Author's Note: I got this chapter done a lot faster than I thought. Only two chapters left until this arc is finished. Plus the last chapter for this arc will have the Asta x Noelle lemon in it.

"…" Character P.O.V.

'…' Character thought.

"…" Spells.

"…" Animal P.O.V.

'…' Animal thought.

[…] Over-voice.

{…} Through Communication Device

Now then on with the new chapter.

Chapter 35: The Strongest Man

"Gel Magic: Sticky Salamander!" Sally says with both hands raised as she creates a salamander composed solely of a purple gel material.

"My magic will just pierce through magic like that." Nozel says not fazed in the least bit.

"And then…" Sally begins to say holding up a giant hypodermic needle filled with pink fluid before sticking the needle in her gel salamander. "Dark Magic Item: Special Properties Plus Alpha…absorbed!" She says as the fluid enter the salamander, it turned the same color as the substance in the vile and as the silver rain fell on the salamander, they weren't doing any damage and were being absorb by the gel creature as it's master cheered.

"They managed to deflect the captain's magic as if it were nothing." Klaus says in shock.

'What…is that magic item?' Nozel wonders as the Sticky Salamander was about to attack with its right fist. "Be on guard, it's attacking." He warned the other Magic Knights.

As the Sticky Salamander's fist begins to move forward, two figures appear in front of it both ignited in flames, one red the other blue. Upon closer inspection it was revealed to be Asta and Leopold.

"Asta! Leopold!" Noelle shouts in shock at seeing her fellow Lost Magic users back on their feet, so to speak.

"Dragon Slayer's Secret Art: Crimson Lotus: Exploding Flame Blade!" Asta yells as he ignites his arms and generates long torrents of flames from them, which move to hit the enemy in a spiraling formation.

"Phoenix Slayer's Secret Art: Torrent Flap of Combustion!" Leopold yells as he transforms his arms into wings of phoenix while concentrating his fire at max and a surge of energy he abruptly increases their size being as big as a train, then he releases a giant wave of blue flames.

The two powerful attacks combine with Asta's surrounding Leopold's as they make contact with the Sticky Salamander as it's entire left side leaving it standing on its right leg about to fall over if not for its tail balancing the missing leg. Asta and Leopold land on the ground as the fire surrounding them disappear revealing Asta to have scale-like marking while Leopold had feather-like markings all across their bodies.

"What in the world just happened?" Mimosa asks in shock. "That wasn't Leopold's regular Fire Magic." She says.

"Leopold has become a Lost Magic user along with Fuegoleon. Leopold's magic is now Fire Phoenix Slayer Magic while Captain Fuegoleon's is Fire God Slayer Magic." Noelle explains.

"But what's with those strange markings all along their bodies?" Klaus wonders.

"I'm not…" Noelle says as she looks through her Sea Dragon Slayer grimoire. "Ah, here it is. Asta is in the final and ultimate form of a Dragon Slayer called Dragon Force. When we Dragon Slayers enter this state our skin becomes scaly like an actual Dragon's and our magic power increases. I'm guessing that Leopold is in Phoenix Force which must be the equivalent of Dragon Force for a Phoenix Slayer." She explains to the other Magic Knights.

"That's amazing. Lost Magic can grant people that kind of power?" Sol asks.

"Yes but their magic was really low before they enter that state, so I'm not sure how long they'll…" Noelle begins to say but at that moment both Asta and Leopold pass out once again.

When Sally saw the two boys fall she used her Sticky Salamander's remain arm to stretch forward and capture Asta.

"No-" Klaus yells attempting to grab Asta, but it was too late, the salamander formed a gel bubble around him and dropped him in front of Sally.

"Mine!" Sally shouts holding the bubble with Asta inside.

"What are you planning on doing with him?" George asks.

"It's a secret!" Sally giggles in a sing-song voice.

"Remember this, Magic Knights. We are the Eye of the Midnight Sun…the one who will destroy the Clover Kingdom." George says closing his grimoire.

As the warning ended, Valtos used his magic to create a portal large enough to swallow the grouped and the captured Dragon Slayer, only leaving residual drops of the gel salamander.

"ASTA!" Noelle said in shock as her crush was taken right before her eyes.

It had been a full minute after the Eye of the Midnight Sun escaped and kidnapping Asta as well and Noelle was still in shock.

"They took…Asta." Noelle mutters staring at the spot where the Eye of the Midnight Sun disappeared through Spatial Magic. "We have to save him!" She shouts to the other Magic Knights.

"Noelle, we can't." Klaus says adjusting his glasses.

"But-" Noelle tries to argue.

"It's unfortunate, but we have no way of tracking them." Klaus informs her.

"Yes, we do. We Dragon Slayers have an enhanced sense of smell, I can use that to find-" Noelle begins to say.

"No." Nozel says causing her to turn and look at him. "Right now, strengthening the Royal Capital's defenses takes priority. There's no guarantee that those were the only enemies. We don't have any time or magic to spare on someone like him." He says looking at his youngest sister before turning away. "Even if he is…somewhat special…just like you." He whispers before walking over to where Mimosa was continuing to heal Fuegoleon.

Nozel however didn't realize that not only does Noelle have an enhanced sense of smell but also enhanced hearing too.

'Did Nozel just…' Noelle thought before shaking her head. 'No that can't be. It isn't like him.' She thought.

"How are Fuegoleon and Leopold doing?" Nozel asks Mimosa, still in her Princess Healing Kimono, healing Fuegoleon while Leopold was in Mimosa's Dream Healing Flower Basket.

"The best I can do with my magic is first aid but thanks to Noelle managing to keep the wound closed, his life is no longer in danger. However, he needs to be taken to the medical ward for more advanced healing to have his wound closed up properly. Leopold, however, seems to be healing on his own. It must be his Lost Magic that's healing him." Mimosa says glancing over at her cousin noticing the blue flames flickering on his body. 'Oh…Asta…! Please, please be all right!' She thought thinking about how her crush was taken by the enemy.

"Pft!" Solid scoffs catching the attention of his fellow Magic Knights. "Some captain he is. How pathetic." He says. "The Vermillions sure aren't what they used to be. Makes me embarrassed to be a royal." He says arrogantly gaining Nozel's attention, being glared at by Nebra, and shocking Noelle.

"Solid, how could you say that?" Noelle asks balling her fist in anger.

"She's right. What exactly did you do to stop the enemy, little brother?" Nebra asks glaring at him.

"We are Magic Knights. Our existence is pointless unless we win." Nozel says.

"Nozel…" Nebra and Noelle say together.

"That's right! This is going to ruin the reputation of the Crimson Lions…" Solid begins to say thinking his older brother was siding with him against their sisters.

"But Solid…" Nozel begins to say halting his younger brothers rant. "Nebra is right. As we were not present at the fight, we are even less than he is." He says sending an icy glare towards his younger brother. "Strengthen the defenses so that there won't be further damages." He orders.

"Right." Solid says with a gulp as Nebra smirks at him.

"I'll make sure he does and proved assistance as well, Nozel." Nebra says receiving a glare from Solid and a nod of approval from Nozel.

"They've spread around magic that blocks transmission spells, and the chain of command is in chaos." Alecdora says taking charge. "Because of that, reinforcements from outside the Noble Realm couldn't arrive. We can't let our guard down yet." He says.

"Sol, we're going to reinforce the area. Don't let your guard down." Charlotte says standing atop Sol's Rampaging Mother Earth golem.

"You got it, Char!" Sol shouts.

"Call me, "Captain"." Charlotte reminds her, again.

"I know, Captain Char!" Sol says as Charlotte stares at her squad member.

"My goodness. Looks like we'll have to wait on dessert a little while longer." Hamon says.

"Klaus, go to headquarters and get reinforcements." Alecdora orders.

"Yes, sir." Klaus says summoning his steel chariot.

Noelle watches as everyone begins reinforcing the Noble Realm but she can't get her mind off her kidnapped crush.

"Asta…" Noelle says.

Later that day the sun had begun to set, the group of wizards known as the Eye of the Midnight Sun arrived at an unknown location through a portal that has a strange castle in front of them, with Asta, still in Dragon Force mode, still with them and unconscious.

"Rades, we ended up with a huge headache because you stepped out of line." George says scolding the Soul Corpse Magic user. "Don't get carried away just because the master has taken a liking to you." He says as they began making their way across the castle grounds. "How dare you say, "I want to fight a captain alone. I want to lay waste to the capital"? You conceited fool!" He says.

"Shut up." Rades replied, not wanting to hear his failure.

"If you'd just done what you were told, we wouldn't have to go through all this trouble." George says, not even looking at Rades as he continued to walk towards the castle doorway.

"My toys were the victims in all of this! This doesn't concern any of you!" Rades said, getting angry at his fellow member.

"Now, now, let's not forget about Catherine." Sally says as she still held an unconscious Asta in a bubble of gel. "She was capture, so we're not the bad in comparison." She adds her two cents.

"Who the hell cares about that old hag?" Rades asks without care for his ally.

"Hag…" Valtos says repeating Rades insult while walking behind him.

"We got what we went there for, so who cares?" Rades asks, ignoring Valtos, who stops in his tracks and addressed a certain problem.

"By the way, Sally…" Valtos begins to say as he turns to the girl as she was walking behind him. "We won't be able to take that brat with us. He may be powerful, but he can still be a problem, kill him." He orders the crazed girl.

That seemed to get a reaction out of the crazed girl as she waved her arms up and down while giving her point.

"What? Are you crazy? No way! There's no way I'm throwing away a specimen like him! He doesn't just use Anti-Magic, that happens to be on a different level than a mere magic-weakening effect! No to mention he's one of those Lost Magic users. A magic no one has ever seen before, Elemental Dragon Slayer Magic! With those traits I'm going to use him in my research!" Sally shouts, going on about Asta's magic as the Dragon Slayer himself was starting to wake up. "Let me take him! Please? Please?" She begs.

'Where am I…? What is this I floating in? it feels sorta nice.' Asta thought as he looked forward and saw the wizards that attack his home were discussing something but was muffled a bit.

"Only those acknowledged by the master can go there. Don't cause any more unnecessary trouble." George says as he walked between Valtos and Rades. "Kill him before our master arrives." He orders the girl.

"Aw…" Sally says with a groan as she didn't want to kill him but study him.

"I know! Let me kill him! With his power, he'd make an excellent addition to my toys!" Rades says with a smile as he stepped towards Sally.

"Shut up, Rades." Sally says unaware that Rades' comment seemed to get Asta's attention as he was finally about to gather his senses.

'Crap, I've…' Asta thought realizing what happened after he and Leopold pasted out while Sally noticed that he was awake.

"What?!" Rades yells.

'I've been captured by the enemy?' Asta thought.

"Hey, you're awake." Sally says as she removed her hood, showing Asta her unkempt, short black hair and crazed-looking red eyes.

'A-A girl?' Asta thought as he stared at her.

"You should help convince them that keeping you would be a good thing! I want to study everything about you and you rare grimoires, and do some experiments, and then dissect you in the end!" Sally rants as she looked at Asta with eyes filled insanity and curiosity. "You wanna help me, right? You want to help me with my research? I'll analyze every single cell and leave nothing unchecked, I promise! Just think of what we could discover about your magic! Right? Right? Right?"

This sent Asta's advanced instincts to go into overdrive as he heard this girl ramble on and on about what she wants to do with him, drawing to one, rational conclusion in his mind.

'She's really bad news!' Asta thought with a look of shock before he tried to move or summon his magic to get out of this situation. 'Crud! I can't move and I can't summon my magic! Is this stuff I'm in responsible? Just great and this is a super bad situation!' He thought.

The Eye of the Midnight Sun group then entered the castle with Sally still begging to keep and study Asta.

"Come on, George! Don't make my beg anymore! Please, please, please, please, please?" Sally asks, continuing to beg causing George to finally accepted defeat and sigh.

"Don't blame me for whatever happens." George says.

"YAY!" Sally cheered as Rades countered.

"No! Give him to me!" Rades shouts.

"Nope!" Sally replies.

Their talk was soon cut short as someone stepped from behind a pillar to stop the group in its tracks but they were all shocked, especially Asta, to see that the one who stop them was the Wizard King, Julius, himself.

"Hi there. I've been wanting for you. You know it's not nice to keep people waiting." Julius says with the usual smile on his face.

"Wha-" Valtos began to say.

"Ooh!" Sally says in surprise.

"No way! How did he find us?!" Rades asks in a slight panic.

"The Wizard King, Julius Novachrono?!" George asks in shock. 'What's he doing here?' He wonders in worry as Julius kept smiling at him.

"How was the Royal Capital? Did you have a pleasant visit?" Julius asks, not acknowledging the mood of the room.

"Kill him!" George yells as he got into a stance.

But the moment he said the, Julius moved and unimaginable speed and appeared between two hooded members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, holding up his hands and creating orbs of magic before firing them, taking out two of them in less than an instant. Everyone was left in a state of shock as the incredible display before them.

"I-Impossible!" George says in a state of shock.

"I killed them. My apologies but it would've been too difficult with your numbers… restraining all of you, I mean." Julius said, not even tired by his actions.

The Eye of the Midnight Sun quickly retaliated and tried to stop him, but the Wizard King was too strong as he simply blast a tree spell that was heading for him, turning it into dust. This caused the enemy group to freak out even more.

"Wait, what?!" Sally asks looking around as Rades started screaming.

"You guys attacked the Royal Capital, right? But now you're scared? You didn't actually kill people without being ready to die yourselves, did you?" Julius asks, staring at the group of enemies and a trapped Asta.

'Such power…but what did I expect? I knew he had to be powerful to be the Wizard King but this is beyond my imagination.' Valtos thought in worry. 'Crap…I don't have any magic left…' He thought.

"That being said, you all seem pretty skilled. You'll probably give me some trouble." Julius says not at all worried about being out numbered. "How about it? I'll let one of survive, so why not surrender? It'll be first come, first serve. What do you think?" He asks.

This, which would easily be a good deal for a lucky person, lead the way to one simple answer from all of the Eye of the Midnight Sun members.

"Don't underestimate us!" George, Rades, Sally, Valtos, and a hooded member yell at the same time before attacking.

George attacked with wind needles, Sally attacked with gel blasts, Valtos with blasts of magic, and Rades with his blasts magic. Though, this soon proved to be pointless as Julius was moving at incredible speeds once again and dodging all of their attacks like they were nothing.

"Wha…how is he moving like that?! I can't keep up!" George says as he saw Julius stopped before disappearing again.

"I guess I don't have a choice." Julius spoke as he appeared behind them. "I might be able to handle these numbers." The Wizard King says as he then held his hand up and forming a bright orb of blue magic. "Time Binding Magic: Chrono Stasis!" As he activated his spell, all of the member of the Eye of the Midnight Sun were suddenly placed in blue sphere with a single line of roman symbols on it, freezing their bodies in complete paralysis.

'What…is this?' Rades thought as his body refused to move inside the floating bubble.

'I can't move…my body.' George thought as his and everyone else's bodies were frozen.

'I'm struck.' Valtos thought as Julius admired his work.

"I guess I was able to restrain all of you. I guess I overestimated you guys." Julius says with the same smile he wore when he revealed himself. "See how it feels to live in one unending moment." He says to the time frozen enemies.

Due to Sally being immobilized, the gel bubbled holding Asta feel apart and Asta fell to the floor and was in shock by the power the Wizard King just displayed.

"Ow…" Asta says feeling the pain from his wounds return to him after being freed.

"Hey there, Asta." Julius said seeing Asta on the floor. "Its nice to see you again. We seem to be connected by fate somehow." He says but then notices Asta altered appearance. "Ooh, that's an interesting look you've got going on there. Is that an effect of your Dragon Slayer Magic?" He wonders.

"R-Right, nice to see you too sir. And yes this is the final and ultimate form of a Dragon Slayer called Dragon Force. When we Dragon Slayers enter this state our skin becomes scaly like an actual Dragon's and our magic power increases. But I'm not really sure how I managed to obtain this form." Asta explains as the scales slowly start disappearing from him and he looks at the restrained members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. 'Seven powerful mages and he managed to take care of all of them despite how strong they were. This is the Wizard King's power? This is…' Asta thought as he was left in a state of shock as Julius made his way towards him.

"You want to become the Wizard King someday, right?" Julius asks shocking Asta even more than he already was. "In that case, watch carefully and don't look away. This is only a small fraction of what you'll have to surpass." He explains to the young Intermediate Magic Knight.

This shocked Asta even more than before, realizing that this is only a small piece of Julius' magic power.

'He's my goal! The strongest guy there is! He's the strongest mage in the kingdom that I need to surpass!' Asta thought staring up at the man.

Author's Note: Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. We're getting close to the end of this arc. Only two chapters left. and for the last chapter when I do the lemon I could really use some help. Please pm me with ideas if you have them. Also I've posted a new poll on my page to decide if Vanessa should be a part of Asta's harem. Be sure to vote and please leave a review telling me what you thought of this chapter.