Demon Island

That night, the village chief of Galuna Island held a banquet for Ye and his group. Natsu truly had the constitution of a Dragon Slayer; after taking a brutal beating at noon, he was already fine by evening.

"Chief, thank you for your hospitality. We've eaten enough, so it's time to talk about the request."

The chief sighed. "A few years ago, for reasons unknown to us, we were all cursed. Whenever the moon appeared at night, we turned into demons. It has caused us terrible suffering."

At that moment, purple moonlight spilled down from the sky. The villagers wailed in agony as demonic features emerged across their bodies.

Lucy cried out, "Why did the moonlight turn purple?!"

"See? This is what happens. As soon as the moonlight appears, the curse affects us and turns us into this. I even... I even killed my own child with my own hands."

When Natsu and Lucy saw the person in the photograph,

they asked in confusion, "Isn't that the old man who brought us here?"

"Could the one who brought us here have been a ghost?!"

"Eek!" Lucy was so frightened she nearly turned gray.

"So our request is to destroy the moon!"

"What?! Destroy the moon?!" Natsu and the others were deeply shocked by the chief's words.

Ye complained, "How big is your heart? Do you know how far away the moon is?"

Then Ye looked toward a raised structure in the distance and asked, "What's that over there? A temple?"

The chief explained, "Those are the ruins of the Moon Temple. We villagers cannot go near that place."

Gray said, "So the curse may be related to the Moon Temple. Then let's head there first!"

"Chief, we'll go over there first. Maybe we can find something related to the curse."

"We're counting on you!"

"Yeah! We finally get to do an S-Class request!"

Ye and his group headed toward the temple.

Lucy suddenly asked, "Ye, have you ever taken a request to lift a curse before?"

"No. That request had been sitting there for ages. The reward was too low, so I couldn't even be bothered to look at it."

Lucy said enviously, "That's still considered low? What kind of requests do you usually take?"

"I may not know how to lift curses, but I know how to get rid of the person who cast the curse."

Everyone twitched. "That really is your way of doing things."

Ye said slowly, "Everyone, be careful. Something's coming!"

They immediately entered combat mode. A gigantic rat suddenly burst out of the bushes.

Lucy stared in shock. "Was this rat cursed too? Why is it so huge?!"

"Happy, you're a cat. Hurry up and catch the rat!"

Happy panicked. "Not all cats eat rats! Besides, this rat is enormous!"

Ye released a hint of Conqueror's Haki. "Get lost!!"

The rat's fur stood on end, and it bolted away in an instant!

"That was amazing! Coach, I want to learn that!"

"Idiot, that's killing intent. How many things would you have to kill to get an effect like Ye's?"

Lucy urgently asked, "Did you develop it in the Monster Forest?"

Ye looked at the three goofballs. "That isn't killing intent. It's Conqueror's Haki, an ability unique to me."

"Since you asked, I'll tell you about my abilities. Actually, I can't use magic, because I don't have a Magic Source in my body at all."

"What?! No magic?!" the three of them and the cat exclaimed in unison. Happy already knew that Ye had no magic.

"My abilities are divided into three types: Armament Haki, Observation Haki, and Conqueror's Haki."

"First is Armament Haki, like this." Ye's arm turned jet-black. With a light strike against a tree, the tree shattered.

"As you can see, it increases my attack power and defense. At a further stage, Armament Haki can be infused into objects." Ye picked up a branch, coated it in Armament Haki, and gave it a light swing. The tree was instantly cut into two pieces.

"The next stage is emission." Ye swung the branch from before toward the distance, and a black force snapped an entire stretch of trees in half. "Powerful enough Armament Haki can destroy an enemy directly from within. I haven't learned that yet, but I'm already on the verge of breaking through."

Everyone stared blankly at Ye. "That's way too strong!"

"Then there's Observation Haki. Remember playing hide-and-seek when you were little? No matter where you hide, I can find you quickly."

"It can sense attacks, predict an enemy's next move, sense the strength of living beings, feel their emotions and thoughts, and sense the locations and numbers of things in the wild."

After hearing the explanation of Observation Haki, the three of them complained wildly, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Isn't that way too unfair?!"

"More powerful Observation Haki can briefly foresee the future and hear the Voice of All Things."

The three of them exclaimed, "That's cheating! That's absolutely cheating!"

"And then there's Conqueror's Haki. It can intimidate enemies, just like that rat earlier. Once it becomes stronger, it can be coated onto fists or weapons. At an even higher level, it can directly affect the outside world."

"Those are my three abilities."

Lucy complained, "Any one of those would be outrageously unfair on its own! And you have three?!"

"Alright, enough chatting. We're at the entrance." The group looked at the enormous ruins before them and could not help marveling. "This is incredible!"

"Alright, stop marveling and let's get moving."

The group entered the temple and found it in utter disrepair. It looked as though it had been abandoned for a very long time. Moon patterns were everywhere within the temple.

Happy spotted something. "Lucy, look! There's a bone here."

Lucy complained, "Are you a dog?!"

Gray recalled, "Wasn't this place once called Moon Island? I think Demon Island was a name that only started spreading in recent years."

Lucy's mind raced wildly. "Moon curse, Moon Temple, Moon Island... I get it! There's only one truth! The villagers must have accidentally damaged the Moon Temple, causing it to place a curse on them and turn them into demons!"

Ye looked at Lucy speechlessly and flicked her forehead. "What are you even thinking?"

"Ow!"

"This place has clearly been abandoned for more than fifty years, while Demon Island only appeared a few years ago."

Natsu refused to believe a place that looked this rundown could be so fragile, so he stomped down hard with his foot.

Duang! Duang!

Lucy hurriedly said, "Natsu, stop stomping! This place doesn't look very sturdy!"

Natsu said carelessly, "It's fine, it's fine. It looks pretty solid."

The moment his words fell, the ground instantly shattered, and the entire group plunged straight down.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Awoo! This is kind of fun!"

"What part of this is fun?!"

The bone Happy had been holding got stuck in his throat. As they fell, Happy desperately tried to pull it out, while Lucy dropped beside Natsu and punched him on the head.

"Didn't I tell you not to stomp?!"

"Gomenasai!"

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Fortunately, the group fell into water and slowly swam ashore.

Ye helped Happy remove the bone.

"I almost thought I was going to die! Thank you so much, Ye. Want me to be your cat?"

Gray looked at Natsu. "You really never think about the consequences of what you do, do you?"

When Gray got to his feet, he saw Deliora sealed in ice before him—the nightmare of his entire life.

"Impossible! Why is Deliora here? That can't be!"

Natsu asked, "Gray, do you know this big frozen guy?"

Gray said emotionally, "It's... it's..."

Ye said seriously, "Calm down, Gray. Your heart is in turmoil!"

Gray took a deep breath, his tone heavy. "Deliora, the demon that brings calamity."

"The demon that brings calamity!"

"Yes. It was sealed by my master with her life in the ice mountains of the Northern Continent. But why is it here?!"

At that moment, Ye sensed someone approaching. "Keep your voices down. Someone's coming. Quickly, hide behind a rock!"

They quickly hid behind the rocks, and sounds came from the entrance of the cavern.

"Ooh~ Ooh~ Daytime really makes me sleepy."

"Yuka, Toby, I have something sad to tell you. My Angelica got scared for some reason, and now she doesn't dare come out."

Toby loudly complained, "It's obviously a rat, so why does it have such a fancy name?!"

"Angelica isn't a rat. It's a hunter that prowls through the darkness."

Natsu looked at the newcomers. "They aren't island residents. They don't smell like the villagers."

"Are you a dog?!"

"And they haven't been affected by the curse at all," Happy said.

Yuka listened to Sherry's words and thought, "Could there be intruders?"

"We're about to finish collecting the moonlight. Nothing can go wrong at this critical moment. Before Lord Zero Emperor finds out, let's drive them out first."

"Let the intruders sleep here forever. That is love~!"

As the voices of the three gradually faded away, Ye and his group returned to stand before Deliora.

Natsu said unhappily, "Ye, why didn't we just take them down? Capture them and torture the answers out of them."

Ye shook his head. "They seemed to mention the moon just now. I think it may be related to the villagers' curse. They also said they were about to finish collecting it. Why don't we see what they're trying to do first? To catch a thief, you need the stolen goods; to catch an adulterer, you need to catch them in bed."

Lucy asked Gray, "Gray, you seem very familiar with this Deliora guy."

Gray began recounting, "It was originally sealed by my master in an ice mountain on the Northern Continent. Ten years ago, it committed every evil imaginable in Isban. My hometown and my parents were all destroyed by its hands. After that, many mages came to subdue it, but all of them were defeated and killed. It also had an immortal body. In the end, my master Ur sealed it away with her life."

"Your master?"

"Yes! There's no mistake. I'd recognize what it looks like even if it turned to ashes!"

Lucy thought aloud, "Could the villagers' curse be related to it?"

"Very likely. This thing has an immortal body. It's still alive!"

Natsu said excitedly, "Then if we defeat this thing, won't the curse be lifted? Let me handle it!"

"Stop it, you bastard! You're no match for it at all!"

"How would you know if I don't fight it?!"

"If I say you can't do it, then you can't!"

"You looking for a beating?!"

"Come on! You think I'm afraid of you?!"

Ye looked at the two bickering men. "Alright, you two, pause for a moment. And Gray, your heart is completely unsettled. It hasn't calmed down since the moment you saw it!"

"If you can't calm down, I can help you calm down for a while."

Lucy complained, "Do those two things mean the same thing?!"

Ye looked at Gray and spoke earnestly. "I know you must have had a terrible childhood, and it was connected to this thing. It's hard to step out of that shadow so quickly. But I still need to tell you this: you're no longer the person you were ten years ago. Ten years ago, a dirt mound looked like a mountain; ten years later, a mountain looks like a dirt mound. Do you understand what I mean?"

After hearing Ye's words, Gray completely calmed down. "You're right!"

Ye smiled with satisfaction. "Molding magic is magic of freedom. I haven't seen you make a breakthrough all these years. Since you've encountered this now, break through that obstacle in one go!"

"And don't be afraid. Deliora's strength is only decent from what I can sense. There's no need to fear it."

Listening to Ye, Gray imagined Ye fighting Deliora and realized that Ye seemed to have won every time. Thinking about it now, Ye was a monster through and through!