"Ice Make: Rose Garden!"
Ultear's furious shout rang across the battlefield, so sharp and fierce that even Kabe could not help glancing over.
"This woman's sense of belonging to the guild got this strong that fast?"
"She is opening with a big move already?"
Watching Totomaru flee in all directions while being crushed and whipped back by icy thorns and blooming roses, Kabe suddenly felt, for the first time, just how absurdly magnetic Fairy Tail really was.
After that brief moment of reflection, his eyes swept across the other battlefields.
The Element Four were undeniably top tier by the standards of most guilds.
But compared to Fairy Tail's S Class mages, chosen through a completely deranged level of difficulty, they still came up short.
Sol was getting pounded senseless by Mira after she took on Satan Soul.
Aria, still trying to act cool behind that cloth over his eyes, was no match at all for an enraged Erza.
As for the others, with Cana, Elfman, and the rest holding the line, things were stable enough.
At this point, as long as Jose was taken down, Phantom Lord was finished.
"By the way, why are there only three of your Element Four here?"
"Where did that iron playing idiot Gajeel go?"
"He dared wreck my guild."
"I am going to crush every bit of scrap iron in his body."
Kabe spoke with a puzzled face, as though there was not a whole person directly under his feet.
Speaking of which, Gajeel was truly miserable.
A man who considered himself the strongest in the guild after the master had been sent flying by a damn door panel and was now being stepped on like part of the floor.
After a brief dizzy spell, Gajeel finally came to a little and angrily pushed against the door panel with both hands, trying to crawl out from underneath it.
"Bastard, get off me!"
"Oh, so you were down there."
Kabe acted like he had only just noticed him.
Before Gajeel could fully shove the door off himself, Kabe casually jumped aside.
Boom.
Gajeel threw the steel door off and scrambled back to his feet, just about to spit out a few threats.
Kabe flashed right in front of him again and stuffed a ki blast the size of a ping pong ball straight into his mouth.
BOOM.
After the explosion, Gajeel coughed black smoke.
More than half of the teeth that could normally bite through iron had shattered.
His eyes rolled back as he crashed heavily to the floor.
Kabe kicked him aside like garbage.
Then he lifted his head and locked eyes with Jose on the platform.
Staring at this brat whose reputation had risen so quickly these past two years, Jose's eyes blazed and his teeth ground together so hard they almost sparked.
Kabe liked that look very much, that expression enemies made when they were furious enough to bite their own teeth apart.
And to make Jose feel even worse, he raised his right hand and gave him a middle finger.
Sure enough, Jose exploded on the spot.
His deep, heavy magic power surged as he roared with intense hatred,
"You ill bred little brat, I will never forgive you!"
In an instant, the entire battlefield fell silent.
Everyone had been stunned by the full release of Jose's magic, thick, evil, and foul enough to make the air feel rotten.
Some of the weaker Phantom Lord members were already bent over, gagging and retching from the pressure alone.
Kabe could feel that revolting, deeply twisted aura just as clearly.
He lowered his hand and shouted toward Erza in the crowd,
"Erza, I am leaving this side to you."
"I am going to take care of the final boss."
"Be careful."
Erza answered simply.
Even after seeing Jose's power, her confidence in Kabe had not wavered in the slightest.
Once he handed command over to Erza, Kabe wasted no more words.
He exploded upward in a burst of ki and shot straight at Jose.
"You old dog, you actually dared lay a hand on Juvia!"
From beginning to end, in Jose's eyes, the only person in Fairy Tail who could ever threaten him was Makarov.
Once he killed the brats in that guild, he planned to gather Phantom Lord and wear down that aging old fool together.
At Makarov's age, even if Jose could not kill him outright, he believed he could still exhaust him to death and wipe Fairy Tail out completely, making Phantom Lord the true number one guild in Fiore.
All of those thoughts vanished the moment Kabe crashed into him and kicked him square in the chest.
Jose shot backward like a cannonball, smashing through the castle wall and roaring out into the distance.
Kabe immediately accelerated again and caught up, grabbing Jose by the ankle in midair, spinning him around and around several times before hurling him out toward the outskirts of the city.
Jose flew like a living sandbag for several meters, smashing through more than a dozen giant trees before finally skidding along the ground for a long distance and barely coming to a stop.
Pwahhh!
Jose spat out a mouthful of blood, one hand clutching his chest as he stared wide eyed at Kabe, who was slowly descending in front of him like a nightmare given form.
He had clearly reacted to that kick just now.
He had even wrapped himself in magic power to defend himself.
And yet, that single kick had still broken at least five of his ribs.
"You... what kind of monster are you?"
Looking at Jose, bleeding from the head and crying out in shock, Kabe folded his arms across his chest while the tail behind him swayed lazily from side to side.
"I am not a monster."
"I am just a fairy that got angry."
"A fairy?"
"Then all fairies can die!"
Startled and enraged, Jose released his magic again.
In an instant, the whites of his eyes were swallowed by black.
That was the clearest sign that his magic had been pushed to its limit.
Kabe lowered his center of gravity as well.
Both fists clenched tight.
Then he began releasing all the ki in his body.
"Haaaaah!"
With that furious roar, milky white ki erupted around him like a towering fire, rising two or three meters high from his body.