"Guh…"
Hades's face was full of shock.
He opened his mouth, but a rush of blood surged up and spilled out before he could say anything.
That defensive magic array had been smashed apart in an instant by Marco's punch.
The lightning-wreathed fist had moved at a speed so absurd it hardly seemed humanly possible.
There had been no magic power in the punch at all—yet it was stronger than any amount of magic power could have made it.
Though Hades was old, his body was not frail.
Still, physical combat was not his specialty. In close quarters against Marco, dodging was unrealistic.
He had no choice but to try to tank the attack with a magic array.
And the result was that he failed completely.
"Well, senpai, weren't you acting awfully arrogant? But your magic doesn't seem that strong. At the very least, it couldn't stop my fist."
Marco's teasing words rang out, making Hades's blood surge in anger.
Pfft!
Hades spat out another mouthful of blood and unleashed another burst of magic power, trying to force Marco away.
Marco pulled his hand free, drawing out another spray of blood.
What he had just used was a Lightning Light-Speed Fist, and the result had been spectacular.
This had been driven entirely by Sixth Sense Cosmo, giving a completely different feeling from using magic power.
If he had relied on magic power alone, he might not actually have been able to break through Hades's defensive magic array.
Hades's sheer magic reserves were genuinely monstrous.
In that respect, he truly wasn't much weaker than Marco.
But under the power of Cosmo, Marco shattered everything with a single punch.
That magic array before him had been like a sheet of paper, offering no real resistance at all.
Even Gildarts's Crush Magic couldn't achieve something like this.
This was outright suppression on the level of the power system itself.
"Crushed…"
Staggering, Hades turned to look at Marco.
Clearly he had caught onto something. An old veteran was still an old veteran.
Even with all the organs in his chest destroyed, with a huge hole blasted through him by Marco, he still hadn't died—and could even still speak.
In truth, Hades had already temporarily stabilized the injury in his chest.
Devil Heart was still supplying him with magic power continuously, still sustaining his life.
Even with his chest pierced through, it still wasn't immediately fatal for him.
Devil Heart was not only the name of this dark guild—it was also the name of Hades's true trump card.
The reason he had lived so long, the reason he still looked vigorous despite his age and bore none of the weakness one would expect from a man over a hundred years old, was all because of Devil Heart.
The reason he could possess seemingly endless replenishment of magic power was also Devil Heart.
Without Devil Heart, his strength would drop drastically, and he would not actually be that much stronger than Makarov.
Put simply, Hades really did have a cheat ability.
Only this "cheat" happened to be one he had developed himself, so in a sense it still counted as his own skill.
The Magic Council had always wanted to eliminate Hades, but unfortunately they simply couldn't do it, and could only let him roam free.
Fairy Tail, in truth, also had a cheat.
And not only that—it had the original version of Devil Heart, an even more powerful cheat with even more extreme parameters.
But Fairy Tail's moral standards were simply too high.
Makarov, as guild master and the only one in the guild who knew about it, had never once entertained the idea of using it.
Luckily, Fairy Tail also had Marco.
And Marco's cheat parameters were even higher—so high that he had outright changed the power system itself.
Compared to Marco, Hades's "local cheat" was child's play.
No matter how strong Hades's cheat was, it still existed inside the framework of magic.
Marco had already stepped outside the framework and become something like a god.
"That's right. Crushed. What I'm crushing is the unrealistic ambition of people like you."
Marco was somewhat surprised by Hades's tenacious life force, but he could see clearly that Hades was already at the end of his rope.
It wasn't that he had taken no damage at all.
Hades gritted his teeth, wanting to say something dramatic to save his dignity, but he simply couldn't.
The young man before him was just too powerful—and it was a kind of power he couldn't even understand.
Marco clearly wasn't using magic power, yet Hades couldn't block him at all.
When people are faced with the unknown, they are most likely to feel fear—especially when that unknown can kill them at any moment.
Even Hades, this veteran who had lived over a century and weathered countless storms, was shaken to the core now. He simply had no idea how to fight Marco.
And it wasn't just Hades.
Everything happening before them left the members of Grimoire Heart utterly dumbfounded.
They looked at the result before them and found it impossible to believe.
Hades had lost!
Not only had he lost—he had lost suddenly, cleanly, decisively, without any suspense at all, without even the slightest ability to fight back!
The members of Grimoire Heart, who knew better than anyone just how strong Hades was, now looked at Marco as though they had seen a ghost.
They simply could not understand why Marco could be this strong.
With strength this terrifying, wasn't he practically no different from the legendary Zeref himself?
Then what was the point of going after Zeref?
They might as well just kneel down and swear loyalty to Marco instead.
But unfortunately, judging from Marco's attitude, it was obvious that he would never agree with Grimoire Heart's beliefs.
Ultear's eyes flickered.
Even with rebellion in her bones, she didn't dare imagine controlling Marco.
Right now, the only thing she was thinking about was how to escape this situation alive.
If even Hades wasn't a match for Marco, then all of the Seven Kin of Purgatory plus Vice Guild Master Bluenote together probably wouldn't be enough for one hand of Marco's.
This was no time for ambition—survival came first.
Buzz!
Just as everyone was lost in different thoughts, a wave of magic power rose—and Zeref appeared.
He had returned to Tenrou Island, and not only that, he had appeared right on the battlefield, directly in front of everyone.
For a legendary magical master who had lived for centuries, being able to use a spell similar to spatial teleportation was hardly strange.
In this world, there were probably very few magics Zeref did not know.
In fact, many of the Lost Magics that Hades used had originally been learned and mastered from Zeref himself.
Back then, when Mavis, Precht, Yuri, and Warrod met Zeref on Tenrou Island, it was Zeref who personally taught them magic.
That was what had led them to the greatness they possessed now.
Of course, that was also because all four of them had already been exceptionally gifted to begin with—especially Mavis and Precht, both of whom could truly be said to have grasped the essence of what they learned.
Mavis went on to create the Three Great Fairy Magics, while Precht pushed even further and developed Fairy Heart, a super-magical construct so extraordinary that even Zeref himself had to marvel at it.