The canyon floor was a nightmare of heat and sulfur. Unlike the silent, decaying gorge where Mortis had fought, this arena was loud, chaotic, and dangerously bright.
Natsu Dragneel and Hoteye stood back-to-back in the center of a deep, cratered depression. All around them, the air was filled with the buzzing of wings—not insects, but hundreds of small, white, clay birds.
Perched high on a ridge overlooking them was Phidias, 'The Artist.' He was a lean, frantic man with wild, clay-stained hair and a magnifying monocle over one eye. He wore a smock covered in pouches of his magical clay, his hands constantly moving, molding, shaping.
"Do you see?!" Phidias shrieked, his voice trembling with a manic, drug-like ecstasy. "The curvature! The aerodynamics! And the potential! Oh, the potential is throbbing inside them!"
He threw a fresh glob of clay into the air. It twisted, morphed, and solidified into a massive, clay centipede.
"Art... is fleeting! Art is a moment! Art... is an EXPLOSION!"
He snapped his fingers.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A dozen clay birds dived at Natsu.
"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!" Natsu roared, spinning and unleashing a wave of fire. The flames hit the clay birds, detonate them prematurely in mid-air.
The shockwave slammed Natsu back, digging his heels into the dirt. "He's annoying! Everything I hit just blows up in my face!"
"Oh, indeed," Hoteye said, his large, blocky face calm amidst the chaos. "His heart is filled with such... violent passion. But passion without foundation is unstable. Liquid Ground!"
Hoteye slammed his palm onto the earth. The solid rock beneath their feet instantly softened, turning into a rolling, wave-like sludge.
A second wave of clay spiders skittered toward them. Hoteye waved his hand, and the liquid earth rose up like a tsunami, swallowing the spiders whole.
Muffled thumps echoed from inside the mud wall. The explosions were contained.
"My earth can swallow his anger," Hoteye preached. "But he is up high. My love cannot reach him there."
Phidias saw his spiders swallowed and frowned. "You... you smothered it? You smothered my art?! You philistine! You boring, flat, ugly man!"
He reached into his largest pouch. "I need a bigger canvas. I need a masterpiece!"
He began to chew the clay—literally eating it—and then spat it out into his hands. He molded furiously.
"Witness! C3: The Garuda!"
He tossed the massive wad of clay into the air. It expanded instantly, inflating into a colossal, dragon-like bird with four wings. It didn't attack. It hovered high above the battlefield, casting a terrifying shadow.
Phidias jumped onto its back, riding it into the sky.
"I'll drop this on the entire canyon!" Phidias laughed, his eyes rolling back in his head with pure euphoria. "The crater... it will be magnificent! The sound... it will be the song of the gods!"
"He's flying!" Natsu yelled, shaking his fist. "Come down here and fight me like a man, you clay-brain!"
"Why would I descend to the level of critics?" Phidias sneered. "Now... burn!"
He dropped a sphere from the Garuda. It wasn't a bird or a spider. It was just a dense, heavy ball of explosive clay, aiming right for Hoteye.
"Heaven's Eye!" Hoteye looked up. "It is too fast! Soften!"
He turned the ground beneath them into a deep pit of quicksand, trying to dive deep to avoid the blast.
KA-BOOOOOM!
The explosion was massive. It vaporized the liquid ground, turning the mud to glass. Natsu and Hoteye were blasted out of the pit, tumbling across the scorched earth.
"Yes! YES! Did you feel that?!" Phidias screamed, hugging himself, shivering with pleasure. "The heat! The destruction! It makes me feel so alive!"
He looked down at the battered mages. "But that was just a sketch. Now for the final stroke."
He patted the neck of his massive clay Garuda. "This big boy... he's going to turn everything within two miles into dust. And I will watch from the clouds!"
Natsu picked himself up, wiping soot from his face. He looked at the sky. He looked at the fire still burning from the last explosion. He sniffed the air.
"Hey... block-head," Natsu said to Hoteye.
"My name is Richard," Hoteye corrected gently.
"Whatever. That clay... it smells weird. It smells like... magic gunpowder. Like sulfur and... fire."
"It is Aether-Form magic," Hoteye explained. "He infuses earth with volatile magical energy. It is essentially... solid fire."
Natsu's eyes widened. A grin, sharp and toothy, spread across his face.
"Solid fire, huh?" Natsu cracked his knuckles. "Then I'm starving."
"Die for my art!" Phidias screamed. "Drop!"
The Garuda opened its mouth and released a barrage of missile-sized clay sculptures. They rained down like hail.
Hoteye prepared to block. "Liquid Ground: Dome!"
"No!" Natsu shouted, jumping in front of Hoteye. "Don't block 'em!"
"What?!"
Natsu opened his mouth. He didn't roar. He inhaled.
A vortex of air formed.
The clay missiles, guided by Phidias's magic, flew straight at Natsu. But instead of hitting him... Natsu caught them.
He caught the first one in his teeth. Crunch.
Phidias, watching from above, froze. "What...?"
Natsu bit down. The clay bomb tried to detonate. But the explosion happened inside Natsu's mouth.
Gulp.
Natsu swallowed.
"Spicy!" Natsu yelled. "More!"
He leaped into the air, intercepting the falling bombs. He caught them, bit them, swallowed them.
Crunch. Gulp. Burp.
Natsu defeats Phidias's logic by eating his magical bombs.
Phidias stared, his monocle cracking from the sheer force of his bulging eye. "He... he's eating my art? He's eating my explosions?!"
The euphoria drained out of him, replaced by a cold, horrified void. His masterpieces. His beautiful, destructive children. They weren't exploding. They weren't creating craters. They were becoming... lunch.
"STOP IT!" Phidias shrieked, pulling at his hair. "YOU'RE RUINING THE AESTHETIC! YOU GLUTTONOUS BARBARIAN!"
"Thanks for the grub!" Natsu roared. His skin began to glow. The magical energy inside the clay was massive. It was high-grade, explosive Aether.
Flames erupted from Natsu's body, hotter and brighter than before. His magic reserves, drained from the earlier fights, were instantly refilled and overflowing.
"I'm all fired up!"
"No! NO!" Phidias was hyperventilating. "You can't eat this! Ultimate Art: C4 Garuda!"
He infused the massive dragon he was riding with all his remaining magic. The dragon began to glow white-hot.
"I'll blow us both up! I'll turn myself into art! You can't eat me!"
He dove the dragon straight at Natsu, a suicide run of pure, artistic spite.
"Hoteye! Give me a boost!" Natsu ordered.
"With love!" Hoteye slammed the ground. A pillar of earth shot upward under Natsu's feet, launching him into the sky like a rocket.
Natsu flew straight at the diving clay dragon.
Phidias screamed, "WITNESS ME!"
Natsu wreathed his fist in the combined power of his own fire and the explosive energy he'd just consumed.
"You call this art?" Natsu roared. "Art isn't about blowing stuff up! Art is about the soul!" (He had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded cool).
"Dragon Slayer Secret Art: CRIMSON LOTUS: EXPLODING FLAME BLADE!"
Natsu didn't eat the dragon. He punched it.
He unleashed a torrent of spiral flames that drilled into the clay beast. The heat was so intense it didn't detonate the clay; it vaporized it.
The Garuda disintegrated.
Phidias, thrown free, watched his masterpiece turn to ash without even a sound.
"My... my art..." he whimpered, tears streaming down his face. "It... fizzled."
Natsu spun in the air and delivered a final, axe-kick to Phidias's head.
WHAM.
Phidias plummeted from the sky, crashing into the softened earth Hoteye had prepared (to keep him alive for interrogation).
The Artist lay there, twitching, his monocle shattered, his spirit broken. He had been defeated not just physically, but philosophically. His explosions had been eaten.
Natsu landed, belching a small puff of smoke. "Man, that guy gave me heartburn."
Hoteye clapped politely. "A magnificent display of digestion. Truly, your stomach is as vast as your love for your friends."
"Let's go find the others," Natsu said, wiping his mouth. "I think the boss is the only one left."
---
The battlefields fell silent.
The mists of decay faded as Mortis fell. The petrified forest stopped screaming as Guignol passed out. The glass plains stopped reflecting malice as Scylla shattered. The earth stopped weeping as Malak was sealed. And the explosions ceased as Phidias was consumed.
One by one, the pillars of the Oracion Seis had crumbled.
On the central plateau, the highest point of the ruined landscape, the air was still.
Brain stood alone. He gripped his staff, his face a mask of calm fury, but his knuckles were white. He could feel it. The magical links to his generals—his "prayers"—were being severed one by one.
They were gone. All of them. Defeated by the alliance he had sought to trap.
He looked across the plateau.
Wendy and Carla were huddled near a rock, safe.
Standing between Brain and his prize was a single figure.
Blake Corvus.
Who hadn't moved an inch since the battle began. He stood relaxed, Tensa Zangetsu held loosely in his right hand, the tip resting on the stone. He hadn't needed to fight. He had simply organized the board, placed his pieces, and watched as his strategy dismantled the dark guild with surgical precision.
After all are defeated, only Brain is left who is now facing Blake.
Brain sneered, the markings on his face pulsing. "You... You arrogant brat. You didn't even draw your sword against me. You just stood there."
"I didn't need to," Blake said, his voice calm, carrying across the distance. "I trusted my team. And they delivered."
"Your team?" Brain laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "You think you've won? You think defeating my pawns means anything? I am Brian! I possess knowledge you cannot comprehend! I am the architect of—"
"You're alone, Brian," Blake cut him off. He took a single step forward. "Guignol. Scylla. Phidias. Mortis. Malak. They're all down. You have no shields left. You have no swords left."
Blake lifted Tensa Zangetsu, pointing the black blade directly at the dark guild master's chest.
"It's just you. And me."
Brian's face twisted. The intellectual facade cracked, revealing the savage desperation beneath. Green magic began to swirl around him, dark and ancient.
"I don't need shields!" Brain roared. "I am the strongest! If I cannot have the girl... I will bury you all in this canyon! Darkness Magic: Genesis Zero!"
A massive void of hungry ghosts and black souls opened behind Brain, screaming for blood.
Blake didn't flinch. His Haki flared the crushing, dominating Conqueror's Haki of a king facing a usurper. The black lightning crackled around his sword, mixing with the void-like aura of his Anti-Magic.
"Then come," Blake said, his eyes turning cold. "Let's see whose darkness is deeper."
The wind howled. The final battle was about to begin.