Her gaze then sharply turned to the forgotten magic flute—the lullaby.
At this moment, it lay quietly among the ashes, the skull's eye sockets empty, yet seeming to retain an invisible, malevolent stare, exuding an nauseating aura of darkness and deathly stillness.
"Now, it's time to completely deal with this root of evil." Erza's words were as decisive as a guillotine's blade. She stepped forward, her metal battle boots crushing the scorched earth, and without hesitation, she bent down, her hand encased in steel gauntlets reaching directly for the evil magic flute.
Before her fingertips could touch it, a bone-chilling cold mixed with a soul-level shriek of malevolence surged forth! The lullaby's skull eye sockets suddenly lit up with two crimson points! As if a demon awakened by a forbidden touch!
"Careful!" Lucy exclaimed.
"Hmph!" Erza snorted, a faint holy light appearing on her hand, forcibly suppressing the backlash. However, at that moment, an unexpected change occurred!
Buzz—!
The lullaby, grasped by Erza, suddenly erupted with an even more violent black-purple light!
This power was not an attack against Erza, but rather, as if conscious, it condensed into a twisted beam of light, filled with pure darkness and a sense of curse, shooting straight towards Christian in Lucy's arms! The target was precise—that almost shattered core!
" 'Sacrifice'... the last... 'fragment'... offered!" The magic flute seemed to shriek!
"Chris!" Lucy instinctively hugged him tighter.
"Lucy!" Erza reacted with lightning speed! Her hand, which had just touched the magic flute, hadn't yet retracted, but her other hand was already flashing towards the sword hilt at her waist! However, the distance was too close, and the dark beam of light was too fast!
At the critical moment!
Christian's core, on the verge of silence, suddenly pulsed! Not in retaliation, but instantly forming an extremely thin, almost transparent, dark blue membrane of light between Lucy and his main body!
The light membrane was adorned with countless tiny yet dazzlingly complex data stream runes—that was his instinctive defense, formed by forcibly mobilizing his last bit of computing power! It was also the only thing he could do after his core was severely damaged—protect Lucy from being affected by the residual dark power!
Rip—!
The black-purple beam slammed fiercely into the dark blue light membrane! There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a sharp, piercing sound of energy annihilation! The light membrane vibrated violently, instantly covered in cracks! The residual dark power, penetrating through layers of shattered defense, intertwined strand by strand towards Christian's core!
Making that already faint light even dimmer! The gelatinous volume visibly shrank by another circle! Almost shrinking into a fist-sized, lifeless blue crystal!
"Damn magic flute! Let him go!" Natsu's furious roar exploded! His figure, trailing flames that incinerated everything, charged forward! His fist slammed violently towards the violently trembling magic flute in Erza's hand!
"Don't be reckless, Natsu!" Gray shouted, his Chilling Aura erupting! Not attacking the magic flute, but rapidly condensing into a thick, tough ice barrier in front of Natsu's fist!
Boom!!!
The burning iron fist slammed hard against the ice wall! Flames and ice shards splattered everywhere!
"Gray! What are you doing!" Natsu was furious! His crimson eyes glared fiercely at Gray!
"Idiot! Directly physically destroying this kind of dark magic item, who knows what more troublesome things will explode out! Do you want to kill that Slime?!"
Gray's face was grim, Cold Air lingering in his hands, his gaze sharply fixed on the magic flute, "This thing is extremely evil!"
"Analysis: confirmed..." Christian's weak voice difficultly sounded again, carrying a corroded static.
"Target 'lullaby'... possesses... high-level... spiritual pollution... physical destruction... or detonation... of the pollution source... endangers life forms... within a ten-kilometer radius... cognitive level... distortion..." The conclusion was horrifying!
"Spiritual pollution? Cognitive distortion?" Erza's face was covered in frost, the knuckles of her fingers gripping the magic flute turning white from the effort.
The lullaby trembled madly in her hand, black aura swirling, and the skull's mouth even emitted a silent shriek, as if countless vengeful spirits were struggling and shouting, trying to erode the mind of this powerful female knight.
"Then... complete purification!"
Holy light blazed in her eyes! Her powerful willpower resisted the magic flute's mental assault, and her trench coat instantly shone with golden light! The magnificent Holy Maiden Armor instantly appeared on her body!
This set of armor specialized in resisting mental and spiritual attacks! At the same time, she mobilized the vast holy-attribute magic power within her, preparing to unleash her strongest purification magic!
"Wait... Erza!" Lucy suddenly spoke! Sweat beaded on her forehead, her hands holding Christian trembled slightly, but her eyes held a strange determination.
The Slime in her arms, its core's faint light, was gently flickering at a specific frequency, seemingly transmitting something to her.
"Chris said... his 'Omni-Perception'... inside the magic flute... while forcibly analyzing... caught... an extremely faint... chaotic... but... fundamentally pure... Celestial Spirit wavelength... fragment..."
Lucy struggled to decipher the information Christian was sending her, "It's like... a flicker... of starlight... frozen beneath... heavily polluted ice..."
"Celestial Spirit wavelength? Pure fragment?" Erza's purification magic paused slightly, her gaze sharply directed at Lucy, "You mean?"
"Perhaps... the lullaby's core... this skull... originally... was a Celestial Spirit?!" Lucy uttered this astonishing conjecture, even finding it somewhat absurd herself. But Christian's core's flicker frequency affirmed this speculation.
"A twisted, polluted Celestial Spirit?" Gray's face changed, remembering certain legends of dark magic, "This level of distortion... is it still possible to..."
"Contract... try..." Christian's last two words came through as a thought.
Lucy bit her lower lip, holding Christian, and with difficulty, supported her body. "Let me... try... to communicate with it..." Her tone held an unprecedented resolve. She was a Celestial Spirit Mage, and communicating with Celestial Spirits was her duty, even if the other party was completely disfigured!
"Lucy? It's too dangerous!" Happy exclaimed.
"Lucy, be careful!" Natsu, though hot-headed, also understood the seriousness of the situation, extinguishing his flames and watching her nervously.
Erza looked deeply at Lucy, then lowered her head to look at the magic flute in her hand, which was still continuously emitting black aura, and the dying Christian in Lucy's arms. "Are you confident?"
"No..." Lucy shook her head honestly, her face pale from the oppressive aura emanating from the magic flute at close range, "But... this is his judgment... and it's the wish of our Fairy Tail comrades... I must try!"
She took a deep breath, as if drawing the last bit of courage Christian was transmitting to her, and slowly raised her free left hand, the tip of her index finger glowing with a pure star-like magic—the key power to open the Celestial Spirit contract channel—gently and firmly pointing it towards the lullaby's skull forehead!
"Listen! Echoes of the Spirit World! In the name of the descendant of the Twelve Zodiac Guardians... I call upon the lost soul!"
The starlight at her fingertip touched the cold, dead bones.
Silence!
One second... two seconds... The lullaby's trembling stopped, the swirling black aura solidified.
In the skull's empty eye sockets, those two crimson points also seemed frozen. The entire forest battlefield was left with only the whimpering of the wind blowing through the scorched wood.
Suddenly!
"Roar—!!!"
It was not a roar! It was a terrifying shriek, a culmination of billions of years of imprisoned malevolence, twisted pain, and madness devoured by darkness, enough to pierce eardrums and tear souls, erupting directly from within the magic flute!!!
The lullaby struggled violently in Erza's hand like a living creature!
Black-purple light surged forth like a tsunami! Carrying a viscous, almost tangible malice, it frantically swirled towards Lucy's body! Attempting to devour her outstretched hand! To corrupt her mind! To drag her into the endless abyss of darkness!
Lucy felt a heavy blow! Her whole body trembled violently! Her face instantly turned ashen white as paper! The starlight at her fingertip, under the immense dark impact, was like a candle in the wind, flickering violently! The immense mental shock made her vision blur, her mind filled with countless fragmented, screaming, distorted images and malevolent curses!
"Lucy!" "Hold on!" Natsu and Gray cried out anxiously, but they couldn't get close; the dark power formed a repulsive force field!
Erza's Holy Maiden Armor's holy light surged! Fully suppressing the magic flute! But the magic flute's counterattack was beyond imagination! Her holy light was briefly suppressed!
"Core... overload..." Christian's gelatinous body in her arms suddenly fluctuated violently! Its volume abruptly shrank another circle! The core's blue light flickered rapidly!
He forcibly channeled his last remaining energy, in the most precise way, a millisecond before Lucy's fingertip was about to be swallowed by darkness, constructing an extremely tiny but high-speed buffering module!
Now!
Lucy had a sudden inspiration! In that one-in-a-billion-second respite, she bit her tongue, the sharp pain bringing extreme focus!
The golden Celestial Spirit magic power belonging to a Celestial Spirit Mage poured out from within her! Not for destruction, not for defense, but the purest, most ancient power of contract, representing the very essence of the Spirit World's inclusiveness and call!
Her voice pierced through the dark shriek, carrying a blood-curdling plea: "Awaken! Whoever you are! The radiance of the Spirit World has never truly forgotten you! Listen to the contract! Respond to the call!"
Buzz—!
Deep within the lullaby's core, that thread of primordial starlight, almost annihilated, which Christian had previously detected... suddenly responded! Like a stubborn spark in a cold night, it lit up faintly but tenaciously! Forcibly resisting the surging darkness!
Two completely opposite forces formed a brief stalemate in the magic flute's core!
Erza's pressure suddenly decreased! The holy light of the Holy Maiden Armor seized the opportunity and surged in! Golden purification light erupted within the magic flute! Directly targeting the polluted, twisted darkness! Providing purification and protection for the starlight called by Lucy!
Holy light purification! Starlight calling! Under the dual power!
Crack! The lullaby's skull body emitted a clear wail! The swirling black aura rapidly melted away as if encountering its nemesis! In the skull's empty eye sockets, that crimson point flickered a few times like a dying candle in the wind, finally, unwillingly, completely extinguishing!
A thick, impenetrable dark aura, mixed with resentment and curses, violently erupted from the flute's body, like the last poisonous breath of a dying monster!
But as soon as this poisonous gas touched the dual domain of holy light and starlight, it quickly evaporated and purified like snow meeting boiling water!
A few seconds later, the black aura dissipated.
The lullaby returned to silence. But it was no longer an evil silence. The skull lost all its luster, along with the bone flute below it, transforming into some kind of inactive grayish-white bone, like desiccated bone weathered for a thousand years.
The suffocating malevolence also completely vanished, leaving only a sense of heavy exhaustion, settled dust, and decay.
Clatter. The grayish-white magic flute weakly slipped from Erza's hand, falling onto the grass, bouncing lightly, and completely becoming an ordinary object without magic.
The starlight at Lucy's fingertip extinguished, her legs gave way, and she stumbled, about to fall.
"Lucy!" Erza instantly appeared beside her, one hand supporting Lucy's arm, and the other very naturally and steadily holding the mass of Christian in Lucy's hand, which had almost solidified, its core light extremely faint, like a deep blue mineral.
"...It worked?" Lucy leaned against Erza's arm, gasping for breath, looking at the grayish-white bone flute on the ground, her face pale from exhaustion and the unbelievable relief.
"...Mm. For now... it's safe..." Erza lowered her head, looking at the Slime in her hand, "His... core's operation... seems... to have stopped..." Her voice imperceptibly deepened. Christian's current state barely registered any signs of life.
"No... Chris..." Lucy's eyes instantly welled up with tears.