If Natsu being instantly defeated was the spark, then Zoro's understated "tickling" was undoubtedly like throwing a burning bomb into a powder keg.
This was no longer just a provocation; it was outright contempt!
"Bastard… how dare you look down on Natsu!"
Gray climbed up from the ground, shaking his head, which was still a bit dazed from the impact. His upper body clothes had long since vanished in the earlier shock, revealing his well-built muscles and the Fairy Tail emblem on his chest.
He saw it more clearly than anyone else. The green-haired man just now hadn't used any magic at all! It was a pure, unheard-of power that acted upon the body. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that conventional physical attacks would likely be ineffective against this monster.
"In that case…" Cold air instantly rose from Gray's hands, and the temperature of the entire guild hall seemed to drop by several degrees.
"Ice Make!"
His hands quickly formed seals in front of his chest, and his magic power surged at an unprecedented speed. He didn't choose a single powerful attack but decided to use an area-of-effect, unavoidable magic to test the opponent's true strength!
"Lance!"
With a low roar from him, dozens of two-meter-long, incredibly sharp Ice Lances instantly condensed out of thin air in front of him! Each ice lance gleamed with a chilling light, and its tip was sharp enough to pierce through several layers of steel plates.
"Go!"
Gray pushed his hands forward, and those dozens of Ice Lances, like soldiers receiving orders, transformed into a dense, deadly barrage, emitting sharp whistling sounds as they sealed off all of Zoro's escape routes from all directions, shooting towards him!
This magnificent and deadly scene made the other guild members instinctively step back a few paces. This was Gray's specialty; at such close range, no one could escape unscathed!
However, Zoro still stood in that large pit, not even bothering to draw his swords.
Facing this barrage of ice lances that came like a storm, his body finally moved.
He didn't retreat, nor did he block.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and that invisible perception called "Observation Haki" instantly reflected the flight trajectory, speed, and angle of all the ice lances with perfect clarity in his mind.
The next second, he moved.
The range of his movements was incredibly small.
A slight sidestep dodged three ice lances coming from the front.
A simple tilt of his head allowed an ice lance aimed directly at his brow to graze his cheek, the gust of wind it created ruffling his green short hair.
An unintentional lift of his foot perfectly avoided an attack aimed at his calf.
He moved like this, with an inconceivable, almost "lazy" posture, strolling leisurely through the airtight barrage of ice lances. Every one of his movements was precise to the extreme, as if he wasn't dodging the ice lances, but rather those deadly ice lances were actively avoiding him.
The scene was like a top artist dancing an elegant waltz on the tip of death's blade.
"How is that possible… he dodged… all of them?" Gray's jaw almost dropped to the ground. His proud area-of-effect attack was like child's play in front of this man!
Just as the last ice lance was about to hit Zoro's chest, with no way to avoid it, Zoro finally extended his hand.
It wasn't a fist, nor was it an open palm.
It was simply two fingers—his index and middle fingers.
With a speed too fast for the naked eye to catch, he precisely clamped the tip of that rapidly spinning ice lance!
"Buzz—"
The ice lance vibrated violently between his fingertips, emitting a mournful whine, but it could no longer advance an inch.
"Too brittle," Zoro commented indifferently.
Then, he exerted a slight force with his two fingers.
"Crack!"
With a crisp sound, the Ice Lance, condensed from high-density magic power and as hard as steel, was effortlessly crushed by him into a sky full of flying ice crystal powder.
Having done all this, Zoro seemed to find it a bit uninteresting.
He leaped out of the large pit in a single bound.
His speed was so fast that in Gray's eyes, only a blurry green afterimage remained.
An alarm blared in Gray's heart; he didn't even have time to make any defensive moves, only feeling a sharp pain emanating from his lower abdomen.
Zoro delivered a side kick, as simple as could be, directly to his lower abdomen.
This kick had no magical effects attached; it was only pure, ultimate, condensed physical power.
Gray felt as if he hadn't been kicked by a foot, but rather brutally struck by a heavy-armored Sea King charging at full speed. His internal organs felt as if they had shifted, he couldn't catch his breath, and his entire body curled up like a cooked shrimp, eyes rolling back, as he flew backward.
"Bang!"
He slammed heavily into the wall on the other side of the guild, right next to Natsu's human-shaped dent, creating a similarly shaped indentation, then slid limply to the ground, completely losing his combat ability.