Chapter 398: Team Up or Fall

"Total annihilation!"

Except for Juvia—who was completely spared by Finn’s deliberate targeting—every single participant had been violently blasted by the arrows of pure light.

"WHAT THE HECK?!"

The crowd was absolutely dumbfounded as they witnessed the terrifying might of Heavenly Blue’s masked archer. But this was only the beginning. After landing her devastating first strike and instantly securing six points, Meredy’s body gracefully leaped upward, scaling the tallest holographic building in the miniature city in a few fluid bounds.

Standing at the absolute apex, she drew her glowing bow, looking down on the chaos below like an untouchable goddess of war.

Inside her mind, the situation was far more chaotic.

"This is just the beginning," Finn noted calmly from the pilot’s seat, casually adjusting the telemetry on the glowing bow. He glanced over at Meredy’s spectral avatar, who was currently completely dumbstruck. "Do you want to see more?"

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!! YES! KILL THEM ALL!" Meredy screamed, pumping her fists with borderline-psychopathic excitement.

Down in the arena, however, the victims of her precision strike were in absolute agony.

"Eh? Eh? What’s going on?" Juvia asked, completely confused, spinning around in the empty alleyway.

The rest of the roster—Gray, Nullpudding, Lyon Vastia, Eve Tearm, Beth Vanderwood, and Rufus Lore—were groaning in the dirt. Meredy’s light arrows weren’t exactly lethal, but the concussive force was incredibly painful. The blast had torn through their clothes and left them scorched. Fortunately, the magical systems governing the ’Hidden’ event instantly repaired their shredded garments, but it offered zero medical healing for their bruised, aching bodies.

"YOU BITCH! HOW DARE YOU?!"

Nullpudding, the stocky representative of Raven Tail, roared in fury. He knew his primary mission was to hunt down Fairy Tail, but after that humiliating sneak attack, he was going to beat the absolute shit out of this masked girl first!

Despite his odd build, he moved with terrifying agility.

Needle Magic!

Nullpudding activated his signature spell, causing lethal spikes to erupt from his entire body as he charged toward the building she stood on.

But his close-combat magic was utterly useless against a sniper.

"Eh?" Nullpudding blinked.

BOOM!

Before he could even launch himself at the building, another homing arrow of light materialized right in front of his face, blasting him backward. Simultaneously, five more arrows split off, homing in flawlessly on Rufus, Lyon, Eve, Beth, and Gray.

Once again, absolutely no one was spared. Except for Juvia, who was still wandering around cluelessly.

"Amazing! Truly amazing!" Chapati Lola screamed, nearly jumping out of his seat. "Heavenly Blue’s Meredy is an absolute force of nature! What on earth are those arrows?! At this rate, the winner of this event is already a foregone conclusion!"

The sheer, overwhelming dominance of the masked archer had completely captivated the stadium. The sponsors in the VIP boxes leaned forward in awe, while the massive crowd roared in a state of absolute frenzy.

"I never expected her to be this strong!"

"Look at her movement! The way she draws that bow—it’s flawless!"

"You idiots, don’t just look at the bow! Focus on her detection skills!" a veteran mage in the crowd shouted. "None of her arrows ever miss! The city is filled with perfect clones, but she instantly pinpoints the real targets and blasts them all with a single volley!"

It was true. Meredy’s performance looked completely effortless.

However, inside the cockpit of her mind, Finn was actually quite annoyed.

He was used to piloting his own body. Meredy possessed a much shorter stature, but was extremely well-endowed. If his posture or draw angle was even slightly off, the taut bowstring was going to violently snap back right across Meredy’s chest.

"...Your chest is too big," Finn sighed, meticulously adjusting her stance to avoid a painful wardrobe malfunction.

"...." Meredy blushed furiously, completely unsure whether she should be offended or flattered.

While the audience cheered for the sheer spectacle, the respective guilds of the participants were sinking into absolute despair.

"GRAY, COME ON! GET UP!" Natsu roared from the Fairy Tail balcony.

"RUFUS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS!" Sting yelled, gripping the Sabertooth railing.

"Hmm... she is incredibly strong. I wonder if we can recruit her later," Kagura mused from the Mermaid Heel balcony. As an all-female guild, they were simply impressed by a powerful female mage dominating the field.

The rest of the guilds, however, were panicking.

Nullpudding’s Needle Magic was useless unless he closed the distance. Beth Vanderwood’s Carrot Missiles required too much setup time, and she was sniped before she could even summon them. Lyon and Gray, the two Ice-Make prodigies, desperately tried to conjure massive ice barriers to shield themselves. But Finn simply arced the light arrows over the walls, bending their trajectory mid-air to blast the ice mages in the back.

"Dammit!" Gray cursed, spitting dirt from his mouth.

"How is she hitting us?!" Lyon growled, clutching his ribs.

Eve Tearm desperately tried to summon a massive blizzard to obscure his location, but the arrows found him through the blinding snow effortlessly.

But the one suffering the most profound despair was Rufus Lore.

His Memory-Make magic was legendary. It allowed him to materialize, combine, and innovate spells based purely on everything he had ever witnessed. In theory, Rufus possessed the ultimate counter to any magic. He had memorized ancient, devastating spells capable of leveling mountains. Compared to that, Meredy’s arrows were relatively weak—they merely created small craters on impact.

But Rufus couldn’t stop them.

The arrows were just too fast.

"And what the hell is wrong with her detection?!" Rufus cursed, ducking behind a wall.

Her archery was one thing, but her radar was terrifying. No matter how perfectly Rufus hid, no matter how closely he blended in with his own clones, the arrows always found him. Every time he tried to counterattack, an arrow blasted him, adding another point to Heavenly Blue’s rapidly climbing score.

The only person having a worse time than Rufus was, ironically, the only person Finn was actively ignoring.

"Ah, Gray-sama!"

Juvia had finally spotted Gray. She sprinted down an alleyway and threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

But it wasn’t Gray. It was a clone.

ZAAAAAAP!

A massive shock of electricity surged through the clone, blasting Juvia backward.

"AAAAHHH!"

"Juvia Lockser has attacked a clone! Minus one point!" the mascot announced cheerfully.

"..."

Up in the stands, Mirajane, Laxus, and Gajeel buried their faces in their hands, utterly mortified.

"What can they possibly do?!" Chapati Lola yelled. "Is this really the end? Will this event conclude with a flawless, total victory for Heavenly Blue?!"

It was increasingly obvious that no one could touch her. Finn moved Meredy’s body with breathtaking acrobatic agility, leaping from rooftops, sliding under archways, and occasionally vanishing into the crowd of clones, only to reappear and snipe them all over again.

Jenny and Yajima sat silently in the booth, at a total loss for words as the guilds they supported were systematically dismantled.

But just as the crowd thought the match was destined to end in a one-sided slaughter, Meredy suddenly stopped. She landed gracefully atop the highest spire in the center of the city, lowering her bow.

"You’re all so weak," ’Meredy’ announced, her voice magically amplified across the entire arena.

"...."

The battered participants slowly pulled themselves out of the rubble, glaring up at her.

"I’ll give you all one final chance to make this entertaining," Meredy declared, staring down at the bruised, exhausted mages. "Stop hiding. All of you, team up and try to defeat me together."

"..."

---

It’s been a while, and yes, since I uploaded, I have become healthy now.

Thank you to all of you who are still waiting and are being patient.

Thank you!

As for what had happened to me... to be honest, while it was strange, it was all due to the food that I ate for dinner one day before I made the previous announcement. In the morning (the day I made the announcement), I got intense diarrhea, then somehow, I got a headache, then a cold, then went into an intense downward spiral that I couldn’t control.

Fortunately, my family lives close, and I took medicine, rested well, and then I got better.

Yeah, it is all due to all of you.

Thank you.

As for what I ate, hmm... to be honest, in my place, it was called a "penyetan," you can say that it is various fried proteins, white rice, and a sambal, or a chili sauce if you say. To be honest, it is a normal dish that I ate most of the day, but this place, the new place, has a crazy spiciness that I have never thought existed.

I didn’t really want to eat it, but when I thought that I had paid money for it, I decided to finish it, which led me into my sick hiatus for a few days. Yeah, even if it’s a little wasteful, you might as well just stop if your body tells you so, since if it leads to sickness, it won’t be worth it.

Lastly, I will write as usual, and once again, thank you for waiting!

I am eager to write after being sick, so I look forward to it!

Also, I forgot to upload this Chapter.

Te-he~!