After nearly a night on the boat, Chen Fan and the others finally arrived at the Tower of Heaven. On the sea leading up to it, they found many shipwrecks, a grim testament to the countless lives that had ended here.
"I'm alive again! Ahahaha... haha..." Natsu shouted as he ran on the beach, looking like a shinigami who was finally free from his duties. It seemed the time on the boat had truly driven him mad.
"Bang!" Erza pressed her hand down on Natsu's head. "Behave! You'll attract enemies like that!" She was completely unaware that her own voice was far louder.
"No, you're the one who'll attract enemies like that," Lucy and Happy muttered from the side. Unconsciously, everyone was pretending that what happened last night never occurred. Erza was still Erza, Titania of Fairy Tail, the Queen of the Fairies.
Erza had also regained her heroic demeanor. She turned to Simon. "Can you contact Sho and the others now?" Her gaze swept over Chen Fan without stopping. Chen Fan knew that when Erza was like this, he shouldn't interrupt, so he simply watched quietly from the side.
Simon pressed his fingers to his forehead, sensing carefully. After a moment, he sighed. "No, I can't sense them. I don't know what happened to them. I hope they didn't do something stupid," his tone filled with worry.
Erza was also anxious, but her expression remained calm. "Is there a secret passage that can get us up quickly?"
"There is, it's underwater and it takes about 10 minutes," Simon replied.
"Oh, that amount of time is no problem," Natsu said.
"Yeah," Gray also agreed.
"How is that not a problem?!" Lucy yelled from the side.
Suddenly, Juvia, who had been silent the whole trip, spoke. "T-this... this can solve the problem of breathing underwater. This water sphere contains sealed air that can be breathed." She held a water sphere in her hand.
"Ah, that's a huge help."
"Thank you," Gray and Erza said to Juvia.
Juvia's face turned red from the praise. "Ah, Juvia was praised by Gray-sama!" As soon as she finished cheering, she darted in front of Lucy and said, "Gray-sama praised me, not you!"
"Eh... did I upset you?" Lucy was stunned.
Chen Fan smiled from the side, it seemed Juvia had taken Lucy as a love rival.
Soon, Chen Fan and the others passed through the underwater section. Chen Fan didn't use Juvia's water sphere. He didn't even change his clothes. As soon as they landed, an alarm started blaring. "Intruders!"
A group of people with weapons appeared before them.
"Who are you guys?"
"Bang!" Natsu clasped his hands together in front of his chest, fire rising from his fists. "I'll tell you, you don't even know who your opponent is? We're Fairy Tail, you bastards!"
"Boom!" A fireball appeared at Natsu's feet, and he charged. The others followed suit.
Chen Fan, with his hands in his pockets, lazily lagged behind. He knew that in this world, there was a kind of destiny where if you didn't seek out trouble, trouble would come seeking you. Chen Fan was the very embodiment of this adage, like Konoha's Kakashi who always found trouble when he was relaxing.
Many people, seeing how ferocious Erza, Natsu, and Gray were, shifted their attention entirely to the relaxed Chen Fan.
There were no opponents left around Erza and Natsu.
"Huh...!" A sigh was heard, not from Chen Fan, but from Erza and Natsu. Their eyes stared at the enemies with pity, confusing the enemies.
Chen Fan rubbed his head, feeling depressed. What is the sin of being handsome, upright, and kind-hearted? He took a single step, and the enemies watched him nervously, their eyes drawn by his movement.
"Clang...!" The sound of a foot hitting the ground echoed throughout the cave.
Everyone was stunned. Even Erza and the others stared at Chen Fan, wondering if his magic had failed.
When the enemies saw that nothing happened, they rushed again. They had barely run two steps when a "Rumble...!" echoed. Looking up, they saw all the rocks above falling, crushing them, causing screams and raising a cloud of dust.
Natsu and the others were shocked. They had never imagined such a way of dealing with enemies, much like a Shikai technique from Bleach that dominated the environment.
"Cough, cough, ugh, why do I always find dust? It's polluting the air." A figure walked out of the dust. However, everyone scoffed. From the time he entered the water until now, not even a speck of dust had touched his clothes.
A "Click, click" sound suddenly echoed. Chen Fan and the others looked up and saw a staircase extending from the mouth of a lion's head statue.
Natsu ran forward. "What does this mean? They want us to go up?"
"This is bad, Jellal has found us." Simon's expression was terrified, he was truly afraid of Jellal.
"Calm down!" Chen Fan yelled at Simon.
Perhaps Chen Fan's voice had a charm that could calm people, because Simon regained his composure.
At the same time, on the highest floor of the Tower of Heaven, a magic screen showed Chen Fan and the others. Someone next to the screen said to Jellal, "Lord Jellal, why did you let the intruders in?"
"Didn't I tell you? This is a game. They've passed the level, that's all. Won't it be more interesting this way?" Jellal sat in his chair, looking at the magic projection, a wine glass in his hand.
"But the investigation team's ship sank a few days ago... The Council must have..."
"Vidalus, are you still worried? Don't worry, with this person here, everything will go smoothly." The magic projection froze on Chen Fan's face.
"Alright, this way we don't have to hide anymore. We can just go and beat him up. Let's go up." Natsu had just finished yelling when he charged. Erza, Gray, and Simon followed him, with only Chen Fan left behind. After seeing everyone go in, Chen Fan looked up and smiled at the sky.
Jellal's magic projection showed Chen Fan smiling. Suddenly, the shape of Chen Fan's mouth shifted slightly, an easy to read: 'Game Start'.
"Crack!" The wine glass in Jellal's hand shattered. He stood up with an insane expression, pointing at Chen Fan in the projection. "You just wait, you'll die by my hand, you will, ah...!" He threw the remains of the wine glass at Chen Fan in the projection. The glass went through the screen and fell to the ground with a "Bang...!"
Perhaps having vented enough, Jellal sat back down, propping his cheek up with his hand, looking lost in thought. Meanwhile, Vidalus next to him could only shiver.
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