during her moments of channeling the spirits of deceased mages. She had a kind look in her orchid purple eyes, only for her eyes to roll backwards and suddenly leave behind her dark plum purple irises as her mouth formed a sadistic grin.
She proceeded to create a plum purple flame in her left hand, only for the spiritual priestess herself to loudly groan in agony while placing her hands on her head. She seemed to be trying to take back who had control over her mind, not wanting to be possessed by a malicious spirit, and she ended up throwing the plum purple flame at a tombstone after trying to weaken its amount of Darkness Magic. The somewhat smaller flame created a minor explosion, only making that grave have a small amount of fire burning on it, and the woman's eyes only returned for a few seconds before the evil spirit took control again. As her hands slashed at her own headband to tear it off, Lucy stepped back in an unsettled manner from seeing the symbol on her forehead.
"What is that?!" Lucy asked in a worried manner, staying still as her eyes displayed shock at a glowing plum purple hexagon with the letter 'S' protruding outward from each corner.
The woman evilly stated in a disturbing tone, her pupil-less irises and mouth expressing viciousness, "Give... me... your... blood..."
Sting responded in a stern manner, getting in front of Lucy while white light engulfed his fists, "You'll see blood, but it'll be emerging from your mouth!"
The light dragon slayer quickly lunged at the woman, before aggressively striking her in the face with his right fist, and Sting hit her in the stomach with his left fist. Sting could hear that last punch damaging the woman internally, and she coughed up some blood. The impact of the punch sent her crashing into some tombstones, causing Sting to smile confidently. However, he soon looked shocked from seeing her start to easily stand back up. She only sustained minor injuries with hardly any bruises on her robe, and the spiritual priestess started running towards him in a scared manner while seemingly feeling pain from the mark on her forehead.
The mark on her forehead started to have a plum purple aura emerging from it, the aura spreading across her forehead, and the woman merely screamed in pain. She continued holding her head, before making four plum purple spheres appear in her right hand, and they all quickly fused together for the purpose of creating a much larger attack. Sting wasted no time with unleashing his attack known as White Dragon's Roar, and he shot out a white beam of light from his mouth. Sting's bright attack surprisingly made a plum purple shadow leap out from his opponent's spell, and the remaining sphere instantly detonated in the woman's hand!
She was quickly engulfed in a plum purple blast, which had the recent shadow quickly crawl into it. The woman's voice could be heard screaming in pain while the shadow itself started to take the shape of several shadowy and feminine hands with long nails, and Lucy started to look horrified at what was happening. Those hands started to pass through the spirit channeler, before they were engulfed in a plum purple aura, and they seemed to be extracting all of her magical power. She began to frown in a manner of despair while looking fatigued, before all of the hands slammed against her to create more plum purple blasts.
Upon seeing herself and her friends get drenched with what seemed like purple splatters of paint, Lucy asked in a somewhat terrified manner, "Is it... Is it over?"
The woman's voice responded in a hollow manner, her eyes having no pupils as the plum purple smoke cleared up to reveal that her damaged husk was now standing, "There wasn't any pain. Women who cannot handle being possessed are eliminated with more force than necessary, and my magic made her blood have such a lovely color."
Sting asked in a curious manner, seeing the symbol fade away from the woman's forehead as the plum purple aura left her body, "What's going on?"
Without another word, the woman's body simply fell forward for her to roughly hit the ground. She didn't even move her arms or her legs, only letting the Sabertooth mages see that she was badly bruised and had bloody wounds after trying to battle against that evil spirit. The plum purple aura simply passed through some tombstones at a rapid pace, before heading upstairs to the next floor. That prompted Sting to chase after it, wondering if the warlocks and witches who guarded the Spectral Tower were responsible for making spiritualist mediums be possessed.
They didn't seem to be experts at their jobs, as they were only supposed to let themselves get taken over by spirits that wouldn't end their lives, and the mages who had more passion in their Darkness Magic could easily defend themselves against malicious spirits. Lucy started to regain her composure while wondering if having the ring pertinent to Darkness Magic would allow her to physically see all of the spirits that floated around in the Spectral Tower, and thinking about that ghostly hand from earlier made Lucy start to have an idea.
She guided Miko to the staircase while thinking about how her Ice Magic could melt down into water as time passed, which would allow Lucy to access her Water Magic. She softly smiled at the thought of being able to freeze ghostly spirits with spells centering around Ice Magic, and making them be affected by semi-tangible magic would allow Lucy to punch those ghosts by making Water Magic engulf her fists. If Lucy made any ghosts upstairs have an ice-covered body, then they could likely be hit by some spells that involved scalding hot water.
The third floor of the tower featured four of the spiritualist mediums standing around a ring of plum purple spirits that took the form of ghostly flames, and all of the spiritualist mediums were letting themselves get possessed by different spirits. The flames would lunge at them, before coating them in the flames of Darkness Magic, but that fire soon shifted into being a plum purple aura. Each aura that engulfed a spirit channeler strengthened their dark magic, but it came with the side effect of them having pupil-less eyes.
Their eyes displayed no emotion, not even feelings of malice, but that still prompted Lucy to be brave. She closely examined their eyes, noticing that these spiritualist mediums were different from the ones on the floor below them. These women all had dark purple circles under their eyes, which symbolized that they were experiencing insomnia. Even the slightest attempt at falling asleep would make one of the possessed mediums unleash a spell of Darkness Magic, and they briefly regained consciousness as Lucy ran towards them.
They unfortunately started to feel their eyes become heavy, their bodies immensely desiring to sleep, and their last sight of Lucy was her remaining stern as she noticed that the next staircase was directly behind the women. As one of them became possessed and fired a spell called Plum Whip from her left hand, Lucy wasted no time with activating the Ice Snowflake spell, and she shot out a snowflake from her mouth. She aimed it at the ground, creating a rectangular slab of ice, and Lucy unleashed the spell two more times.
She made the snowflakes fall on to the ring of remaining flames, making them be floating over two slabs of ice that were right next to each other. However, the spiritualist mediums all began to laugh at the sight of the ice beginning to melt at a quick rate. As puddles of water began to form, Lucy took notice of how the spirit channeler who activated the Plum Whip spell made a plum purple whip emerge from her right palm. That whip surprisingly just hit the first slab of ice that Lucy created, causing a plum purple explosion, but the explosion didn't spread outward as its heat was focused on the ice.
Lucy told that spiritualist medium with a confident facial expression, seeing the ice create a puddle of hot water, "Well, that's just what I wanted!"
Miko asked aloud with a confused look on her face, observing the light blue puddle, "What?"
Lucy decided to switch to the tactic of using her Water Magic, and she activated the spell called Aquatic Admiral Blue Rotation. Lucy aimed her left hand down at the light blue puddle of water. Moving her hand around in a clockwise direction at rapid speeds made the puddle's water spin in the same direction with a high amount of speed, and Lucy watched a light blue twister of water emerge from the puddle. The twister became admiral blue, and Lucy aimed her left hand at it. As a sapphire blue aura engulfed her hand and the rest of her body, Lucy watched some admiral blue bubbles rise up from the twister. and keeping her hand directed at the attack caused the bubbles to float towards her.
Lucy immediately made her right hand move in the counterclockwise direction, causing all of the bubbles to form a ring. That ring of bubbles went back to the twister, but Lucy quickly clenched both of her fists in an aggressive manner during the moment where the twister started to become sapphire blue. Lucy's attack was only strong enough to where it exploded for the purpose of making five sapphire blue beams rain down upon this room, and all of the beams were about to strike the floor to create admiral blue blasts that became sapphire blue at the last moment.
However, Lucy wasted no time with quickly using the Ice Snowflake Spell for the purpose of shooting out light blue snowflakes that would intercept those beams. When the snowflakes struck her sapphire blue beams, Lucy watched her water-based attacks start to become coated in ice as they hit the ground. The blasts were in an admiral shade of blue, before turning sapphire blue, and they briefly changed to being light blue. Although, this makeshift fusion spell resulted in the blasts taking the form of large icy domes that were light blue.
Upon feeling the temperature of this room sharply decrease, one of the possessed priestesses wondered in a startled manner, "Why is she making the air so cold? Is she actually an ice-loving ghost that's also possessing someone?!"
That prompted the most arrogant spirit within a priestess to harshly state, "Well, I can still defeat her! Plum Nightmare Wave!"
Lucy shouted fiercely while the sapphire blue aura still engulfed her body, looking determined in her moment of running up to a dome, "Actually, you may be spooked that you can't win!"
That ghostly-sounding princess soon looked just as surprised as Miko from seeing Lucy lift up an icy dome with both of her hands, and the green-haired girl threw it up towards the sky. Lucy wasted no time with immediately sending Ice Magic in her feet, allowing her to quickly get back. The arrogant spirit made a plum purple aura heavily surround the body of the priestess, before making it all be molded into a large orb that was in front of her stomach. The orb proceeded to burst, sending out plum purple waves of energy.
Lucy immediately dodged them by jumping up high towards the ceiling, and she looked down for a moment to see the opponent's energy waves create plum purple blasts that were quite large. The plum purple waves destroyed the remaining domes of ice, which had been making high amounts of light blue frost emerge from them, and Lucy watched the frost spread through the room while it began to cover all of the tombstones that were lined up against the back wall. Upon seeing the walls start to become as frozen as the floor, Lucy glanced upward to see a thick cloud of frost that she could use to her advantage.
The sheer sight of the frost cloud caused Lucy to confidently smile, and she activated the spell called Freezing Snowfall. That spell made several light blue beams of Ice Magic come down from the frost cloud, and their levels of power were immensely increased by the intense amount of icy energy in this room. The six light blue blasts that occurred were all layered on top of each other, before the icy winds heavily spun outward, and Lucy watched this floor of the tower become coated in more ice. She quickly fell down to the ground on purpose while making the sapphire blue aura of Water Magic primarily be focused into her hands, and Lucy slammed her hands down on to the ice for the purpose of changing it all into water.
That caused a large amount of water to fill the room, the priestesses becoming soaked and drowning after they had been frozen. Lucy gathered up a large amount of water into her hands, before making two large vortexes of sapphire blue water be focused into staying steadily on her palms. Lucy prepared to attack the priestesses, but their bodies were numb while they appeared to slowly lose consciousness. The plum purple auras began to leave their bodies, before moving incredibly slow from the extremely cold temperature, and that gave Miko a chance to run towards the stairs that had been behind Lucy. Lucy watched Sting quickly run towards her with a proud smile on his face, and they both confidently followed Miko up to the fourth floor.
When Lucy and Sting ascended up to the fourth floor with Miko, they noticed that the room for this floor contained several grape purple tombstones that were upright. The rectangular slabs had the names of deceased mages on them while the slabs were quietly being observed by some civilians who lived in the town of Gunjou, and some people even had their eyes closed as they whispered kind prayers. Miko also stopped for a moment to put her hands in a praying stance, closing her eyes as she hoped that the spirits on this floor could peacefully rest.
That prompted Lucy to make the light blue aura for Ice Magic engulf her hands, making the large vortexes of water become spiraled statues of ice. The statues of ice emitted large amounts of frost, effectively cooling down this room, and Lucy looked up for a moment to see a grape purple aura floating overhead. That aura itself contained many souls of Gunjou's previous residents, but the cold air made them slowly move around within the aura. They seemed to be restricted to the aura, unable to break away from it.
Those souls were trapped in the aura by a possessed priestess who had the exact same mark on her forehead as the priestess who was on the second floor, but the main difference was that this woman carried a scepter for hexes. She sent her Darkness Magic into the scepter as she saw Lucy, and the woman fired a spell known as Grape Goop Hex. Lucy attempted to block that hex by stretching out her arms in front of her body, hoping that the frost would freeze that woman, but the hex made her vortexes of ice become grape purple.
They immediately melted down into a large amount of grape purple water, which quickly made Lucy activate the spell known as Sapphire Wave Slash. This spell made a sapphire blue aura heavily engulf Lucy's hands during the same moment where she aggressively slammed them into the water, which was becoming grape purple sludge, and the aura protected Lucy's hands from getting burnt by the goop that was steaming hot like it had acidic qualities. After a few seconds, Lucy felt some sapphire blue bubbles slowly emerge from her hands. They were stuck to her palms, before Lucy crushed them in her fists. She removed her hands from the goop, only to see her hands be transformed into large sapphire blue claws that emitted hot steam as if they took on the sludge's properties.
"Wow, this spell can have its properties vary from my hands touching different kinds of liquid?" Lucy asked aloud, looking curious at how this spell was now working differently than when it was used in the tundra.
The possessed priestess responded with a cocky facial expression, as her eyes were filled with malice, "That's an interesting spell, but it won't do you any good in a long-range fight."
Lucy replied with an irked facial expression, "We'll just see about that, you evil spirit!"
Lucy raised her right claw high into the air, before slamming it down against the sludge, and Lucy infused a high amount of magical power into her attack to where it made large ripples of sapphire blue water appear in the goop. The muck itself began to change into being sapphire blue, and the muck had sapphire blue waves rising up from it while the waves were almost as large as tsunamis. Lucy watched the tsunamis go towards the priestess while the muck itself changed back into being a large puddle of water, and some of the waves crashed into the tombstones!
The grape purple tombstones became sapphire blue, before detonating in sapphire blue blasts, and that prompted Lucy to swing her arms forward for the purpose of making more water go towards those blasts. She watched those waves of water turn into a plentiful amount of sapphire blue bubbles, but none of the waves reached far enough to hit the possessed priestess. That woman proceeded to activate a spell called Grape Hex Confusion, and the grape purple orb of her scepter began to brightly shine with grape purple beams of light being emitted from it.
This hex was meant to affect Lucy, but the range of the spirit channeler's staff only allowed the hex to affect the bubbles. Lucy's projectiles were all now bouncing around the room in an unstable manner, even being disobedient when she stretched out her hands in an attempt at reeling them in. Upon seeing some of the bubbles bounce off some of the tombstones to possibly explode when they would hit Miko, Lucy wasted no time with applying Water Magic to her feet. She quickly got in front of Miko, before activating Sapphire Wave Slash again.
As Lucy slammed her hands against seven of the bubbles to see them shoot out large beams of sapphire blue water, she thought to herself with a confident smile appearing on her face, "Well, it looks like small amounts of water can also be beneficial for this spell."
The spirit possessing the priestess spoke aloud, looking bewildered as the beams of water grew significantly larger from absorbing bubbles that were in their way, "What?!"
The massive beams of water contained such a high level of Water Magic to where the bubbles that bounced into them only got engulfed very easily, and they just kept growing in size. The bubbles that hadn't even grazed them were starting to shine in a sapphire blue color, having done this in the same moment where Lucy's claws were shimmering in the sapphire shade of blue, and those bubbles unleashed large tsunamis that were directed at the beams. Lucy's attempt to regain control of the spell seemingly led to it regaining control of itself, almost like the Water Magic was obeying its master's newest attempt to make the water carry out her commands.
As the tsunamis merged with the beams and made them all grow to a tremendous size, the evil spirit within the priestess chose to cowardly take the form of a grape purple aura that exited her body. However, they were both engulfed by the tremendous sapphire blue blasts that occurred! The seven sapphire blue explosions aggressively shook the room of this tower, causing the civilians to quickly run to the previous floor, and several of the tombstones started to fall forward. They created some seismic waves that nearly made Sting lose his balance, but he managed to look up and see that the grape purple aura started to descend from the sky instead of swirling overhead.
That occurred in the same moment where Sting heard the orb and the scepter of the priestess break apart, and the blasts faded away. The sapphire blue smoke also faded away to reveal that the priestess was now dead, along with being heavily bloodied and bruised. The spirits in this room began to go back into their respective tombstones, including the broken ones, and the evil spirit itself went up to the next floor. That prompted Lucy to run through the large pool of water that now filled this room, looking stern as she didn't want that spirit to harm anyone else's body, and she quickly reached the stairs that were at the back of this room. She went up the stairs with Sting and Miko hurriedly trying to catch up with her, and Lucy also wondered about what was on the fifth floor.
Arriving at the fifth floor allowed Lucy, Sting, and Miko to see this room contained small tombstones that were in a grape shade of purple. The tombstones almost formed a square in the center of the room, only lacking two tombstones. That provided an opening for people such as the four priestesses who were standing in that square, and they stood on the corners of it while there appeared to be a light purple design on the floor around them. The design involved the upper triangle pointing downward while the lower triangle pointed upward, and there were circles around the corners of the triangles.
The triangles also had the 'S' symbols in them, almost like spirits were within that space, but the design on the floor interestingly seemed to entirely be formed from a light purple aura. That aura had been created from the spiritualist mediums fusing their different hues of purple Darkness Magic together, and the spell that they managed to create was known as Dark Ritual Revitalization. Miko started to have a calm smile on her face from recognizing the spell, even though Lucy and Sting both looked very uneasy about the priestesses.
Miko purposely applied a large amount of Darkness Magic to her feet, making the purple aura surround her legs, and she hurriedly ran towards the dark magic's design. Miko quickly got herself within the square, and she was engulfed in a light purple aura. That dark magic began to heal her legs, making them not even seem tense from running so fast in such a short duration of time, and Miko's body was fully healed. That caused her to smile in a joyful manner, before politely bowing her head towards the only priestess who wielded a grape purple scepter instead of conjuring up magic through her hands.
She nicely smiled back at Miko while the light purple spirits that floated into the square began to joyfully laugh, showing that the spell also purified the souls of deceased mages who were on this floor of the Spectral Tower. Lucy began to look up at the ceiling, realizing that every time her group went up a floor would be taking them closer to the warlocks or witches who were in charge of this place. Lucy narrowed her eyes in a serious manner while running past Miko, going into the dark magic, and she felt her body be revitalized. Lucy's magical power was also fully restored, too.
"Sting, you should also restore your magical power." Lucy kindly told her boyfriend, as a calm smile appeared on her face.
The light dragon slayer replied in a confident tone, as his ears heard the sound of someone moving their hands down through the upper floor to reach this floor's ceiling, "I didn't use up too much energy, but I still need to at least let you see the awesome sight of a dragon slayer taking down a ghost."
He quickly went into the square, feeling his magical power fully be revitalized, and Sting gently jumped over some gravestones. The loud sound of his jump made the ghostly hand from earlier reach down through the ceiling to fire a plum purple beam at the spot where Sting was now standing, but the blue-eyed male quickly slid to his left. Sting evaded the attack, watching it create a plum purple blast, and he watched the ghostly hand start to be motionless. It didn't seem to change where it would fire the attacks, as the ghostly palm was positioned down towards Sting, and he glanced over at the stairs.
That prompted Sting to quickly run towards the stairs, which resulted in the ghostly hand firing a spell down at him. Sting quickly veered off to his left, avoiding the spell known as Plum Dark Disc. That spell was living up to its name by being a plum purple disk of Darkness Magic, and the spell had dark plum purple glitter coming off of it while spinning. Sting attempted to viciously strike the spell with his White Dragon's Roar attack, but putting vicious thoughts into that attack caused the plum purple disc to glow brighter like it gained more power from absorbing harmful thoughts.
This disc was immediately struck by a plum purple beam coming down from the ceiling, and that beam contained the caster's angry thoughts. Taking in negative energy strengthened the dark magic of the disc, making it become much larger and faster. The fact that the spell was strengthened only made Sting start to feel happy about retaliating against the caster's attack, and he began to laugh as he fired several white beams of light from his fingertips. This was a small little spell called White Dragon's Light Shrapnel, but it definitely had a significant effect.
Upon seeing the small beams hit the disc and make it detonate in a large plum purple blast, Sting stated with a confident smile on his face, "Well, it looks like that mage's spell doesn't absorb positive feelings."
"On top of that, my spell might be able to confound them." Sting continued, his eyes looking pleased at how his beams of light exploded in white blasts that grew larger from the thick rays of plum purple light touching them.
As Sting heard his large attacks create significant amounts of noise, he glanced up at the ceiling for a moment to see the ghostly hand start to fire five more plum purple discs down at the areas of the floor where the blasts were coming from. Sting watched the plum purple discs quickly be struck by a plum purple aura, followed by a second ghostly hand's grape purple aura coming down from the ceiling, and the auras contained high amounts of negative energy that made the room feel much colder.
It almost seemed like those mages were sending evil spirits down into those discs, as they just kept sending down their auras of Darkness Magic, and the discs all began to massively grow in size. Their levels of speed also increased, but Sting joyfully unleashed attacks such as Light Conversion. That spell made a white aura engulf his hands, and Sting aimed them all at the discs. He watched his hands gather up the shadows of discs, which looked like white silhouettes, and Sting absorbed their large amounts of energy before he fired ten thin beams of light from his fingertips.
The beams struck the discs, causing them to turn black like shadows, and the discs proceeded to implode with white bursts of light destroying them from the inside. Sting briefly went into the purified space of dark magic while Lucy ran towards the stairs with Miko, and everyone's footsteps were concealed by the sounds of light violently bursting. That allowed Sting to quickly get himself healed, before hurriedly running towards the stairs. In fact, Sting chose to go up the stairs before Lucy as a way of officially fighting back against the mages who had been firing their most recent spells at him.
As soon as they ascended to the next floor, Sting and Lucy narrowed their eyes in a serious manner from seeing a man with grape purple hair standing next to his partner. She wore a royal plum purple dress that had light plum purple stripes going across the bottom of it, and this lady appeared to be in her early thirties. She had plum purple eyes that matched her dark plum purple hair, which flowed down to her hips, and the hips of her dress contained plum-colored chrysanthemums on them. The chrysanthemums were also on the sides of her cowgirl boots that were in a regular hue of purple, and the topmost areas of the boots had plum purple dots on them in the formation of a circle.
They were different from the shoes worn by the male wizard, as he wore grape purple leather boots with the designs of evil-looking blackberry purple round ghosts on the fronts of them. His grape purple earrings were also in the shape of round ghosts, and he wore a grape purple blazer with a royal purple dress shirt underneath it. He also wore a grape purple ring on the ring finger of his right hand while the ring itself appeared to have been crafted from grape purple crystals, and the ring had a royal purple gem on one end of it.
Although, the sight of that ring and its gem only made Lucy have a displeased look appearing on her face from how she noticed that the accessory had a flaw. When the man moved his hand for the gem to be under the light, the royal purple gem instantly changed to being grape purple as if the moonlight was trying to shine light on how this man wore a ring with a fake gem. He seemed like someone who was forcing himself to act like a member of Gunjou's royal government, even though there was never any announcement from Maruberiki about a top commander seizing Gunjou's throne.
This commander's partner certainly looked like a queen, smirking arrogantly at she narrowed her eyes at the Sabertooth mages. Lucy and Sting watched this woman make a plum purple aura engulf her hands, sensing a high level of Darkness Magic coming from the aura. She was about to unleash a spell, but Lucy struck first by unleashing the Ice Snowflake attack from her mouth. She aimed it down at the floor, causing the light blue snowflake to create a slab of ice after hitting the ground, and Lucy wanted to see how her opponents would retaliate.
"Are you underestimating us with your little Ice Magic? You must be joking." The woman asked in a rude manner, continuing to smirk as she spoke calmly.
That prompted her teammate to ask in a calm tone, before viciously frowning as Darkness Magic surrounded his hands, "Why don't we start things off by fighting at a more serious level?"
He proceeded to activate a spell called Dark Grape Incense, and the warlock fired a grape purple sphere from his left hand. The sphere was headed towards Sting while thin beams of grape purple magic began to go into it, and they were coming from the aura that had been surrounding his hands. He started to confidently laugh, only for Sting to retaliate by unleashing White Dragon's Holy Breath. He shot out a white orb from his mouth, and the orb of light was larger than normal. When it was pulled into the warlock's spell, Sting's attack was immobilized as it created a massive blast of white light.
The white blast was followed by the grape purple blast, which was equally as massive, and it had the aftereffect of making all of all the shadows detach themselves from all of the objects in this room. The shadows lunged towards the grape purple blast, resulting in them creating violent explosions that were in the grape hue of purple. Those explosions left behind grape purple flames that gave off a sweet aroma while waves of smoke in the regular hue of purple came from them, and the warlock smirked evilly.
He liked the fact that his partner proceeded to use a spell called Ghostly Phantasm Force, and that spell made a plum purple aura engulf her body. It quickly went back into her, causing her body to become transparent like she was truly a ghost, and the moment that the aura resurfaced was the moment where she quickly dashed towards Lucy for the purpose of striking her in the stomach with her left fist. That punch resulted in Lucy being engulfed in a plum purple explosion that was quite large, and that witch's punch felt like she was a zombie with unrestrained physical strength.
"Well, they've put me in the mood for making this be a fight to the death." Lucy stated aloud with a pained look on her face, slowly getting up while her body was bruised.
That made the witch disturbingly respond while having sadism and pleasure in her plum purple eyes, "Would you be satisfied with the fight ending in your death? That way, wouldn't it be respectful if no one mourned your mangled and bloodied body in this quiet tower?"
"You're about to mourn the moment where I defeat you!" Lucy retorted with a fierce look on her face, as she made the light blue aura of Ice Magic engulf both of her hands.
Lucy stepped back for a moment, not wanting to fight that transparent woman in a close-range battle, and she glanced up at the ceiling. Firing attacks up at the ceiling wouldn't directly harm her enemies, but Lucy did wonder if they would expend high amounts of magic to keep rubble from landing on them. That prompted her to smile confidently, before unleashing Ice Snowflake up at the ceiling, and Lucy fired the spell two more times in succession to make the slab of ice expand. The ice proceeded to spread across the ceiling, the frigid frost moving at a rapid pace.
The frost proceeded to come down to the battlefield, and this prompted Lucy to make Ice Magic heavily engulf her hands. She quickly shoved her left hand into her mouth during the same moment of unleashing Ice Snowflake, and Lucy proceeded to redirect her hand at the ice above her. She unleashed the spell called Glistening Icy Wonderland while fusing it with the Ice Snowflake spell that made a thick layer of frost cover her hand, and Lucy shot out several small light blue snowflakes. They went up into the thick frost clouds, before coming back down as large slabs of ice that were engulfed in spiraling beams of light blue glitter.
When those slabs of ice struck the ground, they broke apart into several shards of ice. The ones that slid across the floor created trails of ice while the ones that aggressively hit the ground or hit the walls ended up creating light blue explosions, which left behind thick sheets of light blue ice. When those sheets of ice had their cold winds spinning outward, the icy air that fell down to the ground began to create several trails of ice. The icy trails were thick, even intersecting to where any paths crossing would make them expand in the process of making the floor now be like an ice rink.
The icy floor made the warlock start to struggle with maintaining his footing, and he watched his partner apply Darkness Magic to her feet. She activated a spell called Plum Pumpkin Explosive, and the witch made a plum purple aura engulf her hands. She gently touched the top of her head with her right hand, causing a plum purple pumpkin stalk to slowly emerge from her head, and she used her left hand to slash at her neck with her long nails. The witch slashed deep into her own neck, causing her head to be detached from her body.
The woman's head started to float in midair while she evilly smiled at Lucy, who looked horrified at the sight of this woman being a conscious head that wasn't attached to a body. In a few seconds, the witch's body walked over to the head and used her nails to carve a hole in the top of it. When the carved area was lifted up like a lid, several plum purple orbs of dark magic started to emerge out of it. They all remained motionless in midair, until the witch's hands made all of her fingers aim at the spot where Lucy was standing.
Lucy wasted no time with breaking a large chunk of ice off of the ground for the purpose of firmly slamming it against her chest, and the glittery ice that had been created from fusing Ice Snowflake with Glistening Icy Wonderland allowed Lucy to make her body become surrounded in a light blue aura. The aura of iciness didn't feel extremely cold to Lucy, but she did start to feel her entire body get denser as if she was covered in icy armor. She surprised everyone by running directly towards the witch's projectiles, only after removing some more large chunks of ice.
Lucy lightly smiled in a confident manner, aggressively pushing the ice chunks against her chest, and that occurred right before the orbs struck her. Lucy was engulfed in plum purple blasts that were all quite large, and they came with the aftereffect of growing much hotter with each successive blast. The heat generated a large amount of flames that were in a plum hue of purple, but the blasts themselves only dealt a small amount of damage to Lucy's dense body. She started to look a bit frustrated from thinking that the heat would soften her armor, however.
"Well, what's that? The ice is melting?" The witch asked in a persuasive manner, mockingly looking worried like Lucy as those questions came from her lips.
Lucy stated in a calm manner, doing her best to adapt without actually worrying, "Well, that actually makes me very happy!"
The moment that the thick sheets of ice started melting down into water was where Lucy shifted to using her Water Magic, and she activated the spell called Yukishimou's Sapphire Blue Bouquet. Lucy proceeded to make her hands be positioned as if she was holding a bouquet of flowers, and a sapphire blue aura engulfed her hands. Several sapphire blue bubbles emerged from the water while the water inside the bubbles formed small roses that were about to bloom, and the bubbles formed a makeshift bouquet in between Lucy's hands. After six seconds, the roses bloomed to shoot out many miniature sapphire blue bubbles. They all descended down into the water, before aggressively springing up from it while sparkling.
The water started to become sapphire blue while the sparkling bubbles quickly fell down from the sky to create sapphire blue blasts that were massive, and the blasts had increased in their levels of power from hitting the water that had gained more density. Lucy wasted no time with sternly slamming her aura-covered fists down into the water, hitting it with enough force to where the water roared as if it was being rocked by an earthquake, and the act of diving into the water made Lucy feel like she was getting coated in tempered platinum.
She quickly got up from the shallow water, looking stern like Yukishimou as she attempted to devise a plan for winning this battle. However, Lucy's enemy appeared to be smirking in an arrogant manner at how she devised her own plan regarding the plum purple flames. They weren't doused by all the ice that melted down into water, and the flames instead seemed to be thriving in the water that was almost at its boiling point. That prompted the witch to activate a spell called Ghost's Haunting Breath, and she aimed her right hand at a group of seven ghostly flames while the plum purple of Darkness Magic engulfed her body.
"Should you be scared of these flames displaying more of a witch's firepower? Oh, and did I not brag about my name? Are you satisfied to be fighting Hatankyō Umesha, one of Maruberiki's top witches?" The antagonistic woman tauntingly asked Lucy, remaining very arrogant.
Lucy replied with a confident look on her face, getting ready to counterattack, "I'm Lucy Heartfilia, one of Sabertooth's mages. Although, I'm probably much more humble than someone who isn't the strongest dark mage in this guild war."
"We're not the strongest?! I'm Yūrei Budōshu, and I'm specifically the main top commander in this duo! In fact, the Spectral Tower is supposed to be my territory in this war and I'll show you how fearsome it is to trifle with disturbing the spirits!" The warlock asked in an enraged manner, before introducing and explaining himself in a stern manner with feelings of viciousness in his eyes.
He unleashed a spell called Acidic Violet Artistry, and Yūrei's mouth shot out a grape purple beam of acid that was very large. The beam went upward in a spiraling formation while drops of grape purple acid descended from it, and Yūrei used his right hand to slap some drops of acid towards the plum purple flames. They gave off a sweet aroma while going through the air, before coating the plum purple flames for their hue of purple to be dark grape. The flames began to have pupil-less plum purple eyes, which glowed and looked angry as if they were vengeful spirits of Gunjou's mages.
The flames unleashed the ability of Ghost's Haunting Breath by floating backwards, before inhaling a large amount of air for the purpose of exhaling large streams of fire that headed towards Lucy. They rushed towards her in the form of straight lines while creating dark grape purple explosions in the water, and the explosions were quite large to where they made water rise up towards the ceiling. Some of it came down to drench Lucy, who slightly winced in pain from feeling herself get covered in acidic and scalding rain.
That acidic rain seemed to involve changing the properties of the water, which was probably now going to corrode Lucy's body when the dense Water Magic was no longer coating her body. She assumed that her armor was weakening from the acid rain, along with how she was struck at blinding speeds by the streams of fire that glided across the hot water, and Lucy groaned in pain from being caught in several fiery explosions. All of the new fire ended up bursting around her while she only sustained minor bruises, and Lucy felt more pain from the flames that were birthed from the attack to be in a plum hue of purple. As Lucy could smell multiple aromas within the fire, Sting's situation of getting engulfed by dark grape purple flames on his shoes only made him angrily decide to retaliate against Yūrei.
Sting proceeded to unleash the spell known as White Dragon's Curved Rain, and he stretched out both of his arms. He fired a large beam of white light from his hands, and Sting moved his hands around in circles to make the attack move around in circular loops. The attack ended up striking the ceiling to detonate in a large blast of white light that rapidly spun around in the air, but the attack didn't even damage the ceiling. Instead, several smaller beams of light started to rain down upon Yūrei. The dark mage quickly ran around the room to evade the attacks, even stepping back to avoid a beam that landed right in front of him.
However, Yūrei gasped in shock at how the white blasts had some curving beams of light emerging from them. They all seemed to grow much stronger from being near other blasts of light, almost like Sting wanted them all to have high levels of intensity. He watched them all lunge towards Yūrei in curved trajectories, almost like Sting was throwing long-range punches, and the one beam that grazed the left side of Yūrei's face ended up creating an enormous blast of white light. He screamed in pain while being engulfed in the dense light, which had white beams inside of it as part of the aftereffect.
The beams pierced through his body like pins puncturing through paper, and Yūrei coughed up some blood as he fell to the ground. He rolled over for a moment, allowing Sting to see that his mouth was open while his eyes showed that he wasn't even conscious. However, Sting noticed that Yūrei's flexible wrists were moving in full circles while his knuckles aimed downward with a grape purple aura around them. It was almost like he formed a hand seal pertaining to a boar, before putting his hands together to form a hand seal representing a rat by having his left thumb on the outside as he placed his hands together.
These hand seals pertained to a spell called Ghastly Aroma, and it made Yūrei's body melt down into a puddle of grape purple acid. A grape purple aroma immediately rose up from the puddle, and Yūrei fully reconstructed himself from it. The aroma was about to fade away, but Yūrei picked up some of the grape purple goop for the purpose of blowing it towards the aroma. When that sludge touched the aroma, it violently exploded for the purpose of creating grape purple flames while the aroma grew more intense. As the aroma came towards Sting's body, feeling the flames on his feet harshly burn him again before viciously detonating caused him to let out a pained scream.
"Unlike weaker dark mages, I can make my Darkness Magic involve sweet aromas that are also highly flammable!" Yūrei told Sting with an overconfident look on his face, before putting his fists near his hips and rudely laughing.
That caused Sting to reply with a stern look on his face, after slightly panting, "If that's all you can do, then you're just a dark mage with explosive attacks. As far as I'm concerned, your attacks are easy to endure."
Yūrei responded with an angered look on his face, trying his best to continue sounding confident, "Don't think that you can just underestimate me! In fact, your spells... don't even give me the slightest feelings of fear!"
Yūrei chose to activate a spell called Haunting Grape Binding, and he shot out six orbs from his mouth. They contained grape purple sludge, which was all aimed down at Sting's feet. Sting started to look puzzled, seeing the flames immediately fizzle out while the grape scent of the sludge soon began smelling like raspberry perfume, and gently raising his feet off of the ground allowed Sting to feel that they were now sticky as if they were covered in glue. The sludge soon dragged Sting down into a grape purple puddle of Darkness Magic for a moment, but Lucy quickly picked up Sting for the purpose of aggressively throwing him high into the air.
She narrowed her eyes at the puddle, which had grape purple hands with long and feminine nails rising up from them. Those hands began to melt down into large puddles of muck, before burning the ground like corrosive acid. That prompted Lucy to use Ice Snowflake on the ground, trying to repair it by using slabs of ice, but the acid still resided on the portions that it was corroding. It started to melt Lucy's ice, and she watched Sting charge up an attack that he would aim at Yūrei. Yūrei needed to be attacked by Lucy, too, and she started to have an idea.
Lucy proceeded to activate the spell called Cobalt Cumulonimbus, and Lucy raised her hands high above her head. She shot out a cobalt blue cloud of water, and that cloud descended down into the water that was being created from the melting ice. The cloud began to suck in all of the water, and it started to float upward with a regular blue aura engulfing it. The cloud floated over to Lucy, who ripped off a large portion of it, and Lucy tilted the cloud for its hole to be pointed at Yūrei. Several cobalt blue bubbles were fired from the cloud, all of them heading towards him, and Yūrei smirked in a confident manner.
"Do you really think that using such a basic attack against me is a good idea?" Yūrei asked Lucy with an overly smug smile on his face.
That prompted Sting to reply from overhead, making his hands form a circle as he sternly frowned, "If it's part of a combination, then it's definitely a great idea!"
Sting unleashed his attack known as Holy Ray, which allowed him to shoot out several thin beams of light in curved trajectories, and he aimed them all down at Yūrei. The antagonist watched some beams of light end up striking the bubbles, resulting in the attacks fusing together for a moment to where their levels of power were boosted. That resulted in light cobalt blue blasts occurring while they were massive, some of them striking Yūrei by making curved beams of light in a bright shade of cobalt blue strike him when the blasts spun outward.
Those powerful beams that bombarded him were accompanied by Sting's white beams of light, which dealt more damage to Yūrei, and the intense amount of light even blinded Hatankyō's eyes for a moment. That didn't stop her from activating spells of Darkness Magic, however, and she unleashed a spell called Dark Lustrous Ring. Hatankyō quickly took several steps back to where her back lightly touched the wall, and she aimed her right hand at that wall. In a few seconds, a plum purple and dazzling ring emerged from her hand and it transparently went through the wall like a ghost.
Since Hatankyō stretched out her arm to make her hand touch the ring during its first few seconds of becoming intangible and transparent, she also took on those same properties. Hatankyō was now like a ghost who could move through the walls, and even fully going into the wall made her no longer see the intense amount of light that her foes were creating. Therefore, Hatankyō started to evilly smirk at how she could now launch her counterattacks in this fight. Although, the soft sound of water going into Lucy's hands as an aftereffect did seem like a problem that Hatankyō was eager to overcome.
Hatankyō proceeded to unleash the actual effect of Dark Lustrous Ring, and she made her hands pass back through the walls for the purpose of shooting out a plum purple ring from in between them. The ring flew towards Lucy at rapid speeds while it resembled a disc being thrown in midair, and the plum purple glitter was rapidly coming off of it. The ring seemed to be shedding all of that glitter, but the fact that it all sprinkled down towards Lucy caused the orange-eyed mage to activate the spell known as Water Wave Shield.
Lucy aimed her palms down at the ground, causing the water to emerge from them in the form of large bursts, and they became waves of water that rotated around Lucy in a clockwise manner. This water was still in a light shade of cobalt blue, signifying that it was at an abnormal level of power right now, and Lucy watched one wave of water get struck by the plum purple ring. The collision resulted in a massive plum purple explosion occurring while the attack's heat was fully absorbed by the water, but looking at the plum purple light for even an instant made Lucy's eyes become plum purple.
Everything around her started to look much darker, almost like she was wearing multiple pairs of sunglasses layered over her eyes in a dimly lit room. Lucy could barely even see the sight of the plum purple glitter, which got into her eyes, and Lucy started to feel dizzy as her eyes made her now see the sight of the room being in a blackout with only the dark purple glitter darkly shimmering. She couldn't even witness her barriers of water bending backwards for the purpose of repelling some of the glitter, which began to shine with a dark plum purple light when Lucy opened her eyes.
She started to stumble around, the glitter in her eyes obscuring her vision, and she began to rapidly attempt the action of closing her eyes in a pained manner. The glitter felt just as bad as having sand in her eyes, feeling like needles were striking them, and the glitter that got through the spinning barrier had attached itself to her body. Lucy couldn't see any of it, and the sixth time that she closed her eyes was the moment where several plum purple explosions occurred all over her body! Lucy screamed in agonizing pain, coughing up blood as the glitter in her eyes went back into Hatankyō's hands.
"Where... did that attack... even come from?" Lucy asked in a pained manner, tightly clutching the left side of her stomach with her left hand as she tried to stand up.
Sting asked in a calm manner, noticing that Yūrei's partner mysteriously vanished like a ghost, "Where did that woman go?"
Yūrei responded with a relieved look on his face, sounding very overconfident as he was bruised and bloodied, "Well, we still have several dark spells up our sleeve and you're outmatched! Just accept that you can't defeat mages who are like ghosts! You morons have no chance of winning against such strong dark mages!"
Lucy narrowed her eyes as feelings of sternness and interest entered them, causing her to sternly ask Yūrei, "If you've got so much strength, why do you willingly work under Maruberiki instead of letting the goddess give you the highest levels of Darkness Magic? If you two are expressing that mages should be very strong and confident, how come you act in bad faith by not quickly eliminating us as you act so arrogant?"
Yūrei surprisingly replied with anger in his voice, standing up as Lucy caught a glimpse of a familiar symbol on his forehead that his hair attempted to obscure, "Just shut your mouth!"
Yūrei proceeded to activate a spell called Darkly Scented Spirits, and this spell required him to aggressively punch the ground with both of his hands. When he struck the ground, several grape purple spirits with round bodies proceeded to attach themselves to his arms and legs. They slowly melted down into his body, causing him to become engulfed in a grape purple aura that transitioned to being jam purple. Both auras gave off extremely sweet scents while acid started to heavily drip from his palms, and Yūrei ran towards Lucy at an extremely rapid pace.
Lucy was very lucky to activate Sapphire Wave Slash in the few remaining seconds before Yūrei got close to her, the green-haired mage feeling glad about all the water that her shield left behind on the floor, and clenching the bubbles in her fists as Yūrei swung at her allowed Lucy to block his fists with her dense claws. However, Lucy's attempt at grappling with Yūrei resulted in her hands being damaged from jam purple explosions that suddenly occurred! Lucy was sent flying backwards, before placing her feet on the ground to make herself now just be sliding back.
She winced in pain from how her hands suffered a high amount of damage, and seeing jam purple acid spread across the remaining small puddles of water on her palms only made Lucy gasp in shock. She watched them create miniature plum purple blasts on her hands while they combined with the recent blasts' heat to dangerously burn her palms, and Lucy's palms soon dried up. She couldn't retrieve water from the floor, since Yūrei made that water become jam purple and detonate after running across it.
As Yūrei swiftly got in front of Lucy and attempted to strike her in the face with another powerful punch, she told him in a stern manner, "You know, a fight isn't all about using your punches!"
"What?!" Yūrei exclaimed in an angered manner, as Lucy was bizarre enough to unleash Ice Snowflake on her legs.
Upon feeling her icy and dense legs aggressively kick Yūrei in his shins like he was struck by tempered platinum, Lucy told him with a confident smile appearing on her face, "For a ghostly mage, you didn't hide your legs from getting hit!"
That only prompted Yūrei to activate a spell called Mausoleum Jam Aroma, and that spell made a jam purple aura engulf his legs. Yūrei began to spin around rapidly, the aura going down into the floor, and that allowed him to generate jam purple tombstones that were in the shapes of rectangles. Upon touching the back of one of the tombstones that would be in a mausoleum, Yūrei was absorbed into the sweet jam purple aroma that was exuded from it. Yūrei himself emerged from the aroma as a jam purple spirit, before evilly smirking as he went into the left wall of this room in the Spectral Tower.
Lucy watched the shadow of Yūrei move within that wall while the shadow of Hatankyō moved within the right wall, and both mages began to launch attacks that would pass into this room. Hatankyō unleashed an attack called Spectral Psywave, and her eyes appeared on the wall in a gigantic form as if she was a goddess. Hatankyō's eyes glowed plum purple, before firing extremely hot waves of wavy energy pertinent to Darkness Magic from her pupils. Hatankyō's eyes faded from being on the wall, but they were soon followed up by a stream of jam purple breath being unleashed from the left wall.
Yūrei activated a spell called Grape Grenades, and he fired several blobs of grape purple sludge from his mouth. They contained a potent aroma of grape-scented perfume while Lucy noticed that the spell instantly became gaseous, and the acid appeared to be burning the air itself. Yūrei was likely trying to prevent Lucy from retaliating by cooling down the air, and the closest projectile that reached his ally's dark wave of energy immediately exploded in a large grape purple blast that had a massive plum purple blast emerging from it to spread outward! However, the remaining gas only gave Lucy a bold idea about how to use a previous spell.
Lucy proceeded to activate Freezing Snowfall, and she groaned in a pained manner while raising her hands for her palms to be aimed at the gas. Lucy watched the clouds of gas fire light blue beams down at the floor, and they struck the ground to create light blue blasts of Ice Magic! As the blasts spun around, Lucy started to look very curious from feeling high amounts of heat emanate from the blasts. The icy beams stemmed from the gas that had been acidic, giving the attacks an ability that involved burning opponents, and the high amount of light blue frost started to burn in midair like it had been dry ice.
That caused Lucy to unleash Freezing Snowfall two more times, and she watched several light blue beams of Ice Magic descend from the frost. Lucy wasted no time with activating Ice Snowflake, and she shot out the snowflake from her mouth for it to be on the area where the beams would land. They all struck the ice, creating more light blue blasts that left behind thick clouds of frost, and the first spell's slab of ice gained more power before the blasts shattered it. The resulting fragments of ice were sprawled out across the floor, freezing it, and Lucy smiled in a confident manner.
She started to inhale some of the frost, before inhaling too much of it led to her spitting out a high amount of saliva that coated her left hand. Lucy strangely decided to use it as a way to activate the spell known as Cerulean Bubble Gum, and the spell made Lucy shoot out a cerulean blue bubble from her left hand. It went down to a slightly melting part of the icy floor for the purpose of absorbing some water, and it bounced upward to rapidly rotate in the clockwise direction. Afterwards, the cold bubble hurriedly sent itself into Lucy's mouth.
She quickly chewed on the spell like it was bubble gum, before accidentally activating Ice Snowflake, and the two spells merged their types of magic together in her mouth. Lucy ended up shooting out a large stream of light blue bubbles from her mouth, and the bubbles fell down on to the ice as if they had gained more density. As soon as the bubbles landed on the ice, they created large explosions in a light blue color while releasing frigid waves of cold air. Those waves of cold air caused the light blue flames from the explosions to grow much taller, increasing their power.
Upon seeing those flames start to melt the ice down into water that was extremely cold, Yūrei exclaimed in an angered tone, "You devised a strategy of making this entire room be much colder than our heat, essentially making the heat itself decrease!"
"If you were actually confident mages, then you wouldn't need to fight from within the walls. Your techniques may be shady, but you're not even confident enough to constantly attack us from within the walls." Lucy told Yūrei and Hatankyō in a disapproving manner, seeing them both emerge through the walls as the intense coldness made them return to being tangible mages.
As he could no longer stop himself from getting riled up, Yūrei stood up to tell Lucy with one hand moving his hair away from his angered eyes, "If you want me to show you my strength, I'll show you what strength truly is when it's born from fear!"
Hatankyō spoke in a calmer manner, her eyes displaying sternness as she moved her hair away from the center of her forehead, "Since we need time to build up some more magical power for moderate-level attacks, why don't I tell you why Yūrei is so furious?"
"Now, would it surprise you to discover that we were once Gunjou's strongest mages? Were we not destined to take the royal purple thrones, based on our skills with dark magic?" Hatankyō asked in a calm manner, explaining herself through some rhetorical questions.
Hatankyō asked Lucy in a more stern tone, as they started to lock eyes with each other, "However, isn't it unethical that Maruberiki's requests from the insane goddess led to only the strongest commanders having dark seals branded on their foreheads? Isn't it painful to be treated as a lesser being?!"
Yūrei shouted at Lucy in an annoyed manner, revealing his feelings, "If I had just let you pass through here like an honorable mage, Maruberiki and Minerva could use their dark magic to destroy our minds with these dark seals! When I defeat you, they'll remove the seals and give us some peace! If not, then I'm only free of all this anger and fear by dying!"
Yūrei's words only made Sting give him a look of displeasure, since he honestly reminded the light dragon slayer of how he felt when Jiemma was the master of the Sabertooth guild. Jiemma never let any of his mages even think about showing mercy, as he believed that showing any kind of weakness to detrimental to wizards such as Sting and Minerva. After losing against Natsu in the Grand Magic Games, Sting had been terrified of Jiemma punishing him with a merciless beating. Even now, Sting seemed slightly scared at the thought of his former guild master desiring to end his life in a similar way to how Lector was almost killed.
Still, thinking out of fear was the same as not thinking properly. Sting always viewed himself as a very confident person, instead of someone who falsely displayed confidence to conceal their fear. He proceeded to activate White Drive while simultaneously building up a high amount of magical power to where two white auras were heavily engulfing his body. By displaying this massive surge of power for his upcoming attack, Sting hoped that he could defeat Yūrei with a spell where he'd pull all of his confidence into it.
He activated the spell known as White Dragon's Holy Breath, and Sting charged up a large amount of white light in his mouth. After a few seconds, he fired the attack at Yūrei before trying to combine that attack with the spell called White Dragon's Dispersed Light. Sting watched another white aura heavily engulf his body, and he made the entirety of that aura go towards his white sphere. When the aura touched the attack, Sting smiled in a confident manner from realizing that it would greatly be powered up to the level of being a spell that Sting could only fire with his maximum amount of magical power.
"Let me show you how my confidence can help me improvise in a battle with strong makeshift fusion spells such as White Dragon's Saintly Scream!" Sting stated with a proud smile on his face, liking how his attack now shined with an intense amount of light in the Spectral Tower.
That caused Yūrei to sternly respond with a fierce facial expression, building up all of his remaining magical power for his final attack, "If you truly are confident enough to fight me, then I'll retaliate with this! Dark Warlock's Beast of The Mausoleum!"
Yūrei made his Darkness Magic surround his fingers in a grape purple aura, before he made them form the shape of a circle. and the aura of his dark magic flowed down into the circle. After a few seconds, a grape purple burst of light emerged from the circle for everyone else to have trouble seeing a five-headed beast with light purple faces and grape purple fur in the swirled patterns of ghostly souls lacking bodies, and the two heads at the top had menacing grape purple eyes. The three heads on the bottom had jam purple eyes that were filled with aggression, and the beast charged at Sting's spell.
When Sting's attack collided with the beast, a massive white blast of light occurred! The light was reflected off of the light blue ice that hadn't melted, resulting in the lion-like creature having all of its eyes be blinded as it breathed out grape purple fire towards Sting in a pained manner, but the vortex of grape purple fire had its five layers of flames being weaker than expected. They barely melted the ice, and the flames were contingent on the stamina of the summoned spirit. Not only did Yūrei have a limited amount of magical power, but his sentient spell wasn't able to withstand the power of Sting's amplified spell.
The light dragon slayer watched Yūrei grit his teeth in a manner that showed a mix of fear and absolute disbelief, his eyes showing anger and regret at the fact of how he let emotions such as fear impede his rational judgment of logically using his strongest spell at the start of the battle with Hatankyō's flames working in a combination with his attack. Hatankyō watched her partner fall to his knees, seeing him glance up at Sting with his anger projected at the other man's high amount of confidence. That only made Hatankyō look at Lucy, who still remained very confident in a situation where she was probably reaching her magical power's limit.
Hatankyō proceeded to unleash a spell called Haunting Plum Swirling Spirits, and a plum purple aura heavily engulfed her body as she stretched out her hands. The aura slowly broke away from different parts of Hatankyō's body to form eight swirling orbs of Darkness Magic, and they were infused with high amounts of magical power and negative feelings to where they started to become a darker shade of plum purple. Hatankyō synthesized that spell with Plum Hexing Beam, which was one of the spells that she fired earlier at Sting when he was on the lower floor of the Spectral Tower.
When Hatankyō's beam was fired in the same moment where her right palm became ghostly, the beam itself split apart into eight smaller beams that went into the swirling orbs. That caused them to grow much larger, before the swirling orbs themselves became projectiles that were transparent. Hatankyō aimed her left hand at Yūrei, causing him to be surrounded by a plum purple aura, but she showed off one effect of this spell. She was able to make the aura leave his body, making it take all of his negative feelings away from his mind, and Hatankyō smirked evilly as she added her partner's bad energy to her dangerous spell.
That caused the swirling orbs to have much more power, and Hatankyō watched them become much larger. They all began to float around the dark witch in a circle, almost like this was a defensive spell where it would only require one orb to nullify Lucy's last attack. This only made Lucy narrow her eyes in a suspicious manner, however. She felt like it would be foolish to judge this spell with sight alone, especially since beams powering it up had to mean that there was some kind of dark and deceitful trick involved with her enemy's attacks.
Lucy decided to use a spell pertaining to the water of the melting ice, and she activated the spell called Aquatic Admiral Blue Rotation. Lucy aimed her left hand down at the small bit of water. Moving her hand around in a clockwise direction at rapid speeds made the cold water spin in the same direction with a high amount of speed, and Lucy watched a light blue twister of water rise upwards. The twister became admiral blue, and Lucy aimed her left hand at it. As a sapphire blue aura engulfed her hand and the rest of her body, Lucy watched some admiral blue bubbles rise up from the twister. and keeping her hand directed at the attack caused the bubbles to float towards her.
"What happens now? Can you tell that I'm not very impressed by your little Water Magic?" Hatankyō asked Lucy in a persuasive manner, smirking rudely as she expected her opponent to use a seemingly more powerful spell.
Lucy retorted with a serious look on her face, "Well, maybe I'll revitalize your long-lost confidence by proving that even the weakest spell can do an extreme amount of damage when its power gets boosted!"
She made Hatankyō start to look curious, seeing Lucy aggressively slam her right fist down on to the nearest portion of ice to break it all apart. She quickly grabbed one of the nearby light blue flames from earlier, before throwing it at a line of ice chunks that were in front of the ring of bubbles. The ring soon touched the ice chunks, which were coated by the cold flame, and the admiral blue bubbles started to become light blue. They also proceeded to be coated in icy blue fire, prompting Lucy to lightly skate on the ice.
She went over to five more light blue flames, before gathering them all up on to her left hand, and Lucy put her hands together for the purpose of making those flames form an icy fireball that was as cold as a dangerous blizzard. Lucy proceeded to push the ring of bubbles back to the twister, and Lucy quickly clenched both of her fists in an aggressive manner during the moment where the twister started to become a lighter shade of sapphire blue. Lucy's attack was strong enough to where it headed towards Hatankyō's projectiles, and Lucy narrowed her orange eyes.
The green-haired mage watched her twister strike one of the orbs, seeing it create an enormous admiral blue blast while Hatankyō's orb became tangible for the purpose of making a slightly smaller plum purple blast appear. That blast wasn't just a high amount of Darkness Magic exploding, though. That energy made the other orbs become tangible to the point where they floated upwards, before forming the shape of a circle again. In a few seconds, a massive plum purple stream of fire emerged from that circle! This attack also made the plum purple orbs rotate around the beam, setting the ground ablaze.
"Well, aren't you about to lose in this fight where I'm melting your ice?" Hatankyō asked her rhetorical question to Lucy, smirking viciously as her flames melted the ice.
That prompted Lucy to reply with a confident smile on her face, "Actually, I can use it to my advantage!"
The ice that melted down into water began to rise upward during the moment where Lucy raised her left hand, and the light from her sapphire blue blast faded away to reveal that the twister decreased to half of its original size. That caused Lucy to move her left hand towards the twister, causing the icy cold water to go towards the twister. That caused the attack to get larger again, before Lucy gathered up some melted ice with light blue flames on it. The fire gently touched the water for Lucy to concentrate her Water Magic on to the flames, and the fire became surrounded by bubbles.
Lucy gathered up more water in her hands, before slamming the water and the bubbles against the twister to grow much larger. Lucy gave her attack such a high amount of power for the purpose of making fifteen light sapphire blue beams of ice emerge from the twister to strike Hatankyō's attack, creating blasts that were in a bright hue of sapphire blue while they dealt significant damage to Hatankyō's attack. However, it would attempt to regrow at larger sizes with each consecutive orb shattering from the pressurized blasts of the collision.
Hatankyō looked frustrated as she watched the twister of water itself slam into her spell, creating a tremendous sapphire blue blast. Its high amount of Water Magic and icy properties quelled Hatankyō's plum purple flames, slowing the spell down to where the massive plum purple explosion was unstable enough to occur. As plum purple flames began to spread through the room and create miniature explosions, Hatankyō put her left palm under the Gunjou Moon's light that shone through the window. That light allowed Hatankyō to form a plum purple sphere with no magical power in it, and letting the attack fizzle out into a large cloud of plum purple smoke on her palm had been Gunjou's cultural norm for signifying that a dark mage could no longer continue fighting.
Hatankyō fell to her knees in a frustrated manner, scowling at Lucy for prevailing against her final attack. She slowly began to stand up again, anger in her eyes at how she lost this battle. In fact, this appeared to be the very first time that tourists managed to win against Gunjou's top commanders who guarded the Spectral Tower. This reluctantly caused Hatankyō to move over to the right side of the room while Yūrei walked over to the wall that was on the left side of the room, and the mages allowed Lucy to walk past them.
Lucy calmly nodded her head to express her gratitude towards Hatankyō for not being a sore loser who couldn't accept defeat, and she walked through the ankle-deep water that was somewhat hotter from all the plum purple flames exploding in the room. Hatankyō watched Miko politely bow her head, before the kind witch ran past her with a nice smile on her face. Miko turned around for a moment to see Sting look at Hatankyō and Yūrei with a stern frown on his face. He could only feel bad for them, as they reminded him of how he and Rogue were so arrogant during the Grand Magic Games, having even bragged about killing their dragon parents when they couldn't even defeat two Dragon Slayers.
Their arrogance was just false confidence, different from the arguably careless choices that Sting made in preparation for that rescue mission in Yamabuki Town. Sting felt like he could refer to Hatankyō and Yūrei as examples of the type of leader that he should never strive to be, as he managed to bounce back from his confidence being somewhat deterred after Yukino had been brainwashed while Hatankyō and Yūrei couldn't overcome their own fear of Maruberiki. In Sting's mind, Maruberiki ruling by using fear was also a bad example of leadership.
Leadership was definitely displayed by Lucy, who did the right thing by not killing Hatankyō and Yūrei. She defeated them by using her spells in strategic ways, along with working in tandem with Sting, and he was glad to have helped her obtain such a high amount of confidence to where any mage who made their solid spells become ghostly wouldn't even frighten Lucy. Instead, she felt happy to fight and this victory likely gave her more morale for any fights that were on the next floor. As Sting ran towards Lucy and let his eyes briefly shift to the staircase, they heard two pairs of footsteps suddenly coming up the previous flight of stairs.
"Ara, ara. It seems like battles are breaking out all over Gunjou today." Kyasurin stated with a pleased smile on her face, before her eyes displayed some feelings of delight from seeing Hatankyō and Yūrei both being bruised and defeated.
Hatankyō exclaimed with an annoyed look on her face, as Kyasurin and Matsuba walked through the water to be in front of her, "What in the world do you want?"
"Ara, ara. Watch your tongue, Hatankyō. Frankly, I'm excited from thinking about how you'll be arrested for helping Maruberiki with his plot to take over Gunjou." Kyasurin explained with a dark expression, smiling in a menacing manner as she pulled out her wallet containing her identification as a member of the Magic Council.
Matsuba stated in an overly happy tone, closing his eyes as he grinned in a disturbing manner, "Now, let's get the handcuffs and-"
He was interrupted by the Spectral Tower shaking from a blast of magic that occurred nearby, causing the water in this room to roar like a stormy sea, and Matsuba fell backwards to land in the water. Lucy also lost her footing, but the moment she fell down was where Sting put both of his hands under her waist. He proceeded to hold Lucy in a bridal-style manner, smiling proudly at her while she let her cheeks blush in a bubblegum hue of pink from being like a bride who was carried by the groom on their wedding day.
Lucy nicely smiled at Sting while he jumped to the top of the staircase, and they made their way up to the next floor with Miko following them. When they quickly reached the next floor, Lucy and Sting both took notice of the Spectral Tower's highest area being underneath the Gunjou Moon itself. The Gunjou Moon illuminated this circular area with square tiles, even making its light shine down on the satellite dish that was used as a radio transmitter. Even though no mages were conducting radio broadcasts in the tower, the antenna was sending out some shamrock green waves.
Lucy recognized that magic, sensing that it belonged to Kusabue, but looking down from atop the Spectral Tower made her and Sting only see a massive crater with some injured dark mages in it. Some of them had their auras of Darkness Magic fading away from their hands, almost like they tried to attack Kusabue, but Lucy got out of Sting's arms for a moment to gasp in utter shock at how Kusabue managed yo use such a strong spell by herself. In fact, the crater made Lucy think that her young teammate imagined enormous sound waves that were reminiscent of a meteor descending down on Gunjou from the night sky.
"Sting, we've defeated the commanders in the Spectral Tower. However, I'm very worried about Kusabue." Lucy told her boyfriend with a concerned facial expression, trying to pinpoint Kusabue's location on the streets of Gunjou.
That caused Sting to tell Lucy in a somewhat relaxed tone, not wanting to lose sight of the team's goal, "Lucy, Kusabue is smart. She'll either meet up with Yukino and Sorano, or get denied entry into the nightclub where Risa and Rogue may be."
Miko commented in a calm tone, smiling kindly as her attention was focused in the opposite direction, "Since Hatankyō and Yūrei ran out of magical power, their layers of dark magic are now undone. Therefore, I can see more of the path to the goddess."
Since more portions of the actual path were revealed, the dark mages who guarded those two gates wasted no time with running away in a cowardly manner. If Hatankyō and Yūrei couldn't win against the Sabertooth mages, then those guards felt that they could only run away in fear. Miko kindly smiled at the fact that she would probably get to speak with the dark goddess sooner than later, but the sudden appearance of a rainbow-colored energy wave coming up to her face had caught her attention.
Miko was blinded by the energy wave, which warped her down to the Spectral Tower's entrance, and she opened her eyes to see Minerva standing in front of her. The purple-haired woman frowned in a disgusted manner at the sight of water from the upper floors flowing down the stairs to now be outside, almost as if Miko and the other dark mages engaged in hypocrisy for not respecting the graves of deceased mages who were meant to rest in a peaceful place, but Minerva started to faintly smile with some feelings of calmness in her eyes.
Seeing the mages of Sabertooth standing on top of the tower may have irked Minerva, as she perceived that as their way of symbolically showing superiority against the warlocks and witches of Hexing Enchantress during this war, but she felt like there was a way to make their hard work amount to nothing. She took a few steps towards Miko, who felt Minerva engulfing herself in the violet aura of Darkness Magic, and seeing that aura become neon purple for a few moments only made Miko widen her eyes in shock as the massive aura started to be Eminence purple.
Minerva started to emit the Eminence purple aura from her breath, allowing Miko to experience the sweet scent of the dark goddess bestowing evil and cursed power upon Minerva. She had asked for it, along with Maruberiki, but it seemed like only taking in a fragment of the most supreme witch's power didn't intensely corrupt Minerva. She didn't seem to be going insane with a lust for power right now, which made Miko feel a sense of relief. However, the sight of Minerva walking towards her with a scheming look entering her emerald green eyes started to make Miko feel slightly unsettled.
"Miko Goetia, I'm here to offer you a reasonable bargain. If you give up your soul to our goddess and let your energy quell the madness in her heart, Gunjou Town can become a peaceful place again." Minerva explained to Miko, softly whispering the offer into her ear.
That prompted Miko to reply, narrowing her eyes at the older woman, "Your offer seems too generous, Minerva. In fact, it's quite absurd."
"As absurd as it may be, you and I both know that Maruberiki would stop this war if you made the goddess regain her sanity." Minerva countered with confidence in her voice, smiling while wanting to give Miko some emotional stakes in the situation.
Miko responded in a stern manner, after doing her best to resist frowning in feelings of despair at Minerva's tempting words, "I'm... I'm not interested in giving an answer yet, Minerva! Just leave me alone, and allow my friend Lucy to go find Kusabue-chan!"
The fact that Miko mentioned Kusabue only made Minerva's eyes glance to the right for what seemed like less than one second passing, almost like she was trying to follow the trail of the Sound Magic that exploded in front of the Spectral Tower. However, Minerva herself began to take some steps back before presumably warping back to where Maruberiki was located. As Miko started to let her eyes and mind glance towards the direction of her best friend's house, she joined Lucy in starting to look near Gunjou Town's plaza as a way of possibly finding Kusabue to stop her presumed rampage where her emotions were amplified.
How was Chapter 65? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and Sting escorted Miko through the Spectral Tower, and they managed to win against Hatankyō and Yūrei. Although, the protagonists are far from done with their troubles. Kusabue is on a path for revenge while presumably going berserk, and the other mages are checking out different areas of Gunjou. In fact, someone may beat Kusabue to the goal of meeting her new idol. Also, this is the eighth part of the Mauve Darkness Arc! I'll update as soon as possible. :)
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