A New Life in Fairy Tail

"You lack any real finishing power, don't you?!"

Gray's voice echoed from within his heavy fortress of ice.

Though he and Natsu had been subjected to a relentless onslaught of blows, Racer had failed to land a single high-yield, decisive strike. Because of the specialized, hazardous countermeasures they had active on their bodies, Racer didn't even dare to commit his physical form to direct strikes anymore. He was restricted to hurling chunks of stone from a distance, which inflicted minimal damage against their reinforced defenses.

"Hehe, but exactly how long can you two maintain parameters in that state?" Racer countered. Far from being irritated by their deduction, a confident smirk stretched across his face.

Natsu and Gray's expressions turned intensely serious. Racer had pointed out the exact structural flaw in their current layout. They were stuck in an absolute defensive bottleneck, and sustaining their high-yield elemental cloaks demanded a massive, continuous drain on their magic channels.

Gray was slightly better off; once his spiked frost armor was forged, its structural maintenance costs were relatively low.

But Natsu was a different story. To keep his ultra-high-temperature flame shield active across his entire anatomy, he had to continuously vent an immense volume of raw magical power. If this battle of attrition carried on much longer, he would suffer a total collapse from magical exhaustion before he could even scratch the thief.

"If only we could deduce the functional limitation of his velocity spell," Gray muttered through his helmet.

"Natsu! Gray! Are you guys alright?!" Lucy's voice called out from behind them.

After being violently thrown back by Racer's opening strike, she had scrambled back to her feet, only to find the battlefield's parameters thoroughly rewritten. The Blue Pegasus Tri-Men and Ichiya lay thoroughly neutralized on the grass, and the remaining fighters had split into three independent combat sectors.

On one side, the Lamia Scale trio was locked in an immense, earth-shifting elemental clash against Hoteye. She was entirely unfamiliar with the combat patterns of Lamia Scale's Mages, and knowing that Jura—one of the legendary Ten Wizard Saints—anchored that line, she deduced that her presence in that sector was completely redundant.

Over on the opposite flank, Ultear, Erza, and Sorano were unleashing a spectacular, wide-area barrage against Cobra. High-level offensive spells and light beams were flying wildly across the airspace with thunderous roars. Lucy winced, a cold shiver running down her spine; stepping into that cataclysmic crossfire would only result in her immediate neutralization, transforming her into a liability for her comrades.

Ultimately, the only sector where her deployment made logical sense was here with Natsu and Gray. They belonged to the same core team and possessed seamless synchronization metrics. Furthermore, the intensity of their quadrant was currently at a temporary lull, meaning she could actively contribute to their success.

Seizing the brief window where Racer had halted his advance, she dashed over to stand beside them, though she intentionally maintained a wide tracking distance. Caught between a boy wrapped in raging, high-temperature flames and another encased in sharp, sub-zero ice, her baseline human physiology simply couldn't handle the extreme thermal variables of that proximity.

"Our adversary is exceptionally troublesome to parse," Gray noted, his locked focus never leaving Racer's silhouette.

Lucy narrowed her eyes, staring critically at the thief across the clearing. The area where Racer's heavy boot had clipped her vest earlier was still pulsing with a sharp, dull ache.

"Ah! My cognitive arrays just processed a calculation!" Natsu suddenly bellowed out.

"What kind of insane breakthrough did that brainless head of yours pull, flame-brain?" Gray asked through his translucent visor.

"Lucy! Summon that specific Celestial Spirit who commands the attribute to copy and replicate another entity's data profile!" Natsu barked, ignoring Gray entirely as he focused on her.

"Huh? Oh! Right!"

Lucy blinked in surprise before the realization snapped into place. The spirit who copies data... She instantly mapped the exact entity Natsu was referencing. Reaching into her pouch, her fingers securely latched onto the golden key of the Twins. Her trust in Natsu's combat instincts was absolute, and she immediately prepared to initiate the Gate command.

"Brilliant, Natsu! That spirit can systematically copy the target's baseline traits, which means it will instantly parse the hidden flaws and operational mechanics of the enemy's velocity magic," Gray whispered excitedly, his visor shifting as he caught the strategic breakthrough.

"Oh? It appears your auxiliary brains have modeled a methodology to challenge my positioning fields. While I harbor zero concern regarding your output, preventing you from executing the command sequence is the optimized choice," Racer noted calmly.

In a single frame, his physical form blurred anomalously like a distorted, low-resolution projection, dynamically flickering across the grass as he launched a high-speed strike toward their coordinates.

"Ice-Make: Rampart!"

Perceiving the sudden kinetic vector closing the distance, Gray struck his clenched fist into his open palm. Instantly, a colossal, thick fortress wall of solid ice erupted from the earth, completely sealing Natsu, Lucy, and himself within a reinforced defensive dome.

Racer's blurred silhouette materialized right outside the frosted exterior. He pressed a single palm against the solid ice plate, running a rapid diagnostic check before realizing that breaching this raw structural density in a single frame was impossible.

"Hehe, choosing to tuck your heads into a frozen shell like a collection of cowards? If you intend to linger inside your bunker, I shall simply redeploy to the other sectors and dismantle the rest of your line," Racer mocked from the outside.

"Save your breath, thief. We're stepping out to finish your calculations in a microsecond," Gray's muffled voice echoed back through the thick ice wall.

"Open! Gate of the Twins! Gemini!"

Lucy retrieved her golden key, slicing it smoothly through the air as her internal magic flared. A brilliant golden magic circle unfolded within the dark bunker, and two small, blue, floating entities materialized beside her.

"Piri-piri! Piri-piri!"

"Replicate that bastard outside the wall immediately!" Natsu instructed aggressively, pointing outward.

Lucy turned her gaze to Gemini, her voice firm. "Execute Natsu's directive."

"Piri-piri!"

Gemi and Mini immediately converged, their physical forms merging into a single node as a violent wave of magical light enveloped their structures. When the radiance dissolved, an exact, flawless duplication of Racer stood locked in front of the team.

"Ohhh! Flawless copy! A perfect match!" Natsu grinned, circling the duplicated Racer to run a visual check.

"Cut the commentary, Natsu. Gemini, isolate the precise functional attributes and structural limitations of the target's magic profile right now," Gray ordered, grabbing Natsu's vest to hold him back.

"The target's magic system does not command velocity amplification properties. His spellcraft operates by systematically slowing down the subjective time-perception and neurological processing speed of all living organisms within a localized radius. He is artificially making his enemies slow; his own physical speed remains within standard human parameters. Outside of this time-dilation field, his profile contains zero high-yield offensive spellcraft," Racer (Gemini) explained, rapidly scouring the copied memory cells.

"So that's the true nature of his trick! An excellent layout—this makes our counter-strategy incredibly simple. We just need to deploy one of our units outside his active dilation radius to flatten him with high-precision, long-range sniper spells," Gray analyzed instantly.

"No, I have modeled a significantly faster execution vector. Gemini, do you possess the baseline physical leverage required to intercept and physically pin his body down?" Natsu asked, turning to the copy.

"The calculation is viable. I can execute the attempt," Racer (Gemini) replied after running a brief data simulation.

"Perfect. The exact microsecond you secure a physical hold on his frame, Gray and I will bridge the distance and systematically crush him," Natsu instructed, looking at his teammates.

"Understood!" Gray and Lucy nodded in unison. Natsu's physical interception model offered a far higher probability of immediate containment than a drawn-out sniper setup.

With a swift wave of Gray's hand, the colossal ice rampart dissolved into fine vapor.

FLASH!

The exact frame the wall cleared, Racer (Gemini) vanished from his position, launching himself into a high-speed sprint.

"What?! The fly is deploying the exact same magic profile as mine?!"

Standing outside, the authentic Racer had been thoroughly shocked to see an identical copy of his physical form emerge from the bunker. Witnessing the duplicate effortlessly match his signature Gear Shift parameters, his cognitive processing briefly glitched, and he froze in sheer disbelief.

Racer (Gemini) ruthlessly exploited that split-second hesitation, closing the distance at terminal velocity. If the real Racer hadn't managed to jar his survival instincts awake at the absolute last microsecond, the duplicate's hands would have locked onto his throat.

Having narrowly cleared the initial capture frame, a cold sweat broke across Racer's brow. In Natsu and Lucy's sight fields, two identical blurs began tracing a frantic, flickering sequence of high-speed tracking across the clearing, their profiles blending into a continuous wave of kinetic distortions.

"Target pinned! Piri-piri!"

Suddenly, a heavy structural impact resonated across the grass. One Racer had used his entire physical leverage to violently tackle the other, pinning him flat against the soil right in front of Natsu's advance. The Racer anchoring the dominant top position called out to the team.

By leveraging the true Racer's underlying muscle memory and tactical habits parsed from the memory cells, Gemini had successfully anticipated his evasion vector and locked him down.

"Hell yeah! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"

A savage, triumphant grin broke across Natsu's face. Swirling, destructive flames instantly enveloped his knuckles as he lunged forward, driving a heavy punch straight toward the pinned thief's face.

SHING! SHING!

Without a single microsecond of warning, two concentrated streaks of dark green energy shot through the tree line. One beam tracked directly toward Natsu's skull, while the second targeted Racer (Gemini)'s chest.

"Dammit!"

Natsu was forced to abort his strike against Racer, shifting his fist mid-flight to unleash his flame payload against the incoming green beam, neutralizing the threat in a violent explosion. Simultaneously, Racer (Gemini) was forced to disengage, rolling dynamically off Racer's body to clear the lethal trajectory of the second beam.

"Brain has entered the active combat loop!" Gray shouted, running forward alongside Lucy to reinforce their line. Racer (Gemini) smoothly glided back to secure a defensive position flanking Lucy.

Their eyes locked onto the far side of the clearing. Brain stood perfectly still, his colossal, weathered staff with its grim skull ornament held high. A faint wisp of green energy was still venting from the skull's jaws; he was the source of the interception beams.

With his command node actively providing cover, the real Racer scrambled back up from the dirt, retreating to secure a position flanking Brain.

Sensing the supreme director's direct intervention, the other two decentralized battlefields ground to an immediate halt. The fighting factions systematically disengaged, stepping back to regroup with their respective command nodes.

"Erza, what is the status of your quadrant?" Lucy asked anxiously as the scarlet-haired captain returned to their line.

"The engagement remains locked in a tactical stalemate. Neither faction has managed to breach the other's defensive parameters yet, though if we extend the operational timeframe, our collective volume would have systematically ground his processing down," Erza replied, her longsword lowering slightly.

Following Racer's deviation to Natsu's sector, the three Fairy Tail girls had systematically converged their output to run a triple-layered assault against Cobra. By continuously saturating his perimeter with wide-area elemental purges and light beams, they had driven the sensory asset into a highly frantic, desperate evasion cycle. Though Cobra's auditory arrays allowed him to clear every incoming vector, his movements had turned incredibly ragged.

The three girls each possessed power parameters that matched or broke past his own ceiling; facing a synchronized, three-way assault forced him to dedicate one hundred percent of his capacity to raw survival.

The girls had maintained a steady, measured pacing, easily deflecting the counter-offensive thrusts of his giant purple serpent. If they chose to dial their magical density to maximum, capturing Cobra would have been an absolute certainty within a few cycles.

However, knowing that two unverified powerhouses of the Oración Seis roster remained stationary on the field, the girls had intentionally modulated their output, preserving their magic reserves and physical stamina to handle an unexpected escalation. They were methodically grinding his capacity down until Brain's sudden intervention forced a clean disengagement.

Turning her sharp gaze across the foyer, Erza addressed Jura. "Master Jura, clarify the metrics of the Lamia Scale quadrant."

"Our adversary commands an exceptionally formidable level of elemental control. Forcing a decisive breakthrough within this brief timeframe was mathematically unviable," Jura reported, his tone flat and dead serious.

The Fairy Tail members glanced toward the sector where Lamia Scale had engaged Hoteye, only to find the local geography thoroughly warped and rewritten. The solid bedrock had been manipulated into a bizarre assortment of petrified spires and frozen earthen waves.

Throughout that engagement, Yuka and Sherry had found their unique attributes largely neutralized. Jura and Hoteye's spells operated on a scale that systematically manipulated the entire terrain, turning the field into a high-density battlefield. Yuka's Wave was simply unequipped to parse elemental manipulation of that volume, and his offensive vectors were easily smothered beneath massive waves of liquid earth. Similarly, the animated Golems Sherry constructed from the forest materials were instantaneously swallowed up and dissolved into the quicksand matrices Hoteye continuous generated.

Only Jura, leveraging his monstrous, Saint-tier magical volume combined with his opposing, hardening spell properties, possessed the capacity to actively challenge Hoteye for absolute dominion over the earth. Until Brain's green beams signaled the recall command, the two earth masters had been locked in a perfectly balanced, fierce gridlock.

~~~

Get early access to 50+ advanced chapters on Patreon!

https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn