Beta read by Shigiya and Darklord331
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-Magnolia-
How many decades had it been?
When was it since Hades last laid eyes on the city of Magnolia? He couldn't say for certain. Time had muddled his memory, softened the moments he once held dear to something almost unrecognizable. Even his tenure as guild master had become a faded echo, blurred by years of study, sacrifice, and cutting out of anything that didn't serve his greater ambition.
Now, at the twilight of his life, the former master stood at the threshold of what he believed to be the ultimate truth, the source of all magic, the origin point behind every miracle, curse, and phenomenon the world had ever known or forgotten. Just ahead, beyond the next barrier, beyond the next fight, lay the knowledge he had sought for a lifetime.
And standing in his way as the key to it all was the boy.
He had felt it during the skirmish with Rustyrose. Confirmed it the moment Broly appeared on the ship. That boy was no ordinary human. There was something buried deep in him, something raw and alien. The sensation wasn't magical in nature, at least, not in any form he recognized. Its pressure reminded him faintly of the Devil's Heart, yet it did not reek of the Abyss. Instead, it hummed with a different rhythm, one more primal, raw even.
Unrefined.
The boy called it Ki.
Not magic, but a force present in all living things. Hades had brushed against similar ideas during his travels, ancient tomes that described vital energies running through the soul and body, but most had dismissed them as superstition or folklore. He had not. To him, Ki was simply another form of magic. One that civilization had not yet named or learned to wield. A forgotten branch of the great tree he had devoted his life to studying. Perhaps the missing link.
And yet the boy wielding it showed no interest in understanding it. He carried power that scholars would delve into dark magic, and he didn't even try to grasp its true value.
That, Hades could not abide.
He had tried to probe the anomaly. Tried to test its boundaries. But the result was something he hadn't anticipated.
One blow.
That was all.
One simple punch had knocked the air from his lungs, compressed his chest with enough force to crack ribs, and sent his vision flashing white for a full second. Not from magic. Not from technique. Just overwhelming speed and strength. Unrelenting, unrestrained, and fast enough that Hades hadn't even seen the act. He only felt the aftermath.
It wasn't magic. Of that he was sure. But it didn't matter.
He couldn't afford to hold back on this boy.
Not when he was so close.
With a subtle motion, he unleashed it.
The Demon's Eye.
The air turned heavy. Dark energy surged through his veins, not in waves, but in rapid torrents. The shift was immediate and violent. His body absorbed the magic like a parched desert absorbing rain. Skin hardened. Bones reinforced. Hair floated from the rising energy coursing through him. Every nerve felt as though it had been dipped in molten fire and reforged into iron.
The pain, real and blistering, vanished within seconds, drowned under the flood of power. Magic saturated every inch of his flesh. He no longer felt human, because he no longer was. The man who had once walked among guilds as Master Precht had died long ago. What remained was something else… an avatar of pure, directed will.
This was what true strength felt like. He could feel it in the grip of his fingers, in the thrum of his blood.
He raised his hand slightly. Energy gathered along his fingertips like mist pulled into storm clouds. The time for testing was over.
Now, the real confrontation would begin.
Words were unnecessary. Both men understood what came next.
"Amaterasu Formula 47."
The incantation was barely whispered, but its effect was immediate. A cascade of information surged through his mind, lines of complex calculations forming and resolving themselves in less than a heartbeat. Adjustments were made in real time, the ancient mage refining every parameter to ensure the spell was as efficient as it was deadly.
Something that would not be possible to perform so quickly without the helps of the Demon's Eye.
A thread of dark energy slithered along the ground, invisible to the untrained eye, until it reached its target. It erupted with a violent roar into a vortex of black fire that swallowed Broly whole. The tornado of flame coiled upward, alive and writhing, its heat warping the air around it.
This fire was not ordinary. Its temperature would soon rival the surface of the sun, but even before it reached that point, it would gnaw at the mind and rot the flesh. The spell was old and rarely used, a relic from darker days. Hades had only cast it against nameless thieves and traitors in the years before Grimoire Heart took form.
But his opponent was different.
He studied the flames with caution, already expecting resistance. His senses flared a moment later. A second source of power was forming, hidden within the core of the inferno. He felt it grow, pulsing and expanding until it disrupted the spiral of his own magic. The tornado faltered, then collapsed entirely as a blast of pressure shot outward and swept the fire away. Wind howled across the battlefield, carrying embers with it that still burned hot enough to melt stone.
"Interesting," he murmured to himself. "You can shape your energy as a barrier and then expand it outward to neutralize a spell like that. Truly Fascinating. Every second is like unlocking a new piece of the puzzle."
"That magic... it's weird and evil," Broly muttered under his breath, frowning as shapes began to manifest around him. One by one, monstrous figures emerged from the void, their grotesque forms flickering into existence across the ruins.
"No magic is truly evil, my boy," Hades said, raising his hand slightly. "It is simply power. It becomes what the wielder chooses to make of it. You may see mine as unnatural or horrific, but it is the future. It is the path that leads to the One magic."
Broly said nothing.
Hades snapped his fingers. The creatures lunged as one, their shrill voices piercing the air as they descended on the Saiyan. Each aimed to tear him apart, to feed not just on his flesh, but his spirit.
He moved before the first could touch him.
The Saiyan flew into the air, dodging with precision. One creature surged from the ground to bite him, but missed by inches. Broly's hands pulsed with emerald light, and he fired a compact energy orb at another monster closing in from behind. It swallowed the attack in a single gulp.
Fuuuush!
A second later, its body ballooned grotesquely, swelling until it burst in a fiery explosion. The pieces did not fall. They twisted midair, reforming instantly into dozens of smaller entities, all screeching as they hurtled toward him.
Hades watched in silence as Broly rose above them, his arms outstretched and both palms facing down. Energy gathered. A barrage of fiery blasts rained from the sky. They were not as overwhelming as the power he had unleashed before, but the sheer volume and precision were more than enough. Each shot landed true, vaporizing the summoned horrors before they could touch the ground.
By the time the last shriek faded, the field was empty.
Hades stood at the edge of the blast zone and slowly brought his hands together in applause.
"Marvellous. Just one of those blasts could reduce an entire building to rubble, and yet you fire hundreds without the slightest sign of fatigue."
Though his chest held no beating heart, Hades could not deny the flicker of something that felt akin to excitement. That slow-burning anticipation one experiences when meeting an enemy who cannot be defeated with a single strike. It was a feeling he thought buried alongside his youth, but clearly, a few remnants of it still clung to him.
"You are not the only one with such power. Demon's Blast!"
A surge of raw magic crackled to life around his palm before he hurled it forward. The beam, a streaking line of crimson and violet, tore through the air with destructive purpose. It met its opposition head-on. The same emerald sphere Broly had conjured earlier now rose to meet his attack. It looked pitifully small by comparison, barely the size of a man's fist, yet it held firm. To his disbelief, it pushed into the center of his spell and began forcing it back.
"Ah!"
With a roar, Hades poured more energy into his blast. His wellspring of power was unending, drawn from the Devil's Heart pulsing within him like a war drum. The power responded to his need, flooding his body with more dark energy until the beam grew thicker, more vicious. Sparks danced violently around the clashing spells, the pressure shaking the air itself.
But his opponent's emerald light only expanded in response.
The collision reached its limit. Both attacks detonated at once. The green sphere exploded first, erupting in a flash of blinding light that engulfed the sky. His own spell collapsed seconds later, overwhelmed by the unstable surge he had crammed into it. It shattered apart in a violet burst that split the clouds and painted half the horizon with dark light.
"Yes. This is what true power feels like!" he shouted in delight, laughing as the light faded and the fog of destruction began to lift. He stood among the craters and broken earth, watching the smoke twist into the heavens.
But the joy did not last.
Broly reappeared. One moment there was only smoke, the next the Saiyan stood beside him. Unlike before, Hades saw the movement this time. Barely. His reflexes kicked in.
"Devil's Bind!"
Purple chains burst forth from the sea of energy swirling around Hades, spiraling through the air before locking themselves around Broly's arms and legs. "Amaterasu Formula 107." The bindings tightened with a hiss, reinforced with ancient runes and his own magic signature. They latched on, intent on sealing the warrior in place.
Yet Broly did not struggle.
Instead, he glanced down at the restraints with mild curiosity. His eyes narrowed slightly, not in fear, but in something more akin to annoyance.
"You do not know fear?"
The words slipped from Hades before he could stop them. He stepped forward, hands crackling with residual energy, and waved a hand over the glowing links.
"Do not waste your strength. These chains are unlike the ones I used before. They are forged from my own magic and anchored to the eternal flow of ethernano surrounding us along with the very earth beneath our feet. The longer they exist, the stronger they become. They are unbreakable, unless I will it otherwise."
He let the words hang for a moment, then added with a sneer, "Even someone like little Maki would be helpless before them, no matter how much brute strength he poured into escape. Not even dragons would be able to break these at full strenght."
The question returned to his tongue.
"So answer me. Do you not feel fear?"
"It's not like I cannot feel fear," Broly said plainly, his tone steady despite the admission. The confession was unexpected, even to Hades, who narrowed his eyes slightly in interest. "But at this moment, I don't actually fear you. I fear for others."
That statement hung in the air, heavy but sincere. Hades raised a single white brow, intrigued not by the sentiment, but by the boy's tenacity. Broly began pulling against the chains again. His muscles bulging with more veins appearing all over along with the translucent Ki around his body. The magical restraints groaned under the force, but Hades remained still, arms crossed, sighing internally at what he considered futile defiance.
Then, there it was — a sound, faint and sharp, like glass cracking beneath snow. His ear twitched.
"What!? No, Amaterasu Formula 6!"
Spells that worked together in conjunction, reinforcement one another through several aspects. This one serving to anchoring the binds deeper underground.
The chains tightened, reacting to the increase in resistance by reinforcing their bindings. The dark-purple links glowed faintly, pulsing as a fresh surge of magic flowed through them. Their structure hardened, growing more rigid with every passing second. But Broly continued nonetheless, his feet grinding against the fractured earth, sinking deeper below.
His shoulders flexed. His muscles tensed. Even more veins rose visibly along his arms and neck. With a slow, thunderous step forward, the ground beneath him cracked, large plates of stone large enough to house a third of Magnolia jutting upwards like broken teeth. Another step. Another tremor. Even Hades, balanced and composed, felt the vibration ripple up through his boots.
"Incredible," the old mage muttered. Not out of concern, but genuine fascination at the raw power being displayed. He hadn't witnessed such brute force in centuries.
But fascination was not passiveness. Hades extended his hand, fingers curling inward like the clasp of a closing trap.
"Amaterasu Formula 99."
The sky above them twisted into a vortex of darkness. Lightning began to dance across the swirling mass of clouds, arcs of silver and black spiraling wildly until a bright-purple bolt, infused with his own magic, shot down from the heavens. It struck the ground like divine retribution.
The earth detonated.
A massive crater formed instantly as stone was pulverized into dust, and jagged fragments of terrain were hurled into the air like shrapnel. Dust and smoke expanded outward in a choking wave. Hades raised his forearm to shield his eyes, his robe whipping violently in the resulting gale. Silence. A still, charged quiet overtook the battlefield.
And then, a sound.
Whoosh!
The wall of dust burst apart, a gust of raw force dispersing it like a curtain. Broly emerged from the cloud. His arms were drawn back, coiled with kinetic energy. The chains still clung to his limbs but while an entire landscape was being pulled along, an absurd sight that shook the old Demon's senses. The boy launched forward, too fast for Hades to form a defense, let alone cast a spell.
The punch connected.
"ARGH!"
It felt as though an entire mountain was compacted down to a large iron fist and collided with his face. His body was launched backwards at absurd speed, carving a trench hundreds of meters long as he skidded and smashed through rock and earth. Dirt filled his mouth, and the copper tang of blood pooled on his tongue with half of his skull flattened.
Crash!
The pain hadn't faded. Dazed, Hades lifted his head and through blurred vision saw with the Demon Eye while his other one was in the process of regenerating Broly again — not walking, but flying toward him. The magical chains whipped and flailed around the Saiyan's body, still active but entirely ineffective at this point. Their magic sputtered and clung uselessly to his skin, like wisps of thread being burned away.
Realizing the spell was now a liability, he dismissed it with a flick of his hand. The chains vanished in a puff of violet smoke.
That was a mistake.
The moment they disappeared, Broly's speed doubled, his form flickering and warping as if reality itself struggled to catch up to him. He was already there, next to him, before he could activate another formula, his enhanced vision unable to register the exact movement.
"Ama—"
A hand the size of a furnace clamped down on the lower half of his face, silencing the incantation before it could be completed. Broly's grip tightened.
Without ceremony, the Saiyan hoisted him into the air, spun slightly, and drove him down into the ground with a thunderous impact. The earth fractured. Before Hades could recover, he was pulled up again, the world spinning briefly before another slam, even harder than the first, cracked the bedrock beneath him like dry clay.
Bang!
Then came the third.
Again and again, Broly drove the old devil into the earth, each slam heavier, more forceful than the last. Bones cracked. Ribs gave way. Ligaments tore. It was no longer just a beatdown — it was pulverization. The ground had given up trying to hold their weight, forming a crater filled with crushed stone and arcane residue, glowing faintly from the sheer energy released.
With every brutal strike, Hades felt something inside him break. Bones shattered not just at the joints, but crumbled into dust. His regenerative magic, ancient and potent, flared desperately, working overtime to repair the mounting damage. Spells weaved themselves within his marrow, fusing and reshaping tissue faster than even his mind could keep track.
"Ha… H-HAAAGHH!"
A primal scream tore out of his throat as Broly hurled him skyward like a ragdoll, giving him the briefest of moments to gasp for air and fight for composure. Tumbling in midair, the devil barely managed to slap a bloodied palm against the ruined ground below as he descended again.
"Summon — Devil's Army!"
The earth pulsed with power. Cracks veined outward like lightning as blood-red magic surged upward in violent torrents. From these fissures came horrors, demons, hundreds of them, thousands even, rising in swarms from the underworld. Towering beasts with tusks like spears. Slithering monstrosities with scales of obsidian. Fanged abominations whose roars split the air.
"You may have a near endless amount of this Ki you speak of," Hades spat, his voice rough and desperate, powering more energy into his spells "but the same cannot be said about your stamina! If I can't defeat you with power… then I will outlast you!"
He pointed forward like a conductor before an orchestra, and the army obeyed.
The hellspawn charged Broly from all directions. Some dove with jaws wide, trying to bite through his limbs. Others swiped with claws the size of scimitars, tails lashing like whips tipped in steel. The battlefield became chaos incarnate.
But the Saiyan welcomed it.
At first, he weaved through them with practiced precision, his expression calm… too calm. He moved as if he had eyes in the back of his head, ducking beneath a spear, side-stepping a pincer strike, swatting aside talons with flicks of his wrist.
Then he began to retaliate.
One punch flattened a leaping beast mid-air, reducing it to shimmering fragments of magic. Another strike caved in the chest of a demon the size of a house, sending shockwaves through its crumbling body. With every blow, he seemed to shed restraint. His attacks grew fiercer, louder, until they were no longer simply hurting the demons, they were annihilating them.
Each impact left nothing behind. No carcasses. No blood. Just flashes of light, as their forms were vaporized from existence due to them reverting back into ethernano.
Hades could only watch, jaw clenched, as his summoned legion dwindled. Dozens gone. Then hundreds, thousands... Until finally, Broly rose into the air again, his palm glowing. Above his hand, a tight, spiraling orb of green light began to spin.
The energy was compact, barely the size of an apple, but it radiated pressure — massive, crushing, overwhelming.
The sky shimmered.
"No…"
The sphere dropped.
It struck the earth with an eerily quiet sound, like a breath before a hurricane. Then it erupted. The explosion wasn't fire or force—it was cleansing energy. A dome of emerald light expanded outward, disintegrating everything in its path. Demons screamed as their forms burned away, their very essence reduced to particles. Not even ash remained.
"Amaterasu Formula 72!"
Hades roared. Layers of glowing magical cubes formed around him, interlocked like a fortress. Each one pulsated, reinforcing the next, all designed to absorb even the might of God Serena's attacks.
The blast hit.
For several seconds, everything vanished in a sea of green. The ground howled. Air turned thick with magical pressure. And when the light finally faded, Hades was on one knee inside his shattered defense, breathing hard, his cubes cracked and barely holding together.
Crack!
With a lazy swipe, Broly shattered the final barrier like glass. The fragments scattered into dust, and there he was, floating above with an expression so calm, so utterly indifferent, it made Hades feel as though nothing had changed since the moment the fight had started.
"How long do you intend to keep this up?" Broly asked, voice even.
The words hit differently. Not taunting. Not cruel. Just tired.
Hades frowned for the first time. Not in pain — but in insult. The sheer gall.
"Have you learnt nothing, boy?!"
Several orbs of deep violet formed in his hands, swirling with unstable force. His palms thrusted forward.
A blast of pure destructive magic, large, scorching, filled with enough power to collapse a mountain range, rushed toward his opponent at point-blank range, slamming straight into his chest with no delay, no hesitation.
"Do you not see the power I have demonstrated to you today?! Do you not understand that this is but a glimpse, just a glimpse! Of what lies beyond?! Of the key to all your problems?!"
He screamed his heart out, praying his words would hit harder than the magic.
But Broly wasn't fazed.
All he got as an answer was a sudden flare of bright, searing Ki hurled straight at him. It cut through the space between them like a lance of concentrated energy. He had only a split second to react, raising his hands and instantly summoning a layered series of magical barriers, one behind the other, each crackling with symbols and runes etched in light. The beam struck the first shield with explosive force, shattering it instantly into glowing shards. The second broke just as fast, followed by the third and the fourth, each one disintegrating under the pressure of the assault. There was no time to reinforce the last one before the beam pierced through completely and struck him directly in the stomach with a heavy, concussive impact that twisted his torso and launched him backward.
"You are-GH! AAAH!"
Even in this heightened state where his body was meant to be untouchable, the pain that followed was instant and numbing. It spread from the center of his gut outward like a chain reaction, bursting through his nerves with every pulse of the energy. The dome of emerald Ki that enclosed them surged, trapping him inside as the raw energy consumed him. It was not like fire. It was worse. His flesh felt as though it was being melted in waves, layer after layer, like iron dipped in a crucible. The light intensified, warping the air itself, and he could feel muscle tearing, bones cracking, and organs twisting under pressure.
What felt like endless torture finally subsided. The dome flickered and dispersed. His body, or what remained of it, hit the ground with a lifeless thud. One of his arms was missing entirely, disintegrated from the shoulder down. His skin was gone, completely burnt away. Only exposed muscle and sinew remained, soaked in blood, and even those were scorched black in several places. Parts of his ribcage and spine were visible through gaps in the tissue. His limbs had turned coal-dark, cracked and smoldering down to the bone. For a moment, he felt nothing at all. The nerve endings had been scorched beyond function. It was as if his body no longer existed. But then, without warning, the pain returned like a violent spasm. It wasn't physical anymore. It was like fire crawling through what was left of his nerves.
The Devil's Heart pulsed violently inside his ship. It would not allow him to die. Not yet. A surge of raw, ancient magic flooded his ruined form, and his body began to repair itself with horrifying speed. The regeneration spell kicked in, working faster than it was ever meant to. Blood vessels reknit. Tendons stretched back into place. Skin grew over exposed tissue, freshly formed and steaming. Even his hair and beard returned, strand by strand. But so did the pain, surging in parallel with each repaired nerve. He gasped, chest heaving, and felt a creeping mental fatigue that no magic seemed able to wash away. His body stood tall again, but deep down, he felt heavier than before.
"I don't really care about this entire nonsense about the truth, or the one magic, the so-called essence of all magic, or how to control my Ki. I know I'll figure it out eventually, without needing to betray my friends. I won't make that mistake again."
The voice came from behind him. Calm. Unbothered. Familiar. He turned his head slightly and saw Broly standing there, arms at his side, watching him with a quiet intensity. His presence felt heavier than the air. Hades felt something unfamiliar ripple through his chest. Not fear, not panic, but something close. Without thinking, his legs responded on their own. He stood and backed away, boots scraping against the broken ground. It wasn't strategy. It was instinct.
"I don't know what your problem is. I don't know what you want, or why you think the innocent people of Magnolia and my friends deserve to suffer for it. But having an infinite amount of power isn't what you think it is. It won't solve your problems. It'll only bury them under more of the same."
"You don't know what you're talking about. You naive fool."
Hades lunged forward with no hesitation. His right fist ignited with violet flames that pulsed violently, casting shadows behind him. He threw a punch meant to tear through armor, bone, and magic alike. Broly met it without stepping back. Their fists collided in mid-air. The sound that followed was not an explosion but a deep shockwave that split the ground beneath them. For a split second, the power struggle was even. Then, with a sickening series of cracks, Hades' arm gave way. The bones shattered in three places. Flesh tore. Blood sprayed outward in a spiral. His entire forearm bent unnaturally, broken clean through, but he didn't stop.
With his remaining arm, he fired several magic projectiles in rapid succession. The bullets were orbs of condensed magical energy, wrapped in rings of spinning symbols, each packed with destructive force. They shot forward and struck the barrier surrounding Broly. The shield glowed faintly upon impact, rippling like water, but did not give. None of the bullets broke through. Not even a fracture appeared.
"The One Magic not only gives you total control over yourself and your abilities. It gives you control over the world itself. With it, you can unify everything. Every conflict, every threat, every evil — gone. Wished away. Erased. You can create peace just by wanting it. Why don't you understand that? Why do you keep resisting something so simple?"
Broly flew forward without giving him a chance to finish the sentence. The speed was unnatural. Hades barely raised his hand before Broly grabbed his head and lifted him off the ground with one arm. His boots dangled above the cracked stone. He growled, his teeth grinding, not out of pride but defiance. He drew power from the last reserves left in him, drawing from the core of the Devil's Heart. His magic surged violently. His heartbeat pounded like thunder. The energy gathered at his palm, swirling in tight circles until it formed a perfect sphere of absolute darkness. "Grimoire Law!" The sphere was silent, cold, and completely black. It hovered just above his palm and grew dense enough to distort the space around it. This was not a spell. It was pure destruction given form. Anything it touched would be unmade completely, without trace or residue.
He had intended to throw the sphere directly at the boy, but for a fleeting moment, doubt flickered in his mind. Perhaps there was still a chance to reason with him. Perhaps force wasn't necessary. Yet that hesitation vanished in an instant, crushed under the weight of desperation and conviction. With no other choice left, he raised his arm.
Bang.
The release of energy cracked through the battlefield. A massive sphere of pure black energy tore through the air, pulsing with density, radiating pressure like a collapsed star. But this time, it didn't fly unopposed. An emerald sphere of nearly identical size surged to meet it, launched from Broly's direction with a force that split the earth where he stood. The two spheres collide midair with a deafening roar.
Both pushed against each other, their surfaces warping, twisting, reacting violently as they competed for dominance. Hades clenched his teeth, funnelling more and more of his remaining energy into the sphere, the magic growing unstable from the volume it contained. Lines of power branched across his arm like lightning, and the sphere responded, expanding rapidly.
The beams of light alone destroyed everything within its path, yet failed to pierce through the man's protection film around his body.
Seconds passed. It swelled to three times the size of Hades himself. Even then, it struggled to push Broly's sphere back. No matter how much more magic he poured in, it could barely gain ground. His hands trembled as the truth sank in. His expression twisted. His mind reeled.
This sight alone shook the foundation of his beliefs. It tore into the certainty he had built over decades of study and sacrifice.
"Why? Why is it not working? Despite all the power you possess, you do not have the One Magic. But why can you still compete against everything I've studied, everything I've unearthed through forbidden knowledge? This is magic that predates time, feared by gods. Why can't it overpower yours? It rivals even Mavis' Fairy Law!"
His ears twitched at a sharp sound from the other side. A low growl, followed by a sound like tightening sinew. His gaze snapped back toward Broly, and for a second, he doubted his own senses. The man's body had changed. His already massive frame now bulged with more muscle. His shoulders stretched wider. The emerald aura that surrounded him intensified into a burning storm of green light, streaked with flickers of gold that shimmered and vanished just as quickly. His eyes had changed too — blank, burning, not just glowing but pulsing with boundless energy.
The black sphere continued to grow, absorbing energy from every available source. The Devil's Heart beat harder inside Hades, sending more magic than his frame was ever meant to contain. Ethernano from the surrounding air drained into the sphere. Dozens of magical incantations activated at once around him, feeding the spell, reinforcing its structure, amplifying its destructive potential. The sphere grew until it rivaled the size of the Grimoire Heart's airship. The sheer gravitational pressure of it began to bend the trees in the distance. Rocks floated upward, drawn into its pull. Every living thing in the area was forced to its knees.
And still, Broly's power kept rising.
"Aaargh!"
With a final cry, Hades gave everything he had. His muscles tore from the effort, the devil's heart pulsed wildly, flooding his veins with reckless abandon. The black sphere surged forward with the weight of his life behind it.
But his opponent moved.
He stepped forward without resistance. The emerald sphere in his hand had not grown at all. It remained small, condensed, no bigger than a marble now, but it shone with such concentrated intensity that rays of emerald light leaked from between his fingers. He didn't hesitate. Broly ducked beneath the black sphere, his body turning with serpentine agility, and punched upward. His fist connected with the underside of the massive attack.
The contact produced a soundless shock. Then the entire sphere lurched upward.
Broly's body twisted with perfect mechanical precision. He pivoted on his heel, arm winding back, and hurled the green sphere after the black one. It caught up in the air like a hunter chasing prey. The moment they collided, a detonation bloomed high above.
The sky exploded in emerald and black fire. Shockwaves pulsed outward in all directions. The impact ripped trees from the ground and launched them across the forest. Dust clouds swallowed entire sections of terrain. The wind alone uprooted what remained of the surrounding forest. Above them, the clouds split apart in a circular ring, revealing open sky in the center. For a moment, it looked like a god had struck the land itself.
Yet despite all of it, despite that scale of destruction, Broly remained standing. Unwounded. Unshaken. And he was walking forward.
Hades looked at him. His legs buckled before he could stop them. He fell to one knee. His hands trembled.
Was it fear?
No. That couldn't be it. He refused to believe he feared this man. But it was something else. Exhaustion. Weight. A pressure he couldn't define, pressing against every inch of his being. His mind fell into chaos. Disbelief choked out every logical thread. His entire life's work—all of it—meant nothing now.
"I cannot accept this. I will find the One Magic."
Grinding his teeth, he forced himself back to his feet. He stared across the space between them, his eyes locked onto the Saiyan.
"You cannot kill me, boy. I am not someone who can be defeated by strength alone. Even if your power is beyond anything I've ever known, I will discover the truth. I will fulfill my vision. I will return. This is not the end. I will not accept this. I cannot!"
He prepared another spell. His fingers traced the glyph. Magic began to surge through his arm once more. But then, suddenly, his body stopped.
Every muscle froze. His breath caught.
A pressure descended over him like a flood. His magic was suppressed in an instant. It was not a barrier. It was not a spell. It was pure power, raw and invisible, covering his body like thick, gelatinous liquid. It poured over his limbs, hardened around his frame, and pinned him in place like stone turning to iron.
His eyes moved.
Broly stood still, both arms extended forward. Two fingers on each hand pointed directly at Hades. Then, slowly, his fingers closed.
The pressure around Hades constricted.
He couldn't breathe.
A blanket of pure energy descended over him. The moment it made contact, his magic collapsed. It wasn't just suppressed. It was nullified, devoured, stripped away like a second skin being peeled off by invisible hands. The sensation was as though he had been plunged into a vat of thick liquid, not water, but something heavier. Something with weight. It enveloped him from all directions and then hardened. Within seconds, it became solid, locking every joint, seizing his limbs, binding his magic and even slowing his thoughts.
His eyes rolled forward. Broly stood ahead of him, calm and silent. Both arms extended, two fingers from each hand aimed at him like iron clamps controlling gravity itself. Then, without urgency, the boy curled his fingers inward.
The pressure increased.
The hardened energy surrounding Hades squeezed tighter. Breathing became a task that demanded conscious effort. Every breath was shallow and forced, as if the very air had been drained from the atmosphere. His knees buckled. Or rather, they were driven down by the invisible weight pressing upon him. He collapsed onto the ground, completely pinned.
"That's enough," Broly said. "I don't care if you can't be killed or if you plan to keep chasing whatever mad purpose drives you. That's none of my concern. But if you involve me, or my friends, then you'll have a problem. That's all that matters to me. Just… just leave Magnolia, you don't need to do all of this just for more power. It's not worth it."
Hades said nothing. But inside his mind, emotion surged violently. Frustration. Rage. Despair. Not simply because he had been defeated, but because somewhere in the back of his mind, a question began to surface. A question that threatened to undermine everything he had believed.
Had he fooled himself all along?
Was all that he had sacrifice was for nothing?
Decades of research into the One Magic. Endless hours of experimentation, seeking truth in ancient tomes and dark forces. He had believed, no, he had been certain, that he had come close. That he had brushed against the true source. But now, faced with someone who had never sought the One Magic and yet wielded power that eclipsed his own, he began to doubt.
If his own magic faltered this easily, then perhaps it had never been anywhere close to the One Magic at all.
He clenched his teeth. His jaw trembled.
He would not accept this. He could not.
"What are you doing?"
Broly's voice called out, but Hades didn't respond. His mind was already set. Somewhere deep in his ship, the Devil's Heart pulsed louder. Its beat accelerated, becoming irregular, violent. Gears and conduits whirred as arcane mechanisms surged into overdrive. Containers filled with ether cracked from the pressure. Yet no magic escaped. Instead, the heart consumed everything around it. It siphoned more and more, shoving raw magic directly into his body with reckless force.
"Stop it!" Broly shouted, eyes narrowing. "What are you doing?"
But Hades ignored him.
He tilted his head upward and stared at the sky.
"Zeref," he whispered, almost mournfully. "What must I do to reach where you stand? Was I truly just a fish in a pond, mistaking the sky for the sea?"
"Stop it!" Broly shouted again.
Still, Hades did not respond. Even as Broly grabbed him again, a hand closing around his neck with crushing strength, the old man remained alive. The pressure alone could have snapped his spine, but his body, sustained by the devil's heart, remained alive. His head tilted just enough to meet Broly's gaze.
"It has become clear that no amount of fighting or reasoning will ever make you understand why the One Magic matters. Maybe I have not come close to achieving it, but I will leave this matter to you to fulfil whether you want to do it or not."
The magic inside Hades continued to grow. It surged like a tidal wave, unstable and unrelenting. The air itself shimmered around him. Sparks danced across his skin. His entire body glowed with the intensity of a miniature sun. Light bled from every pore. His heart wasn't just pumping magic now, it was detonating with it.
In his mind, the final answer became clear.
If it required the deaths of those this boy considered family, if that pain could force him to seek the One Magic, then that would be his legacy. If that was the only way to make him understand, so be it.
With the amount of energy he had absorbed, the resulting explosion would incinerate Magnolia. Not just the city, but the land itself. Fire, wind, gravity, everything within a mile would vanish.
"You're insane," Broly whispered, and his voice no longer held calmness. It was tainted by disbelief and anger. The emerald light in his eyes burned brighter, the aura around him flaring like a second sun.
"Don't force your dreams onto others!"
He roared, his entire body raging with emerald Ki.
He launched upward like a cannonball, dragging Hades by the neck as if he weighed nothing. The velocity shattered trees below them and fractured the air around them. The old man's body, now glowing brighter than ever, resembled a second sun trailing behind Broly's path through the sky.
Onlookers miles away could see the glow. A star ascending over the forest. More magic continued to leak from Hades's core, no longer under his control. The end was coming and fast.
He watched as the Saiyan soared higher, cutting through the cloud layers one after another until even the stratosphere was behind them. The sky lost its blue tone, replaced by an infinite expanse of pitch black. The air became razor-thin, breathing an impossibility, but the old mage barely noticed. His attention was locked on what now lay beneath him. Suspended in space, he looked down and saw the full curvature of the planet. The entire world was spread out like a painted scroll, glowing faintly with arcane energy, its continents outlined by its shores. From Ishgar to the distant landmasses of Alvarez, across the oceans, the view stunned him into silence.
The pressure increased. The Saiyan, still holding him with one hand, twisted at the waist and hurled him with a force that sent his body rocketing further upward. The stars blurred past him, and though no wind struck his body, he could feel an intense cold building on one side, with scorching heat pressing from the other. The lack of ambient magic in this vacuum left him drained. There was nothing to absorb, nothing to pull from. And yet, even in that void, he kept his eyes fixed downward.
Broly remained below, motionless, his arm raised. And then, in one blinding instant, emerald light consumed the void. The blast did not ripple or roar. It simply expanded, enveloping everything in its path with a near-silent, flawless sweep of power.
.
.
.
"Are you happy with it?" The voice was soft, unmistakably familiar, and carried an unplaceable calm. The darkness faded and the old man found himself seated at a table tucked into the corner of an old wooden hall. The atmosphere was quiet, warm with the sunlight creeping in from the windows, the creaking of old floorboards echoing through what appeared to be the original Fairy Tail guild hall in its earliest form.
Stone by stone, plank by plank, he remembered how it had been built. Every nail, every joint, he had once helped place with his own hands alongside the friends he had long outlived.
"What happened to you, Precht…" The voice asked again. He looked forward and saw her, young, with floor-length hair, eyes dimmed by sorrow, yet not anger. She didn't need to explain why she looked that way. He already understood.
"I tried to find the answer," he replied, slowly. His fingers traced the nostalgic sensation of the beer mug on the table. "I tried to heal you. To heal this world. I walked through ruins and kingdoms, crossed deserts and frozen plains. I searched endlessly. And when I discovered the one magic and its connection to Zeref, I thought I had finally found the key. The path to salvation. A force that would transcend even death."
He paused, feeling the weight of his own failure settle in his chest like stone. The blonde girl remained silent, her expression unchanging, while the light from the window behind her began to fade.
"I believed it would work," he said again, quieter this time. "I truly believed it would work."
"Then why did you turn your back on us? You were not like this, what you taught the others before leaving was not a lie. Then why?"
Precht opened his mouth but no answer came out, yet he knew staying silent would not help. "I… I became fascinated by the forbidden. With each knowledge I acquired, with each power I gained — I ended up wanting more." Memories of his younger self surfaced, of his attempt of tracing every single trace of the one magic he could find. "I kept telling myself that it was for Fairy Tail, that one that I'd come back and release you from that prison, Mavis. But in the end, all of it was a lie, I just wanted it for myself."
The first Master of the guild smiled, reaching forward as his head looked downwards refusing to look at her in the eyes. Hands clenching the beer hard enough that his knuckles turned white.
"I'm sorry I was such a burden on you, Precht. No one deserves to carry the weight of my mistakes." She stroked his light brown hair, despite looking younger than him she still treated him as such. "Still, you caused a lot of pain to your family."
At that, he scoffed. "I am no longer part of this family anyways. What I have done… I cannot come back from this, you know. That was always your problem, Mavis, you're far too forgiving."
"You are here, means that you are not completely gone." She tapped the back of his hand where a faint emblem of their guild still remained visible. Most of it having already faded. "Bonds from the past cannot be so easily severed. Even without a heart, your old self remained alive somewhere inside."
"It is too late for regrets. It's too late for me." He said, looking outside where the sun had already nearly settled with Mavis nodding along with a saddened face. Finishing up his drink, Precht got up from his seat, walking towards the door where he looked back one last time. "You have a dangerous guy in your guild, that kind of power only invites trouble."
"He just wants to find a place where he belongs." She replied. "He found it, and we will work together to make sure he does not lose it."
That made him chuckle, shaking his head with a deep sigh.
"Who would have guessed that the one gifted with such power would have such a silly wish. He has everything… it would have been nice had he been born around our time." Though he said that, Mavis showed a smile with eyes that clearly showed she saw right through him. The man shrugged, grabbing his bag from the floor and opening the door. "I'll be going then, tell Maki that I'm sorry I couldn't come by for a visit. Maybe it was for the best."
"Take care, Precht, I'll be seeing you too, one day."
"Yeah… I know you'll find a way where I have failed."
He waved at her, closer the door behind him as the entire guild turned into darkness.
.
.
.
With his eyes opening one last time, he gazed at the world in its entirety. Closing them again with nothing but absolute silence accompanying him in his last moments as the rest of his body disappeared and turned into ashes in the emptiness of space.
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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, and my other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters, Steel Eyed Faker soon to be 3 chapters, Hound having 3 and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.