Hearing the voice coming from the communication crystal, Shane froze for a moment and turned back.
Looking out along the edge of the platform, he narrowed his eyes toward the distance.
Several kilometers away, deep in the primeval forest, a disaster-level rampage was unfolding.
Lightning, ice, flames of every color—
Blinding bursts of magic kept erupting and colliding. Ancient trees so massive they would take several people to wrap their arms around them were collapsing in rows like fragile weeds.
A team was tearing a path through the forest in the most violent, unreasonable way possible, charging straight toward Nirvana at breakneck speed.
"…They really came?"
A flicker of disbelief passed through Shane's eyes.
What the hell were those idiots thinking?
Before leaving, he had repeated himself again and again, specifically telling the old man to keep watch over the guild no matter what, in case the enemy was feinting and planning a sneak attack.
But judging by the overwhelming commotion in the distance, this wasn't just one or two people.
This was the whole Fairy Tail guild turning out in force.
"That's way too reckless! Are they just ignoring the guild?"
Shane muttered under his breath, but the fist he had clenched tightly slowly loosened.
The boiling surge in his blood quietly subsided as well.
He could complain all he wanted, but he couldn't deny one thing—
When you're trapped in a hopeless situation with no one to rely on, and then suddenly realize there's a group of people out there thinking about you so stubbornly that they're charging in to save you without a second thought…
That feeling wasn't bad at all.
"Hm?"
The subtle shift in Shane's aura naturally didn't escape Hades' notice.
Following Shane's gaze, he lifted his chin slightly and looked toward the collapsing forest in the distance.
And when he sensed that familiar magic power, recognizable even from so far away—
A complicated emotion flickered through Hades' lone eye. He slowly lowered his gaze and muttered softly,
"Makarov… after all these years, that habit of yours—protecting your own and charging in recklessly—really hasn't changed at all."
But the memory lasted only half a second.
When Hades opened his eyes again, all that remained was absolute coldness and murderous intent.
"We can't wait any longer."
Without a trace of hesitation, Hades gave the kill order to his subordinates at once:
"Before those Fairy Tail brats get here, eliminate 'Azurefall' immediately!"
The moment the words fell, Hades slammed his hands together.
"Amaterasu… Formula 100!"
In the sky, following Hades' roar, dark violet light several times larger than before erupted violently, and seven enormous, intricate magic circles formed in an instant.
At the same time, Bluenote and the others closed in from every direction, sealing off every possible escape route for Shane.
"Tch."
Faced with the overwhelming barrage converging on him, Shane twitched his lips into a stubborn smile uglier than crying.
"Now that my backup is here, buying a little time… that much I can still do!"
In the next instant, a single scorching spark burst into existence in the frozen air.
Then the fire spread like a wildfire.
Centered on Shane, a deep crimson barrier visible to the naked eye exploded outward like a storm, swallowing Hades and the others whole.
[Genesis Swordcraft]!
As magic poured out madly, the surrounding space shattered and peeled away like broken mirrors.
The ruined platform vanished in an instant, consumed by layers upon layers of projected inner landscape.
The sky was replaced by deep crimson. The earth became scorched wasteland. Countless nameless swords stood thrust into the desolate plain like grave markers.
That forced shift of environment instantly caused Hades' "Amaterasu: Formula 100" and Grimoire Heart's combined assault to lose their target and fall uselessly into empty space.
"Oh? A spell I haven't seen before. In here, I can't draw magic from the earth to strengthen myself."
One of the subordinates, a dark-skinned man whose presence was as steady as an ancient tree, looked around with eager battle-lust in his eyes.
"Hey, Rustyrose, is this the magic you reported before?"
"No, Azuma. This is different."
Beside him, Rustyrose pushed up his glasses, his expression just as grim as he studied their surroundings.
Shane paid no attention at all to the group's routine shock upon seeing a Reality Marble for the first time.
His mind had already sunk into the endless wasteland of swords around him, trying to use the Noble Phantasm's analytical power to find, among the sea of blades, the "line of death" that could kill Hades in a single strike.
But the moment his perception truly touched the old man across from him, Shane jerked his head up in alarm.
He had indeed seen the "lines."
But what he found was that inside Hades' aged body lurked another abyss-like mass of terrifying magic power—something vast that still had not been used at all.
And what was even worse, through his perception of those "lines," Shane discovered that Hades had somehow connected his own life source and magic to a distant "external object."
"No wonder he looked so utterly confident when facing my Arondight…"
Shane couldn't help clenching his teeth.
"As long as that external object isn't destroyed, he's basically untouchable here…"
That old fox was even more cunning than he had imagined.
And with Hades staring at him so closely right now, Shane had no time to trace that connection and figure out where the man's hidden "heart" actually was.
"An interesting space."
Though Hades had been briefly surprised by this world of swords and fire, someone standing at the pinnacle of the magical world quickly regained his composure.
He looked coldly at Shane and slowly raised both hands again.
"But as long as the caster is killed, this space will naturally collapse. To me… it's nothing more than doing the same thing one more time."
Seven purple spell circles gathered in the dark red sky once again, even larger than before.
"Damn it!"
Shane flung out a hand and instantly dispelled the projected world.
As the sword-forged landscape shattered around them like glass, Shane used the split-second gap created by the space transition to hurl himself backward in a clumsy roll, barely avoiding the dark violet beam crashing straight down at him.
"Ugh!"
But this time, the moment he returned to the real platform atop Nirvana, both his legs began trembling violently out of control. They went weak so suddenly he almost dropped to his knees.
His magic was too badly depleted.
He had called on Noble Phantasms three times in a row—far beyond what his body at its current stage could endure.
"Looks like that little trick for stalling time won't be something you can use a second time."
Hades' cold voice rang out from right in front of him, like the whisper of death itself.
"Is that so?"
Shane shot back coldly.
With a flash of light, a long crimson scarf—the color of sacrifice and resolve—fell from Shane's shoulder and snapped sharply in the wind.
He bit through the tip of his tongue, using the sharp pain to force life back into his numbed nerves.
Then an immense surge of life force and magic, refined to the utmost and carrying even a faint hint of tragic finality, ignited like a burning star and poured madly toward the bowstring drawn to a full moon in Shane's hands.
"What is this?!"
At that instant—
Whether it was the arrogant Hades or Bluenote and the others nearby, every one of their hearts contracted violently.
An utterly irresistible sense of danger, as if even their souls would be pierced clean through, swept across everyone in Grimoire Heart in an instant.
If that arrow hit…
They would die for sure!!
"He was still hiding something like this?! Then why didn't he use it when we had him surrounded just now?"
Cold sweat broke out across Bluenote's back, and for a fleeting moment, even his body stiffened under the instinctive urge to survive.
And in that exact instant, while the members of Grimoire Heart were stunned by the terrifying power gathering on the bowstring—
"Now!"
Shane released the fingers on the string, put away the bow, and with the very last trace of strength left in his body, turned without hesitation and leaped off the towering Nirvana platform that rose into the clouds.
"You bastard! Trying to run?!"
Bluenote was the first to react. Roaring in fury, he threw both hands up again, and a terrifying gravity field came crashing down toward Shane's falling body like Mount Tai collapsing from the heavens.
But this time—
Thin strands of black mist spilled from Shane's body.
[Assassin]!
At the very instant the gravity was about to hit, his presence vanished from the black mist like a ghost for a tenth of a second, forcibly causing Bluenote's lock-on to miss.
"What a slippery little bastard. Like trying to grab a loach."
Bluenote clicked his tongue.
"Then I'll burn him to ash myself!"
From the group, an extremely young-looking boy with wild golden hair and eerie red ringed pupils suddenly stepped forward.
Standing at the edge of the platform, he looked down at Shane, who was plunging rapidly through the air, then drew in a deep breath, his chest swelling high.
"Fire God's… Bellow!!!"
With a savage roar, black fire—inky dark and reeking of destruction and ill omen—erupted from his mouth like a flood from a broken dam, howling as it lunged toward Shane in midair.
Still suspended in the air and completely drained, Shane watched the unavoidable attack coming at him and found that he couldn't even lift a finger.
He tried switching to Muramasa again, intending to meet the attack with the flames of the heart.
But then—
BOOOOM!!!
In the distant forest, a giant as massive as a mountain rose from the earth!
The giant swung back its thick, heavily muscled arm like a living catapult and hurled the object in its hand straight toward the platform.
"Who gave you bastards permission… to bully one of my guild's kids like this!!!"
Along with Makarov's furious roar that shook the sky—
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!"
A certain familiar scream, piercing enough to shred the air, came flying closer and closer.
Natsu, who had been thrown like a cannonball by the old man, intercepted the black pillar of fire with absurd precision right in its path.
Under the stunned stares of Grimoire Heart, like they had just seen a ghost—
Natsu steadied himself in midair. Not only did he not dodge, his eyes lit up instead as he threw his mouth wide open and inhaled straight into the sea of flames.
"HSSSS—!!!"
Like a whale swallowing water, the black flames surging across the sky and radiating death were forcibly dragged into a massive vortex in midair.
In the blink of an eye, not even a single spark remained.
He swallowed every last bit of it.