Chapter 478: Since You Want to Fly So Badly, Let Me Give You a Lift!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Gildarts and Bluenote clashed furiously. Their fists and kicks blurred into afterimages, the resulting shockwaves tearing the ground beneath them to shreds. The sheer density of their colliding magic power generated a continuous, deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the battlefield.
Massive clouds of dust and debris billowed outward with every strike. The Fairy Tail mages fighting near the perimeter were forced to retreat even further, completely unable to withstand the apocalyptic shockwaves generated by the two titans.
"So strong!"
Natsu, having just punched Zancrow backward, turned his head to watch Gildarts and Bluenote's clash, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
"You bastard! You dare look away while fighting me?!"
Regaining his balance, Zancrow was absolutely infuriated by Natsu's blatant disrespect. His fists erupted in pitch-black flames as he charged forward again.
"I can't lose to Gildarts! I have to beat my guy before he beats his!"
Natsu snapped his attention back to Zancrow, a wild, competitive grin spreading across his face. He swung his flaming fist, meeting the incoming attack head-on.
"You arrogant brat!" Zancrow roared, pouring even more magic into his God Slayer flames, causing them to flare violently.
Refusing to back down, Natsu intensified his own Dragon Slayer flames, the heat radiating from his body visibly warping the air. The two resumed their brutal, fiery brawl.
Seeing Gildarts fighting so fiercely, the rest of the Fairy Tail vanguard grew even more fired up. Their strikes became heavier, faster, and far more decisive.
Conversely, the Grimoire Heart forces felt an overwhelming, crushing pressure descending upon them. Their terrifying, seemingly invincible Deputy Commander—second only to Master Hades himself—was actually being fought to a perfect standstill!
The sheer shock caused many of the dark guild grunts to falter, and Gray, Lyon, and the others ruthlessly capitalized on their distraction, tearing through their ranks with brutal efficiency.
Even the Seven Kin of Purgatory were momentarily rattled. Their focus wavered, and the S-Class mages immediately seized the openings, pressing their advantage and pushing the dark mages onto the defensive.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
After a rapid, brutal exchange of blows, Bluenote used the recoil of a clashed punch to leap backward, putting several dozen meters between himself and Gildarts.
He stared at the orange-haired mage with a manic, ecstatic grin. "Excellent! Truly excellent, Gildarts! Let us elevate this battle! Let us soar to greater heights!"
"It's been a very long time since I've gotten to stretch my legs like this. I feel much lighter," Gildarts smiled lazily, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles.
"It is time we both stopped holding back," Bluenote declared, his tone turning deadly serious.
He extended his arms forward, crossing his wrists and curving his fingers inward like claws. A dense, deep-purple sphere of raw magical energy materialized in the center of his hands.
"Super Gravity Sphere!"
The moment the purple sphere stabilized, a terrifying, localized black hole effect erupted. Massive chunks of earth, debris, and the very air itself were violently sucked toward the sphere, vanishing entirely into the condensed gravity field.
The suction was so immensely powerful that even Gildarts—despite planting his feet firmly into the ground—was slowly being dragged forward, his boots carving deep trenches into the dirt.
"What is that?" Gildarts asked, furrowing his brow as he fought the pull.
"A field of infinite gravity that crushes and devours all creation!" Bluenote roared triumphantly.
"You bastard!" Gildarts grunted, finally stopping his slide. He extended his right arm, aiming his palm directly at the purple sphere.
"FLY! FLY HIGHER!" Bluenote laughed maniacally, continuously pumping more magic into the sphere, causing the suction to intensify exponentially.
Gildarts ignored the taunts, keeping his arm perfectly straight and his eyes locked on the sphere.
"UWOOOOOHHH!" Bluenote roared, pushing his magic output to the absolute limit.
The gravitational pull became so extreme that it began affecting the adjacent battlefields. Several Grimoire Heart grunts fighting nearby lost their footing and were instantly dragged screaming toward the sphere.
Suddenly, a series of stark white, jagged cracks materialized across the surface of the dark-purple sphere.
Bluenote froze, his eyes bulging in utter disbelief. "Cracks...?"
The moment the word left his lips, the entire Super Gravity Sphere violently shattered along the fault lines, disintegrating into tiny, harmless fragments that dissolved into the air.
"You keep running your mouth about flying higher and higher! Since you want to fly so badly, let me give you a lift!"
Gildarts took two heavy steps forward, shifting into a powerful, coiled stance. He leveled his left fist forward and drew his right fist back, gathering a terrifying concentration of white, destructive magic around his arm.
"My magic... shattered...? Huh?" Bluenote muttered, still completely stunned by the destruction of his ultimate spell. He suddenly felt a suffocating, lethal wave of magic power gathering right in front of him, snapping him back to reality. But it was far too late.
"Crushing Evil, Spreading the Truth: Empyrean!"
Gildarts unleashed the devastating uppercut, driving his glowing right fist squarely into Bluenote's jaw.
The sheer, catastrophic kinetic force and magical payload instantly obliterated the ground beneath Gildarts. Bluenote was launched skyward like a biological missile, rocketing vertically with terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, he was hurled hundreds of meters into the air, his velocity showing absolutely no signs of slowing.
"He certainly flew high enough. I guess Gildarts really did grant his wish," Noah's Thought Projection chuckled from the backline, having monitored the entire exchange.
He looked up at the sky. Through his sensory grid, he tracked Bluenote's trajectory. The man was currently over three kilometers in the air, arcing diagonally toward the distant horizon. His momentum was finally beginning to slow.
"But we can't just let him fly away," Noah's projection muttered.
He raised his right hand, clenched it into a tight fist, and violently yanked it downward.
High in the stratosphere, a massive golden magic circle instantly materialized directly in Bluenote's flight path. Bluenote slammed into the barrier face-first. Instead of breaking it, the magic circle acted like a massive, invisible hand that grabbed him and hurled him violently back toward the earth.
KABOOM!!!
Bluenote slammed into the ground just a short distance behind Noah's projection and Ur.
The catastrophic impact from falling at terminal velocity generated a massive, deafening explosion, kicking up a towering cloud of dust and sending a localized earthquake rippling through the base camp.
Wendy, Yukino, and the others shrieked in terror, spinning around to face the blast zone. Seeing Noah's projection and Ur calmly waving at them to signal everything was fine, they finally let out a sigh of relief and turned their attention back to the ongoing battles.
"Is he dead?" Ur asked casually, glancing over her shoulder.
"Not quite, though based on his magical signature, he's barely clinging to life," Noah's projection replied, waving his hand to disperse the thick dust cloud.
Bluenote levitated out of the crater, floating toward them face-down. His clothes were completely shredded, he was covered in bleeding gashes, and he was utterly unconscious.
As Bluenote floated closer, Noah's projection rapidly traced several runes over his body, sealing away his remaining magic power and physically paralyzing him. To ensure he didn't wake up and try anything stupid, the projection delivered a sharp, precise strike to Bluenote's abdomen.
Bluenote's eyes snapped open in agony. He coughed up a massive mouthful of blood before immediately passing out again from the sheer pain.
"I crippled his magical core. He will never be a mage again," Noah's projection informed Gildarts—who had just walked over—and Ur. "Having lost such a massive reservoir of magic power, his physical constitution will deteriorate rapidly, drastically shortening his lifespan. Once the Magic Council takes him into custody, he can spend the rest of his short, miserable life rotting in a cell. We can't have monsters like this wandering free."
"I don't really care. Do whatever you want with him," Gildarts waved his hand dismissively. As far as he was concerned, Bluenote should be grateful he was even alive. He had zero interest in the man's ultimate fate; his attention was already laser-focused on Cana's ongoing battle.
"I agree with Noah's method," Ur smiled, nodding at the projection.
Having nearly lost her own daughter to the manipulations of a dark guild, Ur harbored an intense, burning hatred for people like Bluenote. Simply killing him was letting him off too easily. Stripping a fiercely proud, battle-crazed mage of his power and forcing him to live out his remaining years as a weak, crippled mortal was a far more fitting punishment. The accelerated aging was just the cherry on top.
"Alright, I'll toss him in the corner for now. The other fights should be wrapping up soon," Noah's projection nodded, levitating the unconscious Bluenote off to the side before turning his attention toward Erza and Natsu's battlefields.
"Bluenote actually lost?!"
Distracted by the massive tremor, Zancrow glanced over and saw that their invincible Deputy Commander had been utterly defeated.
"Gildarts finished his fight that fast?! Dammit! I can't let him beat me!"
Seeing Gildarts casually walking away from his downed opponent, Natsu roared in frustration. He lunged forward, delivering a brutal flaming punch to the distracted Zancrow's face, sending the God Slayer tumbling backward.
"You bastard! Flame God's Bellow!" Zancrow snarled, recovering mid-air and unleashing a massive torrent of black flames straight at Natsu.
"I'm definitely eating this fire!" Natsu roared. Instead of dodging, he side-stepped the main blast, reached out with a flame-wreathed hand, and physically grabbed a large chunk of the black fire, preparing to shove it into his mouth. He had been trying to figure out a way to eat these weird flames the entire fight.
"Uhihihihi! You can't eat the flames of a God! Know your place, you lowly Dragon Slayer!" Zancrow mocked, laughing at Natsu's desperate attempt.
"Watch me! Noah told me that if you can't eat something, it usually just means your internal magical pressure isn't high enough to process it!" Natsu roared.
His entire body erupted in a blinding, roaring aura of crimson flames. He channeled every ounce of his magic into his hands, drastically intensifying the heat. With a violent, twisting motion, he physically compressed and crushed the black flames in his grasp, shattering the cohesive magical structure into tiny, flickering sparks of black fire.
Opening his mouth wide, Natsu inhaled deeply, sucking the scattered black sparks into his lungs.
The moment the black fire entered his system, Natsu's face contorted in agony. He clutched his stomach, gagging and retching as his internal organs felt like they were being ripped apart.
"Uhaahahaha! Look at you! I told you a mortal couldn't consume the flames of a God!" Zancrow laughed sadistically, watching Natsu writhe in pain.
"Natsu! Are you okay?!" Ultear, who had been keeping a close eye on his fight, instantly dropped her opponent and rushed over to him.
"I'm... fine... I can feel my body adapting to the flames..." Natsu gasped out, waving her off. He slowly straightened up, a fierce, triumphant grin spreading across his face as he looked at Zancrow.
He forcefully gathered his magic power into his stomach, suppressing the volatile black flames and forcing his Dragon Slayer biology to acclimate to the foreign magical signature.
"Uhihihihi! You're completely delusional!" Zancrow sneered, refusing to believe Natsu had actually absorbed his magic. Not wanting to give him a second to recover, Zancrow gathered his power for a finishing blow.
"Scorching the heavens, burning away all creation! Flame God's Kagutsuchi!"
Zancrow swung his arms forward, unleashing a catastrophic wave of black fire.
"Ice-Make: Rose Crown!"
Before Natsu could move, Ultear stepped in front of him. Countless massive, intertwining ice roses erupted from the ground, forming a beautiful, impenetrable frozen barricade that perfectly absorbed and neutralized the black inferno.
Ultear didn't even look back at Natsu. "Since you figured out how to eat his flames, take a minute to process them. I'll fight him in the meantime. But you better hurry. If you take too long, I'm going to finish him off myself."
"No problem... I just need a second!" Hearing Ultear's threat, Natsu panicked and immediately focused entirely on digesting the black sparks he had inhaled, frantically funneling magic into his stomach to accelerate the process.
"Uhaahahaha! You think you can fight me, woman?! I'll burn you to ash!" Zancrow roared, infuriated that Ultear had casually blocked his ultimate attack. He unleashed a relentless barrage of black fireballs directly at her.
Ultear remained completely unfazed. She slammed a fist into her open palm. Dozens of heavily armored ice-crafted beasts erupted from the ground, shielding her from the incoming fire while simultaneously charging at Zancrow.
The battlefield became a chaotic clash of extreme temperatures—scalding heat from the black flames and bone-chilling cold from the relentless ice constructs.
However, Ultear's raw power and combat experience vastly eclipsed Zancrow's. She effortlessly suppressed him, maintaining complete control over the flow of the battle. Zancrow screamed and raged, unleashing torrent after torrent of black fire, but he was completely unable to break through her icy onslaught.
Just as Ultear was about to deliver a decisive, finishing blow to the exhausted and cornered God Slayer, an excited shout echoed from behind her.
"I got it! Ultear, tag out! Let me finish him!" Natsu roared.
Ultear smiled faintly and leaped backward, landing gracefully beside him. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, noticing the heavy sweat on his brow.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It just took a lot of magic to break down the flames. I'll need to rest after this, but I'm definitely taking this guy down first!" Natsu grinned confidently, cracking his knuckles.
"Alright. Let's see what you can do," Ultear nodded, stepping back to give him the floor.
Natsu stepped forward, locking eyes with Zancrow.
"Uhihihihi! Did I hear that right? You actually think you can finish me?!" Zancrow mocked, though he was desperately panting, trying to recover his stamina while Ultear was out of the picture. Seeing Natsu step up to face him again, he couldn't help but sneer.
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