Rezeria instinctively took a step back as she stared at Meliodas. She didn't understand why she took a step back, yet her body did it anyway. 'I knew something was different about him! I can't play around anymore...I need to take this seriously.'
"Requip: Gravity Core!"
A large greatsword materialized in Meliodas' left hand. He lunged forward at Rezeria at a blinding speed. Before she could even react, he slashed down with the sword. The air around her seemingly shattered and blood gushed profusely out of the front of her body.
'If I hadn't had Wonder Room around my body, I would have been cut in half!'
Rezeria immediately clasped both her hands together. At that moment, the spacious room around them seemingly shattered like glass falling to the floor, revealing them to be in a cramped hallway. 'I'll need all of my magic back to kill this one!'
Rezeria made a slashing motion with her hand at Meliodas. Meliodas raised Gravity Core up in front of him. He suddenly felt a sharp pain go down the left side of his body, starting from his clavicle and down to his leg. He looked to his left and watched a good portion of the left side of his body including his arm and part of his leg fall to the ground, along with Gravity Core's blade being cut in half.
"It doesn't matter how strong you may be, but you can't block an attack that cuts through space itself." Rezeria said as she breathed heavily. She turned around and began to walk towards the stairs. 'He actually forced me to use Wonder Slice...that attack takes up too much magic even for me...what a troublesome boy he was…'
As she took another step towards the stairs, something went flying past her head and down the stairwell. She immediately turned around and saw Meliodas glaring at her, his body completely put back together. 'What?! He healed from an injury like that?!'
Meliodas leaped forward at Rezeria, but she quickly raised her right hand up and a strange force began to cramp Meliodas as he was right in front of her, stopping him in place. Meliodas began to curl up as he found the space he was trapped in getting smaller and smaller. To her surprise, the space wouldn't shrink past a certain point.
"You're resisting? Impressive. Then how about this!" Rezeria made a pushing motion with her hands, causing Meliodas to get sent flying out of the side of the mansion. He was launched into the nearby forest, many kilometers away from the mansion. Meliodas suddenly felt the cube begin compressing even further as Rezeria appeared right in front of him.
"If I flare up my magic too much, my poor mansion might collapse. So this place will do nicely." Rezeria said as her magical power began to rise. The ground around her began to shake as she raised both hands out in front of her. Meliodas could feel an even greater pressure pushing down on him, trying to crush him. Meliodas clenched his teeth and closed his eyes for a brief moment.
His eyes opened and darkness began to envelop his entire body. Rezeria's eyes widened as she sensed an incredibly enormous magical presence coming from Meliodas. 'What's he doing?!'
"HAAAAAHHHH!!!!" Meliodas screamed at the top of his lungs as darkness leaked from his body, surrounding him completely as the spatial barrier surrounding Meliodas shattered like glass. Rezeria's expression turned from shock to absolute horror as a giant wall of dark energy was about to envelop her.
"Y-you're a monster…"
---
"W-what's going on?!" Meredy screamed as the ground shook violently. Jellal stared towards the back of the house as he felt a terrifyingly strong magic nearby. The shaking eventually stopped and Jellal continued to stare at the back of the mansion.
"Stay here with Ultear." Jellal said. He slowly got up and began walking towards the back of the mansion. He immediately stopped as the floor and entire back end of the mansion was gone. In front of him was a giant gaping hole in the earth that seemingly went on for miles. 'I can't even see the bottom…' Jellal thought as he peered over the edge.
"Yo!" Meliodas greeted from above. Jellal looked up in the sky and saw Meliodas hovering down towards him with black wings coming out of his back. Meliodas landed on the ground next to Jellal, his black wings receding.
"You did this?!" Jellal questioned with a look of awe on his normally stoic face.
"Yup." Meliodas responded nonchalantly. "Let's head back."
Jellal decided not to question Meliodas further and followed him inside the mansion. Sitting in the middle of the hall were Meredy and Ultear. To Jellal's surprise, Ultear's eyes were opened and she was sitting up.
"Ultear, you're okay!" Jellal commented with relief in his voice.
"I got lucky. If Nyx hadn't hesitated, I would be dead. I had just enough time to take half a step back to keep her from ripping through me…" Ultear said solemnly as she winced a bit in pain.
"Ultear...it was my fault that you had to get hurt like this…" Meredy said somberly.
"No. It's not your fault. It was my own weakness for not being able to stop Nyx in the first place. If it hadn't been for Meliodas we would all be dead now." Jellal said. The hall grew silent for a moment as they took in Jellal's words. They looked towards the entryway of the mansion where Nyx's body lay in a large crater in front of the door.
"Oh yeah, I have to pick up Gravity Core." Meliodas commented. He walked over to Nyx's body, and pulled out the heavy sword with little effort. The sword began to glow briefly before vanishing.
"It's impressive that you managed to throw that heavy sword at her while you were fighting Rezeria and hit Nyx perfectly with it." Jellal commented.
"Well you know what the article says about me. Don't doubt my eyesight that-"
"That's enough Meliodas!" Ultear shouted. She immediately hunched over in pain and held her torso. "You're going to make my wounds open up again." Ultear sighed with a small smile on her face.
"Let's head back to Silva. Ultear needs her wounds treated." Meredy added.
"You four won't be heading anywhere." A voice said from the entryway. The four of them turned around and saw the two masked men from earlier walking towards them.
"Phonoi." Meliodas said in a serious tone.
"Now that you're significantly weakened, Meliodas, we can finally kill you. Rezeria isn't here to stop us any longer." One of the masked men said. "We saw that massive blast you created earlier. That blast certainly had to have drained a lot of your magic."
"As for your friends behind you, we prefer not to kill those who aren't on the list. If you three don't want to die, then stay out of it. In fact, I'll offer you some friendly advice. You should get out of here. Silva is most likely going to send their guard to investigate and they'll be here any minute." The other masked man added. Jellal immediately walked up to next to Meliodas, standing slightly in front of him.
"Meliodas don't worry about them. Leave them to me-"
"No." Meliodas said in a serious tone as he walked in front of Jellal. He glared at the two Phonoi assassins.
"I'll make two things clear with you, Phonoi." Meliodas said, the tone of his voice turning darker. His eyes turned pitch black as a large black spiral marking appeared over his right eye, covering half of his forehead with the lower end of the spiral running down to his upper right cheek. Jellal immediately took a step back as he sensed an incredibly ominous aura coming from Meliodas. Meredy and Ultear watched in shock at Meliodas' sudden transformation and change of demeanor.
"I won't be killed by the likes of you, and none of my friends will die here."