"Don't tell me he's actually going to win. If Natsu beats Erza, the whole world's turning upside down."
Makarov frowned as he watched the arena.
But the look on Natsu's face made one thing obvious.
He had not won.
When the lightning-wreathed flames finally dispersed, Erza stood behind the massive shields of the Adamantine Armor.
She slowly separated them, revealing a calm, unyielding expression as she looked down at Natsu.
A moment later, she Requipped back into the Flame Empress Armor.
There was not a single scorch mark on her body.
Natsu's expression immediately grew more serious.
The defensive power of Erza's Adamantine Armor had clearly improved by an enormous margin, and the magic circle embedded into its shields was far more intricate than it had been before.
The previous defensive formation had been engraved by a blacksmith in Crocus.
The current one had been designed by August.
After studying defensive magic circles from all three continents and combining their strongest principles, August had created an entirely new formation.
He called it—The Unbreakable Wall of Sighs.
He had taken one look at Erza's Adamantine Armor and decided to improve it for her.
The formation was so complex that, at present, only August, Zeref, and Mavis could actually reproduce it.
Fortunately, Erza did not need to understand it.
August had engraved the formation directly into the armor. All she had to do was supply Magic Power to activate it.
Its defensive ability was absurd.
Even Uranus, the most advanced Magic Convergent Cannon currently in existence, would struggle to damage it.
At most, the impact might force Erza backward.
August himself had used the same formation to stop Suzaku's finishing move, Underworld Sword Saint Style: Abyss—Black Purgatory Slash.
Of course, August did not need to manifest the entire formation at that scale. He could simply create a small section directly where Suzaku's blade was about to strike.
Even if Natsu entered Fire Dragon King Mode, breaking through the current Adamantine Armor would not be easy.
Not that surrender was ever going to cross Natsu's mind.
His eyes sharpened.
In the next instant, lightning and flame erupted around his body as he charged Erza again like a runaway war chariot.
Erza did not bother taking the hit head-on.
She switched into the Flight Armor and darted away through the arena.
Natsu, having thrown far too much force into his charge, failed to stop himself.
He slammed headfirst into the wall.
BOOM!
Dust exploded across the battlefield.
Laxus, Gildarts, Raizel, and Makarov all brought one hand to their foreheads at the exact same time.
'Of course you did.'
Lucy and Wendy both sucked in a breath.
"That had to hurt..."
No matter how hard Natsu's skull was, ramming his head into a wall was still ramming his head into a wall.
And this one had been specially reinforced.
Erza seized the opening immediately.
"Requip: Armor of Yūzetsu!"
Eight floating swords appeared around her and attacked Natsu from every direction.
Already reeling from the collision, Natsu was struck again and sent tumbling through the air before crashing back to the ground.
Erza switched into the Flight Armor once more.
Moving with extraordinary lightness, she accelerated across the arena with a dagger in each hand, Magic Power flowing along both blades as she shot toward Natsu like an arrow.
Natsu reacted quickly.
He slammed both fists into the ground, blasting loose chunks of stone upward to obstruct Erza's path, then breathed fire behind himself and used the recoil to create distance.
The Flight Armor offered very little actual protection beyond cloth and light equipment.
Erza had no intention of charging bare flesh through a storm of jagged rocks.
Her advance was forced to stop.
Gildarts nodded approvingly.
"Using the debris to block Erza's route. Not bad. He's actually thinking a little more now."
In reality, Natsu had not thought that far ahead at all.
He had punched the ground because he needed to get away quickly.
The flying rocks were incidental.
Even the double-fist strike had really just been another way of generating propulsion.
Erza replaced one dagger with the Sea Empress Sword.
One swing released a thick crescent blade of water that tore toward Natsu.
Natsu refused to retreat.
Fire wrapped around his right fist, and he punched the incoming water blade directly.
Steam exploded across the arena.
Natsu immediately used his sense of smell to locate Erza through the mist.
Then he entered Fire Dragon King Mode.
His right hand curled into a claw.
"Fire Dragon King's Claw!"
Flames erupted around his fingers, forming the phantom image of an enormous claw like Igneel's.
It came crashing toward Erza.
But Erza knew Natsu far too well.
Mist would never stop him.
She instantly Requipped into the Adamantine Armor and combined both shields into one.
Natsu's flaming claw hammered against the Adamantine Shield again and again.
Sparks flew with every impact.
Deep claw marks began appearing across the shield's surface.
Natsu had always possessed that strange ability to overwhelm stronger opponents through sheer momentum, piling reckless attack after reckless attack on top of one another until he somehow broke through.
But the reinforced Adamantine Shield was simply too durable.
Natsu clawed at it like a madman.
Erza did not move an inch.
From the outside, it looked as though Erza was doing nothing but hiding behind her shields.
But Natsu could not keep attacking forever.
The moment his pace slowed—Erza's counterattack would begin.
She did not have to wait long.
Natsu paused for breath.
Erza's right hand immediately Requipped the Sea Empress Sword.
A water blade erupted at point-blank range.
Natsu was already exhausted from his relentless attacks and had no room to evade.
The water blade struck him squarely and launched him backward into the arena wall.
The impact from the spell and the collision against the wall hit almost simultaneously.
Pain twisted across Natsu's face.
Still, he forced himself upright.
His arms hung low.
His body crouched forward.
Scales began spreading across his face.
The fire in his eyes burned brighter, sharper, almost feral.
Flame danced from the fingertips of his right hand.
"I'm fired up, Erza!"
Someone in the audience immediately panicked.
"What the hell?! He can still stand?! Don't tell me he's actually going to win! My ten thousand Jewels!"
"Same here!"
Erza met Natsu's blazing stare.
A smile slowly appeared on her face.
"So am I."
No one understood Natsu's strange relationship with adversity better than Erza.
She had fought beside him countless times and fought against him nearly as often.
The worse the situation became, the stronger his fighting spirit burned.
And the stronger that fire burned, the more dangerous Natsu became.
Erza tested him again.
She aimed the tip of the Sea Empress Sword straight at him.
A massive pillar of water blasted across the arena with crushing force.
"Fire Dragon King's... ROAR!!!"
Natsu's eyes sharpened.
Flames churned violently around his body as he tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath, his abdomen expanding.
Then he unleashed everything.
Scarlet fire twisted into a colossal vortex and slammed directly into the incoming water column.
The Fire Dragon King's Roar overwhelmed it.
Steam erupted as the flames tore through the Sea Empress Sword's attack, blanketing the arena in mist once more.
Erza switched into the Flame Empress Armor and moved aside as Natsu's breath attack continued forward, blasting into the ground and sending shattered stone flying everywhere.
Through the steam and debris—
Natsu charged again.
Flames wrapped around his entire body.
Behind him, the fire took the vague shape of Igneel.
And then Natsu lowered his head and rammed straight into the Adamantine Shield.
THUD!
Lucy and Wendy both sucked in another breath.
Even if Natsu somehow did not feel that, they felt it just watching.
"What kind of insane fighting style is that...?"
Kirin, Misaki, Enny, and Luso could only stare.
They had seen reckless fighters before.
They had never seen someone voluntarily use his own skull as a siege weapon.
When Natsu realized that even this attack had failed, the red in his eyes deepened.
The temperature across the arena suddenly surged.
Puddles of water left from Erza's earlier attacks began evaporating.
Cracks spread across the ground.
And the flames surrounding Natsu erupted upward once again, blazing toward the sky.