Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 197

Chapter 197: Chase Was Blown to Smithereens?!

The rapid succession of magical clashes in the sky had felt like an eternity, but in reality, the entire exchange unfolded in a fraction of a second.

From Lucy’s vantage point on the ground, the battle was a blinding blur. She could only track the brilliant flashes of light swords annihilating jagged ice shards, followed by a crimson streak and a dark purple comet violently colliding mid-air before plummeting toward the earth simultaneously.

The only things completely clear to her were the thick, billowing columns of black smoke swallowing the village and the utterly devastated landscape of the surrounding forest.

A gentle breeze finally swept through the splintered trees, slowly peeling back the heavy curtain of dust. In the center of the ruined terrain, Chase and Silver stood opposite each other, separated by a scarred expanse of earth.

Chase raised a hand, his fingers casually crushing the thick layer of frost clinging to his chest. He brushed the remaining ice shards from his head, slicking his messy hair back into a neat, sharp style.

Despite his relaxed demeanor, a biting chill gnawed at his insides. He felt like a stranded adventurer wandering through a frozen wasteland; the blood in his veins had turned sluggish, forcing him to constantly circulate his Magic Power just to stave off the creeping numbness.

This was the terrifying secondary effect of Ice Devil Slayer Magic. When Silver fought Gray in the original timeline, this deep-freezing attribute hadn’t been nearly this pronounced. Chase couldn’t tell if Silver had been holding back back then, or if Gray simply possessed a natural immunity to extreme cold.

Chase’s gaze sharpened, locking onto the older mage through the settling debris.

Regardless of the reason, experiencing this man’s close-quarters combat firsthand was a wake-up call. The sheer, bone-deep terror of Ice Devil Slayer Magic was on an entirely different dimension compared to Gray’s standard Ice-Make.

Across the crater, Silver mirrored his opponent’s intense scrutiny. He stared at the crimson dragon scales armoring Chase’s body, a flicker of genuine apprehension flashing deep within his dark pupils.

Even with his honed combat instincts allowing him to conjure an ice shield just in time to mitigate the brunt of the Summoned Lightning Bolt, he hadn’t escaped unscathed. His tight-fitting vest hung in tatters, exposing his heavily muscled torso.

Tiny, erratic arcs of electricity still danced across his skin. This was the source of Silver’s deep frown: the residual lightning had seeped directly into his bones, and the paralyzing currents were actively sapping his Magic Power.

“Let’s skip the pointless staring contest, Ice-Block Old Man.”

Having purged the worst of the frost from his system, Chase extended an arm, a confident smirk playing on his lips as he waved. “Don’t you want the cards in my hand? If you don’t hurry up and take them, they’re going to get warm from me holding them.”

“Pointless? That’s a real shame. I rarely praise people from the bottom of my heart like this.” Silver scratched the back of his head, his expression twisting into a look of mild annoyance. “And that nickname—’Ice-Block Old Man’—is just completely unpleasant!”

The moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere shifted violently. A howling gale whipped around Silver as his Magic Power skyrocketed, the sheer density of his aura becoming so heavy it felt like a physical weight pressing down on the battlefield.

He planted his feet, spreading his arms wide as he unhinged his jaw. The surrounding air rushed toward him in a localized vacuum, the terrifying ambient Magic Power surging madly into his mouth and causing his chest to expand to an unnatural degree.

“Wait, that stance is…!” Lucy gasped, her eyes widening as she instinctively stumbled two steps backward.

The familiar, lung-expanding posture instantly triggered memories of Natsu preparing a Dragon Slayer’s roar. After witnessing the exaggerated, cataclysmic scale of their fight so far, even someone as easily overwhelmed as Lucy knew a massive attack was coming.

The violent tremors radiating from Silver’s erupting magic traveled through the shattered earth, vibrating directly against the soles of Chase’s boots. Every instinct screamed of impending danger.

Recognizing the technique, Chase didn’t flinch. He cast a brief, sidelong glance at the frozen statues of his monsters in the distance, then stomped his foot down with enough force to crack the bedrock. Behind him, the colossal, crimson phantom of Slifer the Sky Dragon materialized, its massive serpentine coils blotting out the sky.

Buzz—! Buzz—! Buzz—!

Two titanic, rapidly expanding spheres of Magic Power clashed in the invisible space between them, generating turbulent shockwaves that tore the remaining trees from their roots.

Just as the atmospheric pressure reached its absolute breaking point, Silver, having seized the initial tempo, snapped his jaws forward, completing his spell a fraction of a second faster.

“Ahahaha! Sorry, kid, I was faster!”

“Ice Devil’s—Roar!!”

A colossal torrent of purple, freezing energy erupted from his mouth like a volcanic blast. The beam tore a massive trench through the earth, flash-freezing the very air as it hurtled directly toward Chase!

The absolute zero breath arrived in the blink of an eye, completely swallowing Chase’s field of vision and sealing off every conceivable avenue of escape. At this range, attempting to forcibly cancel his own spell to dodge was mathematical suicide.

“Chase!!”

Lucy’s terrified scream was drowned out by the deafening roar of the purple blizzard. The freezing energy washed over Chase’s position, obliterating the ground beneath him and completely engulfing the forest behind him.

A thunderous explosion rocked the valley. A localized mushroom cloud of frost, fire, and thick smoke slowly plumed into the sky at the edge of the treeline.

When Lucy dared to look up, the scorched, ice-coated crater was completely empty. Chase had been blown to smithereens!

Panic seized her chest—until her eyes caught a faint, glowing magic circle slowly dissipating exactly where Chase had been standing. It was a Trap Card!

A split second later, a raging pillar of crimson Magic Power erupted from a completely different direction.

Over by the frozen statues of Dark Magician Girl and Curse of Dragon, the third monster that had been guarding them—the Castle Guardian Dragon—was suddenly missing.

The Trap Card that allowed two targets to instantly swap places… Position Swap!

“Wait, so the one who just got blown to smithereens was actually the Castle Guardian Dragon?”

The realization hit Lucy like a ton of bricks. She let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief, taking exactly three seconds to silently mourn the sacrificed monster in her heart. Any longer, and she was half-convinced the dragon would jump out of its card space just to smack her.

Back on the battlefield, Chase hadn’t wasted a single millisecond of the opening he had bought. Standing safely out of the blast zone, he commanded the phantom of Slifer the Sky Dragon looming behind him. The divine beast unhinged its massive lower jaw, a sphere of violently compressed, crackling energy already fully charged.

“God Slayer Secret Art: Superconductive Wave!!!”

The roles of attacker and defender instantly reversed. Silver’s eyes widened in genuine shock as he found himself staring down a blast capable of atomizing everything in its path.

The breath attack, radiating the absolute authority of a god, crashed down like a meteor. The sheer kinetic force of the blast instantly vaporized the remaining ruins of the village, wiping the structures from the face of the earth in a blinding flash of light!

The heart-stopping, devastating rumble lasted for nearly a full minute before the shockwaves finally bled out into the surrounding mountains.

As the thick, electrified smoke slowly cleared, Silver was revealed standing at the epicenter of a massive, scorched crater. He was panting heavily, his arms crossed in a desperate blocking stance.

Compared to his arrogant confidence just moments ago, he looked completely battered. His body was riddled with deep, shocking cracks, like a porcelain doll on the verge of shattering.

“I really have to hand it to you… to unleash a breath attack of that caliber…”

Silver forced his heavy eyelids open, watching Chase calmly walk toward the edge of the crater.

“Drop the act. That’s not your real body anyway,” Chase said, his tone dry as he casually exposed the bluff.

Hearing this, the heavily damaged ‘Silver’ paused. A strange, almost amused expression crossed his cracked face before he smiled calmly. In the next second, his entire body shattered into a cloud of fine ice dust.

As the frost drifted away on the wind, the real Silver stepped out from behind a cluster of frozen boulders in the distance.

While he didn’t look like he was about to fall apart, the blood trickling down his forehead and the fresh lacerations on his arms made it obvious that the Superconductive Wave had still taken a massive toll on his stamina.

“If you knew it was a fake, why did you still waste a spell of that magnitude?” Silver asked, his chest heaving slightly as he forcibly regulated his breathing.

Chase tilted his head, thinking for a brief second before letting out a light laugh. “It’s a fight. You can’t afford to lose the momentum.”

The truth was, the moment he unleashed the attack, he had suspected it was an ice clone—he just hadn’t been entirely certain. But hesitating and playing it safe had never been his style. His logic at the time had been simple: Who cares? Just blast it anyway!

It was a luxury afforded to him by his deck of buff-type Magic Cards, not to mention his untouched inventory of stamina potions. Even if the attack didn’t land a fatal blow, forcing Silver to evade and expend energy to survive was a guaranteed net positive.

A deep look of intrigue settled into Silver’s dark eyes. He clearly hadn’t expected such a blunt, straightforward answer.

He stared at Chase in silence for a few seconds before throwing his head back and barking out a laugh. “Ahahaha! I’ll be honest with you, kid—I really like your personality!”

Silver lowered his arms, his posture relaxing slightly. “It’s a massive waste for a man with your instincts to stay chained down in a Light Guild, restricted by all their tedious rules. How about it? Want to join forces with me and hunt some devils?”

The sheer destructive potential Chase had displayed had completely won Silver over. Deep down, a gut instinct told him that this young mage might actually possess the firepower needed to destroy the ultimate demon, E.N.D.

“I’ll pass. I’m not interested in that kind of crusade,” Chase replied, easily reading the underlying intent in Silver’s offer. He spread his hands in a casual shrug. “But, as long as a devil makes an enemy out of my Guild and my companions, I’ll wipe them off the map completely. You don’t need to recruit me for that.”

The firm, unyielding answer made Silver rest his chin on his hand, a thoughtful hum vibrating in his chest. “A Guild, huh…”

Realizing that poaching Chase was a lost cause, Silver let out a soft sigh. He shifted his gaze past Chase, locking onto the blonde Celestial Mage hiding in the distance.

“Hey! Little girl over there! You’d better run a lot further away! I can barely control the collateral damage of this next spell myself~”

His tone was light and teasing, but Chase’s instincts flared. The Magic Power violently condensing around Silver was suffocating, carrying an incredibly ferocious, lethal intent!

This is it. His final strike.

Chase’s eyes narrowed. He’s got some nerve, casually announcing his ultimate move right in front of me. Outwardly, Chase didn’t move a muscle, but internally, his Magic Power was already surging into his deck. He silently began the chant for the Trap Card, Sakuretsu Armor, fully prepared to teach this Ice Devil Slayer the terrifying cunning of a true Duelist.

At the exact same time, he readied Kuriboh in his hand. If a fully buffed Sakuretsu Armor somehow failed to completely negate the incoming damage, the little fiend would block the fatal blow. And if things went completely south, he was ready to grab Lucy and teleport out of the blast radius.

“I’ll be affected from all the way over here?! Just how big is this spell?!”

Lucy shrieked, her survival instincts overriding her exhaustion as she hiked up her skirt and sprinted frantically toward the distant treeline, desperately searching for a safer vantage point.

Seeing the area cleared, Silver pulled his gaze back to Chase. He crossed his arms high above his head, the temperature plummeting to absolute zero as he unleashed every last drop of Magic Power left in his body.

“Take this, Chase! Absolute Zero: Silver World—!”

“Ice-Make: Rose Garden!”

Just as the apocalyptic chill reached its absolute zenith, a sudden, violent eruption of massive, thorny ice roses burst from the ground beneath Silver’s feet. The sudden ambush completely interrupted his casting, forcing the Devil Slayer to violently leap backward to avoid being impaled.

A sleek, sexy figure dropped from the sky, her long dark hair fluttering wildly in the freezing wind as she landed gracefully beside Chase, having leaped directly from the magic airship hovering high above the battlefield.