Those dark purple strings spread like venomous snakes along his wooden arms, instantly entangling Puppetmon's entire body.
As the strings tightened, Puppetmon's movements abruptly froze and his massive iron hammer clattered to the floor.
Freed slowly raised his head.
His long green hair flowed in the magical turbulence, and his red coat billowed without any wind.
His handsome face was as cold as ice.
A slender rapier had appeared in his hand, its tip gleaming with dark purple light.
Freed, the captain of the Thunder God Tribe, was one of Fairy Tail's most enigmatic mages.
No one fully understood the exact limits of his magic, but the Dark Écriture he displayed now clearly possessed the bizarre ability to reverse the control effects imposed by his opponents.
"Freed!" Evergreen exclaimed in delight.
But Freed didn't respond.
His eyes were fixed solely on Ace. He lifted his rapier, pointing the tip directly at Ace's throat.
"Your summoned beast is nothing special."
As the words fell, Freed moved.
There were no afterimages or warnings.
He simply took one step forward and vanished. The next instant, he appeared directly in front of Ace, his rapier striking like a snake's tongue aimed right between Ace's eyes!
The speed of this thrust far exceeded the limits of an ordinary S-Class Mage. Wherever the tip of the sword passed, the space tore open with fine black cracks—proof of his dark magic eroding reality itself.
But Ace didn't even dodge.
He merely raised his right hand, brought his index and middle fingers together, and lightly pinched the approaching blade.
Clink.
A soft, metallic ping echoed.
Freed's fatal thrust was caught perfectly between Ace's two fingers.
The tip of the sword stopped less than an inch from Ace's forehead, completely unable to advance even a millimeter further.
Freed's eyes widened in horror.
He tried to yank the sword back, but the blade felt like it was welded to solid steel.
He tried to channel his magic, but the moment his dark energy touched Ace's fingers, it was forcibly devoured and erased by a much higher-level power.
"Is that all?" Ace asked calmly, the dark gold light slowly swirling in his eyes.
He raised his left hand, aiming his palm directly at Freed's chest.
Dark gold light erupted from his palm, transforming into a slender, highly condensed beam of energy that shot straight forward!
Wherever the beam passed, the air, the light, the magic—even the very concept of space itself—was utterly annihilated.
Freed's face twisted in panic.
Without hesitation, he let go of his rapier and desperately leaped backward. But the beam was too fast.
It grazed his left shoulder.
Thwip!
A sickening sound of vanishing flesh echoed.
A fist-sized chunk of Freed's left shoulder simply disappeared.
It wasn't a normal wound or a burn, it was sheer "erasure."
The flesh, bone, and magic power in that specific area were forcibly deleted from existence by the data stream.
"Argh!" Freed let out an agonized cry, staggering back with a face as pale as paper.
He clutched his mangled shoulder as blood gushed through his fingers.
Even more terrifying, the edges of the wound were slowly spreading—the conceptual deletion was still eating away at him.
"Freed!" Evergreen screamed.
"Freed!" Bickslow roared.
But both of them were still restrained by Puppetmon's invisible strings, completely unable to move.
High above them, Laxus, who had been silently watching the entire battle from his throne, finally moved.
"Trash."
His cold evaluation echoed from the ceiling.
Laxus slowly descended, golden lightning wrapping around his body to form a layer of crackling armor.
He didn't even spare a glance for the heavily injured Freed; his gaze was locked entirely on Ace.
"It seems the Thunder God Tribe didn't drain much of your magic power after all."
He raised his right hand, palm facing the sky.
Golden lightning gathered and compressed in his grip, eventually forming a fist-sized sphere of pure, destructive electricity.
"But it doesn't matter. I never expected them to defeat you in the first place."
Laxus grinned—a cruel, ferocious smile.
Before the words even faded, the sphere of lightning in Laxus's hand exploded violently!
But he didn't aim it at Ace.
He slammed it directly into the massive magic circle carved into the floor.
Golden lightning surged wildly from Laxus's body, transforming into a massive pillar of electricity over ten meters wide.
It shot straight up into the sky, completely blowing the roof off the cathedral.
Pale moonlight poured down through the shattered dome, illuminating his newly transformed state.
His golden lightning armor had become thicker and more ornate.
Three pairs of jagged lightning wings unfolded from his back, and a massive battle blade made entirely of pure condensed electricity hummed in his hand.
"See this, Ace?" Laxus's voice rumbled like thunder. "Now, let's end this farce."
He raised the lightning blade, pointing the crackling tip straight at Ace.
"I'm going to use this 'Blade of the Thunder God' to erase you—and your laughable summoned beasts—completely from this world."
A suffocating magical pressure surged from Laxus like a collapsing mountain.
It was a terrifying aura that truly touched the realm of apocalyptic power—strong enough to shatter the courage of ordinary mages, make the earth tremble, and force the sky to change color.
But Ace just watched him quietly.
Then, he let out a soft sigh.
"Finally lost your patience, huh?"
He raised his right hand, palm facing upward.
This time, the light of the summoning circle wasn't dark gold.
It was an abyss-like black.
"Fine. Since you've shown your true power, it's time I let an old friend stretch his legs."
"Descend."
A pitch-black summoning circle unfolded in the air.
At its center, the roaring crest of a ferocious dragon warrior slowly emerged.
The dragon's eyes burned with a menacing, blood-red light.
"—BlackWarGreymon."
ROAR!!!!!
A deafening dragon's roar erupted from the circle, instantly drowning out the crackle of Laxus's thunder!
Dark energy surged outward like a volcanic eruption as a towering figure tore through space and descended into reality.
BlackWarGreymon slowly raised his head.
His cold, pitch-black eyes swept across the ruined cathedral before finally locking onto Laxus.
He tilted his head slightly, a flicker of genuine confusion in his eyes.
"My opponent this time is..."
He paused, his deep voice dripping with undisguised contempt.
"...a defeated loser?"
Laxus's face instantly darkened with pure rage.
He perfectly remembered Ace's S-Class trial from three years ago.
Back then, Laxus had thoroughly crushed Ace's SkullGreymon and was standing on the absolute verge of victory.
But at the very last second, Ace used the "Light of Evolution" to forcibly digivolve the skeletal beast into BlackWarGreymon.
The situation had completely reversed in an instant.
Laxus had been utterly crushed, humiliated, and beaten into the ground without the slightest ability to fight back, all in front of the entire guild.
It was the greatest disgrace of his life—the sole root of his frantic, years-long obsession with obtaining absolute power at any cost.
And now, the living embodiment of that humiliation was standing right in front of him.
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