"Igneel! It looks like Face ended up going off anyway." Meliodas shouted. Igneel looked to Meliodas and nodded.
"Do not worry. There is a plan for that already in motion. Just hold on for a few more moments!" Igneel responded as he tried to hold Acnologia down who was squirming beneath him. Suddenly, Acnologia pushed Igneel off of him and lunged at him, ready to bite him.
Acnologia stopped short as he felt something holding him by the tail, turning his head to see Meliodas. Acnologia quickly flicked his tail, knocking Meliodas away.
Acnologia turned to face Igneel once again only to see that Igneel had flown up into the sky. Above Acnologia, was a mass of darkness larger than the dragon. He turned around to see Meliodas behind him with both of his hands raised up. Meliodas slammed both hands down, causing the mass of darkness to fall onto the black dragon.
"S-something like this…" Acnologia grumbled. "WON'T WORK!"
Acnologia let out a mighty roar and spun around, freeing himself from Meliodas' suppression and striking Meliodas with his claws, cutting Meliodas' upper body into thirds and slamming him through the forest, knocking down and destroying many trees in his path.
Igneel again dive bombed on top of Acnologia, but this time, Acnologia turned around delivering a strong blow to Igneels chest.
Igneel fell back a hundred meters before recovering. Igneel inhaled, storing a massive amount of magic in his lungs, before exhaling a devastating flame breath that covered the sky.
Meliodas stood up in the distance, he looked towards the sky with the massive fire still lingering behind. 'Wow not bad.' Meliodas thought. However, despite the massive attack, he could see that Acnologia was completely unharmed. It was just used to buy time.
Igneel charged towards acnologia, as the two clashed, numerous wounds began appearing on Igneel.
"How long can you keep this up, dragon! Soon you will succumb and I will be the last dragon standing." Acnologia roared as continued his assault on Igneel.
"You think it's just me here!" Igneel laughed.
Acnologia narrowed his eyes as he looked around, watching the numerous face pillars crumbling down one by one.
Suddenly, Acnologia felt the presence of four other dragons approaching. The four dragons landed next to Igneel; one with a white body, blue eyes, and feathery scales, one covered with iron scales with plates on his appendages, one with pitch black scales, red eyes with no pupils, and a mane of shadows, and the last dragon, a dragon with white scales, yellow eyes, and a white beard.
"Grandeeney the sky dragon, Metalicana the Iron Dragon, Skiadrum the Shadow Dragon, and Weisslogia the White Dragon…" Acnologia commented. "I'll slay you all right here!"
"Meliodas. You can leave the rest to us. Go and help Natsu! I sense an ominous, yet familiar presence nearby." Igneel said. Meliodas looked to the distance and his eyes widened as he also sensed that presence, the same one he had sensed on Tenrou Island.
Meliodas patted Igneel on the head before flying off.
"Make sure you don't die!"
—
"Now…where's that book…" Natsu looked around and saw the book of END lying on the ground next to some rubble. He leaned down, ready to pick it up, only for another hand to quickly snatch it away. Natsu looked up in surprise that Gray was the one holding the book.
"Gray!" Natsu exclaimed. "Where the hell have you been?! More importantly though, I'm gonna need that book."
"No." Gray responded coldly. "This book here is something I must destroy."
"Dammit Gray! Igneel told me to get that back! Now stop fooling around and hand it over!" Natsu yelled. Gray remained silent as he stared at Natsu. Suddenly, the book vanished out of his grasp.
"W-what the?!" Gray looked down at his hand that was originally holding the book.
"Dammit! What did you do?!" Natsu yelled.
"I didn't do anything!" Gray retorted.
"This book belongs to me." A voice said from behind them. Both Gray and Natsu immediately turned around as they sensed a presence behind them. Standing there holding a book was a young man with short black hair and dark eyes with a calm smile on his face. He wore high collared black robes with a golden trim and a white toga draped down from his left shoulder around his torso.
"Z-Zeref!" Natsu exclaimed.
Zeref turned his head to the body of Mard Geer, which was nothing but smoldering ashes.
"Natsu, you've grown stronger. You did well to defeat Mard Geer."
From above, a figure landed hard on the ground in front of Natsu and Gray, causing the ground to crack. Gray stared at the figure in front of him.
"Meliodas…" Gray muttered. 'Now that I possess devil slayer magic, I can see clearly that you really are a demon…an extremely powerful at that.'
"Zeref." Meliodas said in a serious tone, staring at Zeref with his emerald green eyes fiercely. "I'm going to need that book back."
"So you survived your bout with Acnologia and I suppose Igneel tasked you with this as well." Zeref commented.
"Meliodas! You have to destroy that book!" Gray shouted.
"Can't do that. Igneel has some answers to questions that I absolutely need answered." Meliodas replied.
"Then…" Gray raised his palm out towards Meliodas. Meliodas' eyes widened as his body became extremely cold and was encased in a block of ice.
"Gray?! What the hell are you doing?!" Natsu shouted.
The ice that surrounded Meliodas suddenly shattered as Meliodas had a change of features; his eyes turned pitch black, a black circular marking appeared on his forehead, and darkness formed a cloak around his upper body as well as covering his legs entirely.
"What the hell?!" Gray exclaimed. With his devil slayer eye, he could not only feel, but clearly see the difference in power between Meliodas and the other demons of Tartaros.
Without a glance at Gray, a tendril of darkness shot out of Meliodas' cloak, ensnaring him to the ground.
"W-what the…" Gray grunted. "Even with my devil slayer magic, I can't break out of this?!"
"Gray, we don't have time for infighting." Meliodas said before glancing at Natsu. "Let's get that book back."
Natsu clenched his fists and widened his stance. His magic began to flare up as black flames engulfed his body and scales started to form on his face.
"Let's do this Meliodas!" Natsu said with a grin.
"So those are the black flames that took down Mard Geer that you received from Meliodas." Zeref commented as he looked at Natsu then at Meliodas.
Meliodas charged forward at Zeref, disappearing in front of him and reappearing behind him with Neo Mel Force drawn.
"One Thousand Divine Cuts!"
Blood gushed out of Zeref's body and he fell to one knee. To Meliodas' surprise, his wounds almost immediately disappeared and a smile formed on Zeref's face.
"You're quite powerful. I see why Acnologia was so excited to fight you." Zeref said. 'Among my Spriggan 12, even Irene and August working together would struggle to defeat him.'
"Your wounds…" Meliodas was immediately reminded of Ban's immortality when Zeref's wounds closed upon being cut. In fact, his wounds sealed even faster than Ban's. "You're immortal aren't you."
"So you can tell? I presume that you've fought other immortals then." Zeref remarked.
Natsu charged in at Zeref with a fist clad in black flames. He delivered the punch straight to Zeref's face, sending the black mage flying. Zeref landed on his feet and put his hand on his cheek as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Zeref's eyes widened as the bruise on his cheek wasn't going away immediately.
'It couldn't be…those black flames can halt the regeneration of an immortal?'
In front of Zeref, Natsu took a deep breath in as he gathered magical energy in his mouth.
"Hellblaze Dragon's Roar!"
Natsu let loose a blast of black flames in a huge beam at Zeref. Zeref jumped up into the air to avoid the blast as it went by just under him. Behind him, he noticed Meliodas had his sword drawn and was in the path of the beam.
"Full Counter!"
Meliodas swung Neo Mel Force, redirecting Natsu's attack upward towards Zeref. Zeref turned his body away from the blast, with the blast still managing to singe his left arm. Zeref fell to the ground and looked at his smoldering arm that was not healing itself, with all the skin and flesh nearly burned away down to the bone.
'These two…could they actually kill me?' Zeref began to feel something welling up inside of him. A feeling he had not felt in years. He could feel his heart race. Was it fear or excitement? No, it was something else. He looked at the black flames surrounding Natsu. 'Maybe…I can finally die?'
Meliodas suddenly appeared in front of Zeref with his sword drawn and clad in black flames.
"Enchant Hellblaze!"
Meliodas slashed down across Zeref's body. Blood gushed out of Zeref's body and he took a few steps back. He felt the deep searing pain of his wound that would have killed any mortal. 'It really is those black flames…but I've never once heard of or encountered a lost magic that can halt even my regeneration. Although…even if they were to destroy my body completely, it would eventually come back, because that is the nature of Ankhseram's curse…'
Meliodas leaned forward and prepared to strike Zeref again. With his sword drawn, he cut straight through Zeref.
"Lightning Sword Flash!"
To Meliodas' surprise, he felt his blade had not come into contact with anything. He turned around and saw Zeref was no longer there.
"Over there!" Natsu shouted as he pointed to one of the pillars sticking out of the ground. On top of it, Zeref was standing with blood dripping down his body and down the pillar.
Zeref clasped both of his hands together, forming a black orb in front of him that he launched at Meliodas.
"Meliodas! Don't let that magic hit you!" Natsu shouted.
Meliodas raised his palm out in front of him, just as the orb was about to collide with him, causing the orb to disperse.
"You can negate Ankhseram Black Magic?" Zeref questioned with a look of intrigue.
"Ankhseram Black Magic?" Meliodas asked. He tried to recall where he saw the name Ankhseram before while he was trying to research different magics to find a way back to Britannia.
"That was…the god of life and death? What does that have to do with your magic?" Meliodas questioned further. "Does that have something to do with your immortality?"
"You could say it does. But that has nothing to do with you. This fight between us is meaningless as of right now and I have retrieved what I've originally came for."
Meliodas, who was watching Zeref intently without blinking, was caught by surprise when Zeref suddenly vanished without a trace. He looked at Natsu who was just as confused as he was.
"That bastard teleported somewhere!" Natsu shouted. "I'll sniff him out and find him!"
"No…I don't think that was teleportation…" Meliodas responded, his demonic features receding and the darkness on his body going away.