I Choose You
Upon hearing Makarov's shout, all the mages from the surrounding guilds turned their heads in unison in the direction he was pointing.
Blue Pegasus stroked his slicked-back hair, Lyon of Lamia Scale squinted, and Sting of Sabertooth stretched his neck out as far as he could.
Apart from the howling wind and half-charred, withered tree trunks, there wasn't a soul in sight.
The members of the other guilds looked at each other with puzzled expressions.
There's nothing in that direction.
Are those Fairy Tail guys hallucinating because of the immense pressure before the battle?
Riyao raised his hand and gently patted his chest, letting out a long sigh of relief.
He was startled when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a semi-transparent little girl peeking out from behind a tree and waving at him. In broad daylight, he almost thought that the god Ankhseram had come to settle scores with him.
After taking a closer look, Riyao slowly pieced together the memories in his mind.
Isn't this Zera, the childhood playmate that the first guild master Mavis created with Phantom Magic on Tenrou Island, and also the original young lady of the Red Lizard Guild?
In the main storyline of the original work, he only appeared a few times, and his presence was so low that he was almost like a background character. I didn't really think about it in that regard at the time.
"Are you calling me?"
Riyao casually waved to the Fairy Tail members who were charging wildly behind him, indicating that they didn't need to worry about him. He then leisurely jumped off the dragon's back and swaggered over to the withered tree.
"Uh-huh!"
Zera hopped out from behind the tree trunk, extending a semi-transparent index finger and pointing solemnly at the guild ruins on the hilltop.
The girl had short, fluffy dark brown hair, wore a slightly oversized retro dress, and put on a pair of deerskin sandals.
Perhaps because she felt a little uneasy under Riyao's direct gaze, her toes tensed up, and she dug her toes into the soles of her shoes.
"The fact that I can now manifest before all of you means that Mavis has completely forgotten my existence."
Zera tilted her little face up, her voice rapid and urgent, like beans being poured out.
"If this is the case, it can only mean that Mavis is currently unable to think or has lost her memory. We need to rescue Mavis quickly."
Riyao didn't even look up at the mountaintop; his gaze remained fixed on Zera's little feet.
He stroked his chin thoughtfully, secretly wondering if this girl could carve a villa out of thin air if she kept digging for two more minutes.
"Hey! What are you looking at?! Don't you know how to respect your elders?!"
Zera followed his gaze and looked down. Her pretty little face flushed bright red, and she shouted at Riyao at the top of her lungs.
Startled by the sudden shout, Riyao turned his head to the side, grinned, and casually reached up to pick at his ear.
"Alright, alright, let's go save the First Generation first, stop shouting."
He agreed more readily than anyone else, but his body seemed welded to the spot, showing no intention of moving an inch.
Are you kidding me? The Fairy Tail guilds right now are full of tough nut to crack.
Aside from the dark mage Zeref, who is stationed on the outskirts, there is also Scarlet Despair Irene, Magic King August, and Welfare Ambassador Larcade.
Of all the Spriggan, Riyao remembered Larcade's magic most clearly.
After all, that Pleasure Magic provided a huge amount of refreshing entertainment in the original final battle, and it's hard for any decent person not to remember it vividly after reading it.
He wasn't sure whether Larcade's move ignored defenses and acted directly on the mental level, or whether it acted on the body's senses through the nerves.
Although he has many trump cards up his sleeve, if he were to fall for one in front of all the mages on the continent and make a fool of himself, he would lose face in the entire other world.
We need to make some noise first to test the waters.
Just as Riyao was stroking his chin, pondering some underhanded tricks, Zera had already used both hands and feet to climb up the dragon scales all the way to the top of the All-Creation Giant Dragon's head.
She lay down next to the wooden dragon horns and patted the dragon's head from above.
"Hey, are you thinking about how to rescue Mavis? Don't overthink it. We'll just make things a little chaotic and create an opportunity for Mavis."
"If that's all there is to it, then things will be much easier."
Riyao patted the hem of his floral shirt, took two steps back, and slapped the massive dragon's rear end.
"I choose you! The All-Creation Giant Dragon!"
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
The dragon shuddered violently, its massive wooden skeleton roaring, and Zera scrambled to her feet, nearly falling into a mud pit.
The colossal green dragon, tens of meters wide, roared to the sky, unleashing a layer of raging, dark green magical energy around its body, and its thick wings flapped violently.
The entire dragon, like a siege cannon fired from its barrel, hurtled straight towards the guild's gate at the mountaintop with a sharp whistling sound that tore through the air!
Zera stared, her mouth agape, her little hand still frozen in mid-air.
Is it really that direct?!
Shouldn't they be using some cool, high-level magic to clash in the atmosphere?
Who taught them this incredibly simple tactic of using their own multi-ton mount as a brick?!
The Fairy Tail crew, from top to bottom, are as mischievous as ever!
August leaned on his long cane, his aged brows furrowing slightly. He didn't even lift his eyelids, but merely glanced at the green-haired girl beside him, signaling her to intercept him.
Brandish sighed almost imperceptibly, spat out the lollipop he was chewing, his previously languid expression vanished, and a sharp glint flashed in his eyes.
She took a step, and her immense magical power erupted, with layer upon layer of silver-white geometric magic circles overlapping and spreading out in the void.
The once menacing and All-Creation Giant Dragon, capable of crushing half a mountain, suddenly shrank rapidly like a deflated balloon the moment it entered Brandish's magical range!
Ten meters, ten meters, three meters, half a meter...
When the green light crashed into the steps of the guild, it had already transformed into a miniature wooden lizard, about the size of a palm, with two small wooden wings flapping.
Clatter
Brandish expressionlessly extended his gloved hand and casually grasped the mini dragon in his palm, even giving its little belly a nonchalant squeeze.
Zera, standing at the foot of the mountain, turned her head and looked at Riyao with a speechless gaze, as if she were looking at a wise old man.
Riyao stood with his hands in his shorts pockets, looking up at the sky, even whistling casually, his gaze drifting through the clouds, never looking at Zera's face.
Zera was so angry she gritted her teeth and kicked Riyao hard in the calf.
"Hey! This is the solution you were talking about?!"
Riyao cleared his throat awkwardly and rubbed the tip of his nose.
"Ahem, this is just a test. You know, there's always some testing involved in a battle between two sides, right?"
Just as the two were arguing, the black-robed Emperor Zeref, standing at the threshold of the mountaintop, slowly turned around.
With a cold military order, except for Irene who needed to maintain the Separation Enchantment, the remaining Spriggan 12 on the hilltop and the main army marched out of the camp in unison, approaching down the mountain with murderous intent.
The casual look in Riyao's eyes vanished abruptly, and a familiar smile curved his lips.
"Here comes the opportunity."
Without another word, he lowered his knees slightly, and with his hands imbued with a violent, emerald-green magic, slammed them into the black soil beneath his feet!
[Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence]
Thump--
The muffled pounding of his heart seemed to explode from the depths of the earth.
In an instant, the flat basin spanning several miles churned violently, and countless ancient trees, as thick as dragons, burst forth from the earth!
The dark green tree trunks tore through the ground, and the hard rocks became as fragile as tofu in the face of the wildly growing roots.
Within just three seconds, thousands upon thousands of towering trees, hundreds of meters tall, rose from the ground in an endless stream, completely engulfing the once empty battlefield!
The Imperial Ironclad Legion and the Allied Mages, who were charging forward, were all thrown into disarray by the sudden surge of the primeval forest. Their originally orderly formation was torn to shreds in an instant.
Riyao patted the mud off his palms and proudly raised his chin.
"Hmph, isn't the scene chaotic enough now?"
He looked around, then looked down at the empty space around him, and paused for a moment.
"Huh? Where did everyone go?"
A furious shout came from the tree branch three meters above their heads.
"You bastard, I'm on top!"
Zera was seen hanging firmly in mid-air by a dense branch that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Her skirt was caught on the leaves, and her two short legs dangled helplessly in the air.