CHAPTER 494: THE GUARDS DIVISION ATTACKS!

Most members of the Exceed Guard Division possessed bodies and magic far superior to ordinary Exceeds.

Their primary duty was to protect Queen Shagotte, although truth be told, the Queen herself hardly needed protection at all.

So in reality, their job was usually maintaining public order and dealing with rule-breakers, after all, there were bad eggs even among the Exceed.

Usually, just the sight of the Guard Division was enough to make most Exceeds tremble or surrender on the spot. As for humans without wings or magic, they were often dismissed as insignificant.

Which meant, in most cases, the Guard Division was undefeated, their reputation spotless.

So when they met people today who dared to ignore them completely, they were stunned.

In their eyes, those who showed such blatant defiance were either reckless fools... or extremely dangerous criminals.

Either way, it was intolerable.

They had to make an example, show these offenders the might of the Queen’s divine envoys, crush them, and drag them back in chains.

"You have only one choice: surrender!" the leader growled.

The ten warrior Exceeds, each nearly as tall as a full-grown man, rushed at Natsu, blades flashing in the moonlight.

Natsu wanted nothing more than to fight. His fists itched with excitement.

But with the Moon Drip ritual still underway, and lives on the line, he clenched his jaw and kept chanting instead.

"ROAR!"

Suddenly, two wolves lunged from the darkness. With perfect timing, they sank their teeth into the squad captain’s wrists, left and right, then slammed him to the ground.

His longsword flew from his hands, landing with a metallic clang, blade buried in the dirt.

"Wha—?! Wolves?" the captain gasped.

He tried to move, muscles bulging, but the more he struggled, the more the wolves’ teeth sank in, and the more blood trickled to the soil.

"Captain!"

Two nearby soldiers raised their weapons to help, but before they could react, two more wolves pounced, targeting them just the same.

Though the cats tried to counterattack with their free arms, the wolves were relentless. In seconds, fangs and claws tangled with swords and paws in a blur of violent scuffling.

The last two wolves struck soon after, hurling themselves at soldiers who had tried to flank the others.

The wolves’ ambush had clearly thrown the Guard Division into disarray, but the Exceed weren’t weak. Once they regained their footing and confirmed there were only six wolves, five uninjured soldiers quickly moved to support their comrades.

That’s when things got worse, for them.

Four stone-like figures, which had been sitting motionless and unnoticed, suddenly stirred to life.

They were golems, summoned from deep within the Twisted Treeline realm.

With heavy, lumbering movements, they snuck up behind the soldiers.

Wham! Wham! Wham!—three Exceed were knocked out instantly, each felled by a single devastating punch.

The fourth golem, slightly slower than the others, only managed to bat away the enemy’s weapon, but it was enough to shift the balance.

From that moment, the tide turned in favor of the summoned beasts.

The squad leader, pinned and bleeding, could tell things were going south fast.

"Retreat! Get back and call for the Commander!" he shouted.

Immediately, the three remaining Exceed who weren’t tangled up unfurled their wings, preparing to escape into the sky.

But they had underestimated the final part of Rhodes’s defense.

From above, six translucent wraiths swooped down from the night sky, three pairs of spectral forms, grabbing each fleeing Exceed mid-air and yanking them back to the ground.

"How dare you—!"

The golems didn’t bother responding to the angry shouting of the Exceed. Without hesitation, they charged forward, fists swinging like hammers, and knocked out every single soldier with a single blow.

At that point, the battle was completely one-sided.

The entire ten-member squad of the Exceed Guard Division was neutralized on the spot.

Off to the side, Lucky felt a shiver crawl up his spine. Those ghosts that had pulled the cats out of the sky just now... Their movements were far too familiar.

He quickly shook the thought away, forcing himself to refocus on chanting the spell.

The others, however, looked relieved and encouraged. It felt like the end was in sight, just a little more, and they’d complete the ritual.

But Rhodes wasn’t smiling.

He felt uneasy. To take down just ten Exceed guards, he had to deploy golems, wolves, and wraiths, not to mention timing the ambush perfectly. That much effort, just for a squad of ten?

If more enemies arrived...

He’d probably need to release the Vilemaw, then lie back down and pretend to be dead again.

Actually, scratch that, there was no need to say if. The moment that squad leader failed to return, it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for them.

A growing sense of pressure coiled in Rhodes’s chest.

But no matter how urgent he felt, Moon Drip couldn’t be sped up by sheer willpower.

Fortunately, there was some good news: Exceed’s military response wasn’t exactly swift. More than half an hour passed, and no reinforcements showed up.

Meanwhile, the giant magic crystal at the center of the spell continued to shrink, gradually collapsing inward until it began to split in two, one part slightly larger, the other smaller.

Each piece... resembled a human body curled in fetal position.

Everyone was stunned. That enormous magic crystal, and all it contained were... two people?

Then suddenly;

Carla’s expression twisted into a mix of fear and confusion. Her gaze snapped toward the center of the Exceed kingdom.

"I... I think I see a legion flying this way," she whispered. "But... at the same time, I don’t."

She had no idea what was going on.

Was Exceed feeding her more strange information again?

Would they really alert her if they were planning a full-scale military operation?

Were they expecting her to cooperate? To betray her friends?

Carla’s thoughts spiraled. And the others... had no answers either. So they said nothing, and simply continued chanting, focusing on the ritual.

But her warning wasn’t without cause.

Only a few minutes later, from the distant night sky, a large force of Exceed soldiers came into view.

They were flying fast, sixty or seventy of them at least, dark shapes packed together tightly in the air.

The visibility was poor due to the night, and the surrounding moonlight had been partially absorbed by the Moon Drip spell.

By the time everyone else noticed the approaching force, it was already too late to hide or prepare.

The Exceed soldiers didn’t attack immediately. It was clear they had received no word from the first unit, and now observed the strange scene before them cautiously.

Then they saw it.

A column of purple light, ten fallen Exceed soldiers... and humans standing in a ritual circle, still chanting as if nothing had happened.

Swords were drawn instantly.

One Exceed flew forward, sword gleaming in the pale moonlight, his voice loud and commanding.

"Humans! How dare you trespass into Exceed territory and attack the Guard Division! I, the Regiment Commander of the Exceed Guard Division, order you to drop your weapons and surrender at once!"

Rhodes had long since decided he wouldn’t waste time talking to enemies mid-battle.

But when he saw the cat’s face and heard that familiar, flamboyantly magnetic voice... 

His mouth moved before he could stop himself.

"Senior Ichiya?!"

"What do you mean ’Ichiya? I am Nichiya, Regiment Commander of the Guard Division!"

The cat, who looked exactly like Ichiya, put his sword fingers together, then crossed his arm over his chest and struck a dramatically familiar pose.

"Meeeeen~~~!"

Rhodes, Lucy, Natsu, Wendy, Carla, and Happy, basically everyone who had ever met Ichiya before, all froze.

Their expressions turned unnaturally stiff.

They hadn’t thought it possible.

That Ichiya’s... one-of-a-kind face... could ever appear twice in the world.

And yet... there it was.

A second one.

Unfortunately, running into such a "familiar" face at this particular moment was the worst possible timing.

Rhodes narrowed his eyes.

If this "Nichiya" is even half as powerful as the original Ichiya... we might be in trouble.

Nichiya clearly realized that the group had no intention of stopping their strange ritual. His brows furrowed, and with a sharp wave of his paw, he issued the order:

"Arrest them, immediately!"

In an instant, sixty to seventy Exceed soldiers swooped from the sky, forming tiered attack formations as they dove down like a carpet of winged warriors.

This time, they didn’t make the same mistake as the previous squad, they didn’t land. Instead, they attacked midair, raining down from above.

Rhodes’s six wraiths immediately surged upward to meet the incoming wave.

Two wraiths paired off per target, colliding with the soldiers and slamming them toward the ground. But after the hit, they didn’t finish the job. Instead, they floated upward again, looking for new targets.

One Exceed tried to help a downed comrade, diving low to grab them, but that’s when wolves leapt out from the darkness, biting into exposed arms and pulling them away from their swords.

The rocky golem creatures, swung massive fists from behind, crashing into the formation and knocking soldiers sideways.

It was a surprise assault that broke the first wave.

The Guard Division’s attack was briefly thrown into chaos.

But sixteen summoned wild monsters, no matter how well-coordinated, couldn’t stop an elite army forever.

"Lucy!" Rhodes called out, already preparing to bring in more help. "Sagittarius—!"

But just as he spoke;

Two magic crystals at the center of the Moon Drip’s purple beam burst with white light.

They began to glow, pulsing brighter and brighter until the light reshaped itself, into the forms of two people!

The Exceeds paused, visibly startled by the transformation.

And then—

From the middle of the light, two very familiar voices stepped out.

Clad in armor and soaked in moonlight;

"Erza!"

"Gray!"