The weight of Kael's emotionless words settled over the platform like a fog. For the Eisenwald mages, it didn't feel like they were facing a man anymore.
It felt like they were staring at a predator that had finally grown bored.
"Attack! He's just one person!" someone shouted, forcing sound into the suffocating silence. "There are hundreds of us! Don't tell me we can't take down one guy!"
"He's mocking Eisenwald's pride! Make him pay!"
"Kill him!"
Steel scraped. Enchanted blades and clubs rose. A tide of mages surged forward.
A cold edge lifted the corner of Kael's mouth.
"Good," he said quietly. "Now this is worth my time."
His silhouette blurred.
"W-Where did he go?!"
Squelch—!
Thud.
The first body hit the ground.
Then another.
And another.
The station filled with a rhythm of impact and choking screams—metal striking flesh, boots skidding, bodies collapsing. The Eisenwald mages swung wildly at empty air. They heard wind. They felt something pass them.
They never saw it.
"My arm—!"
"I can't— I can't see him!"
Panic spread like disease. The certainty took root in each of them, one by one:
I'm next.
Whoosh.
Kael reappeared ten meters away as if he'd never moved at all. His posture was relaxed. His breathing didn't change.
"So weak," he said, almost genuinely disappointed. "Is this what passes for a dark guild now? I came hoping for a challenge."
"You arrogant bastard!" Byard roared, launching himself forward.
Concrete cracked under his feet as he sprang into the air. Golden light gathered around his fists, dense and violent—compressed magic ready to smash through armor and bone alike.
Kael's eyes didn't even follow the arc of Byard's jump.
"Idiot."
He tossed the sword in his hand.
Not at Byard's chest.
Not at his throat.
Straight at his path.
"Too slow!" Byard barked, twisting midair. He swatted the blade aside with a glowing fist—
And in the same instant—
Kael was there.
Not beneath him.
Not behind him.
In front of his face.
Byard's pupils shrank. He didn't even have time to inhale.
Kael's hand clamped onto his jaw like a steel vice, the force immediate and absolute.
Then Kael drove him down.
BOOM!
Byard's body slammed into the side of a parked train car and punched through the metal plating like paper. The carriage caved inward, leaving a jagged crater of twisted steel.
Byard hung there for half a second.
Then went limp.
The platform went dead silent.
"No way…"
"Byard was top five…"
"…and he got dropped in one hit."
Weapons lowered without permission. Hands trembled. Even breathing sounded too loud.
In the middle of that dread, Karacka—heavy-set, face pale—stared at Kael's clothes, then his hair, then the way he stood. Something in his memory clicked into place like a lock.
His eyes widened.
Cold sweat poured down his spine.
"Black hair… black shirt… gray trousers… that speed…" Karacka's lips moved without sound. Then his voice finally came—thin and shaking. "No. No, no… it can't be."
Rayule grabbed him by the shoulder. "What are you saying? Do you know him?"
Karacka didn't answer at first. He looked like a man trying to speak while drowning.
"It's him," he whispered. "We're dead. It's over."
"Speak up!" someone snapped. "Who is he?!"
Karacka swallowed hard. His eyes never left Kael.
"Do you remember the reports from two months ago? The Kingdom of Somaria?"
A ripple went through the crowd.
Somaria had once been a functioning nation—until famine, raids, and civil collapse turned it into a lawless corridor for bandits and smugglers. Its worst blight was the Lokas Bandit Army, a private force of over ten thousand hardened killers.
Two months ago, that army vanished in a single night.
Not routed.
Not arrested.
Erased.
The aftermath had been described as a slaughterhouse. A landscape of broken bodies and shattered fortifications so complete it bordered on unreal.
And the underworld had given the culprit a name that dark guilds spoke like a curse:
The Tyrant.
Karacka lifted a shaking finger toward Kael.
"It's him," he said, voice cracking. "The man who wiped out the Lokas. He's the Tyrant."
The name hit the platform like a funeral bell.
"The… Tyrant?"
"No… you're lying…"
In the current underworld of Ishgar, four names had become living nightmares—figures too violent, too successful, too untouchable:
The Black-Winged Demon.The Flame Emperor.The Sword God, rumored to have cut down a dragon-like calamity half a year ago.And the Tyrant.
Legends without Council titles—because the Council couldn't decide whether to recruit them… or pray they never turned their gaze toward ERA.
"Why… why would someone like that come after us?" a mage whispered.
Another took a step back. Then another. A line of retreat began without anyone commanding it.
Erigor—the Reaper—felt sweat slide down his temple. He'd heard the stories. He'd laughed at them.
He wasn't laughing now.
"Tyrant!" Erigor shouted, forcing his voice to stay steady. "Eisenwald has no quarrel with you! We've stayed out of your way! Why are you here—did the Council hire you? Did someone pay you to kill us?!"
Kael chuckled once, low and humorless.
"Pay me?"
He raised his right hand.
The tattoo on the back of it was unmistakable.
The Fairy Tail guild mark.
A stunned silence snapped across the station.
"That's… Fairy Tail."
"The Tyrant is Fairy Tail?!"
The idea didn't fit. The Tyrant's reputation was too brutal, too efficient, too merciless to belong to a "legal" guild.
But the mark was real.
And suddenly, the pieces fell into place with sickening clarity.
They had targeted Fairy Tail's Master.
Of course the guild's strongest would come.
Erigor's face twisted. The last hint of negotiation died.
"Attack!" he roared. "NOW! Kill him or he kills us all! There's nowhere to run!"
The mages understood the truth in his words. Mercy wasn't a currency they could afford—especially not against a man with Kael's legend.
They surged again, desperate and cornered.
And this time—
Something caught Kael.
A shadow snapped across the ground like a living chain and solidified instantly into two massive, pitch-black hands that clamped around Kael's ankles.
For the first time, Kael's movement stopped.
Kageyama's voice tore through the air in triumph, his face contorted with effort.
"I've got him! His speed means nothing if he can't move—!! Fire everything!"