Immediately after.
A blinding golden pillar of light shot skyward from within the golem, piercing straight into the clouds!
Violent energy erupted in an instant.
The entire open-air park collapsed and shattered before that power as if it were made of paper.
Countless massive stones were ground into powder by the pillar of light.
Across Crocus, every battle in the city came to a halt at that moment.
Natsu kicked his opponent away, then turned toward the pillar of light with a shocked expression. "What the hell is that thing?!"
Gray stopped casting, his brows tightly furrowed. "What terrifying magic fluctuations!"
Jura, Laxus, Sting, Rogue...
Every contestant stopped what they were doing and looked toward the source of the erupting light pillar.
At the same time.
At the edge of town, beside a clear river.
Lu Chongwei, who had been lying on the grass idly dozing off, suddenly opened his eyes.
He spat out the foxtail grass between his teeth and quickly got to his feet.
"This magic power..."
Lu Chongwei raised his head and instantly sensed that familiar magical fluctuation.
It bore the aura of ancient lost magic.
"No wonder."
Lu Chongwei brushed the dust off himself and immediately realized the problem.
"So that's why Minerva didn't show up here according to plan. She'd mastered lost magic of this level."
Lu Chongwei bluntly stated the truth. "Mavis's calculations went wrong because she hadn't accounted for an unknown variable like this."
Without hesitation, he fixed his gaze directly on the golden pillar rising into the sky.
Having confirmed Minerva's true location, Lu Chongwei steadily headed toward the battlefield.
At the center of the arena.
The golden pillar gradually dispersed.
Dust filled the air like dense fog, blanketing the entire collapsed ruin.
All one hundred thousand spectators stared fixedly at the