Chapter 364: Testing Magic Capabilities
"Should I go back up and try again?" Erza asked, turning to Noah.
"No, I want Lucy to go up and try," Noah shook his head, looking at Lucy beside him.
"Huh? Me? I can't do it!" Lucy shook her head frantically.
She had just witnessed the intense clash between Velveno and Natsu. She couldn't possibly match that level of combat; going up there would just mean getting beaten up.
"I'm telling you to summon a Celestial Spirit to fight, not to charge up there yourself," Noah said, looking completely speechless at her response.
"Haha, oh, right..." Lucy said awkwardly.
"Lucy is so slow!"
"Stupid Lucy!"
Natsu and Happy chimed in from the side without a shred of hesitation.
"What did you just say, you stupid cat?!"
Lucy instantly snatched Happy's face with both hands, rubbing and squeezing it with aggressive ferocity. After a few seconds, she let go of the dazed Exceed, turning her attention back to Velveno, who had already taken two cautious steps backward.
"Open! Gate of the Crab! Cancer!"
With a flash of golden light, Cancer manifested in front of Lucy, wielding his trademark twin shears.
"Cancer, I'm counting on you!" Lucy instructed.
"Understood, baby-shrimp."
Cancer gave his signature reply, snipping his shears as he dashed straight toward Velveno.
"Ice-Make: Lancer!"
Seeing Cancer rushing forward, Velveno thrust his hands out, launching a heavy barrage of piercing ice lances toward the spirit.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Cancer expertly wielded his shears, cleanly snipping and shattering every single incoming ice lance into fine powder before they could even touch him.
"Requip: Flight Armor!"
Realizing his baseline magic attacks were completely ineffective, a sudden flash of magical light enveloped Velveno's body, swapping his current plate into a fresh set of aerodynamic armor. With a dynamic leap backward, his enhanced speed allowed him to spring high up onto the grand balcony, easily evading Cancer's follow-up strike.
"Wow, that is genuinely stomach-churning!"
The armor that looked incredibly fierce, elegant, and heroic on Erza looked like an absolute eyesore when stretched over Velveno's bulky frame. It was pure visual pollution. Lucy couldn't help but complain loudly.
"I am strongly tempted to slash him down," Erza noted, her expression dead serious as she raised her longsword, clearly on the verge of charging up there to end the masquerade.
"Alright, just wait a little bit," Noah reassured her, gently catching her wrist. If Erza rushed up and flattened the thief right now, he would lose his window to thoroughly analyze and acquire this highly unique replication magic profile.
"Hmph! Since claiming the ring is out of the question tonight, I shall take my leave and return for it in the future!" Velveno bellowed down at the hall.
Utilizing the speed amplification of the Flight Armor, he pivoted and lunged straight toward the massive stained-glass windows of the balcony. In a single frame, his velocity carried him right to the edge of the glass.
"Oh no! He's going to escape!" Lucy cried out.
"Don't sweat it. Noah isn't going to let him clear the perimeter," Natsu said, perfectly calm as he watched from the sidelines. Knowing Noah's meticulous nature, he didn't believe for a second that Noah hadn't already anchored some form of interception grid.
BAM!!!
A thunderous structural impact resonated from the balcony, and everyone's eyes snapped up instantly.
Velveno was currently flattened face-first against a solid, shimmering wall of glowing runic script that had manifested right in front of the window. A massive, comical bump instantly swelled on his forehead. Sliding slowly down the glowing runic barrier like wet clay, he crumpled heavily onto the balcony floor.
"Ouch... just watching that makes my head throb," Lucy noted, wincing slightly.
"Aye!" Happy agreed in a hushed squeak.
"This is the runic barrier you deployed earlier, correct? When exactly did you lay down the parameters?" Erza asked, looking at Noah.
"Right after the ball commenced. Just a minor security net to ensure our target couldn't slip away," Noah grinned.
Stepping forward a few paces, he looked up at the thoroughly dizzy, swaying Velveno and called out, "If you wish to clear this perimeter, you'll have to dismantle me first. Didn't you boast earlier that you had systematically replicated all of our magic signatures? Let me see exactly how much of my casting profile you managed to absorb."
With that, Noah lightly stamped his foot against the floor. Instantly, a localized, dome-shaped barrier flared into existence, safely separating himself and Velveno from the rest of the hall. This specialized grid was engineered to completely absorb internal kinetic and magical backlash; the decorations lining Count Balsamico's grand ballroom were glaringly expensive, and Noah had zero intention of paying property damage fees.
Raising his right hand, a sudden flash of gold erupted from Noah's fingertips, unleashing a concentrated, high-velocity beam of light. "Dodon Ray!"
Velveno hadn't fully recovered from his concussive impact against the barrier, but sensing an incoming lethal signature, his survival instincts flared. He threw himself into a desperate roll across the marble floor, narrowly evading the piercing beam.
Noah didn't press the assault immediately. Instead, he maintained a measured pace, walking calmly toward the thief.
"Curse you! Since you're so eager to face your own magic, I'll gladly oblige! Dodon Ray!"
Scrambling back to his feet, Velveno shook his head violently to clear the lingering dizziness. Locking a ferocious glare onto Noah, he raised his finger and unleashed the exact same piercing light attack.
"Fascinating."
Noah simply raised a single palm, choosing not to deploy a counter-spell. He cleanly deflected the incoming light beam away with his bare hand, absorbing the impact effortlessly.
"The destructive output and the intricate structural composition of the magic are identical to my own casting. Interesting... profoundly interesting!"
Concentric layers of intricate geometric arrays began rotating rapidly before Noah's vision, the sheer density of the spinning magic matrices completely obscuring his eyes.
"Let's dial it up. Light-Make: Light Lancer!"
Noah thrust his palm forward. Dozens of glowing, light-forged spears erupted from the magic circle before him, tearing through the air toward Velveno.
"Light-Make: Light Lancer!"
Seeing the massive volley of light spears racing toward him, Velveno didn't dare compromise. He frantically activated his copied profile, deploying an identical array of light spears to intercept the assault.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The opposing light constructs collided violently in mid-air, neutralizing each other in a series of sharp detonations until both volleys dissolved into brilliant dust.
"Then how about this one? I haven't cast this particular construct tonight, let's see if your mimicry can parse it. Light-Make: Paper Cranes!"
Noah swept a single hand forward. Instantly, dozens of glowing, light-sculpted paper cranes manifested before him, weaving through the air as they swarmed toward the thief.
"Light-Make: Paper Cranes!"
Velveno successfully manifested an identical flock of light-forged cranes to meet Noah's attack head-on, the opposing constructs canceling each other out perfectly in mid-air.
"So the mimicry is advanced enough to replicate the caster's inherent experiences and shape-memory? Then let's check this parameter."
Noah extended a finger, tracing characters rapidly in the empty air to spell out the word "FIRE." The solid runic script immediately ignited into a roaring fireball, launching straight toward Velveno.
"What in the world?!"
Velveno was utterly shocked to see Noah suddenly pivot away from Light Magic to deploy an entirely different casting system. Seeing the raging fireball closing the distance rapidly, he threw his body dynamically to the side to dodge. The fiery script slammed hard against Noah's protective barrier, dissolving harmlessly into sparks.
"Replication is locked into a single active profile, failing to parse multiple independent magic systems simultaneously, huh? In that case, let's test the baseline ceiling."
Noah raised a single hand, focusing a massive reservoir of raw magical power directly into his palm. The ambient air within the ballroom began to vibrate violently under the immense magical pressure, and a heavy, suffocating aura began to ripple through the room.
"Wait... hold on a moment..."
Count Balsamico, who had been watching the high-level clash between Fairy Tail and the fugitive with rapt attention, suddenly stammered, his face turning pale. The magical payload Noah was currently accumulating looked incredibly catastrophic, forcing the nobleman to step in. If he didn't speak up, he was terrified his entire palace would be leveled to the bedrock. It was just a standard fugitive apprehension; he didn't want his ancestral estate listed as collateral damage.
"There is no cause for alarm, Count. Noah has already stabilized a high-level containment barrier. The internal kinetic force will not bleed into the surrounding environment," Erza comforted the nobleman, having tracked Noah's defensive setup from the start.
"Ah... excellent. That is a relief," Count Balsamico let out a massive sigh of relief, clutching his chest.
"W-Wait! Time out!"
Locked directly in the crosshairs of Noah's accumulating spell, Velveno panicked completely, an unparalleled sense of mortal dread seizing his heart. Are you kidding me right now?! I'm just a low-tier prison escapee, there is absolutely no justification for dropping a tactical-grade spell on my head!
Staring at the dense, vibrating mass of raw magic in Noah's hand, Velveno estimated it held more than enough payload to vaporize several mountain peaks. He screamed frantically, trying to force Noah to abort the cast.
"Brace your guard. If you don't absorb this cleanly, I cannot guarantee your survival parameters," Noah said with a pleasant, calm smile, his magic officially reaching maximum concentration.
"Curse you!"
Realizing the Mage had absolutely zero intention of aborting the assault, Velveno roared in desperate fury. Thrusting both hands forward, he deployed a massive, complex magic array. The ambient magic particles scattered across the ballroom began rushing toward the center of his matrix as he drained every drop of his internal reserves, doing everything in his power to maximize the defensive and counter-offensive output of his spell. Only by pushing his capacity to the absolute limit could he discover a shred of security.
"Heaven's Ruin!"
"Magical Convergence Cannon: Starlight Breaker!"
Noah and Velveno unleashed their respective payloads simultaneously. One colossal and one minor column of concentrated energy roared across the distance, colliding violently in the center of the containment dome.
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion erupted. A violent kinetic shockwave rippled out from the point of impact, slamming hard against the interior walls of Noah's barrier and sending a cascade of heavy distortions across the runic grid. Watching the continuous, raging shockwaves locked securely inside the dome, Erza and the team understood exactly how cataclysmic that collision would have been if left uncontained.
Count Balsamico, seeing that the golden barrier successfully neutralized the entire blast, finally relaxed his posture, watching the brilliant magical display with genuine awe. He had never witnessed a magical clash of this magnitude in his life, and his daughter, Aceto, stood beside him, equally stunned by the sheer majesty of the spellcraft.
Velveno's beam managed to endure for a fraction of a second before Noah's overwhelming magical volume systematically crushed it, driving the golden column of energy steadily back toward the thief.
In reality, Noah had actively retracted more than ninety percent of the spell's baseline destructive payload during the release phase. If he hadn't, Velveno's counter-attack would have been vaporized the exact millisecond they touched, and the remaining energy would have obliterated the man entirely. Yet, even with the payload heavily suppressed, the golden beam advanced with unstoppable momentum.
Velveno desperately squeezed his remaining magic channels, but his efforts were entirely futile against Noah's output. He could only watch in absolute despair as the wall of golden light closed the final distance.
BOOM!!!
Ultimately, Noah's suppressed beam connected squarely with Velveno, triggering a brilliant, concussive explosion. A thick cloud of dust and soot blanketed the interior of the dome, obscuring the result.
Noah casually waved his hand, conjuring a swift gust of wind that cleanly swept the debris away, revealing Velveno sprawled flat across the polished marble. He lay completely motionless, thoroughly unconscious. Noah had controlled his parameters perfectly, knocking the thief out cold without inflicting lethal trauma.
"So... that officially counts as a successful apprehension, right?" Lucy asked, breaking the silence.
~~~
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