Gray trembled as he stood up, slowly exhaling white mist.
His fists were shaking slightly as he tightly clenched them.
"Ice-Make—"
"Hammer!"
Pale blue magical light flashed as solid ice instantly formed into a giant hammer, crashing down violently toward the glasses-wearing youth's head.
The youth shook his head and raised a single hand, effortlessly catching the descending ice hammer.
Simultaneously, an even colder chill emanated from his palm, continuously penetrating the hammer, turning it deep blue before it gradually shattered into dust.
"I told you—I can freeze everything. Including your magic."
The blue-haired youth clasped his hands behind his back, stepping lightly toward the airship.
The ground where he walked gradually frosted over into black ice, a cold white mist following closely behind him.
Invel Yura.
This blue-haired young man was the Consul of the Alvarez Empire, one of the empire's high-level Mage combatants (the Spriggan 12), and one of the Emperor's most trusted confidants.
Due to possessing the Winter Magic that surpassed almost all ice-based Magic in the world, and frequently leading troops to conquer nations in the Western Continent, he was known there as the "Winter General."
The ice beneath his feet grew increasingly hard and cold.
Gray's vision gradually blurred as his entire body was steadily eroded by Invel's Winter Magic frost, slowly turning him into an ice sculpture.
Invel strode over to Gray, raised his palm high, and indifferently declared, "An Ice Mage dying in the cold—quite a fitting end."
With those cold words, his hand chopped down sharply toward Gray, intending to shatter the fragile ice sculpture into pieces.
"Gray!"
"Gray-sama!"
Seeing this, Gray's companions on the airship leaned out, ready to jump down and desperately rescue him.
Juvia had already leaped from the airship, resolutely positioning her body directly in front of Gray.
"Reckless fool!"
A blade-like torrent of water shot toward him.
Invel reacted instantly, activating his freezing power once more to destroy it.
But this time, a sharp blunt pain suddenly pierced his abdomen.
His body was sent flying backward like a cannonball, crashing violently into the ice formations he had created and shattering them to pieces.
Juvia stared in complete astonishment at the woman who had suddenly appeared before her, her voice trembling as she asked.
"You... are?"
Ur turned back, gazed at the lovely Juvia, and smiled gently. "Me? You could say I'm your elder."
'Huh?'
Juvia was momentarily stunned, then watched as the woman—completely unaffected by the raging cold—walked over to Gray's ice sculpture and gently placed her hand firmly on his head.
The ice on the sculpture suddenly stirred.
The frigid energy within and the ice layer outside flowed like liquid frost, slowly draining right out of Gray's body...
The dense, bone-chilling frost flowed back into Ur's hand, perfectly shaping into a distinct, layered, ice-blue rose.
"A gift from my foolish, slow-witted apprentice."
Ur twirled the rose slightly, then smilingly handed it to Juvia.
For some reason, feeling suddenly pressured, Juvia instinctively accepted the ice rose and bowed nervously in gratitude.
Gray felt warmth returning to his body.
His blood was flowing once more, and the world before his eyes began brightening.
When he clearly saw the woman before him, his heart trembled, utterly overwhelmed by grief and longing.
"Ur..."
"So this is it... I've died too..."
Hearing Gray's despondent muttering, Ur felt both exasperated and amused.
She punched him lightly on the head, startling Juvia beside them.
"Ouch!"
"Wait... this feeling..." Gray cried out in physical pain, clutching his forehead as he gradually fell into a daze, staring incredulously at the face he had missed countless times.
Then, within Gray's stalled mind, he suddenly felt himself enveloped in a highly familiar, warm embrace.
Ur held Gray tightly, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.
Her voice was soft and tender as she whispered in his ear:
"My troublesome apprentice, I've returned."
Gray felt the familiar warmth of a childhood embrace, his eyes gradually filling with tears as emotions surged forth completely uncontrollably.
"URRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Juvia watched as Gray, usually so strong and composed, now wept so openly, leaving her momentarily at a loss for what to do.
In the distance, Invel—who had been sent flying into a pile of ice by Ur's palm strike—brushed off the debris from his clothes and emerged expressionless. He coldly remarked upon the tender scene before him:
"You... must be Ur, I presume. I heard there was a formidable Ice Mage in Ishgar. So you are also from Fairy Tail."
Ur patted Gray's back and said softly, "Take this young lady back to the ship. I will handle things here."
Gray looked at Ur, then at the completely unharmed Invel, and anxiously protested.
"But this guy..."
"Don't worry."
Still treating him like a child, Ur ruffled Gray's hair before slowly rising to her feet.
Facing Invel, she assumed the signature stance of the Ice-Make lineage.
Ice vines and flowers sprouted rapidly from the ground.
The originally purple-pink ice flower stems, as if dark ink had seeped directly into crystal, transformed the entire ice garden into an eerie pitch-black, evoking an inexplicable sense of creeping dread.
Invel observed the obsidian-like ice garden and the chilling aura of death it emitted, his eyes slightly shifting behind his glasses.
'This level of cold and sensation... this shouldn't belong to Ice-Make...'
Ur confidently stepped through the instantly created Black Ice Garden, explaining, "Perhaps because I have died once, the ice I create can take on this strange form. But fortunately, it allows me to keep up with the times."
Invel tilted his head, genuinely intrigued.
"Black ice? How interesting."
The two faced each other from a distance, then, as if responding to a starting gun, charged toward one another simultaneously.
Ur surged forward from the grotesque and terrifying black ice sculptures, countless ice plants growing and spreading in her wake, overwhelming Invel like a tidal wave.
Invel moved with equal speed, radiating pure winter coldness that seemed to freeze even the air itself.
The two collided with unstoppable force.
Black ice clashed with winter's frost, two extreme forms of Ice Magic merging into one.
The ambient temperature plummeted as if entering an ice age, making breathing difficult.
Watching Ur hold her own against Invel in battle, Gray's heart swelled with absolute pride.
But then, a trace of deep dejection and disappointment surfaced in Gray's expression.
"After all these years... I can still only hide behind my Master..."
Juvia overheard Gray's murmured words and immediately tensed up. Her small face was incredibly serious as she consoled him.
"That is not true! Gray-sama has protected everyone many times!"
"At the very least, Juvia needs Gray-sama's protection. If not for Gray-sama, Juvia wouldn't have joined Fairy Tail and gained so many precious companions!"
Snapping out of his dark thoughts, Gray looked at Juvia's earnest expression and slowly broke into a smile.
Then, as if moved by some unseen force, he reached out and gently patted her head.
He immediately withdrew his hand as if shocked by his own action and said.
"Thank you. Let's board the ship and not cause any more trouble for Ur."
Juvia's face turned steam-red, her brain completely short-circuiting as she nodded mechanically.
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