"Aaaahhhh—!!!"
She clutched her head and cried, yet the movement of her hands didn't stop.
Instead of attacking, she cast a reverse spell.
The water prison trapping Lucy suddenly disintegrated.
It turned into a gentle current that softly lifted Lucy out and placed her on the ground.
"I-I'm sorry..." Juvia knelt on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm sorry, Miss Lucy... I almost... I almost..."
Vidaldus's face changed drastically.
"Impossible! How could my magic..."
"Because a real bond is ten thousand times stronger than your crappy magic, you bastard!"
Lucy wiped the water from her face.
She pulled out the golden key she hadn't used yet from her soaked clothes.
The key's surface shimmered with a watery luster.
It was the constellation that could only unleash its full power in an environment with abundant water elements.
"Open, Gate of the Water Bearer—Aquarius!"
A huge Magic Circle unfolded on the corridor floor.
Within the circle, the blue-haired mermaid Celestial Spirit holding a water urn slowly emerged.
The moment Aquarius appeared, all the water elements on the seventh floor began to run rampant.
The moisture in the walls and the water in the air were forcibly extracted along with Juvia's created water, gathering into the urn in her hand.
"What... is this monster..." Vidaldus's face turned deathly pale.
He felt all the sound around him getting distorted, swallowed, and isolated by the terrifying water pressure.
Without sound, his sound wave magic was practically useless!
"Aquarius!" Lucy shouted. "Help us!"
Aquarius glanced at her, then at Juvia crying on the floor, and snorted coldly. "Troublesome woman. However..."
She raised her urn.
"Seeing as you've worked so hard."
The urn tipped.
A massive tsunami erupted, instantly submerging the entire space of the seventh floor in an endless flood.
Vidaldus tried to escape, but the current moved ten times faster than him.
He tried to use his long hair to cut through the water.
The strands that could sever steel were as fragile as paper before the immense stellar water summoned by Aquarius, disintegrating on contact!
Lucy struggled to swim to Juvia's side.
She looked at Vidaldus struggling in the vortex, then at Aquarius beside her.
A determined light flashed in her eyes.
"Juvia... can I borrow a little of your magic power?"
Juvia was taken aback, then understood and nodded with a smile.
"Of course."
Two hands, one warm and dry, the other cool and wet, clasped gently in the air.
In the next second, Juvia's body turned into a stream of water and merged with the flood summoned by Aquarius.
It was a perfect resonance of magic, a complement of characteristics, and a fusion of souls.
The flexibility and changeability of Juvia's water perfectly balanced with the vastness and majesty of Aquarius's water, linked together by Lucy's Celestial Spirit Magic in a powerful Unison Raid.
The color of the vortex shifted from azure to the deep color of a starry sky, increasing the density of the water within a hundredfold.
Vidaldus couldn't even let out a scream before being completely swallowed by the heavy, freezing water.
When the flood receded, all that remained on the spot was an unconscious body, completely drained of magic, and totally bald.
"No—my hair—!"
He had screamed right before passing out, watching in horror as his treasured long hair got torn apart and stripped away by the current.
The water had spun into a massive vortex that trapped him firmly in the center.
Terrifying water pressure had squeezed his body from all directions, making his bones groan and his internal organs feel like exploding.
"It's over," Lucy said softly.
The corridor fell silent.
Lucy and Juvia looked at each other and smiled. Both collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
"We won..." Lucy said while panting.
"Yeah," Juvia said softly, looking down at her hands. "I... can protect my friends now, too."
"You've always been our friend," Lucy said earnestly.
Juvia looked up.
Tears shimmered in her blue eyes, but they were tears of joy.
...
At the top of the tower, the final level.
There was no ceiling here.
Looking up, one could see the overcast night sky filled with flashing lightning and rumbling thunder.
The platform measured about fifty meters in diameter. Its floor consisted of mirror-smooth black stone engraved with complex magic patterns.
At the center of the patterns, Jellal stood quietly, his robes fluttering in the night wind.
Erza stepped out of the stairwell and onto the platform.
Her gaze met Jellal's in mid-air.
Eight years, more than two thousand days and nights, and countless nightmares and longings all condensed into a short distance of three meters at this moment.
"You've come, Erza," Jellal spoke. His voice sounded calm, as if they had just parted yesterday.
"I've come, Jellal," Erza's voice remained equally calm, but the knuckles of the hand gripping her sword hilt turned white.
"I've been waiting for you." Jellal opened his arms as if to embrace the entire night sky. "Waiting for you to come to the paradise I created. Waiting for you to witness the great work I am about to complete. This tower, this magic, this ritual—it's all for you, Erza."
"For me?" Erza let out a bitter laugh. "A tower built on the lives and suffering of the innocent, a plan maintained through deception and manipulation, using our friends as your pawns—is this what you call 'for me'?"
Jellal's expression didn't change.
"Necessary sacrifices. For a greater goal, for true freedom and salvation, these costs are worth it. Erza, you don't understand. This world needs to be purified and reshaped. This Tower of Heaven is the cornerstone of the new world."
"You're insane, Jellal," Erza shook her head, a pained look in her eyes. "Completely insane."
"Insane?" Jellal finally showed a twisted and fanatical smile. "No, Erza, I have never been so clear-headed. I have seen the truth of this world, the essence of magic, and the mission we have been given. And you—"
He pointed at Erza, his voice suddenly rising.
"You are the sacrifice I have chosen, and also the goddess of the new world! Your body, your magic, and your soul will become the key to activating the R-System! Then, together, we will create a perfect world without pain, without oppression, without injustice!"
Erza closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, all the hesitation, pain, and struggle in her eyes had vanished.
Only the resolve of a warrior and a hint of deep sorrow remained.
"Then, there's nothing more to say."
She bypassed her usual armor and requipped into the simple attire she wore when she had just grasped her Clear Heart Clothing.
A white sarashi bandage wrapped around her chest, accompanied by deep red hakama pants and bare feet.
"Let me beat some sense into you."
As her voice fell, she was already moving.
Erza's figure left a trail of afterimages on the platform as her twin swords stabbed toward Jellal like shooting stars.
This strike abandoned fancy tricks, relying purely on speed and power.
Jellal merely tilted his body slightly.
The tips of the swords grazed past the corner of his robe.
Erza changed her move.
A horizontal slash, an upward cut, a diagonal chop, a thrust—she delivered seventeen strikes in an instant.
Each aimed at a vital point, and each moved too fast for the naked eye to follow.
As if he could predict the future, Jellal dodged every one by a hair's breadth.
His feet barely moved more than a meter.
"It's useless, Erza," Jellal said softly, showing a hint of pity in his eyes. "I remember all of your sword techniques. Your habits, your rhythm, your weaknesses—I knew them all like the back of my hand eight years ago. During these eight years, I have been getting stronger. Meanwhile, you stood still in the gentle comfort of Fairy Tail."
"Nonsense!" Erza shouted angrily.
Her sword style changed again, becoming sharper and more varied.
Jellal continued to dodge with ease, even having the leisure to raise a hand and make a grasping motion at Erza.
"Darkness Magic: Dark Grab!"
The Magic Circle on the platform floor suddenly lit up with a dark purple glow.
Dozens of tentacles made of dark magic and wraith fragments shot out from the circle.
They instantly wrapped around Erza's limbs, waist, and neck.
Magic structures covered the tentacles, draining her magic with every contraction and transmitting the painful wails of countless wraiths with every squirm.
"Ugh—!"
Erza let out a muffled grunt, her movements instantly freezing.
The tentacles lifted her completely off the ground, suspending her in mid-air and tightening their grip.
She felt her magic power draining away rapidly as her consciousness began to blur.
"It's over, Erza." Jellal walked up to her and reached out to gently stroke her face. His movements felt as tender as if touching fragile porcelain.
"Sleep. When you wake up, the new world will have begun."
Erza opened her eyes.
Deep within those silver pupils, a flame he had never seen before was burning.
It burned so fiercely it seemed to scorch his very soul.
"Jellal..." Erza's voice was soft, but it reached his ears clearly. "You do indeed understand the me from eight years ago. But you forgot something important."
Her hands suddenly moved.
Instead of breaking free, her hands tightened their grip on her swords.
The blades began to glow with a deeper light originating from the very source of her soul, completely different from normal magic.
The light spread from the hilts to the tips. It then detached from the blades, condensing and re-forming in the air.
Demon Blade Benizakura.
"—people change." Erza said softly before swinging the blade.
A thin red line, as fine as a strand of hair, flashed silently across the night sky.
All the wraith tentacles wrapped around her snapped in unison and dissipated into black smoke.
For the first time, a crack appeared in Jellal's expression.
He wanted to retreat, but his body seemed locked in place by that demon blade, completely unable to move.
The red line passed through his abdomen.
Jellal looked down, staring at the thin, rapidly widening wound on his abdomen.
His eyes filled with bewilderment, shock, and a hint of indescribable relief.
"So that's how it is..." he said in a low voice, his body slowly falling backward.
"You've finally... surpassed me, Erza."
He fell to the ground.
Dark purple blood gushed from the wound, quickly staining the Magic Circle beneath him red.
Erza landed, watching the Demon Blade Benizakura in her hand dissipate into motes of light.
She looked at Jellal lying on the ground, at that familiar yet strange face and at those eyes that were gradually losing focus.
She felt no joy in victory, only an endless emptiness and sorrow.
"Jellal..."
The night wind blew over the top of the tower, scattering the dark clouds to reveal a patch of the clear, starry sky.
Below the tower, Ace looked up toward its peak.
A dark golden light slowly swirled in his eyes.
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