Lucy stared down at the object resting in her palm.
The black key was cold to the touch, possessing a unnatural weight that seemed to pull at her very soul.
As a Celestial Spirit Mage, Lucy was intimately familiar with the laws that governed her magic.
The rules were absolute: without a formal contract, a mage could not open a gate.
It was a fundamental principle of their world. Even if she held the legendary Ophiuchus Key she should not have been able to use it, let alone summon the spirit associated with it.
So, when Ankh had first passed this ominous key to her via Mirajane, confusion had clouded her mind.
She didnt understand his intentions or the logic behind the gesture.
But now, as she looked up at the turbulent sky where a massive steel serpent circled within the dark, roiling clouds, the pieces of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow.
"I see," Lucy whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "The Spirit is one thing, and the Key is another."
It made perfect sense now.
Ankh must have summoned Ophiuchus long ago, utilizing his own monstrous reserves of Magic Power to bypass the standard limitations.
He had allowed the Snake to roam the human world freely for the past few days, untethered to the Spirit World.
"And this key..." Lucy realized, her grip tightening on the black metal, "is nothing more than a tracking device. It isn't a tool for summoning; it's a beacon for Ophiuchus to find me."
She looked up at the sky again, a mixture of awe and envy swirling in her chest.
"Just how strong is Ankh's Magic Power?" she wondered aloud. "To be able to keep a powerful spirit like Ophiuchus in the human world for so long without even being present... it defies logic."
Fortunately for her ego, Ankh wasn't privy to Lucy's internal monologue.
If he had known how high she was placing him on a pedestal, he likely would have laughed his head off.
The truth was far simpler than she imagined.
The Magic Power required to sustain a Celestial Spirit in the human world wasn't as exaggerated as most mages believed.
It was roughly equivalent to the energy drain of keeping a gate open during active combat.
For a monster like Ankh, whose magic reserves were practically bottomless, letting Ophiuchus stroll around the human world for a week was as effortless as breathing.
Furthermore, there was a principle Lucy had yet to learn: elite spirits, such as Ophiuchus or Loke, possessed the ability to sustain their own presence in the human world using their own magic if the situation demanded it.
Once a summoner became powerful enough, the veil between worlds thinned, allowing their spirits to pop in and out with far more freedom.
Lucy would eventually grasp this concept but for now, she simply stood in the rain, paralyzed by awe.
HISSS!
A bone-chilling sound tore through the air.
High above, the giant mechanical serpent contracted its slit pupils.
Its eyes locked onto the chaotic street battle unfolding below with terrifying precision.
It opened its bloody, metallic maw and plummeted downward, tearing through the atmosphere like a falling meteor!
"Look out!" Loke shouted, his instincts screaming danger.
Juvia looked up, her dark blue eyes widening in shock.
"What is that?!"
The hearts of everyone on the battlefield tightened in unison. Reacting on pure adrenaline, Lucy and Loke dove for cover behind a crumbling stone wall, shielding themselves from the impending impact.
However, the crash never came.
Just as the colossal snake charged toward Juvia, threatening to crush her into the pavement, thick clouds of purple smoke suddenly billowed outward from its enormous body.
POOF!
The giant steel serpent vanished instantly, consumed by the dense, mysterious fog.
Then, caught completely off guard, a motion blurred through the smoke.
A long, slender leg shot out from the purple cloud with the speed of a whip.
Whack!
Without a single word of warning, the foot struck Juvia purely across the face.
"Ouch," Juvia muttered, stumbling back.
Unfortunately for the attacker, physical assaults were meaningless against Juvia.
Her body was made of living water; upon impact, her head simply rippled, turned into liquid, and reformed a second later.
As she came to her senses, Juvia's expression shifted from shock to irritation.
"Annoying!" Juvia yelled. She swung both hands forward, releasing a barrage of high-pressure water blades that sliced into the lingering smoke.
The purple cloud dissipated under the force of the wind and water.
Standing proudly in front of Lucy and Loke was a woman. She was dressed in an elegant, nurse-like outfit adorned with a distinctive snake motif.
She possessed a classical, almost statuesque beauty, resembling an aloof, ethereal fairy from an old painting.
Yet, her figure was strikingly seductive, possessing dangerous curves that disrupted her icy elegance.
She was a living contradiction—looking like both a holy healer and an enchanting temptress.
It was Ophiuchus in her human form.
She stared at Juvia with emotionless purple eyes.
Her bare feet stood calmly on the cold, wet cobblestones, ignoring the chaos of the war around her.
Slowly, she spread her arms wide, leaving her chest and midsection completely open, as if welcoming the next attack.
"Wait!" Lucy cried out, startled by the spirit's lack of defense. "Don't just stand there! Dodge!"
But the words caught in her throat as Juvia launched her counterattack.
Slash! Slash!
Juvia's water blades swept across Ophiuchus's body with lethal precision.
Deep cuts appeared instantly on the spirit's pale arms and chest. Crimson blood began to flow, staining her white uniform.
But then, something horrifying happened.
The wounds on Ophiuchus began to disappear rapidly, knitting themselves back together as if time was reversing.
Simultaneously, Juvia gasped, her eyes bulging.
"Gah!"
Blood suddenly erupted on Juvia's body—appearing in the exact same locations where she had cut Ophiuchus!
It was as if she had slashed her own skin.
Lucy stood frozen, her mouth agape. "So this is the ability of the legendary Cursed Spirit..."
To an outsider, Ophiuchus's ability looked like a form of magic reflection.
However, it was far more terrifying.
It skipped the steps of absorbing or deflecting damage and simply transferred the "result" of the injury instantly to the aggressor.
Juvia clutched her bleeding arm in disbelief, looking at the red liquid staining her fingers.
"Impossible! Juvia's body is made of water!"
"It isn't a physical wound," Ophiuchus explained, her voice calm and detached. "It is a casualty transfer. The pain I feel, you feel. The damage I sustain becomes your reality."
This ability worked by attaching the conceptual existence of "damage" directly onto the enemy's soul.
Even a ghost, a slime, or a woman made of water couldn't escape it.
This was exactly why Ankh had deployed Ophiuchus to this specific location.
She was the absolute perfect counter to Juvia, functioning similarly to Meredy's Sensory Link magic.
Juvia's expression finally turned serious.
The gloom around her deepened as she looked at the troublesome woman standing before her.
"This feeling is disgusting," Juvia said earnestly, a shiver running through her liquid form. "Juvia doesn't like you."
Ophiuchus was equally direct.
Her expression remained wooden and robotic, devoid of any human warmth.
"I don't care if you like me or not," Ophiuchus replied flatly. "Ankh told me to fight you. So, I will fight you."
Lucy's eye twitched as she watched the exchange.
'She is beautiful, but... she talks like a robot.'
Before joining Fairy Tail, this had been Juvia's personality as well—a comical, obsessive heart hidden beneath a cold, emotionless exterior.
Now, it seemed the Rain Woman had finally met her match in social awkwardness.
...
With Ophiuchus handling the Rain Woman outside, the focus of the battle shifted back to the main guild war raging inside the Phantom Lord headquarters.
The Fairy Tail members were fighting with everything they had.
The hall was a mess of flying tables and magical explosions.
Suddenly, near the entrance, Gray noticed something that made his jaw nearly hit the floor.
He stared at the two-meter-tall muscular man standing next to Erza.
"What?!" Gray yelled, pointing a trembling finger. "You're... Lisanna?!"
The muscular brute, who looked exactly like Elfman in every physical detail, nodded shyly.
He—or rather, she—poked her massive, calloused fingers together in a cute, distinctly feminine gesture that looked incredibly wrong on such a colossal body.
"Yes," the deep, gravelly voice rumbled. "Ankh-nii said it was to confuse the enemy. He asked Mira-nee to use advanced Transformation Magic to swap mine and Elf-nii's appearances."
"So..." Gray stammered, his brain trying to process the information. "The 'Lisanna' that got captured..."
"That was Elfman," Erza explained, stepping in to clarify.
She patted the giant shoulder of the fake Elfman with a smirk.
"By my estimate, Mirajane and the real Elfman should have already started fighting the enemy who captured him in the dungeon. It was a trap within a trap."
Gray looked uncomfortably at the muscular figure before him.
It was deeply unsettling to see Elfman's rugged body acting so shy, blushing, and adopting girlish mannerisms.
"Um, Lisanna," Gray suggested, sweat beading on his forehead. "Could you change back for now? It's kind of... disturbing."
Lisanna shook her massive head.
"I can't. This advanced Transformation Magic is very complex. Only Mira-nee can perform it or cancel it safely. If I try to cancel it now, I might get stuck halfway, and the enemy might target me again thinking I'm the hostage."
She clenched a fist the size of a ham.
"I'd better follow Ankh-nii plan and wait until the situation stabilizes."
Gray nodded with considerable discomfort. "Okay... sure."
He looked at her face again.
He had never really noticed before, but now that Lisanna's personality was plastered onto Elfman's body, he realized something tragic.
'How can Elfman's rough features be so drastically different from his sisters'?' Gray thought rudely.
Mira and Lisanna are beautiful.
But Elfman... his face looks like popcorn stuck together.
Down below in the general melee, the tide was turning.
Fairy Tail was winning.
Despite fighting on enemy ground, their morale was skyrocketing.
Phantom Lord members were already discarding their armor and fleeing in panic, unable to withstand the fury of the fairies.
Meanwhile, in the Master's office on the top floor, the battle of the monsters was reaching its terrifying climax.
WHOOSH!
Ankh swung a massive Death Scythe.
A wave of black-gold Magic Power screamed through the air, tearing up the floorboards.
"Curse you!" Jose Porla screamed.
The Phantom Lord Master raised a shield of dark purple energy, but Ankh's power greedily devoured it like a black hole eating light.
Ankh had activated his Dual Magic Mode: Gravity God Slayer.
The air around him was heavy enough to crush bones into dust.
He moved effortlessly through the intense pressure, overwhelming the older wizard with sheer brute force and blinding speed.
While Jose's Magic Power was impressive enough to cause a problem for an S-Class wizards like Erza or Mirajane, it meant absolutely nothing to Ankh.
In the stories the public told, Jose Porla was considered an equal to Makarov Dreyar.
They were both honored as Ten Wizard Saints.
But the truth was vastly different.
Years ago, at a regular gathering of Guild Masters, Makarov and Jose had gotten into a heated argument about whose guild was superior.
The argument turned physical.
The outcome was a crushing, humiliating defeat for Jose.
He was beaten so badly that he never attended another meeting again out of pure shame.
That deep-seated humiliation was the root of his hatred for Fairy Tail.
Now, years later, Jose thought he finally had a chance because Makarov was old.
In the original timeline, he might have managed to last a few minutes against the old man before being wiped out by Fairy Law.
But Ankh was not Makarov.
Ankh didn't hold back.
He didn't care about "respecting his elders" or guild politics.
From the very start of the duel, he unleashed a violent, suffocating beating that gave Jose no room to breathe.
Slash! Bam!
"Gah!"
Jose stumbled back, his opulent clothes torn to shreds and his face pale with shock.
He barely dodged another lethal swing of Ankh's scythe, the blade grazing his cheek.
He looked at the young man with genuine fear in his eyes.
'This kid is a monster!' Jose thought, panic rising in his chest like bile.
'He is faster, stronger, and has more magic than me! If this continues for even another minute, he will kill me!'
Jose gritted his teeth.
His pride was shattered, but he refused to die here.
"I have no choice," Jose decided, his eyes turning vicious and desperate.
'I must use my trump card! Otherwise, I will be dragged to death by this brat!'
He suddenly stopped retreating.
He slammed both hands high into the air, pouring his remaining magic into the structure itself.
Suddenly, the entire Phantom Lord building began to rumble and change shape.