Chapter 66: I'm Going to Make My Move
"So fast—!!!"
Feeling the strong wind from the vacuum he left behind rush at her face, Lucy was a little stunned. She stared, wide-eyed, at the empty, smoking crater in the railroad tracks.
Fast! It was too fast!
It was like teleportation, but worse. Teleportation was instantaneous. This was physical. He had covered hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye, and he was still accelerating. In just three seconds, Lucy could only see Ren's tiny back as a black dot on the railway, rapidly disappearing into the horizon.
"What... what is this?!"
Lucy was utterly bewildered, staring blankly at Erza and Happy, her mind failing to process what she had just witnessed. "Is this speed magic? Or some kind of teleportation magic?"
Erza, her hand still raised from her warning, slowly shook her head, her own expression one of grim awe. "Neither. This... this is just Ren's normal running speed in this form."
"Nor... normal running speed?!" Lucy's voice cracked, her brain dumbfounded. "How is this normal?! It's not normal at all!!! He's running! He's running to catch a train that's been gone for an hour! How?!"
"Let's go after him!" Erza said, her voice tight. She jumped back into the driver's seat of the Magic Four-Wheeled Vehicle, her face a mask of worry.
Although she believed Ren could handle it, she knew his weakness. That form... "Fushiguro Toji"... it didn't seem to use magic to attack, but the drain on his magic to simply maintain it was enormous. If his magic power ran out in the middle of a fight with a Dark Guild, it would be bad.
Aboard the hijacked train...
Kageyama, a man with spiky green hair, held a disturbing, three-eyed skull flute out to his leader. "I got it, Erigor-san. The seal is broken. This is it."
"Oh..." Erigor, the lanky, scythe-wielding man, took the flute. His fingers traced its bone-like surface, and a cruel smile spread across his bandaged face. "So this is that forbidden magic, Lullaby."
"It's said that this flute was originally just an ordinary curse tool," Kageyama said, his voice full of reverence. "But the great Dark Mage Zeref himself evolved it into this... a more advanced, more deadly magic flute."
"He really... created such a terrifying thing," Erigor mused, his eyes glinting.
"Everyone who hears the sound of this flute will be cursed to death! This is 'Mass Curse Magic'—Lullaby!!!"
The other Eisenwald members in the train car, a collection of rough, thuggish men, let out a roar of approval.
"Oh oh!!"
"As expected of Kageyama!"
"Now the plan is perfect!!!"
Erigor raised the flute, rallying his men. "It's time to make those old geezers from the 'legal' guilds pay the price! Revenge for the harm they inflicted on us in the past! Revenge for disbanding us! I will make them return it all, a thousandfold!!!"
"OH OH OH OH OH!!!"
The members of Eisenwald were all very excited, their bloodlust rising. They were about to get rid of those old fogeys, the Guild Masters who had cast them out. If they accomplished this earth-shattering feat, their guild, Eisenwald, would become famous overnight. Perhaps they could even become the new leaders of the Balam Alliance! And then, they would gain all the wealth, status, and reputation they deserved.
Soon, the entire car was filled with celebration. The Dark Guild members casually sat in the train car seats, popping open stolen bottles of champagne, eating, drinking, and having fun. Some of the men near the windows, drunk on victory, looked at the passing scenery outside.
Suddenly!
Whoosh—!
A figure—a black blur—suddenly rushed past the window, moving faster than the train.
One of the men who saw it rubbed his eyes. "Huh? Did you guys see that?"
"See what, you idiot? Another one of your imaginary girlfriends?"
"No... I thought I saw... someone running outside."
"Running? Don't be stupid! How could a human run faster than this train? You're drunk already!"
The man looked again, but there was nothing. He just shrugged, confirming he had just seen wrong.
Swish!
Far ahead of the train, Ren stopped. He stood in the middle of the tracks, the wind whipping his black T-shirt. He turned, looking at the approaching train, now just a smudge of smoke in the distance. The corners of his mouth curled up, revealing a wild, arrogant, and slightly wicked smile.
He squatted down, his body low to the ground. His hands, which had no magic in them, gripped the cold, heavy steel of the tracks.
"Take off!!!"
Ren let out a soft, sharp shout.
Immediately after, his body exploded upwards. He stood up, and the two, multi-ton steel tracks were pulled up from the wooden ties like they were ropes. The tracks ahead of him, still buried, were continuously lifted off the ground by his raw, monstrous strength, rushing towards the oncoming train like a wave of steel.
At this moment, inside the train, the members of Eisenwald were still leisurely eating, drinking, and laughing.
Suddenly!!
Everyone felt a terrifying, jarring impact that threw them from their seats.
"Ugh ah ah ah!"
"Wah ah ah ah!"
Everyone in the train car was thrown into disarray. Bottles shattered, tables flipped, and men were sent tumbling as they felt themselves rushing not forward, but up, towards the sky.
Outside, the massive, multi-ton train engine was the first to be bounced up by the ramp of steel tracks Ren had created. It was followed by the connected cars behind it. Car after car, like a giant metal snake, was lifted off the ground, rushing high into the sky.
Soon, the train cars' ascent speed began to slow. They reached the apex of their arc, hanging in the air for one, terrifying, weightless second.
Then, they all started to free-fall.
"YA AH AH AH AH!!!"
Everyone in the train cars experienced the horrifying feeling of weightlessness again, screaming in terror as the ground rushed up to meet them.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
All the train cars fell to the ground one by one, like discarded toys. They crashed into the rocky valley, metal tearing, glass shattering, and stirring up a large amount of smoke and dust that plumed into the sky.
A short while later...
Swish swish!!
The sound of wind magic. Accompanied by two sharp wind blades, a side panel of a car was blasted open. Erigor, leaning on his scythe, staggered out from inside.
"Damn it...!" he coughed, his face extremely grim. "What in the world... happened?"
"Ugh! It hurts! My arm!"
"What happened? Did the train derail?"
"Damn it! How could something like this suddenly happen in the middle of a valley?!"
The members of Eisenwald, groaning and bleeding, also came crawling out of the various ruined cars one after another, dazed and furious.
Just then, a voice—calm, deep, and full of lazy arrogance—suddenly came from above.
"Yo! Trash of Eisenwald! How are you!"
"What?!"
Hearing someone call them trash, everyone immediately glared in the direction of the voice, their killing intent flaring.
Then, they saw him.
A man in a simple black T-shirt was squatting on top of the train engine, which was now standing perfectly upright, its front end embedded deep in the ground from the crash. He was looking down on them like a king surveying his broken toys.
Erigor's face turned ugly. "Who are you? Did you cause all of this?!"
The terrain here was flat. The train couldn't have derailed for no reason. The fact that this man appeared here, and that he knew their identity, meant he must have been behind it.
"Yes," Ren said, not a hint of denial in his voice.
The members of Eisenwald were stunned, not expecting Ren to admit it so straightforwardly.
"Kill him!!!" Erigor gave the order, his voice a furious shriek. "I don't care who he is! Anyone who dares to provoke Eisenwald has to die!"
"Yes, sir!"
One of the men, foaming with rage, immediately charged towards Ren, his magic sword glowing with a sickly purple light. "Die!!!"
This person leaped from the wreckage, swinging the magic sword down directly towards Ren's head.
Just as everyone thought Ren would be split in half...
"So slow," Ren's voice drawled.
He didn't move his body. He simply, casually, extended two fingers.
Clang!
The blade, which was moments from cleaving his skull, was firmly clamped between his index and middle finger.
"What?!"
Everyone, including Erigor, was greatly surprised to see this. He had caught a magic-infused blade... with his fingers?
Then, as Ren held the blade, the opponent, who was still in mid-air, was also easily lifted, his eyes wide with terror.
Ren gave a slight, bored flick of his wrist.
"Ugh ah ah ah ah!"
This person was sent flying directly backward, tumbling through the air.
"That's not how you use a sword," Ren said, his voice cold.
Pfft!
Before this person's body even landed, Ren's body, which had been on top of the train, had already appeared behind the man in mid-air. The sword, which Ren had plucked from the man's hand, was now in his. He directly pierced the guy's body through the back, the blade emerging from his chest in a spray of red.
"Wah ah ah ah ah!!!"
This person let out a final, painful scream.
Ren, his expression unchanged, swung the sword in his hand with force.
Bang!
This person's body was thrown to the ground like a sack of garbage. At the same time, the blood on the blade in Ren's hand was also shaken off in a single, clean motion.
For guys who wanted to harm the old man, Ren had no intention of showing mercy. Furthermore, he had received the 'Heavenly Restriction'—Fushiguro Toji's abilities. Showing mercy was not his strong suit. Killing... killing was his true nature.
"..."
This decisive, brutal, and impossibly fast scene terrified all the members of Eisenwald, who were themselves a Dark Guild of assassins. They hadn't even clearly seen how Ren had attacked. One second he was on the train, the next, their companion was dead.
Everyone felt an incredibly terrifying, cold killing intent and an oppressive aura from Ren. Their bodies couldn't stop trembling. Their instincts were screaming. Facing him felt like facing a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. How many people must a man have killed to create such terrifying killing intent?
Ren's gaze—wild, arrogant, and aggressive—swept over the fifty-odd members of Eisenwald.
"Hmm? What's wrong?" he taunted, his voice a low drawl. "Aren't you going to attack? Aren't you going to kill me?"
He pointed the bloody sword at them. "If you don't make a move, then I will, you know. Because... my time is quite precious."
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