Chapter 330 - 330: The Sun
Ace and Escanor are related? Who knows what they were thinking.
Lucy guessed, "You're going to take him over and melt the ice with fire magic?"
Ren shook his head. "No. Escanor's flames are too domineering—apart from me, they attack anyone. One slip and the whole Village, giants and all, would be reduced to ash."
"Then what do we do?" Lucy asked, her breath misting in the freezing air of the Sun Village.
"I'll feed the spell to Natsu. His Fire Dragon Slayer Magic can pick out enemies on its own; it won't hurt the giants."
"What?!"
Lucy and Happy froze, their jaws dropping simultaneously as they stared at Ren in utter disbelief.
"Really?!"
Natsu's eyes immediately lit up like a child in a candy store. He loved tasting every kind of flame he came across, and he'd never yet tried the golden, radiant fire Ren used when he became the man known as Escanor.
"No way! That attack nearly leveled half a city back then—can Natsu actually swallow something that destructive?"
Lucy and Happy had seen Ren's strike with their own eyes during the tournament. If that devastating attack had detonated aboveground instead of deep beneath the bedrock, the entire capital of Crocus would have simply vanished from the map.
"Let's try—it can't hurt. If it doesn't work, we'll find another way."
Ren remained completely unfazed by their panic. Internally, he reviewed his current deck of system abilities. The Portgas D. Ace character card had effectively been retired from his primary rotation. While Ace's offense was strong and highly versatile, the flaws and upper limits of the Mera Mera no Mi were obvious.
Now, Ren possessed plenty of Gold-Tier cards in his system inventory. Escanor's power, fueled by the grace of the sun, left Ace in the dust by several unbridgeable leagues. It was a power that stood at the absolute pinnacle.
"Bring it on!!!"
Natsu flung his arms wide, absolutely ecstatic. Tasting new, powerful flames was his favorite thing in the world, and Ren's magic looked incredibly formidable. What flavor would this divine, golden fire have? Would it be spicy? Savory? He couldn't wait to find out.
"Right. Lucy, Happy—stand back so you don't get accidentally burned to a crisp."
"Got it!"
Lucy and Happy didn't need to be told twice. They immediately sprinted away, slipping on the magical ice, and ducked securely behind the frozen, monolithic leg of a nearby giant.
Ren closed his eyes, his breathing slowing to a calm, rhythmic pace.
[System Skill Activated: Full Body Take Over – Escanor!!]
A blinding pillar of golden light erupted from the icy ground, shattering the frozen earth beneath Ren's boots.
Ren's frame began to bulk up incredibly fast, his muscles swelling to massive, Herculean proportions. His previously lean physique expanded, tearing the fabric of his sleeves. He now looked like a heavily muscled, seemingly unremarkable middle-aged man with a prominent mustache.
Yet, his eyes were different. They were completely devoid of their usual warmth. Instead, they were haughty beyond measure, burning with an absolute, undeniable arrogance, as though nothing in the world mattered because he stood above it all.
"Incredible…!"
Once Ren became Escanor, simply standing there with his hands resting by his sides, Natsu could feel a terrifying, suffocating pressure radiating from him.
The air itself grew agonizingly heavy. The magical pressure dwarfed even the oppressive aura of the seven dragons they had faced during the aftermath of the Grand Magic Games.
During the finals of that tournament, Natsu had found no true opponent to push him to his limits, so he had ended up just sparring with Gajeel. They had both desperately wanted to help fight Sabertooth, but Ren had firmly refused, choosing to face the entire Sabertooth guild alone to teach them absolute fear. Now, seeing this form up close, Natsu completely understood why Ren hadn't needed their help.
Ren slowly raised his left index finger, pointing it casually toward the freezing sky.
"Cruel Sun."
Shhh—
A searing, perfectly spherical mass of golden energy appeared floating above his fingertip. Its surface rippled and bubbled like liquid flame—it was an actual, literal sun in miniature.
Whooosh—!!
The very moment the golden orb appeared, blistering, unimaginably intense heat surged outward in roaring, continuous waves. The magical ice surrounding them immediately began to hiss, thick clouds of steam rising as the unnatural frost fought a losing battle against the divine heat.
"Waaah!"
"Eeeek!"
Even hiding securely behind the frozen giant, Lucy and Happy yelped out loud as a gale-force wind of scorching air whipped violently past them, singeing the tips of their hair.
"Uooooh!!"
Natsu threw his arms up to shield his face, his slitted eyes widening in shock. For the first time in his entire life, the presence of flames made him feel raw, primal fear.
Normally, to a Fire Dragon Slayer, fire simply meant delicious, energizing food. But this was entirely different. The heat radiating from the sphere felt like it wanted to obliterate his very existence.
"W-what… what is that?!" Natsu stammered, his usual bravado completely melting away in the face of the miniature star.
"The sun," Ren answered, his voice deep, booming, and dripping with absolute authority. "The magic I've taken on is called 'Sunshine'; it waxes and wanes entirely with the rising and setting of the sun."
Ren looked down at his own creation, an arrogant smirk playing on his lips.
"At night, my MPF score is about fifteen—lower than an average, untrained Mage. At sunrise, it's roughly twenty thousand, and it keeps climbing steadily toward noon. A quarter-hour before midday, it tops a hundred and ten thousand, and at high noon, the peak of my power, it hits exactly five hundred thousand."
Gasp—!!
Natsu, Lucy, and Happy gaped openly, their jaws practically hitting the frozen floorboards of the village.
Had Ren just said twenty thousand? A hundred and ten thousand? Five hundred thousand?!
Was that really the same Magic Power Finder (MPF) machine they knew? They hadn't paid it much attention until the third day of the Grand Magic Games, when the tournament scoreboard clearly displayed the numerical limits of human magic.
The black-lightning guy from Sabertooth, Orga Nanagear, had managed a score of just over 3,825, completely shattering the previous records. And Jura Neekis—the bald monster and the fifth-ranked Wizard Saint—had unleashed a terrifying spell that cracked an unbelievable 8,544.
Ren's lowest daytime figure was twenty thousand. That was more than double Jura's absolute maximum output.
And his peak was five hundred thousand. Not fifty. Not a mere ten thousand. Half a million.
They instantly tuned out the pathetic nighttime score of fifteen. That single flaw was entirely irrelevant when compared to a peak that defied the laws of magic itself.
"Ridiculous… utterly ridiculous!!" Lucy muttered, clutching her head in disbelief.
Now they completely understood why five elite Sabertooth Mages had desperately attacked Ren in the arena and hadn't even managed to scratch his clothing. Against numbers like these, any conventional spell looked as puny as a flickering candle in a hurricane.
"All right—eat up. Take as much as your body can handle."
Ren slowly lowered his arm, holding the blistering, miniature sun directly toward Natsu.
Natsu swallowed hard, a large bead of sweat rolling down his forehead before instantly evaporating into steam. For the very first time, the prospect of eating fire genuinely intimidated the Fire Dragon Slayer.
His instincts screamed at him. If that blinding golden sphere hit him head-on, even with his highly resistant Fire Dragon Slayer Magic physiology, he'd be severely, perhaps mortally, hurt.
But a feast of unimaginable power had been served right in front of him. For Natsu Dragneel, a member of Fairy Tail, retreat was simply unthinkable.
"I'll eat it!!"
Natsu roared, his competitive spirit flaring up. He leaped forward, opened his mouth wide, and forcefully bit directly into the Cruel Sun.
The moment the golden fire touched his tongue, terrifying, explosive power violently flooded his entire body. It felt like he had just swallowed an active volcano.
"Uooooooh!!!"
Natsu screamed, a column of golden-crimson flames violently erupting all over him. The sheer density of the magic forced his body to adapt instantly. Brilliant, crimson-red dragon scales rapidly rippled across his arms, chest, and the sides of his face, his canine teeth elongating into sharp fangs.
"That's…"
Lucy and Happy gasped, stepping out from behind the giant to witness the incredible transformation.
"Dragon Force,"
Ren said calmly, his arrogant expression unchanged as he watched the Dragon Slayer absorb the divine heat.
"As expected!" Happy cheered, his paws clenched into tiny fists.
They had both seen Sting and Rogue use Dragon Force during the tournament. The power boost it provided was immense, capable of turning the tide of any battle.
Dragon Force was the ultimate, final form of a Dragon Slayer Mage: the state where a human truly wielded the absolute, destructive might required to slay actual dragons.
"Incredible… this is Dragon Force—no, it's completely beyond standard Dragon Force!!"
Natsu flexed his scaled arms, feeling the boundless, explosive energy coursing through his veins. He could feel the Dragon Force within him right now utterly dwarfing the artificial power Sting and Rogue possessed by orders of magnitude. He felt entirely invincible.
"Naturally. How could mere 'Dragon Force' stand against the sun?"
Ren said flatly. Dragons were dragons; before the sun they were nothing but tiny lizards.
"Now hurry and thaw the Village."
Natsu clenched his fist, brimming with confidence. "You got it—!!"
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