The eastern jungle of Tenrou Island was a war zone of shattered wood and twisted iron.
Gajeel plummeted from the thick canopy, both of his arms transformed into massive, jagged iron polearms.
He brought them down with bone-crushing force, aiming straight for Yomazu's samurai helmet.
Yomazu didn't flinch. The dog samurai raised his heavy katana, catching both iron weapons on the flat edge of his blade.
The impact sent a visible shockwave through the humid air, cratering the dirt beneath Yomazu's boots, but the dark mage held his ground.
"Your physical strength is commendable for a fairy," Yomazu grunted, his muscles bulging as he pushed back against the iron.
"But your technique is blunt. Like a crude stone."
"I'll show you crude!" Gajeel roared. He didn't pull back. Instead, he opened his mouth, his chest expanding as he gathered a dense swirl of magical ethernano.
"Iron Dragon's Roar!"
A devastating hurricane of razor-sharp iron shards erupted point-blank into Yomazu's face.
The blast tore up the ground and shredded the nearby trees.
But as the silver hurricane faded, Yomazu was still standing. He had traced a single rune in the air with two fingers just before the roar hit.
'Bou. Defend.'
A dark, translucent barrier of kanji had absorbed the brunt of the Dragon Slayer's attack.
The barrier shattered, but Yomazu was largely unhurt.
"Egg Buster! Sunny side up!" Kawazu squawked from a high branch.
A dozen glowing, explosive eggs rained down toward Gajeel's exposed back.
"Solid Script: Fire!"
Levy's voice rang out clear and determined. A blazing word made of bright orange flames shot upward, intercepting the eggs mid-air.
The ensuing explosion lit up the canopy, neutralizing the rooster's ambush.
Gajeel smirked, jumping backward to create some distance. He landed heavily next to Levy, his iron scales fading back to normal skin.
"Nice save, shorty."
"I told you I'm not hiding anymore," Levy said, gripping her magical pen.
She was panting, sweat rolling down her face, but her eyes were locked onto the two Grimoire Heart mages.
"Their magic is weird, Gajeel. That samurai isn't just writing words, he's bringing the concept of the word into reality using ethernano! It's a heavy, corrupted version of Solid Script."
"Can you counter it?" Gajeel asked, keeping his red eyes on Yomazu.
"I can try," Levy nodded. "But his casting speed with that sword is incredibly fast. If you can keep the pressure on him and stop him from writing full sentences, I can handle the bird."
"Deal," Gajeel grinned fiercely.
He slammed his fists together, a sharp metallic clang echoing through the trees. "Let's scrap."
Yomazu rested his katana on his shoulder, his dark eyes narrowing. "You intend to challenge the vanguard of Purgatory with such a fragmented strategy? Foolish. Dark Form: Kiri!"
"Mist."
Yomazu slashed his blade through the rune. Instantly, a thick, suffocating black fog rolled over the clearing, obscuring all vision.
The natural sunlight struggling through the canopy was blotted out entirely.
"I can't see them!" Levy coughed, the dark mist stinging her eyes.
"Stay close!" Gajeel ordered, his senses dialed to their absolute peak.
His Dragon Slayer nose twitched, trying to isolate their scent, but the dark magic smelled like rotting metal and old blood, masking their exact locations.
A sharp whistle of a blade cutting through the air was his only warning.
Gajeel threw his arm up, turning it to iron just in time to block a vicious downward strike from Yomazu's katana.
Sparks illuminated the dark mist for a fraction of a second.
Before Gajeel could counter, Yomazu vanished back into the heavy fog, moving with silent precision.
...
High above the island, the gray storm clouds roiled violently.
The colossal form of Master Makarov towered over the sacred jungle, his massive hands reaching out to grab the demonic bat-shaped airship of Grimoire Heart.
"GRIMOIRE HEART!" Makarov's magically amplified voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of Tenrou Island.
"Get off my island!"
Makarov's giant fingers closed around the armored hull of the ship.
The metal groaned and buckled under the sheer, overwhelming physical strength of the Fairy Tail Master.
He intended to crush the engines and send the warship crashing into the ocean, far away from his children.
"Fire the main cannons!" a panicked voice yelled from the deck of the ship.
Dozens of heavy magical artillery batteries rotated, aiming point-blank at the giant's chest.
They unleashed a relentless barrage of condensed purple energy blasts.
Makarov gritted his teeth, letting the blasts scorch his giant skin.
He didn't let go.
His grip tightened, the steel hull of the Grimoire Heart screaming in protest. "Is this all you have?! You invade my home, and you hide behind cannons?!"
"You haven't changed, Makarov," a deep, ancient voice resonated from the ship.
It didn't boom over a loudspeaker; it echoed directly inside Makarov's mind.
"Still so emotional. Still so desperate to protect the fragile little fairies in your garden."
The heavy steel doors on the bow of the airship swung open.
Master Hades stepped out onto the deck.
He looked incredibly small compared to the giant Makarov, but the magical aura radiating from the old man with the eyepatch was terrifying.
It was a suffocating, bottomless abyss of dark ethernano.
Makarov's giant eyes widened.
He recognized that face, even beneath the helmet and the long white beard!
He remembered the man who had passed the title of Master down to him decades ago.
"Precht..." Makarov breathed in horror, his giant hands trembling slightly. "It can't be! You... you are...."
"Precht Gaebolg is dead," Hades replied coldly, raising his gauntleted hand.
"I'm Hades. Master of Grimoire Heart. And I have discovered the true essence of magic. The One Magic!"
Hades pointed two fingers at Makarov's massive chest.
He didn't shout a spell. He simply traced a complex, glowing purple formula in the air at blinding speed.
"Amaterasu: Formula 28."
A series of intricate, glowing magical rings instantly materialized around Makarov's giant torso.
Before Makarov could even attempt to break them, the formula detonated.
BOOM!
The explosion was catastrophic.
A massive sphere of scorching, shockwave-inducing magic blasted Makarov point-blank.
The giant Master roared in pain, his colossal grip slipping from the airship as the force of the blast threw him backward.
Makarov crashed heavily into the shallow waters of the island's eastern bay, kicking up a tidal wave that crashed against the cliffs.
Hades lowered his hand, his visible eye devoid of any empathy. "Descend. Let the Kin loose into the jungle. The hunt has begins."
...
A mile away from the southern cliffs, a blazing meteor of black fire tore through the gray sky, crashing violently into a dense section of the Tenrou forest.
The impact cratered the earth, sending a shockwave that uprooted ancient trees and shattered rocks.
But the destruction didn't stop there.
From the center of the crater, a manic, unhinged laughter echoed through the trees.
"Burn! Burn it all! Turn this whole stupid island to ash!"
Zancrow stepped out of the crater, his spiky blonde hair whipping wildly.
Both of his hands were engulfed in terrifying, pitch-black flames.
He didn't just target the Fairy Tail mages, he targeted the island itself!
He threw waves of black fire in every direction, setting the sacred jungle ablaze.
The dark flames didn't behave like normal fire, they consumed the ethernano in the air, burning hotter and darker with every second.
"Where are you, little fairies?!" Zancrow yelled, kicking a burning log aside. "Come out and play with a real god! I want to hear you scream!"
"You talk too much."
Zancrow froze.
He turned around, his eyes narrowing into slits.
Walking calmly through the wall of black fire, his hands resting in the pockets of his dark coat, was Ace.
The dark flames licked at his boots and clothes, but they didn't catch fire.
Ace stopped a few yards away, analyzing the dark flames scorching the earth around them. "Black fire. That's a rare trick you got there, you aren't a Dragon Slayer since the magic frequency is entirely different. It's heavier and more destructive."
"A fairy!" Zancrow grinned, a wide, terrifying smile stretching across his face.
He ignored Ace's analysis, his eyes locking onto the Fairy Tail emblem on Ace's shoulder.
"I don't know how you're walking through my flames, but it doesn't matter! I'm Zancrow! The Flame God Slayer! And my fire turns everything to cinders!"
Zancrow lunged forward with terrifying speed, his right fist roaring with a massive sphere of black fire.
"Flame God's Explosive Flame!"
He threw the blast directly at Ace.
Ace didn't dodge.
He pulled his D-Tector from his pocket in a smooth, fluid motion. The device flared with a blinding, pure white light that pierced through the dark, smoky clearing.
"Execute," Ace stated, swiping his hand across the scanner. "Spirit Evolution."
Rings of brilliant white and blue digital code erupted around him.
The black fire slammed into the data rings, but it was instantly deflected, unable to penetrate the digital firewall.
The data forged over Ace's body, replacing his coat with sleek, aerodynamic armor colored in stark white, blue, and silver.
A long, flowing scarf trailed from his helmet, and a blue visor covered his eyes.
He wielded two elegant, high-tech energy sabers, the blades glowing with intense, pure light.
Lobomon stood in the clearing, the sheer radiance of his armor pushing the shadows of the black fire back.
Zancrow skidded to a halt, his eyes widening slightly as the smoke cleared.
"What the hell? wearing an armor isn't gonna save you!"
"You call yourself a god," Lobomon's calm, synthesized voice resonated through the burning clearing.
He twirled the glowing sabers in his hands, falling into a flawless, disciplined fighting stance.
"Let's see if a god can bleed."
Zancrow let out a furious, manic screech.
He ignited both of his hands with massive pillars of black fire, charging at the Warrior of Light. "I'll melt that armor to slag! Flame God's Kagutsuchi!"
He swung both arms, unleashing a devastating, wide-range wave of black flames that threatened to engulf the entire clearing.
Lobomon didn't retreat.
He fired his built-in thrusters, moving with blinding, near-teleportation speed. He dashed straight toward the incoming wave of dark fire.
"Licht Sieger," Lobomon commanded softly.
He swung both energy sabers in a rapid, cross-shaped arc. The pure, highly concentrated digital light clashed directly against the dark God Slayer flames.
Lobomon's light sabers sliced cleanly through the wave of black fire, parting the devastating attack right down the middle as if tearing a sheet of dark paper.
Zancrow's eyes bulged in absolute shock as the white-armored warrior burst through the parted flames, closing the distance in a fraction of a second.
Before Zancrow could even raise his arms to defend, Lobomon spun, delivering a lightning-fast, brutal kick to the God Slayer's jaw.
The sheer kinetic force sent Zancrow flying through the air, crashing hard into a massive, burning tree trunk.
The dark mage groaned, spitting a mouthful of blood into the dirt as he struggled to process what just happened.
Lobomon stood tall in the center of the parted black flames, his glowing sabers humming quietly.
"Your fire is strong," Lobomon said, his tone analytical and entirely devoid of fear. "But it's chaotic. You rely on the destructive nature of the magic rather than your own skill. That's a fatal flaw against an opponent who strikes with precision."
Zancrow pushed himself off the burning tree, wiping the blood from his mouth. His manic grin returned, twisted with a new rage.
He wiped the dirt from his face, his black aura exploding outward, melting the rocks around him.
"Precision?" Zancrow laughed, his voice cracking. "I'll show you precision when I burn a hole straight through your chest! You're dead, fairy!"