Dimensional Suppression

Jiang Bai watched Erza's resolute figure disappear through the entrance to the training ground, a complicated mix of emotions in his heart.

Of course he wanted the girl by his side at all times, but he also knew better than anyone that truly protecting her did not mean keeping her sheltered in a greenhouse. It meant giving her wings strong enough to let her stand on her own.

"Kid, head out when you're ready."

Makarov's voice came from behind him. The old man had come to his side without him noticing and handed him a small cloth bag.

"There's a map and some emergency food in here. Remember, safety first. You can earn money anytime, but you only have one life."

Jiang Bai took the bag and nodded without another word.

He waved to the old man, then turned and headed for the guild's front door.

He took a step, and his figure blurred. The next second, he vanished into thin air.

Makarov watched the now-empty doorway, worry and pride mingling on his face before finally turning into a long sigh.

Hargeon, eastern mountains.

This was a famous mining region in the Kingdom of Fiore, but at the foot of the mountain, where activity should have been bustling, all was deathly quiet. Only a few miners in tattered clothes sat around an extinguished campfire, sighing.

A strong smell of sulfur hung in the air, mingled with an unsettling scent of burning.

Space warped slightly, and a figure appeared nearby without warning.

Jiang Bai, who had taken a train to the area before using spatial teleportation, looked around. Sensing the scorching fluctuations of magic in the air, he frowned almost imperceptibly.

"Hey! Kid over there!"

A stubbly miner spotted Jiang Bai and immediately shouted, "It's dangerous here! Get out of here!"

Jiang Bai looked toward the voice and walked over at an unhurried pace.

Another, older miner looked Jiang Bai up and down. Seeing his neat clothes and delicate appearance, he could not help sighing.

"Young master, did you get separated from your family? Go on home. Things aren't safe on this mountain right now."

"Not safe?" Jiang Bai asked casually.

"Not safe doesn't begin to cover it!"

The stubbly miner slapped his thigh, a terrified look on his face. "Nobody knows what's gotten into those Vulcans on the mountain lately. They've turned unusually violent! Yesterday, some people from the Mars Mining Team tried to sneak up the mountain to gather fire crystals, but... sigh, not one of them made it back alive!"

The older miner still looked shaken. "Those monsters are as hard as stone all over, and strong enough to throw mine carts like pebbles! They can breathe fire, too! A team of mages passing through tried to take them down a few days ago, but they got beaten so badly they fled down the mountain with their tails between their legs. I heard two of them even died!"

"That's right," another scrawny miner added. "We haven't dared go up the mountain for days. If this keeps up, we won't even have enough to eat."

The "Vulcans" they spoke of were precisely Jiang Bai's target on this trip.

Jiang Bai listened to their descriptions without the slightest change in expression. Instead, he used his extraordinary perception to pinpoint the strongest source of magic deep in the mountains.

Seeing how unmoved Jiang Bai was, the stubbly miner thought he didn't believe them and jumped to his feet in alarm.

"Kid, we're not joking with you! Those monsters really do eat people! A tender little thing like you wouldn't even be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth!"

Jiang Bai looked away, waved at them, and turned toward the path up the mountain.

"I'm here to deal with those monkeys."

His offhand remark left the miners petrified on the spot.

Deal with the monkeys?

A little brat like him who hadn't even been weaned yet?

"Crazy... this kid's definitely crazy..." the older miner muttered.

The stubbly miner stamped his feet in anger. "He has no idea what he's up against! He's going to his death!"

Jiang Bai, however, was already ignoring the talk behind him. His figure flashed and disappeared into the mountain forest.

"Where did that kid go?"

The miners looked as though they had seen a ghost.

As he climbed, the air grew hotter and drier, and the vegetation became sparse.

When Jiang Bai stepped onto a patch of scorched earth, he knew he had entered the Vulcans' territory.

"Roar!"

With a deafening roar, more than a dozen ape-like magic beasts, each as large as a giant bear and covered in dark red, rocky skin, charged out from all directions and surrounded Jiang Bai.

Their scarlet eyes were filled with savagery and bloodlust, and lava-like saliva dripped from their mouths, sizzling as it ate into the ground.

Without warning, one Vulcan made the first move. It picked up a boulder as large as a millstone and hurled it at Jiang Bai with all its strength!

The boulder arrived in an instant, whistling as it tore through the air!

Jiang Bai kept his hands in his pockets, outwardly not even bothering to raise an eyelid, though his mind was intensely focused.

Only when the boulder was about to smash into his face did he calmly activate Limitless.

A bizarre sight unfolded.

The immensely powerful boulder came to an instant halt an inch above Jiang Bai's head, as though it had struck an invisible wall!

In the next second, Jiang Bai canceled the technique. The boulder's momentum had been completely neutralized, and it simply dropped from the air.

By activating and then canceling the technique in that instant, Jiang Bai had bought himself time to recover his magic.

The Vulcans' underdeveloped brains clearly could not comprehend what they were seeing. Their rage instantly turned to confusion.

Another, stronger Vulcan charged over with a roar, its fist larger than a bowl as it smashed toward Jiang Bai's chest with tremendous force.

He repeated the same trick.

The instant the fist was about to touch his clothes, it was stopped once more by an invisible barrier, halted firmly in front of Jiang Bai's chest, unable to advance another fraction of an inch.

Jiang Bai even had the leisure to yawn.

Now all the Vulcans sensed that something was wrong.

They let out angry roars. Some spewed scorching lava, while others charged with even greater ferocity.

For a moment, boulders, lava, and fists surged from every direction toward the boy at the center.

Jiang Bai stood where he was, turning the activation and deactivation of Limitless into an art form.

Whenever an attack was about to reach him, he activated the technique in an instant, stopping it.

The moment an attack's momentum was divided infinitely and dissipated, he immediately deactivated the technique, using the fraction of a second in between to let his magic recover naturally.

To an outside observer, every attack came to an uncanny halt an inch before touching Jiang Bai's body.

More than a dozen boulders of varying sizes hung suspended in midair, along with several streams of lava frozen in different shapes and a few enormous fists held motionless in mid-punch.

The scene was absurd in the extreme.

But only Jiang Bai himself knew that this was the correct way to use Limitless as he was now.

"A skill with no startup or recovery time is practically cheating!"

Against a powerhouse of Makarov's level, the attacks were so fast that he had no time to react and switch it on and off. He could only keep it active, causing his magic to pour out like a flood through a breached dam.

But against these slow-moving magic beasts with their predictable attacks, activating the technique intermittently consumed magic even more slowly than he could recover it.

As long as he handled it properly, he could theoretically stand here defending himself until the end of time.

Compared to that time with the old man, this is practically a vacation, Jiang Bai thought.

The Vulcans' roars gradually turned into fearful whimpers.

"So noisy."

Jiang Bai finally grew a little impatient.

He extended his right index finger toward the largest Vulcan in front of him and casually traced a light line through the air.

There was no sound, no flash of light.

The Vulcan, which had been struggling with all its might, suddenly split down the middle, a cut as smooth as a mirror running through its entire body.

Its upper body slid off, spilling entrails and scalding blood across the ground.

The entire process was terrifyingly quiet.

"Heh! This cutting really is a god-tier skill for the early stages!"

Jiang Bai walked forward as though taking a stroll, waving his finger casually through the air.

With every wave, an invisible slash precisely dismembered a Vulcan.

Some heads flew into the air, some were severed at the waist, and some were neatly sliced in two.

The hard skin they were so proud of was more fragile than tofu before Space Cutting.

The surviving Vulcans finally broke down.

The terror this human boy inspired in them had gone far beyond their limited understanding.

They let out shrill wails and turned to run, each scrambling to escape this devil who radiated the aura of death.

Jiang Bai did not give chase. He stopped and looked toward an enormous cave nearby.

For a source of magic several times stronger than those minions was awakening deep within the lair, and a much larger figure slowly walked out.