"Everyone!!"
Lucy also noticed Kael and the others, immediately running over with a joyful shout: "I missed you so much~~~!"
At that moment, the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed as a massive unit of the army heard the commotion and rushed toward them.
"Don't let them escape—!"
"Capture them—!"
The soldiers charged forward with aggressive momentum, weapons drawn.
Kael raised his palm.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."
A small sphere of crimson repulsion coalesced in the center of Kael's palm.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!
"Aaaauuughhh!!" ...
The entire Royal Army force was hurled backward by Kael's Red orb. The entire street was cleared in an instant, leaving a massive, jagged trench carved into the ground.
Natsu hurriedly asked with excitement: "Lucy, how are you here? Where is everyone else from the guild?!"
"Everyone from the guild? I don't know! I was taken to another dimension by before. When I came to my senses, I was in a bleak, desolate wilderness. That's when Mystogan appeared. After asking me a bunch of questions, he threw me into this world."
"Mystogan?! What's that guy's deal anyway?"
Natsu frowned. Mystogan had always been shrouded in mystery, never showing his face at the guild. He hadn't even seen Mystogan once; every time the man visited, he put Natsu into a forced sleep.
Happy turned to Lucy and asked: "How are you able to use magic in this world, Lucy?"
"Huh? Is that strange? Kael is using magic too, isn't he?"
Natsu interjected: "Kael is different. He's a monster."
Lucy didn't seem to find anything wrong with that statement: "Mhm… I guess that's true."
"Hey! I'm still standing right here."
Kael spoke up with a tone of dissatisfaction. He was a normal human being, definitely not a monster.
"Could it be…"
"Could it be what?!"
Natsu and Wendy looked at Lucy with eyes full of expectation. Back in their original world, using magic felt like second nature, but in this world, it felt impossible to take a single step without it. If they wanted to save the guild, they needed magic; without it, they weren't even a match for these grunts.
"Could it be that I'm the legendary hero?!"
"No way!"
"Impossible!"
The others immediately shut her down.
"Don't go throwing cold water on me!"
Kael spoke: "Mystogan must have given you something."
It clicked for Lucy: "Ah! I remember now! He did make me eat something. Is it because of that?!"
"Really?!"
Hearing this, Natsu and the others felt a surge of hope.
"Great!! In that case, as long as we find Mystogan and eat that thing, we'll be able to use magic too. Then we can save everyone!!"
"Aye!!"
Natsu and Wendy were both incredibly fired up.
Kael gave a light chuckle: "Like I said, I'm enough to save everyone on my own."
"That's not the same! The King of Edolas was arrogant enough to absorb our friends and the whole city. I'm definitely going to give him a proper beatdown!"
Natsu clenched his fist tight.
Wendy mustered her courage and said: "That's right! For the sake of everyone in the guild, I want to fight too!"
"Me too!"
Happy also balled his tiny paws into fists.
"Suit yourselves. Let's go, heading to the Royal Capital first!"
Swoosh—————!
Kael began a series of consecutive teleports. His teleportation was positioned based on the furthest distance his eyes could see. The Six Eyes could penetrate through obstacles, meaning that even if something blocked his path, it didn't hinder his observation of the distant coordinates.
The maximum observation limit of the Six Eyes was approximately ten kilometers. This meant that with every single jump, Kael could traverse roughly ten kilometers of distance.
Flash————!!
On a barren mountain cliff, the figures of the group appeared. Kael held Natsu in his left hand, had Lucy tucked under his right arm, and held Wendy with his right hand as well.
"Whew————!!"
Kael let out a long breath. Continuous long-range teleportation put a significant strain on his mana. The cost of jumping such distances was actually higher than the cost of his offensive techniques. If he didn't currently possess 6-star level mana, he really might have struggled to keep it up.
"Is this teleportation?!"
It was Lucy's first time experiencing it, and it felt utterly surreal.
"So fast!!"
A journey that should have taken several days had been crossed by Kael in just a few minutes. It was simply incredible.
"This place is…"
"Is this the Royal Capital?!"
"It's huge!!"
The group looked down from their vantage point. A massive city stretched out before them, roughly ten times the size of Magnolia. The sheer scale of it was breathtaking.
"Awesome!! I can't believe we're here already!!"
Natsu shouted with excitement.
Lucy looked at the sprawling capital: "I wonder where everyone who was turned into Lacrima is being kept?"
"Over there."
Kael pointed toward the floating island hovering above the Royal Capital. Having arrived, his Six Eyes had already spotted it from afar. There was a massive Lacrima sitting on that floating island. Without a doubt, that was the crystallized form of their friends.
"Up there!!"
The others were shocked. From their current angle, they couldn't actually see the Lacrima, only the underside of the floating island itself.
Lucy was stunned: "I can't believe they put everyone up that high! Well, now that we've found them, things are simpler. We just have to turn everyone back to normal!"
"How do we do that?"
Happy asked.
"It's simple. We just break into the Royal Palace!"
Kael said, pointing his finger toward the palace located in the dead center of the capital.
"Break into the palace?!!"
Lucy, Wendy, and Carla were all terrified by Kael's words. They were facing an entire kingdom that claimed to have a Royal Army of one hundred thousand soldiers, each equipped with magic weapons. Such a military force was vastly more powerful than the standard army of the Kingdom of Fiore.
Carla immediately protested: "Breaking into the palace is far too reckless! We should find another way…"
"No. I'm going to break in. These people absorbed the guild and the city just to turn our friends into magic. Every single one of them deserves to die."
A terrifying surge of killing intent flickered within Kael's eyes.
Carla felt her body tremble the moment she saw that look.
From the moment everyone was absorbed until now, Kael had acted completely composed, as if he didn't care about the situation at all.
But only now did she realize that Kael was no saint, nor was he someone who could be easily provoked. He was the strongest mage in Fairy Tail—the man who had defeated the Wizard Saints and wiped out the Oración Seis, one of the strongest dark guilds.
Kael's earlier comment about using a Lightning Spear to wipe out the Edolas Capital hadn't been a joke. Perhaps he didn't intend to slaughter every civilian in the city, but it was clear he had no intention of letting the King or the Royal Army survive.
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