MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE
***
"Still..."
'Four'
"Are you alright?" Kazu asked her while scanning her.
'Three'
Apart from her clothes being damaged at some ends, she was in one piece.
"I am good. Still, you were so awesome. Took him out in one shot." She made some punching motions with her hand.
'Two'
"Well, I am a S-rank..." Kazu sheepishly rubbed his head. Her enthusiasm had caught him off guard.
'One'
A single magic bullet appeared behind Levy's back silently.
The bullet shot forward, slicing across the sky in a flat arc.
Far ahead, the Alvarez mage's body jerked unnaturally. He sensed a magic circle inside his body, preventing him from using Dodge magic. 'When did he—' His thoughts never got completed as Kazu's bullet pierced him, and exited in a clean line.
The body fell into the ocean before sinking, staining the water red.
'Leaving him alive would be foolish, especially now he saw me using Destructive Interference.' Kazu wanted to keep that technique as his trump card. That's why not many people knew about it. Though he had shown his technique in the guild conference, the specifics were still unknown to most people and Kazu would prefer to keep it that way a little longer.
Moreover, the man had directly attacked two kids without even listening to their side, so Kazu's conscience remained clear.
The duo continued their travel before reaching the epicentre of a cyclone.
"Is this...?" Levy looked at the cyclone in wonder. It was the first time she had seen a natural disaster this close.
"This should be the cause. Let's go in." They started descending into the water.
The disturbance wasn't just a storm—it was a structure. A wall of rotating water towering above them, twisting like a colossal tunnel. The air vibrated with Ethernano pressure strong enough to flatten normal mages. Kazu layered the barrier around them into a descending shell, thick enough to withstand impact.
The shell cut into the cyclone like a drill.
Water slammed against it from all sides. The pressure made Levy brace against the inner wall, eyes squinting as the outside blurred into streaks of blue and white. Kazu adjusted Ethernano flow each time the shell buckled, tightening and reshaping it instinctively.
Then the cyclone's eye opened beneath them.
A hollow column of still water surrounded by rotating walls. Silent. Heavy. Unnatural.
Shapes swam into visibility below—long silhouettes darting with controlled speed. Weapons glinted. Coral blades. Spearpoints.
Levy inhaled sharply. "Kazu—"
"I know."
Five merfolk rose through the water in a synchronised arc. Humanoid from the waist up, shimmering scales across their arms, gills flaring, eyes adapted to deep-sea gloom. Their tails cut the water with predatory force.
They circled the barrier shell, weapons raised, speaking in sharp, warbling syllables that carried poorly through water and magic.
Levy pressed a hand to the shell. "They're saying… 'trespassers.' And 'temple.' And 'threat.' Too fast to get the rest."
Kazu's eyes widened. He turned to her and saw a line of words written in front of her: "TRANSLATE"
"A translation spell? Wow." Though Kazu had spent nearly the last month with her in increasing her mastery of magic theory, he hadn't seen all her spells.
"Hehe. Impressive, right?" Levy didn't shy away from the praise. Praises like this from Kazu were as rare as a blue moon.
'In terms of versatility, she might have already surpassed Cana. Though in a one-on-one, she would lose pretty quickly.' Kazu hummed.
One merfolk jabbed a spear into the barrier. It bounced off, but the message was clear.
"Can you modify the spell such that it would get translated for me too?"
Levy blinked. She racked her brain for a few seconds. "Yeah, let me try." The last month's training was for such scenarios only. Modifying existing spells as per the situation, making them more versatile, reactive to the situation.
In half a minute, she succeeded.
"Landborn. You approach the forbidden ruins."
Another hissed, "Two trespassed earlier. Strong ones. From the land of Guiltina. They entered the temple and broke the seal."
Levy exchanged a glance with Kazu. 'Whoa, these guys are talking in such a unique manner.'
The merfolk tightened their formation.
"State your purpose. Or the sea will claim you."
Kazu didn't flinch.
"We're here," he said, "to stop whatever they started."
The merfolk leader stared through the barrier, eyes narrowing. Though the spell didn't translate Kazu's words to him, he somehow understood them.
"Descend quickly. Before the sea wakes."
Kazu reinforced the barrier shell.
Levy steadied her breath.
They began the descent—into the temple two Guiltina elites had already breached, and into a problem big enough that Alvarez had mages patrolling the sky. They were quite curious what exactly the temple held.
***
The moment Kazu stepped across the gate, his boots hit dry stone. Not damp, not slick with algae—bone-dry, like someone had dragged a chunk of ancient ruin from the desert and dropped it at the bottom of the ocean. Airbrushed across his face, warm enough to fog his instincts. Levy's breath caught beside him as she looked down the corridor lit by rows of blue luminescent stones pulsing gently along the walls.
"Okay… that's cheating," she muttered, voice low. "We were literally drowning two seconds ago." She looked back and could still see the water of the ocean outside, somehow not entering.
"It's a barrier field...Kind of similar to how I cast effects in my barriers." He eyed the gate in wonder, wondering how it was operating without a wizard.
The blue stones were their only light, casting long shadows that clung to the cracks in the floor through the dimly lit open area.
Suddenly, something cracked behind the stone tiles—like a bone snapping—and black chains erupted upward in a sudden, perfect line. No warning. No sound, no circles. Pure ambush.
Kazu threw a barrier up so fast the air popped. The chains slammed into it a heartbeat later. The barrier groaned and wrinkled like someone was sanding its surface down.
"What—" Levy took a step back.
The barrier was decaying. Not breaking, but decaying.
Kazu forced more ethernano into it and felt it peel off faster. The chains weren't breaking his spell. They were eating it.
"Don't touch them," he said. "This isn't corrosion. It's—"
The barrier thinned like wet paper. A second row of chains tore out of the floor farther down the hall, joining the first as if the ruin itself had decided they needed to be skewered.
"—specialized destruction magic," he finished tightly. "Whoever made this wanted intruders dead without leaving bodies."
"Reminds you of Mira's magic?"
"Yes, but" he said. "This is worse."
He braced, reinforcing the barrier again, even though he knew it wouldn't hold for long. The chains twisted against it, scraping lines of pitch-black energy that left trails in the air.
Then a voice floated out of the hallway ahead—soft, even amused.
"Who are you?"
Hearing that, suddenly Kazu's world shut off.
No light. No sound. No weight of his own body. No Ethernano. Nothing. He wasn't floating or falling—there simply wasn't anything to judge movement against. The world had been unplugged.
His instinctive reaction hit a wall; he couldn't even feel the panic. Only the knowledge that he should be panicking.
'Curse-type? What was the trigger?'
The reason he didn't panic was that he had one counterspell pre-loaded for such magic, a failsafe he'd built due to his paranoia.
'Even without any senses, my body should be fine because of my Instinct magic. Levy is in more danger. Luckily, I had started preparing Three Pillar Gods just as the chains emerged, so it should be completed by now.'
He quickly analysed the entire encounter, trying to find the trigger. 'Light couldn't be it. I have already prepared countermeasures against Eye magic and magics that are transmitted through light. It's most likely sound. I hope Levy realises that.'
One of the biggest weaknesses and strengths of such types of magic is that, as long as you know the trigger, countering is pretty easy for a veteran. However, the reverse is also true. As long as you don't know the trigger, you are highly likely to get cursed.
If you are once trapped in such a state, the chances of dying are pretty high, making it perfect for assassination.
Suddenly, his senses snapped back.
Not gradually. Like someone slammed all the sliders to max at once.
The light of the corridor flooded his eyes, the roar of grinding chains hammered his ears, and cold sweat finally registered on his neck. His knees nearly buckled from the whiplash of returning sensation.
He sucked in a breath, steadying himself.
That wasn't his spell.
Levy stood beside him, hand out, her face tight, but she wasn't looking at him—she was staring at the chains, which were now inches from where his head was.
His barrier was gone. Three Pillar Gods were broken.
The chains had multiplied, spreading across the corridor like roots tearing out of the walls, vibrating with predatory intent, aimed at them.
He took in the entire scene.
***
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