Chapter 359: Deprivation of the Five Senses
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
The fractured ruins of the crashed Underworld Island, Plutogrim, trembled violently under the sheer, catastrophic weight of the ongoing holy war. Thick plumes of acrid smoke billowed from the shattered bedrock, painting the sky in a bruised palette of ash and crimson.
Deep within the epicenter of the wreckage, the ambient air hummed with a sinister frequency. At the crash site, an intricate holographic projection of the entire Ishgar continent hovered ominously above the main core magic crystal beneath Kyoka's feet. It was speckled with exactly 3,000 glowing crimson nodes.
Each node represented a Face—the apocalyptic pulse bombs forged by the Magic Council, now hijacked to wipe out all Ethernano on the continent.
Suddenly, the projection glitched. The glowing red spots began to rapidly extinguish. They didn't vanish one by one, but in massive, sweeping waves that blacked out entire regions of the map in seconds.
"This... what is going on?!"
Kyoka gasped, her sharp, demonic features twisting into an expression of unadulterated panic. Every single light spot on that holographic map represented an unyielding pillar of Face. A disappearing spot meant only one impossible thing: that specific Face had been physically destroyed.
The spots were vanishing far too fast. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of nodes went dark. Hundreds of heavily guarded, magically reinforced pulse bombs—systematically annihilated in mere moments.
But how was this mathematically possible? The 3,000 statues of Face were spread across the vast, sprawling expanse of the entire Ishgar continent. No single mage possessed the mobility, let alone the raw destructive output, to strike them all simultaneously.
A few yards away, Erza Scarlet stood battered but unbowed. Her armor was chipped, and her breath was ragged, but as she watched the map go dark, she couldn't help but breathe a deep sigh of relief. A genuinely reassured, affectionate smile graced her dirt-smudged face.
He actually did it, she thought, her heart swelling with an overwhelming mixture of awe and pride.
"As expected of Ren-kun," Erza whispered softly to herself, wiping a trail of blood from her chin. "No matter how much I train, no matter how hard I push myself... I just can't seem to compare to him."
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword, her brown eyes burning with renewed resolve. "However, even if I can't match Ren-kun's miraculous power, I refuse to be a burden! I will contribute with my own strength!"
High above the chaotic battlefield, sitting upon his levitating throne of thorns, Mard Geer Tartaros also noticed the rapid, systematic disappearance of the light spots. The Underworld King's perpetually bored expression cracked, replaced by a cold, seething fury.
He immediately bypassed physical space, contacting Kyoka telepathically. [Kyoka! What are you doing?!]
His telepathic voice echoed like a thunderclap in her skull. [The countdown is being dismantled before our very eyes! Hurry up and accelerate the activation sequence!]
"Yes! Lord Mard Geer!"
Kyoka shouted aloud, her voice trembling slightly under the crushing pressure of her master's command. She knew there was absolutely no time to delay. For that human monster named Ren to pull off something of this magnitude was truly terrifying. She had to drastically speed up the ritual before he erased their grand design completely.
"Heavens Wheel: Dance of Swords!"
Erza roared, refusing to give the demon a single second to recalibrate. Dozens of shimmering steel blades materialized in the air around her, streaking toward Kyoka in a deadly, spiraling vortex of silver light.
Kyoka sneered, her elongated talons moving in a blur of deadly precision.
Crack! Crack! Clang!
She shattered the incoming barrage with raw, terrifying physical strength. Shards of broken steel rained down from the heavens, some clattering harmlessly against the unyielding surface of the main core magic crystal.
"Are you trying to destroy the main core magic crystal?" Kyoka mocked, effortlessly brushing a piece of shrapnel from her shoulder. "There's no need! The main core magic crystal is completely useless to you now."
Kyoka gestured lazily to the glowing pedestal. "It is nothing more than a display device. The command sequence for Face has already been successfully activated, and no pathetic human can stop it."
Erza's eyes were cold and unyielding. She slowly leveled her remaining blade at the demon's throat. "Is that so? If it's exactly as you say... then what are you panicking about?"
Kyoka's breath hitched. "You..."
"Ren is the strongest Mage in our Fairy Tail," Erza declared, her voice ringing with absolute, unshakable faith. "Face might be an inescapable catastrophe for anyone else on this continent, but not for Ren. He will stop it."
Kyoka seethed with anger at the human's unwavering devotion. The veins bulged against her pale temples. "Don't be so arrogant! There are a full three thousand Faces!! No matter how fast he destroys them, it requires precious time! During that time, I will violently compress the activation countdown. You humans will still perish to the glory of E.N.D.!"
Erza shifted her stance, her magical aura flaring brilliantly. "I see! Then thank you, because that gives me the perfect reason to take you down right here!"
"Take me down? Don't talk big!" Kyoka threw her head back, a dark, suffocating aura exploding from her body. "You dare stand there and boast because you haven't seen my true form!"
The air around the crystal grew impossibly heavy, choked with toxic miasma. "Witness the power of Kyoka of the Nine Demon Gates! The Sovereign of Slaves! Tremble before my true existence as an Etherious!"
With a deafening sonic boom, Kyoka closed the distance. Her body underwent a horrifying Demonic Transformation, sprouting vicious, avian-like armor and dark, feathery appendages. Her face elongated into a terrifying, masked visage of pure nightmare.
Crack—!!
In a single, devastating swipe, Kyoka's reinforced talons completely shattered the heavy armor on Erza's body and snapped her broadsword cleanly in half.
"This girl..." Erza gasped, staggering backward as the sheer kinetic force knocked the wind from her lungs.
She hadn't expected the demon's physical strength and raw speed to multiply so drastically. The gap in their physical stats had just widened to a terrifying degree.
"OOOOOHHHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHH!!"
Kyoka unleashed a guttural, demonic roar that shook the very foundations of the ruined island. Above them, the holographic time remaining for Face's activation began to glitch and spiral downward.
The thirty-minute countdown plummeted instantly to twenty minutes.
"I can't let this woman continue!" Erza gritted her teeth, forcefully drawing upon her magical reserves. "Requip: Black Wing Armor!"
Bat-like wings erupted from her back, and she traded her broken blade for a sleek, dark sword, launching herself at Kyoka to desperately close the gap.
Kyoka simply laughed, waving her hand casually. Her claws extended like physical whips, rapidly slicing down onto the bedrock like razor-sharp guillotines.
Boom!!
A massive, cavernous trench was carved into the earth, forcing Erza to abruptly halt her charge and leap backward to avoid being cleaved in two.
"You cannot defeat me," Kyoka gloated, her demonic eyes flashing with arrogant superiority. "My unique Cursed Energy is 'Enhancement'. Every passing second, my power multiplies. I am a demon with infinitely growing strength."
Kyoka pressed a hand against her own chest, her tone dripping with fanatical reverence. "I have already performed a Living Link with the magic crystal activating Face."
Erza's eyes widened in horror as the implication set in.
"When Face activates, my life will also reach its end." Kyoka smiled, completely devoid of fear or hesitation. "But I have no regrets! As long as my sacrifice allows Master E.N.D. to be resurrected, as long as I can return to Lord Zeref's side!!"
Kyoka blitzed forward, attacking Erza relentlessly. For a desperate moment, Erza could only dodge and parry clumsily, completely overwhelmed by the demon's ferocious, suicidal assault.
"Why would you go to such lengths?!" Erza screamed over the sound of clashing metal, deeply disturbed by the sheer fanaticism of her opponent. "To throw away your own life so easily?!"
"We, the demons born from the Books of Zeref, are destined from the moment of our creation to return to his side." Kyoka's eyes glazed over with a strange, euphoric devotion. "Lord Mard Geer calls it a 'Homing Instinct'. We were forged by his hands, and we exist solely to return to him."
Erza parried a vicious swipe aimed at her neck, her muscles screaming in protest. "Is that all you have in your miserable lives? No will of your own?! How are you any different from pathetic puppets dancing on strings?!"
"Shut up—!!" Kyoka shrieked, completely losing her composure at the insult to her creator.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!"
Kyoka roared furiously, generating a massive, blinding surge of cursed electricity from her palms. The powerful current swept outward in an unavoidable shockwave, annihilating the surrounding debris and violently engulfing Erza.
"Guaaaah!!"
Erza screamed as the dark electricity seized her muscles. She hit the ground hard, her Black Wing Armor smoking and sparking. But the moment she tried to push herself up, something felt horrifyingly wrong.
A searing, unfathomable agony lanced through her entire nervous system. It wasn't just the burn of the electricity; her very skin felt as if it had been flayed open.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Kyoka sneered, stalking slowly toward her downed prey. "I have used my Curse to completely expose and maximize your Sense of Pain."
Kyoka crouched down, a sadistic grin stretching across her demonic face. "Right now, even a gentle breeze brushing against your skin will feel like molten iron burning through your veins."
To prove her point, Kyoka leaned in close to Erza's ear and blew a soft, mocking breath against her cheek. "Phew."
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!"
Erza arched her back, letting out a blood-curdling scream of pure, unadulterated agony as her hyper-sensitized nerve endings practically exploded.
"Erza!!"
Hearing her dear friend's tortured screams, Mirajane's horrified voice echoed across the battlefield. Realizing Erza was in lethal danger, Mira immediately abandoned her own position, her demonic wings flaring as she rushed to intercept Kyoka.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Suddenly, a relentless barrage of heavy, magically charged books slammed violently into Mira's back, knocking her out of the sky and sending her crashing into the rubble.
"Weren't you supposed to be my opponent?" Seilah's cold, melodic voice drifted through the smoke. The Demon of the Macro hovered nearby, her paper-white skin contrasting with the dark aura radiating from her body. "You still have the mind to worry about that pathetic woman? She is already doomed for daring to challenge Lady Kyoka."
High above, Mard Geer watched the activation timer drastically plummet. A rare, genuinely satisfied smile formed on his lips. "Well done, Kyoka. Keep pressing them into the dirt."
Miles away, amidst the widespread chaos of the fallen island, Ren gritted his teeth. He desperately wanted to warp directly to Erza's side, but his body felt impossibly heavy.
Having just utilized his system to manifest 3,000 perfect Shadow Clones in a single breath—scattering them across the continent to hunt down the pulse bombs—the toll on his magical reserves was astronomical.
[System Warning: Extreme Energy Depletion Detected. Cellular recovery protocols currently operating at maximum capacity.]
Damn it, Ren cursed inwardly, panting heavily as sweat dripped from his brow. His muscles burned with a fiery exhaustion. I just need ten seconds to catch my breath... Hold on, Erza!
Back at the core, Kyoka lifted her leg and stomped her reinforced talon mercilessly onto Erza's exposed abdomen.
Crack!
"Ugh-AAAAAH!!" Erza shrieked, her voice cracking.
The sheer depth of her agony echoed into the bleeding sky, raw and utterly devastating. The artificially enhanced pain made even the friction of the rocky ground beneath her feel like a bed of rusted razor blades dragging across her flesh.
Kyoka traced a sharp claw down Erza's collarbone, her eyes filled with a twisted, perverse delight. "Thick, bulky armor really doesn't suit a fragile human like you. Your body is quite beautiful beneath all that metal."
With a sadistic smirk, Kyoka's claws blurred. She hooked the razor-sharp tips into the seams of Erza's shattered Black Wing Armor. With a violent, humiliating yank, Kyoka tore the magical plating away entirely.
She didn't stop there.
Driven by an intoxicating high of dominance, Kyoka slashed repeatedly, methodically shredding the remaining fabric beneath. Erza gasped helplessly, her chest heaving in agonizing spasms as even her undergarments were ripped away, leaving her completely naked and shivering on the cold, unforgiving stone.
Every microscopic scrape of the wind against her bare skin sent fresh, paralyzing waves of torture directly to her brain. She lay there, entirely stripped of her defenses, her dignity, and her physical protection.
"This is the final ordeal for you, a creature who is about to depart from this world," Kyoka whispered maliciously, looming over Erza's trembling, exposed form. "I want you to experience a far deeper, more intimate despair, Erza. First... I will strip away your sight."
Kyoka's eyes flared with a sickening pulse of cursed energy.
Erza's widened pupils suddenly shook violently. A sickening wave of vertigo hit her, and an instant later, the chaotic, fiery battlefield completely vanished. She was plunged into an endless, suffocating abyss of absolute, impenetrable darkness.
"Next," Kyoka's voice echoed like a death knell in the void, "is touch. Then taste. Then smell."
Erza felt the cold stone beneath her vanish. The sharp pain of the rocky ground faded into a numb, horrifying nothingness. The metallic tang of her own blood on her tongue evaporated. The acrid scent of smoke and ozone was completely wiped away.
She was falling into an endless, sensory vacuum, trapped purely inside the suffocating cage of her own panicked mind.
"And finally..." Kyoka's voice grew deafeningly loud, right next to Erza's ear. "...hearing. This will be the very last thing you hear in this world!"
Silence slammed into Erza like a physical blow. The absolute absence of sound was maddening, severing her final anchor to reality.
Though Erza could no longer hear her, Kyoka threw her head back and let out a manic, triumphant laugh that shook the ruins.
"Hahahaha! With this, we have completely won!!" Kyoka bellowed to the heavens, her fanatical zealotry peaking. "Even if my soul is utterly eradicated and my spirit shattered to dust, there is absolutely no future for you pathetic humans!!"
Kyoka stared down at Erza's trembling, sightless, deafened, completely naked form. The ultimate warrior of Fairy Tail, reduced to a helpless, shivering doll.
"I won't kill you!!" Kyoka promised with perverse glee, her claws hovering inches above Erza's bare flesh. "I will make you experience an Underworld far more painful than death!! I will keep you exactly like this, as Lord Mard Geer's helpless little toy!! He will patiently dote on you every single day, slowly destroying your mind and your beautiful body bit by bit!"
Kyoka's sadistic laughter echoed endlessly across the desolate ruins. "I'm so incredibly envious of you, hahahaha! You're happy, aren't you?! Well?! Say it! Use your useless tongue and say you are honored! Say it!! Hahahahaha!!"
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me!
Want to read ahead on our official home, or unlock 50 advanced chapters (plus an Ad-Free experience) to feed your addiction? Help keep this shameless translator alive here:
(P.S. Replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
🌐 Official Website: elysianreads[.]com
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters & Ad-Free): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]