"Can we start attacking now?" Gray asked, ignoring Wendy's spellcasting.
A biting chill emanated from his hands as he got into an Ice-Make stance, ready to strike.
"Of course!" Erza and the others responded.
"Let's go!" Gray slammed his hands onto the ground.
A massive ice staircase formed, extending rapidly upwards from the beach directly to the airship's deck.
"Charge!" Natsu shouted, being the first to sprint up the ice. Gray and Erza followed close behind.
"We're going too." Raizel and Ultear tacitly brought up the rear, walking up the stairs.
"Let's hurry up and go too!" Lily said, running toward the lower hull while covering his sensitive ears.
BOOM—
A loud clap of thunder jolted Lily awake.
"Can't we just enter from the bottom of the ship...?"
...
"Precht is a Mage whose power far surpasses Master Makarov's! We have to go all out from the very beginning!" Erza reminded the team as they ran up the ice staircase.
"Right!"
"Just focus all our remaining magical power on him, right?" Gray replied, his breath fogging in the cold air.
"I finally get a chance to beat that guy to a pulp! I'm all fired up! Hades!" Natsu leaped high off the ice staircase, his hands wreathed in roaring flames.
"Have a taste of Fairy Tail's power!"
A massive pillar of fire erupted from Natsu's hands, engulfing the deck.
Precht simply stood his ground, turning to the side and blocking the inferno with a single, bare hand.
The pillar of fire wrapped around him harmlessly, causing no damage at all.
"You speak of Fairy Tail's power?" Precht scoffed, about to say more.
"Black Wing Armor: Moon Glide!"
"Try my Ice-Make: Ice-Bring!"
"Archenemy: Slaying Form!"
Using Natsu's flames as visual cover, Erza, Gray, and Kagura surged forward, slashing at Precht from three different directions simultaneously.
"Water Nebula!"
"Dark Torrent!"
"Flash Forward!"
The heavy ranged attacks from Cana, Mira, and Ultear followed immediately after the melee strikes, blasting Precht back into the airship's main hall.
"Open, Gate of the Golden Bull! Taurus!" Lucy chanted.
Taurus suddenly appeared in mid-air, spinning his massive labrys axe before cleaving down heavily on Precht's position.
"I'll raise everyone's attack power, speed, and defense! Arms! Vernier! Armor!" Wendy chanted from the sidelines, a dense layer of wind magical power covering her body.
Soon, all the attacking members were enhanced with Wendy's glowing buffs.
Gray, Erza, and Kagura once again flew toward Precht with their weapons drawn.
Precht dodged all three of their rapid slashes by smoothly turning to the side, his movements like a ghost.
"A bunch of headless flies," Precht sneered.
Four spiked dark chains shot out from Precht's hands, flying toward Erza and the other two.
One of the chains violently caught Erza by the ankle as she flew forward.
"Magic Card: Lightning!"
"Dark Torrent!"
"Future Flash!"
"Sky Dragon's Roar!"
Cana and the other three, who were providing artillery support from a distance, unleashed four consecutive, pinpoint spells, shattering the four dark chains before they could drag the vanguard in.
"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!" Natsu leaped high into the hall, his arms wreathed in roaring flames, and descended like a meteor, crashing down directly on Precht.
Although Precht was hit, he quickly stabilized his footing.
A dark chain shot out from his sleeve, grabbed Natsu by the back of his scarf, and violently flung the boy toward the ceiling.
Erza flapped her demonic wings, accelerating to sever the dark chain holding him.
"Natsu! Use this!" Gray used Ice-Make to create a giant, solid ice hammer mid-air.
"Go!"
Natsu reacted quickly, planting his boots firmly on the flat face of the ice hammer and pushing off with all his might.
At the exact same time, Gray swung the heavy hammer forward with incredible force, launching Natsu like a cannonball.
"Sky Dragon's Roar!" Wendy opened her mouth and unleashed a roaring tornado, giving Natsu another massive boost of tailwind speed.
"Magic Card: Wind Tornado!" Cana switched her deck to the wind attribute, adding a second cyclone.
"Scorpio!" Lucy summoned the sand spirit.
"We are... sand!" Scorpio shouted excitedly, blasting a raging sandstorm from his mechanical tail.
The three tornadoes slowly merged, creating a devastating, abrasive cyclone with a dazzling orange flame burning at its very center.
Natsu was in the eye of the storm, spinning continuously like a drill with his arms outstretched.
"A Unison Raid?" Precht narrowed his eye.
This was a chaotic, multi-elemental move he had never seen before.
Normally, no one would dare to attempt such a volatile combination.
Only Natsu, with the incredibly tough, fire-resistant hide of a Dragon Slayer, could pull off riding inside it.
"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!" Natsu roared.
Natsu's flaming, sand-blasted head slammed directly into Precht's side at an incredible, supersonic speed.
After the devastating impact, Natsu collapsed to the floor, panting.
Precht's body was sent flying uncontrollably backward, finally crashing into his own throne and kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris.
As the dust slowly settled, Precht walked out from the rubble as if nothing had happened.
But one thing was different.
He had unfastened his heavy dark cloak, tossing it aside—a clear sign that he was about to get serious.
"Fools. People like to call the mistakes they make 'experience,'" Precht lectured coldly. "But in truth, a fatal mistake can never leave behind any experience for you to learn from."
"The fatal mistake you all have made today is to overestimate yourselves and make an enemy of me, Hades. Therefore, for making such a mistake... you will have no future."
"How is that possible...?"
"Were our attacks completely ineffective against him?" Lucy and Wendy covered their mouths in sheer disbelief, trembling.
"What?! We gave it our all just now!" Gray and Cana were equally shocked, dropping their stances.
Erza and Kagura maintained grave, tense expressions, Kagura had even fully drawn Archenemy from its scabbard.
"He's showing off this much and you're still not going to do anything?" Ultear asked, looking up at Raizel, who was casually sitting high above on a rafter enjoying the show.
"People who boast like this usually don't meet a good end. Retribution will come for him soon enough," Raizel said with a loud yawn.
Raizel planned to let the others get some high-level combat practice first.
He would only step in if a real problem arose.
"Alright, the warm-up is over. No objections, I presume?"
As soon as Precht finished speaking, dark suffocating magic power surged around him like a tidal wave, and the entire massive airship began to shake violently.
"The nature of his magic power... has changed." Raizel sat up straight on the rafter, his eyes narrowing.
Precht was truly serious this time.
Lucy, Gray, Wendy, and the others couldn't help but widen their eyes, gritting their teeth to physically endure the crushing atmospheric pressure.
"So, these are Makarov's children? How very interesting," Precht praised the young members for still having the willpower to stand under such immense pressure.
Sitting off to the side, Raizel finally spoke up.
"Stop going on about 'Makarov's children,' Precht. Since you founded Grimoire Heart, you stopped being a true member of Fairy Tail a long time ago. Besides... I think Mavis would be very sad if she knew what you were doing."
"Oh? It seems Makarov told you about this?" Precht raised an eyebrow, looking up at the fairy.
Raizel shook his head nonchalantly and continued, "It's not some big buried secret. Tenrou Island is exactly where you met the First Master. It's where you all learned magic, defeated the Blue Skull guild, and the four of you founded Fairy Tail together. It's been almost a hundred years since those days, hasn't it?"
Precht was clearly surprised that Raizel knew so much intimate history.
He even knows about what happened back then?
"Want me to tell you an interesting fact, Precht?" Raizel offered, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Oh?" Precht was clearly interested.
He lowered his hands and gestured for Raizel to continue.
"What if I told you that the consciousness of the First Master, Mavis Vermillion, still actively exists? Would you believe me?"
Precht was visibly stunned by Raizel's words.
The dark magic swirling around him faltered as his lone eye stared wide at Raizel in absolute shock.