The Legendary Thirteenth Gate!
"Quite the boast."
Loke raised his hand to push up his sunglasses, put his hands in his suit pockets, and took a half-step forward.
"You really dare to say that! I'm Zodiac, the strongest Leo among the twelve constellations. Treating me like an ordinary Celestial Spirit is a recipe for disaster."
Yukino didn't reply, but pointed forward with her right hand.
"Attack."
The Pisces, suspended in mid-air, emitted a sharp shriek. Its massive black and white body twisted into a spiral in the air, creating a howling gale, and crashed headlong towards Loke and Virgo.
At the same time, Libra Libra raises the small golden scales in his hand, and the magic of gravity expands outward once again.
"Strike first, or you'll gain the upper hand!"
With a blank expression, Virgo muttered something, then clasped her arms together and spun rapidly in place like a sharp drill.
A perfectly round hole was drilled into the hard granite slab on the spot, and the figure of the pink-robed maid sank into the depths of the ground in the blink of an eye.
Just as Libra tilted the scales in his hands, he suddenly felt a strange hollowness in the stone beneath his feet.
As the masters of gravity, Libra are extremely sensitive to changes in the force exerted on their bodies.
Without any hesitation, Libra raised his arm sharply and cast a gravity balance spell in the opposite direction.
An invisible buoyancy instantly enveloped Yukino and Libra's bodies, and the two of them, like weightless feathers, floated backward and glided several meters.
The next second.
Boom!
The ground where the two had just stood collapsed with a roar, shattering into countless stones and creating a large crater more than three meters in diameter.
Two pink cuffs suddenly emerged from the bottom of the pit, Virgo popped her head out of the hole, her feet firmly planted on the edge of the gravel.
"You dodged it! That's a very sharp reaction."
Virgo stated calmly, her hands gesturing in a fighting stance.
On the other side, in the instant Libra shifted his attention, a slight gap appeared in the Gravity Suppression in front of him.
Loke seized the opportunity, pulled his hands out of his pockets, and clasped his fingers together in front of his chest.
A dazzling golden light burst forth from the fingertips, forming a brilliant sphere of light.
"Regulus!"
The light exploded in his palm, transforming into hundreds of dazzling beams of light, like a violent rain of pear blossom needles, directly covering the descending Pisces.
The massive black and white Pisces were unable to dodge in mid-air and took the full impact of the light magic head-on.
The intense light tore through the protective water flow on the surface of Pisces' body.
The two enormous sea beasts let out a shrill scream, their scales riddled with holes from the beams of light, and their massive bodies convulsed violently.
The magical connection snapped instantly.
The two giant fish transformed into countless white specks of light, forced to dispel their physical summoning and immediately return to the Celestial Spirit World.
Chapati shouted loudly from the commentary box.
"They've repelled them! Fairy Tail Leo Virgo teams, led by Lucy, executed a brilliant tactical maneuver!"
Virgo burrowed underground, forcing Libra to retreat; Leo seized the opportunity and unleashed a full-force attack, instantly eliminating the Sabertooth, Pisces!
"The balance of power on the field instantly reversed to two against one!"
Around the stands, the Fairy Tail stands erupted in enthusiastic cheers.
Natsu leaned over the railing and yelled.
"Well done, Loke! Charge over there and smash them to a pulp!"
Gray stood with his arms crossed, nodding in approval.
"The coordination with the double doors has indeed improved a lot; it seems those few days of intensive training weren't wasted."
Jiang Bai leaned against a stone pillar, watching the battle below with a calm expression.
"It's still early; they haven't revealed their true cards yet."
At the front of the arena, Yukino, retrieved the scales that had slipped from her grasp and gazed at Loke stood proudly upright.
Pisces was forced to return to the Celestial Spirit World, and the magical power within his body underwent a violent depletion and recirculation.
Yukino a half step back and took a deep breath.
"As expected of Zodiac, the leader of the Leo, their outburst is truly extraordinary."
Loke flicked the lingering glow off his fingers, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Thank you for the compliment. Since you know how powerful you are, you might as well admit defeat honestly, and I'll save myself the trouble of being rough with such a lovely lady like you."
Yukino ignored Loke's teasing and slowly slipped her right hand inside her robe.
"However, no matter how strong Leo, before my Thirteenth Gate of the Zodiac, they have only one path left: to submit."
Lucy, who was about to order Virgo to continue the pursuit, stopped in her tracks upon hearing these words.
"Huh? The Thirteenth Gate of the Zodiac? How is that possible!"
Lucy frowned deeply and immediately retorted.
"The Celestial Spirit World has always only had the Zodiac, with twelve golden keys corresponding to the twelve constellations. Where did this thirteenth key come from?"
Yukino's fingers emerged from deep within her robe.
A strangely shaped, jet-black metal key was held between two fingers.
Instead of the usual Celestial Spirit Key patterns, the end of the key is engraved with two ferocious Black Snakes that are intertwined and biting each other.
A cold, heavy magical energy emanated from within the black key, causing the floor tiles of the entire arena to faintly shimmer with a dark gray hue.
"The Zodiac are indeed known to everyone, but behind them lies a little-known, Gate of the Unknown."
Yukino held the black key high, her voice echoing in all directions.
"I originally planned to save this trump card for the final rounds to deal with other guilds' aces, but now I'll show it to you."
"Break the established rules of the astrological chart, open the Gate of the Unknown!"
Ophiuchus Ophiuchus!
Click!!
The black magic directly tore open a spatial rift tens of meters long.
Thick, inky gray-black mist surged forth from the cracks, quickly obscuring the light from the entire arena.