"Alright, everyone! The race is about to begin. Get into position right now!"
The event host, Jason, screamed into the microphone, his voice practically tearing through the air.
The guild members crouched behind the starting line, hyped and ready to go.
Jet, preening like a damn peacock looking for a mate, bent over proudly and called out to Levy behind him.
"Levy, watch my dashing form at the start!"
Levy pouted and mumbled back, "I don't have the energy to spare for that..."
Lucy, watching the whole thing with amusement, laughed and nudged Levy.
"He's just showing off for you."
"Lucy-chan, you probably don't know this, but I literally can't even see Jet's start..."
"On your marks—"
Makarov raised his hand high and roared to the sky: "GO!"
A burst of Magic light exploded right from his fingertips, and a deafening roar shook the entire park.
Whoosh!!
Jet, who had been coiled up like a tight spring, blasted forward.
His body shot out like an arrow, kicking up a massive, blinding cloud of dust in his wake.
The rest of the guild competitors were totally thrown into chaos by the ridiculous commotion of Jet's explosive start.
Levy, now flat on the ground from the dust shockwave, looked helplessly up at Lucy.
"See... told you I couldn't watch it."
Lucy was completely speechless at the speedster whose takeoff literally felt like a bomb going off.
"So that's how it is..."
"Watch this! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
A resounding roar echoed out as Natsu, following right on his heels, ignited his fists with blazing flames.
He threw his arms straight back, dropping into a bizarre but weirdly familiar running posture.
Ankh, trailing further behind, couldn't help but stare in sheer amazement at Natsu's stance.
"A fucking ninja run?"
Huge flames surged from Natsu's fists behind him, acting like rocket thrusters continuously accelerating his speed.
This crazy move allowed him to instantly blow past every single member except Jet.
"Hahaha! What do you think of my secret weapon—the Fire Dragon's Iron Fist Booster?!"
Natsu's cocky, triumphant laugh drifted back through the air.
Meanwhile, Erza, Gray, Gajeel, and the rest of the pack erupted into a storm of curses, pushing themselves to the absolute limit just to catch up with the two idiots in front.
The 24-hour endurance race kicked off with a massive bang, and Mages of all stripes immediately started busting out the most underhanded tricks imaginable.
Even though Reedus had a physique as round as a literal ball, he clearly knew how to abuse his Magic better than the rest of the competition.
As he ran, he painted several pitfall traps on the ground behind him, and a bunch of unlucky participants had already fallen victim, tumbling right into them.
But, while he was too busy laughing and sabotaging everyone else, he accidentally got elbowed by a charging Gajeel and plummeted face-first into one of his own damn holes.
Gray, currently holding his own in the front pack of the race, realized he couldn't easily shake off the people breathing down his neck.
So, he immediately used his Ice-Make magic to freeze the ground, creating a long, frictionless ice path.
The slick, frozen floor appeared completely out of nowhere beneath everyone's feet, causing half the guild to slip, wipe out, and crash hard.
Just as Gray was loudly gloating over the victims groaning behind him, Elfman suddenly roared.
"Be a MAN!" and delivered a brutal shoulder tackle.
The impact sent Gray sliding uncontrollably for dozens of meters across his own ice path.
And then there was Freed, who was being the most completely extra and excessive out of everyone.
Because Laxus had activated his lightning-clad form right from the starting line, he effortlessly overtook almost all the Mages—even Natsu with his crazy fire booster—and was rapidly closing the gap on Jet's top speed.
As Laxus's number one fanboy, Freed went into an absolute frenzy trying to clear out any potential threats to his idol!
He started dropping dozens of nasty Jutsu Shiki traps all over the course behind him.
Anyone unlucky enough to step into one was forced to sit down and complete a stack of exam papers that rivaled the Magic Council's toughest entrance tests.
This ridiculous trap totally stumped a ton of participants—including his own teammate, Evergreen.
Freed sprinted forward like a maniac, laughing wildly.
"For Laxus's absolute victory! Let me clear away all of you insignificant obstacles!"
Trapped inside one of the barrier runes behind him, Evergreen screamed in sheer frustration.
"Who the hell are you calling an obstacle?! I'm your teammate, you absolute idiot, Freed!"
Her furious voice faded into the distance.
Freed, completely blind to anything but eliminating threats for Laxus, now locked his sights onto two new targets.
Erza, who had Re-quipped at the start but hadn't used any actual Magic to boost her speed since, was breathing perfectly steadily.
She maintained a terrifyingly flawless pace as she blew right past Freed.
And just behind Erza was Ankh.
He wasn't using a single drop of Magic, and his sloppy running posture didn't look like it could generate any real power, yet his speed was inexplicably and constantly increasing.
Freed's internal alarm bells started screaming—'these two were the actual, genuine threats to Laxus's guaranteed victory!'
'What a pity,' he thought smugly.
'Even monsters like those two will have to bow to the absolute rules once they step into my Jutsu Shiki!'
Erza was charging ahead when glowing magical script suddenly erupted from the dirt right beneath her feet.
With literal lightning-fast reflexes, Erza violently shifted her momentum, pushing off backward off a single foot to narrowly dodge the rising walls of the trap.
Meanwhile, Ankh looked completely distracted, only realizing the danger after he had blindly stepped right into the rune's domain.
"Hehe... Even though I only managed to trap Ankh, it's more than worth it!" Freed leaned heavily on his sword, looking incredibly smug as he watched the two runners get jammed up.
"As expected of the Titania, Erza's battle instincts are as terrifyingly sharp as ever—to actually react to a Jutsu Shiki deployed right under her. It's just too bad..."
Swish—!
A lethal, silvery sword gleam suddenly flashed before his eyes.
Dozens of razor-sharp blades materialized out of thin air, surrounding Freed from every conceivable angle and pinning him in place instantly.
Completely startled by Erza's monstrous casting speed, Freed's eyebrows twitched with genuine panic.
"What the hell kind of speed is this...?"
Erza, casually readjusting her athletic posture, glared at him and complained.
"The crime of disrupting my running pace is a heavy one. Now I have to completely recalibrate my rhythm all over again..."
"Wait! Erza!"
As Erza bolted away once more, Freed desperately stretched out a hand to stop her, but the extraordinary terrifying woman—who was single-mindedly obsessed with winning—didn't even spare him a backward glance.
Freed sighed heavily, trying to console his bruised ego.
"Well, I suppose this is where my race ends. But hey, at least I successfully trapped Laxus's biggest rival, Ankh— WHAT THE HELL?!"
Freed stared, completely dumbfounded, as Ankh casually jogged right out of the glowing barrier like the trap didn't even exist.
The sight instantly plunged the rune mage into a deep, existential self-doubt.
'No... that's impossible, that can't be right. Even though I wrote it in a rush, the absolute rules I inscribed shouldn't have been completely ignored like that...?'
As Freed sank into total despair over his flawlessly ignored trap, Ankh took a brief second to glance back at the floating text written on the barrier walls.
"No human may use any Magic or leave this area for thirty minutes."
It was simple, absolute, and seemingly impossible to break.
But sometimes, getting too specific with your wording isn't actually a good thing.
As he kept running, Ankh couldn't help but inwardly complain: 'This is the glaring downside of Jutsu Shiki traps. Sure, their effects are ridiculously overpowered, but the tiniest semantic oversight in the prep work leads to total joke outcomes.'
Writing "No human" technically covered about ninety-nine percent of the chaotic idiots in the Fairy Tail guild.
Yet, Freed had incredibly bad luck and managed to target one of the very few exceptions in that tiny remaining fraction.
After all... Ankh wasn't human.
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