"You bastard! Do you think I'm still the same man I was back then?!"
Bluenote roared as he dragged himself out of the wall he had been embedded in, then charged Ankh again in a fury.
Marin, however, reacted very differently.
He stared grimly at Ankh and suddenly remembered some of the rumors circulating through the Alvarez military.
A man suspected of having connections to the gods.
Someone who had nearly killed Dimaria of the Spriggan 12.
Someone even Lady Irene, one of the Empire's Twin Walls, preferred not to confront directly.
Even His Majesty had no desire to assign anyone the task of dealing with him head-on.
Marin's decision was immediate.
'Yeah, I'm getting out of here.'
He was destined to replace that infuriating Brandish and become the Empire's new favorite someday.
There was absolutely no reason for a man with such a glorious future to die in some underground dungeon.
While everyone's attention was elsewhere, Marin slipped into his spatial dimension and disappeared without a sound.
Bluenote had no idea his teammate had already abandoned him.
As he charged, his body swelled larger and more muscular until the last remnants of his humanity disappeared, leaving behind the enormous demonic form Natsu had fought the previous day.
"Gravity Curse—Compression!"
Intoxicated by the tremendous strength coursing through his transformed body, Bluenote clenched both fists.
The air around Ankh immediately compressed as crushing gravitational force closed in from every direction, rapidly becoming dense enough to distort the surrounding space.
Ankh looked at the increasingly arrogant demon without even bothering to show contempt.
He simply raised one hand.
An intricate crimson magic circle unfolded before his palm.
"High Enchantment…"
A chill ran through Bluenote.
His Gravity Curse was having no effect whatsoever.
Panicking, he concentrated all of his gravitational force around one fist and lunged forward, desperately attempting to stop Ankh before he could finish casting.
Ankh gave him a glance filled with something closer to pity than concern.
Then he spoke the final word.
"Collapse."
Bluenote's pupils contracted.
The space surrounding him began to tremble.
At first it was only a vibration, but within an instant the shaking intensified into violent spatial distortion as the structure of the area itself began to break down.
Space fractured around him.
Every hostile magical force caught within the affected region lost its coherent structure and dissolved back into chaotic natural energy.
For a fraction of a second, Bluenote experienced the bizarre sensation that his body no longer belonged to him.
Then the pain arrived.
And he realized it hadn't been an illusion.
The space containing Bluenote folded and twisted without order, taking his body with it.
Flesh and bone were wrenched in conflicting directions until his enormous demonic form was contorted beyond recognition, blood pouring from countless wounds as even his monstrous face collapsed into a mangled mess.
The damage inside his body was just as catastrophic.
Organs ruptured, bones shattered, and every internal structure failed at once.
The result perfectly matched the name Ankh had given the spell.
Collapse.
From the inside out, Bluenote's entire body simply ceased functioning.
Only then did the arrogance in his eyes finally disappear, replaced by delayed horror and desperate terror.
A last breath remained trapped in his throat as every instinct screamed for him to survive, but there was nothing left that could answer that desire.
His life faded within seconds.
Just like that, the once-feared second-in-command of Grimoire Heart died before his despair had even fully settled in.
It had been an instant kill.
Brandish, still fighting Lucy on the other side of the chamber, felt a genuine chill when she saw what had happened.
Bluenote had certainly been a formidable mage eight years ago, but the world had changed dramatically since then.
After suffering such a crushing defeat, spending years in decline, and growing older without meaningful progress, he could no longer truly be counted among the strongest fighters of the current era.
Even so, Brandish herself would still have needed at least a few exchanges to put him down.
Ankh had erased him in a single move.
Her attacks immediately became faster and more urgent.
Unfortunately for Brandish, the hatred clouding her judgment was preventing her from ending the fight efficiently even though Lucy was considerably weaker.
Her Command T also had its own limitations.
It couldn't directly manipulate a mage whose Magic Power exceeded hers, nor could it easily affect someone whose magic was violently active while they remained completely focused on combat.
That gave Lucy, who specialized in agile fighting through Star Dress, enough room to keep resisting.
"Star Dress Mix!"
Lucy's Magic Power surged far beyond its usual level, driven by her determination to defend her mother's name.
Star Dress Mix was one of the techniques she was proudest of developing recently, allowing her to combine the powers of two different Star Dresses into a single form.
"Loke! Virgo!"
Two Celestial Spirit Gates opened at once.
Loke and Virgo appeared beside Lucy as the powers of their respective constellations began merging.
When the golden light faded, Lucy revealed an entirely new appearance.
The symbols of the Leo and Virgo Keys crossed over the back of her left hand, while a pair of translucent, fairy-like wings extended from behind her.
Her elegant dress combined the brilliance of light with the grace of an earth spirit, making her resemble a princess out of some enchanted fairy tale.
Lucy crossed her pale arms in front of herself and focused.
Light and earth answered simultaneously.
The ground beneath Brandish suddenly vanished, dropping her into a deep pit.
Brandish immediately enlarged her body and stepped out with brute force, only for the surrounding earth to rise around her in enormous waves of rock and packed soil, locking her gigantic form in place.
At the same time, dozens—then hundreds—of radiant swords appeared throughout the previously dim underground hall.
Golden light illuminated the entire chamber.
"Go!"
Lucy swept one hand downward.
The countless blades descended like a rainstorm of golden light and hammered Brandish from every direction.
Brandish raised her arms over her head as the attacks struck, pain only feeding her anger.
Yet that burst of pain also forced her scattered emotions back under control, and the chaotic Magic Power surrounding her suddenly stabilized.
With an enraged shout, Brandish released a wave of force that shattered every remaining light sword.
Once her composure returned, the battle immediately changed.
Brandish stopped trying to crush Lucy through anger and began fighting with the calm precision expected from a member of the Spriggan 12. Her attacks became measured and relentless, almost like a cat lazily tormenting a mouse, and Lucy was soon forced to abandon offense entirely and focus on escaping.
Watching from the side, Ankh sighed.
Lucy's new technique was genuinely impressive, but the gap between her and a member of the Spriggan 12 was still too large.
A calm Brandish could kill her without much difficulty.
Ankh was about to intervene.
But instead of simply ending the fight himself, he decided the person most closely involved in this entire dispute should do it.
"Enchant."
He casually applied what appeared to be an unrelated spell to the ground beneath the two women.
Both Lucy and Brandish instinctively stopped.
"Water?"
Lucy stared in surprise as clear liquid began spreading around her feet.
There hadn't been any water here a moment ago.
Brandish, unlike Lucy, had noticed Ankh's spell and gave him a complicated look.
This was one of the things that made High Enchantment so absurdly versatile.
As long as Ankh understood the properties and process necessary to produce a substance, artificially creating it was hardly difficult.
And just as he expected, the newly created pool of water immediately began spinning.
A whirlpool formed.
Then a familiar mermaid emerged from within it.
"Aquarius!"
Lucy's face lit up with delight.
Brandish, however, froze the moment she saw Aquarius's face.
Although Lucy was no longer holding her key, Aquarius was both one of the strongest Celestial Spirits and one of the spirits most closely connected to Lucy.
With enough of her own power, she could still force her way into the Human World under the right conditions.
In fact, Aquarius had wanted to appear almost from the moment Brandish and Lucy started fighting.
There had simply been one problem.
There's no water.
Ankh had conveniently fixed that.
Aquarius emerged carrying her urn and immediately flashed Brandish a broad grin.
"Well, look who it is. Been a long time, Brandish!"
Brandish awkwardly turned her head away.
"…Yeah."
Aquarius's eyebrow twitched.
Then her voice suddenly shot up several octaves.
"I'M GREETING YOU! WHAT KIND OF ATTITUDE IS THAT, YOU LITTLE BRAT?!"
Brandish's entire body snapped straight through sheer reflex.
"Yes, Master! Sorry, Master!"
Ankh and Lucy stared at her with identical blank expressions.
'…Master?'