Promotion to S-Class

The reactions of the other trialists to the sudden darkness were different, some were indifferent, some were angry, some were afraid, and some were even excited.

A young man with short black hair and a striped red and orange polo with gray pants looked curiously at the darkness around him and whistled in amusement.

"This is quite exciting, according to the information I gathered among the trialist, only Hades can do something like this."

"But still, he's pretty strong for a young kid like him."

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Laxus stood in a small clearing with excitement visible on his face as he laughed with traces of electricity snaking around his body.

"You better not kick the bucket before meeting me, John."

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In a hidden spot on Tenrou island, in a small space with vibrant surroundings and strong trees, stood a young teen with short black hair.

He wears high-collared black and tan robes with gold trim, along with a large, flowing white toga draped around his torso.

The teen raised his head in interest when he saw that his surroundings became dark and with no sunlight whatsoever.

"Why did the surroundings suddenly turn dark?"

He then closed his eyes as if to feel for his surroundings, when he found out what he was looking for, he opened his eyes again with gentleness flashing across them.

"Mavis, another batch of your members has once again come to the island, but, don't worry, I won't get near them." Zeref said with melancholic eyes.

As if triggering something a dark aura appeared around him, which then spread to his surroundings, everything that touched the aura became withered, the plants wilted and the earth cracked, deprived of all of its vitality.

Zeref groaned while holding his head as if he was suffering some insufferable headache. This struggle lasted for at least two hours, with Zeref groaning on the ground while the dark aura consumed everything.

But, as a price, the area where he is now is deprived of all of its vitality, with no living existence in a hundred-meter radius.

Zeref stood up from the ground with an indifferent face, he spread a few wings of light and flew away from there.

While flying towards Alabasta, Zeref thought of the young boy who caused the changes in Tenrou Island, and he let out a smile.

'I hope you grew up quickly, kid, you may stand a chance at killing me other than the E.N.D.'

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, Sebastian was looking in the direction where Zeref left with a meaningful smile on his face.

'A good final exam for the kid.'

"Hey Sebastian what are you looking at? Just like you expected, John almost eliminated all the others apart from some guy called Mest Gryder and Laxus."

"It isn't that surprising when all the other trialists that participated in this trial are just barely peak A-rank mages with that Mest, Laxus, and John being the only ones truly S-ranks."

'Sweet.' Sebastian thought while taking a bite of a ripe mango diced into small bite-size cubes, he gave some to the members watching the trial.

Currently, Laxus and Mest are fleeing from the puppets that are hunting them, they both have 25 Ghost Ripper puppets attacking them simultaneously.

"Shit, this darkness is too annoying, I can't even see my enemies!" Laxus roared angrily as his body turned into electricity and dodge three attacks from the puppets.

"Lightning Dragon's Roar!" Laxus' stomach bulged and he spat out a huge bolt of lightning that collided with something outside his vision.

"Lightning Dragon's Iron Fist!" He punched the puppet's claws which gets too close with fists full of lightning.

While Laxus was being hunted down in a pathetic manner, Mest wasn't any better, in fact, he was in a worse situation.

Due to his skill set, he has no magic learned to attack since he specialized in teleporting to the side of the target and overwhelming the enemy with attacks while dodging with teleport.

But, this strategy won't work on these puppets that don't even suffer pain and has strong defenses, not to mention he was pretty outnumbered by the enemies, 25 to 1.

Not far away he heard the sound of clashing along with claps of thunder roaring in the darkness, gritting his teeth, he decided to take a gamble and went in that direction.

That proved to be the worst decision he ever made as Laxus was in that area and with their meeting, they will need to face a total of 50 puppets together.

"Fuck! What the heck are you doing, Mest?! You should mind your own business! Now we have to fight against 50 puppets!" Laxus scolded angrily at the darkness.

"How would I know that you would be here? I just went here since there are sounds of fighting!" Mest's voice sounded from the dark.

But, no matter how angry they were, there was nothing they could do since they are getting more and more cornered by the puppets.

John who was watching all of this while standing on top of Dragpult spoke in a low voice, with a bored expression.

" It's time for all this farce to end, I still need to prepare food for the rest of the day."

Suddenly the darkness that surrounded 3 Km of the island started to shrink, but as it shrank the borders became more and more solid, when finally it shrank to 700 meters around the battlefield of Laxus and Mest.

The borders of the dark domain have become as thick as a city wall with an outstanding hardness that can't be broken by just anyone.

Along with that, the debuffs have become greater, with the field of vision decreasing from a 5-meter radius to a 3 meter radius, greatly reducing the combat power of the enemies inside.

"Shit! Why did the field of vision suddenly shrink to 3 meters!" Laxus shouted while dodging 5 swipes from all directions by turning into lightning.

"Why did these puppets' attacks suddenly become more coordinated than before!" Mest also shouted while teleporting to dodge 10 swipes.

Mest and Laxus kept dodging the attacks of the puppets with heightened concentration as the attacks became harder and harder to dodge.

"It's the end." John said and descended to the ground and walked to the center.

With John's declaration, Mest teleported into an area that was surrounded by puppets and was subdued with slash wounds all over his body.

With Mest's downfall, Laxus soon followed, facing 50 puppets alone he can't resist for long and also fell down amidst the claws of those puppets.

John removed the dark domain after every trialist was out of the battle, Makarov in the resting area also mobilized people to rescue the fallen trialists and healed them at the camp.

"Congratulation, John! You've been promoted to S-Class!" Cana smiled and hugged John to congratulate him.

Gildarts gritted his teeth from the sight, but still rubbed John's head and said. "Congrats, Kid. You are now on the same level as real men on the continent."

"You better treat us to a meal to celebrate your promotion."

"Alright, I'll treat you guys to a meal. You all are being too cheeky to a child." John smiled and promised to treat them to a meal when they returned.