Chapter 300: Pursuing Minerva
[This... this... it's appeared!!]
[Contestant Ren has issued a declaration of victory... no! A declaration of invincibility!!!]
"This bastard!" Orga Nanagear cursed, his muscular arms trembling. He was even more annoyed seeing Ren's utterly arrogant behavior being broadcasted across the massive lacrima screens.
Black lightning crackled dangerously around Orga's broad shoulders. He genuinely wished he could rush up to the sky right now and pick a fight with Ren to wipe that smug smile off his face.
"Don't be impulsive, Orga! Our ultimate goal is victory, not satisfying your bruised ego," Rufus Lore advised, adjusting his feathered hat. His mind was already calculating a hundred different probability vectors.
"Victory? This pathetic victory..." Orga gritted his teeth, looking at the sprawling, artificially constructed city below them. "Right now, this just looks like a humiliating game of tag!"
It was the undeniable truth. Ren was 'it,' and the rest of the strongest mages in Fiore were the ones hiding everywhere like frightened mice.
Whoosh—!
High above the arena, Ren's figure vanished without a trace, leaving only a faint ripple in the clouds.
"Eh, he's gone. I wonder which unlucky soul just got caught in his sights," Rufus murmured, his eyes narrowing. "Let's move quickly! We must secure points while he is distracted."
Everyone in the simulated city noticed Ren disappear from the sky and immediately began to act. Who knew if Ren would suddenly appear above them again? They had to ruthlessly eliminate the weaker guilds and hoard as many points as possible while they still breathed.
On the main lacrima screen, the camera feed abruptly shifted. Ren had instantly appeared on a quiet street corner, standing directly in front of the Wild Four's ace.
[It's Bacchus! Ren and Bacchus Groh have clashed!] Chapati Lola's voice boomed over the speakers.
"Ren!!" Bacchus was startled, his dark eyes widening in genuine shock. He almost dropped the heavy gourd of alcohol strapped to his hip.
"Yo! Bacchus, what a coincidence," Ren greeted the martial artist with a casual, relaxed smile, keeping his hands loosely tucked into his pockets.
Bacchus's face looked incredibly grim as a drop of nervous sweat rolled down his cheek. He thought to himself: Coincidence my foot! This is no coincidence at all; this is your deliberate revenge for how Quatro Cerberus acted earlier.
"Ren, don't look down on me! I am also an S-Class Mage!!" Bacchus roared, trying to psych himself up. He bit his thumb, his magic power surging as he dropped into his unorthodox fighting stance.
"I'm not looking down on you! Didn't we just happen to run into each other on this lovely street?" Ren maintained an innocent, harmless expression on his face. "Since we're here, let's just settle this quickly!"
"Bastard! Take this!!" Bacchus bellowed, pushing his leg muscles to the absolute limit. The cobblestone beneath his sandals shattered into dust.
"Drunken Chop: Hanging Palm!"
Bacchus couldn't take the disrespect anymore; this was the very first time in his life he had been so casually belittled by an opponent. He rushed at Ren like a maddened beast, attacking him with every ounce of his destructive might.
The sheer speed of his palm strikes was completely invisible to the naked eye. The air shrieked as he landed an unknown number of devastating, consecutive hits directly onto Ren's body.
[Bacchus has attacked! What an incredibly fast barrage!!]
"Haaaah..."
Amidst the furious storm of martial arts strikes, Ren simply raised a hand to his mouth and yawned lazily. He didn't even blink as Bacchus's palms struck the space mere millimeters from his clothes.
Looking at the panting Bacchus, Ren tilted his head and asked, "Are you finished yet?"
Bacchus's expression changed drastically into one of pure horror. He quickly backflipped away, retreating a dozen meters as he looked at the completely unharmed Ren in absolute disbelief.
"How is that even possible?! So many of my strongest attacks hit you dead-on! How can you be completely fine?!" Bacchus yelled, his hands throbbing with phantom pain.
He had just attacked with all his monstrous strength. Even a solid block of enchanted iron should have been smashed to fine powder under that barrage.
"You didn't hit me," Ren stated plainly, his azure eyes calm.
"Impossible! My attacks clearly hit you! I felt the impact! How could they not have hit?!" Bacchus pointed a shaking finger at him.
"What you hit was just the infinity of the distance between us," Ren sighed, finding the mechanics of his Limitless too tedious to break down for a drunkard. "Forget it, I'm too lazy to explain the mathematics to you."
Ren slowly raised his right palm, pointing his index finger toward the bewildered martial artist.
A small, intensely concentrated red energy sphere condensed in the center of his palm, radiating a terrifying, repulsive heat.
"Not good!"
Bacchus immediately recognized the lethal danger and tried to dive into a nearby alleyway, but it was already far too late.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The red sphere shot forward like a laser, hitting Bacchus squarely in the chest. The sheer repulsive force carried him through the air, violently destroying several large stone buildings in the process. Bacchus's eyes rolled back into his head as he fell completely unconscious beneath the rubble.
[Bacchus has been defeated! Fairy Tail gains 5 points!]
During this brief, one-sided execution, the other powerful competitors had also begun encountering each other across the sprawling city map.
[Wait... Sabertooth is gaining points at an alarming rate!] the announcer suddenly yelled, drawing the audience's attention to the shifting scoreboard.
The elite members of Sabertooth had acted with ruthless efficiency. Utilizing Rufus's Memory-Make radar, they had systematically hunted down and eliminated the other four members of Quatro Cerberus. Following that massacre, they had seamlessly ambushed and dealt with several key members of Mermaid Heel.
"Hmph! This is merely a point-grabbing game. You don't necessarily have to defeat your opponent in a fair duel to win," Minerva Orland sneered coldly.
She stood atop a clock tower, holding the bruised and battered master of the Trimens by his collar. With a look of utter disgust, Minerva callously let go of Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, dropping him off the high ledge.
"Meeeeen—!" Ichiya screamed his iconic catchphrase as he plummeted, crashing heavily into the street below.
[Blue Pegasus Captain Ichiya has lost his ability to fight! Sabertooth gains 5 points!]
[So fast! Sabertooth's tactical actions are far too decisive!] Chapati Lola cried out in sheer amazement.
[In the blink of an eye, they've gained 13 points! Now their total score has reached 48 points! They are firmly in second place! Will Sabertooth rush into first place like this?!]
The crowd was just beginning to cheer for Sabertooth's comeback when the lacrima feed suddenly cut to a new, highly tense confrontation.
[Wait! He's appeared! Ren has appeared directly in front of Minerva! Sabertooth's young miss is in big trouble!!]
Whoosh!
Without any warning or magical fluctuation, Ren teleported directly in front of Minerva on the clock tower's balcony. Minerva's beautiful, haughty face changed drastically when she saw the monster of Fairy Tail blocking her path.
"Ren..." Minerva hissed, her hands instinctively glowing with spatial energy.
"Minerva," Ren greeted her smoothly. "You said on the first day to strictly follow the rules of the games. So, I've come to eliminate you according to the rules."
"Territory: Explosion Space!"
Minerva didn't hesitate. She violently raised her hands and released a barrage of warped space bubbles infused with deadly, explosive properties directly at Ren's face.
Ren stood perfectly still in place, his hands casually resting in his pockets, not even attempting to dodge the lethal spatial distortion.
Boom—!!
The explosion erupted point-blank on Ren, engulfing the entire balcony in blinding flames and thick, choking smoke.
But very quickly, the sound of calm footsteps echoed. Ren casually walked out of the roaring inferno completely unharmed. The explosive spatial energy hadn't even managed to singe the corner of his clothes.
Meanwhile, Minerva had already utilized her magic to appear on a rooftop far in the distance, panting slightly as she assessed the situation.
"Ren! Although I deeply wish to settle our guild's score, now is clearly not the time to fight you!" Minerva shouted across the gap, preparing to flee once more.
"Want to run?" Ren chuckled, a dangerous glint flashing in his eyes. "Do you really think you can escape my domain?"
Ren took a single, casual step forward. The concept of distance bent around him, and he appeared directly in front of Minerva the very next instant.
Minerva's expression shifted into pure, unadulterated panic.
Ren fluidly raised his long leg, his muscles coiling like a steel spring, and swept a devastating roundhouse kick toward Minerva's ribs.
Crack—!
A heavy stone gargoyle suddenly appeared precisely where Minerva had been standing a millisecond prior. The stone statue was instantly shattered into fine powder by the terrifying kinetic force of Ren's kick.
Far down the street, Minerva's elegant figure appeared out of thin air, her chest heaving as she barely escaped having her torso caved in.
"Oh? How interesting," Ren murmured, lowering his leg and brushing some stone dust off his trousers.
Ren remembered Yukino Agria mentioning the mechanics of Minerva's unique Territory Magic. It seemed to be a highly advanced spatial manipulation that allowed her to freely substitute any person or object within her designated space.
This specific ability was remarkably similar to Uchiha Sasuke's Amenotejikara, the divine visual prowess granted by his Six-Tomoe Rinnegan. Such versatile magic was undoubtedly very powerful and incredibly annoying to fight against.
[Akarin's Note: Amenotejikara is a space-time ninjutsu used by Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto, allowing the user to instantly swap places with objects, people, or jutsu within a certain range.]
"But you want to play with space?" Ren smirked, his magical aura flaring wildly. "I am also a master of space. Let's see whose is superior."
Swoosh—!
In the next instant, the air warped violently, and Ren appeared high in the sky directly above Minerva's new position.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red!"
Ren raised his right palm, his fingers perfectly aligned. A blazing, concentrated Crimson Sphere formed at his fingertips before he aimed it straight down and fired it like a falling meteor.
Boom—!!
A terrifying, apocalyptic explosion occurred upon impact. The red sphere blasted a massive, glowing crater deep into the earth. The sheer, overwhelming shockwave shattered all the glass and pulverized several surrounding buildings into dust.
Minerva gritted her teeth, forcefully pushing her magic power to its limit to use Territory and shift her position yet again just before the blast could vaporize her.
Ren immediately followed up without giving her a fraction of a second to breathe. He teleported again, raising his palm for another ruthless Cursed Technique Reversal.
Boom—!!
Half of a massive, multi-story building was entirely blown apart by Ren's subsequent strike, sending tons of concrete raining down onto the streets below.
[Contestant Ren is relentlessly pursuing contestant Minerva! The proud lady of Sabertooth is currently fleeing in a completely sorry state!] the announcer narrated, unable to hide his shock at the one-sided hunt.
"This bastard...!"
Minerva's face was very grim, her usually immaculate makeup smeared with dirt and sweat. She hadn't expected Ren to be so relentlessly troublesome.
She possessed the absolute dominance of Territory and could freely swap her position with objects in her line of sight. Logically speaking, almost no one in the world should be able to physically catch her or pin her down.
Yet this unreasonable Fairy Tail mage could teleport at absolute will, matching her spatial movement perfectly. Not only that, his destructive attacks were terrifyingly powerful, impossibly fast, and fired with zero casting time.
Fortunately, her calculating mind had already prepared a contingency plan for this exact scenario.
Whoosh—!
Minerva shifted her position through the spatial plane once again, intentionally appearing near a specific, highly powerful individual.
"Minerva?!"
Jura Neekis frowned slightly at Minerva's sudden, frantic appearance near his location. The towering Wizard Saint originally had no particular ill feelings about Sabertooth, but Minerva's cruel and sadistic actions toward Lucy Heartfilia the day before yesterday had made him deeply displeased with her character.
Minerva ignored his hostile glare. She smiled a wicked, desperate smile at Jura and said, "Jura-dono, forgive me, but let me make use of your sturdy body for a bit."
"What?" Jura blinked, momentarily confused by her cryptic words.
Before Jura could react to her statement, the space above them distorted. Ren's imposing figure appeared floating in mid-air, looking down at them like a descending god.
Ren wordlessly raised his palm and aimed directly at Minerva. A violently swirling, red Crimson Sphere formed instantly at his fingertips, humming with lethal repulsive energy.
Without a moment of hesitation, he fired the devastating blast downward toward Minerva.
Whoosh—!
The red light illuminated the alleyway. Just as the Crimson Sphere was about to hit Minerva and eliminate her from the games, she forcefully activated her Territory magic to swap her own physical coordinates with Jura.
"Not good!" Jura's eyes widened in horror as he suddenly found himself standing directly in the path of Ren's unstoppable attack.
Boom—!!
[Akarin Note:
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