Chapter 358: 3,000 Clones
Whoosh——!!
The pitch-black beam of highly condensed spiritual pressure rapidly expanded, tearing through the very fabric of the atmosphere as it plummeted toward Mard Geer Tartaros. The sheer kinetic force of the Cero Oscuras created a vacuum, ripping up the shattered terrain of the floating island before the attack even made contact.
Boom——!!
A dazzling, apocalyptic light erupted across the ground, vaporizing everything caught within its catastrophic radius. The deafening roar of the explosion swallowed all other sounds on the battlefield, sending violent shockwaves rippling out for miles. Debris, shattered stone, and ash rained down like a localized meteor shower.
After what felt like an eternity, the blinding light finally subsided.
A massive, smoldering crater had been carved into the earth. Mard Geer knelt at the very center of the devastation, surrounded by the charred, crumbling remnants of his giant demonic vines.
At the critical moment right before impact, the Underworld King had reacted just in time to cast his Curse, wrapping himself in a dense, multi-layered cocoon of giant thorny vines to withstand the brunt of Ren's Cero Oscuras.
Even so, his defenses had been fundamentally overwhelmed. Mard Geer's breathing was ragged, his usually immaculate garments torn and scorched. He was covered in lacerations, dark blood dripping from his chin and pooling on the cracked earth beneath him. Every single one of Ren's attacks had felt like a colossal iron hammer slamming directly into his internal organs, rattling his very soul.
Mard Geer gritted his teeth, his amber eyes trembling with a mixture of absolute rage and underlying dread. This guy... how can a mere human possess power to this extent? This defies all logic. He eclipses even the Etherious!
"Kyoka!! Can you hear me?!"
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Pushing past the agonizing pain radiating through his chest, Mard Geer forcefully utilized Telepathy to bridge his mind with Kyoka's.
Miles away, Kyoka was locked in a brutal, high-speed melee with Erza Scarlet. The clash of Erza's Requip blades against Kyoka's elongating demonic talons sent sparks flying into the dim air. Hearing the Underworld King's frantic telepathic message echo directly in her mind, the demoness couldn't help but falter, leaving an opening that Erza immediately exploited with a glancing strike to her shoulder.
Kyoka leaped backward, clutching her bleeding arm. "Mard Geer-sama?!"
"This human called Ren is far too much of a nuisance," Mard Geer's voice echoed in her head, cold and authoritative despite his injuries. "I've decided to move up the activation time for Face. You're near the Control Room right now, aren't you?"
Kyoka glanced over her shoulder toward the massive, glowing lacrima console at the heart of the chamber. "Yes... but I cannot operate Face either! The activation sequence is sealed!"
"Do not worry. Face has already been structurally primed. Even you can move up its launch. Isn't there a Main Magic Core housed in the center of the Control Room? Just perform a Living Body Link to it yourself."
Kyoka's eyes widened in sudden horror. "A Living Body Link?"
"Exactly. By doing so, you will become the biological key to activating Face, bypassing the encrypted countdown entirely, and you'll be able to force its launch immediately. Once Face is activated, every Mage on this wretched continent will lose their magic power. They will be utterly defenseless. After that, Guild Master E.N.D. will be resurrected, and our victory will be absolute."
"This... Mard Geer-sama..." Kyoka hesitated, her voice trembling slightly over the psychic link. "If I perform a Living Body Link between such a massive, volatile amount of Ethernano and my own Cursed Energy... the feedback will incinerate my nervous system. I will die."
For a demon whose entire existence was defined by superior biology and inflicting pain on others, the sudden prospect of self-destruction was a jarring reality to swallow. Her life was fundamentally at stake; even if the mission was flawlessly completed, she would not live to see the dawn.
"So what? Are you a demon of Tartaros, or are you afraid of death?" Mard Geer's voice turned chillingly sharp, dripping with manipulation.
Kyoka's breath hitched. She looked at Erza, who was already lunging forward with her dual swords raised, a fierce, unyielding light in her eyes.
"No! If it is to achieve the long-cherished wish of Tartaros, I will gladly offer up this lowly life!"
"Then start quickly! This human named Ren possesses strength far beyond my wildest expectations. If I fall to him, the rest of you will inevitably fall soon as well. No one will be left to witness whether the grand wish of Tartaros is fulfilled. I promise you, Kyoka... after you sacrifice yourself, I will definitely complete our destiny as demons of the Books of Zeref. Everything is for Zeref."
Hearing Mard Geer invoke the name of their creator, the absolute god of their existence, Kyoka's hesitation vanished. A fanatical, crazed light ignited in her eyes. She parried Erza's incoming strike with a burst of Curse power, using the recoil to launch herself backward, directly toward the Main Magic Core in the center of the Control Room.
"Aaaaaaaaaargh!!"
Kyoka slammed her bare hands into the jagged surface of the massive lacrima. Almost instantly, toxic purple veins bulged across her pale skin as the Living Body Link initiated. The agonizing clash between her dark Cursed Energy and the overwhelming magical data of the crystal forced a blood-curdling scream from her throat.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
High above them, a massive holographic map projected from the Main Magic Core. Suddenly, bright red spots began to light up across the entire digital topography of the Ishgar continent, one by one, blinking with ominous synchronization.
"What are you doing?!" Erza shouted, skidding to a halt. Seeing the sheer volume of red dots appearing on the map, a sudden, suffocating feeling of dread gripped her heart.
Kyoka fell to her knees, her body trembling violently as her flesh began to crack and splinter like broken porcelain. "These... these are all the Face units distributed across the continent," she gasped out, a deranged, bloody smile stretching across her face. "The Living Body Link is complete. Now, my very heartbeat has become one with the Face activation device."
"What?! Are you doing this to activate Face earlier?!" Erza immediately guessed the demon's horrifying goal.
"Exactly! Face will activate in mere minutes! Of course, the absolute price for this bypass is my death." Kyoka coughed up a splatter of black blood, her eyes locked onto Erza with manic triumph. "Trading my single life for the lives of every Mage on the entire continent... that is an absolute bargain!"
Erza's face drained of all color. Her grip on her swords tightened until her knuckles turned white. At this point, with the Living Body Link already established and the countdown irreparably accelerated, she couldn't stop the disaster from happening. Even if she cut Kyoka down right now, the demon's death would likely just trigger the immediate detonation of the pulse bombs.
Was every Mage across the entire continent really going to die? All of her friends? Her guild family?
No!
She absolutely couldn't let such a thing happen!
She couldn't stop it... but someone else could. There was only one person who constantly defied reality itself.
"Ren!!!" Erza screamed at the top of her lungs, projecting her voice through the shattered ceiling of the facility and out into the chaotic skies above.
Hearing Erza's desperate shout echoing across the battlefield, Ren hovered in mid-air. He slowly turned his cold, Hollow-fied gaze toward the ruined control tower.
"Ren! The activation time for Face has been moved up!!" Erza yelled, her voice laced with sheer panic. "There are too many of them!! If they aren't destroyed instantly, every Mage on the continent will be wiped out!!"
Ren's indifferent expression immediately turned serious upon hearing Erza's words. His emerald-green Hollow eyes locked onto the glowing holographic projection behind Kyoka. A vast, terrifying number of blinking red dots were displayed, scattered from the furthest coastal borders to the deepest mountains. Each dot represented a catastrophic Magic Pulse Bomb.
"I understand," Ren's voice echoed, devoid of panic but heavy with absolute resolve. "I will destroy all the Faces."
Ren knew he couldn't delay for even a single second. If he didn't wipe out every single one of those bombs simultaneously, the resulting pulse of anti-magic particles would strip the continent of its Ethernano. Without magic, the Mages would fall, and he himself would be severely crippled, likely leading to his death.
Down in the crater, Mard Geer slowly forced himself to his feet. Hearing Ren's declaration, the Underworld King let out a raspy, blood-soaked laugh.
"Hehe... it's completely useless! Do you even know how many Faces there are scattered across the land? 3,000. A full three thousand units! And they are distributed all over the vast continent of Ishgar. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how much destructive energy you possess, you cannot possibly traverse the continent to destroy that many in a matter of minutes! The extinction of you humans is already a predetermined future! Stop your pointless struggling and accept your despair! Hahahaha!"
Ren stared down at the laughing demon, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"3,000, huh? That's a decent number," Ren muttered, his voice calm enough to cut through the Underworld King's maniacal laughter. "But it's not an impossible amount. Just because your pathetic guild lacks the capacity to comprehend such a feat doesn't mean others can't."
Ren closed his eyes.
`[System Message: Deactivating Dimensional Take Over - Ulquiorra Cifer.]`
The suffocating, ocean-like weight of spiritual pressure that had blanketed the battlefield instantly vanished. The bone-white Hollow mask fragments dissolved into glowing particles, and the massive black bat wings folded inward before disappearing completely.
`[System Message: Initiating Full Body Take Over - Minato Namikaze (The Yellow Flash of the Leaf).]`
A sudden, blazing surge of warm, life-affirming chakra erupted from Ren's core, completely replacing the cold nihilism of his Hollow form. His dark hair began to shift rapidly, growing out and turning from pitch-black to a brilliant, spiky golden-yellow. His eyes shifted from their eerie, tear-stained green to a striking, piercing azure blue.
Next came his attire—a silver Konoha Village ninja forehead protector manifested across his brow. His clothes morphed seamlessly into a dark blue long-sleeved outfit, covered by a sturdy green Jonin flak jacket. Finally, with a sharp snap of fabric in the wind, a pristine white Hokage cloak draped over his shoulders. The kanji for 'Fourth Hokage' was emblazoned proudly on his back, bordered by jagged, crimson flame patterns along the bottom hem.
Ren slowly raised his hands, bringing his index and middle fingers together in a distinct cross shape.
"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Ren channeled a colossal ocean of chakra through his pathways, molding the energy into thousands of perfect physical copies.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!!!!
Countless deafening popping sounds erupted in a rapid-fire chain reaction. Massive plumes of thick white smoke engulfed the entire airspace above Plutogrim. When the smoke cleared a split second later, three thousand identical Rens appeared all at once, floating densely packed together and blotting out the sky.
[Akarin's Note: The 'Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu' (Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu) is a Kinjutsu (Forbidden Technique) in the Naruto universe. Unlike standard illusions, it creates tangible, physical copies of the user. Because it divides the user's chakra evenly among all clones, creating thousands of them requires a monstrous, almost unfathomable reservoir of energy to prevent the user from dying of exhaustion.]
"What—?!!"
Pluto Mard Geer and the surviving demons of Tartaros stared up at the sky, utterly paralyzed by terror. The sheer scale of the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu shattered their comprehension of reality. How could one human multiply his physical presence and energy signature three thousand times over?!
Even the battle-hardened members of Fairy Tail were equally shell-shocked.
Down on the battlefield, Natsu Dragneel swayed on his feet, his enhanced Dragon Slayer vision desperately trying to track the overlapping, vibrating movements of three thousand identical people floating above him. His face turned a sickly shade of green, and he clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Ugh... I'm gonna hurl...!" Natsu gagged, his equilibrium completely overloading from the visual sensory chaos.
Happy, hovering next to him, sweatdropped and quipped, "I thought you only got motion sickness on transportation! How can you get motion sick just from looking at people?!"
High above, the real Ren, standing at the forefront of his massive clone army, raised his hand and pointed outward toward the vast horizon of Ishgar.
"Go. Destroy every single Face."
As soon as Ren finished speaking...
Swish swish swish swish swish!!!
A synchronized chorus of rushing wind echoed across the sky. Utilizing the Flying Thunder God technique and high-speed Body Flicker, all three thousand Shadow Clones vanished into thin air simultaneously, leaving nothing but trailing golden sparks and gusts of displaced air in their wake.
"What happened?!" Mard Geer screamed, his composure finally breaking.
"Where did they go?!!" Kyoka shrieked from the control room, bleeding profusely as the Living Body Link continued to drain her life force.
At that exact moment, thousands of miles away in a desolate, rocky canyon, a brilliant flash of yellow light illuminated the shadows. One of Ren's Shadow Clones materialized seamlessly in front of a towering white pillar. The gigantic stone structure was pure white, intricately carved, and at the very top rested a massive, uncanny human face with a stoic, subtly mocking smile that felt profoundly disgusting to look at.
"So this is the Magic Council's prized Magic Pulse Bomb, 'Face'?" Ren murmured, gazing up at the ominous structure. He narrowed his blue eyes, his blonde hair fluttering in the canyon breeze. "To think those bureaucratic fools created such a dangerously flawed weapon of mass destruction. It's practically begging to be used against them."
Ren raised his right hand. A swirling vortex of condensed blue chakra rapidly began to rotate and form in his palm. Rasengan.
But he didn't stop there. Immediately after the sphere stabilized, he forcibly injected an intense Wind Nature Transformation into the swirling chakra.
Vroom vroom vroom——!!
A piercing, high-frequency whistle rang out, screeching like a thousand birds as the chakra blades spun fast enough to slice the very air molecules apart. The standard blue sphere rapidly expanded, sprouting four massive, razor-sharp blades of pure, violently spinning wind chakra.
The Rasengan had perfectly evolved into the pinnacle of destructive shape manipulation: the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.
"Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!!"
With a powerful thrust of his arm, Ren slammed the screaming vortex of blades directly into the center of the 'Face' pillar.
Boom——!!
Crack——!!
A massive sphere of razor-sharp wind expanded upon impact, enveloping the giant pulse bomb. Millions of microscopic chakra needles pierced through the dense magical stone at a cellular level, ripping its structural integrity to absolute shreds.
Under the devastating, molecular-level attack of the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, the towering 'Face' bomb was violently shattered, crumbling into a storm of harmless, pulverized white dust.
One had to admit, although Naruto Uzumaki often seemed a bit dim-witted in his daily life, the sheer, unadulterated attack power of his signature Wind Release: Rasenshuriken was undeniably a top-tier, devastating S-rank Ninjutsu.
And right now, across the continent of Ishgar, two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine other clones were preparing to unleash the exact same devastation.
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