Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 59: Path of Heather Purple, Path of Mauve Purple! Mauveria's Mauve Flames & Illusionary Dark Magic! Devotion To A Dark Goddess!
The mages from Sabertooth stood outside the gate to Gunjou Town, realizing that Kyasurin and Matsuba were refusing to let them in. Since those dark mages wouldn't let the gate be torn down while they were only willing to let Miko from the Shimizuakira Council inside, that left the protagonists with only one option. They all chose to obey Matsuba's suggestion of taking the routes that acted like secondary paths, since Mauveria and Violara were still just subordinates of Maruberiki. If he was the main villain in Gunjou, then Lucy thought that Maruberiki would stay in the town instead of assisting the dark mages.
If her thought was correct, then Lucy started to have a calm smile on her face. She looked at Sting, who began to smile back in a confident manner. He had been thinking that this situation was nothing to argue over, and two different paths just meant that this large group of Sabertooth mages needed to split into two smaller groups. Lucy and Sting walked up to Yukino and Kusabue, wanting to team up with them on the self-given mission of going to Mauveria's abode. That place seemed like it would be perfect for this specific group to unleash their various types of magic, since Yukino's Ice Angel Magic would work well in a wasteland instead of in a swamp.
That argument could also be made for Lucy's Ice Magic, since having Yukino by her side would allow them both to produce ice that could either freeze the ground or be melted down into water. That water could be utilized for Lucy's Water Magic, and that would also her to wield water in a place where it probably wouldn't be accessible. Lucy took a moment to walk over to the trail on the right, seeing that it did indeed lead to a wasteland that was in the distance. That prompted her to walk down that path, causing Sting to follow her with Yukino and Kusabue accompanying him.
That left Risa and Rogue with Kūkiatsu and Sorano, who simply glanced at each other in an awkward manner for a moment. These two wizards hadn't really engaged in many conversations with each other, and Kūkiatsu had interestingly assisted Yukino in her fight against Harui. That was similar to Sorano being freed from the icy prison while Kusabue had a role in giving her that freedom, and Sorano shared Kūkiatsu's feelings of being a bit worried. They were both separated from their younger siblings who believed that they could fight well on their own, but Kūkiatsu and Sorano now needed to adapt to working as a team with Risa and Rogue.
"The path on the left leads to Heatherberry Swamp, and that might indicate we'll see some witches who can wield poison." Rogue explained to his teammates with a stern facial expression, narrowing his eyes as he felt that the team needed to be careful.
Kūkiatsu replied in a somewhat stern manner, as he tried to analyze the situation, "If those mages have poison infused into forms of Darkness Magic related to smog, my Wind Magic could be useful for blowing it away."
Risa added with a soft smile on her face, thinking that her spells would also be useful in creative ways, "By using my Psychic Magic in ways resembling telekinesis, I could move spells of dark magic out of the way. That would mess with any hexes that the witches try to use."
Sorano simply folded her arms and nodded in a calm manner, as the important goal for the team on this path was to not get poisoned. She thought that it would've been good if Erik from the Oracion Seis guild had been here, since a Poison Dragon Slayer would've been able to consume many kinds of poisons without any problems arising. Without that kind of convenience around, the team needed a good strategy. The strategy would also have to involve who was responsible for guarding Miko, who still remained in the middle path.
She had simply watched the other team go to Mauveria's Abode, choosing to not go with them. That only left the remaining group of mages as her last option, if she wasn't willing to go into Gunjou by herself. She narrowed her eyes in a stern manner while walking up to Sorano, and overhearing their conversation regarding the Heatherberry Swamp made Miko believe that she needed to guide them through it. She had been in the Heatherberry Swamp before, and that swamp did have berries.
However, Miko felt that she needed to eradicate those berries before any members of Rogue's group would eat them. Just because they may have looked beautiful, those berries were created from the hybrid of Poison Magic and Darkness Magic. Miko wasted no time with feeling that she needed to walk ahead of Rogue's group, and she applied a high amount of Darkness Magic to her feet. That allowed her to move much faster, and the four Sabertooth mages quickly chased after her. As they all ran down the trail, Rogue quickly saw what was up ahead.
"Everybody, be careful! The bogs aren't like the ones in a typical swamp." Rogue sternly told his teammates, his red eyes seeing the Heather purple water and muck detonate in average-sized Heather purple blasts.
Risa commented with a calm look on her face, running alongside Rogue until they got to the shoreline of the Heatherberry Swamp, "That water must be infused with the foulest kinds of hexes, and witches could rise up from it for surprise attacks."
"If they're doing that, then they must really be dedicated to following their town's goddess." Sorano stated with a slightly rude smile on her face, seeming like she wanted to laugh at some of the witches.
Kūkiatsu quickly activated his Wind Magic to unleash a spell called Wind Minty Ring, and he shot out a sparkling mint green ring of Wind Magic from his right hand. The ring was aimed at the bog that had been the closest one to someone's abode in this swamp, and Kūkiatsu watched it touch the polluted water. The ring immediately detonated, creating a large blast in a mint green color while its winds rapidly spun outward, and the aftereffect was that a spiraling gust of wind rose up from the muck to make more poisonous air emerge from it.
The blast already made poisonous muck and water come up from the bog in the same manner as a swampy sea bomb, and everyone stepped back to avoid the large puddles of sludge that flew through the air. Some of them fell into other bogs, before hastily sinking down into them like they were quicksand. The puddles of sludge began to detonate from landing in the bogs, almost as if too much Darkness Magic in the bogs was like overloading the power of a hex. The Heather purple blasts were large, allowing the protagonists to sense the levels of their dark and poisonous energy.
The putrid odors of the poisonous blasts made all of the Sabertooth mages hold their breath while their eyes began to be filled with water, and Miko stepped back from seeing some of Gunjou Town's witches rise up from the bogs. They all looked miffed at what was happening, having sensed Kūkiatsu's Wind Magic. They all began to angrily narrow their eyes at the green-haired wizard, who saw them forming purple flames that had the dirty muck infusing itself into them. As the group was about to get attacked, Kūkiatsu hoped that Kusabue's group was taking an easier route to get to Gunjou Town.
Meanwhile, in the Wisteria Wasteland...
Kusabue and Yukino walked through the Wisteria Wasteland with Lucy and Sting, who were both very vigilant right now. This route near Gunjou Town had its ground in a wisteria hue of purple, and the ground was glittery. The glittery appearance was due to the sand, which was created from Darkness Magic destroying and grinding several crystals from Gunjou Cave into the sand. The wisteria shade of purple came from the color of the Darkness Magic that was primarily used for grinding up the crystals, and that dark magic was wielded by witches.
There didn't seem to be any witches in this area, and Sting narrowed his eyes at how this wasteland had several pine trees with purple leaves on its right side. There were also some Sangria purple bushes containing blueberries that were in an eggplant hue of purple, which transformed into iris purple bushes with wine purple berries resembling strawberries during a moment where the wizards weren't looking at them. The different appearance of the bushes was followed by the pine trees becoming royal purple cherry blossom trees, which gave off the strange feeling that this route was filled with abnormalities.
Speaking of abnormalities, Lucy glanced down at the sand to see that it was becoming amethyst purple. The color was changing right before her eyes, only for it to shift to being in a sangria hue of purple. The roof of the somewhat distant abode appeared to be in a sangria shade of purple, but Lucy's choice of glancing around the area caused the sand to become orchid purple while the bushes that she slightly averted her eyes away from were becoming lilac purple with dark mauve berries resembling raspberries on them.
The dynamic changes occurring on this route caught the attention of Yukino, who only pretended that she was mainly focusing on Mauveria's abode. That house had mauve-colored smoke emerging from its bricked chimney made out of plain purple bricks, which meant that Mauveria and other witches must've been inside there. Yukino wouldn't underestimate the possibility that the curtains covering the distant windows of the abode had been part of an illusory spell, since it could be used to deceive unsuspecting mages into fully letting their guard down. Yukino began walking next to Lucy, who rubbed her eyes with her fists as the sand changed to being eggplant purple. Lucy's orange eyes displayed shock at what she just saw, but Yukino had calmness in her orange eyes as she caught a slight glimpse of the nearby bushes becoming boysenberry purple with cherries that were in a plum hue of purple. The cherry blossom trees became maple trees that were plum purple, becoming another oddity to Yukino in the process.
"Lucy-sama, these changes in the appearances Darkness Magic feel very strange. Somebody is trying to mess with our minds." Yukino calmly told her while frowning, prompting Lucy to look startled at this situation.
Lucy asked aloud with a somewhat worried look on her face, "Do you think that some witches are making us walk through an illusion right now?"
Sting replied while looking confident, having a great idea, "If they're using dark magic to create illusions, then some light will reveal what's really happening!"
He jumped up into the air, before making his hands form a circle, and Sting swung his arms down at the sand. That caused him to activate White Dragon's Holy Ray, which was a spell involving several white beams of light emerging from the circle that was formed by his hands. The beams descended from the circle in curved trajectories, before striking several parts of the route to create white blasts of light that were very large. The high amount of light ended up making several shadows appear, some of them belonging to the sand. However, other shadows belonged to the bushes and trees.
That prompted Sting to immediately activate a spell called White Dragon's Light Conversion, and he aimed his hands down at the trees and bushes. That made a white aura heavily engulf his hands, and they gathered up the white silhouettes that resembled the shadows of the trees, bushes, and sand. All of these silhouettes let themselves get absorbed into Sting's hands for their energy to boost his own amount of magical power, and Sting quickly fired ten beams from his fingertips. Some of the beams struck the bushes, before other beams hit the trees, and the last beam landed on the sand.
All of the objects that were hit by the beams ended up turning black, before they imploded with white blasts of light destroying them from within. The blasts were quite large while they created black shadows, which were huge enough to reach other trees and bushes around, and even the blast on the sand ended up creating a shadow that touched some tiny fragments of crystals. Everything that was touched by the shadows ended up having their light be drained out of them, causing more white blasts to occur.
"Ouch!" A female's voice stated in a pained manner, as she and other witches were sent flying out of some of the areas where the blasts occurred.
Upon seeing several white clouds of smoke now be on this route, Sting stated with a pleased facial expression, "Well, at least we know where our enemies were hiding."
Kusabue told him with a small frown of doubt appearing on her face, seeing an amethyst purple aura engulf a fast-acting mage before they mysteriously disappeared, "Sting-san, wait. Something's strange."
The witches on this route utilized their auras of Darkness Magic to vanish, which was very strange. Lucy started to run towards Mauveria's Abode, only to suddenly feel someone aggressively punch her in the face. She fell on her ass, before quickly getting up to see that nothing was physically standing in front of her. She activated her first spell of Ice Magic, which was called Ice Snowflake. This spell would've caused Lucy to fire a light blue snowflake from her mouth, but she swallowed it before reactivating the spell.
That caused Lucy to essentially charge up more power for the Ice Snowflake spell, and she shot out a sky blue snowflake from her mouth. This snowflake was twice the size of the first one, and it landed on the sand for the purpose of making a large area of the wasteland become sky blue. The ice started to have sky blue flames rising up from it like they were part of an inferno, but the blue flames were extremely cold. They also produced sky blue clouds of frost, which quickly spread to the remaining bushes and trees for them to start being frozen.
The frost and the flames began to set ablaze invisible objects, evident by the flames and frost being in midair. That only made Lucy and Yukino both smile in a confident manner, as they were now able to deduce that their current enemies were using Darkness Magic to make themselves invisible. Some of the witches who were covered in flames felt ice be produced on their bodies, which allowed Lucy to see that these mages were wearing dark mauve cloaks with mauve skirts and dark mauve high-heeled shoes. This group of mages had definitely been different from the group in the Witch's Forest, possibly even having their own hexes that created illusions to confound foes.
One of the witches scowled in an annoyed manner while becoming visible, allowing the mages from Sabertooth to see that she had two Sangria purple ponytails that curved in opposite directions with curled ends resembling swirls. The witch's hair went well with her eyes, which were grape purple, and she had the feeling of anger in her eyes. The coldness was the kind of weather that she couldn't tolerate, as it contrasted with the humid environment related to wastelands, and being so cold was what nullified her invisibility.
She proceeded to try reactivating the spell, which was known as Lunar Visibility. The spell caused the witch to be surrounded by a dark mauve aura, before she attempted to become invisible. However, the cold air made her shiver to the point where the spell quickly became useless. Lucy activated her fourth spell of Ice Magic, which was called Icy Winter Immobilization. Lucy fired a light blue sphere from her right hand. The light blue sphere was followed by that spell being repeated, which caused the two spheres to fuse into a sky blue sphere.
The sphere moved very fast in the cold weather, as it was able to swiftly hit the witch. Upon striking her, the spell instantly froze her body from her legs all the way up to her head. After being encased in the ice, the witch got to see it brightly glow in a sky blue color before it detonated in a large blast. The attack damaged her body, causing her to scream in excruciating pain, and the large winds of an icy blizzard spun outward. That prompted Yukino to pull out a sapphire blue bag from the right pocket of her sapphire skirt that had ruffles at the bottom, and Yukino pulled out several random coins for the purpose of activating a spell called Icy Angelic Shield.
This spell made Yukino quickly stretch out both of her hands, and two large angel wings appeared on the left and right sides of the area around the Sabertooth mages. The light blue wings started to rapidly rotate around the group, almost resembling a light blue dome, and the sudden sight molting feathers pertained to the shield spinning outward. It protected the mages from the coldness of the blizzard while simultaneously releasing the coldness of the feathers into the air, and the dark mages who fired mauve-colored spells at the shield were surprised that the mauve explosions didn't damage it.
"Wow, this shield is strong!" Lucy stated with a pleased look on her face, feeling glad that the witches were at a disadvantage.
Yukino replied with a kind facial expression, "Thank you, Lucy-sama. Although, it is strengthened because of the existing coldness."
Upon hearing several mauve explosions continue to occur, an older woman's voice asked in a calm tone while everyone heard a house's door loudly swing open, "Who is making all that noise?"
The woman's voice caused some of the witches to start looking frightened, before some of them began to tremble from hearing her footsteps. The sounds of her footsteps were absorbed by Kusabue, who had also absorbed the recent sounds of the explosions. She watched Yukino's spell start to fade away, allowing Kusabue and the others to see a woman walking away from the house. This woman had short hair that was in a mauve shade of purple while it reached down to her shoulders, and she wore a dark mauve cape that had lavender lining on the collar that had the design of peacock feathers.
This lady's cape exposed her shoulders, which were eerily in a lavender shade of purple like the rest of her skin. She started to cover them up by raising up the top portion of the cape, which was grape purple on the left and right portions of the circle while the areas in between them were in a boysenberry hue of purple. Those areas of the top part of the cape matched her boysenberry choker around her neck, and the choker had a small mauve diamond in its center. The mauve diamond matched the breastplates of her tight-fitting mauve purple dress, and the breastplates were lined with Sangria purple metal. The metal was also below the breastplates in the form of two small lines of metal that bordered some metal resembling a small paper fan, and the Sangria purple metal matched the color of the insignia of Hexing Enchantress.
The insignia was on a mauve purple sash below the breastplates while it matched the deep mauve gloves that were being worn by Mauveria, and she also wore mauve stockings that covered her ankles. The stockings went well with her dark mauve flat shoes, which were the same color as her eyes that were surrounded by black irises. This woman was named Mauveria Hesuta, and her unusual lavender skin certainly caught the attention of her newest opponents. Sting also noticed how her eyes seemed very soulless, which made him feel like this was a bizarre situation.
"What do we have here? Some little children who don't live by the teachings of the sacred dark goddess?" Mauveria asked in a dark tone of voice, as her lips began to form a malicious smile.
Lucy asked in response, sternly narrowing her eyes as she felt no fear, "Are you Mauveria? If so, will you have to die for us to get into Gunjou?"
"Mm hm hm... Yes... It is true that you must see if you can kill me. I am Mauveria Hesutia, leader of the Mauve Division of dark witches. Of course, I'll have to take your lives for acting so... rebellious." Mauveria explained in a somewhat gentle manner, after evilly giggling at Lucy's last question.
Mauveria's philosophical view was referring to the fact that the Sabertooth wizards didn't let themselves die here, and that prompted her to unleash a spell called Mauve Flame Dance. Mauveria simply moved her hips from side to side while her hands made the gesture of being confused by her opponents being ready to start fighting back, and mauve purple flames appeared in her palms. Mauveria reactivated the spell two more times, resulting in large twisters of mauve flames being in her hands.
They surprisingly didn't weaken in the cold weather right now, which meant that Mauveria was stronger than her subordinates. She threw the fiery twister in her right hand at Lucy, who decided to counter the large twister of fire by using Ice Snowflake two times in a row. When the snowflakes slightly touched each other, they fused into a larger light blue snowflake. It made contact with Mauveria's spell, coating it in ice while freezing it, and sky blue flames emerged from the ice as it moved towards Lucy.
She thought that her spell converted the type of magic involved with Mauveria's attack, but Lucy and the others quickly found themselves dodging the attack. It had been melting, even with the cold air being generated, and everyone saw the ice crash into the sand. It created a sky blue blast that was quite large while the melted ice made some puddles of water be on the ground, but Mauveria's flames created a mauve maelstrom that rose up to tear through the icy blast from the inside! Several mauve flames fell to the ground, one of them even landing on Lucy's left foot, and Mauveria snapped her fingers to make that mauve flame violently burst as it engulfed Lucy! Mauveria merely giggled in a devious manner, as the maelstrom weren't main attack in her arsenal of Darkness Magic that had several dirty tricks.
Lucy didn't mind that her skin became brown and charred as she felt pain, and she wasted no time with activating the spell called Freezing Snowfall. Lucy aimed her right hand up at the clouds, before doing that for a second time to reactivate the spell. That caused the clouds to fire sky blue beams down on to Mauveria, and she defended herself by using a spell called Dark Mauve Destruction. Mauveria created a dark mauve sphere in her right hand, only for Lucy to see it suddenly become royal purple.
The shift in color caused the sphere to aggressively bounce up into the air, before violently bursting in a dark mauve explosion that was very large. That explosion was followed by a royal purple explosion on the same level of power, but that explosion was followed by a dark mauve explosion that was much larger. Even though Lucy's powerful beams were able to create large amounts of ice upon contact with the explosion, the immediate and consecutive blasts of fire generated an intense amount of heat to where all of Lucy's ice fell to the ground in the form of water as if it was just a downpour of rain.
That prompted Sting to try hitting Mauveria with White Dragon's Roar, and he fired the white beam of light from his mouth. That only made Mauveria sigh in a pitying manner as she unleashed a spell called Mauve's Illusionist, and her eyes began to glow in a mauve hue of purple. She looked directly at Sting's attack, before loudly snapping her fingers to make it become mauve, and she stretched out her left hand to redirect the attack back at Sting. He was about to counter it with White Dragon's Holy Breath, but Lucy widened her eyes in a concerned manner as she sensed feelings of malice within the attack.
She wasted no time with intercepting the spell by raising her left foot, which was still covered in flames that were burning, and the mauve flames all propelled themselves off of her foot to strike the beam. Several mauve blasts occurred in midair, and Lucy smiled confidently as she lowered her foot. She kept her eyes on Mauveria, who couldn't control the flames from exploding. They were attracted to Sting's converted spell, but touching it only powered them up to where the final explosion went towards Mauveria. As she was engulfed in the flames, Mauveria had a sinister grin on her face as her eyes were filled with malice.
"It's very underhanded of you to even use my beautiful mauve flames in such a creative manner, since you don't follow my way of life. Only an actual dark mage should be able to have such dark thoughts like that." Mauveria rudely told Lucy, before looking very displeased.
Lucy responded with a confident facial expression, "Actually, I just wanted to see if there was a way for me to interfere with your dark magic. Just because you use hexes, you're not the only one capable of dirty tricks."
As he saw that the maelstrom of mauve flames was still spinning behind everyone without sending out any fiery attacks, Sting calmly thought to himself, "It's just a theory, but maybe the maelstrom didn't react because it wasn't within range of the collision."
This theory made feelings of confidence be in Sting's eyes, and he proceeded to activate White Drive. Sting made a white aura of light engulf his body, before sending some magical power down into his feet. He rushed towards Mauveria, who made a mauve aura engulf her body, and Sting activated White Dragon's Roar. After firing that beam of light from his mouth, Sting quickly followed up that attack by unleashing the spell called White Dragon's Holy Ray. Sting made his hands form a circle, before he fired several white beams of light from the circle. They all merged with his previous spell, strengthening it while the light became brighter.
The beam that grew much larger ended up striking Mauveria, creating a large white blast that had several somewhat smaller blasts inside of it. Sting turned his head to see Kusabue running up to the blasts, absorbing their waves of sound into her hands, and she seemed to be ready to fire an attack. The smoke cleared up to reveal that Mauveria had only taken a small amount of damage, only having bruises on her body instead of blood. She watched Kusabue build up a high amount of magical power in her right hand, before loudly whistling down at it, and Mauveria merely smirked in an evil manner as Kusabue aimed at her with her right palm.
In a few seconds, a shamrock green ring of energy emerged from her hand with thinner waves of energy coming from it. When the attack touched Mauveria, it detonated in a shamrock green blast that was quite large. Kusabue simply waited for the blast's light to fade away, before hearing Mauveria start to stand back up, and Kusabue applied Sound Magic to her hands. She proceeded to aggressively punch Mauveria in the stomach while the waves of sound pierced into her body, and Kusabue smiled confidently as she took some steps back.
"Sight may be one of the five senses, but hearing is also a sense and I just heard your body get stabbed by some sound waves!" Kusabue confidently stated with a happy facial expression, before happily dancing.
Mauveria responded in an angry tone of voice, as she glared down at Kusabue, "You arrogant little brat. If you think you've seen all my hexes, you're just too naive!"
Mauvera shouted fiercely while aiming both of her hands at the young girl, "Mauve Lunar Hex!"
This spell caused a mauve aura to form in between her hands while it grew to be large, and the aura formed a mauve ring. Mauveria thrusted her fists against the ring, pushing it towards Kusabue for the ring to engulf the young girl's body. It strangely went into her eyes, causing them to become a mauve hue of purple. Kusabue felt Mauveria and the scenery around her start to become distorted and move in slow-motion, before everything in her field of vision started spinning as if she was suffering from dizziness.
She couldn't react to the mauve aura tampering with her Sound Magic, confusing her into applying it to her feet. Kusabue moved faster as she tottered towards the woods, before falling down on to the sand, and she didn't even react to her teammates shouting with concern. Kusabue couldn't hear them, as the aura seeped into her ears, messing with her sense of hearing, and Mauveria started to cackle at how Kusabue was even dizzy and confused enough to walk towards some wine purple raspberries that were on a bush across from the maelstrom.
As Kusabue sighed happily and started to eat those berries, Lucy felt that this was a good opportunity for her to hit Mauveria. She activated a spell called Glistening Icy Wonderland, which made light blue glitter come down from the clouds that had been struck by Freezing Snowfall. The glitter came down upon Lucy in the form of a spiraling beam while it made thin ice appear on every part of her body, but the ice quickly melted as it took the form of a light blue aura that surrounded Lucy's body. As she began to slide across the sand at incredibly rapid speeds, she felt her body become dense like glacial ice and her body still moved fast like she was lighter than the thinnest sheet of ice. Whenever Lucy moved around, her feet left behind trails of shiny light blue ice on the sand.
That caused her to start spinning around rapidly on one part of the ice, and Lucy made a large amount of light blue glitter appear. It quickly fell on to the sand, resulting in thin ice appearing, and Lucy kept on spinning as a way of creating winds that pertained to cold air. When her winds touched the ice, streams of light blue frost immediately rose up from it. The frost's cold temperature hardened the ice to the point where Lucy's high amount of sparkles made light blue piles of snow start to rise up in places where the second layers of ice should've been.
The snow increased in size as Lucy continued to spin, and the sparkles continued to add Ice Magic to the snow and ice. The battlefield slowly became a winter wonderland, the ice looking very shiny while the light blue snow formed mountains and curving ramps that were covered in sparkles. However, the largest changes were the streams of light blue frost continuing to grow in size and the glitter surrounding Lucy. Not only did she coat her own body in sparkles that shifted to being thin ice, but they became a light blue aura that intensely engulfed her while the Ice Magic made Lucy's legs be shiny and light blue.
By making an intense amount of cold ice and cold air be around her legs, Lucy was able to strengthen them while the Ice Magic tempered them to be very dense. She proceeded to aggressively kick Mauveria in the chest, resulting in a light blue bruise appearing on that part of the woman's body, and the bruise had cold frost emerging from it. Mauveria screamed in pain from how her insides felt tremendous pain, almost like they were becoming frozen by tempered ice, and she even felt some of her bones begin to crack.
That didn't stop her from using Mauve Flame Dance, however, and the two flames appeared in Mauveria's hands. She gave Lucy a disturbing smile of psychopathy, before eating the flames, and she swallowed them to feel the fire bursting inside of her body. The flames strangely made mauve purple clouds of steam emerge from her pores while Mauveria felt her body temperature heighten to levels beyond feverish, and she even felt the flames burst inside of her again in a manner resembling how Lucy's skin was charred. As the cold frost burn on Mauveria's chest slowly started shrinking, Lucy gasped in a horrified manner.
"How in the world are you not dead from that?" Lucy asked her in a startled manner, as she saw Mauveria smirk with a high amount of arrogance.
Mauveria responded in a dark tone, as she began to look eerily calm, "You foolish little girl, I already had my soul taken out of me and it was offered to the dark goddess. In exchange, I received strong mauve Darkness Magic that relies on my own magical power as its energy. Of course, my witches will make the terrain become mauve and give me more power to where the dark goddess will bless us all with immortality on my mauve wasteland. The way that I choose to live is by essentially valuing immortality and the color of my magic, which is better than your trashy blue magic."
"Don't treat your magic as if it's just a tool, you witch!" Lucy aggressively responded, before kicking Mauveria in the stomach with her right foot that was still covered in ice.
Even though the ice did leave a frost burn on Mauveria's stomach, the fact that it began to shrink at the same time when Mauveria made a mauve aura heavily surround herself was an indication that she was building up more magical power. Lucy chose to immediately use Freezing Snowfall, which made several light blue beams come down from the clouds, and they all struck Mauveria! The beams were powered up by all the ice and snow that Lucy generated from using Glistening Icy Wonderland, causing their levels of power to be immense.
The six blasts that occurred were all layered on top of each other, and the high amount of icy winds spun outward. They were surprisingly absorbed by Lucy, who spun around rapidly to pull all the winds into the frosty air current that was being created. By absorbing all of the cold wind into her body, Lucy made a light blue aura faintly surround herself. She looked at the billowing clouds of light blue smoke to see them fade away, revealing that Mauveria was now frozen in a large chunk of ice. She also appeared to have taken an immense amount of damage, causing Lucy to happily smile.
However, her smile soon shifted into being a look of shock from seeing the witch with Sangria purple ponytails send the mauve aura of Darkness Magic into her mauve purple scepter's orb that was dark mauve. The witch evilly smirked at Lucy, before casting her hex that would make the ice, snow, and sand all be in a mauve shade of purple. That caused Mauveria's body to be engulfed in a mauve aura, before casually opening her eyes and charging up power. The mauve aura around her body ended up bursting outward for the dark energy to smash through the ice, and steam was starting to emerge from Mauveria's body.
Upon sensing the specific level of power that was used to free her, Mauveria turned around to politely tell the witch, "Thank you, Lila. You're actually useful for once in your life."
That prompted Lila to timidly reply, as she pointed the scepter at Sting, "Thank... you. Although, Lady Mauveria, you have... scary eyes."
"Well, they don't scare me!" Sting stated with a confident facial expression, as he ran past Mauveria to get close to Lila.
Sting wasted no time with activating Holy Nova, which required him to concentrate his magic into one single point, and Sting focused it all into his right hand. He watched the rest of the energy go outward in the form of a large light while he punched the orb of Lila's scepter, and the shadows that were being produced by the glass in midair only made Sting immediately activate the spell called White Dragon's Holy Blinding. Sting shot out a large twister of white light from his mouth, and he aimed it towards Lila at point-blank range.
The twister of white light engulfed the witch, further blinding her. The light ended up bursting to create an aurora of white light that went up into the air while parts of the light moved in curving directions like a snake, and all of the people and objects that were caught in the light ended up being engulfed in a white aura. The sight of the white aurora lights only made Sting reactivate the spell, however, and creating a second twister to obscure Lila's vision proved to be beneficial. This twister went up into the air while the aurora lights powered it up, and it ended up bursting into massive aurora lights that sent a blinding white radiance down on to the battlefield.
Lucy quickly activated Ice Snowflake two times, and shooting out two light blue snowflakes from her mouth was part of a larger strategy. Lucy interestingly fired them up at the aurora lights, causing the light to be reflected off of the ice that fused together to create a large slab of sky blue ice, and that new luminous burst of icy light was followed by sky blue flames rising up from the slab of ice. As it began to fall in midair, Sting quickly jumped up to unleash his White Dragon's Holy Breath attack at the aurora lights.
When Sting shot out the large sphere of white light from his mouth, it became much stronger from being under the white aurora lights. They caused the spell to triple in size, before it ended up bursting to create large beams of white light that fell down to the ground. When several of the beams were caught in the blue light that was reflecting light off of its slab of ice, they shifted to being sky blue while the frost from the sky blue flames converted the beams into having the properties of Ice Magic. They created light blue blasts as they struck the ground, and the blasts had been large after gaining speed and power on their descent.
The beams of light had been dense enough to create several cavernous holes in the ground, and their walls became light blue from the Ice Magic. Lucy's slab of ice started to break apart while its shards went down into some of the holes, and that was the next part of Lucy's strategy. As she saw the flame-covered ice shards go into the holes, Lucy activated Ice Snowflake two more times. She shot out a sky blue snowflake from her mouth, smiling confidently as it went down into the hole. The large projectile ended up creating a slab of ice down on the ground below the sand, before spreading its ice across the hard surface to make chilly frost and flames be underground.
Mauveria ignored those flames while she managed to dodge the beams by applying Darkness Magic to her feet, and moving much faster allowed her to punch Lucy in the face! Her right fist was covered in the mauve aura, which only grew larger when she activated a spell called Hexing Mauve Strike. Mauveria aimed her fist at the maelstrom that was still spinning, quietly commanding a large twister of flames to emerge from it. The mauve flames engulfed her fist, and Mauveria struck Lucy in the stomach! Despite being very durable, Lucy still screamed in pain from being caught in the fiery explosion!
To make matters worse, Lucy couldn't even take a step back without being engulfed in a burst of mauve fire. That was the true effect of Hexing Mauve Strike, since its flames involved a hex that would inflict pain on an opponent during every moment where they moved around the battlefield. Mauveria decided to exploit that gimmick by punching the air, sending some of her mauve aura towards the twister in the form of a spiraling beam, and Mauveria activated a spell called Mauve Hex Meteor. She intended to burn all of her opponents, smirking evilly as the twister broke apart to form several mauve purple fireballs. She sent some of them towards Lucy, who couldn't even dodge out of the way without the fire on her body violently bursting, and Mauveria watched Lucy get struck by the fireballs! Upon hearing Lucy let out more screams of agonizing pain while every movement of flailing made the hex of bursting flames occur, Mauveria evilly laughed in a sadistic manner.
"Are you going to continue with opposing me and the dark goddess, or must I increase the heat to where it removes your soul from your body?" Mauveria asked Lucy in a disturbingly polite and dark tone of voice, before softly giggling to herself.
Lucy weakly replied as she fell to the ground, slightly raising her hands up from the ground, "Cobalt... Cumulonimbus."
"I don't live my life with defiance towards someone who uses dark magic, so use whatever pathetic spell is in your arsenal." Mauveria responded in an arrogant manner, before narrowing her eyes at Lucy.
Lucy weakly moved her hands near each other for the purpose of making a cobalt blue cloud be fired from them, and the cloud wasted no time with floating over to one of the puddles that was still on the ground. It sucked up all of the water, before doing the same to some other puddles. It even started to absorb the melting ice and snow that had become mauve, not minding the color of the water. The cloud floated back towards Lucy, but Yukino widened her eyes in a manner of realization as she saw that the cloud was about to pass over a cavernous hole of ice.
Yukino quickly ran up to the cavernous hole, before doing a backflip in midair to get across it, and Yukino tore off a piece of the cloud. That caused it to send several bubbles of water down into the cavern, and the temperature from the streams of frost and the cold flames caused the bubbles to become sky blue. They were sent back up into the air by the streams of icy frost, which only increased their density to where the bubbles gained significant increases in durability. They also had more power, evident from how they were engulfed in a sky blue aura, and the bubbles fell down towards the flames.
They immediately detonated in massive sky blue blasts of water and ice that violently tore apart the ground and sand, making everyone lose their footing, and a witch who couldn't keep her balance accidentally made the sand be in a plain hue of purple by firing Darkness Magic from her scepter. The ground was no longer in Mauveria's preferred color of mauve purple, making her increases in power now be unavailable. Before Hestia could use a hex to change the sand back to mauve purple, the blasts that had occurred were now causing the sky blue flames to viciously erupt from below the ground. They tore through the terrain while any remnants of it were being frozen over in ice, and the flames themselves ended up bursting towards Mauveria when Lucy weakly aimed her hands at the powerful witch.
As she was about to be hit by the fast-moving icy flames, Mauveria asked aloud with a surprised facial expression, "Were they thinking this far ahead the entire time?"
Upon feeling herself become drenched by a pool of sky blue water that rose up from the cavernous hole to restore her magical power and energy, Lucy sternly replied to Mauveria, "I currently live my life with making strategies for my Water Magic and Ice Magic, but improvising with my teammates is also a good way for me to win battles in life!"
Upon seeing Kusabue be far away and eating some berries, Yukino asked aloud with a curious facial expression, "What is Kusabue-chan doing?"
Kusabue ignored the sight of Mauveria being engulfed in sky blue flames that ended up bursting to create sky blue blasts, and even the high amount of coldness didn't affect Kusabue in her dizzied state. She currently ate all of the wine purple raspberries that she had dazedly gathered from a bush, still being confused by Mauveria's spell. Kusabue chose to put them all in her mouth, and consuming those berries immediately nullified the dizziness. The young girl saw the scenery around her be brought back to normal, only for it to quickly get distorted again.
She could only see the twisting image of Mauveria, who was now frozen in a large sphere of ice that was in a sky blue color. Mauveria's entire body was becoming sky blue, almost as if the flames that burned her body had also internally frozen her, and the dark mage was heavily bruised from that powerful attack. The witches took notice of every blue bruise and icy burn on her body, prompting the one who misfired a hex at the sand to now unleash a hex that would warp Mauveria out of the ice whilst making her invisible.
Despite being badly burnt and heavily bruised to the extent of even having her clothing be damaged, Mauveria still managed to viciously smirk at Lucy. Lucy took notice of the witch who freed Mauveria now making the ground be in a mauve hue of purple again, and Mauveria began to arrogantly grin as she turned invisible. She thought that it would be very easy to confound Lucy now, especially since she also applied Darkness Magic to her feet as a way of moving faster. However, Mauveria and Lucy were both surprised to see Kusabue frantically running towards them.
Kusabue's cheeks blushed cherry pink as she angrily looked at the spot where Mauveria was located, and she activated the spell called Amplified Whistle Wave. Kusabue built up a high amount of magical power in her right hand, before whistling down at it, and she aimed her hand at the invisible enemy. As Mauveria began to circle around Kusabue at high speeds, Kusabue drunkenly mimicked Lucy by activating the spell again. She built up more power in her right hand, before whistling much louder, and Kusabue's wine-filled breath in the air began to move through the air while some of it landed on an invisible enemy.
Mauveria simply cackled as she ran around Kusabue, thinking that the young girl was foolish for trying to hit someone who she couldn't see, but Mauveria watched the drunk girl stumble around to the point where dumb luck caused her right palm to firmly press against the witch's leg. Kusabue ended up unleashing a shamrock green ring that was much larger than its usual size with several thick waves of energy emerging from it, and the spell created a massive shamrock green blast! Kusabue may have been sent flying backwards, but Mauveria was the wizard who let out screams of excruciating pain.
This was a more powerful version of Amplified Whistle Wave, and the spell made the blast emit a screeching and strident whistle in the wind. Mauveria couldn't cover her ears, as the sound waves within the blasts were creating smaller shamrock green blasts around her, and even those smaller attacks were producing explosive sound waves. That was likely an effect of the attack's level of sound being louder than normal, and Mauveria couldn't defend herself against any of the noise. The high volume of loud sound even went into her ears, almost drilling through them while Mauveria heard the sound be over 150 decibels.
That caused Mauveria's eardrums to shatter while she felt herself be unable to properly stand, and the internal damage to her ears also affected her sense of sight. In a bit of unintentional payback, she was now seeing the image of Kusabue be very distorted and slow-moving as if this was some kind of illusion pertinent to Psychic Magic. Kusabue was drunkenly giggling, her laughter seeming very slow and low-pitched to Mauveria. No matter how much Darkness Magic was in the Wisteria Wasteland, it wasn't able to completely overpower sound.
"Your dark magic... is indeed... fast, but this old woman... is... even faster... because she.. hits you... at the speed... of.. sound." Kusabue told her with a crazed smile on her face, as her words sounded very slow to Mauveria.
That only prompted Mauveria to aggressively respond while activating an attack, "Let's see if you're faster than this attack, you brat! Mauve Hexing Pulse!"
Mauveria stretched out both of her hands while a mauve aura weakly surrounded them, and she pushed the aura forward to unleash a mauve ring of dark magic that spread outward. Kusabue hiccuped as she leapt high into the air, avoiding the attack that had its energy aimed at her. The Mauve Hexing Pulse spell created a mauve purple blast right before fading away, and several mauve purple orbs were left behind. They floated up into the air, before becoming royal purple, and the orbs came back down to create royal purple blasts that spun outward.
That only made Kusabue activate a spell called Slowed Sound Vibration, and she began to purposely speak gibberish in slow motion. That caused several shamrock green energy waves to emerge from her mouth in a straight line, and they ended up reaching the light from Mauveria's blasts. When the sound touched them, the blasts started to move as slow as molasses. They comically moved in a manner resembling time passing with an extreme amount of slowness, and all of the Sabertooth mages quickly leaped away to avoid the blasts.
Sting felt curious enough to strike the attack with White Dragon's Roar, and firing the white light from his mouth made him see the blasts themselves detonate in royal purple explosions before vanishing. Based on that result, Sting confidently grinned at how he essentially impeded the final hex pertaining to Mauveria's spell. Those explosions meant that the spell was layered with hexes, and getting rid of them was crucial. Furthermore, taking down the remnants of Mauveria's spell made Sting happy because he saw Mauveria panting heavily as she became fully visible again.
"Yukino, you and Lucy should deliver the finishing blows. As for Kusabue, her breath reeks like wine." Sting instructed his teammates in a calm tone while smiling, before holding his nose as he felt disgusted by the smell of the air.
Lila commented with a surprised facial expression, recognizing the smell, "Amethyst Hexed Wine Berries! They're normally used in making fermented raspberry wine, but they're hexed to have a potency is so strong that no one dares to eat them or drink the wine! Anyone who even ingests it can make their magic be drawn to whoever gets hit by their breath!"
Mauveria widened her eyes in shock from recalling that she generated winds from circling around Kusabue at high speeds, having done that in the same moment where Kusabue was breathing, and the air current carried the scent to Mauveria's body. She essentially made Kusabue's spells be able to attack her, which was interesting to think about, but Mauveria was now nearly out of magical power. That left her at the mercy of Yukino, who started off the final attack by activating the spell called Freezing Spin.
Yukino sent magical power down into several coins that had the number 30 on them, and this spell of Icy Fimbulvetr Magic required Yukino to throw the coins up in the air. She followed that instruction to see nine light blue drills of ice appear in midair, and light blue frost emerged from the projectiles. They all went towards Mauveria while Lucy unleashed the Ice Snowflake spell two times from her mouth. The newly formed sky blue snowflake ended up being in the middle of the drills while Mauveria was about to gasp with worry in her eyes, and nine large blasts of Icy Fimbulvetr Magic occurred around Mauveria! They were followed by the sky blue blast that was quite large while all of the ice encased Mauveria, and she was also engulfed in icy sky blue flames.
Lucy and Yukino both smiled at each other for a moment, feeling glad that they likely managed to finally end this fight. All of the blue smoke clouds quickly faded away to reveal that Mauveria's body was extremely bruised, along with her body being torn through by the magic, and she simply fell to the ground. The collapse of their leader caused the witches to hurriedly run back towards the abode, before going past it to run into the town of Gunjou. Lila tripped and fell, before timidly looking at the Sabertooth mages. She chose to not say anything, only focusing on her thought of fleeing from the wasteland. Even though Lucy and Yukino began to focus on what could be in Mauveria's house, Sting started to look concerned about what his friends were going through in the Heatherberry Swamp.
How was Chapter 59? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and her teammates managed to defeat Mauveria, which means that they won't be chased down by Violara. Although, that doesn't mean Violara herself isn't going to take on Rogue's group of Sabertooth wizards. If the philosophical debate and the symbolism throughout the battle was enjoyable, then the philosophical themes shall continue. By the way, this is the second part of the Mauve Darkness Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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