"B-but he's already—huh? N-no! Natsu, look!!" Halfway through his sentence, Happy suddenly seemed to notice something wrong. He grabbed Natsu and excitedly pointed at the black flames that had swallowed Achill. "Natsu, look at those flames!! They're still burning! No! That's wrong! That's very wrong!! Those people earlier turned straight to ash the moment they burned to death, and then the flames disappeared too! But, but these black flames—"
"They're still burning!! They don't show any sign of going out!!!"
"Huh? Wh-what's going on?!!" Zancrow had clearly noticed the anomaly too. He was just about to pour more power into his magic and hit Achill again when, to his horror, he discovered that his black Fire God Slayer Magic was actually—
"Hey, you've got a good eye, Natsu! That's right. If it's only a little fire at this pathetic level—"
As though answering Natsu's words, Achill's flippant chuckle drifted out of the roaring black flames, sounding sweeter than anything to Happy's ears at that moment. Just as his voice emerged, a speck of golden light appeared in the center of the great mass of black fire enveloping him, strikingly bright against the darkness of the god-slaying flames—
The golden speck grew larger and larger, first becoming the size of a bean, then a flickering flame, and finally a gently swaying, palm-sized ball of golden fire resting on Achill's left palm, which he held before his chest...
The mass of black flames that had been blazing around him was sucked into the golden fire in his left palm, like water into a whale's maw, until every last trace disappeared.
"B-burned away? M-my God Slayer Magic actually, actually..." Zancrow stared fixedly at the golden flames resting on Achill's left palm, looking utterly lost. The divine flames he trusted above all else had