Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 69: The Tyrian Temple! The Artsy Paint of Water Magic & Ice Magic! The Purple Crystals of Gunjou Cave! Tifani's Last Chance At Seizing The Rings!
Lucy sat down at a table in the Sabertooth guild, the green-haired girl having a calm look on her face as she read the book that contained Maruberiki's very first set of spells. These spells all seemed to not involve any fusion spells, almost like the dark wizard had previously believed in the power of each spell. Lucy turned a few pages in the book to see that one of the most powerful spells was called Ring Moon Swirl, and seeing that the illustrated description of how the spell involved an unorthodox type of paint being used caused Lucy to smile in a slightly happy manner.
She seemed intrigued by the artwork that Maruberiki created in the initial era of his career as an artist, especially since turning each page in the book allowed her to see that the spells weren't just drawn in this book. They were also flawlessly painted on the pages, appearing to be done with a minimal amount of effort being forced into Maruberiki's artistry, and they were painted in different shades of people. Upon seeing a spell with rings be painted in the hue of boysenberry purple, Lucy smiled a bit at how the frozen image of the rings appearing to rotate over each other was carefully illustrated.
From Lucy's perspective on this artwork, she would give high amounts of positive criticism towards this book of spells. Although, an artist's exposure to criticism could certainly be a blessing and a curse. Lucy shifted her attention away from the boysenberry purple book for a moment to look at the royal purple book that she impulsively grabbed along with The Dark Spells of Artistry, and opening up the royal purple book to its sixth set of consecutive diary entries allowed Lucy to be the critic who would have to try seeing the world from Maruberiki's perspective.
The first entry in this set of recorded days dated back to the time of the Grand Magic Games, which was a period in time where Fairy Tail needed to prove that they were the best guild in the entire kingdom of Fiore, and Maruberiki's separate path involved him feeling like he was already a successful winner. He almost seemed like a different person in this era of his artistry, as Lucy smiled softly from reading that his ability to beautifully paint portraits of each spell of Darkness Magic within his arsenal allowed him to gain tremendous amounts of recognition from dark mages and tourists. However, some tourists were harsh critics instead of blindly following the people who had placed Maruberiki on a pedestal.
"What..? How could these critics of my art say that none of my portraits are fancy? My ability to paint didn't display my artistic talents?! The dark goddess blessed me with this ability from my time as a child, so why is my art being disliked today?!" Lucy read from the diary with a calm facial expression, trying to understand Maruberiki's thoughts.
Lucy continued reading, sounding somewhat more aggressive as she tried to resonate with Maruberiki's past feelings, "These critics are all mages from different towns, as I found out from when I apologized for my failure. Although, I must ask the dark goddess for more strength and skill. Then, I can paint anything perfectly! That will be my way of exacting revenge on these buffoonish critics!"
She spoke aloud in a stern tone, narrowing her eyes as Lucy kept reading and tried to see where Maruberiki's philosophy became so irrational, "After getting some more Darkness Magic from my goddess today, I feel much more powerful. Although, I'm... I'm still not good enough of an artist to please several other critics who double as mages?! How could one of them claim that the boysenberry purple stream of fire doesn't look strong enough to harm other mages?! Is that what wizards use their magic for?! Harm and destruction?! How am I not a hero, if these unruly wizards want to treat forms of magic like tools for senseless violence?! If magic is being unjustly, I'd love to separate it from mages. My own magic has repeatedly told me that I'm correct in my decision, which is like a beautifully constructed thought of art in its own way, so silencing my critics who inflict pain on artists is the only way that any creator of artwork shall have peace!"
Sting replied aloud with a calm look on his face, standing behind Lucy, "Judging by his inability to handle criticism, I wouldn't be surprised if he kept going back to the dark goddess for more and more power to where he went insane."
Lucy and Sting were joined by the other protagonists who had been sitting at nearby tables to overhear the diary entries, but turning to the next page made Lucy widen her eyes in a scared manner for a moment. She was shaken by the precision of Sting's assumption, as the next page featured Maruberiki's entry about how he needed the dark goddess to repeatedly give him massive surges of Darkness Magic to the point where he offered up his own spells of Darkness Magic in exchange. The spells themselves were also infused with his remaining joy and happiness, causing Maruberiki to become enamored with an obsessive lust for artistic perfection.
That lustful desire for his artwork to be perfect involved Maruberiki experiencing overconfidence from his own ego, and anything that he painted would turn out to be an outstanding piece of art. Although, the greatness of his artwork was only heightened by Minerva joining the guild and learning about the dark goddess offering up so much dark magic to where she seemingly went insane. The insanity of the dark goddess wanting everyone to drown in their own dark magic led Maruberiki to believe Minerva's thought of the dark goddess needing to be repaid with the souls of her people as sacrifices.
One of Maruberiki's final entries involved him believing that Minerva was right to suggest that an actual cult of worshipers would be pleasing to the dark goddess, and making so many mages give up their souls with some emotion included in sacrificing themselves with some of their magical power led to them feeling dead without passion. Some of them became purple-skinned witches and warlocks from offering up of their magical power with the inclusion of negative feelings such as malice, and they were supposedly rewarded with the blissful life of having immortality and stronger spells of Darkness Magic.
"Well, the dark goddess may end up calming down and reverting Maruberiki back to his past self if we can get to that area of the Tyrian Temple." Rogue told his friends with an emotionless look on his face, recalling Rairakku's words from yesterday.
Risa responded to him with a concerned look on her face, believing that the group needed to be cautious, "After yesterday's events, we need to be on guard when we approach the plaza of Gunjou Town and the Tyrian Temple. There's a good chance that Minerva or some other dark mages could ambush us."
That prompted Lucy to reply with a stern look on her face, as she put the books in the pockets of her ocean blue jeans that matched her sapphire blue T-shirt, "If we don't want anyone ambushing us, Risa, then you'll have to use an illusory spell that can confuse them for a long duration of time."
That only caused Risa to nod in a confident manner, as she felt that would be a great idea. If the dark mages were distracted by an illusion, then that would give the Sabertooth mages the opportunity to see if their opponents had their levels of magical power boosted or had every portion of their souls removed. If any of those dark witches from the nightclub turned out to end up being purple-skin husks with the maliciousness of fearsome dark witches, then Risa felt like she could never forgive Minerva for her manipulative role in this whole situation.
The thought of Minerva gave Risa some bad vibes, causing her to slightly tremble as she glanced down at her bubblegum pink crop top that went well with her dark pink jean shorts and magenta pink high heels. In fact, using different shades of pink to defeat Minerva felt like something that Risa would have to do. She sent some Psychic Magic into her eyes for a moment, allowing her to foresee a glimpse of a future where Minerva's green eyes would shift to being different hues of purple while she giggled in a sadistic manner.
As this vision also involved some purple blood being on Minerva's hands, Risa watched the vision quickly come to an end. She was brought back to the current moment where Lucy walked out of the guild with Sting, followed by Yukino and Sorano running to catch up with them. Yukino turned around for a moment to smile at Risa, who got up from the chair to run beside Rogue and Kusabue. The girl with dark green hair also ran alongside Miko, who unintentionally let Kusabue hear her thoughts about how offering up her soul to the dark goddess was something that could be debatable until entering the Tyrian Temple.
Meanwhile, at the Tyrian Temple in Gunjou Town...
Before Miko would enter the Tyrian Temple, Minerva and Maruberiki were already walking through one of the dark purple rooms that was on the route to the dark goddess. This specific room of the Gunjou Cave's area relating to the temple contained orchid purple crystals that were on the ceiling as if they were stalactites, and some Heather purple crystals protruded out from the violet walls of this room. Minerva smiled in a proud manner from seeing her reflection appear in the crystals, seeing them as mirrors that reflected her beauty.
Although, she also hoped to make them display her increasing level of power. Minerva firmly placed her hands against two of the crystals, and the slightest bit of magical power that emerged from her hands was sufficient enough to make the crystals send their Darkness Magic in her hands. Minerva watched them become engulfed in a Heather purple aura, which didn't stop flowing from the crystals for the aura to reach her body. Minerva felt herself gain more power, and that caused her to use her Territory Magic for the purpose of warping some of the ceiling's crystals down to the ground for them to be nudging against her.
That caused her to make an energy wave surround her own body, causing that magic to touch the orchid purple crystals, and the orchid purple aura transferred itself from the crystals to send all of the dark magic into Minerva's body. She felt herself become strong enough to break the crystals apart by aggressively punching them, and Minerva confidently smiled at Maruberiki for a moment. He simply gave her a stoic look, not really feeling delighted by Minerva making herself have more dark magic. However, Minerva walked ahead of him at a faster pace with much more confidence.
She ended up walking on to the path to the dark goddess' room quite fast, moving in an urgent manner to where she even felt like absorbing more power from a royal purple crystal that protruded from a part of the wall that was near a seemingly sealed crevice. When Minerva fired a powerful energy wave at the crystal, the explosion that resulted in the royal purple aura surrounding her body also caused the wall to break apart. That also involved the rocks in front of the crevice shattering, becoming gravel, and their insignificance was ironically followed by a significant person's body falling forward.
"Well, what is this? The mighty Erza Scarlet, but she's now dead?" Minerva asked aloud with a calm smile on her face, as she aggressively grabbed the Fairy Tail mage by her ponytail to lift her up with one hand.
That caused Maruberiki to respond with an uninterested frown on his face, "Well, I'm not sensing any magic from her corpse."
"Maruberiki-san, you'll be sensing magic from Erza's body after we make the dark goddess bless it. Now that I think about it, this really heightens the chances of Hexing Enchantress winning the guild war." Minerva replied in a polite manner, before evilly smirking as she stared at Erza's lifeless eyes.
Minerva felt that Lucy would really not have the heart to harm her former guild member, since Lucy seemed to be the kind of girl who always wanted to be like a noble hero. From Minerva's perspective, any noble hero wouldn't even try to damage their friends in any way and those heroes would probably let themselves end up dying. In regards to that, Minerva wondered if Erza had ended up dying down in that crevice of Gunjou Cave. If she experienced her last moments of life in that crevice, then it wouldn't surprise Minerva if the dark magic in the air extracted the entirety of Erza's soul.
If her soul was gone from her body, then it was likely attracted to the resting place of the dark goddess. Minerva started to giggle with a feeling of glee from imagining the dark goddess eating Erza's soul in just one bite, consuming it to where the powerful woman was now defeated. Since Erza was unable to fight against her in an important situation such as this war, Minerva felt that the dark goddess was able to get revenge for Minerva. Minerva had been wanting to make Erza pay for preventing her from making Sabertooth win the Grand Magic Games, and the idea of Erza being a dark witch who would also act as Minerva's subordinate only made Minerva grin in a more triumphant manner.
She truly felt that this was truly symbolic for her to view herself as a queen, but trying to send some royal purple energy waves into Erza's body only made it stay motionless. Erza couldn't fulfill Minerva's fantasy of being a lifeless husk, and this prompted Minerva to frown at her former rival in a pitying manner. Minerva brutally threw Erza's dead body into the large crevice, before using her Territory Magic to warp several royal purple crystals from the walls for them to be on top of Erza. She was now buried under the crystals, and Minerva proudly smiled at the sight of Erza's left shoulder being dislocated by the tremendous weight of the largest crystals.
"Without any of the strong mages from your garbage guild intervening, there's no one to stop Maruberiki and I from shrouding the world in darkness." Minerva arrogantly told Erza's lifeless body, before the feeling of smugness made its way into her eyes.
Before Maruberiki could speak about how this plan would bring peace to the entirety of Fiore, a certain purple-haired servant shouted loudly with her footsteps echoing, "Minerva-sama! Yesterday, Rairakku-san's magic reached Kogane Town and Tsuki's magic seemed to vanish in that area of Fiore!"
"Tifani-chan, calm yourself. There's no need to worry about meager bugs taking out the trash. Although, I do think you should stay down in the caverns of Gunjou. If you keep them from interrupting Miko and the dark goddess, we'll be victorious." Minerva replied with a feigned smile of niceness appearing on her face, as she gently stroked the dark purple hair of the newest witch who had willingly given up her soul.
That caused Tifani to say with an emotionless look appearing on her face, "Yes."
Tifani's obedience caused Minerva to smile in a glad manner, liking that the girl who had been excommunicated from the Moon Rainbow guild was now being subservient towards her new leaders. Minerva recalled how Tifani came to Hexing Enchantress as a mage who seemed to have no direction in life, which made her an easy person to brainwash. She could be manipulated to do several things for Minerva, such as carrying out some meager jobs that were left on the request board of Hexing Enchantress, and Minerva never cared to genuinely praise Tifani's efforts.
Even if Minerva gave praise to Tifani for getting some more jewels as payment for completing missions, that wouldn't interfere with the fact that Minerva honestly wouldn't care if Tifani died. Minerva only viewed Tifani as another person who would be loyal to Maruberiki, giving him the utmost praise for his artwork with no negative criticisms involved, and Minerva started to have a scheming smirk on her face from thinking that Tifani was like a fragile tool made from glass. Even if she survived today's harsh battles of the guild war, she'd merely die at a later time.
Minerva felt that way about Miko, believing that the priestess who wielded dark magic was only delaying the inevitable by not accepting Minerva's offer. In fact, the woman who wore a elegant deep lilac dress with amethyst purple lacing on the bottom really thought that Miko was being a heretic by not properly worshiping the dark goddess. From Minerva's perspective, Miko was starting to seem like she didn't care if the dark goddess kept going ballistic enough to put Gunjou's citizens in perilous situations. Otherwise, Minerva would've seen Miko waste no time with sacrificing her own soul to the goddess of Darkness Magic. Minerva simply turned away from Tifani in this moment to keep walking to the goddess' location in the Tyrian Temple, and her eyes slightly twinkled at the thought of Miko getting there soon.
Three hours later, in Gunjou Town...
Miko and the mages from Sabertooth walked through the central gate to get into the town of Gunjou, noticing that the plaza contained several dark mages who were roaming around with the auras of dark magic engulfing her hands. Miko smiled for a moment, recognizing Lila as one of the people who seemed to be guarding this area. As Miko ran up to the younger girl, she was quickly startled by the sight of Lila hastily turning around to aggressively unleash a stream of mauve purple flames from her mouth.
That stream of flames was quickly countered by Kusabue firing the spell called Resounding Vibration Bomb, and Kusabue's body became engulfed in a shamrock green aura. She felt herself have a high amount of magical power while loudly clapping her hands seven times, and the shamrock green sound waves that emerged from her palms went towards the flames. That resulted in a collision of Sound Magic and Darkness Magic, the mauve purple blast being slightly smaller than the shamrock green explosions that came from Kusabue absorbing the sounds of the crackling flames to send them into her waves of sound.
As Lucy watched the battle occur, she took a moment to see that Lila was no longer using a scepter like she had done in the battle against Mauveria. That dark witch was probably guarding the Wisteria Wasteland right now, but Lila not being in her division anymore made no sense to Lucy. Although, she took a glance at the younger wizard's hands to see that the aura shifted from being mauve purple to being a deeper hue of mauve purple. In addition to that, Lila now had mauve purple skin and dark mauve purple eyes.
Since Lila's skin now resembled that of a witch's husk, Lucy groaned in a frustrated manner from interpreting this situation as Maruberiki and Minerva killing several of the dark mages for the remainders of their souls to belong to the dark goddess. If they weren't going to be useful to her as mages when they were alive, then they would probably be nearly as strong as Violara after dying. Mauveria's underling proceeded to make the mauve purple aura engulf her body, before she suddenly became invisible like a frightening ghost.
"Where did she go?!" Lucy stated aloud with a worried facial expression, before preparing herself for Lila's surprise attack.
Kusabue thought to herself in a calm manner, closing her eyes as she memorized the sound of Lila's footsteps, "That's a cheap trick, but it won't fool me."
Upon seeing Lila appear right in front of her for the purpose of swinging her aura-covered fists, Kusabue shouted in a stern manner, "Flute Bass Shield!"
This new spell made a shamrock green flute appear in Kusabue's hands, and she quickly blew into it for the purpose of playing a high note. That strangely caused the waves of sound to transform into shamrock green spheres with neon green musical notes in them, and the spheres intercepted Lila's punches. The side effect of punching the spheres was that they ended up creating shamrock green and neon green explosions that were large, but they emitted strident waves of sound that resembled jazz music being played on a flute.
Those specific sound waves ended up going into the other spheres, increasing their power right before Kusabue played a calm melody on the flute to make the projectiles float towards Lila. Lila proceeded to make mauve flames engulf her left hand, before making that aggressively grab one sphere to burn it from the outside, but that only made a larger shamrock green explosion occur for its energy to drill into her hand. As Lila screamed in pain, the sound waves strengthened the remaining spheres again.
The blasts became louder like the deep bass notes on drums, and the increasing base power of this attack also made Kusabue smile at how she invented this spell. In addition to how she used it as an attack, Kusabue smiled confidently at how playing an upbeat melody on the flute caused the projectiles to merge into one large sphere. The sphere proceeded to surround Kusabue's body, and thrusting her arms forward caused a smaller sphere to float out of the large bubble. It was struck by Lila, who shot out a mauve vortex of dark magic at the sphere. However, the small projectile exploded whilst its sounds waves nullified the damage of Lila's magic. As she let out an echoing groan of frustration, Lila soon heard the familiar sound of a certain woman happily tap dancing.
"Ara, ara. We'll take it from here, thank you very much." Kyasurin stated with a sadistic smile on her face, the feeling of malice in her eyes.
Matsuba added while grinning confidently, charging up Darkness Magic in his hands, "We have a love for killing, even if means taking down soulless mages."
Matsuba proceeded to unleash a spell called Sangria Ruin, and a Sangria purple beam appeared in between his hands. The beam spiraled up to a high altitude, before it ended up exploding in a large burst of light. The Sangria purple beams of light went down towards Lila's body, and the beams pierced through her. That caused Lila to scream in pain, before the beams that passed through her ended up creating several Sangria purple blasts around her. Matsuba simply chuckled from feeling the intense power of his attack, not minding that it left a crater in the plaza's ground.
That caused some more mages to lunge towards him, only for Kyasurin to activate a spell called Lavender Dagger Blitz. She took out one of the daggers from her hair, before sending a high amount of Darkness Magic into it. When Kyasurin's dagger was engulfed in the lavender purple aura, she threw it at one of the mages who wore dark purple robes. The dagger quickly split itself up into twenty daggers, before they all struck that dark mage to create large lavender explosions. The aftereffect of this spell was that the daggers glowed from the moonlight shining down on them, and they were fully restored to being intact while gaining more magical power.
As Kyasurin stretched out her hands to make all the daggers return to her, she glanced over at Miko and the Sabertooth mages in a confident manner. As Miko was about to run towards the Tyrian Temple, Risa sent Psychic Magic into her own eyes for the purpose of activating Dark Magenta Extrasensory Psyche Delusion. This spell made her magenta eyes glow brightly, before she imagined that a sphere slightly larger than an Esper Ball was in her right hand. As Risa imagined the sphere changing to be hot pink right before it became a deep hue of bubblegum pink, she threw the sphere towards the center of the plaza. Immediately after that, Risa and the Sabertooth mages ran to the Tyrian Temple with Miko running beside Lucy. Lucy turned back around for a moment to see the sphere putting the dark mages into the illusion that they were all being levitated and pulled towards the sphere, which ended up bursting into several large blasts of pink lights that immobilized whoever was pulled towards the sphere.
One hour later, in the Tyrian Temple...
After immobilizing several dark mages, Risa and the others accompanied Miko to the northern half of town where the Tyrian Temple was located. The Tyrian Temple itself was a Tyrian purple rectangular building that was situated behind the four gates that were in varying shades of purple, and the dirt path in front of the building contained a Heather purple ground mixed with a lavender shade of purple. That mixture of purple made Sting wonder if spirits of dead wizards also resided in the Tyrian Temple, since they were in the Spectral Tower.
Unlike the Spectral Tower, however, the Tyrian Temple didn't have a staircase in its first room. Instead, the Tyrian Temple's foyer had Tyrian purple walls that were adorned with Mulberry purple thin ghosts curving and stretching as they were linked together to form elegant patterns. They seemingly formed a fancy design that was similar to images pertaining to wallpaper, and Lucy looked a bit surprised at how she felt her feet being on a Tyrian purple rug that expanded from the entrance to reach all the way to the back of the room.
Lucy walked across the carpet with a confident look on her face, and she noticed the rectangular mulberry purple map that was in a Tyrian purple picture frame. Sting and Sorano wasted no time with running up to Lucy's left and right sides, also wanting to view the map. This map simply informed them that they were in the foyer, which was in the center of the map. There was a dotted path in the drawing that involved three different rooms, before the trail slanted downward. Lucy proceeded to carefully memorize this map with her teammates, and gently pressing the Fuchsia Pink Ring for Psychic Magic against the map caused the fuchsia pink aura to surround the paper. The aura proceeded to go back into Lucy's mind with the last of the aura being mulberry purple, and Lucy started to see every specific detail of the map vividly be in her mind.
She proceeded to walk over to the right side of the room, which strangely had no doorways existing. All that existed on that wall was a lavender purple handle for a torch, which made Lucy look a bit puzzled. Even if some dark mages in the Tyrian Temple wanted to preserve some of its past accessories, there had to be a current way of accessing the secret passage. Lucy proceeded to send magical power into the Sapphire Blue Ring, before using her Ice Magic to create a flame that was made out of ice. The icy flame was placed in the torch holder, only for it to become an actual flame. The light blue fire ended up growing larger, before the wall in front of Lucy rolled upward like a carpet to reveal that the doorway was hidden.
"Wow, that's an interesting way to have a hidden passage." Lucy stated aloud with an impressed look on her face, before she became calmer.
That prompted Rogue to state aloud with a stern facial expression, "Even though we can go through there, we still need to be careful."
Sting asked everyone with a curious look on his face, not trying to have any feelings of anxiety in his eyes, "Do you all hear that?"
Kusabue replied nicely, closing her eyes as she faintly heard something like a drum and someone chanting, "Yeah, I slightly hear it."
Kusabue made herself softly tap her feet in rhythm with the instruments, walking forward as she also heard the sound of a tambourine shaking. Lucy's ears slightly heard the sound of the tambourine, and she walked through the doorway to reach the newly-discovered room. As Lucy and Sting were the first ones to entered this smaller room, they took notice of how it had a boysenberry purple floor with dark purple walls to match. There were also three dark purple clay jugs that were positioned against the wall, and slightly touching one caused the circular lid to be propelled off of it.
That allowed Lucy to simply look in the jug, seeing that it contained a substance that resembled dark purple paint while it still bubbled. That caused Lucy to activate the spell known as Cobalt Cumulonimbus, and she raised her hands high above her head in the moment before shot out a cobalt blue cloud of water. The cloud descended down into the dark purple paint, causing the cloud to become royal purple from the colors fusing together. It quickly sucked up all of the paint from the jug, before ascending to be at eye level with Lucy, and the cloud interestingly had a royal purple aura engulfing it.
Lucy didn't mind that, though, and she tore off a piece of the cloud right before punching it towards the lilac purple torch holder. The royal purple cloud proceeded to shoot out royal purple bubbles towards the torch holder, and the bubbles violently exploded in royal purple blasts! This color made Lucy feel somewhat startled, seeing the blasts proceed to have a slight hint of sapphire blue in them as they faded away, and some of the fire went into the torch holder for it to now be accompanied by a royal purple flame.
The rest of the royal purple fire went towards Lucy when she stretched out her palms, but she quickly aimed them at the jugs. The large jugs of paint had their lids immediately come off from the flames getting close to them, and one jug had amethyst purple clouds of steam emerging from it. The other jug had Eminence purple clouds of steam coming out of it, and the flames jumped into both of them. That only made the flames take on those different shades of purple, before the auras pertinent to the paint sent themselves into Lucy's body. Even though she also nonchalantly let the royal purple aura and the dark purple aura go towards her while the wall rolled downward to reveal the doorway, Sting looked concerned about this circumstance that should've been a logical incompatibility in terms of magic.
"Lucy, are you sure you're okay? Is it wise to take in Darkness Magic's auras without the proper ring on your hand right now?" Sting asked with a concerned look on his face, hoping that his girlfriend wouldn't be negatively affected.
She replied to him with a pleasant facial expression, genuinely not feeling any pain, "I'm fine, Sting. Anyway, we need to check out the next room."
As Lucy was about to walk out of the room, she felt the need to put her hands into all the jugs of paint. The extremely hot paint didn't even burn her hands, due to Yukishimou's Water Magic making Lucy be capable of touching substances such as wet paint or hot water without even feeling pain. Lucy simply let the paint lightly drip from her hands like an artist who was passionate enough about painting to literally get their hands dirty, and she walked through the doorway to the next room. Upon seeing the mauve purple walls that matched the Tyrian floor, Lucy glanced at the wall near the torch holder.
This wall had a swirl pattern engraved into it, almost like something needed to be placed into the pattern itself. There were no items on the floor that could form the pattern, causing Sting to look somewhat perplexed at this room's puzzle. Lucy proceeded to unleash her Water Magic in the form of the spell known as Water Wave Shield, and the spell interestingly fired itself from her hands. The two waves of water were both amethyst purple, only becoming sapphire blue for a split second before reverting back to being amethyst purple.
Lucy aimed her hands at the swirl pattern on the wall, causing the waves of water to lunge towards it. The amethyst purple water began to fill up the hollow areas of the swirl pattern, and the water immediately began to shine in its color of amethyst purple. The light from this spell was accompanied by the sound of the wall retracting itself back down in the floor, resulting in the path to the final room now being visible. As that path was revealed, Lucy smiled in a confident manner at how she was easily getting through the Tyrian Temple.
The last hallway of the Tyrian Temple surprised her, however, and that was because Tyrian purple flames rained down from the ceiling. Lucy gasped in a panicked manner, accidentally activating Icy Snowflake, and she looked up while firing a light blue snowflake from her mouth. The attack struck the flames, creating a light blue explosion while some of them became light blue fire. That icy fire descended from the ceiling, but Lucy immediately narrowed her eyes as she charged up Water Magic in her right hand.
The sapphire blue aura of her Water Magic was shot out at the flames, coating them in the aura mere moments before they became bursts of water that were shaped like flames. Those bursts of water rained down on the hallway, covering it with a large amount of water as if a tidal wave had hit it, and the water turned amethyst purple for a moment. In that same moment, the Tyrian purple flames were doused and their Tyrian purple smoke went directly into Lucy's mouth. She inhaled the smoke as if she was inhaling the aroma from an incense, ignoring the dark magic that was in the aroma.
She casually walked across the amethyst purple water, which was somewhat hot from the flames that fell down earlier, and Lucy could hear the chanting in the next room. She wondered if the dark mages in that room were performing a ritual involving Darkness Magic, and Lucy readied herself for the possible situation of facing Maruberiki's underlings in a fight. Sting also joined her in charging up some magic, since he felt that it would be exciting to take down a group of chanting mages by using White Dragon's Holy Ray to defeat them all at once.
"What's going on in here?" Sting asked in a serious tone, having sternness in his eyes.
A woman with shoulder-length orchid purple hair responded to him in a calm manner, "Oh, we're just singing our hymns to show appreciation to the dark goddess. Although, you probably don't want to join in."
"The dark goddess dances around Gunjou, and six purple rings on her fingers also glow! The seventh ring is as beautiful as the color violet, but the six purple rings were lesser whilst being made from dark witches who were violent! Heather, amethyst, plum, and grape! They are just as beautiful as mulberry, boysenberry, lilac, and mauve!" The warlock with the Iris purple tambourine musically chanted, shaking the instrument as the dark witch began to happily move from side to side.
A slightly younger warlock who wore electric purple glasses with dark purple frames commented in a calm manner, casually playing the Heather purple drum in rhythm with the hymn's chanting, "That song is sacred in Gunjou, but I've never understood its meaning."
Lucy glanced at the man's electric purple warlock robe, which matched his plain purple T-shirt that went well with his dark purple jeans. The dark purple jeans complimented his plain purple sandals, and Lucy looked away from him for a moment. She turned her attention to the older man who had dark mauve messy hair, which matched his warlock robe, and his song seemed very interesting. The rhythm may have been part of a musical melody, but a melody that had notes to be followed in a certain order could be similar to a riddle.
The riddle that Lucy recently heard involved the man singing one verse of the hymn that worshiped the goddess, but Lucy wondered how she could make that riddle be solved for the final door to open. Lucy glanced at the sealed door, before activating a spell called Coastal Cerulean Sapphire Whirlpool. Lucy's hands proceeded to have the purple paint heavily drip from them to where a puddle quickly formed, and Lucy placed her hands down into the paint. She was able to submerge her hands in the paint, almost like it was a deep puddle of water.
Lucy moved her hands around in a circular motion, and the sapphire blue aura around her hands grew much larger. However, the aura also became dark purple. Lucy felt her hands move around rapidly,going much faster than she would normally move them, and the amount of power in this spell increased to a very high level to where eight dark purple twisters of water emerged from the paint. The dark purple twisters of water had mauve purple orbs of paint appearing right above them, before the orbs became dark purple.
"Why is the spell working so much differently than before?" Lucy asked with a curious look on her face, wondering about the effect that it would have.
Sting commented with a calm smile on his face, "The spell looks different than a sapphire shade of blue, too. Although, its color changing could be an advantage."
That prompted Lucy to reply with a look of realization on her face, seeming confident, "That's it!"
She proceeded to make the sapphire blue aura engulf her hands, only for it to turn dark purple. This caused Lucy to try activating her Ice Magic, causing the aura to become a lighter shade of purple. Lucy sent more strength into her hands, making the aura become Heather purple. Lucy aggressively threw the Heather purple aura at the twisters, causing them all to become Heather purple. Changing the shade of purple for the twisters prompted Lucy to build up the sapphire blue aura in her hands again, and she glanced up at the ceiling to see that the Gunjou Moon's light was coming down through the cracks in the ceiling.
Upon seeing the moonlight, Lucy aimed her hands at the twisters and pulled her arms backwards to make the twisters move towards her. Lucy made them all go under the moonlight, causing the twisters to become amethyst purple. Lucy moved her arms forward, taking them out of the moonlight before moving them back into the moonlight for them to shift to being plum purple. Lucy repeated the process of moving the plum purple twisters out of the moonlight, before putting them back under the Gunjou Moon's light for them to be grape purple.
Lucy glanced at the grape purple twisters, before moving her hands upward to make the twisters float in midair. They proceeded to become mulberry purple, before going out of the moonlight for a moment. Lucy moved them back into the moonlight for them to be boysenberry purple, before sending them higher into the air for them to be lilac purple. Lucy made the lilac purple twisters leave the moonlight, before sending them back into the moonlight for the moon's Darkness Magic to make the twisters become the shade of purple that was mauve. When the eight twisters of water became mauve purple, they glowed brightly with an intense amount of light emanating from them. The moonlight was able to strike the sealed door, causing it to retract upward and reveal the deeper part of the Tyrian Tower.
Lucy smiled in a proud manner, glad that she and her friends could go deeper into the temple. As Lucy glanced at that route, she looked back at her eight large twisters to see that they formed a mauve whirlpool of air. That whirlpool of air had several mauve drops of water in it, which formed a mauve purple orb, and that orb started to suck up water from the twisters. The twisters released large amounts of water, which went straight towards the orb, and the orb started to grow much larger. When the orb grew large enough to touch the twisters, it popped like a giant paintball exploding.
All of the mauve purple paint ended up drenching Lucy's body, almost like she was an artist who was literally getting rained down by the paint from her portrait on a giant canvas, and the mauve twisters detonated in mauve purple blasts! Those blasts were not only powerful, but they became scalding hot at the last moment to even make the mauve puddles of paint on the ground start to bubble like magma. The paint bubbled for only a moment, and Lucy proceeded to run out of the final room.
When Lucy walked down the Tyrian purple steps that led to the dirt path, she took notice of how the barren ceiling ended with stalactites being positioned above a cave's entrance. That was the entrance to Gunjou Cave, and Lucy narrowed her eyes as she sensed Maruberiki's high level of magical power. He was obviously down here right now, meaning that this would be the day of their crucial battle, and Lucy wasted no time with running towards the cave's entrance. The entrance to Gunjou Cave had several purple crystals on the walls, and Lucy slightly smiled.
She liked that there were several crystals in this cave, her eyes displaying delight at all of the dark purple crystals. Lucy even felt her pulse start to quicken from the sight of the crystals, prompting her to gently rub one with her right hand, and it began to darkly glow. As Lucy and her friends covered their eyes, a dark purple aura heavily emerged from the crystal for it to surround Lucy's body. She felt herself have a large surge of magical power, before excitedly running down this route. She gently tapped all of the crystals with her fingers, sending the dark purple auras into her body.
"I feel so much more powerful now, and we'll definitely beat Maruberiki!" Lucy stated with a happy smile on her face, before running down the path.
Sting told Lucy with a somewhat worried look on his face, hoping that there was no danger up ahead, "Lucy, wait! There may be some bobby traps nearby!"
"Even though Minerva's scent is faint, someone else is down here." Sting thought to himself with a concerned facial expression, smelling someone else's scent.
Sting ran after Lucy with everyone else running behind him, and applying White Dragon Slayer Magic allowed him to run at a much faster pace. Sting hastily followed Lucy to where they both went down one of the nearby paths, which was actually a hidden path that contained Sangria purple crystals embedded in the walls. The walls were also Sangria purple, along with the ceiling and the floor. Sting ignored how the floor felt a bit warmer than before, almost like Fire Magic had been used on the crystals for them to radiate too much heat.
Sting placed one of his hands near some of the Sangria purple crystals, only for him to quickly pull his hand back from how the crystal had Sangria purple flames spiraling out of it. That was different from the other crystals, meaning that someone had possibly tampered with the ones that were on this hidden path. Sting decided to run all the way to the end of this hidden path, running fast to where he ran past Lucy, but Sting soon stopped from seeing that this hidden path led to a route that would take him much deeper into Gunjou Cave.
As Sting led Lucy and the rest of the group down this route, he soon went to the right. This took him and Lucy into another hidden route of Gunjou Cave, seeing the mulberry purple crystals glowing as they protruded from the walls. Touching one of these crystals actually caused the area under them to have mulberry purple fireballs motionlessly appearing. They didn't move, noreven have their fire crackling loudly. As Risa exited this cave with everyone else, she discovered that using Stellar Psi on one flame caused it to burst into an inferno. The fire didn't damage the Sabertooth mages, but it certainly provided more light in this part of the cave that seemed like Darkness Magic was used for darkening the area.
"Sting, I'm definitely sensing that someone's been using Darkness Magic down here. Maruberiki is still in a deeper area of the temple, so let's-" Lucy explained to Sting with a stern look on her face, before being interrupted by the sound of echoing footsteps coming closer.
Upon seeing the group of mages, Tifani laughed and stated with an arrogant smirk on her face, "Ha ha ha... Hello, Lucy. Rather, I should call you Heiress or Excellency. Just look at those legendary rings!"
Lucy asked in a curious manner, seeing the girl's purple skin as her hair shifted between different shades of purple, "How do you know my name, mage? Wait, why do you look familiar? Aren't you that girl from Ryokufū Town's festival?"
"Yes, and my name is Tifani. Although, it would've been a lovelier name with those seven rings in my possession. Tell me, how does it feel to almost possess all seven rings?! I imagine that it must be wonderful, even if it's a sensation I can never experience! Even getting recognition from Kirika is forever beyond my grasp, since your successes were my failures! I'm a husk of a woman who offered up my soul! I have nothing left to lose, but your funeral in front of the dark goddess will give me happiness!" Tifani responded in a bitter and vengeful manner, before maniacally laughing and having rage in her eyes that looked soulless.
Tifani proceeded to charge up a high amount of Darkness Magic, causing herself to be surrounded by multiple auras that were in varying shades of purple. She immediately activated a spell called Flame Mulberry Bomb, and Tifani shot out a mulberry purple orb from her mouth. She watched the orb burst right in front of her face for the purpose of creating several mulberry purple puddles of paint on the ground, and they all had flames emerging from them. Lucy decided to activate the spell called Ice Snowflake, and she shot out a light blue snowflake from her mouth.
She watched the attack be light blue, only for it to become lilac purple. When the lilac purple ice struck the ground, it immediately detonated in a lilac purple blast! The attack was surprisingly filled with heat waves, almost like this attack pertained to dry ice. The heat from the ice quickly subsided, and the ice itself melted down into lilac purple water that mixed in with the mulberry purple flames. The water became mulberry purple, before resembling paint, and Lucy wasted no time with activating the spell known as Ice Snowflake.
Lucy shot out a lilac purple snowflake from her mouth, before putting her right hand deep into the paint. After getting it covered with paint, Lucy aimed her right hand up at the ceiling. seeing mulberry purple gases be in the air. She activated the spell known as Freezing Snowfall, and this spell required Lucy to aim her right hand up at the clouds. That caused the clouds to fire mulberry purple beams down from the sky, and they all converged on Tifani. The beams had an intense amount of heat in them, almost like flames falling from the sky.
When the beams down towards Tifani, she activated a spell called Fiery Mulberry Shield. This spell required her to stretch out her hands in opposite directions, and she immediately raised her hands upward. A mulberry purple shield of Darkness Magic immediately appeared around her, and it was struck by the mulberry purple beams. Even though several mulberry purple blasts occurred, all of their flames instantly slid off of the shield for them to be on the ground. The flames near Tifani illuminated her body, displaying that she was unharmed.
This only prompted Lucy to activate a spell known as Glistening Icy Wonderland, and mulberry purple glitter proceeded to descend from the mulberry purple clouds of gas that were still in the air. The glitter quickly came down upon Lucy in the form of a spiraling beam, which left behind mulberry purple thin ice on every part of her body. The thin ice hastily melted, before being replaced with a mulberry purple aura. As Lucy slid towards Tifani, she felt herself oddly slide at a very slow speed. This caused her to look worried, since Tifani smirked at her in a confident manner.
Tifani unleashed a spell called Mulberry Dark Light, and she became engulfed in a mulberry purple aura. She blinked her eyes once, before the entire area became shrouded in darkness with only a mulberry purple burst of light suddenly appearing right below the ceiling. Lucy glanced up at the light, before putting her hands in the mulberry purple paint. Sending magic into her paint-covered hands caused them to glow in the mulberry hue of purple. Aiming her hands directly in front of her caused Lucy to shockingly see Tifani appear in front of her, ready to punch her in the face.
She attempted to punch Lucy with mulberry purple flames engulfing her hands, only to suddenly see a large and hexagonal-shaped shield of mulberry purple ice appear in front of her. The ice was nearly transparent, only seen when Tifani's flaming fist exploded against it. That made Lucy have an idea, and she proceeded to spin around rapidly. As she was spinning, Lucy thought about how Glistening Icy Wonderland's effect changing meant that she could use it to her advantage. The ice that was generated from her spinning began to spread, before it revealed something interesting.
"There are shields all around me?! Why do they feel so dense?!" Lucy asked aloud, ceasing with her spinning to see all of the ice mainly generated around where she stood.
Tifani shouted in a pained manner, seeing her other fist be engulfed in large explosions from striking the icy shield multiple times at a rapid pace, "Ouch! Your stupid shield is giving me even more pain!"
"Although, maybe a long-range attack will melt that ice!" Tifani fiercely stated, before sliding backwards and stretching out her hands.
She proceeded to use a spell known as Boysenberry Cannon of Darkness, and the aura around her body became boysenberry purple. It also grew to a much larger size, before Tifani shot out a boysenberry purple beam from the space in between her hands. The beam grew even larger from the crystals that were in the area, but Lucy wasted no time with spinning around rapidly again. Generating more ice made all of the shields grow in size, and the frontal shields were hit by Tifani's attack! The boysenberry purple blast was massive, even leaving behind a large amount of boysenberry purple paint that covered the floor of the cavern.
Freezing over some of that paint with her dry ice allowed Lucy to watch it explode, but seeing the shields from earlier regain more density allowed her to take notice of how the increasing amount of ice was making her shields be much denser. Lucy also felt her body become as dense as glacial ice, only to see her right hand's punch be extremely swift as if she was normally sliding across thin ice. Lucy ended up punching one of the shields towards Tifani, seeing it leave behind a trail of dense icy wind that seemed to make the air itself be capable of putting frost burns on enemies.
Tifani ended up getting hit by the shield itself, resulting in her entire body getting coated in mulberry purple frost very quickly, and the shield quickly exploded. The mulberry purple blast dealt a high amount of damage to the dark witch, the Ice Magic being extremely dense. Tifani felt her body be in tremendous pain, almost like she was directly hit by an icy avalanche, but the first moment of mulberry smoke occurring was the best opportunity for Lucy to aggressively punch that other shield towards her opponent.
Upon seeing the next explosion occur and be larger from the preexisting icy energy, Lucy told Tifani in a stern manner, "Just allow us to pass through here, and I'll prevent Maruberiki from killing you!
"Maruberiki would never kill me, and Minerva wouldn't deceive me. They gave me dark magic, a power that will never perceive me as trash! This power grows with my own anger, helping me destroy everyone who had a better life than me!"
"Having power corrupt you like this just means you're still engulfed in darkness, no matter what." Lucy stated, narrowing her eyes.
She activated a spell called Icy Tsunami, and this spell caused Lucy to aim her right hand at one of the icy shields that remained near her body. A mulberry purple wave of ice rose up from it, before curving forward towards Tifani. She saw the smoke slightly clear up to reveal that this attack was heading towards her, even leaving behind mulberry purple ice that melted as soon as it formed on the ground. The water that was left behind ended up becoming boysenberry purple, almost like it went with the flow of Tifani changing the hue of her Darkness Magic.
Lucy watched that water quickly freeze, however, and the puddles resembled boysenberry purple ice. Lucy placed her right hand on one of the ice puddles, sending more of her Ice Magic into it. That caused the boysenberry purple puddle to largely distend, expanding to a much larger size, and Lucy wondered if this ice could be just as useful if it wasn't pertaining to the purpose of being a shield. That caused Lucy to activate Icy Tsunami again, and she watched a boysenberry purple tsunami of ice emerge from the large puddle.
The frigid attack curved towards Tifani, who was about to be struck by the earlier tsunami. She activated a spell called Dark Boysenberry Detonation, and she shot out a boysenberry purple orb from her mouth. She watched the orb go towards the tsunami, before surrounding itself in an inferno of fire at the last second. The boysenberry purple orb struck the mulberry purple tsunami, resulting in a massive blast that contained their two purple shades of magic, but the waves of energy that went out towards the boysenberry purple tsunami only powered it up.
The boysenberry purple attack went straight towards Tifani, creating a boysenberry purple blast that was quite large. This attack was even strong enough to have its energy destroy parts of the walls in this part of the cave, along with making cracks form. Some of them even had tiny crystals of Darkness Magic fall out from them, and Lucy felt one of the crystals land near her right foot. She gently picked it up, before turning her attention back to her opponent. Tifani didn't even scream from being hit by that attack, and Lucy narrowed her eyes.
She got to see the dark witch weakly stand up, before activating a spell called Boysenberry Dark Ritual, and Tifani aggressively slammed her hands together. She sent the boysenberry purple aura into one of the nearby flames that was in a boysenberry hue of purple, and it immediately released small waves of fire in the form of rings. The fire reached Tfani for the purpose of healing her wounds, and she also felt her magical power get restored by triple the amount that she sent into the flame. That prompted her to pick up that flame with one hand, and her Darkness Magic made it grow into a larger fireball.
Tifani activated a spell called Dark Flame Path, and she threw the fireball at Lucy. The fireball swiftly moved along a path of boysenberry purple flames that curved several times, but Lucy was quick to counterattack. She switched to using Water Magic, before using the spell known as Cerulean Bubble Gum, and Lucy wasted no time with using Ice Magic. Lucy proceeded to eat the mulberry purple paint that was left on the ground, before shooting out a cerulean blue bubble from her left hand. Lucy inhaled more air, before shooting out a large mulberry purple bubble.
The large mulberry purple bubble of paint coated the cerulean blue bubble of water, before making it change to the mulberry hue of purple. The bubble absorbed all of the paint, before having mulberry purple clouds of gas emerging from it. Lucy proceeded to inhale the bubble, before aggressively chewing on it like bubble gum. She proceeded to spit it out in the form of mulberry purple gas clouds, and they went towards the fireball. When Tifani's fireball made contact with the boysenberry purple gas, the fireball surprisingly grew much larger.
"If you're increasing the power of my attack to make yourself die quicker, then victory is mine!" Tifani told Lucy with an arrogant look on her face, before evilly giggling.
Upon grabbing some of the paint that became much hotter and bubbled, Lucy replied nicely, "Well, you'd be wrong."
"What?!" Tifani asked in a stunned manner, before Lucy put more mulberry paint in her mouth.
Lucy swallowed all of the mulberry purple liquid, before exhaling a large amount of cold air that was mulberry purple in color. She immediately shot out a cerulean blue bubble from her left hand, and she aimed it at the large mass of mulberry icy air. The mulberry purple air heated up the bubble, before intensely coating it whilst making the bubble be mulberry purple, and the bubble quickly ended up bursting into a large cloud of mulberry purple gas. This gaseous spell ended up going towards the fireball, causing to explode in a massive inferno!
Lucy dodged most of the boysenberry purple flames that headed towards her, and she watched the flames start to melt. This caused Tifani to look very startled, as she watched her flames be similar to conflagrations that were snuffing themselves out. The flames melted down into hot boysenberry purple paint, melting the ground while several purple crystals started to glow from being affected by Tifani's magic, and that caused the paint to shift towards being amethyst purple. It also began to grow much larger, before Tifani felt that she needed to end this fight.
She decided to jump up high, before slamming her feet down into the paint. That caused a high amount of amethyst purple paint to rise up from the ground, before Tifani unleashed a spell known as Amethyst Flame Fall. Tifani aimed her right hand at the large mass of amethyst purple paint, seeing it become amethyst purple lava, and Tifani redirected her right hand at Lucy. Lucy watched the magma go towards her, and she felt that this unorthodox attack would have to be countered with an interesting defensive spell.
"Sapphire Wave Slash!" Lucy shouted fiercely, seeing her hands become engulfed in a sapphire blue aura.
Sting thought to himself with a curious look entering into his eyes, "I wonder how Lucy will get past this attack by using that spell."
Tifani stated with an overconfident smile on her face, thinking that she wouldn't lose, "This spell will destroy you, Lucy Heartfilia! I'll happily get praise from Maruberiki-san by ending your life!"
Lucy had a bold frown on her face while slamming her hands up against the amethyst purple paint, and Lucy felt sapphire blue bubbles start to emerge from her hands. The bubbles were soon coated by the amethyst purple magma, causing them to start aggressively bubbling, and Lucy crushed them in her fists. She watched her hands be transformed into large claws that were amethyst purple, and they emitted scalding hot steam. The heat from Lucy's claws allowed her to absorb more of the magma, before she chose to rapidly spin in midair.
Lucy spun while her amethyst purple claws sent out amethyst purple waves of water that formed rings around her body, and the clouds of gas in this water were in a boysenberry hue of purple. They exploded upon coming into contact with the magma, which caused more amethyst purple bursts of dry ice to end up being created. They quickly melted down into amethyst purple water, which rotated around Lucy as she persisted with her spinning. The intense force of her spinning made her water also become much more dense, too.
The density of her water caused the boysenberry purple clouds of gas to turn into solid bubbles of boysenberry purple dry ice, and they all ended up colliding with the amethyst purple magma. The magma ended up coating the boysenberry purple bubbles, before boysenberry purple blasts filled the air, and some amethyst purple waves of energy shifted into being boysenberry purple water. Lucy liked how her rings of water were becoming much larger, essentially becoming shields that were blocking the amethyst purple magma that descended down towards them.
When the rings of water became enormous and started to flip horizontally and vertically around Lucy, she raised her claws up into the air. That caused the rings to go up into the air, before Lucy thrusted her hands forward for the dense rings of water to go in that direction. The rings of water followed Lucy's hand movements, going downward when the hands went down to her sides, and the defensive spell was sent crashing down towards Tifani. The dark witch watched the magma continue to fall on to the defensive spell of water, causing the boysenberry purple gases in the rings to explode.
That caused Tifani to notice that more dry ice was forming on the rings, before it all melted down into more amethyst purple water. This water was extremely hot, and the spell continued to grow as all of the magma came into contact with it. The impact from the magma made more dry ice start to form, only for it to instantly melt down into a large amount of amethyst purple water that went into the rings. This only made the rings become much larger, and they resembled large meteors as they crashed down towards Tifani.
She simply had a startled look on her face, her eyes looking panicked as she was about to be hit by the spell. Tifani ended up being attacked by Lucy's defensive spell, resulting in an amethyst purple blast that was enormous while it also changed to being a boysenberry hue of purple, and the sheer power of Lucy's Water Magic mixed with her Ice Magic allowed the walls of the cavern to be destroyed. However, Tifani was experiencing more destruction by being aggressively burned and damaged by the spell's intense amount of pressure.
Tifani felt the smaller explosions harming her body, even feeling the attacks slicing against her body as if Lucy slashed at her with her own claws. Tifani simply screamed in pain from dealing with the brutal level of power within this attack, and every explosion against her body dealt an immense amount of damage. Tifani slowly fell down to the ground, realizing that she couldn't counter Lucy's massive attack, but Lucy faintly saw the sight of Tifani trying to stay on her feet. Even though Tifani was rapidly taking large amounts of damage, she seemingly wouldn't give up.
"If you... want to... finish your... conquest, then go ahead!" Tifani weakly stated, ignoring the amethyst purple smoke and boysenberry purple clouds of smoke that accompanied them.
Lucy responded sternly, landing on her feet as she descended to the ground, "This isn't a conquest for me! Unlike you, I'm not just Maruberiki's pawn who helps him guard that ring! When it comes to getting those seven rings, I'm trying to get my body back from Kotomi!"
"You'd probably get so much recognition from everyone for that, right?! Then, how would you know what it feels like when you can't get Kirika's recognition?! Each time, why did my hard work of tracking you down always go to waste?! You and Kotomi have no idea what it's like to be hated, right?!" Tifani aggressively asked, feeling angry as she breathed furiously.
As Tifani's body shook in anger, Lucy started to narrow her eyes and frown in a stern manner. She may not have been hated for failing at a mission, but Lucy remembered the intense amount of hate that she experienced from the people of Tokiwa Town. None of them respected her or wanted to show any mercy, but Lucy felt that she put hard work into the right choice of running away. Lucy felt that she couldn't let her own self-worth and her own survival go to waste in that tense moment, but Tifani certainly took the worse path.
She was now a husk of a woman who could only be pining for validation from Maruberiki and Minerva, people who would likely dispose of her when she could no longer be useful to them. After all, neither Minerva or Maruberiki seemed to have any issues with their top commanders being arrested. They probably wouldn't even care if Tifani died right now, and all that she wanted to do was earn their validation. From Tifani's perspective, it seemed like she didn't want to experience failure anymore and she was desperate to earn validation.
The thought of Maruberiki saying that she was weak caused Tifani to angrily clench her fists, and she sent most of her remaining Darkness Magic into her feet. She proceeded to aggressively run towards Lucy, who simply frowned at how Tifani strongly desired validation and friendships by latching on to mages who didn't care for her. Lucy watched Tifani run towards her with tears in her eyes, ignoring how she was clutching her chest in a pained manner with her right hand. That hand wasn't like her left hand, which had amethyst purple aura of Darkness Magic charged up into it. As Lucy tried to build up some Water Magic, she gasped in shock from Tifani sending a burst of speed into her feet for her to get much closer.
"I am not a pawn! Maruberiki-san and Minerva-sama gave me some power and a reason to exist!" Tifani angrily told Lucy, building up more Darkness Magic as she harshly swung her fist towards the green-haired girl.
Sting shouted with a concerned look on his face, "Lucy, get out of the way!"
"How the hell could you and your friends ever understand what it's like to have someone view you as more than a pariah?!" Tifani asked in an enraged manner, stretching her fist towards Lucy's face.
Lucy closed her eyes while putting her hands in front of her face, and she was prepared to endure the power of Tifani's attack. However, slightly opening her eyes allowed Lucy to see that Tifani was frozen in place with her fist still stretched out. Lucy glanced away from her enemy's fist for a moment to see that Tifani had some blood dripping from her mouth while her angry facial expression changed to a shocked look, and her eyes had a startled look in them. She probably couldn't believe that this was the moment where Maruberiki would be pleased with her victory, but expending so much magical power caused her to put too much stress on her body.
Tifani could feel her entire body shutting down, and Lucy watched her cough up some broken fragments of purple crystals. Tifani wanted to have power so badly to the point of eating Gunjou Cave's crystals that were in different shades of purple, but her own level of magical power was amplified to a level that she wasn't accustomed to. Her body couldn't handle the power of the spells that she unleashed, along with being unable to endure the strength of Lucy's spells. Lucy watched Tifani fall forward, seeing her body start to be covered in several hot burns that were in varying shades of purple.
Lucy simply remained stoic as she gently lifted Tifani's body up from the ground, rolling her over on to her side. She felt that this was the best way for Tifani to technically have a peaceful funeral, and the broken walls of the cavern allowed Lucy to see some destroyed rocks breaking down into ashes. The ash slightly revealed Erza's blue Fairy Tail guild mark on her left shoulder. That prompted Lucy to go over to some of those ashes, moving them aside to see the scarlet hair of her dead friend.
The sight of Erza's body only made Lucy look saddened as she pulled her friend out of the ashes, and Lucy could sense that Erza's body wasn't harmed by any dark magic. She wondered if Erza was attacked by Kotomi before the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, since she didn't even show up there to interact with Kagura. Kagura was probably now the strongest sword-wielding woman in Fiore, but the thought of Erza losing to a more powerful person made Lucy tightly clench her fists as the deaths of Erza and Tifani made her feel like she couldn't lose to Maruberiki.
Lucy proceeded to run through the damaged cave with Sting and the others following her, before she went to the left. Taking the path on the left allowed Lucy to run up some amethyst purple steps that made her feel like she was going into an upper level of Gunjou Cave, but seeing the mulberry purple doorway at the end of the stairs made her smile in a happy manner. Lucy was now leading everyone back into the Tyrian Temple, and going into what appeared to be just a hallway with mulberry purple carpeting made her softly smile.
This was the correct path that Lucy followed from the map in the foyer, and she took notice of two boysenberry purple statues that closely stood near the left and right sides of the doorway. Lucy walked up to one of the statues, seeing that they depicted a woman with long and straight hair while her palms were firmly touching in each other in a praying stance. Lucy assumed that this statue and the other one were depicting the dark goddess, who was likely in the next room. That caused Lucy to turn around and look at Miko, who was smiling in an excited manner.
Miko felt delighted at how she would finally get the chance to speak to the dark goddess, hoping to persuade her to improve the quality of life for all the residents of Gunjou. The dark goddess could likely revert all of the soulless mages back to their normal selves, along with giving them back their souls. Miko would gladly plead to the goddess for her to make the madness in Gunjou end, along with wanting her to bring Maruberiki back to his old self. Miko's desire to see Gunjou Town be a thriving and happy place caused her to run past Risa and Sorano, and going out of the hallway to be in that room allowed Miko to enter that sacred room. However, the sound of her footsteps abruptly came to a halt.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Miko yelled in a furious and shocked manner, sadness also in her voice after she had loudly gasped.
After running into the room of the dark goddess, Lucy exclaimed with a shocked facial expression, "The dark goddess has been turned to stone!"
Sting thought to himself, looking stern as he was noticing a small purple glimmer on the right hand of the goddess, "That small bit of shining... Is that the seventh legendary ring?"
Lucy's words prompted Maruberiki to turn around for the purpose of facing her, before responding with a calm facial expression, "No one knows why the dark goddess did that to herself, for even I don't understand it. Although, I must say that I'm surprised that you all made it here."
Before Sting could tell Maruberiki to get away from the statue where the ring was located, Minerva walked out from behind the statue with a sadistic grin on her face. The appearance of his former teammate startled the light dragon slayer, noticing that Minerva now had lavender skin that was shifting to different shades of purple as she built up purple energy waves in her hands. She wore amethyst purple high-heeled shoes that had straps, and her elegant dress was in a lilac shade of purple while the chest area had dark purple lines on it that formed the jagged shape of a ribbon.
The chest area of the dress was lined with orchid purple fur, which went well with the Heather purple straps of the dress, and the front of the dress had boysenberry purple orbs forming the outer part of a swirl pattern while mauve orbs formed the swirls that were inside of the largest one. Minerva's glossy purple hair was now Eminence purple, but her looped buns were now different colors. The left hair bun was eggplant purple while the right hair bun was Iris purple, and her eyes that had no pupils were now lavender.
Upon seeing Minerva start to cackle evilly as she placed one hand under her own chin in a calm manner, Sting guessed that Minerva's immense level of power and new appearance meant that she offered up all of her own soul to the dark goddess in exchange for power. This made Rogue also look as shocked as Sting, but he quickly narrowed his eyes from thinking that the boosts in power from the crystals in Gunjou Cave weren't enough to satisfy her. Still, Minerva was now a husk of a woman. This was no different than how the dark goddess seemed to be a husk of her former self, being a plain purple stone statue as her eyes were closed and her hands were nearly down by her stomach as her palms were open.
"How am I supposed to speak with the dark goddess now?" Miko asked aloud, having a look of despair on her face.
Minerva told her in a manipulative tone, lightly smirking as she still believed in her own plan of madness, "If you wish for the dark goddess to be released with her madness quelled, then you know that you must offer up your own soul. There's no other way, Miko-chan."
Lucy immediately joined the conversation, looking very worried, "Miko, don't do it! Minerva and Maruberiki want you to get turned into a witch! Don't throw your life away!"
"Lucy. You've worked so hard to get me this far. I'm grateful to you for everything you did up to this point, but this is the best way for me to save everyone." Miko told Lucy in a saddened tone, frowning a bit before smiling in a parting manner as she walked past the green-haired girl.
Miko walked up to the stone statue of the dark goddess, which was on an amethyst purple square pedestal that matched the orchid purple ground. The ground accompanied the lavender purple walls, which had several crystals in different hues of purple slightly protruding out from it. Miko created a neon purple orb in her left hand, before firing it at some neon purple crystals. The orb didn't explode when it hit the crystals, but it absorbed their power to become much larger. Miko made a neon purple aura engulf her body in that same moment, before sending all of her magical power in an orb that was created in her right hand.
That orb was in a lighter hue of neon purple, and it grew to be somewhat larger. Miko stretched that hand out towards the goddess statue, causing the spell to be engulfed in a dark purple aura like it was an offering being consumed by a deity. That also happened to the giant orb, all of its power being taken the statue of the dark goddess. After a few seconds, Miko felt extremely exhausted as she started falling to her knees. That was the moment where the dark goddess made a dark purple aura be sent out from the statue to heavily engulf Miko's body, before the white and ghostly version of Miko's own soul was extracted for it to be sent into the statue of the dark goddess.
That left Miko's body to fall in front of the dark goddess, before she slowly got back up. A neon purple aura started to engulf her body, before a pastel purple aura replaced it, and Miko's witch hat fell off to reveal that her hair changed to being pastel purple. She turned around to face Lucy with soulless eyes that were midnight purple, and the sound of the priestess groaning in a menacing manner only made Lucy narrow her eyes at how she'd have to fight against Miko with limited magical power. Before she could build up any magical power, the sight of Risa creating an Esper Ball and running towards Miko surprised the protagonist.
How was Chapter 69? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and the other protagonists entered the Tyrian Temple, and they had to solve riddles that involved Lucy 'painting' her spells in hues of purple. She was quite a good artist when it came to solving riddles, as well as creatively fighting Tifani. Although, Lucy unfortunately had to deal with Miko sacrificing herself and becoming a dark witch. However, Risa is prepared to fight for Lucy while Lucy herself knows that Maruberiki is the critical artist who stands in her way of crafting the image of perfectly having all seven legendary rings on her fingers. We're now in the final battles of this arc. By the way, this is the twelfth part of the Mauve Darkness Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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