Natsu's second roar had just ended when Lin Yuan walked to the white line.
"Let me try."
Natsu immediately Cause: "Come on!"
Makarov was still examining the rocks shattered by the flames. Hearing the sound, he turned around and saw Lin Yuan had already steadied himself and taken a deep breath.
He recalled Natsu's actions just now.
Inhale, gather your breath, and release it in one direction.
He didn't mobilize much magic. The black and silver light flowed upwards from his chest and abdomen, but instead of spreading into his limbs as usual, it was forced towards the only exit when it passed through his throat.
The wind on the riverbank suddenly stopped.
It wasn't that the wind had truly disappeared, but rather that the distance between the wind and everyone had been stretched. The hem of their clothes still fluttered, and pebbles continued to tumble down the charred rock face, but all sounds seemed to grow fainter and fainter, as if separated by an endless tunnel.
The grains of sand at Lin Yuan's feet floated up one by one, not rising upwards, but leaving several staggered outlines in place. The riverbed in front of him, the rock walls on the opposite bank, and even the clouds in the sky all seemed to be pulled closer to him by an invisible hand.
The smile on Gray's face vanished.
Even though he was standing right behind Lin Yuan, he had the illusion that he was being sucked into that mouth. Erza gripped the hilt of her sword, and dark red magic suddenly surged up behind Mira's shoulder. Even Natsu, who had been urging her just moments before, shut his mouth and instinctively lowered his body.
The distances between the sand and gravel beneath his feet, the riverbed ahead, and the distant stone wall all simultaneously appeared in Lin Yuan's perception. Those spaces that were originally quiet and connected to all things were compressed into countless overlapping layers of black and silver by the surging God-Slaying Magic Power.
The dark silver light did not illuminate the surroundings.
The places it passed through lost their color, as if a patch of night had fallen into the daytime, and then collapsed inward along with Lin Yuan's breath. The small spot in front of his lips, no bigger than a fist, exerted an oppressive force as if the entire valley was tilting towards it.
Lin Yuan immediately realized something.
Natsu spewed out fire.
What he was about to expel was a compressed space.
Lin Yuan wanted to stop, but the gathered magic power had already found an outlet.
"The God of Space--"
The air in front of the lips is recessed inward.
"Roar!"
There were no flames, nor the beam of light that had been initially imagined.
The space in front of him first caved in, then suddenly flipped over.
A torrent of black and silver water gushed from Lin Yuan's mouth. It made no sound, yet the air in front of it was swallowed up layer by layer. The sand and gravel on the riverbed were not blown backward, but disappeared from their original positions the moment they came into contact with the torrent, and then fell back down dozens of steps away, interlocked together.
The first roar didn't erupt until the torrent had crossed half the riverbed, only then did it explode behind everyone.
It wasn't like True Magic flying towards the target; it was more like everything between the target and Lin Yuan was being forcibly crushed. Wherever the torrent passed, the riverbed collapsed downwards from the middle, the rocks on the left and right sides collided with each other, and the cracks extended in completely opposite directions. Every distance was being torn apart and then brutally stuffed into another space.
Even before the distant stone wall was hit, its surface began to cave in.
The next moment, the torrent of black silver arrived.
Instead of collapsing backward, the entire rock stratum disappeared layer by layer, starting from the center. The rocks were compressed into thin sheets, only to suddenly regain their volume at a deeper depth. Dull, explosive sounds emanated from within the rock stratum, and the entire valley seemed to sink downwards.
"Stop!" Makarov shouted.
Lin Yuan tried to cut off the magic, but the torrent of black and silver in front of his lips expanded again.
He could stop the injection, but he couldn't immediately restore the crowded space to its original state.
Makarov's body suddenly swelled with a furious roar. His enormous hands reached over everyone's heads, one blocking the rubble flying towards the town, and the other slamming down on the out-of-control torrent from the side.
The black and silver light tore a series of misaligned afterimages along the edge of his palm, but it was also pushed away from its original direction by this force, soaring diagonally into the sky. The clouds silently split open, revealing a deep blue gap that stretched from the valley to the horizon.
The aftershocks finally subsided.
Only the sound of stones rolling down the riverbank remained.
The ice wall Gray had just conjured had shattered into pieces. He held his hands up, his mouth agape for a long time.
Natsu rushed to the safety rope, his eyes shining as brightly as the flames from before.
"One more time! This time, aim at me!"
Mira grabbed his scarf and pulled him back.
"If you want to die, don't stand in front of us."
Erza sheathed the sword that had been blocking their path. Macao and Wakaba peeked out from the shadow cast by the giant hand and looked toward their original target.
There are no stone walls left there.
A straight, deep trench has been carved out of the dried-up riverbed, stretching all the way into the valley. The pebbles in the trench are of varying sizes, and some have even been turned outwards from the inside.
Lin Yuan touched his throat.
There was no injury, but a strange emptiness lingered, as if the breath hadn't been exhaled forward, but rather into a bottomless abyss.
"I don't use much magic," he said.
Makarov returned to his original size and stood on the edge of the ditch, which was deeper than himself.
"That's the problem."
He picked up a stone that had been cut into three layers and showed it to Lin Yuan, Natsu, and the crowd who had come to watch the spectacle.
"It looked like it was only affecting the front, but it actually spread to the sides and above; just when you tried to stop, the True Magic lasted for another three seconds. If we hadn't been here, who knows how many houses would have been torn down."
Natsu whispered, "The guild rebuilds all the time anyway."
The wooden cane struck him squarely on the forehead.
Makarov turned back to Lin Yuan, raised his wooden cane, and pointed it at his nose.
"This True Magic is forbidden from use starting today, unless there is a life-threatening situation."
Lin Yuan glanced at the stone wall that had disappeared in the distance.
"Until when will the ban end?"
"Before I say yes."