Chapter 351: Instant Kill
BOOOOOOM—!!!
A deafening roar shattered the very foundations of the Tartaros headquarters. Inside the sprawling, demonic laboratory known as Hell's Core, an apocalyptic tempest of wind and chakra violently expanded. The Rasenshuriken detonated, transforming from a dense sphere of spinning energy into a catastrophic vortex of microscopic wind blades.
In mere milliseconds, the shrieking storm tore through everything in the vast chamber. The towering demonic regeneration vats shattered, their specialized amniotic fluids instantly vaporizing into green mist. The heavy, bio-mechanical machinery connecting the cloning pods to the guild's cursed power source was shredded at a cellular level, reduced to nothing more than drifting, metallic dust.
Soon, the once-horrifying sanctuary of Tartaros' immortality was reduced to a giant, smoking hollow. The walls were scoured smooth by the sheer rotational friction, and the air crackled with residual, high-density energy.
Standing at the edge of the newly formed crater, Ren slowly lowered his hand. He scanned the total devastation, a cold, satisfied glint flashing in his eyes.
"The enemy's respawn point is dealt with," Ren muttered to himself, the corners of his mouth tilting up slightly. "Now, Tartaros bleeds just like everyone else. Next up... dealing with the remnants."
Shua!
Without another word, Ren's figure flickered and vanished completely into the ether, propelled by the complex spatial formulas he had scattered across the island.
Meanwhile, chaos reigned supreme in the main battlefield of the Tartaros castle courtyard.
Although Fairy Tail had managed to seize the momentary advantage of a coordinated sneak attack, the sheer, crushing reality of a numbers disadvantage was rapidly turning the tide against them. Tartaros was not some fledgling guild; they had operated in the darkest corners of the underworld for decades, accumulating a massive, terrifyingly loyal military force. Worse still, through the twisted, agonizing modifications of Kyoka's Enhancement Curse, these foot soldiers had been pushed far past their biological limits. They possessed unnatural longevity, bulging muscles devoid of pain receptors, and a reckless, suicidal strength that overwhelmed conventional magic.
In a one-on-one duel, the ordinary members of Fairy Tail were simply no match for these augmented soldiers of Tartaros. The battlefield was a cacophony of roaring demons, flashing magic circles, and the desperate cries of exhausted mages.
Operating under a ruthless, systematic combat formation, the Tartaros army had already forced the Fairy Tail vanguard out of the castle's interior corridors. The mages were now entirely suppressed, trapped in a defensive ring out in the open courtyard. If not for Makarov Dreyar constantly intervening—stretching his giant, titan-sized arms across the battlefield to swat away dozens of demons at a time—the ordinary members of the guild would have been slaughtered within minutes.
It was painfully clear that while the elites of Fairy Tail could hold their own against the Nine Demon Gates, a war of attrition would spell doom for the rest of the guild.
Makarov stood at the center of the defensive line, his chest heaving with heavy, ragged breaths. Sweat poured down his wrinkled face. He clenched his fists, feeling the aching drain on his magical reserves. I have to do it, the Guild Master thought, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the thousands of encroaching demons. I have to activate Fairy Law.
But he hesitated. The legendary deterrent spell judged the user's heart, eliminating anyone they truly perceived as an enemy. However, using Fairy Law to simultaneously wipe out an army of this unprecedented size would require an astronomical amount of magic power. The spell would greedily consume his own life force to compensate for the deficit, potentially withering him to dust on the spot.
Just as Makarov was preparing to sacrifice himself for his children, the space beside him rippled.
Shua!
Ren appeared in a seamless flash of movement. "Old man!"
Makarov jolted, his stressed expression immediately giving way to a wide, relieved smile. "Ren! You're back! How was the infiltration mission?"
"Done," Ren said casually, rolling his shoulders to loosen up. "The enemy's respawn point in Hell's Core has been completely destroyed. No more second chances for these bastards. Now, even if we kill the Etherious demons from the Books of Zeref, they won't be resurrected. They die here, today."
"That's fantastic news!" Makarov exclaimed, a heavy burden lifting from his shoulders. But as another wave of Tartaros soldiers let out a bloodcurdling war cry and charged their defensive line, the old man's face tightened. "But hurry up and help us deal with these guys first! Everyone is starting to struggle to hold the line!"
"Leave it to me."
Ren didn't waste a single second. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a specialized three-pronged Kunai, its handle wrapped in a talisman marked with the complex characters of his spatial formula.
With a flick of his wrist, Ren threw the blade high into the sky above the courtyard.
The next instant, Ren bent his knees and launched himself directly after it.
Shua!
Ren materialized in the sky, snatching the kunai at the apex of its arc. Suspended high above the chaotic battlefield, Ren's body suddenly spun rapidly, creating a localized blur of motion. In a dazzling display of high-speed projectile manipulation, hundreds of identical, formula-marked kunai were shot outward from his spinning form. They rained down like a meteor shower of iron, embedding themselves into the stone beneath the feet of the charging Tartaros army, scattering across every inch of the massive courtyard.
"What the hell is that?!" a hulking demon soldier sneered, pausing to look at the small, mundane blade stuck in the dirt next to his hoof.
The soldiers of Tartaros, temporarily halting their advance, looked entirely confused. They were expecting a massive magical bombardment, a roaring dragon's breath, or a catastrophic elemental explosion. Throwing a bunch of tiny daggers into the ground didn't seem to hold any killing power whatsoever.
"Fools," Ren whispered, his eyes flashing coldly.
In the next instant—
Flash.
A blinding streak of yellow light zigzagged across the courtyard, moving at a speed entirely incomprehensible to the mortal eye.
Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!
The sounds of tearing flesh and severing arteries echoed in a horrifyingly synchronized rhythm. The Tartaros soldiers didn't even have time to react. They didn't even see their enemy clearly. All they perceived was a brief, golden flash in their peripheral vision, followed instantly by the cold bite of steel.
Blood sprayed from hundreds of throats in magnificent, gruesome arcs.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!!
Like puppets with their strings suddenly cut, the entire front line of the Tartaros army collapsed to the ground simultaneously. The heavy thuds of their augmented bodies hitting the stone courtyard echoed loudly, a macabre percussion that brought the entire battlefield to a dead halt. Life left their eyes before they even realized they were dead.
"What?!"
"Just now... what in the world happened?!"
Almost everyone in Fairy Tail was stunned into absolute silence. A collective gasp rippled through the guild members as they stared out at the sea of freshly slain corpses. How had so many enemies been slaughtered in the blink of an eye? There was no massive blast radius, no shockwave—just instantaneous, surgical death.
Only Makarov, thanks to his immense experience and sharp magical senses, barely caught a fraction of the truth.
In that brief, impossible instant, Ren had used his Space Magic to continuously teleport to every single kunai he had scattered, killing all the enemies surrounding each marker. If Ren hadn't intentionally paused for a microscopic fraction of a second when his blade met flesh, Makarov wouldn't have even been able to track the movement.
Fast! Too fast!! Makarov thought, his jaw slightly slack in awe.
He knew that this specific Take Over transformation of Ren's was terrifyingly powerful. After all, this was the very same form that possessed the sheer speed and destructive capability to fight head-on against the Black Dragon, Acnologia. But knowing it and witnessing it applied to army-scale slaughter were two very different things.
Makarov was profoundly shocked by the sheer efficiency of this Space Magic. Having lived for so long and reigned as a Wizard Saint, he had naturally seen various spatial spells. Fairy Tail's own library had vast collections of ancient books detailing teleportation magic. But he had never even imagined—let alone witnessed—someone continuously linking instantaneous spatial jumps hundreds of times in a row without a single delay or miscalculation. The processing speed required of the user's brain was godlike.
"Great!"
"As expected of Ren!"
"That's just too incredible!!"
Cheers suddenly erupted from the Fairy Tail ranks as the surviving members finally breathed a collective sigh of relief. Weapons were lowered, and mages slumped against each other, wiping away sweat and blood. The continuous, brutal fighting of the past hour had placed everyone under a suffocating, life-and-death crisis. They finally understood just how terrifyingly powerful the Balam Alliance's last standing pillar truly was.
But with Ren on the field, the shadow of death had been instantly lifted.
Meanwhile — The Fairy Tail Guild, Magnolia
Far away from the floating island of Tartaros, the quiet town of Magnolia remained blissfully unaware of the war raging in the skies. However, darkness had already descended upon the Fairy Tail guildhall.
Torafuzar, one of the fearsome Nine Demon Gates of Tartaros, materialized in the empty main hall. His imposing, muscular body, marked by sharp, shark-like fins and a dark, armored carapace, cast a terrifying silhouette in the moonlight.
"Finally arrived... Fairy Tail," the demon rumbled, his voice deep and echoing with wet malice.
He had come strictly under the orders of Mard Geer, the Underworld King. His mission was completely detached from the front lines, prioritizing the guild's grand design: to assassinate the Former Chairman of the Magic Council, Crawford Theme.
[Akarin's Note: In the raw text, Mard Geer Tartaros is referred to by his title 'Pluton' or 'Underworld King' (Meiō). Additionally, the raw name 'Trava' is a phonetic mistranslation of 'Torafuzar', the Demon Gate of the dark waters. The text has been adapted for accuracy to the official Fairy Tail lore.]
Fairy Tail Guild — Underground Dungeon
Deep below the floorboards of the guildhall, the damp, stone-walled dungeon echoed with obnoxious shouting.
"You two worthless thugs! I am the Magic Council Chairman! How dare you imprison me in this filthy rat cage?!"
Crawford Theme, having recently awoken from being knocked unconscious, gripped the iron bars of his cell and screamed venomously at Macao Conbolt and Wakaba Mine, who were sitting on a pair of wooden stools just outside.
Macao lazily picked at his ear, entirely unintimidated by the old man's aristocratic bluster. In the past, running into even an ordinary Council Member would have sent the Fairy Tail veterans scrambling to hide their accidental property damage. But after everything they had been through, they had absolutely zero fear of this cowardly ex-politician.
"Council Chairman?" Macao scoffed, crossing his arms. "Old man, you haven't held that title for a long, long time. Stop waving around a dead badge."
"Former Chairman, you actively collaborated with Tartaros," Wakaba added, taking a slow, drawn-out puff of his pipe. He exhaled a thick ring of smoke that drifted lazily toward the cell. "You literally plotted to take the lives of every single Mage on the continent of Ishgar. And you still think you have the right to demand we release you? You're dreaming, pal."
"You'd better sit down and behave yourself, before I decide to warm up this damp cell for you," Macao threatened, a flicker of purple magic igniting on his fingertips.
After saying that, the two veterans deliberately ignored the Former Chairman, returning to their idle chatter. This traitorous old politician's actions were beyond infuriating. If not for the fact that Fairy Tail had rules against executing unarmed prisoners, they would have never let him off so easily.
Suddenly—
BOOM!!
The thick stone ceiling of the basement violently ruptured. Giant slabs of rock and wooden beams rained down, filling the narrow corridor with a choking cloud of dust.
"What's going on?!" Macao shouted, jumping out of his chair and immediately entering a combat stance. Wakaba was right beside him, his pipe clamped firmly between his teeth as magic power surged around him.
From the gaping hole in the ceiling, a massive, shadowed figure dropped heavily into the dungeon, cracking the floorboards upon impact.
"Who is it?!" Wakaba demanded.
As the dust settled, Torafuzar walked out from the debris. When Macao and Wakaba got a clear look at the intruder's demonic, aquatic features and the suffocating aura of Curse power rolling off his body, they both felt a chill run down their spines. This guy was very clearly not human.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! It's you!" Crawford Theme's eyes lit up with ecstatic joy as he pressed his face against the iron bars. "You've come to save me! I knew you guys definitely wouldn't leave me behind! Hurry up and get me out of here!"
Hearing the traitor's gleeful cheering, Macao and Wakaba instantly realized that the monstrous intruder was one of the elite demons of Tartaros.
"Don't let him take a single step closer! Purple Flare Rain!!"
Macao didn't hesitate. He thrust his palms forward, instantly activating his signature magic. A massive barrage of scorching, adhesive purple fireballs erupted from his hands, streaking through the dim dungeon like a meteor shower aimed directly at Torafuzar's chest.
Torafuzar didn't even bother to raise his arms in defense. He simply marched straight forward, letting the searing purple flames splash harmlessly against his cursed, hardened carapace. The heat didn't even singe his skin.
He closed the distance in a single, terrifying bound.
BANG!
"Uwaaaa!!" Macao coughed up blood as a casual backhand from the demon struck his chest with the force of a battering ram, sending him flying across the room and smashing into the stone wall.
"Macao! You bastard!" Wakaba roared, his eyes going bloodshot as he watched his oldest friend fall. "Smoke Assault!!"
Drawing deeply from his pipe, Wakaba unleashed a dense, hyper-pressurized torrent of magical smoke. The vapor quickly condensed into a barrage of massive, hardened fists, hurtling toward Torafuzar with bone-crushing momentum.
Torafuzar, once again, did not attempt to dodge or deflect the attack. He took Wakaba's barrage head-on, the smoke fists shattering uselessly against his broad chest.
"What?!" Wakaba's expression twisted in horror, realizing that his strongest physical attack hadn't even made the demon flinch.
"So incredibly weak. Is this all human magic amounts to?" Torafuzar mocked coldly. He stepped forward and threw a devastatingly fast punch directly into Wakaba's abdomen.
"Gah!" Wakaba was sent rocketing backward, crashing into the rubble beside Macao, utterly incapacitated.
"Hahaha! Yes! Good work! Now hurry up and get me out of here! Quick, quick!" Crawford cheered, practically dancing in his cell as he watched Torafuzar effortlessly dispose of his jailers.
Torafuzar slowly turned his cold, predatory gaze toward the old man. His eyes were dead and devoid of any warmth.
"Fine. I will let you out right now," Torafuzar said in a flat, monotonous voice.
The demon casually swung his arm toward the cell. As he moved, the hardened, razor-sharp fin attached to his forearm seamlessly extended, acting as a demonic blade. With zero resistance, the cursed appendage sliced cleanly through the thick iron bars of the cell door.
But the arc of the swing didn't stop there.
In the same fluid motion, the blade swept smoothly across Crawford Theme's throat.
Slash!
A thick spray of crimson blood erupted from the Former Chairman's neck, splashing against the cold stone walls. Crawford staggered back, clutching his throat as hot blood poured through his fingers. He widened his eyes to their absolute limits, staring at Torafuzar in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. He opened his mouth to scream, but only a wet, gurgling sound escaped his severed vocal cords. He collapsed to his knees, his mind spinning in terrified confusion.
He couldn't understand. Why? Wasn't his collaboration with Tartaros going perfectly? He had given them the locations of the Face bombs. He had transferred his Super Archive data. He was one of them! He could have just walked out the door with the demon—so why was his throat cut?
Torafuzar looked down at the pathetic, bleeding politician. Seeing the deep, agonized confusion in the Former Chairman's fading eyes, the demon decided to show a rare sliver of mercy and provide him an explanation before he dragged himself to hell.
"I did receive a mission regarding you from the Underworld King," Torafuzar explained coldly, watching the life drain from the old man's face. "But the mission wasn't to save you. It was to execute you."
Crawford let out a pathetic whimper, his body trembling violently as the cold embrace of death took over.
"The Three Keys to the unsealed pulse bombs have successfully been located and transferred to our masters," Torafuzar continued, turning his back on the dying traitor. "You no longer possess any value to the dark guild Tartaros. The final condition is simple... As long as you are killed, the absolute weapon, Face, can finally be activated."
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me!
Want to read ahead on our official home, or unlock 50 advanced chapters (plus an Ad-Free experience) to feed your addiction? Help keep this shameless translator alive here:
(P.S. Replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
🌐 Official Website: elysianreads[.]com
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters & Ad-Free): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]