The blue, translucent aura around his body flared up so intensely it was visible to the naked eye.
With him as the center, grass and twigs in the area were flattened outward by the waves of surging energy pouring off his body.
Even Gildarts, who had been held in place by Makarov a moment ago, felt that level spike like a punch to the senses.
That brat still has power to spare?!
What Kabe was doing now was the classic kind of power up.
By gathering his strength for a sustained period, he forced every bit of energy in his body into motion, boosting his combat power, even doubling it for a short time.
"Move, old man, I am going in!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he bent his knees slightly, then exploded forward the next second, aura flaring.
Before Gildarts could even react, Kabe's raised knee slammed into his stomach and drove him back like a cannonball, sending him flying hundreds of meters and smashing through who knew how many trees that would take two or three men to encircle.
"Guah!"
Gildarts could not hold back a mouthful of blood. Through the blue flames wrapping Kabe's body, he saw the boy's cold, sharp eyes bearing down on him.
He just managed to open his mouth when Kabe grabbed both of his legs and started spinning in place at high speed.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
After forty or fifty dizzying revolutions, Kabe finally let go.
Gildarts, whose brain felt like it had swollen two sizes, flew wobbling toward the sky, stomach churning, close to throwing up.
Kabe powered up again and shot after him into the clouds, but Gildarts, head throbbing or not, refused to let himself be dragged along at his pace.
He thrust out his hand to aim at Kabe rocketing up toward him, ready to unleash Crash and shatter him.
Yet just as their paths were about to intersect, Gildarts' vision blurred and Kabe's figure vanished from the center of his sight.
The next instant, a heavy blow hammered into his back, followed by a tight, unrelenting chain of strikes, fists and feet slamming into every part of his body without a single wasted motion.
The brutal impact made Gildarts feel like his organs had all been knocked out of place.
How much does this brat hate me, exactly?!
Blood sprayed from his mouth and nose. Even Gildarts could not help but get genuinely fired up from that beating.
But before he could regain control, Kabe whipped one leg around in a vicious roundhouse kick and smashed it into his waist, sending him plummeting toward the ground at high speed.
As Gildarts fell, Kabe twisted his body. The back of his right hand pressed to his left palm, and an extremely dangerous mass of purple energy began to swirl between his hands.
"Galick Cannon!"
A beam as thick as a water barrel tore through the air, aimed straight at the point where Gildarts would hit.
Down on the ground, seeing that purple-red beam lance toward him, Gildarts leapt out of the crater his own body had just created, clutching his aching chest and snarled through his teeth.
"Do not underestimate your seniors, brat."
He condensed all his magic into his tightly clenched right fist, then drove an uppercut upward with unstoppable force.
"Righteous Break: One Heaven!"
This was Gildarts' strongest spell, powerful enough to send an enemy flying for thousands of kilometers, crushing their body beneath the pressure of that forced flight.
The two strongest attacks collided in midair, and the entire ground of East Forest trembled in response.
Several kilometers away, the Fairy Tail members could only stare as a visible shockwave exploded at the point where the purple and white beams met.
The resulting gusts of wind were so fierce that even at that distance the onlookers were blown stumbling, staggering back on unsteady feet.
That was not even counting the sand and shattered stone spraying everywhere, the dead branches, the rotting leaves whipping across the ground.
Mira hurriedly pulled her younger brother and sister behind her and retreated with them again and again.
Macao jumped up to snatch a banknote that was about to be blown away by the wind, stuffed it sneakily into his pocket, then shouted at the others.
"Move, all of you, back, as far as you can. Those three monsters are not playing around."
He did not need to tell them twice. The old hands had already grabbed their winnings and were bolting.
On the battlefield, the fight had reached white heat.
Facing Gildarts' strongest spell, Kabe was still just a little short.
He held on for only a few seconds before his Galick Cannon was blown apart, and the remaining air pressure slammed into him and blasted him even higher into the sky.
Having "dealt with" Kabe, Gildarts barely had time to take a breath.
Makarov, who had already withdrawn his Giant Magic and shrunk back down to his usual tiny size, immediately went for a sneak attack.
He pressed the index and middle finger of his left hand together and traced a magic circle quickly in front of him, shouting in a low voice.
"Heaven's Radiance, Hundred Styles: Fall!"
In an instant, seven enormous golden magic circles layered themselves around Gildarts, hemming him in from every direction.
He had not even caught his breath yet. Staring up at the familiar pattern glowing above his head, Gildarts let out a strangled cry.
"You have got to be kidding me, you two are taking this way too seriously!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a gigantic white sphere of light dropped down and swallowed him completely.
Rumble, rumble, rumble. The earth shook again.
When the dust finally began to clear, there was not a single tree left standing within a full kilometer.
All that remained was a huge, ugly crater in the ground, like a spoon had gouged a chunk right out of the earth and left only scorched soil behind.
At the bottom of that crater, Gildarts lay spread-eagled in a big X, clothes hanging off him in tatters, staring blankly up at the sky.
"Cough, cough. I really cannot take you two. I surrender, all right?"
Once Gildarts admitted defeat, Kabe, covered in injuries and with his clothes in rags, finally drifted down from the sky a while later.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he bent over with his hands on his knees and started gulping air.
"Hah, hah... you said it... you surrendered, right?
Hahaha, looks like the old fossil and I win."
Kabe grinned in satisfaction. It was not the victory itself that delighted him.
What satisfied him was finally getting to cut loose in a proper fight.
That burst just now was the strongest output he could squeeze out of his current normal state in a short time.
To be fourteen years old, with just two years of training behind him, and already be able to fight like this against Gildarts, a top tier powerhouse across the whole Ishgar continent... what more could he possibly ask for.
On the other side, Makarov might have looked the least beat up, but he was not in much better shape.
It had been many years since he had gone all out in such a fierce battle.
Now that he let himself relax, his old back was starting to give out.
"Ow, ow, my back, my poor back. Kabe, you little brat, hurry up and come help your elder here."
Kabe's mouth twitched. He was injured from head to toe and honestly in worse shape than Makarov.
"Just lie there and wait to die, you useless old monster."
He flopped down on the ground with no strength left, legs giving out beneath him.
Makarov could see that Kabe was already at his limit.
Even though he was shocked in his heart by the boy's current strength, the old man still muttered stubbornly.
"Tch, youngsters today really cannot take anything. Not even as tough as an old man."
With that, he pointed a finger toward the sky and fired a small yellow orb of light upward.
New book setting sail, begging for flowers, bookmarks, monthly tickets, reviews, urges for more chapters, rewards, begging for everything!!!