Chapter 465: Why Don't You Give It a Try?
"Meredy's strength is quite impressive," Laxus remarked, genuine surprise coloring his tone as he watched the screen.
He knew exactly how strong Bickslow and Evergreen were, and he had a fairly accurate gauge of Lyon's capabilities as well. If it were just Lyon, fighting those two would have been an incredibly uphill battle, and he likely would have lost. But with Meredy supporting him, the two teams were fighting to a complete standstill.
"Of course. I taught her myself," Noah puffed his chest out proudly.
"Look at you, all smug," Laxus snorted without hesitation. It wasn't that he couldn't stand seeing Meredy do well; he just couldn't stand seeing Noah act so arrogant.
Noah didn't retort; he simply flashed an incredibly punchable, triumphant grin.
"Let's look at the other tunnels," Laxus quickly changed the subject, refusing to give Noah any more satisfaction.
Noah chuckled and expanded the other screens.
"S-So strong! Was she always this powerful?!" Juvia panted, half-crouching on the ground, cold sweat dripping from her forehead as she stared at the figure before her.
"Oi, oi... I knew she was strong, but I didn't think she was this much of a monster," Gajeel agreed, his face similarly drenched in sweat. He maintained a low, coiled stance, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.
"What is the matter, Juvia? You will never become an S-Class mage like this!"
As the dust settled, Erza emerged completely unscathed, clad in her Sea Empress Armor.
"Juvia will defeat you!" Juvia gripped her fists tightly. Her entire body liquefied as she shot forward like a high-pressure jet stream, launching herself directly at Erza.
Erza swung her crystalline sword, slicing cleanly through the incoming water, but the strike dealt no actual damage. The severed streams of water simply merged back together behind Erza, reforming into Juvia.
"Water Slicer!" Juvia spun around, transforming her arm into a razor-sharp blade of water, and unleashed a flurry of point-blank, armor-piercing slashes.
Erza didn't panic in the slightest. She calmly raised her sword, perfectly parrying the torrent of slashes. With a swift flick of her wrist, she angled the blade, effortlessly deflecting Juvia's water slicers right toward Gajeel, who was charging in from the side.
Seeing the deadly water blades hurtling toward him, Gajeel hastily aborted his Iron Club attack and vaulted backward to dodge.
The deflected slashes gouged deeply into the surrounding cave walls, shattering massive chunks of rock and kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
Using the momentum of her parry, Erza swung her sword in a brutal upward arc. Juvia was forced to liquefy her torso to avoid being cleaved in half. She then quickly leaped backward, regrouping with Gajeel.
"She actually deflected the Water Slicers?!" Juvia gasped in shock.
"Iron Dragon's Roar!"
Gajeel inhaled deeply, gathering a massive amount of Dragon Slayer magic in his lungs, and unleashed a devastating metallic tornado straight at Erza.
"Flight Armor!"
Erza leaped to the side, instantly swapping her armor mid-air. The moment her feet touched the ground, she exploded forward with blinding speed, closing the distance instantly.
With a sword wreathed in flames, she slashed viciously at Juvia, while her other blade swept toward Gajeel.
Gajeel hastily raised an Iron Club to block the strike.
CLANG!
But he couldn't fully absorb the impact. The sheer kinetic force sent him flying backward, crashing heavily into the cavern wall.
"Ah!"
Juvia reflexively tried to liquefy her body to evade, but to her absolute shock, Erza's flaming sword bypassed her watery form entirely and struck her solid core. Juvia was sent tumbling across the ground.
"Too naive! You actually dared to use the exact same evasion magic twice in front of me without any backup plan?! Once an enemy grasps your timing, they only need one strike to heavily injure you!" Erza lectured sternly, glaring at Juvia, who was clutching her stomach in agony.
"Ugh..." Juvia gritted her teeth. Though there was no external wound, the internal pain from the flaming strike was excruciating, leaving her drenched in sweat.
"Dammit!" Gajeel glanced at Juvia, the cold sweat on his face multiplying. His partner was temporarily out of commission. Having to face Erza alone instantly spiked the pressure on him to an unbearable level.
"Here I come!" Erza paused for only a split second before charging at Gajeel with both swords raised.
"This is bad... of all people, it had to be her," Gray sweated profusely, staring at the examiner blocking his path.
"Well, at least it isn't Erza," Loke let out a small sigh of relief.
"Idiot! What the hell are you saying?!" Gray panicked, staring at Loke in sheer horror.
Realizing his blunder, Loke instantly clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Are you implying I am somehow inferior to Erza?" a furiously icy voice echoed through the tunnel.
Gray and Loke broke out in a heavy cold sweat. Trembling, they slowly looked up to see Sorano glaring down at them, her face contorted in absolute rage.
"I was originally planning to use a normal amount of force for this exam... but it seems I need to turn things up a notch."
One by one, beautiful, deadly angels materialized around Sorano. Her magic power began to boil over, projecting a crushing wave of pressure that washed over Gray and Loke.
Unable to even complain about Loke's massive screw-up, Gray desperately focused his attention, not daring to blink as he stared down the furious examiner. Loke was in the same boat, too terrified to even wipe the sweat from his brow.
"Go!" Sorano pointed a manicured finger forward. Her angelic summons instantly launched themselves at the duo, officially kicking off their brutal battle.
"Gildarts!"
Natsu eagerly charged into the final chamber of his designated tunnel, only to stop dead in his tracks. Standing in the center of the room was none other than Gildarts Clive. Natsu couldn't help but gasp.
"Yo, Natsu. You really have terrible luck," Gildarts smiled down at him.
"I-It's actually Gildarts... We're doomed..." Happy wailed, tears streaming down his face. He didn't believe for a second that Natsu could win this fight.
"No matter what I'm doing, I never hold back," Gildarts warned, his expression turning serious as he looked at the duo.
Suddenly, he paused.
Natsu's head was lowered. First, his fists ignited, and then his entire body erupted into a roaring pillar of flame.
"I'M ALL FIRED UP!" Natsu threw his head back, staring at Gildarts with eyes burning with absolute, primal excitement.
"Hey, Happy, what are you doing?" Natsu paused, noticing Happy pulling something out of his spatial pocket.
"I'm getting this white flag ready so I can wave it the second you get knocked out," Happy explained, giving the little flag a test wave.
"I haven't even started fighting yet, and you've already given up?! I don't need that! Whether it's Gildarts or anyone else, I'm going to beat him until he cries for mercy!" Natsu glared at Happy before turning his fiery gaze back to Gildarts.
"Ouch," Gildarts deadpanned, utterly unimpressed.
"Too fast! I haven't even done anything yet!" Natsu yelled at the lack of reaction.
"Here I come, Gildarts! I'm going to show you how much stronger I've gotten over the past three years! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Natsu locked onto his target and roared. He kicked off the ground with explosive force, hurtling straight toward the older mage.
"Wait a second, calm down, Natsu. I haven't mentally prepared myself yet... hey..." Gildarts raised his right hand in a placating gesture, signaling for a time-out.
"UWWOOOOOHHHH!" Natsu completely ignored him, his flaming fist rocketing toward Gildarts's face.
"Natsu! You can't just charge in recklessly! Gildarts's magic crushes everything it touches!" Happy screamed in panic, but Natsu was already right on top of him.
BOOM!
A massive explosion erupted point-blank, filling the chamber with smoke and dust.
When the dust settled, Gildarts was standing perfectly still, his outstretched right palm effortlessly catching Natsu's flaming fist.
A blinding white light began to gather in Gildarts's palm. A split second later, a colossal beam of magical energy erupted forward, completely engulfing Natsu.
BOOM!
The blinding light flashed through the cavern. When it vanished, Natsu was completely gone, leaving only a massive, smoking crater in front of Gildarts.
"Good grief, I told you I'm bad at holding back," Gildarts sighed, staring down at the crater.
"N-N-Natsu got blasted to pieces..." Happy sobbed, staring wide-eyed at the empty crater.
"Not a chance!" Natsu's voice suddenly echoed from above.
Gildarts looked up just as Natsu, propelled by jets of flame from his feet, closed the distance instantly. Natsu drove his flaming knee directly down onto the top of Gildarts's head.
The sheer force buckled Gildarts's knees, forcing him into a half-crouch.
Vmmmm—CRASH!
Suddenly, the ground beneath Gildarts pulsed with white light, shattering into perfectly symmetrical, cube-like blocks. By pulverizing the ground, Gildarts effectively dispersed all the kinetic force from Natsu's strike.
With a casual upward toss, he threw Natsu off him.
"I'm not done yet! HRAAAH!"
Still mid-air, Natsu used his flames to violently alter his trajectory, lunging back at Gildarts with a barrage of blazing punches.
Gildarts casually raised his arm, parrying Natsu's flurry of blows, before delivering a swift, heavy punch to Natsu's head that sent him crashing into the ground.
Refusing to stay down, Natsu instantly pushed off the floor with his hands and launched a vicious upward kick at Gildarts's jaw.
Gildarts simply opened his hand and caught the incoming foot. He clamped his fingers down, hoisted Natsu into the air like a ragdoll, and casually hurled him across the cavern.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!"
Correcting his posture mid-air, Natsu inhaled deeply and unleashed a massive, concentrated pillar of roaring flames straight at Gildarts.
Seeing the incoming inferno, Gildarts smirked. He raised his right hand and pressed it flat against the roaring flames. A blinding flash of white light erupted, and the entire pillar of fire instantly shattered into harmless sparks that dissipated into the air.
However, the residual momentum of the white light didn't stop—it shot forward and struck Natsu head-on.
"Oh crap!" Gildarts's eyes widened in panic.
"NATSU!" Happy shrieked.
Struck by the white light, Natsu's body instantly shattered into pieces and scattered in the air.
"I lost focus for a second and used too much power..." Gildarts muttered nervously.
"How could you... That's going way too far! Natsu is..." Happy wailed, tears streaming down his face.
"No, Natsu is fine. That wasn't a lethal spell. Plus, the Guild Mark..." Gildarts quickly realized his mistake. His Crash Magic wasn't inherently lethal unless he willed it to be, and Noah's enchantments on the Guild Marks provided an absolute failsafe against death.
He almost explained the Guild Mark's functions to comfort the crying cat, but remembered it was a strictly kept secret and stopped himself. Instead, he simply pointed upward. "Look."
Happy sniffled and looked up, only to see hundreds of miniature, chibi-sized Natsus raining down from the ceiling.
"That was just my Disassembly Magic. It's completely non-lethal," Gildarts explained.
"There are so many Natsus!" Happy shrieked, his eyes practically bulging out of his skull. Before he could even try to dodge, he was completely buried under a mountain of tiny, flailing Natsus.
"You'll turn back to normal in a bit. It's a shame, Natsu, but this is where it ends. You failed this tri—"
"Wait a second!"
Gildarts's declaration was abruptly cut off by a chorus of tiny, overlapping voices. He blinked in surprise as the sea of mini-Natsus all began shouting at once.
"I haven't given up yet!" "That's right, that's right!" "Don't underestimate me just because I'm small!" "I'm ALL FIRED UP!" "I'm Natsu!" "I'm Natsu too!"
The cavern echoed endlessly with the chaotic, overlapping shouts of hundreds of tiny, fired-up Natsus.
"S-So scary!" Happy squeaked, frantically scrambling out of the swarm of mini-Natsus to hide in a corner.
"If there are this many of me, we can definitely beat Gildarts!" "Yeah! This is actually a blessing in disguise!" "I'm definitely winning this fight!" "Here we come, Gildarts!"
Having reached a unified consensus, the horde of tiny Natsus swarmed forward, launching a coordinated, microscopic assault on Gildarts.
"Haha... Good grief..." Gildarts chuckled out loud. Looking down at the impossibly stubborn, hyper-energetic swarm of Natsus, a broad, fond smile spread across his face.
"Hey, Laxus. If you were in his shoes, would you have charged back in with that much crazy energy?" Noah asked, watching the screen.
"No idea. But I wouldn't have let myself get put into a situation like that to begin with," Laxus shook his head. With his lightning-fast reflexes and mobility, getting hit by a slow, telegraphed spell like that was highly unlikely.
"Want me to help you find out? I know how to cast that spell too," Noah offered, a suspiciously bright smile on his face.
"Piss off," Laxus rejected him instantly. He knew exactly what Noah was trying to do—he just wanted to see Laxus make a fool of himself.
"Anyone else want to try? It's actually a lot of fun," Noah offered, looking around the group.
Everyone furiously shook their heads in terrified refusal.
"What a shame," Noah sighed dramatically, mourning the lack of volunteers.
"But still, Natsu-nii launching an attack even in that state is so amazing!" Wendy said, staring at the screen in awe. Yukino nodded vigorously beside her; they both thought Natsu's tenacity was incredible.
The others exchanged fond smiles. Natsu's relentless, never-give-up attitude truly was inspiring.
"I still think you should try getting split into a hundred tiny pieces," Noah muttered, side-eyeing Laxus again.
Laxus's mouth twitched. He quickly slid his mat a few feet away, genuinely afraid Noah might just cast the spell on him for fun.
Seeing how vehemently Laxus resisted, Noah finally let out a disappointed sigh and turned his attention back to the screen.
Unable to handle the sheer annoyance of hundreds of tiny Natsus biting his ankles and pulling his hair, Gildarts waved his hand and canceled the spell, returning Natsu to his normal size.
Seizing the golden opportunity, Natsu instantly closed the distance and unleashed his Secret Dragon Slayer Art at point-blank range: Crimson Lotus: Exploding Flame Blade!
"That's some serious firepower," Laxus praised.
"It is. But unfortunately, it's not going to do much. Natsu has grown tremendously over the past three years, but Gildarts hasn't exactly been sitting still either," Noah shook his head.
"Well, at least he managed to push Gildarts back a few feet," Laxus smirked, watching the screen.
On the screen, Natsu had clearly noticed the long, deep skid marks Gildarts had left on the stone floor while blocking the attack. He burst into triumphant laughter, pointing at the marks and bragging loudly to Happy.
"Wait... does that mean the old man beat Natsu up that badly without moving a single step from his original position?" Wendy gasped, suddenly realizing the terrifying implication. "And Natsu-nii's ultimate, full-power attack only managed to push him back a little bit? And it looks like Natsu-nii is completely exhausted now..."
She watched the screen anxiously. Natsu was swaying on his feet, panting heavily, yet he still refused to give up, raising his fists to attack again.
"Exactly. Natsu's attacks are practically useless here. Unless Gildarts willingly acknowledges him, there is absolutely zero chance Natsu passes," Noah explained, his eyes fixed on the screen.
The cavern floor around Gildarts had begun to tremble violently. A colossal, suffocating wave of magic power erupted from the older mage, generating a terrifying shockwave that blasted outward in all directions. Natsu was frozen in place, completely paralyzed by the sheer, crushing pressure of Gildarts's aura.
"Looks like he wants to teach Natsu a lesson," Noah noted.
"The old man got even stronger," Laxus chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief.
"So amazing! I can literally feel the old man's magic from all the way over here!" Wendy gasped in shock.
She looked toward the distant cavern where the fight was taking place. A massive, towering pillar of white magical energy had erupted straight through the cavern ceiling, shooting high into the sky. The terrifying, oppressive pressure of that magic washed over the entire island, reaching even their base camp. The ground beneath them rumbled faintly in response.
Yukino nervously scooted closer to Wendy.
"Gildarts really is a monster. He is far, far stronger than I am," Ur admitted, watching the distant pillar of light.
Hearing everyone praise her father, Cana couldn't help but smile proudly.
"I... I lose..."
Natsu's trembling voice echoed from the screen. He had dropped to his knees, utterly drenched in cold sweat, his entire body shaking uncontrollably.
He had desperately tried to launch an attack despite the crushing weight of Gildarts's full power, but in the end, his instincts had overwhelmed him. The sheer, primal terror radiating from Gildarts was too much; he couldn't take another step forward.
"Excellent!" Gildarts's voice echoed back. "I will never fault you for lacking the courage to fight a hopeless battle! Because the courage to sheathe a drawn sword requires far more strength than swinging it blindly.
"Fear is not 'evil.' It is simply acknowledging your own weakness. Only when a person truly understands their own weakness can they become stronger—and kinder. That is an absolute requirement for becoming an S-Class mage. Since you've learned that lesson today... you pass."
"Gildarts is absolutely right," Noah sighed deeply, moved by the lesson. "Charging headfirst into danger takes courage, but weighing the odds and suppressing your own reckless impulses takes even more. A person can only truly grow once they accept the harsh reality that they are not omnipotent. He's teaching Natsu exactly what he needs to learn."
The others nodded in solemn agreement. Wendy and Yukino looked particularly thoughtful, digesting the profound lesson.
On the screen, Gildarts encouraged Natsu to continue giving his all in the upcoming trials. When Natsu tried to argue, still frustrated by his overwhelming defeat, Gildarts smiled gently. He told Natsu he understood how he felt—that regardless of age or experience, no true mage ever wanted to lose.
Finally, Gildarts promised that Natsu was welcome to challenge him to a rematch anytime he wanted.
~~~
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