Deliora

Wow! It's huge!

Natsu's voice echoed loudly throughout the hall.

Gray looked around at the cracked stone pillars and collapsed walls, frowning. "This place is so dilapidated; I wonder when it was built."

Jiang Bai ignored their exclamations; his gaze was drawn to a huge mark in the center of the dome.

"Look, over there."

He pointed to the top of his head.

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing, and saw a crescent moon seal carved on the high dome, emitting a faint glow.

"It's a seal shaped like the moon."

Jiang Bai said calmly, "Didn't the village chief say that this island was called 'Moon Island' before it was called 'Demon Island'?"

Lucy listened to Jiang Bai's words and looked at the moon seal, a chill inexplicably rose in her heart.

She muttered to herself, "Moon Island, Moon Seal, Demon Island... Hmm, something doesn't feel right."

"Speaking of which,"

As Natsu surveyed the dilapidated hall, he posed a rather unromantic question.

"This place is so dilapidated, the floor shouldn't collapse, right?"

As he spoke, he deliberately lifted his foot and stomped it hard on the floor twice, making a dull "thump-thump" sound.

"What are you doing, you idiot!"

Lucy was startled by his reckless behavior.

She had barely finished speaking.

"Boom!"

With a deafening roar, the stone slab beneath Natsu's feet, along with a large area around it, shattered and collapsed instantly!

"Waaaaah!"

Several people were caught off guard and fell down together.

The moment the feeling of weightlessness hit, Jiang Bai had already reacted.

He didn't even blink; an invisible Psychokinesis instantly supported his body, allowing him to float slowly downwards like a feather.

Happy promptly spread its little wings, flapping them as it hovered in the air.

So, only three unlucky guys were left on the ground.

"Bang!"

Lucy, Natsu, Gray landed hard on the hard rock in an unseemly manner, getting covered in dust and completely disoriented.

"You fiery bastard!"

Gray was the first to get up from the ground. He grabbed Natsu by the collar, veins bulging on his forehead.

I'm going to freeze you into an ice sculpture!

However, this time Natsu didn't argue with him as usual.

He seemed not to hear Gray's roar, but simply pointed blankly to the other side and stammered, "Look... look! There... there's a huge monster!"

The group's attention was immediately drawn to it.

In the center of the underground space where they had fallen, a gigantic monster, with a ferocious appearance and a body comparable to a mountain, was sealed within a huge block of ice that emitted a chilling aura.

The moment Gray saw the monster, his face turned deathly pale.

He released Natsu, his body involuntarily taking a step back, his pupils contracting violently with extreme shock and fear.

"Deliora?"

His voice trembled, filled with disbelief.

"How is this possible? It... how could it possibly be here? Impossible! Impossible!"

"Calm down, Gray!"

Jiang Bai's voice rang out just in time, like a wake-up call, pulling Gray back from the brink of collapse.

Upon hearing Jiang Bai's words, Gray took a few deep breaths. His body stopped trembling, but his tightly furrowed brows and clenched fists still revealed the turmoil in his heart.

"Gray, do you... do you know this monster?" Lucy asked cautiously.

Gray's gaze was fixed on the ice, his voice hoarse. "Its name is Deliora, an ominous demon that brings disaster..."

He seemed to want to say something more, but Jiang Bai suddenly raised his hand and made a shushing gesture.

"Wait, someone's coming, let's hide."

Everyone immediately fell silent and quickly hid behind a huge rock.

Soon, the sound of two men's footsteps came from the other end of the passage, accompanied by their conversation.

"That sound just came from here, didn't it?" a voice said, sounding somewhat effeminate.

"Oh! Yes!" another voice chuckled, as if agreeing.

Two people walked over; one was dressed in a peculiar outfit of green and purple and had thick eyebrows.

The other one has a face that looks exactly like a pug.

Yuka, with his thick eyebrows, glanced at the large hole in the ceiling and said, "Looks like the floor above collapsed. It was an old, run-down building to begin with, so it's not surprising that it collapsed."

"Fortunately, the Moon Drop collecting magic circle is unharmed."

"Oh! I see." Dog-faced Toby nodded repeatedly.

Just then, a charming female voice rang out. "Yuka, Toby, do you know? Angelica was just scared and is currently hiding in her hole. I can't get her to come out no matter how much I call her."

It was Sherry; she swayed over.

Toby said matter-of-factly, "It's just a mouse, isn't it normal for it to crawl into its hole?"

"Angelica is not a mouse!"

Sherry immediately retorted, striking a pose of ecstasy.

"It is a hunter walking in the darkness, and... love!"

Yuka ignored her tantrum; his gaze swept over the rubble on the ground, his eyes sharpening.

"It seems there are intruders. Now that they've discovered this place, we can't let them leave easily. We must capture them before Zero Emperor out and hand them over to him."

"To punish the intruders, that too is... love!"

"Wow! That's right!" Toby exclaimed excitedly.

The three of them talked as they walked out in another direction.

Once their footsteps had completely faded away, Jiang Bai said calmly, "Alright, come out now, they're gone."

The group emerged from behind the rocks, and Lucy patted her chest with lingering fear. "Some really strange guys came."

"Their smell was different from the villagers'; they were outsiders!"

Natsu's nose twitched, and he immediately concluded...

"Those guys are definitely the culprits behind the village curse!"

He turned to look at Jiang Bai, puzzled. "Jiang Bai, why didn't we just rush out and arrest them?"

"There's no need."

Jiang Bai answered casually.

He glanced at Gray was still lost in the shadows of the past.

These small fry can be used as practice targets for Natsu and the others later, so that Natsu won't complain again about not giving him a chance to fight.

As for the so-called "Zero Emperor," namely Gray's obsessive senior brother Lyon, that's naturally something Gray has to deal with himself.

Jiang Bai thought to himself with a touch of narcissism.

Sigh, Natsu and Gray are truly blessed to have such a powerful, meticulous, and willing-to-create-opportunities-for-the-younger brother.