Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Passionate Fight

When Cluny aggressively bypassed him, the Celtic Guardian abruptly halted his slash through the dimensional rift. On his stern, elven face, a fleeting and knowing smirk appeared.

‘Engage the Master in close combat? Now that is a bold choice.’

Oblivious to the summoned monster’s micro-expression, Cluny marched forward. A swirling vortex of Chaos Space hovered in his left hand, while his right hand was enveloped in a pitch-black Magic Claw. He closed the distance to Chase with absolute, supreme confidence.

Seeing that the Fairy Tail Mage made no move to draw another card, Cluny’s grin widened. His judgment was spot on. That massive reflection spell had drained the brat’s Magic Power dry, leaving him entirely unable to use new cards.

‘After so much effort, and even sacrificing all my subordinates, it is finally my turn!’

Cluny felt a manic ecstasy racing through his veins. He could already picture the glorious new era that would arrive once he captured Chase and offered him up to Lord Marshall. Carrying this twisted joy, the pirate captain slowly assumed a combat stance and provocatively waved a hand at the youth.

Seeing this guy’s arrogant posture, acting as if he were celebrating prematurely, Chase chuckled and shook his head. Under Cluny’s surprised and confused gaze, Chase grabbed the collar of his sleeveless cape and violently tore it off, revealing a heavily muscled upper body carved with clear, defined lines.

The jagged scars etched across his skin were clearly visible, radiating a surging, visceral sense of power under the illumination of the distant setting sun’s golden afterglow. These were the absolute proof and glory of his fierce, life-and-death battles with monstrous enemies.

‘Wait, that is not right. He clearly lost his reliance on cards, so why does he not look afraid at all? Why does he actually seem a little excited?’Cluny’s eyes darted over the jagged tissue.’Are those shocking scars something a backline Card Mage should have on their body?!’

Vaguely, Cluny smelled a very bad omen. A drop of cold sweat seeped from his bloodstained forehead, sliding down his cheek. His supreme confidence wavered, replaced by a creeping sense of panic.

“There is really nothing I can do with you, Guild Master Cluny,” Chase said, stretching his palm joints until they popped. A bright, feral smile stretched across his face. “Since that is what you want, then as you wish. Let us begin our passionate, blood-pumping brawl!”

Although his Magic Power was nowhere near as depleted as Cluny assumed, Chase held back. He had more than enough reserves to summon his absolute trump card monsters, including the Dark Magician. But those heavy hitters needed to be reserved for Marshall, the true culprit hidden behind the scenes. There was no need to waste them here.

also, the Cluny standing before him could barely be considered a notable figure. Chase really wanted to see if he could beat a new card drop out of this guy. And the most important point of all was that fighting was just plain awesome.

Boom!

Staring blankly at the azure sky that suddenly filled his vision, and the lone crow flapping its wings as it gradually flew away, Cluny’s face was frozen in a mask of complete stupor.

‘What is going on? What just happened? Why did the sky suddenly tilt and flip over?’

The catastrophic, tearing pain erupting from his chest forcibly violently dragged his thoughts back to reality. Abruptly looking around, Cluny was startled to find that he was lying flat on his back amidst the splintered ruins of his own broken ship’s bow.

Through the flying sawdust and settling dust, he looked straight ahead. There, standing exactly where he had been a second ago, the Chase he thought he could smash with two or three punches was slowly retracting a perfectly straight right cross.

He could not even see the opponent’s movements, and he had already been sent flying like a cannonball.

“Impossible! How is this possible?!” Cluny scrambled to his feet and roared in an absolute frenzy. He truly could not accept that he, a seasoned, blood-soaked warrior of the seas, would lose a fistfight to a mere Card Mage.

Buzz!

The Chaos Vortex in his hand twisted and deformed, turning into a massive shockwave that blasted across the deck toward Chase. A deafening explosion sounded, and in the surging kinetic waves, the already damaged half of the deck was blown into wooden debris.

But Chase, who had been standing right there, disappeared without a trace.

When he reappeared, his foot was raised high in the air, already hovering directly above Cluny.

Boom!

Cluny’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. He threw himself into a desperate roll, narrowly dodging Chase’s flying axe kick. The sheer, overwhelming force of the impact directly crushed the ship’s bow floor, cratering the thick hull and leaving a deep, splintered footprint in the wood.

Before Cluny could even catch his breath, a gale-force wind hit his face. Chase’s fiercely thrown straight punch kept getting larger and larger within his panicked pupils. Operating purely on his body’s survival instinct, Cluny raised his arms and crossed them in front of his face to block.

Thud!

A heavy, sickeningly powerful muffled sound rang out over the roaring waves. Cluny, locked in his defensive posture, was hammered backward by the sheer kinetic force. His boots skidded across the ruined deck, sliding until he barely stopped at the very edge of the ship’s bow. He was just one single step away from falling backward into the vast, churning sea.

Cluny lowered his gaze and glanced at his trembling arms. The intense, blinding pain of shattered bones constantly tore at his nerves. Only at this moment did this Dark Guild Master, who had been so extremely confident in his close combat abilities, belatedly realize the truth. Bypassing the Celtic Guardian to engage in close combat with Chase was a ridiculously fatal mistake.

The Mage from Fairy Tail standing in front of him was an unbeatable monster.

After the initial wave of fear passed, Cluny’s gaze turned gloomy, and he quickly forced himself to regain his composure. He still had one last trump card to play. It was the capture alive condition specifically requested by Lord Marshall in the commission.

As a Guild Mage bound by rules, Chase could not kill him if he wanted to successfully complete the commission and claim the reward. Armed with this Death-Exemption Gold Medal, Cluny realized he could completely abandon all defense and attack Chase without any reservations.

“I am the pirate Cluny Blood! A brat like you is still a hundred years too early to kill me!”

As if afraid that Chase had forgotten the commission details, Cluny yelled loudly, weaponizing his identity as a pirate. Then, he clenched his broken fists, holding the volatile spatial vortex, and charged directly toward Chase. He launched a reckless counterattack that looked completely suicidal to Ina and the others watching from afar.

“Bring it on!”

Even knowing the opponent’s desperate intention, Chase still had no intention of avoiding his edge. Instead, he slowly extended a single finger.

‘It is a damn card again?!’

The familiar hand-raising action greatly scared the charging Cluny, nearly giving him a heart attack mid-stride. He had truly developed a deep psychological trauma toward Chase’s cards.

As he feared, Chase indeed intended to summon something, but it was not a card.

“I summon my fists, in Attack Position!”

Chase clenched his fists, stepping forward fearlessly to meet the frenzied pirate captain. The two collided head-on, their rapidly swinging fists leaving trails of blurs and afterimages in the air. They attacked each other with extremely overbearing, explosive stances.

Ora! Ora! Ora!

The sickening, muffled sounds of fists meeting flesh echoed throughout the pirate ship wreckage. The vibrating shockwaves made Ina and the surviving crew on the merchant ship opposite tremble with absolute fear. It was hard to imagine that such a brutal, mutual beatdown would occur between two Mages.

Even Dasha Niu, who was highly skilled in close combat, watched with a stunning, stunned expression. He boldly put himself in the shoes of the pirate for a fraction of a second, and the simulated result he got was two simple words: Instant KO.

The high-intensity brawl lasted for nearly a full minute. In the end, Chase, who was heavily restricting his own strength, still could not bear to give up the 9.9 million Jewel bounty. He refused to end Cluny’s life with one fatal punch.

Instead, he forcefully dragged the fight out, systematically dismantling the pirate until Cluny was completely exhausted. The Dark Guild Master finally collapsed weakly onto the splintered ground, his face a swollen mask of total defeat.

“You guy… are much stronger… than those Mages who call themselves S-Class…” Cluny lay flat in a growing pool of his own blood, his eyes vacant as he looked up at the drifting clouds. His spirit was utterly broken. “I… I lost…”

Chase, feeling completely refreshed by the workout, took a deep breath and raised the back of his hand to casually wipe away a small smudge of blood overflowing from the corner of his mouth.

He was not in a hurry to deal with the groaning Cluny. Instead, he focused his attention inward, sinking into the card space deep within his consciousness.

A single card was floating in the boundless void. His luck was good today; he really did manage to beat a new card drop out of Cluny.

The card slowly flipped over in his mind, revealing the illustration of a small, blue, winged dragon.