"Action!"
Five figures shot towards the cargo ship like arrows piercing the wind.
Cana leaped onto the bow in almost three steps. Three crew members patrolling the bow spotted her instantly, but before they could raise an alarm...
Cana casually flung off her hat, and at the same time, the cards clutched between her fingers suddenly erupted with a brilliant blue electric light. Three cards spun out in a 'pin' formation, arcs of electricity dancing along their patterns, precisely hitting the throats of the three guards.
The moment the current burst through their blood vessels, the three men convulsed and flew backward, their backs hitting the rusty railing with a dull thud. Their pupils were frozen with unreleased terror.
"Enemy!" As the three bodies fell, the remaining people on deck immediately noticed Cana. The burly man leading them quickly shouted a warning to his companions.
These desperadoes, facing a Mage, did not flee. Instead, they grabbed their weapons and charged at Cana.
"Ice Blade: Spinning Dance!"
Gray, emitting a chilling white aura from his feet, shot out from behind Cana. As he spun in mid-air, ice crystals condensed at his elbows, and eight crescent-shaped ice blades sliced out in a fan shape with his arm extension.
The moment the front-row strongman raised his knife to block, the blade collided with the ice blade, emitting a dazzling blue light—not the clang of metal, but the crisp sound of ice crystals spreading along the knife.
The two enemies in front, men and knives, were frozen into ice sculptures, shattering into dust on the deck.
The third man was about to swing his knife down when his abdomen took a solid flying kick, wrapped in ice. The crisp sound of his spine hitting the mast startled the seabirds on the eaves.
A golden sand cloud carried Marcus, flying behind the two. Marcus's wild laugh, mixed with the sound of grinding sand, erupted: "Sandstorm: Vortex!"
Marcus raised one hand, and golden sand streams shot out from the gaps in the deck planks, converging into a sandstorm a zhang in diameter in front of him.
The charging pirates were sucked into the eye of the storm. Sand grains, like steel beads, cut their skin. Five men screamed terribly in mid-air, thrown by the wind pressure into the sea thirty meters away. The splash startled a large area of phosphorescence.
Yukino at the stern gently waved her golden key. The Celestial Spirit Libra raised the scales in her hand.
The Celestial Spirit's silver eyes swept across the deck, and both ends of the scales suddenly glowed golden: "Gravity Imbalance: Down!"
Before her words finished, the remaining guards' knees suddenly buckled, as if an invisible giant hand had pressed on their backs. More than ten people simultaneously slammed to one knee on the deck, cracks spreading like spiderwebs from their knees.
Ezreal didn't even make a move. He simply stood at the bow, hands in his pockets, a faint smile on his lips.
His shadow twisted slightly, and a few wisps of black smoke quietly seeped out. When the last three pirates charged with their scimitars, the black mist suddenly twisted and deformed. A ferocious wolf head instantly bit off the three men's heads, and their headless bodies twitched on the ground, blood gushing like a spring.
In just ten seconds, all two dozen guards on the deck lay fallen. The entire ship fell into an eerie silence.
"Easier than I thought!" Gray whistled, the ice-blue chill around him gradually dissipating. He strode towards the cabin entrance.
He kicked open the heavy iron door. Ice crystals condensed into a soft ball of light in his palm, illuminating the dark lower cargo hold.
The cabin was piled high with wooden crates and sacks. The air was filled with a damp, musty smell and a faint scent of blood.
A dozen or so ragged prisoners were chained in a corner. They stared in terror at Gray, who had suddenly burst in. Some children even started crying from fright.
Ezreal, Marcus, and Yukino followed, walking in last. When they saw the imprisoned people, Ezreal instinctively frowned.
Among these people were not only children and women, but also adult men and elderly people over fifty.
These people were mixed together, and Ezreal was a bit puzzled.
The people captured were too varied, from young to old. This was very strange.
It seemed to have no pattern at all. Even if these people were used for some dark magic sacrifice, logically, only children representing pure elements would be needed. The elderly and adult males would generally be useless.
Ezreal stood at the doorway, frowning in thought. Due to the cramped environment inside the cabin, Yukino and Marcus also didn't go further in.
Cana and Gray, however, went over to the kidnapped group.
"Don't be afraid, we are Mages from Fairy Tail!" Cana followed closely, flicking her fingertips. A few cards flew out, precisely severing the prisoners' chains.
She knelt down and gently stroked a little girl's head: "It's okay now, you are safe."
Gray walked towards an old man with a cane, reaching out to help him: "We've come to take you all a—"
Before he finished speaking, Ezreal suddenly felt a sinister malice emanate from within the cabin. His expression changed slightly, and a white light flared in his eyes, turning them into incandescent bulbs, scanning the entire cabin.
In that instant, the shadow beneath the old man Gray was helping began to twist.
A pale, almost transparent hand emerged from the old man's shadow, pressing heavily on Gray's chest.
Due to Cana's proximity to Gray, she noticed the anomaly almost immediately, but her warning was already too late.
"Gray, little—" Cana's warning caught in her throat.
Boom!!!
A pillar of pure black magical power erupted like a volcano. Gray was struck as if by a giant hammer, instantly flying backward.
His body, like a cannonball, crashed through seven decks consecutively, wood splinters and shattered iron flying everywhere. He finally punched a huge hole in the side of the ship, and his entire body flew towards the dark sea.
The entire cargo ship tilted violently from the impact. All the prisoners in the cabin were knocked unconscious, and as the ship tilted, they slid towards the hole, about to fall into the sea.
"Gray!" Ezreal's pupils contracted. A wisp of black smoke immediately emerged from his shadow, taking the form of an Evil Wolf, and shot like lightning towards the falling Gray.
The wolf's claw snatched, barely catching his cloak, and dragged him back into mid-air.
The Evil Wolf clone looked down to see Gray was already unconscious, and without hesitation, quickly flew towards the port, putting distance between himself and the cargo ship.
Inside the cabin, Libra behind Yukino waved her scales again. The kidnapped people, who had been slowly falling into the water, now all plunged into the water at an astonishing speed. A silver light arrow drew a long silver light trail in the sea, passing through the body of everyone who fell into the water.
The next second, the starlight trace at the tail of the silver light arrow, like a rope, broke through the sea, pulled by the silver arrow, and flew towards the port.
Although these people's bodies had been pierced by the light arrow, and a silver starlight connection remained, no pain was visible on their faces.
Ezreal lightly patted Yukino's shoulder, then nodded slightly, "Good job. You go to the port to take care of Gray and those people. We'll handle things here."
Yukino didn't hesitate. She turned and, along with Libra, leaped out of the cabin. The two, light as air, ran quickly across the sea towards the port.
Only Ezreal and two others remained in the cabin, staring wide-eyed at the shadows in the cabin.
A tall, slender figure slowly emerged, stepping out of the shadows.
He was completely shrouded in a wide Black Robe, his face under the hood indistinct. Only a pair of dark red glowing eyes were faintly visible.
With each step he took, another crack appeared in the ship's hull, as if the entire ship was being corroded by the dark magic he emitted.
The white light in Ezreal's eyes blazed. He slowly clenched his left hand, and his metal gauntlet creaked. He stared at the Black Robed Man, a hint of killing intent in his voice, "It's you again?"
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