Erza vs. Qliphoth

"That should be the church where Qliphoth is, right?" Erza said, looking at the dilapidated, decaying building a short distance ahead.

"That's right. Qliphoth is inside," Sonia replied. At such close range, the demonic power within her could clearly sense Qliphoth's presence.

The building before them, once regarded as a symbol of faith by the people of Caro Town, had long since fallen into ruin.

Its heavy doors had fallen off, its brilliant stained-glass windows were all shattered, and thorns covered its ancient walls. Even its distinctive spire had collapsed... Its former splendor was long gone.

Making no attempt to conceal themselves, Erza and Sonia walked straight in.

Just as Sonia could sense Qliphoth, Qliphoth could clearly sense the demonic power from Cain within Sonia.

Since both sides had the same objective, there was no need for much concealment.

"Roar!"

The moment the two stepped into the church, a familiar hoarse roar rang out, and a monstrous maw lunged at them. It was the man-eating flower clone they had seen before.

With a tremendous bang, the man-eating flower missed and crashed into the church's broken floor. Erza had immediately leaped into the air with Sonia, dodging the sudden attack.

"You dodged? How dare you dodge?!"

At the far end of the church's central hall stood a dark red mother nest, like a mountain of flesh, inside a lair woven from tree roots.

A humanoid creature resembling the flesh of an orange floated in the air. It had neither legs nor a face, and even its arms resembled a pair of rapiers. The root beneath it connected to the largest fleshy growth atop the mother nest.

It was the one that had just shouted at Erza.

"Be careful, Miss Erza. That's Qliphoth, the one we're looking for, but that's only its main spiritual body. That over there is its life core." After they landed, Sonia calmly briefed Erza before the battle.

She pointed to the very center of the mother nest, where an "egg" resembling a beating, bright red heart lay. The "fleshy growth" of Qliphoth's spiritual body was just above it.

Fleshy growths housing man-eating flowers also sat to the left, right and below the core, serving as guards. The one that had just attacked them was connected to the growth on the left.

"So we have to destroy its core to kill it, right? Got it!"

Erza nodded as though it were obvious, as if she had already decided Qliphoth's fate.

Her attitude naturally infuriated a certain sensitive and not very intelligent individual.

Qliphoth waved its rapiers and said furiously, "You dare look down on me? You actually dare look down on me! I'll kill you!!!"

For some reason, its furious and humiliated appearance reminded Erza of certain memories from her earlier visit to Sonia's home.

Only now their positions were reversed, and she was no longer the one being teased.

At the thought, a slight smile involuntarily formed on Erza's face. "Sorry, my schedule is packed. I don't plan on dying here just yet."

"!!!"

The smile, which an ordinary person would have found charming, was like a needle called "mockery" stabbing straight into Qliphoth's mind.

Enraged, it ordered the man-eating flower attached to the right-hand growth, hovering at its side, to attack.

Clang—

A cold flash of steel swept past. Holding a longsword, Erza slashed horizontally along the man-eating flower's maw, instantly tearing its already exaggeratedly wide mouth apart.

The strike nearly severed its lower jaw, rendering it completely harmless.

"Don't bother trying the same trick again. A Fairy Tail mage won't fall in the same place twice." Erza raised her sword and pointed it straight at Qliphoth in the distance.

Qliphoth naturally burned with rage at Erza's mockery.

As it withdrew the ruined man-eating flower into the mother nest, it summoned six enormous thorny roots from the nest and roared, "Damn bug! I must kill you!!!"

With that roar, the battle between human and demon formally began.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The six thorny roots extending from the mother nest were on a completely different scale from the thorny branches they had seen on the road. If they had to be compared, it was like the difference between a forearm and a thigh.

They extended from the sides of the mother nest, and at first glance looked like six spider legs supporting it as it moved forward.

Several thick thorny roots slammed down, plowing great furrows through the long-neglected floor and leaving marks as though an "earth dragon" had rolled through it.

Although the roots were not slow, their attacks followed no pattern whatsoever.

To Erza, such attacks were full of openings. She could dodge them with ease and even strike back in the process.

Slash! Slash!

The two blades in Erza's hands were like outstretched steel wings as they swept past two of the thorny roots in an instant.

A second later, the roots' thick, razor-sharp mouthparts were sent flying high into the air.

Losing their mouthparts meant losing their strongest "spears," and they were soon withdrawn into the mother nest, just like the man-eating flower that had been cut down earlier.

Immediately afterward, Erza rolled away from her position. The next second, the remaining roots attacked the spot she had just occupied from four directions at once.

As that attack missed, Erza seized the opportunity to climb onto a root stalk connecting the thorny roots to the mother nest.

She ran along the long, winding stalk, rapidly approaching the mother nest.

Thorny roots kept returning to harass her, but Erza maneuvered freely between them, switching from one foothold to another, as maddeningly troublesome as a flea.

Seeing that their mouthparts' thrusts were useless against Erza, the thorny roots twisted about like frenzied giant pythons, trying to shake the pesky bug off.

This did slow Erza down. She was now like a small boat tossed about in a storm, making her way among the enormous roots that churned up great waves around her.

The slightest lapse in attention would be enough to overturn her.

She crouched to steady herself, reversed her grip on her blades, and drove them hard into the root beneath her like climbing picks.

The injured thorny root immediately grew even more frenzied, but its bucking, like that of a Spanish fighting bull, could no longer shake Erza in the slightest.

Holding her two "climbing picks," she bent low and kept climbing without slowing down. She had already reached the mother nest.

Qliphoth roared, directing its only remaining "left" man-eating flower to open its maw and lunge at Erza.

But how could a mere man-eating flower stop Erza? She gripped her sword hilts with both hands, leaned as far back as she could, then kicked off hard with both legs, flipping backward with her swords to dodge the flower's attempt to swallow her.

Erza seized the opportunity to throw one of her swords. It pierced the flower's unprotected upper jaw at an angle, pinning it to the church floor like a nail.

Qliphoth let out an enraged roar and spun its body, turning the rapiers of its arms into a bladed gear as it personally charged to kill Erza.

Airborne with nothing to push off, Erza had no way to dodge. She could only hold her sword in front of her as a thin barrier.

A flurry of slashes battered her longsword and armor, drawing repeated "groans" from them under the strain. Gashes appeared across Erza's exposed skin, and the whirlwind pushed her backward.

And directly behind her were the four remaining thorny roots, their sharp mouthparts attacking her from four directions.

This is bad! Erza's eyes narrowed as she realized the danger.

With no way to dodge in midair, she would be seriously injured even with her armor to protect her.

But there was no avoiding it now. She could only take a gamble...

Just as Erza was about to make her choice, the thorny roots behind her abruptly turned around. The four unstoppable spikes instantly became a blooming "stamen," opening their petals to reveal gaps between the roots.

An idea struck Erza. She immediately tucked her legs up in midair and kicked hard against the sword blocking the attack in front of her!

Already strained to its limit, the longsword was instantly torn to pieces by the "turbine."

Erza deftly curled up and slipped through the "passage" between the four roots.

Meanwhile, Sonia, who was supposed to be hiding somewhere in a corner of the church, was holding a bloodstained knife and raising her pale, bleeding wrist as the thorny roots chased her down.

The blood spraying from her seemed to hold an inexhaustible attraction for the thorny roots, like a ball of dung to a dung beetle. They even defied the will of the main spiritual body, following only their most primal instincts.

This resolved Erza's immediate crisis. Qliphoth, who came charging after her, was different from her: its turbine-like attack had a wide enough range to instantly catch the stalks connecting the four thorny roots and tear them to pieces.

Sonia, who had accidentally fallen while fleeing and thought she was doomed, let out a long sigh of relief.

With that, apart from Qliphoth's main spiritual body, all six thorny roots and three man-eating flower clones had been wiped out!

Qliphoth, who had accidentally struck its own teammates, stopped spinning and stood stunned for a moment.

"H-how is that possible..."

During that brief opening, Erza took advantage of the fact that the severed stalks all returned to the mother nest. She grabbed one and swiftly climbed up to the nest.

Qliphoth came to its senses and was immediately alarmed, rushing toward the mother nest's core!

But Erza had already summoned another longsword. Aiming at the constantly beating "heart," she thrust at it from the air!

Roar!

"What?!"

The sudden roar made Erza look to the side. A man-eating flower's head abruptly emerged from beside the mother nest's core and sent the unprepared Erza flying.

Her body became a streak like a meteor, crashing straight through a church pillar and causing the already ruined church to shake. Erza herself was buried beneath a pile of rubble.

"Hahaha... Hahahaha..."

Qliphoth hovered in the air, laughing intermittently as it looked down at the ant below.

"Miss Erza!"

Disregarding the danger, Sonia ran anxiously to the rubble burying Erza and dug at the stones with both hands.

Beads of blood soon appeared on her slender fingertips, gradually staining the rubble, until an armored arm reached out from within. Erza, looking somewhat disheveled, climbed out of the pile.

"Miss Erza, are you all right?" Sonia asked with concern.

"Cough, cough... Don't worry, I'm fine," Erza replied, coughing twice. She then looked grimly at Qliphoth hovering in the air.

A fourth one? No, that's not right!

Sonia said there were only three man-eating flower clones. Does that mean it regenerated?

Come to think of it, whether the thorny roots or the man-eating flower clones were taken out, their stalks were indeed always withdrawn.

Considering Qliphoth's nature as a plant-type demon, it was not impossible for it to regenerate some of its "limbs" within a certain amount of time.

Besides, quite a while had passed since she killed the first man-eating flower.

With her keen mind, Erza quickly deduced the "truth" of the matter.

But suddenly, she noticed that something seemed wrong.

The stalk behind the regenerated man-eating flower was connected to the growth on the right. In other words, it was actually the flower whose mouth Erza had sliced open when they entered the church.

"How is that possible in such a short time?!" Erza was somewhat surprised, and a question arose in her mind.

If Qliphoth could regenerate its minions in such a short time, why hadn't it revived all three man-eating flowers before she came to the church?

With that question in mind, Erza carefully examined the one man-eating flower that had not "shown its face" since the battle began.

A long-dead stalk extended from the fleshy growth beneath the mother nest. Its tip hung limply in a patch of shadow, as though lifeless...

Hm? Erza's eyes widened. She had suddenly spotted the problem.

Why had a lifeless stalk not been withdrawn for regeneration, but instead left outside the mother nest?

At first, because only two man-eating flowers had attacked them, she had naturally assumed that the "lower" flower was the one she had decapitated at the beginning.

But now that Qliphoth's ability to regenerate "limbs" in a short time had been revealed, that deduction no longer held up at all.

Thinking about it that way, perhaps they had never seen all three man-eating flowers in the first place. After all, they had never appeared "on screen" together.

But if that was the case, then where exactly was the last man-eating flower...

As Erza wondered, a beam of clear moonlight streamed down through the church's broken skylight.

Only then did she realize that the supposed shadow was no shadow at all. It was a hole dug into the ground!

The man-eating flower had plunged headfirst into the hole, and there was no telling where it had gone.