Minerva's Ordeal

"Riyao, put me down quickly."

Holding him in his arms Little Mirajane reached out his soft little hand and patted Riyao's head hard.

The force wasn't great, and coupled with her current childlike voice, it had absolutely no intimidating power.

"Let me hold him a little longer, just a little while. One hand is enough to beat up this kind of guy."

Riyao shamelessly tightened his grip on her arm, extremely excited; he had been waiting for this day for a long time.

"Hurry up! Or I'll never talk to you again."

"Okay, okay, as you wish."

Riyao sighed, his face full of regret, and could only obediently bend down and gently place Mirajane back onto the frozen ground.

Lucy, wrapped in a large coat, exchanged a glance with Wendy, both looking puzzled.

"It seems that thinking is also influenced by children's physical development."

I think so too.

Mirajane stood there with her hands on her hips, looking sullen.

She herself noticed that her thoughts and emotions seemed to be affected by the child's body, making her more prone to showing her emotions, but so far it didn't seem to be a big problem, which was quite interesting.

"Little Yaozi, hurry up and defeat that weird thing that looks like a gorilla. It has a disgusting, demonic smell about it."

Mirajane pointed to Deliora ahead and gave the order without any politeness.

"Alright, boss."

Riyao grinned and reached out to vigorously ruffle Mirajane's long, silvery-white hair.

Mirajane's ears turned bright red the moment she heard the long-unheard title "Big Sister," and her cheeks flushed crimson.

She slapped Riyao's hand away in annoyance and turned her face away from him.

Not far away, Deliora snorted coldly, exhaling two puffs of white breath from his nostrils.

The way he looked at Riyao was exactly like he was looking at a corpse whose life was unknown.

"I am a cyborg demon from the Tartaros, you think you can just...?"

Riyao didn't reply, his smile faded, and he walked forward step by step.

The soles of my shoes crunched on the frigid ice, making a crisp, rhythmic "crunch, crunch" sound.

Deliora completely ignored it, crossing his arms and looking down at the young man who was unaffected by the magic.

"You think you can defeat me? What a fool you! Just accept your regression and become a helpless infant!"

"Cyborgs, right? By the way, my magic was inspired by you guys."

Before he finished speaking, Riyao suddenly accelerated.

There were no elaborate magic circles, no booming bursts of magic, and no blinding light of Healing Magic.

Pure physical strength.

In an instant, all the muscles in his body tensed up, his thighs exerted force, and the power flowed through his spine, finally converging in his right fist.

The sheer force of brute force was compressed to its limit, resulting in a simple and unadorned punch that landed squarely.

Bang!

The air around Deliora seemed to freeze for a second the moment his fist slammed into her cheek.

Immediately afterwards, a terrifying tail force erupted from the center of the collision, and a visible shockwave rippled outwards in a ring.

Everyone present clearly heard a sharp, teeth-grinding cracking sound of bones breaking.

Lucy gasped and couldn't help rubbing the goosebumps on her arms.

"That sounds painful..."

Wendy nodded frantically in agreement, covering her mouth with her two little hands.

Deliora's massive, mountain-like body was sent flying by this punch.

He was like a cannonball, crashing heavily into the completely frozen building wall behind him.

The wall made of ice was incredibly hard, without even a crack, and it completely reflected the enormous impact back into his body.

There is absolutely no room for buffering or decelerating.

"Pfft—" Deliora spat out a mouthful of blood, sliding down the smooth ice surface and falling to the ground.

He shakily propped himself up, his mind still buzzing.

"Court death!"

Deliora was furious and ripped off his face mask.

That punch had completely caved in half of his cheek, exposing his jagged, fanged teeth to the cold air, mixed with blood and foam.

Riyao curled his lip in disdain and let out an extremely loud "Eh!"

"Minerva, you're really not doing so well lately. After leaving Sabertooth, you've actually teamed up with this ugly thing. It's so beneath you! Has your taste deteriorated too?"

Minerva then recovered from her extreme shock.

Riyao's punch, delivered without warning, was so fast that even her eyes couldn't keep up.

Even more outrageous is that, relying solely on physical strength without any magical enhancement, it was able to shatter the facial bones of a demon-modified human? What kind of monster is this?

She forced down the twitching at the corner of her mouth, took a deep breath, and tried to regain her composed and arrogant smile.

"Deliora isn't that easy..."

He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.

Minerva suddenly realized that her line of sight was dropping rapidly.

She looked down and saw that her once tight-fitting clothes were now incredibly loose, and her slender hands had become chubby like a child's.

She abruptly turned to look at Deliora beside her, only to find that he had completely gone berserk and his magic was out of control.

Deliora raised his head and let out a beast-like roar, his body swelling and deforming again like an inflating balloon, completely entering his demonic form.

Reason evaporated, eyes turned bloodshot, leaving only a monster driven by the instinct to kill.

He used all four limbs to push off the ground, but the ice surface didn't crack or even leave a scratch.

He lunged at Riyao madly, his sharp, long claws tearing through the air with a piercing whistle, trying to completely shred the human before him.

Riyao, and instead of retreating, he advanced.

Just as the claws were about to touch his nose, he slid to the side, even having time to flick his hair, narrowly avoiding the fatal pounce.

Immediately afterwards, he reached out with his hand, his five fingers gripping Deliora's thick calf and ankle tightly like iron clamps.

With a sudden burst of power from his waist, terrifying core strength erupted, directly swung the demon, which was more than twice his size, into the air.

"Boom!"

Deliora was treated like a rag doll, flying in a semi-circle through the air before crashing heavily onto the hard ice.

"Damn, if I stay in close contact with him for too long, will I also be affected by this Retrogression Magic?"

Riyao muttered something.

He didn't let go, but instead used his left foot as a pivot, like throwing a hammer, dragging Deliora's huge body around in one circle.

When the centrifugal force reached its peak, he suddenly let go.

The enormous demonic body was flung out like a meteorite, hurtling towards a distant, frozen mountain.

Riyao turned around, wanting to tell Mirajane and the others to quickly find a safe place to hide.

When he turned around, he froze, and his expression instantly became quite interesting.

Little Erza and Little Mirajane, now tiny, were pinning Little Minerva, who had also turned into a little girl, to the ground, one on each side.

"Let me go! You two barbarians!"

Minerva was pinned down by the two men, struggling and twisting, but she was no match for their strength.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, even brimming with tears, and she was on the verge of crying from grievance.

I've never suffered such injustice in my life!

"Shut up!"

Mirajane didn't hold back at all, reaching out her little hand to pinch Minerva's lips, making her mouth look like a duck.

"You joined the Dark Guild! You went astray! Do you know how worried the Sabertooths were about you? Sting and his gang were practically going crazy looking for you!"

Erza was even more straightforward, refusing to waste any words.

She raised her little hand high, and Kuku slapped her several times, landing solid slaps on Minerva's bottom.

"Slap! Slap! Slap!" The crisp sound of slaps echoed across the empty ice field.

Lucy, Wendy, Carla, and Happy squatted down in a row, watching this historic moment with great interest.

Lucy swallowed hard, breaking out in a cold sweat, and tugged at Wendy's sleeve with some concern.

"We just beat up Sabertooth's young lady like that, and even spanked her... Won't their guild cause us trouble later and start a war with us?"

Wendy tilted her head and thought for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a weak sentence.

"Probably not... right? After all, it's for her own good..."

Carla crossed her arms, snorted, and held her tail high behind her, looking like she was watching a show without fear of the height of the stage—it was so cute it was almost unfair.

"Anyway, she started the trouble first, so she deserved to get a spanking."

Happy, standing to the side, stared intently at Carla, his eyes never leaving her, muttering to himself, "Carla is right about everything..."

Riyao watched this chaotic yet unusually harmonious scene, shook his head with a smile, and turned around to check if Deliora was truly dead.

Suddenly, the sky was shrouded in a huge shadow.

The strange bird that had been circling in the sky let out a piercing shriek, then suddenly folded its wings and swooped down.

Razor-sharp giant claws tore through the wind and snow, aiming straight for Riyao's back of the head.

Mirajane caught a glimpse of this scene out of the corner of her eye, her face turned pale with anxiety, and she cried out.

"Riyao, watch out above!"