The two Guild Masters extended their index and middle fingers, continuously drawing glowing magical formations in the empty air.
"Drive away the darkness, sacred rain of light!" A massive golden magic circle appeared before Makarov, shooting countless piercing golden rays of light directly toward Precht.
"You are still too green, Makarov." Precht casually raised a single hand.
A black magic circle instantly appeared above his head, topped with a dense purple energy sphere that effortlessly absorbed Makarov's holy light rain and violently reflected it back.
"You cannot defeat me, Makarov," Precht sneered.
He instantly drew the Amaterasu: Formula 28 in the air with one hand.
Three enormous magic circles stacked together and gradually shrank, rapidly converging into a devastatingly powerful purple beam.
"What?! An Amaterasu: Formula 28 magic circle, deployed instantly without an incantation?!" Makarov gasped, shielding his eyes from his own reflected attack.
Makarov firmly pressed his palms together, forming a solid, semicircular golden defensive barrier around himself.
His golden light slowly and agonizingly pushed back against the crushing purple beam.
"Chain Magic," Precht muttered. He released spiked, magical chains from his hand that swiftly snaked through the air.
They violently captured Makarov, dragging his giant form and slamming him brutally against a nearby mountain before throwing him heavily to the rocky ground.
"My magic dances freely," Precht mocked.
Makarov knelt on one knee, breathing heavily with one hand resting on his thigh, painfully struggling to stand up.
But when he finally rose, Makarov's eyes widened. He realized he was already completely surrounded by multiple overlapping magic circles.
"What technique is this?!" Seeing Precht's triumphant, cold smile across from him, Makarov didn't dare be careless.
He immediately activated his absolute strongest defensive magic.
"Maximum Defense Seal: Three Pillar Gods!"
Three colossal stone pillars rapidly rose from the earth, forming a protective triangular formation completely surrounding Makarov.
"Then let me show you... Amaterasu: Formula 100."
BOOM!
A massive, apocalyptic purple explosion engulfed an entire section of Tenrou Island, the shockwave violently shaking the trees miles away.
...
"Did you hear that, Happy?!" Natsu yelled.
He had just punched away several masked soldiers, looking toward the rising smoke in the distance.
"Aye! It sounded like a huge explosion!"
"Barging into someone else's home and causing trouble—I'm gonna beat them all up! These damn Grimoire Fart bastards!" Natsu roared, his fists igniting.
"They're called Grimoire Heart, Natsu," Happy corrected from the air.
...
"Gravity Magic, full power!" Kagura seemed to have entered an absolute bloodlust state.
She was mercilessly cutting down huge groups of Grimoire Heart's elite mages, crushing them into the dirt within her oppressive gravity field.
Loke and Gray kept a very cautious distance from Kagura, terrified of accidentally being flattened by her gravity field.
"Kagura looks like she has completely gone berserk," Loke sweatdropped.
"Can you blame her? These people rudely interrupted our exam, attacked Tenrou Island, and ruined our sacred ground like this," Gray grunted, sharing Kagura's righteous anger. "We cannot let these guys off easily!"
As he spoke, Gray kept launching relentless Ice-Make barrages into the crowd of grunts.
"But isn't this endless? They just keep coming wave after wave!" Loke noted, punching another masked mage away.
"True, but they're not particularly strong, either," Gray said. "Still, continuing a battle of attrition like this puts us at a massive disadvantage."
Nearby, Lucy didn't dare summon any Celestial Spirits to conserve her magical power, opting to aggressively use her whip to fight off the grunts instead.
Members everywhere faced the exact same pressure, completely surrounded by overwhelming numbers using exhausting human-wave tactics.
"Water Lock!" Juvia yelled, capturing several dark mages in a sphere of suffocating water.
"Miss Erza, what exactly was that massive explosion just now? I sensed a terrifying amount of magical power," Juvia asked.
Erza and Juvia stood back-to-back, perfectly ready for the next wave of battle.
"We haven't received any new telepathic messages from Raizel, so we have to assume the examiners have it handled. For now, we just need to focus entirely on dealing with the enemies right in front of us," Erza ordered strictly.
Suddenly, Juvia clasped her hands together, her fingers tightly interlocked, and gasped. "Ah! Could Gray-sama also be completely surrounded by enemies right now?! Juvia wants to fly to Gray-sama's side immediately and protect him!
"Didn't I just tell you to focus?!" Erza barked.
"I'm so sorry!" Juvia squeaked, instantly snapping back to reality.
...
At the Tenrou Island beach camp, Mira, Lisanna, Freed, and Bickslow were also under heavy attack.
"Are you okay, Lisanna?" Mira asked, swatting a grunt away with her demon tail.
"I'm fine! Have these people scattered all over Tenrou Island? There are so many just here at our location," Lisanna panted.
Having just undergone the draining S-Class exam, aside from Mira, the other three didn't have much magical power left in their reserves.
"Regardless of how tired we are, we must protect this base camp until everyone returns safely!" Freed yelled, drawing his rapier.
"Of course!" Bickslow cheered.
...
"Hmm?" Back at the epicenter of the explosion, contrary to Precht's confident expectations, Makarov's giant figure had completely disappeared from the Amaterasu: Formula 100 magic circle that had just been detonated.
Only some crackling electric arcs and deeply charred marks remained around the blast zone...
"Lightning magic," Precht murmured.
Sensing the residual magical power lingering in the air, he roughly guessed exactly what had happened.
Just milliseconds before the Amaterasu: Formula 100 was detonated, Laxus had rapidly transformed his entire body into pure lightning.
He had swiftly carried Makarov away at the speed of light, narrowly evading the apocalyptic attack.
"Makarov's grandson? You do resemble him quite a bit," Precht noted, not looking surprised in the slightest by Laxus's sudden appearance.
Sensing Laxus's immense, crackling magical power, Precht's cold eye narrowed slightly.
"Truly worthy of the man I once recognized as my successor. To lead the guild continuously for forty-eight years and nurture so many outstanding, powerful young members."
In truth, Precht had kept an ear out for Fairy Tail's development over the years—names like Gildarts, Raizel, and Laxus were all quite renowned across the continent.
Previously, only Gildarts might have slightly met Precht's impossibly high standards, but now, feeling this aura, he thought Laxus was quite exceptional too.
"Although there is one more person here now, the final outcome will not change," Precht stated coldly.
Makarov, currently being supported by Laxus's shoulder, suddenly dropped to one knee.
He clutched his chest tightly, his face twisting in an expression of pure agony as his heart condition violently flared up.
"Old man! What's wrong?!" Laxus yelled, his brow furrowing deeply as he looked down at Makarov with genuine, terrified concern.
"Are you unwell, Makarov? It seems we have both finally grown old," Precht observed emotionlessly.
"Two men who walked completely different paths now have their final intersection here on this island. Could today be the day the world's continuum finally completes itself?"
Makarov endured the blinding pain in his chest and looked up. "You were once a truly great Guild Master... a man who taught me about harmony and guided me toward the right path."
Makarov's eyes were full of desperate, pleading memories as he stared intently into Precht's eye, searching for his old mentor.
But all he saw looking back at him was the endless, empty ruthlessness of Hades.
"In ancient times, magic was born from pure darkness, but this power was always suppressed and feared by narrow-minded people," Precht monologued. "Although it gradually evolved to become part of daily life later, one could say it merely opened a mundane, diluted new cultural era for humanity."
"But when I relentlessly pursued the true origins of magic and finally found the traces of Zeref, I finally saw it—the true, untethered essence of magic."
Precht raised his hand, his dark magic flaring. "Sleep now, Makarov! The history of Fairy Tail is about to end!" Having said his final piece, Precht turned to leave, dismissing them entirely.
"Stop him, Laxus!" Makarov wheezed.
"You don't need to tell me twice, old man!" Laxus roared.
Laxus once again transformed his entire muscular body into a blinding, elemental bolt of lightning, charging furiously toward Precht.
But Precht had been perfectly prepared.
Without even looking back, he raised his left arm, forming a dense semicircular purple defensive barrier that completely absorbed and blocked Laxus's lightning strike.
However, Laxus instantly reverted to his human form mid-air.
Using the blocked momentum, he flipped gracefully through the air, planting both of his heavy boots squarely onto Precht's chest.
Caught completely off guard by the sheer physical brutality of the maneuver, Precht was sent stumbling backward over a dozen steps, his eyes widening in shock.