Meliodas looked around him as Erza, Gajeel, Pantherlily, and Jura were suddenly teleported away. Suddenly, the ground around Meliodas began to rise high into the air, forming large walls.
Meliodas quickly charged towards one of the walls and wound his left fist back. He threw a heavy punch towards the wall, but to his surprise, his fist rebounded back as a large shockwave reverberated from the force, creating a large echo. Meliodas fell backwards and tumbled several meters before regaining his balance again.
Meliodas stood back up and shook his hand. He looked up at the wall that was still rising. He noticed runes had appeared on the wall as he tried to punch it. 'Just like Freed's. I don't think I'm able to break through this with raw strength.'
Meliodas squatted down, preparing to jump high into the air. With great power, he leaped from his spot, cracking the hard ground beneath him as he propelled himself upwards towards the top of the wall. Just as he was about to hit the top of the wall, his eyes widened in surprise as he felt a sharp pain to his head as he slammed straight into the invisible wall. Strange runes began forming where he had slammed his head.
Meliodas fell back to the ground and landed on his butt.He rubbed his forehead where he hit the invisible rune wall headfirst. 'That really hurt...whoever made this really put a lot of time into preparation.' Meliodas thought as he shook off the pain. Meliodas stood back up and looked straight ahead at the path. The great earthen walls had stopped rising and there was but a wide, singular path that was about as wide as the main road of Magnolia Town.
"Well, well, well. I guess I have no choice." Meliodas said as he began walking down the path. He looked around at the walls, hoping to see some kind of opening but he could not find one. After several minutes of walking, he eventually reached a fork in the path. He looked down both directions and saw that they lead to more forks in the road. Meliodas sighed and shook his head.
'This is a real pain. I can't seem to sense magic inside of this maze either and these walls won't break. I hope everyone else is doing alright.'
---
Jura placed his right hand on the large stone wall in front of him. A magic circle formed on the wall as a large explosion blew up that portion of the wall. A hole opened up big enough for Jura to walk through.
"Perfect, now I can-" Jura's eyes widened as the wall immediately closed shut. Jura made a strange motion with his right hand as another magic circle formed in front of him. Several pillars of earth shot out from the magic circle and shot out at the wall. Jura quickly ran towards the wall but to his surprise, the wall had already closed again.
"The wall itself is surprisingly sturdy, but this regeneration is something else...I wonder how much preparation was put into this…" Jura commented. He stared at the wall as he put his hand on it again. 'Earlier, I tried breaking through the wall as it was forming, but I was unable to even contact it as the runes got in the way. It appears those runes were to protect the wall's formation and now that it's formed, the runes changed their purpose from absolute protection into simple regeneration. This level of jutsu shiki is indeed very high…' Jura thought as he took his hand off the wall. 'I guess I have no choice but to comply and follow through in this "Great Maze."
---
"Dammit break already!" Gajeel shouted as he continued to furiously punch the wall with iron clad hands. His punches left small dents in the wall that repaired themselves in no time.
"You're only wasting your energy doing that. It looks like we have no choice but to traverse through this maze." Lily said. Gajeel sighed as his iron clad hands turned back to normal. He looked up at the open sky above.
"Hey wait! You can fly up there!" Gajeel pointed out.
"Already tried that." Lily replied, pointing to the large bump on the top of his head.
"Tch...I guess we really gotta do this crap then…" Gajeel said.
Gajeel and Lily walked down the rocky path of the maze. Gajeel reached into his pocket and pulled out the black cloth of the assailant that Captain Frestes had managed to get his hands on.
"You think you'll be able to track the guy inside of here?" Lily asked. Gajeel returned a smirk to Lily.
"These walls may make it hard to sense magic, but they haven't taken away my sense of smell." Gajeel replied confidently as he put the cloth up to his nose.
"Alright. I got that bastard's scent again. In these walls, his scent is a lot easier to narrow down. We'll just follow it and be outta here in no time! Then we'll kick that guy's ass!"
"Sorry, but I don't think that's going to happen." A voice said. Gajeel and Lily looked around and saw a large group of men consisting of a dozen people walk out from behind the corner of one of the walls. The mean each wore black hoods and masks that hid their faces. The hoods were connected to a sleeveless vest that revealed their arms. On their shoulders, was an insignia that resembled a black Jack-o-lantern.
"So all of you want to get beat up first. Alright then." Gajeel remarked as he cracked his knuckles.
"You may be Black Steel Gajeel, but not even you can defeat all of us by yourself." One of the men replied.
"He's not alone." Lily declared. His small, stout body began to grow, growing taller than Gajeel. His muscles grew larger as the features on his face became more rugged and he appeared to look older.
"Earthland still doesn't fit well with this body, but this will be more than enough to deal with them."
---
Erza looked up in awe as the walls finished forming around her. She looked around her to see if anyone had teleported with her, but to her dismay, there was no one else that came long.
'I see...we were all separated. This kind of jutsu shiki might even be better than Freed's…' Erza thought as she gazed ahead. She looked just above the walls and could see the top of the castle looming over her. 'This is only a small obstacle. I will get through this and reach that castle!'
Erza summoned her blade to her hand and lept forward towards the wall. She unleashed a flurry of slices at the earthen wall, leaving deep grooves in it. At some points, you could even see the other side of the wall. However, the wall quickly closed back up.
'So these walls aren't indestructible. They're tough to cut through but if my power could somehow exceed the wall's regeneration…'
Erza's armor began to glow as she requipped into her blackwing armor. She unleashed another flurry of cuts towards the wall, creating even larger gaps. The gaps quickly filled up as fast as they were formed as Erza continued to slash at the wall.
'This is getting nowhere. I don't have the sword speed or power to cut through this unordinary rock. It would probably take someone of Meliodas' caliber to break through. At this rate, I'll just be wasting my stamina.' Erza requipped back into her regular Heart Kreuz armor and took a deep breath. She looked ahead of her at the path and ran forward.