"Paralysis Magic: Poison Claw—Hundred-Fold Poison Jellyfish!"
Seeing the pink-haired Sherry neutralized so effortlessly, the dog-faced mage, Toby, who had previously ambushed Natsu, crept silently through the shadows behind Goku. With a jagged snarl, he lunged, his poisoned claws swiping at the boy's back. However, the strike passed harmlessly through Goku's torso as if cutting through mist.
It was an Afterimage. Goku had moved so swiftly he left a physical ghost behind to bait the attack.
"Sleepy Boy Palm!"
Goku appeared above Toby, his palm descending with a light, rhythmic pressure onto the crown of the dog-faced mage's head. Toby's eyes rolled back instantly, and he slumped into a heap on the dirt.
As Goku finished off the elite duo, Gray finally managed to overcome Yuka's high-frequency vibrations. With a decisive strike, he knocked the blue-haired mage aside and stood face-to-face with his senior disciple, Lyon.
"All together! Take him down!"
The lower-ranked mages in uniform, terrified by the sight of their leaders falling, surged toward Goku in a desperate wave. They hoped to overwhelm him with sheer numbers before he and Gray could link up. However, their magical aptitude was mediocre at best—nowhere near the level of Sherry or Toby. To Goku, they weren't even a threat; they were obstacles.
Moving like a blur of orange and blue, Goku wove through the crowd. With precise taps and light palm strikes, the armored mages either fell into a deep slumber or found themselves rooted to the spot, their bodies locked in magical stasis.
"Gray!"
Just as Goku cleared the last of the grunts, a sharp cry from Lucy rang out. He spun around to see Gray being catapulted through the air by a massive fist of ice that had erupted from the earth.
"Lucy, look after Gray!"
Seeing a flock of razor-sharp ice vultures manifesting in the air to chase the falling Gray—aiming for a lethal follow-up—Goku vanished. He reappeared mid-air beside Gray, shattering the ice birds with a casual wave of his hand before catching Gray and tossing him gently toward Lucy, who was already tending to the paralyzed Natsu.
"Your magic is pretty interesting," Goku said, landing softly in front of Lyon. His face lit up with genuine curiosity. Among all the mages who had attacked, this was the only one whose presence felt significant enough to merit a real challenge. The others had been far too brittle.
"You've got some nerve, brat. Defeating Sherry and Toby is an achievement, I suppose," Lyon remarked, his voice dripping with icy condescension. He spared a brief glance at his fallen elites, but his gaze didn't linger. He didn't care about the uniformed mages either; they were merely commoners whose lives had been ruined by Deliora, useful only for fueling the Moon Drip ritual.
"It's a pity you had to encounter me," Lyon said, tilting his chin up arrogantly. "The greatest Ice-Make mage in history. I can manifest my will with a single hand, a feat that proves I have already surpassed Ur."
In Lyon's estimation, Goku's techniques required close-quarters contact. He believed that as long as he kept his distance, the boy's physical prowess would be neutralized. Furthermore, given Goku's age, Lyon assumed the boy's internal magic reserves were shallow—incapable of sustaining a prolonged magical duel.
"The one who is truly foolish is you, Lyon," Gray called out from the sidelines, leaning heavily against Lucy. He looked at his self-absorbed senior and shook his head with a mix of pity and grim anticipation. "You have no idea what kind of monster you're facing. But maybe this is for the best... maybe he's the only one who can make you see the truth about yourself."
"The greatest Ice-Make mage? That's awesome!" Goku's eyes sparkled. He had initially gauged Lyon's power as only slightly above Natsu or Gray's, planning to use perhaps twenty percent of his strength to spar. But if this man was truly a legend who had surpassed the woman who sealed a world-class demon, then Goku couldn't afford to be sloppy.
As a martial artist, underestimating a peak opponent was a cardinal sin.
"Giant Magic!"
A brilliant gold magic circle flared beneath Goku's feet. His muscles surged and expanded as his frame grew to a height of four meters. The ground groaned under his increased weight. He dropped into a low, firm Turtle School stance, his presence suddenly becoming as heavy as a mountain.
"Come on!"
"You can only grow to three or four meters? Hmph, hardly impressive," Lyon scoffed. He knew of Giant Magic; it was a rare but straightforward discipline. In his mind, such a small increase in size suggested a novice who had barely scratched the surface of the craft.
"Ice-Make: Iron Fist!"
Lyon snapped his fingers. A trail of frost raced across the ground like a lightning bolt, reaching Goku's feet in an instant. A massive fist of solid, jagged ice erupted from the earth, slamming upward with the force of a battering ram directly into Goku's chin.
*DUANG!*
Goku didn't even attempt to dodge. He took the full force of the rising fist right on the jaw. The impact created a shockwave that kicked up a circle of dust, but Goku's head barely tilted back. He didn't fly backward like Gray had; he didn't even stumble. Instead, the massive ice fist shattered upon contact with his skin, exploding into a cloud of harmless snow and crystalline shards.
"What?!" Lyon's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. A cold seed of doubt began to sprout in his gut.
"Ice-Make: Great Ape!"
A frost-covered gorilla, fifteen meters tall, materialized behind Goku and brought both its massive fists down in a crushing hammer-blow. Goku simply tilted his head, letting the strike whistle past his ear, then threw a backhand punch that caused the entire ice construct to disintegrate into powder.
Lyon was beginning to lose his cool. "How... how?! Ice-Make: Heavenly Dragon's Strangling!"
Five colossal ice dragons erupted from the ground, encircling Goku and lunging simultaneously to crush him within their frozen coils.
*BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*
Five explosions rang out in such rapid succession they sounded like a single chord. The five dragons were obliterated into sparkling mist. Goku had thrown five punches so fast they were invisible to the naked eye, meeting each dragon head-on.
"The warm-up is over!" Goku shouted, his voice full of excitement as he looked at Lyon. "Now, show me your real power!"
Goku was genuinely expectant. In his experience, powerful fighters always started with feelers and probes to gauge an opponent before unleashing their true, world-shaking techniques. It was a standard tactical approach. He assumed that as the strongest ice mage who had surpassed Ur, Lyon's current attacks were just basic opening moves.
He was eagerly waiting for Lyon to reveal a spell even more powerful than the Iced Shell—something truly divine.
However, Lyon was currently staring at his trembling hands, his mind reeling. *Warm-up? Probes?* Those ice dragons were his ultimate offensive spell—the peak of his magical output. And the boy had shattered them like they were cheap glass toys.
The realization hit him like a physical blow: the gap between them wasn't just large; it was an abyss. The surpassing Ur narrative he had built his entire life around was crumbling. If he couldn't even scratch this child, then what was he?
His confidence didn't just crack; it shattered.
He had... broken defense.