"No! I don't believe it! I don't believe some brat like you can do something like this!"
Ivan shrieked hysterically, his voice nearly cracking.
If he'd been a mage from some other discipline, maybe he wouldn't have fallen apart like this.
But Ivan had spent his entire life mastering illusions.
This wasteland of swords and fire shattered his worldview. And the deeper his understanding of illusion, the more he could feel the terrifying reality of this place.
"N-no… impossible…" his lips trembled as he muttered over and over, as if arguing with an invisible opponent.
Little by little, he threw away the very knowledge he'd once prized. Like a gambler who'd lost everything, he roared in self-destruction, "Fake! This has to be fake! It's just an even more advanced illusion!"
"…Sigh."
Watching him spiral into madness—unreachable—Shane let out a long breath.
And with that breath, the aura around him shifted, becoming solemn and immense.
The black blade in his hand was gone without anyone noticing when.
Then a deep, clear chant rang out across the burning graveyard of swords, like a bell announcing the opening of the world:
"—Core principle, decipher."
Humm—!
All the blades planted across the flaming plain—countless swords embodying the very concept of "sword" in this world—trembled in unison, releasing a long, clear resonance.
"Concept complete. Converge."
In the next instant, every blade—whole or broken—began to shatter at once!
They became billions of motes of light, rushing—together with the raging flames—into Shane's half-clenched right hand.
Now, on the wasteland, there was no other light.
The only brightness left existed in Shane's hand.
Ivan's heart clenched. An enormous, invisible pressure squeezed down on him, forcing him to stumble backward.
"Forging technique… at the threshold."
Shane's voice sounded again.
Within his cupped palm, the fire condensed rapidly, taking the shape of a long blade's outline.
Along the pitch-black body of the sword, dark-red flames burned grandly, as if unimaginable energy were being compressed to its limit.
The space around them began to warp and blur, letting out a groan like it couldn't bear the load.
That horrible heat—like a red-hot branding iron pressed against the throat—finally snapped Ivan out of his frenzy.
He clenched his teeth so hard his gums bled.
"For… for Lumen Histoire… I can't… give up!!"
With that howl, he squeezed out every last drop of mana and flung his arms wildly.
Instantly, countless pale paper familiars poured out of his sleeves like a swarm, like moths rushing into flame, surging toward the sword in Shane's hand—the blade forged from all the firelight in the world.
Faced with this dying counterattack, Shane's eyes didn't waver.
But at the final moment, when the paper tide was about to reach him, he snarled as if furious at someone else's stupidity:
"Idiot! If you die, that's your problem! But how heartbroken do you plan to make the old man?!"
As the words fell, Shane's right hand clenched shut.
The black blade braided with dark-red fire fully solidified—
And came down.
There was no world-shattering explosion.
Just a single razor-thin line of intertwined black and crimson, drifting downward like a gentle stroke that seemed to cut the world itself.
Time felt like it froze.
The white torrent didn't even reach the red line—
It simply vanished, erased.
Ivan's face—contorted with madness and resolve—locked in place.
Before a slash that could sever time, space, and causality together…
Every instinct he had, every principle he'd studied his entire life, screamed the same message at him:
Unknowable. Unstoppable. Absolute—terror.
After a suffocating stillness—
Thud.
Ivan Dreyar's eyes rolled back and his body fell stiffly onto the scorched ground, collapsing like a log.
He had fainted.
He'd been scared unconscious.
Almost the moment Ivan hit the ground, the flaming sword in Shane's hand—capable of changing heaven and earth—quietly dissolved, becoming tiny sparks that melted into the air.
Then the burning wasteland of swords shook violently, like a reflection in water being stirred.
The dark-red sky, the endless scorched earth, the forest of broken blades—everything faded, blurred, and dissolved at speed.
The hot wind stopped. The smoke cleared.
Cold air filled Shane's lungs again, and a distant train whistle sounded sharp and real.
The world returned.
They were back by the rocky hideout in the snowy plains. Even the snow beneath Shane's feet was untouched—white and pristine, as if nothing had happened.
Shane looked down at Ivan, who lay there limp as mud, and walked over to kick him hard twice.
"Hey. Wake up."
No response.
Shane clicked his tongue, irritated.
He'd gone to the trouble of dragging out something close to a "Noble Phantasm," and this guy had passed out before the blade even fully fell.
"Not even half of Laxus's backbone, you bastard," he muttered, and kicked him again. Ivan still didn't move, like a dead pig.
Remembering why he'd come, Shane sighed.
He couldn't just leave Ivan in the snow—even if the man deserved it. He'd promised the old man he would bring him back.
Besides, Ivan was S-Class. Tough as nails.
Shane wasn't going to carry him. He bent down, grabbed Ivan by the ankle, and dragged him like a sack of trash, trudging back the way he came.
Thankfully, whatever Shane lacked in mana, he had plenty of stamina.
Before long, Fairy Tail's familiar building came into view.
From far away, he spotted a spiky black-haired figure standing anxiously at the guild entrance, craning to look down the street.
Gray.
Shane's eyes shifted, and a mischievous impulse hit him.
He let go, dumped Ivan casually in a street corner, then hopped out from the other side and patted Gray on the shoulder like nothing was wrong.
"Yo, Gray. Whatcha looking at?"
"Gah!" Gray jumped at the sudden voice, spun around, and—seeing it was Shane—finally exhaled.
Then he scowled. "You idiot! I thought you seriously went after Ivan!
I was about to drag Erza with me to go look for you! And you just came back on your own—good thing you weren't that reckless."
Shane blinked, honestly confused. He pointed back in the direction he'd come from. "I knew exactly where he went. I came back… because I brought him back."
Gray followed his finger—
And finally noticed, in the snow not far away, a figure that had clearly been dragged for a long distance, caked in slush and dirt, lying in a deep, dead faint.
~~~
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