"Ice-Make: Eagle! Iron Fist! Great Ape! Ice Dragon...!"
Magic power poured out of Lyon like a collapsing dam. He unleashed one Ice-Make spell after another, a frantic barrage aimed at Goku.
Goku casually shattered every frozen construct that came his way. He watched Lyon with a growing sense of confusion.
'The feeling-out phase is over, so why is he still testing me? It's time to show the real stuff.'
"Since you're holding back, I'll go first!"
In a flash, Goku vanished and reappeared directly in Lyon's face. He raised a massive fist and swung downward with crushing momentum: "Breath of Ki, Fourth Form: Thunder Tiger Flash!"
A faint, ethereal tiger's head manifested around his fist, and arcs of golden electricity crackled down his arm.
Faced with this strike, Lyon seemed paralyzed by pure terror. His body wouldn't budge, and he completely forgot to cast a defensive spell. Fortunately for him, Goku's ear caught a desperate shout from the sidelines.
"Goku! Hold back!"
Gray's frantic cry caused Goku's fist to pause for a fraction of a second. That split-second window was all Gray needed. He slid across a flash-frozen path of ice, scooped up Lyon, and dove out of the impact zone.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The moment Goku had activated his Giant Magic, Gray knew things were about to get ugly. A base-form Goku could beat Erza; a Giant-form Goku was an act of god. Lyon was barely stronger than Gray himself—nowhere near Erza's level. Those "test" spells from earlier weren't probes; they were Lyon's absolute limit.
Gray had intervened just in time to prevent his arrogant senior from being turned into a red smear on the grass. Note to self: Never brag around someone as literal-minded as Goku. He actually believes you.
As the dust settled, the villagers and mages peered into the crater Goku had left behind. A hole ten meters wide yawned open, so deep that they could see the dark, churning seawater of the ocean beneath the island.
"He... he punched a hole straight through the island?"
The mere thought of that fist connecting with a human body made everyone's skin crawl.
"Goku, listen," Gray said, panting as he set a trembling Lyon down. "Lyon isn't the strongest Ice-Make mage in history. He's not even close to our Master's level. Those spells just now? That was everything he had."
Goku tilted his head, looking genuinely perplexed.
Lyon remained silent. He stared at the bottomless pit in the earth, his defiance finally extinguished. He finally understood why Ur always said there was always a stronger mage. In the western lands, monsters existed that he couldn't comprehend. This boy was barely twelve or thirteen, yet his power was cataclysmic.
He realized now that if he had succeeded in unsealing Deliora, it wouldn't have been a quest for revenge. He and the orphans following him would have simply been appetizers for the demon. He would have become the ultimate failure of the North.
"Go join a proper guild," Gray sighed, looking at his defeated senior. "It's the only way you'll learn your actual place in the world."
Lyon's arrogance stemmed from staying in the North, where Deliora had wiped out any mage strong enough to challenge him ten years ago. There was no one left to teach him humility. Gray, however, had been educated by the likes of Erza, Laxus, Mystogan, and the old man Gildarts—any one of whom could have handled him with ease.
"Fine," Goku grumbled, deactivating his Giant Magic. "I thought I finally found a king, but it was just a bronze-rank guy."
...
The Silent Observer
"Where did this kid come from?"
Hidden atop a towering tree, the masked man from before watched the scene with wide, trembling eyes. He had files on every S-Class mage in Fairy Tail, but this boy wasn't in them. And his power... it was far beyond S-Class.
*With him here, unsealing the demon is impossible. I need to report this to Jellal and the Master.*
He glanced toward the temple one last time. With the moon gone, there was no way to gather Moon Drip. Staying was pointless. But as he turned to leave, he froze.
The boy from the village was standing right behind him on the branch.
"Good evening. Are you with those guys?"
"No! Just passing through! Passing through!" the masked man stammered, his heart hammering. He didn't wait for an answer, leaping away and fleeing into the darkness at top speed.
Goku didn't chase him. He had sensed a flicker of malice from this direction earlier, followed by a hidden ki signature, so he had Apparated over to check it out. Since the guy had no intention of fighting and claimed to be a traveler, Goku let him go.
...
The battle was over. A thoroughly humbled Lyon and his subordinates joined the villagers around the bonfire. As the flames crackled, Lyon shared his story. After learning Ur had died to seal Deliora, he had dedicated his life to breaking that seal just to kill the demon himself—to prove he was better than his teacher. The orphans of the North, driven by their own hatred of Deliora, had flocked to his cause.
"But even though I was sure I could kill it," Lyon admitted, staring into the fire, "I never actually figured out how to break Ur's seal on my own."