"What?!"
Everyone present—the Spriggan Twelve and even Zeref himself—were struck with shock.
God Serena, once the First of the Wizard Saints, one of the Twelve Shields, a man who carried the pride of Ishgar's magic, had been killed in an instant.
"To slay him so casually… terrifying."
Su Yan glanced indifferently at Serena's corpse.
"Traitors should die."
He remembered the man well. Not only as Ishgar's strongest Wizard Saint, but also as the arrogant fool who had once stood against Hyberion and the other Wizard Saints, only to be killed instantly by Acnologia. To Su Yan, a traitor who turned his back on his homeland deserved no mercy.
His strikes were clean, direct, and without hesitation. A single move. No chance to react. No chance to live.
Now, the Spriggan Twelve understood. This was why their emperor treated Su Yan as such a threat. This was why Zeref had committed the full might of the empire against Ishgar.
Because Su Yan warranted it.
BOOM!
Thunder roared. Black clouds surged overhead, swallowing the night sky. Lightning slashed across the heavens, illuminating the imperial capital in an ominous glow.
Then—CRACK!—a bolt struck Su Yan.
His body began to change.
Dragon scales rippled across his skin. His muscles expanded, his frame swelling with raw power. Two horns spiraled from his brow. His pupils thinned to draconic slits, cold and merciless.
Hands and feet twisted into claws. Winds and storm clouds coiled around his body.
With a single bound, Su Yan's figure soared into the air—his form exploding into that of a massive azure dragon.
Thunder boomed. His enormous body coiled within the storm clouds, flames twining around his limbs as if the heavens themselves bowed to him.
"The… Dragon?!"
For the Alvarez Empire, dragons were the stuff of legend—creatures spoken of in hushed awe. Yet here, before their eyes, one lived.
The Spriggan Twelve tensed, expressions grim.
"He can transform into a dragon…!"
Irene Belserion's eyes narrowed, sharp with recognition but not fear. What caught her attention was not his might—it was that this dragon could also exist as a man.
"Be careful! He's about to strike!" August's voice boomed, grave.
The blue dragon opened its maw. Magic condensed like a sun within his throat.
"Dragon's Heat!!!"
A torrent of blazing destruction roared down toward Zeref and the Twelve Shields.
Invel reacted instantly, raising his hands. "Then I'll freeze it all!!"
Blizzards howled forth, cold enough to lock oceans in ice—yet Su Yan's heat simply devoured the frost. Steam exploded skyward.
"What?!" Invel's face paled. His absolute freeze, undone.
Irene stepped forward, her staff glowing. Flames surged as she met heat with heat, a massive fireball colliding with Su Yan's breath.
BOOM!!
But even her magic could not hold it back. The fireball melted, swallowed whole.
"Magic Shield!!"
August slammed his staff down. A colossal shield of pure magic formed.
BOOOOM—!!
The impact shook the empire. Fire and molten air swept across the city. The imperial palace crumbled to slag, its towers dissolving into rivers of magma. Soldiers screamed as they were caught in the blast, their cries lost beneath the roar of fire.
When the heat wave faded, the heart of the capital lay in ruins—nothing remained of the palace but a vast, charred crater.
Yet within its center, a single spire of untouched ground stood intact. August's magic shield.
Su Yan's golden eyes fixed on him. The old man radiated a power that rivaled the strongest of dragons. Clearly, August stood as the pinnacle of the Twelve.
Then his gaze shifted. To Irene Belserion. The resemblance to Erza was unmistakable. Her strength, too, was in no way inferior to August's.
Su Yan knew then: to bring down the Alvarez Empire, those two would have to die.