Deep inside the old fortress on Black Reef Island was a circular hall that had once been used to assemble the defending troops.
Cracked black stone covered the center of the hall, and half-standing stone pillars lined its perimeter. Gildarts stood inside a white circle, with a Fairy Tail Guild flag planted ten paces behind him.
Makarov sat on a stone block beside the entrance and raised three fingers.
"The final test: combat judgment."
"You pass if you take that flag or make Gildarts move both feet out of the white circle within ten minutes."
Laxus stared at the cloaked man inside the circle and raised an eyebrow.
"That's all?"
Gildarts grinned. "You can start by trying to make me move one foot."
Makarov added, "No attacking bystanders, and no damaging the fortress's load-bearing walls. If all you can do is blast away without a care, you fail even if you touch the flag."
Laxus clicked his tongue.
"Who are you looking down on, old man?"
He stepped into the hall, golden arcs of lightning already darting from the soles of his boots into the cracks between the stones.
"Begin!"
The moment the word rang out, lightning streaked across the hall.
Laxus did not charge straight at Gildarts. Instead, he darted back and forth between the stone pillars. Golden afterimages closed in from three directions at once, while thunder rolled beneath the dome, shaking loose a steady fall of rubble.
Gildarts merely raised his right hand.
The first flash of lightning to reach him suddenly shattered, like a golden net torn apart by an invisible giant hand. The shockwave swept across the floor, instantly breaking the black stone tiles down into neat little cubes that clattered into a heap.
Lin Yuan quickly saw that it was only an afterimage left by the lightning.
The real Laxus had already used the stone pillars as cover to circle around to Gildarts's rear flank. He clenched his hand, and the arcs that had slipped into the ground earlier lit up at once, closing along the edge of the white circle to form a cage of lightning.
The rubble beneath Gildarts's feet exploded in an instant.
Laxus burst through the curtain of lightning, his hand less than two feet from the flagpole.
The next instant, the air in front of the flagpole seemed to turn into a wall.
Boom!
The lightning was pulverized, and Laxus was sent flying backward. He forced himself to twist in midair, but even after landing on both feet, he slid several more meters, his soles scraping two scorched trails across the stone.
"Not even close," Gildarts said.
Laxus shook out his numb arm. Far from being annoyed, the fighting spirit in his eyes burned even brighter.
Lin Yuan stood outside the arena, quietly watching the ground near the white circle.
Gildarts seemed to have completely suppressed the first attack, but the lightning Laxus had buried in the cracks had not disappeared. Those arcs flickered here and there, like a net that had yet to be drawn tight.
The second charge came even faster.
Laxus rushed straight at him, his right fist wrapped in blinding lightning. Gildarts raised his palm to meet it, and before their magic powers actually touched, the lightning around Laxus's fist crumbled from the center outward.
But Laxus did not pull back his fist.
He let the shattered lightning obscure his vision and slammed his left hand against the ground.
"Thunder Pressure Raging Waves!"
The currents that had long been lying in wait within the cracks erupted together. Rather than attacking Gildarts, they blasted apart several loose stone pillars outside the white circle. The pillars toppled toward the center of the hall, only to be disassembled halfway down with a wave of Gildarts's hand.
The flying cubes filled the air, blotting out the light.
Laxus seized the chance to dart through low to the ground.
Gildarts struck backhanded, and the ground in front of Laxus immediately broke down into a dense mass of stones. Laxus stepped into empty air, but used the momentum of his fall to channel all the lightning in his body into the ground.
A beam of golden light shot up from beneath the flagpole!
The flag was sent flying out of the circle.
Gildarts finally turned around. If he did nothing, the flag would land directly in Laxus's hands; if he destroyed the pillar of lightning, he would leave an opening for Laxus in front of him.
He laughed, extinguished the pillar of lightning with one palm, and lifted his leg to take a step backward at the same time.
It was that very step.
The white line lay in front of his boot.
Laxus leaped from the shattered ground, his right fist, already charged, blasting past Gildarts's shoulder toward the flagpole. Gildarts caught his wrist with his other hand just in time, and violent lightning erupted between them.
A moment later, the dust cleared.
Laxus knelt on one knee outside the circle, his wrist still in Gildarts's grasp and his fist just an inch from the flagpole.
But one of Gildarts's feet was already planted outside the white line.
The hall fell silent for a moment.
Makarov glanced down at the hourglass, picked up his stamp, and firmly stamped a third red mark onto Laxus's wooden plaque.
"Pass."
Laxus got to his feet, breathing hard. He glanced at the plaque before turning to Lin Yuan.
"Did you see that clearly?"
"I did," Lin Yuan said.
"Then don't lose too badly."
Makarov stroked his beard and snorted. "You've only just passed, and you're already putting on airs. That certainly hasn't changed."
Laxus was about to retort, but Gildarts released his wrist and rolled the shoulder he had used to meet the lightning-clad fist.
He was still smiling, but his gaze was much more serious than it had been at the start.
"Very good. You didn't focus only on me, and you didn't forget what the rules were really asking you to do."
Laxus lifted his chin and walked out of the hall. As he passed Lin Yuan, he stopped for a moment.
"You're up."
Lin Yuan took the blank wooden plaque Makarov handed him and walked toward the center of the hall.
Amid the rubble scattered across the floor, one part of the white circle had been blurred by a boot print.
He glanced at the mark, and when he looked up again, Gildarts was already back in front of the flag.