The ink on the blank page continued to spread.
Mira leaned in and stared at it for a long while. "What does it say?"
"Don't crowd me." Erza held down a corner of the book from the other side. "You can't just touch a sealed book."
"Then stop holding it down!"
"I'm keeping you from damaging it."
Their gazes clashed over the page. Makarov gave each of them a chop on the head, finally leaving the ancient book some room to breathe.
Lin Yuan took no part in the argument.
As soon as he laid eyes on the unfamiliar characters, their meaning surfaced in his mind.
Hunt gods as prey, bring the untouchable into human flesh and blood; devour their authority, tread their domains, and ultimately bring down the beings above the heavens.
Only two incomplete characters remained on the next line.
God Slayer.
"I can read it," Lin Yuan said.
Makarov wasn't surprised. He pulled over a chair and opened another magic dictionary he had brought. "Read it. Don't touch the pages."
Lin Yuan read the text aloud, sentence by sentence.
At some point, the Guild hall had fallen silent. Natsu, sprawled against the edge of the table, listened halfway through before he finally raised his hand. "So he's a Dragon Slayer too?"
"What were you even listening to?" Gray asked.
"They're both Slayers. Close enough, right?"
"One says dragon, the other says god. Can't you even read?"
"Wanna fight, exhibitionist?!"
"Put some clothes on first!" Erza shouted.
A vein throbbed at Makarov's temple. His giant hands came down at once, pinning the two would-be fighters back to the floor.
"There are similarities, certainly." He pointed to a faint passage in the dictionary. "Dragon Slayer Magic gives a human body the properties of a dragon, while God Slayer Magic fuses a certain attribute belonging to a god into the caster's body. Both are Lost Magic created to combat beings far more powerful than humans."
Mira looked at Lin Yuan. "What's his attribute?"
"Darkness?" someone guessed.
"No, he can't control shadows."
"Then it's magic that makes things disappear."
"An attribute that specializes in eating tables?"
Lin Yuan looked back, and the speaker immediately hid in the crowd.
Makarov took out a Magic Crystal used for lighting and set it on the table. "Try again. Don't use your fist. Just take away the distance between you and it."
Lin Yuan raised his hand.
Black-and-silver magic spread from his fingertips. The crystal didn't move, and the tabletop didn't grow shorter. Yet when he reached out, his palm passed straight over the two meters of space and grasped the crystal.
"It wasn't the object that moved." Erza watched closely. "The stretch in between disappeared."
"It didn't disappear completely, either." Lin Yuan let go, and the distance returned. "It's more like I temporarily swallowed it."
Makarov turned to the next page of the dictionary.
"Slayer mages can consume the external attribute that corresponds to their own to restore their magic power. Natsu eats fire. What you eat, I'm afraid, is space itself."
Half of Natsu's face emerged from beneath the giant hand. "What does space taste like?"
"It doesn't have a taste."
"Then what's the point of eating it?"
"It's not like I'm eating it to fill my stomach."
Mira folded her arms. "No wonder even the wood ended up shorter. You didn't eat the table. You bit away the part of space the table occupied along with it."
Lin Yuan thought of the wooden plank that had inexplicably grown shorter during repairs and couldn't argue.
Makarov, however, tapped the table. "No experimenting as you please. A flame can be relit after it goes out, but if space is truly torn apart, the people standing inside it can't be put back together."
"I can control it."
"Who sent Macao's pipe into the wall yesterday?"
"That was an accident."
"Starting today, your training area will be expanded to the open ground in the backyard, at least ten paces away from any building."
Mira immediately burst out laughing. "The mage who specializes in eating tables has been banned from going near them."
Lin Yuan looked at her demonic right arm. "You crushed four cups yesterday."
"That's because the cups weren't sturdy!"
Seeing that the two were about to start again, Makarov raised a hand and pressed it down on the ancient book.
"One more question. All Lost Magic is passed down. Natsu's magic came from a dragon. Who taught you yours?"
Lin Yuan shook his head. "I could use it when I woke up."
As if it had understood him, the ancient book's pages suddenly began to turn.
A hazy human figure appeared on the paper. The man stood before a massive open gate, a severed serpent's body at his feet. His face, however, was completely blacked out with ink; only his right hand could be seen reaching beyond the gate.
New text appeared beneath the picture.
This time, Lin Yuan only managed to read the beginning.
"The eleventh gatekeeper-"
Black flames erupted from the writing without warning.
Makarov immediately snapped the book shut, but the flames burned through the cover. Lin Yuan raised his hand and swallowed the space around the flames, finally trapping the blaze in a spot smaller than a fingernail.
In the firelight, the line of text that had just appeared quickly turned to ash.
It wasn't the whole book running out of control, nor was the seal deteriorating.
The flames had burned away only the answer concerning the figure.
Makarov stared at the damaged page, his voice low.
"Someone doesn't want us to read on."