Fairy Tail: The Faint Smile in Earthland

The farther Teresa moved into the ruins, the more unnatural the terrain became. The cracked ridges narrowed into twisting canyons where strange stone formations jutted like petrified ribs, arching inward unnaturally. The very air pulsed beneath her boots as if the ancient magic infusing the land was alive—breathing.

Her silver eyes narrowed. The distortions weren't simply old; they were feeding. Drawing ambient energy from Earthland itself. A cursed ecosystem, self-sustaining in slow, steady corruption.

The Council had labeled this a forgotten research outpost. Teresa sensed something far older—a desperate experiment carried out by mages who feared something greater than failure. She had seen such patterns before. In her old world, human arrogance invited ruin by tampering with Yoma's flesh. The echo here was familiar.

She paused at the mouth of a narrow cavern splitting into the earth like a jagged wound. Her senses extended outward, tracing faint magical signatures threading through the stone.

Movement.

Three distinct presences. Weaker than the first abomination, but unstable. Flickering like fragile candles compared to the heavy core pulsing deeper below.

She stepped inside.

The cavern was wide enough to allow freedom of movement, though the uneven ground made footing treacherous. Pale fungal growths clung to the walls, casting an eerie green glow across her silver armor. Her white cloak trailed behind, pristine despite the dust, the black Fairy Tail emblem stark against the shifting light.

The first creature revealed itself quickly.

Smaller than the previous one, roughly human-sized, but its elongated neck and spindly limbs bent at unnatural angles. Semi-transparent flesh exposed twitching muscles beneath, with veins pulsing erratically under thin skin. Its head bore no features—only a single vertical slit that glowed faint yellow like a narrowed eye.

It hissed and lunged, its limbs snapping backward unnaturally as it bounded forward.

Teresa stood her ground, eyes calm and calculating.

As it struck, she shifted smoothly, activating Silken Nerve Control. Her muscles flowed like liquid as she sidestepped. The claws swiped through empty air.

Before it recovered, her Claymore flashed—bisecting its torso cleanly. The halves landed with wet slaps, leaking black ichor across the cavern floor.

The echoes of its shriek had barely faded before two more shapes emerged from the shadows ahead. They moved in tandem—coordinated despite their grotesque forms.

Not natural.

Engineered.

The first leaped high, angling toward the ceiling for an aerial strike, while the second charged low in tandem—a pincer assault.

Teresa lowered her stance. She allowed the ground-level attacker to close, then activated Phantom Step, vanishing into a burst of speed. She reappeared behind the airborne one as it descended. Her blade swept upward, severing its left arm mid-flight. It crashed to the ground in a shriek of warped pain.

The other adapted instantly, spinning and launching barbed tendrils from its shoulders. The fleshy whips snapped toward her in wide arcs.

She triggered Void Sever, slicing through the tendrils in rapid, precise strikes. Sparks of corrupted energy crackled as severed appendages fell, twitching and spasming.

The first beast tried to rise, its arm already regrowing. But Teresa shifted her weight and drove her Claymore downward through its skull, splitting it cleanly.

The second creature hesitated.

For a moment, it swayed—processing, calculating.

Then it spoke.

The voice that emerged was wrong—a layered whisper of multiple tones blending into one distorted chorus.

"You should not... disturb... the seal."

Teresa's eyes narrowed. This was different. The previous abominations hadn't spoken.

"Seal?" she echoed calmly.

The creature trembled. Its body flickered, as though caught between conflicting orders.

"The gate... must remain closed... or all will bleed."

As the words left its misshapen form, its chest split with jagged cracks. Pulsing magic ruptured outward as the unstable energy inside began to spiral out of control.

"Self-termination," Teresa muttered, recognizing the familiar pattern.

She triggered Phantom Step once more, vanishing just as the creature detonated in a burst of corrupted energy. Bone fragments and shards scattered as a shockwave rattled the cavern, but quickly faded.

The heavy silence that followed was thicker than before.

Lowering her sword, Teresa extended her senses deeper beyond the cavern walls. The words still echoed in her mind.

The gate.

It confirmed what she already suspected. This wasn't merely an abandoned laboratory. A containment structure lay deeper—a crude dimensional experiment tied to Earthland's ancient forbidden research into spatial manipulation. The kind of arrogance that once birthed disasters like the Eclipse Gate(in the future).

But unlike Eclipse, this was cruder. Less stable. And potentially far more catastrophic if disturbed.

Her faint smile returned, devoid of warmth.

"Always cleaning after those who cannot master their creations."

She resheathed her Claymore, letting it vanish into her Requip space to ease movement through the narrowing passage. The path dipped steeply into a spiral descent of jagged stone, like a crude staircase carved by the collapse itself.

With every step, the vibrations grew stronger.

These were no longer creatures ahead.

She was approaching the containment structure—the true heart of the Forgotten Gate.

Whatever awaited her beneath, she would face it.

And, as always, she would erase it.