The "training" Gildarts had administered was, in fact, a one-sided beating. Blake had spent the entire night using every ounce of his newly-minted S-Class speed, Haki, and skill just to survive the Ace's "fatherly rage." He'd been crushed, flattened, punched through several small hills, and generally used as a high-speed ragdoll.
So, when next day everything returned to normal, Blake entered the guild hall feeling less like a conquering hero and more like a man who had been hit by several, very angry trains. His muscles screamed in protest, and he was fairly certain his ribs were just a collection of loosely associated bone fragments.
He limped to the bar, ordered a mountain of food, and gratefully started his breakfast, focusing on the simple, restorative act of eating.
He'd barely taken a bite when a cheerful voice piped up beside him. "Good morning, Blake!"
Cana plopped onto the stool next to him, her nine-year-old face bright and completely oblivious to the trauma she had inflicted. She immediately began to chat happily, detailing a new card-reading technique she was trying to invent, her legs swinging idly.
Blake tried to follow along, nodding and smiling, but as he was talking, he felt it.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a movement. It was a cold, piercing pressure on the back of his neck. A set of eyes was boring into him with the focused intensity of a high-powered sniper. He didn't need to see who was watching him. His survival instincts, honed by a night of pure terror, were screaming.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his head in that direction.
Across the guild hall, Gildarts was looking at him with fire in his eyes. The Ace was pretending to drink his morning ale, but his gaze was locked onto Blake. As soon as their eyes met, Gildarts slowly, deliberately, raised a thumb and made a sharp, graphic slicing-the-neck gesture.
Blake's blood ran cold. He was still going.
"So, I told Gray that if he puts the 'Ice' card on the 'Tower' card, it doesn't mean his future is frozen, it means... Blake? Are you listening?"
Cana, seeing Blake was not paying attention, looked at him with a curious frown. "What are you looking at?"
She started to follow his gaze.
When she followed his gaze, she saw her father.
The transformation was instantaneous.
The second Gildarts saw his daughter's head about to turn towards him, the murderous aura vanished. He immediately started whistling a jaunty, off-key tune, patted Macao (who was beside him) on the shoulder with enough force to make the man choke on his cigar, and began talking merrily and loudly. "And then I said, Macao, that's not a monster, that's my reflection! Ha! Good one, eh?"
Macao, confused and slightly bruised, just stared at him.
Cana watched for a second, saw nothing wrong, and turned back to Blake, shrugging. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Blake said, his voice a little tight. He forced a smile and turned back to his breakfast, trying to seem normal. "You were saying? Ice and the Tower?"
Cana beamed and continued her story. But after a few seconds, he could again feel a set of eyes on him. The murderous pressure returned, twice as intense.
He refused to look this time. He just hunched his shoulders and tried to eat faster.
I need a quest. I need to get out of this town. Now.
As soon as he finished eating (and paid), Blake made a beeline for the S-Class request board, pointedly not looking in Gildarts's direction. He ignored the high-paying escort missions and the treasure-hunting quests. He needed something far away, long-term, and preferably involving a lot of mindless violence he could take his stress out on.
He found it. A crisp, official-looking request from the Magic Council itself.
QUEST: S-CLASS - MONSTER EXTERMINATION
LOCATION: MATZA VALLEY, WESTERN BORDER
TARGET: HORDE OF UNIDENTIFIED MAGICAL BEASTS
NOTE: Horde estimated at 500+ individuals. Threat level: Overwhelming Numbers. Proceed with extreme caution.
It was perfect. A pure test of endurance.
He plucked the paper from the board and took it to Makarov, who was sitting at his usual spot on the bar.
"Ah, your first S-Class quest, my boy!" Makarov said, his eyes twinkling. He knew exactly why Blake was in such a hurry. "Matza Valley, eh? A nasty one. The Council has been trying to get someone to handle that for months. It's not about one strong opponent, Blake, it's a war of attrition. Are you sure you're ready for that?"
"I am, Master," Blake said firmly, already feeling the tension leave his shoulders.
Makarov stamped the paper with a grin. "Approval granted. Be safe, Blake. And try not to level the entire valley."
Blake said his goodbyes, giving a quick wave to Gray and Laxus, and a warm, one-armed hug to Cana (while pointedly ignoring the sound of a mug being crushed by a certain overprotective father in the background). He left the guild and headed straight for the train station.
The Matza Valley Horde
The journey took two full days. The train dropped him at the edge of Fiore, in a desolate, wind-swept town at the mouth of the Matza Valley. Once there, he met the Town Head, a terrified man who nearly burst into tears of relief upon seeing an S-Class mage's quest paper.
"They... they're up in the high nest," the man stammered, pointing to the jagged, ominous mountains. "They call them the 'Gorgon-Vipers'. They haven't attacked the town yet, but their numbers just... keep... growing. We hear them at night. Hundreds of them."
Blake nodded, absorbing the intel. After resting for a night in the local inn, he set out at dawn.
He moved with S-Class speed, using Geppo to bound up the mountain paths. It took him hours to reach the nest, a vast, sunken caldera hidden behind a peak. The air was thick with a reptilian, acidic stench. He crested the final ridge and looked down.
The Town Head was right. The caldera floor was a moving, writhing carpet of green scales. The monsters numbered at least 500. They were Gorgon-Vipers—eight-foot-long, six-legged reptilian beasts with scales as thick as steel plates and fangs that dripped corrosive venom. Individually, a strong B-Class mage could probably handle one. But their numbers were the problem. This wasn't a fight; it was an infestation.
Blake stood on the precipice, the wind whipping his cloak. He drew Tensa Zangetsu, the black blade humming in the thin mountain air.
"Alright," he said to himself, a grim smile touching his lips. "Let's begin the extermination."
He didn't wait for them to notice him. He used Soru and dropped from the ridge, a black comet landing in the dead center of the horde.
The impact was immediate. The monsters, shocked by the sudden intrusion, hissed and recoiled. Blake didn't give them a second.
This was a test of brutal efficiency.
He moved. He was a black blur, a whirlwind of death. His blade, coated in a thin, invisible layer of Armament Haki, was not a sword, but a scalpel.
Shing, shing, shing! Three heads flew in a single, fluid spin. He didn't use grand, sweeping attacks; he used precise, economical cuts. A thrust to the heart, a decapitating slash, a bisecting cut through the torso.
One cut, one kill.
In the first thirty seconds, thirty Gorgon-Vipers lay dead or dying. The horde finally reacted, not with fear, but with overwhelming, mindless hunger. A tide of green scales and snapping fangs surged inward.
This was the S-Class part.
Blake's Observation Haki flared to life, painting the world in a 360-degree map of intention.
A Viper lunged from his left. He didn't turn; he simply angled his blade back, impaling it through the throat as he moved forward.
A tail-whip from behind. He ducked under it without looking.
A spray of venom from above. He used Soru to flicker five feet to the right, the acid sizzling on the rock he'd just vacated.
He was in the eye of the storm, a single, calm point in a universe of chaos. He moved with a dancer's grace and a butcher's purpose. His cloak was a matador's cape, drawing attacks that were dodged a millisecond before they landed. Tensa Zangetsu was a continuous black arc, severing limbs, heads, and tails.
He fought for an hour. The floor of the caldera was slick with blood and gore. He had killed over 150 of the monsters, but he was starting to breathe heavily. His Armament Haki was in constant, draining use, every parry and every cut requiring an output of energy.
A clawed foot, one he hadn't fully predicted, raked across his back, tearing his shirt and drawing blood. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was a warning. He was getting tired. And there were still over 300 of them.
I can't win a war of attrition one-on-one, he realized. Time to thin the herd.
He used Geppo to leap 100 feet straight up, landing on a high, narrow spire of rock overlooking the seething mass. The monsters hissed, clawing at the base of the rock.
Blake sheathed his sword. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused his will. He wasn't targeting a person. He was targeting an army.
He opened his eyes and unleashed his Conqueror's Haki.
It wasn't a sound. It was a silent, spiritual tsunami that exploded outward from his body. The sheer, overwhelming pressure of his will washed over the horde.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating.
The B-Class Vipers had no defense. Their reptilian brains, driven by simple instinct, were overloaded by the dominating aura. Their eyes rolled back into their heads. Hundreds of them simply... stopped. They staggered, convulsed, and then collapsed, foaming at the mouth, completely unconscious.
In less than three seconds, the horde of 350 was reduced to a field of sleeping lizards.
All except for about fifty.
These were the Alphas. Larger, with darker, thicker scales and burning red eyes. They were strong enough to withstand the Haki blast, and now they were utterly terrified, which made them impossibly furious. They roared, their combined hiss shaking the mountain, and charged the spire.
"Fifty," Blake said, drawing Tensa Zangetsu again. "Much more manageable."
He dropped back into the fray, but this time, he wasn't defending. He was attacking. He met the first charging Alpha and, instead of slicing, he slammed the flat of his blade against its armored head, channeling his Advanced Armament Haki into the strike.
The monster's scales held, not a crack. But its body went rigid, its eyes went blank, and it collapsed, dead. The internal, percussive force had shattered its brain and pulped its organs.
This was the S-Class difference.
He became a wraith. He didn't bother dodging. He met each charge with overwhelming, internal destruction. A palm-heel strike to a monster's chest—its heart exploded. A simple kick to a leg—the bone shattered and sent shockwaves up into its spine.
He was a whirlwind of black Haki and brutal, efficient strikes. The Alphas, who would have given a team of A-Class mages a life-or-death battle, were being disassembled.
Only one remained. The Horde-Lord. It was the size of an dinosaur, its scales an oily black, its venom sizzling as it dripped. It roared, a sound of pure hatred, and lunged.
Blake met it head-on. He didn't need a fancy move. He channeled his Anti-Magic and his Advanced Haki into Tensa Zangetsu. The blade crackled with black lightning and a suffocating aura of nothingness.
He used Soru to meet its charge.
"Black Divine Meteorite."
He didn't aim for the neck. He plunged the sword straight into the monster's open, roaring mouth, his Haki-coated arm following it all the way to the hilt.
The monster froze. The Anti-Magic hit its core. Its magical life-force was instantly, violently erased. The Advanced Haki exploded its internal organs. The creature didn't even have time to fall. It simply began to disintegrate from the inside out, turning to dust before it even hit the ground.
Blake stood in the resulting cloud of ash, breathing heavily. He was covered in sweat, blood (his and theirs), and grime. He looked around at the caldera, now a silent boneyard of 500 monsters.
He sheathed Tensa Zangetsu with a final, satisfying click.
"S-Class," he muttered, wiping his face. "Just means more paperwork."