A putrid, metallic wind came howling toward him. The stench of blood and darkness twisted in the air as dozens of shadow hounds charged, their fangs and claws glinting with lethal light under the dim glow of the underground chamber.
The dark magic seeping from their bodies carried a chill that seemed to reach past flesh and bone, straight into the soul itself — a suffocating, icy pressure that made the air viscous and heavy.
Yet, in the face of an assault that would drive any normal wizard to despair, Hoshino Arashi's expression merely curved into a faint, cold smile — one tinged with a strange sense of release.
"Very well."
His voice was calm, yet it sliced cleanly through the chorus of snarling beasts.
"Then I'll let you… and this entire world… witness my true power."
He no longer held back.
That immense power he had long suppressed with sheer will and reason — the storm he had caged deep within his being — finally broke free.
It wasn't like the awakening of a volcano. It was like an ancient beast, imprisoned for countless ages, shattering its chains in one earth-rending roar.
BOOM—!
He slowly raised his hand, spreading his fingers, and pressed his palm against his chest.
It was a simple motion — yet one filled with unwavering resolve.
Beneath his hand, a golden sigil — formed purely from condensed magic — flared into life and detonated in an instant.
VMMM—!
A brilliance beyond all description erupted from within Hoshino Arashi's body, bursting outward like a tidal wave of light.
This light wasn't warm. It carried divine majesty — pure, absolute, unyielding. Its radiance instantly erased the gloom, washing away every trace of corruption that had saturated the chamber.
In a heartbeat, the hall of shadows was no more — replaced by an ocean of dazzling white.
It was as if the entire galaxy had been compressed into his body, then unleashed in one catastrophic supernova.
Bathed in that light — so pure it rejected even the concept of impurity — the dark hounds screamed in agony.
The corrosive black energy cloaking them melted away like frost thrown into acid. The air filled with the sound of hissing and cracking, black smoke curling upward as their fleshless forms sizzled.
Their charge faltered.
Their killing intent crumbled.
Every one of them froze mid-pounce, as though struck by divine judgment.
And then — in Gildarts' eyes, wide enough to nearly burst from their sockets — the impossible began.
Tiny motes of silver-white light shimmered beneath Arashi's skin.
They pulsed, multiplied, connected — tracing divine geometry across his flesh — until they took shape as scales.
Not human skin, not illusion — but true dragon scales, gleaming like fragments of stars forged into armor.
The pattern started from his collarbones, climbed swiftly along the elegant curve of his neck, and spread across half his face — a breathtaking fusion of sanctity and primal ferocity.
At the same time, his eyes transformed.
The dark pupils dissolved, replaced by molten gold, pure and radiant, as if a miniature sun burned in each iris.
Those eyes no longer held human warmth or emotion — only the detached majesty of a being who looked down upon the world from the heavens.
Then came the pressure.
An overwhelming dragon's aura — ancient, supreme, absolute — erupted from him like an invisible tempest.
The Dragon's Presence.
It crushed the air, turned space itself into solid matter.
The very chamber trembled; stone groaned under an invisible weight, walls and floor spider-webbed with cracks as though the entire mountain would soon collapse beneath this power.
"Greetings," Arashi said at last, his voice resonating through the chamber like the toll of a celestial bell.
"Darkness of Ishgar… it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
His voice had changed — no longer the youthful tone of a man, but something vast, metallic, and sacred. Every word vibrated in the listener's bones, each syllable echoing with the resonance of distant stars.
"I am Hoshino Arashi."
"The Dragon Slayer who commands the power of the cosmos—"
"The Celestial Dragon Mage!"
As his declaration fell, he inhaled deeply, his chest expanding as though he were drawing in the very night sky itself.
Endless starlight magic converged at his lips, compressing into a single point — a light so bright that even the edges of space seemed to twist around it.
That was not mere light.
It was an entire galaxy — about to erupt.
Dragon Slayer Secret Art—
"Tenryū no Hōkō! (Heavenly Dragon's Roar!)"
KRAAAAAA—!!!!!!
In that instant, time and space lost all meaning.
A colossal beam of star-forged energy burst from his mouth, consuming everything before it in a blinding torrent of celestial destruction.
It wasn't just a beam — it was a river of galaxies, a flood of countless miniature stars, each one embodying the laws of purification and annihilation.
They roared together, forming a radiant current of extinction that devoured the world.
The black hounds, frozen under the dragon's might, never even had the chance to scream.
Darkness had no right to exist before this light.
Their forms, their magic, their very existence — were erased in less than a heartbeat, reduced to dust finer than ash, then to nothing at all.
Absolute eradication.
The starlight torrent surged onward, unstoppable and merciless.
It struck the far end of the chamber — the obsidian throne that symbolized the power of the Black Sails guild.
A cataclysmic explosion shook the entire island.
The throne, etched with countless defensive runes and reinforced by the strongest magic metals, melted like wax under the divine blaze.
Walls several meters thick shattered; molten debris sprayed outward like a rain of dying meteors.
When the light finally subsided, a vast hole gaped in the rear of the cavern — a tunnel torn straight through solid rock.
Beyond it, under the broken sky, the true stars shimmered faintly in the distance — cold, eternal, and free.
The remaining tremors rolled out like tidal waves, rattling every stone and bone within miles.
Even Erza, still locked in battle with the twin-blade warrior, faltered. Her body stiffened mid-swing, her instincts screaming.
That power…
Pure. Infinite. Divine.
A force far beyond her reach.
When the brilliance finally faded, the once-grand chamber lay in ruins — a wasteland of molten stone and scorched air.
From the shattered remains of the throne, a figure finally crawled out.
The guild master of the Black Sails.
His entire body was charred black, clothes hanging in tatters, skin cracked and smoking like burnt parchment. He looked less like a man than something that had been dragged out of the ashes of Hell.
His face — twisted, broken, contorted with horror — was the very image of despair.
He stared at the boy bathed in the faint afterglow of starlight, his skin still marked with draconic scales.
A sound escaped his throat — half a gasp, half a whimper — as if language itself had abandoned him.
And his body trembled uncontrollably, seized by a fear so deep it bordered on madness.
(End of Chapter)
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[[email protected]/Zukooo]
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