"What's going on here??"
Natsu was completely baffled by how serious Raizel looked.
"He's not human. He's a demon."
It was not that Raizel was genuinely treating him like so overwhelming threat.
It was simply that this demon was connected to the Tartaros side of things, so a little caution was warranted.
Raizel had dealt with enough demons by now that anything demonic was impossible for him to miss.
Doriate was a little surprised that Raizel had seen through his demonic nature, but his tone remained just as arrogant as ever.
"Oh? So you can tell I'm a demon. Interesting... I am Doriate of Succubus Eye."
"Succubus Eye? A dark guild?" Erza said, sounding surprised.
"So what if he's a demon? We just beat him down!" Natsu's right fist burst into fla, battle spirit blazing.
"I'll handle this. Erza, Kagura, keep Natsu back."
"Got it." Kagura, expression unchanged, gripped Archenemy in her right hand and stepped in front of Natsu.
"Rember your past…"
Doriate spread his arms, trying to activate his Curse—Regression.
His Curse could regress a wizard back into childhood.
Their strength, speed, Magic Power, and stamina would all fall back to what they had been at that age.
"You're too slow."
Raizel's voice suddenly sounded right beside his ear.
Doriate's pupils contracted sharply.
Raizel had been dozens of steps away a mont ago, yet in the blink of an eye he was already in front of him.
The Grey Sword in his left hand slashed upward in a diagonal arc!
Doriate was forced to block with his arm, but Raizel severed his right forearm outright.
Then, using the Grey Sword to brace against Jiemma's palm strike, Raizel gathered a freezing shell in the Garuru Cannon on his right arm and blasted Doriate in the abdon.
Doriate's stomach and legs were heavily damaged, and a thick layer of ice instantly spread over them.
Although Jiemma had been turned into a demon, his oversized fra made him far too slow.
After breaking all four of his limbs, Raizel finished him with a single slash to the throat.
Cruel as it looked, Jiemma was effectively already dead.
He had been turned into a demon after death, so in a way, Raizel was giving him release.
Doriate, sprawled on the ground to one side, suddenly went red-eyed.
His body swelled several tis over, tearing apart the clothes on his upper body.
Muscles bulged all across his body.
His skin turned blue, claws sprouted from both hands and feet, and the fangs at his mouth grew even longer.
Even the right arm Raizel had cut off began to regenerate…
Roaring like he had lost his mind, Doriate lunged at Raizel.
Raizel did not et him head-on. He simply sprang backward to widen the gap.
Ur's brows knitted tightly. "That presence… Deliora?"
"An Etherious from the Books of Zeref! A human turned into one?" Gray's pupils trembled.
Doriate's demonic form instantly dragged Gray back to one of his old nightmares—the immortal demon, Deliora.
"Raizel, there's sothing wrong with that guy!"
Natsu had just noticed it.
That thing's fists did not dare to slam into the ground.
Natsu's observational instinct was sharp enough that it forced Gray to push down his fear and really watch Doriate's movents.
Doriate, who had just been blasted away by Raizel's cannon, reached behind to touch his back.
The tree he had crashed into—one that should have snapped under his weight—was sohow completely intact…
Gray quickly ca to a conclusion.
"The strange Magic Power freezing this village hurts demons. Or rather… it has abnormally strong defensive properties against demons!"
That conclusion seed to apply both to demons created by Zeref and to native demons that already existed in Earth Land.
Still, Doriate was too weak…
The Grey Sword carved into him again and again.
Then Raizel fired an absolute-zero freezing round, sealing the reverted human-form Doriate inside ice.
Finally, he poured Magic Power into the Grey Sword and cleaved the frozen block into several pieces!
"He's dead."
Raizel signaled that everyone could co closer now.
Comparing Doriate's pressure to Deliora's in her mory, Ur said, "He definitely doesn't have Deliora's kind of defensive power. More than that… he's much weaker than Deliora."
Raizel nodded. "Of course he is. He's not a true demon, he was a human remodeled into one, and a failed product at that."
Gray pressed a hand to the ground and muttered, "But then what exactly is going on with this ice?"
While everyone was talking, a flying creature descended to the ground—one-eyed, with feathers covering its body—and swallowed down Doriate's shattered corpse together with the ice.
Since he had not gotten a chance to fight earlier, Natsu shot forward imdiately, flas coiling around both his arms and legs.
"Natsu, be careful!" Lucy shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth.
"Fire Dragon's Hook!"
Natsu kicked the flying monster high into the air, then stomped hard with his right foot and leapt after it, both hands wrapped in flas.
"Brilliant Fla!"
A massive burst of fire slamd straight into the creature's single eye, sending it plumting back down uncontrollably.
An idea flashed across Gray's mind, and he excitedly said, "I've got a theory—but we need to go to the Eternal Fla!"
"Then let's go test it." Erza decided on the spot.
The group rushed to the Eternal Fla.
"We don't know what this ice covering the village is. We can't control it, and we can't lt it."
"But it seems like it can pass through my body…"
When Gray had pressed his hand against the ice earlier, he had tried sothing. Using his own body as a dium, he could channel Magic Power out through it.
"Pass through your body?" Ur tried it after hearing Gray out.
"It doesn't work for ." Ur shook her head helplessly.
" neither." Ultear shook her head as well. Since she also knew Ice-Make Magic, she had tried it too.
Wendy asked anxiously, "Even if it works, what do we do after channeling it out?"
"I'll use Ice-Make and reshape the ice covering this village into my own form!"
"The first thing we need to do is lt the ice sealing the Eternal Fla!"
Gray pressed both palms against the frozen Eternal Fla and continuously poured Magic Power into it…
A brilliant blue light gradually spread across the Eternal Fla.
"Everyone, get back!"
White mist began billowing off the solid ice around the Eternal Fla, and chunks of the pink ice started falling away.
"Look! The ice is lting!"
Boom!!!
The entire mass of solid ice lted, and the white vapor obscured everyone's vision…
As the mist slowly cleared, the ice was indeed gone—but the Eternal Fla was nowhere to be seen.
"Huh?"
"There's no fire?"
"How is that possible?" Gray stared in disbelief.
"Did the Eternal Fla disappear?" Ultear frowned tightly as she thought it over.
'What is this feeling? This Magic Power…?'
Wendy's body began trembling on its own.
"Could it have already gone out before it was frozen?" Charle offered her guess.
"Wendy, what's wrong?" Ur noticed Wendy beside her acting strangely.
Excitent filled Wendy's voice.
"It hasn't disappeared!"
Her words drew everyone's attention.
With both hands clenched tightly, Wendy firmly said, "There's an incredibly strong lingering will. That proves it's still alive!"
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