Erza ran with all her might.
'I hope I am not late.' She prayed in her heart.
Memories of the time Rosemarry village was attacked looped again and again in her mind.
How she was taken as a slave along with others and had to build the tower.
Erza clenched her fist. 'I don't want others to experience what I went through.'
She kicked the ground with more force. 'It's highly likely that it will take a while to transport all the ones captured. At least I could save some people. Maybe they will take the adults as slaves too instead of outright killing them.' She hoped.
Erza didn't know how long it took, but she eventually reached the village.
"Haa..." Her breath was quite rough, but she didn't stop and entered the gates without encountering any guards.
"Huh?"
That's when she saw it.
Huge, gigantic, grotesque creatures.
She felt slightly nauseous while observing the creatures.
Flesh.
They were made of flesh.
Human flesh.
They were amalgamations of human parts—arms stitched to torsos, legs ending in mouths.
Some limbs still had faces on them, eyes open and watching.
"N—No," she muttered in horror.
The sight made something twist in her gut as she held back the bile that threatened to escape her throat.
'Where are the villagers?'
Just as that thought entered her mind, Erza's face paled in realisation.
"It can't be." She ignored her rough breaths and the bile at the back of her throat and ran.
She ran in different directions, trying to find any humans.
'I don't want others to experience what I went through.' The previous thought replayed in her life.
Ensuring that they were alive was a personal decision for Erza, not something she was doing due to some mission or due to someone else's words.
It was for herself
However, reality was too cruel. To her utter dread, she only found such creatures. No humans in sight.
"They are all dead." Erza stopped in her tracks as she turned towards the voice.
It was none other than that green-haired lady—Anne.
Unlike how she had dressed before, she was wearing a robe and looked more regal than before.
'A wizard.'
Erza instinctively raised her guard.
"What happened here?"
Anne smirked. "What else? I turned all those lucky people into a sacrifice to my lord."
A crazed expression appeared on her face.
"Y—you did this? All people?" Though Erza already suspected this, it was different when Anne confirmed it herself.
"Is there anybody else here, sweetheart?"
Her reply felt like a gut-punch to Erza. 'So... All dead?' Her mind refused to process it properly as she stood there with a blank face.
'I...failed to protect even a single person.' Erza's thoughts finally betrayed her. All the earlier optimistic thoughts about being able to save people during her journey here now felt like a hot knife pressed through her heart.
'I hope I am on time.'
'It's highly likely that kids would be left alone, like in my case.'
'Maybe even adults would be taken as prisoners instead of being killed outright.' The biggest mistake in Erza's optimistic thoughts was that she was assuming the case to be similar to hers, to take prisoners to build a Tower of Heaven.
A nearby creature lunged at Erza, swiping its sharp claws at Erza. Erza ducked barely in time.
Thud.
The wall behind her crumbled like a fallen glass plate.
A sword appeared in Erza's hands as she instinctively swiped at the creature.
However, moments before it could make contact, Erza stopped.
She looked at the face the creature had.
The guard.
It was the guard who was gossiping about Lucas when they first entered the village.
He looked at her with a hopeful expression, as if pleading with her to save him.
Erza slammed the hilt of her sword on the creature's face, hurling it dozens of metres away.
"Why?" Veins popped on Erza's forehead. "Why did you do this?" She was expecting some survivors or even some alive. Yet, all those hopes were crushed by her.
"As I said, it's a sacrifice to my lord—Zeref."
"Zeref has been dead for centuries now. I don't know how this sacrifice will help him, even to revive."
'Tower of Heaven's creation was to revive Zeref. Is she the same?' Erza tried to make sense of Anne's actions.
"Ignorant fool. All of you are ignorant people. Zeref can't die. I was lucky enough to be saved by him half a century ago."
Erza's eyes widened. "What?"
Anne shook her head in disappointment. "I forgot you are just an ignorant child. Why was I even conversing with you? Just become nourishment for one of my creations."
Multiple flesh giants moved, coming at Erza from all directions.
"I see. I'm not sure whether that is true or not. But, it doesn't change what you did to the villagers."
Dozens of swords appeared around Erza, all pointing menacingly at the incoming grotesque creatures.
Whoosh.
The next second, they rushed at those monsters.
Thud
Multiple swords pierced each creature before cutting various parts.
"It's pointless." Anne shook her head.
A few seconds later, the creatures started regenerating.
'This is bad.' Erza thought as she dived in a different direction, dodging a large foot which threatened to turn her into paste.
This only led her to roll sideways as a large fist pounded the ground where she had been a moment earlier.
Erza bit her lips, her mind racing with several thoughts per minute. Her anger receded due to the situation.
'Should I aim for the vital points like head or heart or not?' The reason Erza hesitated was due to hoping for a way to turn people back from these creatures.
She glanced at a creature whose arm was getting stitched back to its shoulder at a rapid pace.
An eye on the shoulder blinked at her.
'They aren't human anymore.' Though Erza already knew this deep down, acknowledging that didn't felt right.
She had failed to save even one person.
It's even worse than the day her village got attacked.
"Let me free you from your suffering." Erza took a deep breath. Her face morphed into a determined expression as she looked at the grotesque creatures.
The next second, the sword changed directions and decapitated the nearest creature's head.
Puchi.
In one clean hit, the mass of flesh that had its hand cocked back got its head detached from its body.
Whoosh
Erza's eyes widened as the headless creature didn't stop and punched at her.
BOOM
She was taken off guard and took a direct hit to the abdomen.
"Ugh..." Blood spewed out from her mouth as she flew through the air like a ragdoll.
Dozens of houses in her path were obliterated before her body finally stopped.
"Cough Cough"
Erza coughed out blood before inhaling air greedily. She had been running at her full speed for a few hours to reach the village, so she was out of stamina.
'I need to defeat her quickly. Otherwise, instead of avenging the villagers, I will meet the same fate as them.'
Shakily, she got up from the ground and materialised another sword in her hand as she looked at the three creatures rushing straight at her.
'Directly interacting with them is meaningless. Against these endlessly regenerating creatures, it would be better to take out the women first to break their control over them.' Erza thought as her vision went dark for a few moments.
When she opened her eyes, a large fist was a few inches away from her face.
'Dodge.'
Erza thought as her blood pumped with adrenaline. With an unnatural flexibility, she stretched her upper body backwards, barely dodging the fist.
Her hand instinctively moved as she cut off that creature's wrist directly.
She then dashed in a different direction while looking for Anne.
'There!' She saw the green-haired lady standing in the same position with a lazy smile.
Around 200 metres away from Erza.
Without hesitation, dozens of swords rushed at her.
3 creatures near her formed a protective barrier as they shielded her from the incoming swords.
'It... didn't pierce?' Erza thought as she looked at her swords, unable to penetrate the creature's flesh.
She slid on the ground, dodging another humongous hand trying to grab her.
She sent more swords while observing the creature who were shielding Anne.
100 metres.
'Their flesh is actively changing, becoming more dense, increasing their defensive power.' Erza observed. 'WAIT' Her eyes widened in realisation.
"You...this is your magic... isn't it? Turning all those villagers into such creatures was not the ritual, but your magic, isn't it?" Erza asked, cutting the creature's legs that tried to touch her.
Anne smirked. "Well, I just used the leftover things after the ritual, so that they don't get wasted."
Erza's grip on her sword tightened.
She looked at Anne in disgust.
"..." She wanted to say multiple things, but everything she thought paled in comparison to what would have been appropriate for the monster in front of her.
Her mind went blank.
So, without saying anything, she charged straight at Anne.
Multiple giants blocked her path, but all of them lost several parts of their bodies, including legs, immobilising them for a few seconds, which was enough to slow them down to prevent them from interfering again.
50 meters.
"Getting serious, are we? Though, as I said earlier, it's pointless." Anne shook her head. Her body language was relaxed as if she didn't see Erza as a threat.
Erza didn't care and continued her charge. Dozens of swords rotated around her, keeping a lot of the giant creatures at bay who were trying to swarm her from all sides.
CRACK
One of her swords was broken by a giant.
Erza didn't stop.
CRACK
Another broke.
Erza cut a giant into two parts.
CRACK CRACK CRACK
Multiple swords started breaking.
'They're aiming for my swords.' Erza frowned. She had taken these weapons from the guild's armoury due to not having any money to buy one for herself.
She didn't think that there was any need to bring any weapons back then, given the mission details, but under Kazu's insistence, she had brought over 100 swords.
Kazu told her to take all swords in the armoury as nobody used them, but Erza thought that wasn't over-preparedness but outright paranoia and dismissed him.
'I should have listened to him.' Erza thought with a bitter smile.
In nearly a minute, she finally reached the centre again, where the 3 creatures guarded Anne in a triangular formation.
'If she had actively tried to move, then the difficulty would have increased severalfold.' Erza thought. It was to her advantage that her opponent underestimated her.
With that thought, she thrusted her sword along with 5 more at the same spot, intending to penetrate with more force.
THUD
To Erza's horror, one creature's flesh moved towards another, naturally melding together. Together, it effortlessly blocked the attack.
Whoosh.
The third one's fist hit Erza in the chest. This time, she wasn't thrown back like a rag doll, but slammed on the ground with a large force.
Cracks emerged on the ground from where she got slammed in.
"Cough Cough."
Erza spat more blood. 'This is bad. I don't even know where exactly my internal injuries are. I can't get hit anymore as that could lead to my death.'
A chill crawled up her spine as fear finally began settling in.
Erza tried moving her body, but found herself unable to. Her bones were still rattling due to the earlier impact. Even without that, her body was fully exhausted. The only thing that was keeping her consious was the adrenalline.
"In my entire life, I haven't seen such impressive use of Re-equip magic. Nobody had been able to use it in combat except you. So, colour me impressed." Anne smiled as she looked at Erza from a distance.
"If I had met you 10 years, no, 5 years later, our positions might have been reversed. It's a shame that such a promising sprout won't get a chance to bloom." Her tone dipped, as if she were feeling sad.
However, she then smirked. Anne looked Erza straight in the eye. "You are pretty lucky. I still need to sacrifice the town and your other mage friends. So, till then, I will just knock you out."
The giant flesh humanoid near her cocked its fist back as it looked at Erza.
'I need to dodge this. Move.' Erza willed her body to move. Another hit could prove lethal to her.
Whoosh.
'MOVE' She ounced all the will in her body to roll away. However, to her growing dread, it didn't move.
BOOOM
The fist stopped inches away from Erza with a loud sound.
'A barrier?'
"Found you. Luckily, I am on time." A voice with rough breathing echoed in the surroundings.
***
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