Chapter 302: It's Him
Jura Neekis couldn't help but frown. He had fought Ren in the past and had personally witnessed him battle the Oración Seis; because of that, he understood Ren's terrifying strength better than most people present.
But seven long years had passed since that fateful incident. In that time, Jura's own magic power had grown exponentially, making him fundamentally much stronger than he was during the allied forces' assault on the Oración Seis.
He knew Ren was an anomaly, a monster in human skin, but no matter how impossibly high the young man's talent was, in terms of sheer, raw magic power capacity, he shouldn't be as profound as Jura himself after a seven-year gap.
Magic power determined the ultimate strength of a Mage's spell, and a higher reservoir of magic power meant exponentially more endurance in a prolonged battle.
Ren's words were truly a bit arrogant.
Minerva, standing a short distance away, was secretly delighted. The corners of her lips curled into a wicked, triumphant smirk. She hadn't expected this infuriating guy from Fairy Tail to be so incredibly arrogant. Originally, she thought it would be a massive headache to persuade the stoic Kagura and the honorable Jura to abandon their pride and deal with Ren together. But now, this fool had suddenly made her job much easier.
"Ren! We know you're strong, but to confidently declare that the three of us together aren't enough to beat you—you're too arrogant! Are you looking down on us?!"
Minerva intentionally raised her voice, letting her words echo across the ruined battlefield, adding fuel to the fire and expertly egging the other two on.
Ren stood perfectly relaxed, his hands casually tucked into his pockets. He slowly shook his head, his expression completely devoid of malice or mockery. "I have never looked down on anyone. Everyone here practices seriously and diligently, bleeding and sweating to reach their current heights, so why should I look down on others? I'm simply telling the truth."
"..."
At the grand Domus Flau arena, the hundreds of thousands of spectators fell into a stunned silence. The sheer audacity of the statement hung heavily in the air. Ren was being way too conceited.
"Although I despise outnumbering others and prefer a fair duel," Kagura finally spoke, her hand tightening around the hilt of her sheathed blade, Archenemy. Her sharp, piercing gaze locked onto Ren with deadly seriousness. "Since you've made such a bold claim, I want to meet your challenge. I want to see exactly what kind of unfathomable strength gives you the right to say such words."
Jura stroked his beard, his towering figure casting a long shadow over the stone debris. "I also wish to know to what extent Lord Ren's strength has reached after all these years."
Although Jura deeply disliked Minerva—recognizing her as a malicious, underhanded woman—and normally abhorred the idea of outnumbering a single opponent, Ren's words were simply too conceited to ignore. As a Wizard Saint, Jura could understand a young person possessing great strength being a bit arrogant, but being too arrogant would eventually lead to a severe backlash. Sometimes, the youth needed a harsh lesson.
Minerva was overjoyed when she heard Kagura and Jura's declarations of intent: Her little scheme was a complete success.
"Ren, then let the three of us face you right here and now! Let's see if your actual strength is as big as your arrogant talk!" Minerva challenged, her hands glowing with the ominous, distorting light of her Territory magic.
Up in the commentator's booth, Chapati Lola gripped his microphone, his voice practically vibrating with absolute hysteria.
[Huge news!! I can hardly believe my eyes, folks! It's not a four-way melee, nor a two-on-two tag team, but an unprecedented three-on-one showdown! Kagura of Mermaid Heel, Minerva of Sabertooth, and the Wizard Saint Jura of Lamia Scale are officially teaming up to deal with Fairy Tail's Ren!!]
The magic lacrima screens zoomed in on the four figures standing amidst the rubble of the artificial city.
[Will the one to survive this monstrous encounter be Ren, or will it be the three elite guild captains?!] Chapati roared, the crowd roaring back in a deafening wave of excitement. [Undoubtedly, this will be the absolute top-tier clash of strength since the very start of the Grand Magic Games———!!!]
"Ren is being way too overconfident! Is he crazy?!"
"Yeah! I admit he's ridiculously strong, but his opponents are Kagura, Minerva, and Jura of the Ten Wizard Saints! That's practically a suicide mission!"
"Fairy Tail is definitely going to lose this time! No one can take on those three at once and walk away breathing!"
The audience members in the stands were talking all at once, a chaotic symphony of doubt and sheer disbelief.
Down in the Fairy Tail designated viewing area, panic was beginning to set in among the members who had stayed behind for the last seven years.
"Isn't Ren being a bit too reckless?!" Macao gripped the railing tightly, his face paling drastically. This lineup was genuinely terrifying. Minerva's unpredictable space magic, Kagura's unstoppable gravity-infused strikes, and Jura's overwhelming, earth-shattering power were undoubtedly some of the absolute highest-tier abilities present in the entire Grand Magic Games.
"Yeah! It would be so much better to play it safe, retreat, and pick them off one by one!" Jet shouted, sweating profusely.
The members of the Seven Year Group had zero confidence that Ren could pull off such an insane feat.
But a stark contrast existed right beside them. The people from the Tenrou Group—those who had witnessed Ren's true, unbridled monstrosity—were incredibly optimistic, grinning from ear to ear.
"Go for it, Ren! Burn them all up!" Natsu cheered, punching the air excitedly.
"Take them down!! Let them know exactly how powerful you really are!!" Erza nodded approvingly, her arms crossed.
"Let the whole world know who the absolute strongest Mage in Fiore is!!" Gray yelled out, entirely unconcerned by the odds.
The members of the Tenrou Group were shouting excitedly as if this life-or-death battle were nothing more than a casual stroll in the park, drawing baffled and bewildered eyes from the people in the neighboring stands. The crowd simply didn't understand why this particular group from Fairy Tail was so blindly confident in Ren's victory.
Laki pulled at her lavender hair, asking worriedly, "Is Ren really going to be okay? I mean, it's Jura!"
In the eyes of the normal guild members, Ren's strength was perhaps about the same level as Gildarts'. And even if he was a bit stronger than Jura, his magic reserves had to be limited. Fighting a war of attrition against three powerhouses was tactical suicide.
Mirajane simply stood there, her hands gently clasped together, a serene and beautiful smile gracing her lips. "Don't worry, Laki! Not to mention just the three of them... even if there were three more Mages of their caliber added to the mix, they still wouldn't be Ren's match."
Back in the arena, the air grew incredibly heavy, practically suffocating with the dense accumulation of raw magic power from the four combatants.
Ren lazily beckoned to the three of them with a flick of his wrist. "Come on! Let's have some fun!"
Fun? Kagura's eyes narrowed dangerously. He actually treated a death match with three top-tier masters as mere fun.
Swish!
Kagura was the first to attack. Utilizing her terrifying leg strength and gravity magic, she closed the fifty-meter distance in a fraction of a second, becoming nothing but a blur. She aggressively swung her long, sheathed sword directly at Ren's neck, the air screaming as the weapon cut through it.
However, the result was entirely anti-climactic. The deadly strike abruptly stopped just mere inches away from Ren's skin, hovering in mid-air as if caught in invisible, solidified honey.
"You should draw your sword, Kagura," Ren stated smoothly, not even blinking at the blade positioned right beside his jugular. "Using just the scabbard... you don't even have the absolute qualification to touch me."
Without missing a beat, Ren casually threw a heavy, straightforward punch directly at Kagura's abdomen.
Kagura's instincts screamed at her. She immediately twisted her body and raised her scabbard to block the incoming fist.
Bang!
A thunderous shockwave erupted upon impact. Kagura felt an unimaginably powerful, crushing physical force transmit through her scabbard. Her eyes widened slightly as her body was forcefully blown backward, her boots carving deep, smoking trenches into the cobblestone street as she rapidly retreated to dissipate the kinetic energy.
"Explosion Space!"
Minerva didn't waste the opening Kagura had created. Capitalizing on the moment, she ruthlessly transferred a highly concentrated, volatile explosion bubble directly into the spatial coordinates right next to Ren's head.
Boom————!
A violently beautiful, multi-colored explosion erupted with deafening volume. The sheer, concentrated power of Yakdo Rigora's minor application instantly vaporized the surrounding stone buildings, engulfing Ren in a massive dome of blinding heat and choking smoke.
[A direct hit from Sabertooth's Lady Minerva!] Chapati Lola screamed.
But a second later, the collective breath of the audience hitched. Ren casually walked right out of the searing explosion smoke, his hands still in his pockets. He was completely unscathed, not a single scorch mark on his clothes, nor a single hair out of place. The Infinity barrier between him and the world had completely filtered out the heat and concussive force.
Ren slowly raised his right hand, pointing his index finger forward. A blindingly bright, condensed red light began to gather at his fingertip. In an instant, a violently swirling red Crimson Sphere formed in his palm.
Minerva's face changed drastically, losing all its previous arrogance. "That move again!"
Just minutes ago, she had been chased around the city like a desperate, beaten dog by Ren using this exact, terrifyingly destructive technique. She knew firsthand that if that red sphere hit her, she would be instantly eliminated.
Whoosh—!
Ren fired the Cursed Technique Reversal: Red. The beam of absolute repulsive force tore through the street, obliterating everything in its path.
Minerva quickly activated her Territory, manipulating the spatial coordinates to forcefully swap places with a chunk of debris from a nearby ruined wall.
Boom———!!
The three-story building behind the spot where she had just been standing was suddenly struck by the Crimson Sphere. The structure didn't just explode; it was fundamentally blasted apart, pulverized into microscopic dust by the sheer repulsive pressure.
"Iron Rock Pillars!"
Jura's booming voice echoed as he slammed his palms onto the ground. The earth roared in response. Dozens of massive, steel-hard stone pillars aggressively erupted from beneath the ground, shooting up like jagged teeth attempting to impale Ren.
Ren's body moved with supernatural grace, effortlessly dodging and weaving through the ascending pillars, his movements light and incredibly quick.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue!!"
[Akarin's Note: Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue is the Gojo template's ability that creates a localized singularity, forcing the world to correct itself by pulling all matter toward the center, effectively creating a powerful magnetic or gravitational crush.]
Ren raised his palm, and the space around him violently distorted. He released several azure Blue Spheres into the air.
Under Ren's precise mental control, the Blue Spheres tore through the air, their terrifying gravitational pull ripping the very cobblestones off the ground as they rushed toward the three opposing Mages.
"Archenemy: Tachi Form!"
Kagura drew her blade a fraction of an inch, releasing a pressurized wave of sword aura. The blinding slash perfectly bisected the approaching Blue Sphere, causing the gravitational singularity to collapse and violently dissipate into harmless ether.
"Heat Space!"
Minerva gritted her teeth, raising her hands to release an intensely superheated bubble of space. The boiling Territory collided head-on with the second Blue Sphere. The two conflicting spatial anomalies violently ground against each other before both mutually destabilized and disappeared together in a silent flash of light.
"Iron Rock Wall!"
Jura slammed his hands together. A towering, incredibly thick stone slab, artificially compressed to be as dense and hard as refined steel, violently rose from the earth directly in front of him to act as an absolute shield.
Boom———!
The third Blue Sphere crashed into the massive barrier. It aggressively gnawed a massive, circular, crater-like hole directly through the center of the Iron Rock Wall, grinding the stone to dust, and then finally dissipated as its gravitational power ran out.
"Iron Rock Fist!!"
Not giving Ren a single moment to breathe, Jura immediately transitioned his magic. A gigantic, building-sized fist crafted from highly compressed bedrock formed above them and plummeted down, striking aggressively toward Ren.
Ren dodged the massive, crushing attack with a light, gravity-defying leap backward. But Kagura, anticipating his evasion route, suddenly lunged out from the dust cloud. Her long sword, still in its scabbard, slashed horizontally at Ren's midsection with bone-breaking force.
Ren didn't dodge; he simply reached out and blocked the heavy strike directly with his bare, cursed-energy-reinforced hand.
Swish!
But just as Ren blocked Kagura, the space around him distorted. Minerva had manipulated the coordinates, causing Ren's figure to violently appear right in the direct trajectory of Jura's descending stone fist.
Boom————!
The massive Iron Rock Fist slammed mercilessly into Ren. The sheer kinetic force of the Wizard Saint's strike launched him backward like a fired cannonball.
Boom, boom, boom!!
Solid stone buildings were violently smashed to pieces one by one as Ren's body physically crashed through them, sending massive clouds of dust and debris high into the afternoon sky.
[A direct hit!!] Chapati Lola screamed, jumping out of his seat. [As expected of the three master Mages! Under their perfectly coordinated, relentless joint attack, even the seemingly invincible Ren, who can use spatial teleportation, cannot escape their flawless siege!]
Clatter, clatter!
The sound of shifting rubble echoed as Ren casually rose from the massive pile of destroyed masonry. He dusted off his shoulders, looking completely nonchalant, as if absolutely nothing had happened—and indeed, physically, nothing had.
Jura's monstrous attack hadn't actually bypassed his Infinity; the sheer kinetic weight and magical density of Jura's strike had just pushed Ren backward, and Ren had voluntarily allowed himself to be launched back to analyze the feeling.
"As expected of Mr. Jura," Ren murmured to himself, an amused glint in his eyes.
Jura's magic power was absurdly dense and strong. That strike just now, packed with such a high concentration of pure magical energy, acted almost exactly like Domain Amplification in the Jujutsu world. If he had actively strengthened his output of Cursed Energy, he could have effortlessly stood his ground and completely nullified the momentum of that punch, but allowing himself to be pushed back yielded valuable combat data. It would have been somewhat counterproductive to just stand there like a brick wall.
Minerva, Kagura, and Jura all narrowed their eyes, looking at Ren with extreme caution and mounting dread.
Although their beautifully coordinated joint attack seemed to have successfully suppressed Ren just now, as veteran fighters, they all intuitively knew the terrifying truth. He wasn't injured at all. You could tell just by looking at his pristine clothes—there wasn't even a single speck of dust or a microscopic tear on the fabric.
"A bit troublesome!" Ren sighed softly, tilting his neck until it cracked.
Using Gojo Satoru's template, he could undoubtedly continue to fight with the three of them forever, but completely defeating them quickly and decisively wouldn't be easy unless he used his Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void.
But using a Domain Expansion here wouldn't look cool to the outsiders since it essentially just trapped people in a black barrier. It would be best to use a character template that was both visually spectacular, undeniably cool, and possessed an overwhelming, suffocating sense of raw pressure to crush their fighting spirit.
"Hmm! It's decided, I'll use him!"
[Akarin Note:
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