Fairy Tail: I Don't Want to Be the Guild Master-Chapter 343: Wave

"Lucy, go link up with Cana, Loke, and Elfman."

Lucy looked a little unsure. "Ah... Okay!"

Rhodes handed her two crystal and a magic book. "Keep the magic crystal in your pocket and hold on to the spellbook. Don't worry about Virgo's mission for now. If anything goes wrong, summon her back immediately. Stay safe."

"Got it!" Lucy hugged the book tightly and sprinted off toward the Phantom Guild's main gate.

Behind her, the blue-purple tide of voidmites surged forward like a living flood, devouring every sculpture, railing, and ornamental structure surrounding the Phantom.

The foundation was especially to their taste, and before long, it was riddled with gaping holes. freewebnøvel.coɱ

The fastest swarm had already scaled one of the forward-facing spires.

Rhodes and the others watched as tiny purple-blue specks dotted the tower's surface, spreading cracks from base to tip.

The entire tower looked like a rotted tree gnawed hollow by beavers. It began to lean. And then—

Boom.

With a thunderous crash, the spire collapsed in on itself.

Some unfortunate voidmites were crushed beneath the debris and vanished instantly, but those nearby simply swarmed over the wreckage and kept devouring, breaking the rubble into chewable pieces.

They seemed especially fond of tower-shaped structures.

There had been survivors inside. A few managed to crawl out—only to instinctively strike out at the approaching Voidmites. That sealed their fate.

In a flash, they were swarmed. The Voidmites tore through their clothing, leaving them scratched and covered in wounds.

Yet when the survivors collapsed and could no longer fight back, the Voidmites lost interest and moved on.

They didn't eat people. To them, humans were bland. Towers, on the other hand, were delicious.

One after another, the Voidmites leapt over the fallen mages like a horde of Mario characters bounding across obstacles. The spectacle was bizarrely comical.

Of course, not every Voidmite was polite about it. Some landed square on someone's face or belly. The impact wasn't much worse than being pounced on by a hefty housecat.

But they were mages, tough as steel. Surely they'd understand, and forgive the Voidmites for their youthful ignorance.

Soon, the tide of void creatures reached the main structure of the Phantom Guild and began chewing into its corners.

At that moment, the feint team—Cana, Loke, and Elfman, finally saw the "first wave of reinforcements" Rhodes had mentioned earlier.

A tsunami of blue-purple insectoids devouring walls, towers, and rubble. It was the most horrifyingly... comforting thing they'd seen all day.

"Cana! Loke! Elfman!" Lucy called as she ran over. "Are you all right? Mr. Rhodes sent me to find you!"

Loke instinctively tried to vanish, but realizing the battle wasn't over, he managed to keep himself from running.

Cana waved her hand. "We're hanging in there. Can't believe Rhodes actually sent you to the front lines."

They said they were okay, but all three were clearly dusty, scuffed, and worn. It was impossible not to take a few hits when you were holding a line outnumbered ten-to-one.

Lucy lifted the spellbook in her hands. "I'm a Fairy Tail wizard too. I can fight!"

Elfman, now back in his normal form, touched the book tucked in his coat. He had been carrying one of those all along.

Cana and Loke, of course, had left theirs behind, claiming it was too much trouble to lug around.

Boom! Boom!

Chunks of stone blocking the castle entrance were blasted away by a wave of magic from inside. From the dust and rubble, Phantom soldiers came pouring out.

A few of them looked like ordinary people, some unarmed, others clutching magical tools, but most wore the same uniform: stark white robes beneath dark cloaks, each wielding a single-handed sword.

They poured out in a steady stream, almost endless, as if the castle itself were a factory churning them out.

"Wh-What!?" Lucy gasped. "You three have been fighting this many enemies?!"

Cana held a spread of glowing cards between her fingers, her voice serious. "Those are Phantom soldiers, Jose's creations. Constructs brought to life by his magic. But, we didn't realize there were this many."

Loke nodded. "Because the hallway inside was narrow, we only saw a few at a time. It didn't look this bad. We were never facing all of them at once."

"Man!" Elfman shouted, fists clenched.

Cana grabbed him by the collar and spun him around. "Man, it's time to fall back. Let's meet up with the reinforcements while we still can!"

"That's right!" Lucy chimed in quickly. "We do have reinforcements now!"

She dramatically pointed toward the oncoming enemy horde. "Go, army of bugs, charge!!"

A cold wind seemed to blow past her. Lucy froze, hand still extended like a general commanding troops.

The void swarm, however, didn't respond.

They simply continued what they were already doing, chewing through walls and towers, utterly ignoring her declaration.

Lucy blinked in panic. "Ah! I forgot! Mr. Rhodes did say they don't exactly follow orders."

Cana sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Is this what he meant when he told us to retreat? These bugs might be allies, but they're not your bodyguards. Don't expect them to keep us safe."

Lucy looked lost. "So... what do we do now?"

"We run, obviously!" shouted Cana, already turning on her heel and bolting, Loke and Elfman right behind her.

At that moment, a magic bullet exploded at Lucy's feet, blasting a small crater in the ground.

"Huh!?!"

Lucy jumped back in a panic, barely dodging a magical blast that exploded at her feet. Her eyes wide, she nearly cried out from the shock and took off running alongside the others.

Just as the regular Phantom mages and the summoned Phantom Soldiers pursued the four of them toward the advancing swarm, a few of the voidmites broke formation.

They bypassed the four Fairy Tail mages entirely, skittering at their feet without harming them, and lunged straight toward the Phantom troops.

Cana, Loke, Elfman, and Lucy hesitated mid-step, unsure if they should charge ahead or pull back.

"What the heck are those? Bugs?!"

"Ugh, that many in one place is disgusting!"

"They're eating the guild! They're literally chewing through the walls!"

The Phantom grunts were in chaos.

"Phantom Soldiers, get in there and stop them!"

But the artificial Phantom Soldiers didn't seem to respond to commands from ordinary guild members. They were focused only on their initial directive, eliminate Cana and her group.

That is, until the first of them got bitten.

A Phantom Soldier struck a Voidmite cleanly, reducing it to blue-purple dust. But before it could ready another strike, a dozen more swarmed its limbs and shoulders, burying it in a wriggling tide of gnashing jaws.

The grinding sound of magical metal being torn apart echoed eerily across the battlefield. The soldier's armor and robes were shredded to scraps, and even its enchanted frame began to deteriorate, until it simply stopped moving and vanished entirely beneath the swarm.

The Voidmites leapt toward their next target.

Some of the Phantom Soldiers fared better, managing to cut down several Voidmites with swords or spells. But no matter how many they felled, more surged forward, eventually burying even the strongest in a churning mass of teeth and limbs.

The regular Phantom mages had it worse. Unlike the emotionless soldiers, they could feel pain, panic, and hesitation. Their fear made them falter.

And hesitation in the face of this enemy meant death.

Unless they retreated the moment they saw the swarm, the sea of insects would catch them, and swallow them whole.

From above, the battlefield looked like an ocean of color. Black and white waves of Phantom mages and soldiers collided against a relentless blue-purple tide of voidmites.

The front lines shifted back and forth, with neither side holding ground for long. The clash was dotted with sharp bursts of color where the voidmites surged upward like jagged rocks rising from crashing surf, only to fall again as the battle surged on.

It was as if someone had fast-forwarded the grinding collision of tectonic plates and shrunk it down into this battlefield, two magical forces grinding away at each other, both chipping away the other's strength.

But unlike nature, this clash had reinforcements on both sides.

The final outcome would come down to one thing:

Who had more to give.