Chapter 164

Chapter 164: Chapter 164

Fairy Tail was, at its core, a guild full of hot-blooded idiots.

Once Marshall gave their anger a direction, there was very little hesitation left.

They stormed toward the riverbank with enough hostility to make the air feel charged, only to find Jose sitting casually atop Phantom Lord’s mobile guildhall with a cup of tea, as though he had been waiting for them to arrive.

A satisfied smile appeared on his face.

"So? Have you finally made your choice?"

He looked down at them.

"Do you want to live, or do you want to die?"

Fairy Tail answered by continuing forward.

Jose’s smile sharpened.

"Then if you’re that eager to die, I’ll oblige you."

He raised one hand.

"Magical Convergence Cannon—fire!"

The weapon had already finished charging.

The instant the command left Jose’s mouth, Phantom Lord’s enormous cannon discharged.

A thick beam of concentrated magical energy tore across the river, illuminating the entire battlefield as it raced directly toward Fairy Tail’s guildhall.

Marshall smiled.

He had been waiting for exactly this!

Space folded around him, and he appeared directly in the beam’s path before anyone else had time to react.

Then, to the horror of Phantom Lord and the complete lack of surprise from the Fairy Tail members who knew him better, Marshall opened his mouth and swallowed the attack.

The tremendous stream of light vanished into him.

Marshall licked his lips.

"Not bad."

Jose nearly dropped his tea.

"What?!"

He stared at the now-empty space where his cannon fire should have been.

"You swallowed the convergence cannon?!"

A possibility immediately occurred to him.

"You’re a Dragon Slayer too?!"

Marshall gave him an infuriatingly vague smile.

"Who knows?"

Jose’s shock quickly turned back into anger.

"Don’t get ahead of yourself! Even Dragon Slayers have limits to how much magical energy they can consume!"

He rose and threw both arms wide.

"Come forth! Phantom Lord’s ultimate weapon!"

The enormous guildhall beneath him began to move.

Steel groaned as the entire structure transformed.

Walls folded inward, mechanical supports rotated, enormous limbs extended from the main body, and magical mechanisms locked into place one after another until Phantom Lord’s headquarters had reshaped itself into a towering humanoid machine more than ten meters tall.

"Super Mage Giant!"

Jose laughed from atop his creation.

"This weapon combines alchemy with large-scale magical arrays. Its power is sufficient to destroy an entire town!"

Marshall stared at it for a moment.

Then he opened the Book of Phoebe.

"Grow."

The tiny golden-haired creature beside him perked up.

Marshall grinned.

"Phoebe, come out."

The excess magical energy he had just devoured from Phantom Lord’s cannon surged through Link Magic and poured directly into Phoebe.

Her tiny eyes turned gold.

Then she started growing.

A knee-high creature became child-sized, then adult-sized, then larger than a house.

Her body continued expanding without pause as her mass increased alongside her height, sunlight and the stolen cannon energy pouring into the magical structure Marshall had rewritten only minutes earlier.

Ten meters became twenty.

Twenty became thirty.

Within moments, the little top-hatted creature had become a colossal golden-haired giant towering over both guilds!

Phoebe threw back her head.

"PHOEBE CHIBI!!"

Fairy Tail’s members were now standing on the enormous brim of her top hat.

The sight was absurd.

Phantom Lord’s supposedly terrifying Super Mage Giant, which had looked enormous only seconds earlier, barely reached a fraction of Phoebe’s height.

Someone on the hat leaned over the edge.

"Holy crap."

Another Mage stared down.

"She’s bigger than Master when he uses Giant Magic!"

"So this is Marshall’s secret weapon?!"

Natsu was having a significantly better time than anyone else.

He planted his feet against the hat as Phoebe began moving, grinning into the wind.

"OHHHHH! She’s one of us, right?! This is awesome!"

He threw both fists up.

"I’M FIRED UP!"

Marshall pointed toward Phantom Lord’s machine.

"Phoebe."

His smile widened.

"Attack."

Jose’s expression changed instantly.

"Stop her!"

Phoebe charged.

For something dozens of meters tall, she moved with horrifying speed.

Her first punch crashed into one of the Super Mage Giant’s arms before the machine could properly raise it.

The impact sounded like artillery.

Metal tore apart.

The entire mechanical arm was ripped from its socket and hurled across the river.

The difference was immediately obvious. Phantom Lord’s machine was enormous, but it was still machinery—heavy, cumbersome, and dependent on its internal magical mechanisms.

Phoebe was alive.

Her body had been constructed specifically to support the mass she carried, and she could move with a flexibility the Super Mage Giant simply could not match.

Within seconds, Jose’s ultimate weapon was being bullied by something that had been a tiny doll ten minutes earlier.

Jose’s face twisted.

He had prepared an entire mobile fortress, a magical convergence cannon, and a Super Mage Giant, only for Fairy Tail to reveal a secret weapon that countered all three.

Apparently he would have to handle this himself.

"Don’t get arrogant, you brats!"

Dark magic flooded outward from his body.

"You are still standing before one of the strongest Wizard Saints on this continent!"

Marshall barely seemed impressed.

If anything, Jose’s convergence cannon had made the situation better.

The attack had contained enough magical power to fuel the Super Mage Giant, and Jose had essentially fired that entire reserve directly into Marshall’s mouth.

Marshall still could not store magic on Jose’s scale, but after absorbing that energy, he had far more freedom than he had possessed only moments ago.

Then Phantom Lord noticed something even more disturbing.

The battlefield was changing size.

Or rather, everything around Marshall was.

Phoebe continued growing while Phantom Lord’s fortress began shrinking.

The enormous Super Mage Giant became smaller and smaller under Form Magic, and the guild members inside it dwindled along with their headquarters.

Jose himself resisted the spell through sheer magical power, but most of his guild could not.

His eyes widened as the fortress that had once dominated the river became small enough to fit into Marshall’s hand.

"Form Magic..."

For the first time, there was genuine disbelief in Jose’s voice.

"Your mastery is even greater than Makarov’s?"

His expression darkened.

"What kind of monster are you?"

Marshall plucked up the miniature Super Mage Giant and casually tossed it toward Elfman.

"Catch."

Elfman barely managed to cup both hands beneath it.

"Uh... got it."

Jose sneered despite the situation.

"How long do you think you can maintain a spell of this scale? You’re wasting an absurd amount of magic manipulating my guild while you still have to face me."

Marshall merely smiled.

Then his body dissolved into light.

The streak shot toward Jose so quickly that even the Wizard Saint flinched.

At the same time, Marshall shouted over his shoulder, "Phoebe! Run!"

"PHOEBE CHIIIIIIIIBI!"

Phoebe immediately turned and sprinted away with the miniature Fairy Tail members riding atop her hat, carrying Phantom Lord’s shrunken forces and most of the secondary battlefield away with her.

Jose barely had time to understand what Marshall was doing before the streak of light was on top of him.

Darkness snapped around his body, forming a dense spherical defense just in time to absorb the impact.

When Jose dropped the barrier again, the entire battlefield had changed.

Phoebe was gone.

Phantom Lord’s ordinary members were gone.

His mobile headquarters was gone.

And Jose was surrounded.

He slowly swept his gaze across the seven Mages who remained.

Erza Scarlet.

Mirajane Strauss.

Cana Alberona.

Natsu Dragneel.

Gray Fullbuster.

Juvia Lockser.

And Marshall Mathers.

Jose’s eyes narrowed.

"So that was your plan."

He understood now.

"Separate the battlefields."

His lips curled.

"Clever enough, I suppose. But do you honestly think a handful of children can challenge a Wizard Saint?"

For the first time, Jose released his magic without restraint.

More than half a million units of hostile magical pressure flooded the area, darkness thickening around him until the ground itself seemed to tremble beneath the weight.

It would have been terrifying to most Mages.

Marshall had already seen the numbers.

Five times his magic power was a problem.

It was not an unbeatable one.

He smiled.

"You’re pretty fond of criticizing cheap tricks for someone who only beat our old man with an ambush."

Jose’s expression hardened.

Marshall cracked his knuckles.

"And so what if you’re a Wizard Saint?"

His grin became openly provocative.

"That just makes beating you more fun."

Everyone in the group was already carrying Wendy’s enhancement enchantments, boosting their physical and magical attributes before the battle had even begun.

Marshall added another layer.

Light spread outward from him and flowed across the other six.

Erza’s armor shimmered.

Mira’s demonic form gained a pale-gold glow.

Natsu’s flames brightened around his fists.

Gray’s ice caught the radiance and scattered it in sharp reflections, while Juvia’s water shone around her like liquid glass and Cana’s cards lit up in her hands.

Seven figures now stood around Jose wrapped in light, their combined presence far more oppressive than any one of them should have been capable of producing alone.

Natsu grinned.

"Don’t underestimate Fairy Tail’s bonds!"

Flames exploded around him.

"I’M FIRED UP!"

He launched himself straight toward Jose.

Jose barely looked impressed.

"Child’s play."

A casual wave of Darkness Magic shot toward the charging Dragon Slayer. In Jose’s mind, someone with Natsu’s reserves had no business surviving a direct hit.

The attack was about to connect—and Natsu disappeared.

Jose’s pupils contracted.

Every instinct in his body screamed.

He spun around.

A flaming fist was already inches from his face.

’Damn it!’

Jose managed to throw Darkness Magic across his guard an instant before impact, but it wasn’t enough to stop the blow from smashing into his face and sending him skidding backward through the air.

He had barely stabilized himself when two more attacks arrived from opposite sides.

Erza’s sword flashed.

Mira’s whip snapped through the darkness.

Both struck before Jose could properly reset his defense.

Jose’s eyes widened.

They had actually cut him!

"You miserable little brats!"

Dark magic detonated from his body in a violent sphere, expanding across dozens of meters. It was the sort of defensive spell meant to erase every enemy standing too close.

It hit nothing.

At the instant Jose released it, Marshall moved everyone.

One moment Fairy Tail surrounded him.

The next, all six attackers stood safely more than ten meters away.

Natsu stared.

Then realization slowly spread across his face.

This was exactly what the Seven Sins Apostles had done to him on Galuna Island.

Attack.

Disappear.

Reappear somewhere else.

Never give the target a chance to retaliate.

Except this time, the Spatial Mage was on his side.

Natsu’s grin became enormous.

’Oh.’

’This is awesome!’

Marshall hovered above the battlefield, Spatial Magic already spread throughout the entire area like an invisible net.

"This whole space is under my control now."

Jose glared upward.

Marshall smiled back.

"I might not be able to move you directly."

Erza raised her sword again. Mira spread her wings. Natsu’s flames rolled higher, while Gray, Juvia, and Cana prepared their next spells.

"But that doesn’t mean you’re going to hit any of us easily."

Marshall spread his arms.

"Come on, Jose."

"Show us what a Wizard Saint can really do."