At some point, the sunlight over the horizon had been covered by a dim yellow filter, and the once-clear air began to undergo an indescribable change.
Like a calm lake struck by a massive boulder, rings of transparent ripples visible to the naked eye spread outward from the outskirts of the royal capital in all directions.
If this world itself possessed awareness, then at this moment, it would surely be trembling.
This was not some false illusion meant to obscure sight. It was a real scene witnessed by every living being within the royal capital.
Among the ruins on the outskirts, the royal guards who had only moments ago been fleeing in panic from the aftershocks of the human-dragon battle now stopped in their tracks one after another.
"The… the world is twisting?"
They stiffly raised their heads, staring up at the dim yellow, constantly rippling sky.
They had clearly just been lucky enough to survive beneath collapsed buildings, and they could not possibly understand what this phenomenon meant.
Yet a terror of battle unlike anything they had ever felt, born from the depths of their souls, seized their hearts without warning.
It was as if some indescribable disaster had already silently kissed the tips of their toes.
And naturally, that visible spatial wave also startled everyone inside the royal palace hall.
"What's happening outside?"
Mystogan, who had just finished dealing with the remaining attendants in the hall, snapped his head around and looked through the shattered window into the distance.
"This unnatural feeling… like space is being forcibly distorted…"
Mira, who had released her Take Over and was now sitting on the ground from exhaustion, caught her breath.
"It feels a little like when Shane directly unfolded the mist city during the S-Class trial."
"Unfolded a city?"
Mystogan looked confused. He had not yet joined Fairy Tail back then, so of course he had no idea what that scene had been like.
Unlike their confusion, Faust before the throne appeared extremely excited.
"The evil dragon! That is the evil dragon supporting me! It really has descended!"
The old king's face flushed with excitement. Throwing aside all dignity, he squeezed over to the window and fixed his eyes on the distant sky.
As the spatial ripples spread, he realized that the azure spear flashes from Shane, which had been flickering through the air from time to time, had completely vanished.
At the edge of his vision, inside the thick smoke, only the enormous mechanical evil dragon remained, thrashing and moving alone in midair.
"A mere human actually thought he could use his flesh body to fight such a creature. Arrogant and foolish really are the perfect words for him!"
Faust could not help laughing mockingly.
"Hey, old man."
Mira patted the dust from her skirt, her cool gaze sweeping across the royal elites lying all over the floor and groaning in pain.
"All the people who could protect you are already down. Could you at least have a little awareness that you're the loser here?"
His shallow, arrogant understanding of Shane really annoyed her.
After all, that was the cheap master she had acknowledged. How could he possibly lose to a pile of scrap metal?
"Heh, little girl. Do you think you have won?"
Faust turned around and sneered fearlessly, his gaze landing on Mystogan.
"My son is right here! So what if you have gained a slight advantage through brute force? No matter how much he defies me, do you think he would dare kill his own father in front of everyone?"
He straightened his messy luxurious robe and proudly raised his chin.
"Once the evil dragon finishes off that arrogant fool outside and returns to this palace, I will still be the king of this country!"
"Father…"
Compared to the smug Faust, Mystogan lowered his eyes deeply when he heard that word and fell silent.
He could not acknowledge, deep in his heart, that the mad old man before him was truly his blood relative.
Even if he could not bring himself to kill him because of the bonds of kinship, Mystogan had already secretly made up his mind: he absolutely could not allow this man to continue sitting in that seat that ruled over all the people.
"Heh. Aren't you misunderstanding something?"
Looking at Faust's certain expression, Mira could not help letting out a scoff.
She raised her hand and pointed toward the dim yellow sky outside the window.
"Mystogan may be your son, so maybe he can't bring himself to kill you. But the person outside? That's not so certain."
A trace of memory flashed through the girl's eyes, and her voice turned faint.
"That guy usually looks lazy, but deep down, he's extremely self-centered."
"Once he decides something is wrong, he won't care about anyone else's feelings or opinions. He'll just remove everything in his way by himself."
"You mean that counterpart who was beaten by the evil dragon until not even his shadow remains?"
Faust found it amusing and looked unusually relaxed.
"He's probably already been torn to pieces and stuffed between the evil dragon's teeth by now."
As he spoke, the old king smugly pointed toward the distant sky outside the window and boasted loudly:
"Look, hasn't he already stopped moving for quite a—"
At this point, Faust's words suddenly caught in his throat.
As if an invisible pair of hands had clamped tightly around his neck.
The words stopped abruptly.
Outside the window, above the ruins at the outskirts of the royal capital, a scene appeared that Faust would never be able to understand for the rest of his life.
Within the thick, rolling smoke, a dragon-beast several times larger than the mechanical evil dragon, even more savage in form, and radiating a despairing sorrow, suddenly rose into the air without warning.
That enormous creature let out a shrill roar and, in an almost self-forgetting frenzy, slammed upward from below into the mechanical evil dragon in midair.
In Faust's constricted pupils, the evil dragon he had regarded as the pillar of his royal authority looked almost like a petite girl before this newly appeared dragon-beast.
The dragon-beast's thick forelimbs pinned down the evil dragon's head and dragged it forcibly down from the clouds.
Accompanied by the teeth-grating sound of twisting metal, it opened its bottomless maw and bit into the other dragon's neck.
There were no techniques.
Only the most primitive savagery and cruelty.
As if venting some fury buried in its heart, it violently tore away huge chunks of scales and flesh from the evil dragon's body.
Broken remains rained down like a storm.
"W-what kind of monster is that?!"
Faust's lips trembled uncontrollably.
A terrible suspicion began growing wildly in his heart, but he desperately resisted admitting it.
"Didn't you want to see it?"
The white-haired girl leaning against the wall looked at that brutally violent figure in the distance, its visual impact overwhelming, and softly shattered the old king's last illusion.
"That is Shane."
The world seemed to cut off all sound at that moment.
The unfolding of the fourth vision was completely different from his previous experiences.
There was no detached sense of being an observer.
This time, Shane felt his soul fully and completely attached to "someone."
He could even feel every pulse in the person's veins and every painful breath as if it were his own.
And then, after so long—
through the eyes of this body, he saw Aurora once again.
That fairy who seemed to gather all the light in the world.
That savior who had reached out to Lancer in the mire and led them out of filth.
That beautiful and sacred woman, whose perfect, gentle smile always hung upon her cheeks.
The woman Lancer loved most.
Shane could clearly feel the pure, believer-like attachment surging in the depths of this body's heart upon seeing her.
Only…
At this moment, Aurora was not standing high upon an altar, smiling and waving to her.
This flawless fairy was lying silently in a glaring pool of blood.
Those tender eyes, always curved with a smile, now stared blankly into empty space, having lost all their light.
And the source of that crimson blood was dripping from the tip of the spear clutched tightly in "my" hand.
Drop by drop, it fell onto the cold floor.
Aurora had died by "my" hand.
Why?
Along with the intense grief transmitted through Lancer's body, Shane's mind was utterly blank.
Lancer had clearly been willing to offer her body and soul entirely to Aurora.
So why…
why had she personally killed the Aurora she loved most?