"Hey, buddy, that little flute in your hand is quite the specimen. Look at you, a musician too?"
Kabe, floating in midair, teased him while struggling not to laugh. Then he held out a hand to Erigor.
"Still, even a musician shouldn't climb this high. It's dangerous. Come on, hand over here. I'll bring you down."
Looking at Kabe's warm, easygoing expression, as if he genuinely meant to help him, Erigor went silent for a few breaths, then slowly reached his hand out. Just as his fingertips were about to brush Kabe's palm, Kabe's smile vanished and he snatched his hand back.
"Tch. I was just joking around, and you actually went for it. Sorry, I've got no interest in holding hands with a man right now."
Erigor:
He'd meant to play along, waiting for Kabe's guard to drop before finding his opening to strike. But hearing that tone of naked disdain, it hit him at once that he'd been made a fool of. His face darkened instantly, dark enough to drip ink. The hand he hadn't withdrawn shifted into an attack without warning, magic condensing in his palm as he unleashed a violent gale straight at Kabe.
In an instant, Kabe, along with an entire row of trees behind him, was shredded to splinters by the raging wind. Once the gale died down, Erigor looked around and, confirming there was no longer any sign of that bastard, didn't even have time to feel pleased with himself before he hurried the flute to his lips, ready to play.
That was way too loud. If it puts those old men on alert and lets even a couple of them slip away, that won't be good.
Thinking this, he'd just drawn breath to play when his vision suddenly blurred. By the time he came back to himself, Lullaby had vanished from his hands.
"Tsk, tsk. You're a Guild Master in your own right, aren't you? By rights, you shouldn't be this short sighted."
The familiar voice rang out again, this time from above. Erigor's head snapped up in terror, and there was Kabe, floating several meters over him, casually twirling Lullaby between his fingers.
"You, you're still alive? That's impossible! Even the legendary Dark Mage Zeref would be dead for sure taking my attack at that range!"
Kabe lifted his eyes from the flute and shot him a look of pure contempt.
"You really can talk. Magic at your level, standing in front of Zeref, would probably just about manage to fan him a little and cool him down."
Such naked scorn all but dug Erigor's pride straight out of him and ground it into the dirt. He was the Death God, after all. Even in the world of dark guilds, he was a name people knew, a man with pride of his own.
"You fake, pretentious bastard! Give me back Lullaby, or I'll cut you to ribbons with my Wind Blade!"
"You? Cut me to ribbons?"
Kabe looked like he'd just heard the joke of the century, letting out a thoroughly rude snort of laughter.
"Sorry, but a small fry like you isn't worth my time. The Guild Masters down there, though, seem plenty interested in you."
Kabe pointed down at the Guild Masters, who had heard the commotion and were filing out of the villa to see what was going on. Then, without giving Erigor a moment to react, his figure vanished and reappeared in an instant, and he drove one long leg hard into Erigor's gut.
"Bye bye. Don't climb so high next time."
With those words still ringing in his ears, the scenery in Erigor's vision suddenly began rushing backward.
Kicked down like a rubber ball, Erigor crashed through several trees on the way down before tumbling to a stop right at the feet of the assembled Guild Masters. The crowd, who'd come out to see what the fuss was about, took one look at the silver haired man with two black lightning bolt tattoos beneath his eyes and knew exactly who he was.
"That's Erigor! The Guild Master of Eisenwald!"
"What? That Eisenwald bastard actually showed his face? Just how little does he think of us Guild Masters?"
"Everybody stand back, let me handle this. I want to see exactly what he's got, talking big about wiping all of us out!"
...
Watching the furious crowd of old men and women close in around him, hearing them shout curses down at him, Erigor, still sprawled on the ground and nowhere near recovered, was completely lost. From the sound of it, they'd already known Eisenwald was coming for them. Was there a mole in the guild? That couldn't be. He'd brought every last one of his men out with him. Those men were either dead at the hands of that ice using brat, or loyal to the end like Kageyama, willing to buy time with their own lives. There was no way there could be a traitor.
But the moment gave him no time left to think it over, because the Guild Masters' furious fists and feet were already coming down on him. Erigor tried to scramble up and fight back, but a fist bigger than his entire body suddenly slammed down out of the crowd, driving him straight into the ground and crushing what resistance he had left.
Turning away from Erigor, who was shrieking under the beating, Makarov looked up at Kabe, who was still hovering in the sky and hadn't come down, and frowned in confusion.
"...What's that boy up to now?"
Goldmine, arms crossed as well, looked up at Kabe without a clue what he was doing, and the eyes behind his dark glasses suddenly narrowed.
"Makarov, look at what's in his hand. Could that be Lullaby?"
"The legendary cursed flute? The one where anyone who hears it played is doomed to die?"
Makarov's expression turned grave, and he started forward at once to go find out what was happening. But he hadn't taken more than a couple of steps before a hoarse, faintly malevolent roar tore through the air from that direction.
"Enough of this, you mortal, no better than an ant! You dare insult the mighty demon the great Zeref himself created! I will devour your soul, and the souls of every last one of you!!!"
The words had barely faded before Makarov and the others saw a massive magic circle bloom above Kabe's head, purple black and thick with an ominous presence. The flute still clutched in his hand began swelling, rapidly growing larger the instant the circle lit. In practically the blink of an eye, a demon rose before them all amid crackling purple lightning and rolling black mist, mountainous in size, dozens of meters tall, its back hunched, two horns and three eyes crowning its head, its chest and arms pitted with dark hollow cavities.
"ROAAAR! This is what you get for angering me! I'm claiming every one of you Mages' souls!!"
Makarov: "!!! Wait, hold on, what the hell did you say to Lullaby, you bastard?!"