While Lucy, the guild's walking fanservice disaster, was still frantically searching for clothes, Gray had already caught up with the shadowy assassin.
Seeing that he had reached the rooftops and could no longer escape, the assassin suddenly extended steel claws from his arm guards and spun back, slashing fiercely at Gray.
If it came down to close combat, Gray, master of the ice blade, was not about to back down.
Ice blades formed along both his arms, and he met the assassin head-on without hesitation.
Under Gray's dazzling flurry of slashes, the assassin could only block a few times before his strength began to give out.
Since he was never the type to win through direct confrontation in the first place, he immediately started looking for a way out.
Under the moonlight, the shadows beneath the two fighters stretched long across the rooftop.
The mysterious shadow assassin melted into those shadows like flowing water and disappeared in an instant.
"Tch… he ran…"
Gray's blade struck the spot where the assassin had just been, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"He dared to snatch someone from Fairy Tail even though he's weak?"
Gray waved his hand, dispersing the ice blades, then stuffed his hands into his pockets and prepared to head back to check on Lucy and Éclair.
Step… step… step…
The sound of footsteps and armor suddenly rang out.
Gray's pupils snapped wide.
'Cold air? And footsteps? Since when?!'
Gray spun around at once.
Ice blades formed again along his elbows and hands as he launched into a clean, decisive turning slash.
"Cute."
Gray's counterattack came fast, so fast he did not even get a good look at his opponent's face.
All he saw was a tall, powerfully built man in armor, who seemed to chuckle softly before catching Gray's attack barehanded without so much as taking a step back.
"What?!"
Gray stared in shock as his ice blade shattered the instant it touched the man's arm.
He quickly changed his movement and drove a powerful front kick at the man, forcing some distance between them.
Only then did Gray finally see what the man looked like.
He was a strong, imposing man in heavy armor.
A vicious scar ran down the left side of his face from his forehead to his eye. His rough beard was strangely reminiscent of Gildarts, while his eyes were cold and filled with authority.
The faint upward curve of his lips carried a hint of mockery.
And on the left side of his gray breastplate, the words "absolute zero" were clearly engraved.
Gray's heart jolted.
The instant he saw this man, his usually steady heartbeat suddenly skipped for some reason, accompanied by a sharp, aching sting.
'Why… do I feel like this?'
'This man feels so familiar…'
Gray forced down the thoughts suddenly rising in his chest and shouted, "Who are you? Are you with that guy?"
"Don't lump me in with that little pest."
The armored man's voice was thick with contempt.
A flicker of complicated emotion in his eyes vanished almost immediately, and the mocking curve of his mouth grew wider.
"Though I suppose our goal is more or less the same."
Gray's nerves tightened again.
He stacked his hands together, cold air spilling from his palms as he prepared to cast Ice-Make at any moment.
The man ignored Gray's threatening stance and simply crooked a finger at him with a smile.
"If you bring that shrine maiden girl to me, I might consider sparing your life."
"Keep dreaming!"
Gray was an ice mage, but his temper was anything but cold. The moment he heard that, anger flared, and he released his Ice-Make Magic.
Countless spears of ice formed in an instant and came stabbing down toward the man.
If they all landed, his body would be riddled with bloody holes.
"Oh…"
The man watched the falling ice spears with interest.
Then he suddenly took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and bit down on them.
Gray's sharp Ice-Make creations turned into pure blue magical light and were swallowed into the man's stomach.
He even patted his belly afterward, looking satisfied.
"Not bad, kid."
Seeing that, most of the anger in Gray's chest faded at once.
His eyes narrowed, and he muttered warily, "Is that… Ice Dragon Slayer Magic? Or God Slayer Magic?"
"Neither. It's Devil Slayer Magic."
The man grinned, then charged at Gray like a leopard.
Gray hurriedly created an ice shield, only for the man to tear through it headfirst and swallow it down like he was eating ice cream.
"Ice Devil's Arrows!"
After breaking Gray's defense, the man raised his hand and unleashed a shocking wave of cold.
Countless arrows made of ice rained down from the sky, returning Gray's earlier attack right back at him.
Black ice magic surged across Gray's body.
He gritted his teeth, and his hands wrapped themselves in the chill of the underworld, as if it had returned from the land of the dead.
Sharp black ice spikes erupted from the ground, instantly blocking the man's ice arrows.
"Ice Devil Slayer Magic… Magic made specifically to fight demons?"
Even after passing Ur's black ice trial, Gray still felt a faint chill when facing those ice arrows directly.
The temperature was cold enough to remind him of the winter general Invel, whom he had met on Tenrou Island, though it still felt a good deal weaker than the freezing cold Invel could unleash when he got serious.
Invel's Winter Magic pursued freezing through absolute control, while this man's Devil Slayer Magic was not limited to freezing alone.
It seemed more like a fully developed combat system.
Gray silently analyzed the strength of the man who called himself "Absolute Zero."
Across from him, the man scratched his chin with interest as he studied the black ice Gray had created.
"Interesting. I can't eat it."
The man tried taking a deep breath to pull the black ice in, and Gray's heart nearly leapt into his throat at the sight.
Fortunately, his black ice remained firm.
It was apparently the first time the man had encountered ice he could not eat, and he looked genuinely surprised.
Gray, for some reason, suddenly remembered what Natsu had looked like when he first ran into the Fire God Slayer, Zancrow.
"Gray! We're here to help!"
Just as the man was staring at the black ice and Gray was preparing to find an opening for a sneak attack, Natsu arrived from not far away with Lucy and Éclair.
Gray let out a breath of relief.
But before he could answer, a teasing voice that made his heart freeze sounded beside his ear.
"Remember this, kid… As an ice mage who controls the entire battlefield, you can never let one thing steal all of your attention."
At some point, the man had already closed the distance.
Gray hurriedly tried to raise his hand and attack, but the man had already lifted his palm and calmly brought it down.
A pale purple wind brushed past lightly.
In the next instant, Gray's whole body was frozen in pale purple ice. Even his expression was locked in the stunned look from that single moment.
Instant freeze.
With Gray's resistance to ice, there were probably only two people in the entire world who should be capable of doing that: Ur and Invel.
Yet this man had done it too.
"You bastard!"
In the distance, Natsu had already charged forward with a roar.
The man ignored him completely.
He reached out as if he wanted to touch Gray's frozen face, but in the end, his hand never landed.
He turned his head and glanced at Éclair, who was being protected by Lucy, then looked back at Gray and let out a nearly inaudible sigh.
After that, he dodged Natsu's flaming fist and leapt down from the rooftop, withdrawing from the scene.
His faint voice seemed to linger in the wind.
"See you next time, kid…"