Chapter 350: Farewell
The dense, high-frequency screech of the Rasengan echoed through the stone corridors of Tartaros.
Ren pressed the violently spinning sphere of compressed azure chakra directly toward Tempester's chest. The air itself seemed to warp and scream under the sheer rotational force of the attack, grinding away the ambient magic in the atmosphere.
"Ugh!" Tempester let out a miserable, guttural cry. His eyes widened in absolute dread as the immense pressure of the attack forced his heavily muscled body backward, his feet dragging violently against the floorboards before his knees finally gave out, sending him crashing to the ground.
Suddenly, the fabric of space rippled.
Swish!
In the blink of an eye, Tempester's massive form vanished into a distorted vortex of spatial magic. In his exact place, stumbling forward with a thoroughly confused expression, appeared the rabbit-eared demon scientist, Lamy.
"Eek————?!"
Lamy let out a high-pitched squeal. She had been safely tucked away in the backlines, completely unaware of the battlefield's shifting dynamics. She hadn't expected to suddenly be displaced into the vanguard, let alone into the direct trajectory of a lethal strike.
Boom!!
There was no time to halt the momentum. The Rasengan slammed ruthlessly into Lamy's midsection. The concussive blast cratered the solid stone ground beneath her feet, sending violent shockwaves echoing down the dark corridors of the demonic guild. It was an absolutely merciless execution. The spiraling chakra tore through her flesh like a meat grinder, obliterating her abdominal organs in a fountain of visceral gore. Her spine shattered instantly under the pressure, and her lifeless, mangled body was sent skidding across the rubble. She met a gruesome, miserable end before her brain could even register the pain.
Ren slowly retracted his hand, shaking off the blood. His cold gaze drifted to the side, locking directly onto Minerva.
He was intimately familiar with the mechanics of the magic she had just used. He had seen her display it to cruel perfection during the Grand Magic Games. It was an incredibly advanced and sophisticated application of Spatial Magic, remarkably comparable to Sasuke Uchiha's Rinnegan ocular technique, Amenotejikara. Both abilities allowed the user to instantaneously swap the spatial coordinates of two targets, defying the physical laws of distance and momentum.
[Akarin's Note: Amenotejikara (Heavenly Hand Power) is a Space-Time Ninjutsu utilized by Sasuke Uchiha via his Rinnegan. It allows the user to instantly swap the spatial locations of two targets, including themselves, within a certain range.]
[Akarin's Note: Territory is Minerva's signature Spatial Magic. It allows her to manipulate the space within her line of sight, enabling her to teleport objects, attacks, and people instantaneously, or trap enemies in isolated spatial dimensions.]
Seeing Ren's piercing gaze lock onto her, Minerva couldn't suppress the cold shudder that ran down her spine. A knot of pure panic tightened in her chest. She had acted on pure instinct to save Tempester, the vanguard of the Nine Demon Gates, but in doing so, she had drawn the undivided wrath of the one man she feared above all others.
She had no way out. Now that she had embraced the darkness and been reborn as a member of Tartaros, and with Ren single-handedly dismantling their guild, she had no choice but to brace herself and fight.
Yet, bitter resentment gnawed at her heart. She felt cursed by fate. She had offended Fairy Tail during her time as the prideful queen of Sabertooth, suffered a humiliating defeat, and then encountered Ren on her very first mission after joining the dark guild Succubus Eye. Now, she was facing this golden-haired monster for the third time in Tartaros. He was, without a doubt, the absolute last person on the continent she ever wanted to encounter. He was her personal grim reaper.
"Tempester! If you don't want to die, you better give it your all!" Minerva shrieked, her usual haughty composure shattering completely. "This guy is a monster with terrifyingly immense power!"
"Don't order me around, human woman!" Tempester growled from the sidelines, clutching his chest.
"Huff!"
Tempester inhaled deeply, his cheeks puffing out as his lungs expanded past biological limits. A violent, roaring inferno erupted from his mouth, expanding into a massive wave of scorching flames that threatened to incinerate everything in the corridor.
Swish!
Before the flames could even lick the fabric of his clothes, Ren's body instantaneously vanished in a flash of yellow light.
Whoosh————!
A specially marked three-pronged kunai shot out from the residual smoke, whistling through the air directly toward Minerva's face.
Minerva's eyes widened, and she hurriedly activated her Territory magic, teleporting the deadly projectile away into a harmless pocket dimension. She breathed heavily, sweat beading on her forehead. She had seen Ren utilize this terrifying Flying Thunder God Technique before. He was an absolute master of Space Magic, boasting speed that transcended physical movement entirely.
But as she analyzed the battlefield, a sliver of confidence returned to her. He's different from me, she rationalized internally. He relies entirely on those strange knives to mark his spatial coordinates. I only need my sight. As long as the area is within my visual range, I can precisely manipulate the coordinates for my teleportation. I have the superior domain!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!!
As if reading her thoughts, the air was suddenly filled with the sharp hiss of tearing wind. Kunai after kunai rained down from the shadows, shooting toward Minerva from every conceivable blind spot.
Minerva's expression contorted in panic. She frantically waved her hands, manipulating the space around her to teleport herself away from the lethal barrage, reappearing a dozen meters down the hall.
The exact millisecond Minerva reformed from the spatial distortion, Ren materialized directly in front of her.
"How could this be?!" Minerva gasped, her eyes shrinking to pinpricks. She couldn't believe it. She had just teleported instantly—how could he possibly intercept her reappearance with zero delay?
Her frantic gaze swept the ground beneath her feet, and her heart dropped into her stomach. A single, distinctively marked kunai was already firmly embedded in the stone tiles precisely where she had chosen to teleport. He hadn't reacted to her movement; he had predicted it, placing the marker there moments before.
"You're far too slow," Ren whispered, his voice dripping with condescension.
Before Minerva could even twitch to activate her magic again, Ren raised his leg and unleashed a devastating, chakra-enhanced kick squarely into her abdomen.
Thud!
"Ugh—!"
Minerva let out a miserable, blood-curdling cry. The sheer kinetic force behind the blow shattered her ribs, lifting her violently off her feet and sending her flying backward like a broken ragdoll.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
Thick, magically reinforced stone walls shattered one after another as Minerva's body was blasted through consecutive rooms, leaving a trail of destruction and a cloud of suffocating dust in her wake.
"Whoosh!"
Recognizing the dire threat of the marked weapons, Tempester roared, his muscles bulging as he forced his body into his true Etherious Form. His demonic features flared to life as several violent tornadoes manifested around him. The localized cyclones scoured the corridor, ripping the embedded kunai from the floor and walls, violently clearing the entire area. He had quickly deduced Ren's strategy: the kunai were his teleportation anchors. If they weren't cleared away, the monster could materialize and decapitate them at any given second.
Ren smoothly backflipped, retreating from the violent pull of the tornadoes.
"Explosive Spiral!!" a manic voice roared from the shadows.
Boom————!!
A fierce, concussive explosion erupted directly beneath Ren's feet, shattering the ground and engulfing his position in thick, black smoke and searing heat.
"Ha! Don't think I'll be taken down so easily, human!" Jackal shouted wildly, stepping out from the debris. His entire body had already morphed into his fearsome Etherious form—a hulking, feral beast born from the darkest depths of the Books of Zeref, radiating volatile curse power.
Swish————!
From the thick smoke of the blast, a lone kunai shot through the air, aimed directly at Jackal's throat.
Jackal sneered, raising a heavily clawed palm. "Explode!"
Boom!
The kunai was blasted away by a localized detonation before it could even come within a meter of him.
"Ha! I've already seen through your pathetic little trick!" Jackal mocked, his jagged teeth bared in a feral grin. "You just use those toys to teleport around. As long as I don't let a single one of them get close to me, you're nothing but a sitting duck!"
"Aren't you a sharp one," Ren's voice echoed from the dissipating smoke, entirely unfazed.
Swish! Swish! Swish!!
Suddenly, dozens of kunai rained down from the high vaulted ceiling and the shadowed alcoves, shooting toward Jackal in a synchronized, omnidirectional barrage.
Jackal's arrogant smirk vanished, replaced by an ugly scowl.
"Die!!! Ha!!!"
His hulking body rapidly spun like a top. The volatile curse power within his demonic blood ignited, generating a massive, continuous chain reaction.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
Deafening explosions emanated outward from his spinning form in a spherical shockwave, flawlessly shattering every single incoming kunai into useless, molten shrapnel.
But before Jackal could revel in his perfect defense, a faint whistling sound broke through the ringing in his ears.
A single, perfectly aimed kunai plunged straight down from the ceiling directly above him, embedding itself firmly into the floorboard right between Jackal's feet.
"Damn it!" Jackal cursed, his eyes widening as he stared down at the specialized marker. It was too fast. He was still locked in the recoil of his previous attack, utterly incapable of channeling another Curse in time.
Whoosh————!
Ren materialized in front of Jackal, the golden flash illuminating the terror etched into the demon's feral face. In Ren's outstretched hand, a massive, violently rotating sphere of chakra illuminated the dark corridor.
"Great Ball Rasengan!"
The massive Oodama Rasengan slammed flawlessly into Jackal's chest. The rotational friction tore through his thick demonic hide in a spray of black blood, grinding against his ribcage with the force of a localized hurricane.
"Ugh— AAAAAAH!!"
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
Jackal screamed miserably as the overwhelming kinetic force blasted him off his feet, sending his hulking body tearing through the corridor, obliterating everything in his path before burying him deep within the foundational rubble of the floating island.
"Whoosh!"
Tempester, having finally recovered, pointed a clawed finger furiously at Ren's exposed back. "Die, human!" A massive, concentrated storm cell materialized out of thin air, howling with the destructive force of a natural disaster as it aggressively descended to shred Ren into mincemeat.
Ren didn't even turn around. His body suddenly ignited.
`[System Output: Kurama Mode Activated]`
Brilliant, ethereal golden chakra erupted from his pores, cloaking him in a divine, blazing aura. Black magatama formed around his collar, and his presence shifted from that of a mere human to something akin to a sovereign deity. The sheer ambient heat of his chakra warped the air, drastically contrasting with the foul, demonic taint of Tartaros.
Without breaking a sweat, Ren casually waved his hand backward.
Boom————!
The massive, roaring storm unleashed by Tempester—an attack capable of leveling entire city blocks—was utterly dispersed by the sheer concussive pressure of Ren's swipe. The violent winds shattered, fading into a gentle, harmless breeze.
"What in Zeref's name...?!" Tempester gasped, his jaw dropping in profound shock. He had never expected his ultimate Calamity Curse to be so effortlessly brushed aside like a pesky fly.
Snap!
Before Tempester could even process the gap in their power, a massive hand constructed of pure, dense golden chakra materialized out of the air and seized him tight.
Tempester gritted his fangs, thrashing and clawing desperately against the glowing appendage, but his demonic strength was entirely useless. It was like a toddler trying to pry open the jaws of a dragon.
The golden chakra hand tightened without an ounce of mercy.
Crack——!
"Ugh— AAAAAAH!!"
Tempester let out a harrowing, agonizing scream as the sickening sound of his bones fracturing echoed through the hall. The immense crushing pressure squeezed the air from his lungs and the consciousness from his brain. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his body went entirely limp, blacking out from the overwhelming pain.
Whoosh———!
Ren gripped the unconscious, broken demon securely and triggered his spatial anchor, instantaneously teleporting away from the floating fortress of Tartaros and reappearing within the infirmary of the Fairy Tail guildhall.
"Ren, this is..." Porlyusica gasped, stepping back in surprise as the golden flash deposited Ren and a massive demonic body onto the floorboards. She adjusted her glasses, staring at the terrifying entity. "Didn't you lead everyone to raid Tartaros? How are you back so soon?"
"Ms. Porlyusica, this guy is the culprit who poisoned Laxus and the Raijinshuu with those Bane Particles," Ren explained, his golden cloak dimming as he dropped Tempester's limp body. "His direct blood serum should be more than suitable to synthesize an antibody."
Upon hearing this, the old medic's eyes sharpened with professional urgency. She wasted no time, immediately snatching a massive, reinforced syringe from her medical kit and plunging it directly into Tempester's thick veins, drawing a large vial of pitch-black, demonic blood.
"Alright, this is enough," Porlyusica confirmed, inspecting the dark fluid. "I can save Laxus with this."
"Good. Then I'll take my leave. I left some trash uncollected."
Meanwhile, deep within the lowest levels of Tartaros...
Inside the murky, demonic amniotic fluid of the resurrection pods within Hell's Core, a bubbling sound echoed through the sterile laboratory.
Jackal's naked, human-like form rapidly reconstructed itself, bursting from the fluid with a violent gasp for air. Ren's Great Ball Rasengan had completely shattered his internal organs and rendered him utterly combat-ineffective. The pain had been so absolute, so overwhelmingly humiliating, that he had been forced to manually self-destruct his own body just to escape the final blow and trigger his resurrection.
"Bastard! I was killed again! That golden-haired punk!" Jackal smashed his fist against the reinforced glass of his pod, howling with unbridled rage. "Lamy! You useless rabbit, where are you?! Re-equip me quickly!"
He shouted angrily into the empty laboratory, entirely oblivious to the fact that Lamy was currently a pulverized stain on the upper floors.
Swish!
The resurrection pod directly adjacent to Jackal lit up. The thick fluids bubbled furiously, and Tempester's newly reconstructed figure materialized within the tank.
"Tempester, you too...?" Jackal grunted, his anger faltering into sheer disbelief.
"That guy's power..." Tempester murmured, stepping out of the pod, his expression grave as amniotic fluid dripped from his body. "The opponent's power suddenly became overwhelmingly strong. I... I had absolutely no chance to even fight back before he snapped my spine."
Suddenly, the heavy metallic doors of Hell's Core hissed, but they did not open. Instead, a flash of yellow illuminated the dim, greenish lighting of the laboratory.
Thud.
A battered, lifeless corpse was casually discarded onto the sterile metal floor, skidding to a halt right in front of the two newly revived demons.
It was Tempester's old body, utterly drained of life.
Ren stood in the center of Hell's Core, brushing off his hands. He had placed a spatial marker on Tempester's body right before killing him in the Fairy Tail infirmary, using the corpse as a direct homing beacon into the most guarded sanctuary of Tartaros.
Jackal and Tempester both turned deathly pale, the blood draining from their faces as they stared at the monster who had just killed them.
"It's you!" Jackal shrieked, stumbling backward into his pod.
"I have to admit, being able to infinitely revive after being killed is truly an impressive logistical ability for a guild," Ren mused smoothly, his eyes sweeping over the vast network of tubes and demonic machinery powering Hell's Core. He offered the two trembling demons a chilling, predatory smile. "I wonder... can you still revive if I completely vaporize the respawn point?"
"You wouldn't dare?!" Jackal roared, terror finally bleeding into his voice.
Ren simply opened his palm.
"Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!"
A terrifying, high-frequency screech shattered the silence of the laboratory. A massive, violently spinning shuriken of hyper-condensed wind chakra expanded in Ren's hand. The sheer density of the millions of microscopic wind blades emitted a piercing, deafening roar that vibrated the very molecular structure of the room, cracking the glass of the remaining resurrection pods.
[Akarin's Note: Rasenshuriken (Spiraling Shuriken) is a wind-natured transformation of the Rasengan. It creates a barrage of microscopic wind blades that pierce every cell in the victim's body, severing their chakra network and destroying them on a molecular level.]
Jackal and Tempester's expressions instantly twisted into masks of absolute, primal horror. The aura radiating from that technique spelled absolute, unrecoverable erasure.
"Stop————!" the two demons begged in unison, raising their hands in a futile attempt to shield themselves.
Ren simply waved his free hand at the two with a cheerful, mocking smile.
"Goodbye." Ren paused, his smile turning deadly cold as he corrected himself. "No... farewell."
Swish————!
In a flash of golden light, Ren vanished from the room, leaving only the screaming, impossibly dense Rasenshuriken suspended directly in the center of Hell's Core.
Freed from Ren's physical restraint, the volatile Rasenshuriken rapidly expanded. A blinding dome of pure destructive wind engulfed the laboratory. Countless microscopic chakra blades cut ruthlessly through the titanium walls, the amniotic fluid, the machinery, and the screaming demons, shattering everything on a cellular level.
"NOOOOOO—————!!"
Their final, desperate screams were instantly drowned out by the apocalyptic roar of the explosion, as the very heart of Tartaros's immortality was violently and permanently erased from existence.
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