The sudden, impossible appearance of the young man was a shock that momentarily froze Ur in place, halting the deadly progress of the forbidden spell on her lips. She stared at the spot where the great demon Deliora had stood—now empty—and then at the mountain of rubble where the monster was now embedded.
She looked at the boy. He was a blur of contained energy, his clothes contrasting starkly with the white snow. His gaze was focused, intense, but without malice.
Blake turned, his dark eyes meeting hers. He noted the missing leg, the raw pain, and the overwhelming fatigue clinging to her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice direct and devoid of pleasantries, yet concerned.
Ur, the powerful ice mage, managed a terse nod, forcing a look of strength onto her exhausted features. "I am fine."
Blake didn't press. He understood battle fatigue when he saw it. He gave a sharp, professional nod. "Name's Blake. I'm a mage from Fairy Tail. I saw you were about to make a final move, but you look like you're out of reserves." He gestured to the distant rubble. "Let me fight the monster for a while and you rest for a bit."
He drew his sword. The blade was a deep, silent black, an unnerving void in the bright, icy landscape. The sheer weight of the weapon's presence was palpable.
Blake barely finished unsheathing the black sword before the mountain of rubble exploded. Deliora—the massive demon—ripped itself free. It roared, a sound of pure, intelligent fury, its eyes locked onto the figure who had dared to strike it.
The invisible attack had surprised it; the human presence infuriated it. The beast started charging towards him, a world-ending force of dark magic and raw muscle.
Blake's purpose was singular. He hadn't traveled for two days to merely kill the demon. He had come to awaken the next level of his power.
He was using this fight to hone his Observation Haki and Armament Haki. He knew he was standing on the precipice of advanced use of Haki, but the concept of future vision and internal destruction remained just out of reach.
He assumed a defensive stance, Tensa Zangetsu held across his body. The fight began. Blake danced.
He moved with the supernatural speed of Soru and Geppo, using the snow-covered ground as a trampoline and the air as solid stepping stones. He was a speck of black and white against the demon's monstrous bulk.
He focused his mind, pushing his Observation Haki to its breaking point, trying to move beyond mere instantaneous reaction. He fought with an almost suicidal restraint, allowing the monster to commit to its attacks, desperately seeking that hairline fracture in time that would allow him to see its future move.
The fight was a brutal, one-sided lesson in durability. Deliora was fast, surprisingly so for its size. Its massive claws and sweeping tail were unavoidable for a normal foe.
I have to see it! Blake screamed internally, dodging a blast of chilling curse power that vaporized the air where he'd been standing.
He held his own through sheer defensive grit. Several times, a bone-jarring blow from Deliora connected. Each time, Blake had his Armament Haki deployed, coating his skin and bones in obsidian-black armor. The damage he took was immense, but maneuverable—a few broken ribs, internal bruising, but nothing that immobilized him. He was a stone being hit by a sledgehammer, but the stone refused to break.
The constant, desperate effort—the agony of predicting and dodging—finally created the crack he needed.
As Deliora wound up for another crushing stomp, Blake's mind experienced a sudden shift. The moment stretched. The air seemed to coalesce around the monster's foot before it moved.
He saw it. A brief, flickering, two-second future.
He saw the heel of the demon's foot connecting with the ground where he was standing, crushing the ice beneath. He used the information instantly, shifting his weight a mere inch faster, pushing off with Soru a fraction of a second before the predicted event.
He landed on an icy pillar, his chest heaving. The sheer magnitude of the breakthrough hit him.
A terrifying, unrestrained wild laugh ripped from his throat, echoing across the frozen waste. It was a laugh of pure, triumphant mania. "HA HA HA! FINALLY!"
With the precognition unlocked, the fight was no longer a matter of survival, but of dominance.
He started attacking, moving through the future as easily as a normal person walks through a door. He wove around Deliora's monstrous bulk, aiming Tensa Zangetsu at its hide. But here, he hit another wall.
The demon's tough hide made it difficult to cut. His strikes, coated in normal Armament Haki, barely scratched the beast's enchanted skin. He was hitting, but the regeneration made the cuts irrelevant.
He was frustrated, but relentless. He fought with the confidence of a man who couldn't be touched, but the physical reality of the beast's durability remained. He moved perfectly, attacking without getting hit, but his energy was flagging.
The constant prediction—the mental strain of peering into time—combined with the enduring defense of his Armament Haki and the few crushing hits he had failed to fully negate were rapidly depleting his Haki reserves. He felt the black coating on his fists thin; his future sight began to flicker.
Ur, watching from her vantage point, had been stunned into silence by the boy's impossible skill and his sudden burst of manic laughter. But now, she saw the signs of exhaustion. His movements were losing their effortless fluidity; the black coating on his sword was wavering.
He's reaching his limit, she realized, pain forgotten. He needs help.
Without a word, she raised her hands. "Ice-Make: Shield!"
A colossal shield of impervious ice slammed down between Blake and the charging Deliora. The demon slammed into it, momentarily halting its assault.
"Rest, boy! I'll join the fight to give you a breather!" Ur shouted, her magic flowing from her body.
Blake took the opening instantly, dropping his sword point to the ground and leaning heavily on the hilt. He was gasping for air, the muscles in his legs burning.
"Ten minutes!" Blake gasped out, his voice raw. "I need ten minutes to join the fight again!"
Ur nodded, her ice-make hands already conjuring a devastating barrage of sharp spears. "Then make it count!"
The fight shifted. Ur was not as fast, but her magic was immense and her tactical genius unparalleled. She knew exactly how to fight defensively, trapping Deliora in localized bursts of ice, buying Blake the precious time he needed. She was using her power with cold, surgical precision, avoiding the suicidal moves that had nearly cost her life moments earlier.
Blake used the time not just to rest his body, but his mind. He sat cross-legged, closing his eyes, focusing only on the ebb and flow of his spirit. He drew his power deep from his core, pulling his Haki reserve back towards full capacity. He felt the cold energy, the essence of his will, gather in his hands.
The secret is not on the surface, he realized. It's inside.
He opened his eyes; the ten minutes were up. His body felt renewed. He picked up Tensa Zangetsu and focused the renewed reserves of Armament Haki into the blade. He concentrated, not on coating the outside of the sword, but on feeling the flow of the Haki through it, willing the energy to detach upon impact, to strike past the surface.
He activated Geppo and shot into the sky, rocketing upward with devastating speed.
Deliora was momentarily trapped by Ur in a thick snare of ice chains. It was struggling, its attention entirely focused on the relentless barrage of ice weapons coming from the ground. It didn't notice Blake plunging towards it from above.
Blake descended like a black comet. He screamed a battle cry, putting every ounce of his renewed energy and concentrated will into the blade. He landed a strike on Deliora's chest, right in the center of its massive ribcage.
The moment of impact was silent, anti-climactic.
The chest of Deliora didn't show any damage where the sword landed. Not a scratch.
Then, half a second later, on the demon's thick, armored back, a burst of power erupted. A clean, crescent-shaped cut exploded outward, tearing through skin, muscle, and bone. It was not a superficial wound; it was a deep, devastating shockwave of force that originated from the inside of the demon's body.
Blake landed lightly on the ground. He looked at the exploding wound, then back at his sword, and a new wave of utterly insane, relieved laughter swept over him.
"HA HA HA HA! ADVANCED ARMAMENT! I DID IT!"
His personal mission was finished. The crucible had worked.
But the battle wasn't over. Deliora roared, the massive wound already starting to heal. It was slower now, but the dark magic was still stitching the beast back together.
Blake, now armed with the power of internal destruction, attacked again and again. His fighting style transformed. He was a whirlwind of black slashes, his focus entirely on honing his Advanced Armament Haki, making every strike count towards the demon's internal structure. He wasn't aiming to cut the skin; he was aiming to rupture the dark magic source beneath.
Ur was also fighting Deliora in sync with Blake, her ice-make formations no longer just defensive. She used giant hammers and colossal blades to smash the demon into positions where Blake could land his penetrating strikes.
Finally, exhaustion returned. The intense, power-draining use of Advanced Armament Haki was too much, too soon. Blake felt his reserves plummeting. He had one final, all-or-nothing move left.
He shouted over the roar of the monster: "Hey, lady! Lock Deliora in position for five seconds! I need to land my strongest attack!"
Ur didn't hesitate. She poured every remaining drop of her magic into the effort. "Ice-Make: Glacier Prison!"
A tidal wave of ice erupted from the ground, encasing Deliora from the waist down in an impenetrable, rapidly forming glacier. The demon was struggling, roaring, but it was locked.
Blake took a deep breath. His Haki was almost gone.
He channeled the last of his Advanced Armament Haki into his sword, making the blade hum with internal destructive power. But he wasn't finished. He focused on the raw, chaotic energy he had cultivated over the years—the Anti-Magic. He channeled it, too, coating the Haki-infused blade in a sheath of volatile, corrupting nullification energy.
He used Soru at full speed, vanishing from sight, moving faster than he ever had before. He appeared directly in front of the monster's massive, straining neck.
And with a final, desperate roar, he brought the blade down with his full power, aiming to sever the central nervous system.
"Black Divine Meteorite!"
The blade sliced through the demon's neck. The speed was absolute, the internal damage catastrophic, and the addition of the Anti-Magic was the final, critical blow. Deliora, a being made of pure Curse Magic, could not regenerate against nullification.
The massive head of the demon tumbled, landing with a sickening, wet crunch on the ice. The body stood motionless for a moment, then collapsed into the glacier. The dark magic that defined the beast dissolved. The immense, lifeless form of the demon began to turn to dust, vanishing as if it had never existed.
It was over.
Blake dropped his sword. The silence was immediate, save for the ragged sound of Ur's and his own breathing.
With the task complete and the adrenaline gone, his body finally surrendered. He crumpled onto the ground, landing in the soft snow. His Haki reserves were completely empty, his muscles screaming in protest.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the pain, and simply rested. He was alive. He had fought a demon. And he was stronger.