"S-Class is the highest honor a guild can grant one of its mages. It isn't earned through seniority, nor requested through application. It's bestowed solely by the Guild Master upon those who've proven they're worthy."
"And don't make the mistake of thinking every guild measures S-Class by the same standard. Each Guild Master decides what 'exceptional' means. But there's one expectation every true S-Class shares..."
"The strength to stand against an entire guild alone—and win. That's not a legend. That's the bare minimum."
"Few can stand against an S-Class mage. Fewer still survive challenging one."
"So tell me..." Damian stood in the center of the sunken fighting pit, his expression savage.
"Do you honestly think you're my equal?"
On the far end, Gajeel wiped a smear of blood from his jaw. His upper body was completely exposed, a massive pale scarf draped over his bare shoulders. His dark trousers, stitched with gold vertical stripes and sharp red flame motifs along the thighs, were caked in dirt.
His spiky black hair hung in a wild, tangled mess around his face. Despite running on fumes, a sharp grin cut across the boy's face.
"Get off your high horse, old man. It was an educated guess."
The look on Damian's face darkened, a prominent vein throbbing violently at his temple.
"Did you say... you made an educated fucking guess?"
"They call me Gajeel 'The Genius' Lionheart. They don't call me 'The Dumbass Dragon', now do they?"
Damian stared him down, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet growl. "I'm gonna fuck you up, you little shit."
Gajeel shot his tongue out in a blatant mock. "I'd like to see you try, hehe!"
Without a shred of magic, completely stripped of his spells or Ethernal infusion, Gajeel relied on pure, raw instinct. He launched himself across the pit, instantly bridging the gap.
Midair, he unleashed a blistering torrent of rapid-fire kicks aimed straight at Damian's face.
Damian snapped his forearms up, effortlessly absorbing the impacts. He didn't even wince.
Gajeel didn't stall. Using his momentum in midair, he twisted his core and whipped his entire lower body around, driving a savage heel kick directly into the side of Damian's neck.
The S-Class mage merely shrugged into the blow, his neck muscles tensing like iron. Before Gajeel could pull back, Damian's hand clamped onto the boy's ankle like a steel vice.
'What?! It didn't even phase him?'
With a single fluid motion, Damian hoisted Gajeel's entire body into the air with one hand, intending to drive him headfirst into the stone floor and leave a crater.
Dangling upside down, Gajeel didn't panic. He violently contorted his torso, spinning his free leg and upper body like a vortex. As Damian swung him down, Gajeel drove his free boot hard into Damian's chest.
Damian expected the counter. He could have blocked it, but he chose to take the hit, planning to grab the second leg the moment it impacted.
But Gajeel wasn't trying to cause damage. The moment his boot slammed into Damian's ribs, he used the man's broad chest as a springboard. Pushing off with explosive force, Gajeel broke the S-Class mage's grip on his ankle and flipped cleanly backward, skidding into a crouch right back where he started.
"Dammit. What is up with this guy?" Gajeel muttered, his chest heaving. 'He's too tall. I can't reach any of his vital points from the ground!'
Jumping was his only option to close the height deficit, but against someone this fast, leaving his feet was suicide.
"I won't pretend to know what your deal is, kid, but close-quarters combat is my absolute specialty," Damian said, stepping forward with unshakeable confidence. "Nobody beats me here."
"Like I give a shit," Gajeel barked. But as he spoke, his eyes flickered toward the corridor entrance for a fraction of a second. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juvia and Sheila quietly slip out of the guildhall.
It was a momentary lapse in focus. A single baseline second. But against an S-Class mage, a second was an eternity.
Damian vanished. He completely blitzed Gajeel's perception, materializing directly in his blind spot before the boy's eyes could even track the movement. "Can you really afford to look away right now?"
Before Gajeel could turn, a devastating flurry of punches detonated against his skull. The speed was blinding—to Gajeel, the world shattered into a localized explosion of white, blinding pain.
Damian finished the execution with a brutal, heavy palm thrust right into the center of the boy's sternum.
Gajeel sprayed a mouthful of crimson as the impact launched him backward. His body skipped violently across the wooden floorboards of the pit before crashing hard against the low iron railing.
Damian dropped his hands back to his sides, looking down at the broken kid. "I'll force you to respect your elders, boy."
Gajeel did not respond. A dull, high-pitched ringing echoed in his ears, blurring his vision into a smear of shapes. He groaned under his breath, the metallic taste of blood pooling in his mouth as a fresh wave of ecstatic cheers from the crowd snapped him back to reality.
The phantom mages were howling for blood.
Gritting his teeth, Gajeel forced his trembling legs to lock, dragging his weight up along the iron railing. 'Can I even take this guy in my current state? If I just had time to refill my container...'
His eyes darted to the iron railing beneath his hands. He could eat it to replenish his iron supply, but he knew full well Damian wouldn't just stand there and let him have a snack. He had let himself get distracted once; he'd be a complete fool to do it again.
'Why isn't he pressing the advantage?' Gajeel thought, his bloodshot eyes tracking the S-Class mage. 'Is he pitying me?'
"Why haven't you used your magic?" Damian spoke up, his amber eyes narrowing with growing suspicion. "That spell that leveled the corridor gate earlier—that was yours, wasn't it?"
Damian took a slow, deliberate step forward. "Do you think I'm not worth the effort, or are you actually arrogant enough to believe you can beat an S-Class wizard with pure brawling? If it's the latter, you're a fool. I have years, if not decades, more combat experience than you, boy."
"I could say the exact same to you!" Gajeel roared back, spitting blood onto the stone. "Why haven't you thrown a single spell?"
'Good. The bastard doesn't realize I'm completely tapped out. I can work with this.'
Damian merely scoffed, holding back a dark laugh. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Why on earth would I unleash even a fraction of my magical output in here, knowing it would blow a hole straight through the guildhall?"
Now fully on his feet, Gajeel knew he was running out of time. He needed a strategy, and he needed it now.
Should he swallow his pride, stay on the defensive, and stall? If he focused strictly on dodging and parrying, he could minimize the damage, keep his distance, and wait for a glaring opening. It was the smart, logical choice.
But the mere thought of fighting like a coward filled the Dragon Slayer with absolute disgust.
"That's… how losers think!" Frustrated by his own physical limitations, Gajeel charged straight down the center of the pit.
Damian let out a bored sigh, shifting his weight to counter the predictable frontal assault. But Gajeel didn't throw a straight punch.
The second he stepped into Damian's shadow, he used a burst of raw physical agility to weave and pivot erratically, darting from side to side in a desperate attempt to confuse the older mage's tracking.
For a fraction of a second, Damian's eyes blinked in surprise. Seizing the moment, Gajeel unleashed a restless, frantic flurry of strikes—punches, elbows, and snapping kicks blurring through the air.
Yet, despite the sheer speed, Damian smoothly swayed his upper body, letting the knuckles graze past his chin by mere millimeters. Realizing the punches were a distraction, Damian drove a lightning-fast counter straight at Gajeel's head, but the boy nimbly ducked beneath the trajectory.
The sudden downward motion caused Gajeel to stagger ever so slightly—a minor lapse in balance that Damian punished instantly.
The S-Class mage snapped his leg out, aiming a heavy front kick meant to launch the boy into the air.
Expecting the move, Gajeel threw his own legs forward, wrapping them tightly around Damian's massive thigh like a vice. Locking himself in place, Gajeel raised a sharp elbow, letting out a guttural battle cry as he drove it straight down toward Damian's exposed knee.
Damian didn't even try to block. He simply dropped his leg with immense strength, slamming his boot right back into its original spot on the stone. The sheer downward force ripped away Gajeel's momentum, completely breaking his lock and leaving him entirely defenseless in midair.
Damian's hands moved like a flash, delivering two brutal palm strikes. Gajeel barely managed to twist his torso to avoid a direct hit to his ribs, but he couldn't dodge the follow-up.
Using the exact same leg he had just planted, Damian whipped it upward in a brutal, blind kick, his boot catching Gajeel square in the gut.
The blunt force of the impact sent Gajeel spinning violently through the air. Damian closed the distance instantly, cocking back a massive fist to finish it.
Reflexively, Gajeel managed to cross both arms in front of his face, absorbing the heavy punch just as it landed. The impact propelled him backward, his boots skidding heavily in the dirt as he came to a halt mere feet away, his forearms bruising black beneath his skin.
"Dammit…!" Gajeel grimaced, his jaw aching as a toxic mix of pain and frustration boiled in his chest. 'With no magic, my only option is to try and overpower him. But he's keeping up too easily—predicting my next move before I can even fully commit to it.'
The realization tasted bitter.
'Is this what he meant earlier? About us being years apart?'
Across the dirt, Damian's amber eyes narrowed into slits as he tracked the boy's jagged breathing. 'Why hasn't he used his magic? Does the little shit truly believe he can take down an S-Class mage without it?'
At that moment, Gajeel's arrogant declaration from earlier echoed clearly in Damian's mind:
"[I ain't scared of nobody. I'll take all of you stupid bastards at once!]"
The memory made his blood run scalding hot.
'Pure, unadulterated arrogance!'
Damian kicked off the stone, the floorboards groaning under the sudden, explosive burst of speed as he blitzed straight toward Gajeel. "I'll teach you that your words have fucking consequences!"
'He's rushing me?!' Gajeel was caught completely off guard, but his raw reflexes saved him.
He rocked hard off his back foot, throwing his body into a desperate, random pivot to break the line of sight.
But Damian adjusted instantly. He planted his boot, altering his trajectory in a localized blur that kept him pinned right on Gajeel's heels. Gajeel cut left, then right, attempting a jagged, unpredictable escape pattern—but Damian matched every single vector effortlessly.
'How the hell is he this fast?!'
Accelerating just a fraction more, Damian closed the final gap. Raising both fists high above his head, he brought them down like a sledgehammer directly into Gajeel's exposed spine.
An explosive, hot white flash of agony ripped through Gajeel's entire nervous system. It felt as though his whole ribcage had violently collapsed inward. Every ounce of oxygen was instantly blasted right out of his lungs, forcing a ragged, empty gasp to tear from his throat as his knees buckled.
Damian wasn't done. He drove a brutal, rising knee straight into Gajeel's unprotected gut, sending a spray of saliva into the air.
"Remember this pain the next time you think about defying someone," Damian growled. Reaching out with a lightning-fast left hand, he clamped onto Gajeel's wrist, twisted his own torso, and hurled the boy across the pit.
Gajeel flew through the air like a ragdoll, hurtling straight toward the jagged iron railing. In that split second of flight, he sucked in a desperate, burning lungful of air, forcing his muscles to fire.
Timing the momentum perfectly, he caught the heavy metal bar with both hands, using his raw grip strength to arrest his flight and anchor his boots to the floor.
Instantly, a deafening roar of approval exploded from the rafters. It was one thing to watch a standard S-Class execution, but watching Gajeel—a kid with a notoriously loud mouth and a lot of history in the hall—actually survive the onslaught was turning into pure entertainment.
Gajeel leaned heavily against the iron, his violent, rattling wheezes the only sound escaping his lips. For some reason, as the blood dripped into his eyes, his mind flashed back to his fight with Juvia.
He remembered being slammed into her boiling water. He remembered the skin-peeling, agonizing torment—the worst pain he had ever felt in his short life.
"This is your punishment, boy," Damian's voice echoed from across the ring, but Gajeel completely zoned him out. The ambient noise of the crowd faded into static.
His fingers dug into the heavy iron railing, his knuckles turning stark white as he gripped it with everything he had left.
"Compared to that…" Gajeel's bloody lips stretched into a manic, unhinged grin. With a guttural roar, his muscles swelled as he violently ripped the massive section of iron railing straight out of its concrete base, lifting the heavy metal beam right into his arms.
"Compared to that boiling water, this is a piece of cake!"
Damian actually paused, a genuine flicker of surprise crossing his features. 'Who the hell is this kid? That kind of physical strength is… impressive.'
"It doesn't matter if you can predict my attacks! I'll just have to get reckless!" Gajeel screamed, entirely surrendering to the crimson rage blinding his vision.
Weighing himself down with the massive iron beam, he charged. The added weight made his steps significantly slower than before, his boots fracturing the stone beneath him with every stride.
"You think your rage makes you stronger? Absolute foolishness," Damian scoffed, cocking back a massive right fist.
The moment Gajeel swung the iron beam into range, Damian fluidly shifted his weight, letting the blunt metal miss his shoulder by an inch. In the same motion, he planted a heavy, straight punch directly into Gajeel's face.
But this time, Gajeel didn't fly back. Thanks to the immense counterweight of the iron railing in his arms, his boots remained violently dug into the floorboards.
"I told you, didn't I?" Gajeel spat, his nose breaking against Damian's knuckles, his eyes glaring through the blood. "This is a piece of cake!"
Before Damian could even process the shock of the boy absorbing a direct S-Class strike to the jaw, Gajeel violently whipped the iron railing back around in a blind, horizontal arc.
Damian saw the blurred metal coming at the absolute last microsecond. He tried to duck, but his center of gravity was committed.
The heavy iron bar smashed directly into the side of Damian's face with a sickening metallic echo. The sheer force sent the S-Class mage skidding backward across the dirt, his boots cutting deep tracks into the floorboards before he finally ground to a halt.
Panting heavily, his shoulders shaking, Gajeel let the dented iron railing crash to the floor with a loud thud. He wiped the fresh blood from his mouth and grinned wildly. "Get distracted much?"
The guild hall went absolutely ballistic. Even though one of their elite mages had just taken a heavy piece of iron directly to the skull, the Phantom Lord wizards were screaming with delight.
They didn't care about loyalty or fairness—they lived for the violence of the game.
For a long, tense moment, Damian remained still, his face shadowed. Then, his shoulders began to hitch.
A loud, manic laugh erupted from his chest, echoing violently across the high rafters of the guildhall. It was wild, unrestrained, and thoroughly unhinged, as if Gajeel hitting him was the funniest joke he had heard in a decade.
Slowly, the raucous cheering from the crowd began to die down, an uneasy silence settling over the mages as they watched him laugh.
Damian threw his head back, exposing his teeth in a wide, jagged smile, his amber eyes gleaming with a terrifying adrenaline rush.
"I've fought a lot of people in my life, brat... but only a handful were crazy enough to do what you just did." He shook his head, letting out a short, breathy chuckle. "Seriously... who intentionally charges straight into an oncoming attack?"
He wiped a bead of blood from his cheek, his demeanor shifting. "Then again... I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If you want to climb the ranks in Phantom Lord, you've gotta have a few screws loose."
The manic smile slowly settled into something entirely cold. The grin remained on his lips, but an immense, suffocating weight suddenly dropped over the entire fighting pit as Damian rested his palm heavily on the hilt of his katana.
"Let me teach you something, Gajeel... from one guildmate to another."
In one slow, agonizingly smooth motion, his fingers wrapped around the grip. He drew the blade just a few inches, the polished steel catching the dim light of the hall with a lethal, silver glint.
"When you throw a punch, you put your whole body behind it," Damian whispered, his amber-lit eyes locking onto Gajeel's with absolute finality. "And when you've got a weapon in your hand..."
The smile vanished completely.
"...you fight to kill."