"You did more than most could." The layered sigils around Hades finished forming. Then the air screamed. Eight massive Amaterasu seals ignited around Aelius at once, three to either side, one above, one below, each one rotating with deep crimson light that stained the clouds around the airship. The pressure hit first, crushing inward from every direction before the spell itself even fired. Aelius's eyes widened slightly.
"Amaterasu Formula One Hundred."
The entire section of sky seemed to rupture outward in a colossal sphere of destruction. The explosion swallowed half the ship's upper structure instantly, engulfing towers, rigging, and masts in a roaring flood of black-red force. The airship lurched violently sideways beneath it, groaning like a wounded beast as shockwaves rolled across its hull. Entire sections of railing vaporized. Cannon emplacements tore free from their mounts and spun into open sky.
Far below, the ocean split beneath the pressure wave. And Aelius vanished inside it. The blast kept expanding, rolling outward from the airship in rippling rings that cracked clouds apart overhead. Even after the initial explosion faded, the pressure continued to roar through the sky around them, lingering heat distorting the air.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then something moved inside the smoke. Aelius dropped out of the haze, trailing blood. One wing hung shredded, great tears ripped through the membrane, while chunks of blackened chitin-like growth flaked from his arms and shoulders. His entire left side looked cooked, skin split and charred badly enough that exposed muscle and bone showed beneath it in places. One eye was gone, along with the skull around it.
Hades watched him fall with narrowed focus now, no amusement left anywhere in his face. "Remarkable," he admitted quietly.
Aelius coughed hard enough that blood sprayed from his mouth into the wind. His ruined wing twitched as he bounced off the cracked deck before his hand caught the splintered wood, forcing him to a stop. Flesh crawled across exposed bone while he moved, regeneration dragging torn tissue together in ugly wet strands.
Below him, crewmen who had survived Formula One Hundred stared upward in horror, partially at the fact their hiding palace was just obliterated, and partially because the man who took the full force of that attack was still alive. "You," Aelius rasped between breaths, "hit way harder than Bluenote."
Hades's visible eye sharpened further. "And yet you still rise."
"You know," Aelius muttered, "I'm kinda off right now."
Hades thrust one hand forward instantly. "Grimoire Chain."
Dozens of black chains erupted upward to intercept him, hooks shrieking through the air.
Aelius hit them head-on. "Plague God's Carrion Rend." His arm came down in a single brutal strike. Rot exploded outward through the chains on contact. Metal blackened, corroded, and snapped apart in cascading bursts as he tore straight through the spell and crashed into the deck directly in front of Hades.
The impact split the main deck nearly end-to-end.
"Rude," Aelius said, "but I'd do the same, as I was saying, this new… form is fresh," he aimed a punch right at Hades' stomach.
Hades caught the punch one-handed. The collision blasted compressed air across the deck hard enough that nearby corpses were thrown overboard. And for the first time since the fight began, Hades's boots slid.
"Im still getting used to it, so bear with me," Aelius finished as he slammed his head forward to meet Hades' own skull.
Hades answered by driving his free fist into Aelius's stomach. The blow folded him instantly. Blood burst from his mouth again as the old man lifted him clean off the deck before hurling him sideways through an entire tower structure. Wood and metal exploded outward as Aelius tore through three rooms in succession before bursting back into open air beyond the ship.
"You possess tremendous power," Hades called across the distance between them. "But no understanding. You wield it like a club swung by a child."
Aelius spat blood into the open air beneath him. "And you sound exactly like every old man who thinks being miserable makes him wise."
Hades disappeared, and Aelius twisted on instinct. A black projectile ripped through his side before he fully moved, punching straight through flesh and wing alike. Pain exploded through him. Another projectile followed immediately after, then another, Hades firing compressed magic bullets faster than sight from different positions around him.
Aelius jerked violently through the air, avoiding the next volley by inches. One beam clipped his shoulder and tore straight through, leaving a cauterized hole the width of a fist.
Hades wasn't slowing down anymore. He moved through the sky in bursts of black light, each appearance followed by another devastating spell. Chains erupted from blind angles. Bullet magic carved through the clouds. Amaterasu seals ignited around Aelius repeatedly, smaller than Formula One Hundred but faster, tighter, designed to wear him down instead of obliterate everything nearby.
He flipped, ducked, twisted through open air, and forced every movement his body could manage out of wings he still barely understood. One moment, he was above the ship, the next beneath it, diving hard enough that the ocean rushed up toward him before he snapped upward again in a violent climb. Black magic tore through the spaces he'd occupied a heartbeat before. Some missed by inches. Some didn't.
Hades was fast. Far too fast for someone carrying that much power. Aelius had fought monsters before, but speed at this level, paired with this much force, was rare. Every instinct he had kept expecting limits that never appeared. Hades crossed distances instantly, casting while moving, layering spells without pause, never overcommitting, never leaving himself exposed for more than fractions of a second. How someone like this stayed hidden was a mystery. The man was on par with the Gods of Ishgar. Maybe beyond them.
Aelius folded one wing sharply, letting a bullet pass close enough to shear strands from his hair before he rotated hard through the air. Three smaller Amaterasu seals ignited around him immediately after. The first detonated against his shoulder. The second burst beneath him. He forced himself sideways before the third fully formed, but he wasn't quick enough. Purple-black flames slammed across his wings, and the membrane ignited instantly. Fire spread through the thin structures with terrifying speed, racing along veins and trailing across the emerald markings before reaching the base near his spine. The smell hit just as quickly, burning membrane and cooked flesh mixing with sea air as sections of the wings curled inward under the heat.
His body reacted before his mind caught up, and Aelius dropped. Open sky vanished into uncontrolled descent as the airship spun upward in his vision. Wind roared past him hard enough that his cloak snapped against his skin while burning fragments tore away from the damaged wings and scattered into the ocean below.
Another black flash took his mind from the fall. Hades appeared above him. Dark circles rotated beneath the old man's feet as he extended one hand downward. Grimoire Chains erupted outward like spears, aiming for his main body, intent to skewer him in a dozen different ways.
Aelius twisted mid-fall, causing two chains to miss. One punched clean through the lower section of his torso and removed most of his liver.
The descent became worse instantly. His body spiraled sideways through the air, what little control he had left collapsing with it. The ocean rushed closer beneath him while the airship drifted above like some enormous predator circling wounded prey.
Another Amaterasu seal formed below him, aiming to intercept where he would fall, and remove him from existence, and judging by the last one, Hades just might have succeeded. Then his wings snapped outward again. The chain embedded through his side ripped free in a spray of blood and ruined flesh as both wings beat downward at full force. The motion was ugly, uneven, barely controlled, but enough to halt his fall. His falling body jerked sideways just as the Amaterasu spell erupted upward.
The explosion caught the edge of him instead of the center, and his entire right side was blackened. He punched through the outer edge of the blast, trailing smoke and fire before crashing hard across the underside of the airship itself. Metal screamed beneath the impact. His fingers dug into reinforced plating while momentum dragged him across the hull, carving a trench through iron and wood alike.
Then he stopped, and for a second, he simply hung there beneath the ship. Wind battered him from every direction. One wing still burned in places. The other twitched unevenly, half-regenerated tissue struggling to stabilize itself while plague magic crawled through the damage, trying to rebuild faster than Hades could destroy it.
Aelius's breathing slowed; his regeneration was working, but slower now. The constant destruction was finally beginning to outpace the immediate recovery. Burns spread deeper than cuts did. Magic-infused fire lingered. Every damaged section of the wing took longer to reform than normal flesh.
Which meant he needed to stop fighting like prey. In fairness, it's not like he wanted to be losing.
The underside of the airship groaned suddenly. Aelius moved instantly. A black lance of magic tore through the hull where he'd been clinging a fraction earlier, blasting entirely through the ship and out the opposite side in a storm of splintered debris. Hades had started firing through the vessel itself.
Aelius launched upward. His wings beat once, twice, carrying him around the side of the ship in a tight arc while another barrage ripped through the hull behind him. Explosions burst across the upper decks. Screams echoed from inside the vessel as Grimoire Heart members were caught in their own master's crossfire.
Aelius barely noticed. His eyes stayed locked on the black flashes above. Hades had appeared again off the starboard side of the ship, already forming another Formula seal. This time, Aelius moved before the spell completed. He folded both wings tight and accelerated straight at him. The distance vanished almost instantly. Hades's eye narrowed as Aelius crashed through the forming spell circle before it stabilized, the unfinished Formula detonating early behind him in a violent burst of unstable magic.
Aelius reached him, and his hand slammed around Hades's wrist before the spell finished forming. For the first time in the fight, Hades's composure broke just slightly; a flicker of surprise crossed the old man's face the instant Aelius ignored the gathering magic entirely and simply kept moving through it.
Then both of them tore through the side of the cargo hold together. The wall exploded outward behind them as Aelius drove forward with everything he had left, dragging Hades bodily out of the airship and into open sky. Wind roared around them instantly. The ship spun above as they fell beneath it, broken debris raining alongside them toward the ocean far below.
Hades reacted immediately as black sigils ignited across his free arm. "Grimoire Chain." Chains erupted point-blank between them, wrapping around Aelius's torso, neck, and remaining wing. Hooks punched through flesh. One was buried fully through his shoulder.
Aelius ignored it, forcing his grip to tighten hard enough that the bones in Hades's wrist audibly cracked. Then Aelius smashed his forehead into the old man's face, and the impact burst blood into the open air. Hades's head snapped sideways. Aelius hit him again. And again. The third headbutt split the eyepatch strap entirely, sending the ruined cloth whipping away into the sky while Hades's nose shattered under the repeated blows. Dark magic exploded outward violently from the old man in retaliation.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka." Compressed black force detonated directly into Aelius's ribs, causing several to break instantly.
Aelius still didn't let go; he twisted through the damage and drove his elbow straight into Hades's throat hard enough that the air around them cracked from the impact. Hades's spell destabilized for half a second.
Aelius's plague magic surged through physical contact immediately. Black-green corruption spread from his hand over Hades's arm in branching veins. Flesh darkened. The sleeve around the wrist rotted apart completely while fungal growths forced themselves across the skin beneath.
Hades's visible eye widened slightly, then murderous force flooded outward. The gravity spell hit at full strength this time. "Tenrou Kokyu."
Aelius felt it crush into him as the ocean had collapsed onto his body. Blood burst from his mouth. The chains embedded in him drove deeper under the pressure. His burned wing folded violently at an unnatural angle. But he still refused to let go.
Hades's damaged arm trembled now where the plague continued spreading. The old master raised his free hand directly against Aelius's chest. "Amaterasu Formula Twenty-Eight." The seal ignited between them, and the explosion consumed both of them instantly.
Fire and black destruction erupted through the sky beneath the airship. The blast wave ripped outward hard enough that nearby falling debris disintegrated midair. Even the airship above groaned from the pressure.
Aelius's chest blackened. Skin and cloth vaporized from the front of his torso while the force nearly tore his arm off at the shoulder. His plague-enhanced arm came around Hades's neck while his remaining wing beat once with catastrophic force behind them, accelerating their descent like a missile.
The ocean rushed upward beneath them. Hades finally struck with actual anger now. Black magic circles erupted across Aelius's body simultaneously. Explosions tore chunks from his side. Chains ripped through his legs. Gravity pulses hammered him repeatedly while Grimoire Rays punched holes through flesh at near-contact range.
Aelius endured all of it. Because every second they remained locked together made the plague worse. Hades's arm was rotting now, and not just surface damage anymore. The corruption had spread past the wrist, black fungal veins crawling beneath the skin toward the elbow while pieces of dead flesh sloughed away into the wind behind them.
For the first time since the battle started, genuine fury surfaced fully across the old man's face. The ocean beneath them exploded upward a second later. Both bodies vanished beneath the surface in a detonation of water large enough that it rose almost to the height of the damaged airship above.
Water crashed over Aelius in violent currents as both he and Hades plunged deeper beneath the surface, momentum carrying them downward through spiraling clouds of blood, plague spores, and shattered magic. The impact alone should have broken lesser mages apart. Instead, the fight continued beneath the sea like two monsters trying to drown each other.
Visibility vanished almost immediately. The water around them blackened from leaking corruption and magic residue, illuminated only by pulses of sickly green plague light and Hades's crimson-black spell circles igniting through the depths. The pressure of the ocean pressed in from every direction, but compared to the things trying to kill him lately, Aelius barely registered it.
Hades moved first again. Even underwater, the old man's magic carved through the sea itself. Grimoire Rays burned through the depths in black streaks, superheating the water around them into violent bursts of steam. One slammed through Aelius's thigh. Another ripped across his stomach. A third clipped the already ruined wing near the base.
Aelius drove forward through all of it.
His fist crashed into Hades's chest hard enough to send shockwaves bursting through the surrounding water. Plague spread instantly from the impact point, black fungal veins tearing across Hades's torso.
Then something changed. The magic pressure around Hades surged violently. The water itself seemed to recoil from him. Darkness flooded outward from beneath his clothes, thick black magic pulsing from the center of his chest in deep rhythmic waves like a second heartbeat awakening. The fungal growth spreading across his body abruptly stopped advancing.
Then reversed as the rot peeled away. Dead flesh sloughed off Hades's arm, but beneath it new skin regenerated rapidly, black veins fading while muscle rewove itself before Aelius's eyes. The shattered wrist was repaired with audible cracks even underwater. Worse, the old man's magic didn't weaken while healing. It grew heavier. The pressure rolling off him now felt closer to a living disaster than a mage.
Hades's visible eye opened fully. Then he struck Aelius with enough force to split the sea around them. Aelius barely saw the blow coming. A black-coated fist buried itself into his ribs and detonated magic through his body simultaneously. Water erupted outward in a massive underwater shockwave as Aelius was launched backward through the ocean, hard enough that the force carved a trench through the seafloor beneath him.
His vision blurred, and Hades appeared again instantly. Faster now. Much faster. Chains wrapped around Aelius's throat and good wing before slamming him deeper into the seabed. Stone exploded beneath him. Hades's next strike punched straight through Aelius's shoulder, black magic tearing flesh apart faster than regeneration could fully compensate.
The old man looked almost unchanged now, aside from the missing eyepatch and ruined clothes.
Then the movement above caught his eye. Through the shifting light and darkness overhead, he saw the airship hanging above the ocean, damaged but still airborne. Smaller figures moved along the side of it. Long stairways of ice stretched upward toward the ship itself, locking against the hull in thick frozen paths while figures sprinted across them.
Natsu at the front. Erza beside him, Lucy, Wendy, and Gray.
Even from this distance, he could make out the moment some of them looked downward through the open damage in the ship's side. Tiny silhouettes against the light above the ocean.
Looking toward him, or more specifically, toward the fight happening beneath them. Aelius exhaled slowly underwater. Then he moved. Hades surged toward him at the same time, dark magic roaring through the sea around his body. Another spell circle ignited near point-blank.
Aelius threw both hands forward. "Plague God's Abyssal Bloom." The ocean erupted green-black. Every remaining ounce of magic he could spare detonated beneath Hades in a compressed burst. The sea floor split apart under the force as fungal growth, rotting pressure, and explosive corruption erupted downward like a volcanic blast.
Hades's eyes widened slightly. Aelius wasn't attacking him directly. He was forcing momentum. The entire section of ocean beneath Hades collapsed inward as the explosion drove him violently deeper into the abyss below. Chains snapped apart under the force. Currents spiraled wildly around them.
Hades immediately tried forcing upward again. Aelius saw the black magic igniting around him already and twisted hard and forced every remaining scrap of magic he could gather into his wings. Burned membrane regrew in ragged strands. Black-veined tissue rewove itself between shattered supports while emerald markings slowly reappeared through the damage. His regeneration devoured magic reserves recklessly to force the repair.
Hades surged upward beneath him through the dark water; it was too late, Aelius's wings were already spread wide. He shot from the sea like a spear, trailing black water and plague mist behind him as the damaged airship loomed overhead. Wind hit him hard after the crushing depths below, but now his body knew what to do with it.
One wing still lagged behind the other, causing him to adjust instinctively. Another powerful beat launched him higher. Below, the ocean churned violently, and a pulse of black magic detonated beneath the surface as Hades started coming back up.
Aelius didn't stop to look. He angled toward the ship where Fairy Tail was gathering, blood still pouring from half-healed wounds while shredded clothes hung from his body in ruined strips.
The final stretch to the airship was ugly. Aelius stayed airborne through sheer force more than control now, one wing beating harder than the other while the repaired membrane still looked raw in places, fresh black-veined tissue visible between incomplete sections of emerald patterning. Blood and seawater streamed off him together, scattering through the wind behind him as he closed the distance.
The others saw him coming. Natsu leaned forward immediately on the ice stairway running along the damaged side of the ship. Lucy grabbed the railing beside her hard enough that her knuckles whitened. Wendy's eyes widened slightly as she caught sight of the state he was in.
Because from a distance, he barely looked human anymore. Burned flesh crawled slowly back into place across his torso and shoulder. Several holes through his body visibly knitted themselves together mid-flight, wet strands of muscle and skin reconnecting in uneven motions. One arm still hung lower than the other from earlier damage, though bone was already cracking back into alignment beneath the skin.
Then the repaired wing spasmed once. He clipped the side of the ship hard enough to crater through part of the outer hull before smashing onto the main deck in a violent tumble of shattered wood and twisted metal. The impact bounced him once, then sent him skidding nearly thirty feet across the planks before he finally stopped in a heap near the broken remains of a cannon emplacement.
The ship shook from it, and for a second, nobody moved. Steam rolled off him from the rapid shift between ocean depths and open air. Blackened seawater pooled beneath his body, immediately beginning to rot the damaged deck around him in slow spreading patches.
Then the healing became obvious. Burned flesh crept across exposed ribs. One shattered collarbone forced itself back into place beneath torn skin with a series of wet cracks. The ruined remains of his left wing twitched violently before fresh membrane slowly stretched itself between the broken supports.
Aelius planted one hand against the deck. Pushed upward once, only to fail halfway. Wood splintered beneath his fingers. Then he forced himself up anyway. Slowly at first, every movement heavy from accumulated damage, but he kept rising until he stood fully upright again. Water poured from him steadily while his wings shifted behind his back, one dragging slightly lower than the other.
Around him, Fairy Tail stared. Not because he got back up, that part they expected by now. It was the condition he'd returned in. Gray's ice stairway creaked behind the group as the others finally reached the deck fully. Erza's eyes moved over the burns, the holes through his body, the half-regenerated wing. Lucy looked like she wanted to say something and couldn't decide where to even start. Wendy already had magic gathering instinctively around her hands before stopping herself when she noticed his wounds were already closing.
Natsu was the first one to move. He stepped closer, eyes locked past Aelius toward the ocean below, where dark magic still pulsed beneath the surface. "Is he still alive?"
Aelius nodded once just as the ocean beneath the ship bulged upward. Then exploded apart as Hades emerged from the sea, surrounded by black magic, hovering above the water while streams poured from his clothes. The damage Aelius had inflicted was still there, ruined sections of skin, corrupted flesh, shattered fabric, but even as they watched, it continued healing in real time beneath the pulsing darkness around his chest.
The pressure rolling off him hit the deck a second later. Lucy and Wendy visibly staggered. Hades's visible eye swept across the gathered Fairy Tail mages before settling back on Aelius.
"You really think more pests can stop me? I'm no fool, Aelius." He spat the name with enough venom that Aelius briefly wondered if he could eat it to regain his magic. "You cannot fight at full power with shrimps like these around."
The pressure behind the words rolled across the ship harder than the ocean wind. Black magic bled off Hades in waves now, distorting the air around him while the sea beneath his feet churned violently from sheer overflow.
Nobody on Fairy Tail's side liked hearing that, mostly because there was truth in it. Aelius's magic was catastrophic in close quarters. Every large spell he'd thrown had infected entire sections of the battlefield indiscriminately. Even now, the deck around him remained warped and blackened from passive leakage alone, fungus slowly crawling across broken boards near his feet before dying off as his control tightened again.
But before anyone else could answer, Natsu stepped forward with fire already crawling up his arms. "Shrimps?" he snapped. "The hell's wrong with shrimp?!"
Lucy stared at him. "That's what you focused on?"
Gray cracked his neck once, ice creeping down his arms as he stepped up beside Natsu. "Pretty sure he meant weaklings, dumbass."
"Oh." Natsu pointed at Hades immediately. "Then shut up, eyepatch!"
A vein pulsed once near Hades's temple. Erza moved next. She simply stepped forward beside the others, sword sliding free with that familiar metallic hiss while her armor shifted into place piece by piece around her body. The air around her sharpened instantly. "You speak too much for someone who continues failing to kill one mage," she said evenly.
Hades's eye shifted toward her. Then Wendy moved up beside Aelius without hesitation. The younger girl looked genuinely nervous under the pressure pouring off Hades, but still raised both hands as pale healing wind gathered around them. Her magic flowed carefully over Aelius's damaged body, reinforcing what his regeneration was already trying to do instead of fighting against it.
Fresh tissue rebuilt faster, almost immediately. The burned wing twitched hard behind him as the healing accelerated. Aelius glanced down at Wendy briefly. She looked up at him with determined panic written all over her face. "Please don't run off alone again." He gave a short nod. That seemed to satisfy her somehow.
Hades watched the interaction in silence for a moment before dark amusement twisted across his face again, though colder now. "How pathetic," he said. "This is what Fairy Tail became after Makarov inherited it? Children clinging to each other, pretending sentiment is strength?"
"Worked pretty well against Phantom Lord," Lucy shot back before she could stop herself.
"And Laxus," Gray added.
"And Jellal," Natsu said immediately.
Hades's magic pressure intensified sharply, causing several cracks to spread through already damaged sections of the hull as black magic circles ignited behind him again, larger than before, rotating slowly over the ocean surface like eclipses forming one atop another.
"This guild," Hades said, voice quieter now, which somehow made it worse, "has spent generations throwing away true greatness for weakness and compassion." His gaze settled on each of them in turn. "Makarov softened you. The world should fear Fairy Tail. Instead, it laughs." The magic circles behind him expanded further across the sky, layered black-red formations rotating over the ocean like opening jaws. Even unfinished, the amount of magic pouring from them made the airship creak beneath everyone's feet. The ocean below had stopped moving naturally entirely, the water now shifting in slow, violent pulses from Hades's pressure alone.
Aelius watched the formations for half a second. then looked sideways toward the others. "Hit him," he said flatly. "Everything you've got."
Wendy looked between all of them nervously before understanding hit her. "Aelius," she started.
"I'll stop the attacks. You just focus on hitting him."
A faint smile returned to the old man's face as he listened to Aelius. "So that is your answer." Dark magic thickened around him further. "Throw yourself in front of death while the children strike from behind you. Very fitting for Fairy Tail."
Aelius didn't respond. His wings spread instead. still regenerating. But functional enough now that the full span stretched outward behind him once more. The emerald markings across them glowed faintly through torn sections of membrane while black plague magic rolled off him in dense currents.
Then Fairy Tail moved. Natsu launched first. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" Flames detonated around him as he shot across the deck toward Hades like a living artillery shell.
Gray moved beside him instantly. "Ice Make: Lance!" Dozens of ice spears formed overhead before firing forward in a storm.
Erza requipped mid-charge, armor flashing into place as blades surrounded her in rotating rings of steel. Lucy's keys flashed gold. "Open! Gate of the Lion!" Leo appeared in a burst of light beside her while Wendy's enchantments surged outward across everyone simultaneously, reinforcing speed and strength together.
The entire deck exploded into motion. And Hades answered in kind as the magic circles behind him fired. "Amaterasu Formula Twenty-Eight." The sky turned black-red. Massive pillars of destruction erupted downward toward the charging Fairy Tail mages in overlapping waves, enough force packed into each strike to obliterate entire sections of the airship if they landed cleanly.
Aelius moved before the first impact. "Plague God's Carrion Gale." Both wings slammed downward with enough force that the deck beneath him cracked apart. A storm of plague-laden wind exploded upward into the incoming barrage, green-black currents colliding against the descending magic pillars head-on.
The first Formula strike detonated against the gale. The explosion swallowed half the sky above the ship. Aelius planted both feet hard against the deck as the impact drove backward through him. flesh split open across his torso again, instantly under the pressure. His wings trembled violently while the plague storm fought to divert the incoming magic away from the others instead of meeting it directly.
A second pillar broke through. Aelius intercepted it as he surged upward through the air and slammed directly into the descending blast with crossed arms and open wings. The impact exploded against him in a flood of black-red destruction that scorched flesh from bone across his side.
But it stopped there. Behind him, Natsu reached Hades. "Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!" Flames crashed across the old man's barrier hard enough that the surrounding air distorted. Gray's ice lances struck an instant later, detonating across the same point while Erza descended from above in a rain of blades.
Hades's visible eye narrowed. Another Formula circle ignited near Erza. Aelius saw it. His damaged wing snapped outward immediately. "Plague God's fungal Husk."
Disease-armored growth erupted around Erza and Gray both seconds before the Formula detonated against them. The explosion still blasted them backward across the deck, but the layered mushroom armor absorbed enough force to keep them alive instead of being vaporized.
Aelius hit the deck hard after intercepting the previous attack, one knee slamming through weakened planks. Then Hades pointed directly toward Lucy and Wendy. Grimoire Rays fired instantly. Black beams screamed across the battlefield fast enough that neither girl could fully react. Aelius was already there. One wing beat propelled him sideways across the deck in a blur of motion. He caught both beams across his back instead. The impact tore through regenerated flesh immediately. Blood sprayed across the deck. But the attacks stopped with him.
Behind Aelius, Lucy's eyes widened slightly. "You idiot!" Another Formula circle ignited overhead. Then another. Then six more.
Hades floated above the ocean, now fully surrounded by rotating destruction magic while Fairy Tail assaulted him from every direction. Natsu's flames forced back black magic at close range. Gray kept freezing sections of the battlefield to interrupt movement. Erza hammered against defensive barriers with relentless pressure while Leo and Lucy struck from blind angles.
And every time Hades retaliated with something lethal, Aelius intercepted it. Again. And again. And again. Each block tore more damage into him. Burns layered over half-healed wounds. Holes reopened through muscle and bone. One wing started failing again from repeated impacts. The battle stopped feeling like a fight and started feeling like a disaster held together by momentum.
The airship groaned constantly now beneath the strain of colliding magic. Entire sections of the upper decks had collapsed inward from repeated Formula detonations. Fires spread along shattered rigging only to get frozen over by Gray before plague spores smothered them into black sludge seconds later. The ocean around the vessel churned in violent spirals from the sheer pressure rolling off Hades. And still he kept healing.
Natsu slammed a flaming kick across the side of Hades's head hard enough to bend the air around the impact point. Erza followed immediately after, one blade carving through the old man's shoulder while another pierced clean through his side.
For half a second, it looked good. Then dark magic pulsed from Hades's chest again. The wounds closed. Muscle rewove itself. Torn flesh sealed shut. Even shattered bone corrected itself beneath the skin with sickening efficiency. The old man barely staggered before retaliating with enough force to send both Natsu and Erza crashing backward through opposite sections of the deck.
Aelius caught another Grimoire Ray across his forearm before it reached Wendy. The beam tore through flesh to the bone. His arm regenerated around the damage before the blood had even fully hit the floorboards. But his eyes stayed on Hades now, watching. Because something felt wrong.
Not the healing itself. He'd already accepted the old monster could regenerate somehow. It was the way Hades moved. Even while fighting all of them at once, even while taking attacks from multiple angles, he kept subtly repositioning. Redirecting clashes. Shifting the battlefield. Away from the rear of the ship. Another Amaterasu Formula detonated near the starboard side. Hades redirected the explosion upward instead of backward. Aelius noticed. Gray did too, judging by the brief narrowing of his eyes after another ice barrage forced Hades sideways, only for the old man to immediately counter-move away from the rear section again.
The back of the ship looked mostly untouched compared to the rest. Damaged, yes. But protected. Aelius ducked beneath another chain spell and finally looked properly.
The rear structure sat elevated above the lower decks, built heavier than the rest of the vessel with reinforced plating running beneath it. Unlike the shattered sections elsewhere, that area had taken almost no direct damage despite the scale of the fight.
And Hades kept defending the angle without making it obvious. Which meant it mattered.
Natsu roared past Aelius again in a blast of fire, driving straight toward Hades while Lucy and Leo pressured from below. Hades answered with another gravity pulse that flattened half the deck.
Aelius dug his fingers into the wood to resist it.
And watched Hades carefully during the cast. The magic pressure surged hardest from his chest again. Like something external fed into him. Then Hades shifted slightly mid-spell to avoid getting pushed closer toward the rear structure.
Another pulse of healing rolled across Hades's body as fresh damage from Erza's blades disappeared. The old man raised one hand. "Amaterasu Formula One Hundred." Massive seals ignited overhead. Everyone felt the change instantly.
Aelius's damaged wings beat hard enough to launch him across the collapsing deck while the seal was still forming. Hades locked onto the movement and reacted harder than he had all fight.
Every nearby magic circle pivoted sharply toward Aelius. Aelius's eyes locked onto the reinforced rear structure as he accelerated. There was something back there, something Hades could not afford to lose.