Chapter 40: Moonlight Against the Earth
The battlefield had barely finished repairing itself from Logan and Erza's apocalyptic exchange before the Fairy Games moved on.
Broken towers sank smoothly beneath the arena floor. Craters sealed themselves. Stone flowed together like water before flattening into pristine terrain once more, courtesy of the ridiculous amount of spatial, construction, and self-repair magic Krampus had dumped into the stadium.
Within less than a minute, there was no evidence that a giant red werewolf had almost turned a little knight into finely diced sashimi.
That was probably for the best.
The floating screens shifted.
Two new portraits appeared.
BERNARD BRUNSTEAD
ADAM CHAMP
The audience immediately erupted again.
Unlike Logan and Erza, there was considerably less tension surrounding this matchup before it began.
Bernard and Adam knew each other.
They had trained together.
They had sparred before.
They knew what the other was capable of—or at least, they thought they did.
That familiarity removed the awkwardness that often came before tournament battles.
No need for dramatic introductions.
No need for posturing.
No need for long speeches about resolve.
When the teleportation circles deposited them onto opposite ends of the new battlefield, Bernard simply lifted one hand in greeting.
Adam rested both hands on the handle of the enormous sledgehammer resting against his shoulder.
"Been a while since we had a proper one."
Bernard smiled.
"Last time you dropped a wall on me."
"You shot me through three walls first."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I meant to do it."
Adam stared at him for a second.
Then he laughed.
"Fair enough."
The two men had always gotten along remarkably well.
Adam was dependable, practical, and possessed the kind of quiet confidence that came from years of solving problems with his own hands. Bernard appreciated that.
Bernard, meanwhile, was laid-back despite his intimidating appearance, patient to a fault, and almost impossible to provoke unless someone threatened the people he cared about. Adam appreciated that just as much.
Neither had anything to prove personally.
But ten million Jewels were still ten million Jewels.
And more importantly—
They were both warriors.
Adam planted the head of his hammer into the ground.
"So?"
Bernard reached toward the clasp on his spiritual equipment.
"Let's make this a good one."
"Was planning to."
Their magic ignited.
The transformations came almost simultaneously.
Adam's equipment assembled over him first in layers of bronze light and earthy brown mana.
He was already a massive man at seven feet tall, his body built through years of Fairy Tail's bodybuilding magic into the sort of broad, muscular physique that made ordinary armor look redundant.
Accordingly, his spiritual equipment barely bothered covering it.
His chest remained completely bare save for a thick leather harness crossing over his pecs and upper back, decorated with small metallic plates and engraved studs. A short cape wrapped around one shoulder and across part of his upper body, its heavy fabric designed more like a gladiator's military mantle than a proper cloak.
Thick leather vambraces enclosed his forearms.
Matching greaves covered his lower legs.
A broad leather belt wrapped securely around his waist, reinforced with metal fittings and layered over a skirt of heavy leather pteruges. Beneath them sat fitted leather briefs that kept the ensemble firmly within the realm of battle equipment instead of becoming an accidental public indecency charge.
Most of the outfit was leather.
The exceptions mattered.
Metallic reinforcements lined the belt, harness, greaves, and vambraces, catching the stadium lights whenever Adam moved.
Then came the helmet.
A heavy metal helm formed around his head with a deep clang, styled somewhere between a Spartan commander and a gladiatorial champion. Two thick bull-like horns swept from its sides, giving Adam the unmistakable silhouette of some ancient earth deity preparing to enter an arena.
His spiritual weapon materialized last.
A giant sledgehammer.
The shaft alone was nearly as tall as an ordinary person, while the rectangular head looked like something used to demolish castle foundations rather than fight another human being.
Adam rolled one shoulder.
The hammer landed against the ground with a low—
THOOM.
The battlefield trembled.
Across from him, Bernard's transformation carried a completely different feeling.
His human body expanded.
Bones shifted.
Muscles thickened.
Fur spread across his skin as his hands became clawed paws, his face lengthening into the powerful muzzle of a werewolf.
His already huge frame grew even more imposing.
Yet his spiritual equipment remained surprisingly light.
A dark, hooded sleeveless leather jacket appeared around his shoulders, cut short enough that it did nothing to conceal his massive torso. Two specially shaped openings in the hood allowed his wolf ears to pass through naturally should he pull it up.
Beneath it, Bernard's chest and abdomen remained bare.
Only a thick leather H-harness crossed over the dense muscle and fur covering his pecs and stomach.
Leather vambraces wrapped his forearms.
His legs were covered by loose martial pants extending past the knees, specially cut with an open central design that left the front and rear of his reinforced leather briefs visible while allowing complete freedom of motion. A tail opening at the rear prevented the obvious anatomical inconvenience of trying to stuff a werewolf tail into normal trousers.
Leather sandals covered his paws, reinforced by greaves running along the front of his lower legs.
The overall image was unusual.
Part hunter.
Part martial artist.
Part ferocious forest monster.
And somehow incredibly elegant despite all the fur and leather.
Two curved sabers manifested in Bernard's hands.
Each possessed a slightly recurved blade with moonlike engravings running near the edge.
They could function independently as swords.
But when locked together at the hilt, magical mechanisms aligned the opposing curves and generated a luminous bowstring between them, transforming the pair into Bernard's enormous greatbow.
The screens above the battlefield displayed both fighters.
In the announcer booth, Krampus leaned forward eagerly.
"Oh, this one's going to be good."
Laxus nodded.
"Two completely different builds."
"Very different. Adam's basically a walking RTS economy."
"And Bernard?"
Krampus grinned.
"A sniper who discovered melee combat and decided he liked that too."
The bell rang.
Bernard moved first.
His sabers snapped together.
The greatbow formed.
He drew the glowing string back.
No physical arrow was required.
Moon-white light condensed automatically between his fingers.
Bernard released.
One arrow became three.
Three became nine.
Nine became twenty-seven.
Then space folded.
The arrows vanished.
Adam's eyes sharpened.
They reappeared from every direction around him.
Above.
Behind.
To his left.
To his right.
Several even emerged from tiny spatial distortions directly beneath the edge of his cape.
Self-replication.
Spatial jumping.
A hunter's perfect surrounding barrage.
Bernard had no intention of wasting time slowly testing Adam's defenses.
Adam apparently felt the same way.
He lifted his sledgehammer.
And slammed it down.
BOOOOOOM!
The earth exploded.
A circular wave travelled outward from the hammerhead.
Dozens of stone spikes erupted around Adam in a rough sphere of interlocking trajectories.
The first wave of light arrows struck them.
Explosions filled the air.
Bernard's arrows shattered stone.
The stone spikes intercepted arrows.
White light and brown earth magic spread across the battlefield in overlapping bursts.
Adam had already moved to the next stage.
The ground around him bulged.
Metal blades emerged first.
Spears.
Swords.
Halberds.
Axes.
Dozens of them sprouted from the earth point-first like some insane underground armory had suddenly decided to germinate.
Then the weapons fired.
Bernard's ears shot upright.
"Oh."
The first spear accelerated toward him.
Bernard fired an arrow.
The two collided.
BOOM!
Then everything else came.
A storm of melee weapons launched from the ground.
Bernard drew the greatbow back repeatedly, his arms becoming blurs.
Light arrows multiplied as quickly as he could loose them.
The sky between both fighters filled with projectiles.
The result stopped resembling archery within seconds.
It became artillery.
Every collision produced an explosion of sparks, magic, metal fragments, and shattered stone.
A sword collided with a light arrow and detonated.
Three spears were destroyed by a single replicating shot.
A cluster of arrows warped past the front line only for Adam to raise another slab of stone beneath them.
Bernard adjusted immediately.
Adam adjusted immediately after him.
Then the ground around Adam changed again.
Long metal tubes rose.
Erza leaned forward sharply from the contestant observation section.
"…Are those cannons?"
They were.
Heavy cannon barrels emerged from the earth.
Beside them came smaller constructions.
Rifles.
Rotary guns.
Long-barrelled magical firearms.
Then several enormous gatling assemblies erupted from the soil like particularly violent bamboo shoots.
Erza's mouth slowly opened.
The barrels rotated.
A wall of projectiles screamed toward Bernard.
Erza's eye twitched.
"That is unfair."
Cana glanced at her.
"You literally own a Treasury full of weapons."
"I had to buy mine."
Another dozen rifles grew from the earth.
Erza's expression darkened.
"He is growing them."
Ultear tried not to laugh.
"He can't keep them permanently."
"That does not make me feel better."
Another cannon emerged.
Erza looked personally betrayed by reality.
Adam's magic was called Earthbound Constructor.
Calling it Earth Magic alone would have been woefully inaccurate.
It was a super composite magic specially compiled for Adam by Krampus after studying his natural affinity for minerals, craftsmanship, construction, and creation magic.
At its core sat Make Magic.
Around that core, Krampus had welded together practically every compatible earth-related discipline he could find.
Earth manipulation.
Stone shaping.
Mineral extraction.
Metal creation.
Geological sensing.
Crystal growth.
Underground material retrieval.
Construction magic.
Weapon fabrication.
Artifact replication.
Even limited archaeological recovery principles.
If something could be made from materials originating within the earth—or if the real object had been buried, lost, broken down, or absorbed into the ground long ago—Adam could theoretically reproduce it.
Theoretically was doing a lot of work there.
Because Krampus, being Krampus, had also attached an auxiliary information system to the magic.
Wisdom of Earthland.
It functioned as a lite version of Krampus's own Earthland's Memory.
Adam could not freely interrogate the planetary consciousness for any information he wanted.
What he could access was construction knowledge.
Craftsmanship.
Architecture.
Weapons.
Tools.
Machines.
Metallurgy.
Engineering.
Anything that had ever been successfully built from earthly materials could potentially have its structural information presented to him through the Wisdom of Earthland.
Which meant Adam never needed blueprints.
He only needed mana.
That distinction was very important.
Because, technically speaking, Adam could pull a reproduction of Nirvana out of the ground if he really wanted to.
He would then probably lie down from kidney deficiency.
Possibly for several weeks.
Because knowing how to build something and possessing enough magical power to manifest it were two completely different matters.
Adam himself had once described the limitation more simply.
"I can build anything."
Then, after a pause:
"I cannot afford to build anything."
For normal combat equipment, however, the cost was trivial.
Which was why Bernard currently found himself in a magical reenactment of industrialized warfare.
Light arrows filled one half of the battlefield.
Weapons, bullets, shells, stone spikes, and magical ammunition filled the other.
The two firepower networks collided continuously between them.
From the spectator stands, the entire arena looked like someone had stretched an explosion into a wall.
Bernard fired another barrage.
Adam stood behind his sledgehammer.
His hands rested casually over the top of its handle.
His cape fluttered.
His horned helmet caught the light.
He looked remarkably relaxed for a man currently participating in what appeared to be a small war.
Bernard noticed.
That was concerning.
More concerning was the magic beneath Adam's feet.
Earth mana flowed continuously upward into him.
Small expenditures vanished almost as soon as he made them.
The terrain itself resupplied him.
Bernard's light arrows did not enjoy that luxury.
Each shot cost him.
Not much individually.
But thousands of arrows stopped being individually inexpensive very quickly.
Another group of weapons erupted from the ground.
Bernard fired.
They exploded.
He drew again.
His breathing remained steady.
His arms remained strong.
But his instincts were beginning to whisper.
This isn't sustainable.
Adam had no reason to stop.
Every cannon destroyed could simply be remade.
Every rifle shattered could be replaced.
Every sword reduced to scrap was already made from material Adam controlled.
Bernard fired a spatial arrow.
It vanished.
Normally it would have reappeared directly behind Adam.
Instead—
The arrow snapped back into normal space halfway across the battlefield.
Bernard blinked.
He tried again.
Same result.
Only then did he notice them.
Four pillars had emerged from the ground around Adam.
One behind him.
One in front.
Two at the sides.
Their surfaces were covered in geometric carvings glowing with earth magic.
Bernard's eyes narrowed.
A spatial lock.
Adam had erected some kind of localized dimensional stabilization field.
Bernard could still warp his arrows elsewhere.
He just could not teleport them inside Adam's protected zone.
"That's new."
Adam heard him despite the explosions.
"I knew I'd be fighting you eventually."
Bernard fired another spread of arrows.
"So you made anti-me preparations?"
"Of course."
"That's rude."
"You're the one teleporting arrows behind people."
"Fair."
Then Bernard felt something else.
Deep underground.
Large.
Very large.
The werewolf's fur prickled.
Adam was building something.
Something big.
If Bernard allowed the ranged contest to continue, Adam would finish whatever was growing beneath them.
And Bernard had absolutely no interest in discovering what it was while standing on the receiving end.
The greatbow split apart.
Twin sabers returned to his hands.
Bernard exhaled.
Moonlight descended.
It did not fall from the actual moon.
The artificial battlefield did not even have one.
The light came from Bernard himself.
Pale blue radiance spread beneath his fur.
His body became outlined in sacred luminosity.
The tips of his fur gradually turned neon blue, beginning at his ears, shoulders, forearms, tail, and the thick ruff around his neck before spreading outward in delicate glowing highlights.
The effect was completely different from Logan's Blood Moon transformation.
Logan had looked like madness given flesh.
A red predator under an omen-filled moon.
Bernard looked sacred.
Beautiful.
Almost divine.
Moonlight flowed around the ferocious werewolf like a holy blessing.
The contradiction made him even more intimidating.
A giant fanged beast.
Built like a fortress.
Surrounded by serene blue light.
Bernard lowered both sabers.
His breathing changed.
Long inhale.
Controlled hold.
Slow exhale.
Then—
He disappeared.
Not literally.
Adam's eyes simply lost him.
A flash of blue moonlight crossed the battlefield.
Every projectile in Bernard's path split apart.
One rifle barrel separated into six pieces.
A flying sword shattered.
A cannon shell divided cleanly down the middle before exploding harmlessly behind him.
Then came the crescents.
Unlike Logan's savage red moon slashes, Bernard's were thin and elegant.
Neon-blue crescents appeared throughout the battlefield in enormous numbers.
For a fraction of a second they seemed motionless.
Like glowing paintings suspended in the air.
A crescent beside a broken spear.
Three around a cannon.
Five crossing through a cluster of swords.
A wide arc curving around Bernard's shoulder.
Another dozen scattered through the path behind him.
Then everything they touched fell apart.
The blue crescents faded several seconds later.
By then, Bernard had already slashed the entire area around them to hell.
This version of Breath of the Moon was considerably more authentic than Logan's.
The reason was simple.
The original style had been created around a katana.
Krampus himself preferred using dual sabers when fighting seriously.
So when adapting those principles for Bernard's twin curved blades, considerably less translation had been necessary.
Bernard's version emphasized speed.
Precision.
Flow.
Beautiful chains of cuts executed so quickly that the visual effects seemed to appear only after the attack was already complete.
Where Logan overwhelmed opponents through bizarre trajectories and violent crescent storms, Bernard became a flash of moonlight moving through the battlefield.
And he was gorgeous as fuck while doing it.
That part had also been intentional.
Probably.
Adam barely brought his hammer around in time.
Bernard's twin sabers struck it.
CLAAAAANG!
Adam skidded backward.
Bernard vanished again.
Blue light flashed along Adam's flank.
His earth armor sparked.
A second slash struck his shoulder.
A third hit the outside of his thigh.
Adam swung.
Bernard was already gone.
The sledgehammer smashed into the earth.
The battlefield erupted.
A gigantic line of stone burst upward.
Bernard twisted through the blast.
He avoided the hammer itself.
He did not avoid the eruption.
Chunks of magically accelerated rock hammered into his side and launched him upward.
Bernard rotated in the air.
His paws touched a flying boulder.
He kicked off.
Blue light flashed.
Adam raised his hammer.
The melee began properly.
Adam swung the oversized sledgehammer one-handed.
Bernard ducked.
The hammer missed him by less than an inch and struck the ground.
The impact produced an earthquake.
Bernard's footing vanished beneath him as the terrain folded upward.
He leapt.
Adam spun the hammer around his back.
The gigantic weapon moved like a baton.
There was no reason something that big should have moved so smoothly.
But Adam's physical training had long since reached the point where the difference between an ordinary weapon and a siege implement became mostly aesthetic.
He twirled the sledgehammer around one wrist.
Passed it behind his shoulders.
Caught the shaft under one arm.
Then drove the opposite end toward Bernard's ribs.
Bernard twisted.
The attack missed.
The wind pressure did not.
His fur compressed.
The shockwave threw him sideways.
Bernard planted one saber into the ground, pivoted around it, and accelerated again.
Moonlight streaked between them.
Slash.
Hammer.
Slash.
Eruption.
Dodge.
Counter.
Their silhouettes repeatedly disappeared inside overlapping flashes of blue and brown.
Every time Adam's hammer struck something, the terrain changed.
A crater formed.
A stone wall erupted.
A ridge split open.
Once, Bernard dodged an overhead smash only for Adam's weapon to hit the ground and create a miniature volcanic eruption beneath him.
Molten stone and fire blasted upward.
Bernard spun through it, both sabers carving a blue circle around his body.
He emerged with several patches of scorched fur but remained moving.
Adam grinned beneath his horned helmet.
"Still fast."
Bernard flashed past him.
Three new cuts appeared across Adam's side.
"You sound surprised."
"I'm not."
Adam spun.
Bernard ducked beneath the sledgehammer.
"You should be."
Adam stamped one foot.
The ground beneath Bernard detonated.
Bernard was thrown thirty metres into the air.
"…A little surprised."
From the audience, Sawyer had stopped smiling.
His eye twitched.
Bernard vanished from view again.
Another blue streak crossed half the battlefield instantly.
Sawyer leaned forward.
"No."
Macbeth looked at him.
"What?"
"No."
Another flash.
Bernard appeared behind Adam.
Sawyer pointed accusingly.
"That is bullshit."
Macbeth stared.
"You literally have speed magic."
"Exactly!"
Sawyer's own composite magic—The Flash—had made sustained high-speed movement his specialty.
Over distance?
He was superior.
He could maintain absurd speeds far longer than Bernard could.
In a chase, Bernard would eventually fall behind.
But burst speed?
Instantaneous acceleration?
That bastard wolf was appearing in different places before Sawyer's eyes properly registered the movement.
Sawyer folded his arms.
"I don't like this."
Macbeth smiled.
"You're jealous."
"I am professionally offended."
Bernard flashed again.
Sawyer sank deeper into his seat.
"…I want that."
Back on the battlefield, Adam was discovering the downside of fighting someone who had apparently decided that obeying normal acceleration was optional.
Bernard struck him again.
And again.
And again.
Adam had several defensive layers active.
His spiritual equipment provided the first.
A compressed layer of stone mana covered his skin beneath it.
A second layer reinforced his muscles and bones.
A third dispersed physical impacts into the earth through his feet.
Against most attacks, it was excessive.
Against Bernard, it was barely enough.
The problem was volume.
Bernard's individual slashes were viciously sharp.
But more importantly, there were too many.
Adam blocked one saber.
The second struck his ribs.
He redirected that.
Bernard's first blade had already changed direction.
Adam swung.
Bernard slipped past.
Two more cuts.
Adam raised a wall.
Bernard crossed both sabers.
The wall became cubes.
Blue moonlight flashed through the gaps.
Adam received another slash across the chest.
Fast.
He had fought Bernard before.
He knew Bernard was fast.
This was different.
The Hunter's spiritual equipment had matured.
His Moon Magic had matured.
And Krampus's breathing arts had apparently been allowed to grow into something absolutely ridiculous.
Adam's arms tightened around the hammer.
Fine.
Then I'll stop trying to hit him directly.
He swung downward.
Bernard vanished.
The hammer struck.
The entire area within fifty metres exploded.
Bernard reappeared directly inside the blast.
His eyes widened.
He crossed both sabers.
Earth magic passed through the guard.
The physical debris struck from every direction.
Bernard was hurled away.
Blood sprayed from the corner of his mouth.
He landed on all fours.
His claws carved trenches into the stone.
The wounds began healing.
Adam did not pursue.
He simply lifted his sledgehammer again.
Bernard understood immediately.
That was the weakness of his build.
High speed.
High attack.
Average defense.
His spiritual equipment was intentionally light because anything heavier would interfere with his movement.
His werewolf body provided excellent durability and regeneration, but he was not Logan.
Logan could happily allow someone to break half his ribs and simply continue walking toward them.
Bernard preferred not having his ribs broken in the first place.
Against Adam, avoiding the actual hammer was only half the problem.
The hammer's area-of-effect attacks were absurdly wide.
Worse, they penetrated conventional defenses by carrying force through the ground, air, debris, shockwaves, and earth mana simultaneously.
Bernard could dodge the central strike.
He could not always dodge the splash zone.
Another hammer blow landed.
A ring of stone spikes erupted.
Bernard flashed between them.
The eruption behind the spikes still clipped him.
A cut opened across his side.
It healed.
Another blast struck his shoulder.
It healed.
Another explosion threw him through a stone formation.
That healed too.
His werewolf regeneration kept him functional.
But regeneration was not free.
Bernard landed and exhaled.
Adam stood across from him.
The armor protecting the earth mage was covered in cuts.
One horn of his helmet had been partially severed.
His cape was shredded.
Blood ran across his bare chest from several slash wounds.
Yet his posture remained strong.
His breathing remained controlled.
And the earth beneath his feet continued feeding him.
Bernard's ears lowered slightly.
This is bad.
He had inflicted far more direct damage.
Adam had still won the resource exchange.
Bernard could feel it in his bones.
More importantly—
His instincts screamed again.
The thing beneath them was finished.
Or almost finished.
Adam was about to pull a big one.
Bernard tightened his grip on his sabers.
Fine.
Then so would he.
He began circulating Moon Magic inward.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Conserving it.
Condensing it.
His ultimate required preparation.
If Adam wanted to end the battle—
Bernard would meet him there.
Adam suddenly stopped.
The sledgehammer rotated once in his hands.
Then he planted both feet firmly apart.
Bernard's pupils narrowed.
Adam raised the hammer above his head.
And slammed it down.
KRAAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The battlefield split open.
Not cracked.
Split.
A gigantic section of ground tore apart as something enormous rose from beneath it.
Bernard immediately retreated.
Stone slabs slid away.
Metal ribs emerged.
A colossal arm punched through the surface.
Then another.
A head rose.
A torso.
Legs.
The audience became progressively quieter as the thing continued emerging.
And continued.
And continued.
When it finally stood fully upright, a massive shadow stretched across the battlefield.
It was a mecha.
But calling it simply a mecha undersold the sheer weirdness of the design.
Its silhouette carried unmistakably archaic Roman influence.
Armored skirt plating resembled monumental pteruges.
The chest possessed broad sculpted plates reminiscent of an idealized cuirass.
Its shoulders were decorated with engraved metallic motifs.
The helmet-like head carried a reinforced crest.
Yet all of that ancient imagery had been fused with unmistakable science-fiction elements.
Glowing lines ran between armor plates.
Mechanical joints rotated with impossible smoothness.
Magic-reactor vents hummed along the back.
Conduits of light travelled through the limbs like artificial veins.
Adam looked upward at his creation.
Bernard stared.
"…Oh, come on."
The chest opened.
Adam leapt.
A staircase of stone formed beneath his feet, carrying him upward.
He entered the cockpit located inside the mecha's chest.
Armor sealed behind him.
The machine's eyes ignited.
The floating screens immediately focused on it.
Inside the announcer booth, Krampus slowly stood.
Laxus stared upward.
"You knew he could do this?"
Krampus grinned so wide his fangs showed.
"I knew he was working on something."
"You didn't know it was a giant robot?"
"No."
"That smile says you're proud."
"I am so fucking proud."
Bernard had already started running.
The ground behind him erupted.
Something serpentine shot upward.
An earth dragon.
Then another.
Then five.
Their bodies were made from layered stone and metal, long enough to coil through entire ruined sections of terrain.
Bernard jumped onto the head of the first.
It snapped at him.
He sprinted along its spine.
A second dragon lunged from the side.
Bernard jumped.
His sabers flashed.
Blue crescents carved through its jaw.
He landed on the neck of a third.
Then the mecha moved.
Panels opened across its shoulders.
Nozzles extended from its forearms.
Additional barrels emerged from its chest and thighs.
Bernard looked up.
"Oh, shit."
Energy bullets filled the sky.
Bernard jumped again.
Blue light streaked between earth dragons as he used them like moving footholds.
One blast struck behind him.
Another passed beneath his feet.
Bernard twisted around a third.
The fourth hit one of the earth dragons and blew its head apart.
Adam's voice boomed from the mecha through an amplification array.
"Unlike my other creations that were mere reproductions—"
The machine raised one gigantic arm.
Bernard landed on an earth dragon's snout.
"—this is my proudest creation."
The werewolf jumped as the dragon tried to swallow him.
Blue light flashed.
Its skull separated into six pieces.
Adam's machine spread both arms.
"GIGAS GAIAS!"
The stadium exploded with cheers.
Adam's grin could practically be heard through the amplification system.
"Let's see how you handle this, Bernard!"
Bernard landed on another stone serpent.
He looked up at the giant machine.
Then down at the six remaining dragons.
Then toward the sky currently full of energy bullets.
His ears flattened.
The ultimate of a veteran is way too fucking big.
He had expected something impressive.
A fortress.
Maybe a huge cannon.
Perhaps some ridiculous Earth Magic golem.
He had not expected Adam to excavate an original giant Roman science-fiction war machine from his imagination.
And Bernard had thought his own ultimate was big.
Apparently size comparisons were a dangerous game inside Fairy Tail.
An energy beam swept sideways.
Bernard jumped.
The dragon beneath him was cut in half.
He landed on another.
Can't keep this up.
Breath of the Moon consumed very little magic.
His werewolf physique possessed absurd endurance.
His regeneration allowed him to survive glancing hits.
Under ordinary circumstances, Bernard could fight for hours.
That did not matter.
Adam was connected to the earth.
Gigas Gaias was consuming an enormous amount of mana, but the battlefield itself continually replaced part of the expenditure.
Bernard could probably outlast almost anyone else in the tournament.
He could not outlast Adam while Adam was standing on several billion tonnes of ammunition and battery.
So there was only one choice.
Go for broke.
Bernard crouched.
An earth dragon lunged.
He stepped onto its upper jaw.
The dragon snapped shut.
Bernard jumped.
Magic exploded beneath his paws.
The stone serpent's entire head collapsed from the force.
Bernard shot upward.
One hundred metres.
Two hundred.
Three hundred.
His body became a blue streak climbing into the sky.
Four hundred.
Five hundred.
At roughly five hundred metres above the battlefield, Bernard stopped rising.
For a heartbeat, he seemed suspended against the artificial sky.
His twin sabers locked together.
The greatbow formed.
Bernard drew.
Magic answered.
A colossal circle unfolded behind him.
Blue.
Silver.
White.
At its center appeared the face of a great blue wolf, its eyes closed in solemn serenity.
Around the wolf rotated the phases of the moon.
New moon.
Crescent.
Quarter.
Gibbous.
Full.
Then back again.
The entire cycle revolved around the central wolf like a celestial clock.
Bernard pulled the bowstring farther.
The circle opened.
Not metaphorically.
The interior changed.
A starry night sky appeared inside it.
Infinite darkness.
Countless stars.
A distant phantom blue moon drifted out from that artificial cosmos.
It moved slowly at first.
Then began shrinking.
The moon condensed.
Smaller.
Brighter.
Denser.
Until the entire celestial body became a single arrow of brilliant blue light.
Bernard caught it against the bowstring.
His arms trembled.
The magic pressure distorted the air around him.
Below, Gigas Gaias stopped firing.
Adam looked upward from the cockpit.
His eyes widened.
Then he smiled.
"Good."
The mecha planted both feet into the ground.
Massive stabilizers erupted from its heels and buried themselves into the earth.
The arms moved forward.
Palms opened.
Earth mana gathered between them.
Adam had not spent the entire aerial chase simply watching Bernard dodge.
He had been charging.
Waiting.
Preparing to give Bernard a proper finish.
The ground across the battlefield began glowing.
Brown.
Gold.
Green.
Blue.
Mana surged upward into Gigas Gaias.
Between its palms, a sphere appeared.
At first it was only several metres wide.
Then ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The surface became textured.
Continents appeared.
Oceans.
Mountain chains.
Cloudlike mana currents.
The orb looked like a miniature Earthland.
Not merely a ball of rock.
A complete magical representation of the planet.
The mana density became so extreme that space itself began bending around it.
Light curved.
The edges distorted.
Broken stones began floating toward the sphere before being crushed and absorbed.
Krampus's mouth opened slightly.
Laxus turned toward him.
"That looks dangerous."
"It is."
"How dangerous?"
Krampus considered it.
"Very."
"Useful."
Above them, Bernard's blue moon arrow reached full power.
His teeth bared.
His arms pulled the greatbow to its absolute limit.
Moonlight streamed from his fur.
The neon-blue tips burned almost white.
He inhaled.
Then bellowed:
"BLAUER MOND: DER GLANZ!"
He released.
The arrow fell.
For the first hundred metres, it remained recognizably arrow-shaped.
Then it expanded.
A luminous tail formed behind it.
The projectile grew larger as it descended, transforming into a brilliant blue comet falling from the heavens.
The artificial sky darkened around it.
Moonlight filled the stadium.
Adam moved at the same moment.
Gigas Gaias drew its arms back.
The miniature Earthland rotated faster between its palms.
Adam roared from the cockpit.
"GIGAS GAIAS: HYPEROURANIOS!"
The mecha thrust both hands upward.
The miniature planet launched.
Blue moon descended.
Earth rose.
They collided in the sky.
For less than a second—
Nothing happened.
The entire stadium became silent.
Then the world turned white.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion resembled a Hiroshima event suspended in midair.
A gigantic sphere of light expanded above the battlefield.
Blue moonlight mixed with brown-gold earth mana.
The shockwave struck the dome.
Every protective barrier lit simultaneously.
Spectators screamed in excitement.
Those using the VIP virtual-reality experience received emergency automatic sensory dampening as the system realized that accurately simulating this much force would probably cause half of them to fall out of their chairs.
Inside the battlefield, Gigas Gaias braced.
The giant mecha dug itself into the earth.
Its armor cracked.
One shoulder plate tore away.
Several weapon nozzles shattered.
Adam was thrown violently against the restraints inside his cockpit.
"Ghh!"
Warning runes flashed around him.
But the earth held.
Layer after layer of solid Earth Magic absorbed the impact.
The shockwave passed through the mecha.
Adam emerged bruised.
Rattled.
A little bloodied.
But functional.
Bernard had no earth beneath him.
The blast struck him directly.
His eyes widened.
For one brief moment, the werewolf disappeared inside the light.
Then a blue figure shot out of the explosion.
Downward.
Very quickly.
Bernard crossed both arms over his body.
That did absolutely nothing.
"AHHHH—!"
He hit the battlefield.
KRA-BOOM!
A crater formed.
Dust erupted outward.
Bernard bounced once.
Twice.
Then slid for another twenty metres before finally stopping.
The audience fell silent.
Inside the crater, one paw twitched.
Bernard opened one eye.
The world spun.
His ears rang.
Several ribs were probably cracked.
One shoulder had definitely stopped cooperating.
His entire body hurt.
His regeneration was already beginning its work, but the damage had piled up faster than it could repair it.
Bernard tried to sit.
His muscles refused.
He laughed instead.
That hurt too.
"Ah ha ha—ow, ow—hiss…"
Gigas Gaias stood several hundred metres away.
Its chest opened.
Adam climbed from the cockpit onto the exterior plating.
Bernard looked toward him.
He managed a weak grin.
"Ah… I really didn't lose unjustly."
Adam smiled back.
Bernard let his head drop against the ground.
"You win this one."
The safety system confirmed it.
Bernard remained conscious.
But he could no longer meaningfully fight.
The screens flashed.
BATTLE OVER
Then—
WINNER: ADAM CHAMP
The stadium exploded.
This time there was no awkward divide between men cheering and women booing.
No one had just watched a giant werewolf nearly puree a little girl.
There was no public-relations nightmare.
There was only spectacle.
The entire dome shook beneath the noise.
Spectators stood from their seats.
People outside in Magnolia screamed at the floating screens.
Bars erupted into cheers.
Children reenacted the final collision with toy weapons.
Inside the VIP booths, several guests immediately replayed the clash through VR from different angles.
One particularly wealthy noble requested the option to experience the explosion from Bernard's perspective.
The system politely informed him that this setting had been disabled for health reasons.
Erza remained standing in the contestant area.
Her eyes were locked firmly on the battlefield below.
Specifically—
On the remains of the hundreds of weapons Adam had produced for free.
Her fists trembled.
Cana glanced over.
"You okay?"
"No."
Adam's cannons sank back into the earth.
Erza looked even more offended.
"He is not even keeping them."
Ultear finally laughed.
Elsewhere, Sawyer continued staring at Bernard's crater.
"I still want that burst speed."
Macbeth patted him on the shoulder.
"You have a problem."
"I have standards."
On the battlefield, the regeneration array activated around Bernard.
A teleportation circle appeared beneath him.
Before vanishing, he lifted one paw weakly toward Adam.
Adam raised his hammer in return.
No resentment.
No embarrassment.
Just recognition.
One warrior had beaten another.
They would probably spar again next week.
Inside the announcer booth, Krampus was having a wonderful time.
"This!"
He pointed dramatically toward the replay screen.
"This is what tournament footage should look like!"
Laxus watched the final collision again.
The blue moon comet descended.
Hyperouranios rose.
The two collided.
The image froze at the exact moment the explosion formed a perfect sphere between them.
Laxus nodded.
"Pretty damn cinematic."
"Pretty damn cinematic?!" Krampus grabbed the sides of the display. "This entire fight was cinematic! The projectile war! Bernard carving through the battlefield! Adam changing the terrain every five seconds! The giant robot! The dragons! The aerial ultimate clash!"
Laxus smiled.
"You're having fun."
"I'm having a fantastic time."
Krampus flipped through several recording angles.
One showed Bernard racing across the serpentine dragons in neon-blue flashes while Gigas Gaias fired behind him.
Another captured Adam's heroic silhouette resting both hands against the top of his sledgehammer while dozens of cannons grew around him.
A third showed the moonlit transformation of Bernard from below, making the giant werewolf look like some sacred beast descending from the heavens.
Krampus nodded rapidly.
"Poster."
He changed images.
"Poster."
Again.
"Poster."
Laxus raised an eyebrow.
"How many posters are you planning to sell?"
"Yes."
Krampus continued flipping through footage.
There was not a single shot he needed to hide.
No unfortunate angles.
No ethical debates.
No image of a gigantic grown man standing triumphantly over a tattered little girl.
Just two huge muscular men escalating a friendly martial contest until one summoned a giant mecha and the other fired a moon out of the sky.
Perfect.
Krampus visibly relaxed.
"Thank fuck."
Laxus glanced at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Krampus leaned back in his chair, completely satisfied.
Adam Champ had advanced.
Bernard had lost fairly.
Both had looked incredible doing it.
And for once—
Krampus could publish every single second of the battle without worrying that half of Fiore would try to cancel one of his contestants by morning.
The Fairy Games continued.