The group began their run up the pathway leading to the labyrinth. Erza turned her head towards Lisanna, Elfman, and Happy who were watching from the hotel balcony.
"You three! See if you can find Wendy!" Erza shouted.
"We'll gather a group of guild members to look for her!" Lisanna shouted back.
"Show the other guilds just how MANLY we are!" Elfman shouted.
The Fairy Tail team continued their run up the path, eventually arriving at the labyrinth entryway.
"What the hell is this place?" Gray questioned. "It's like some kind of 3-D maze."
"This looks a lot more complicated than the maze Doryu put us through huh?" Meliodas commented as he looked up at the walls and ceilings. There was no clear pathway, with some paths leading to nowhere and others making no sense such as stairs on the ceilings.
"If I recall, it took you quite a long time to get through that one." Erza said as she looked around at the maze. "We do, however, have a clear way to get to the stadium which is directly east." Erza pulled out a compass and the group gathered around her.
"Then we'll head that way! Let's go!" Natsu said as pointed towards a few checkerboard patterned floating platforms. The group hopped across the floating platforms, making sure not to fall as it was a long fall down below. They continued walking through several more long corridors, with some leading to dead ends and others leading to more floating platforms.
"I hate this maze so much!" Natsu groaned.
Just as they finished crossing the platforms onto another chunk of solid ground, the ground beneath them began to shake and the walls and floors began to move around.
"W-what's going on?!" Lucy exclaimed.
"This entire thing must be rotating! Quickly! Grab something!" Erza shouted as the platforms continued shifting. Natsu, Lucy, and Gray quickly tried scaling the floor that was now a wall in front of them, with the whole place rotating 90 degrees.
"Man...I hate this place…" Natsu grumbled as he caught his breath, having nearly fallen off the platform.
"Hmm…" Meliodas looked at a nearby wall, staring at it closely. 'First Drole's maze, then Doryu's maze, now this one? I think I've had enough of these mazes.'
"Did you find something?" Lucy asked. Meliodas remained silent and wound his fist back before punching forward at the wall. To his surprise, his arm went straight into the wall.
"What was the point of that?!" Lucy questioned.
"Erza, which way is east again?" Meliodas asked. Erza looked down at her compass and pointed towards the wall Meliodas had just punched.
"Well, we should get moving." Gray said.
"Wait!" Meliodas interjected. "Erza, do you remember Doryu's maze and how we couldn't break through the walls?"
Erza nodded her head and the other members of the group looked at Meliodas with a puzzled expression on their faces.
"Doryu? That was from that mission you and Erza got assigned by the council right?" Lucy commented.
"Well this maze doesn't have those runes protecting the walls." Meliodas continued, grabbing a piece of the broken wall and pulling it straight off.
"And it looks like these walls don't regenerate either."
"Breaking through the walls? That doesn't sound like a bad idea." Erza said.
"Is that even allowed?" Lucy asked.
"You remember the pumpkin head guy said "no limits" remember?" Meliodas said with a cheeky grin.
"Hah! So we're going to go straight through right to the arena! I like this plan!" Natsu said with a wide grin. "I'm all fired up!"
"And leave the open spaces to me! I'll make a floor!" Gray added in.
"Let's get moving!" Erza declared, her body beginning to glow and her armor changing into her Purgatory armor.
"If there's one thing Fairy Tail's good at, it's breaking things!" Natsu shouted as he wound his right arm back, his hand becoming engulfed in flames.
Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Natsu punched forward, breaking right through the wall and going straight through to the other side. In front of them was a huge empty space at least fifty meters across before the next wall.
"Ice Make: Floor!"
A long platform made of ice extended from the platform they were standing on. The group slid across the platform, reaching the next wall in front of them.
"Haaah!" Erza yelled as she swung her Purgatory armor mace, breaking right through the wall. The group continued forward, with Meliodas breaking through the next wall and keeping up their rotation through dozens of more walls in front of them.
"How many walls have we been through already?!" Lucy questioned.
"We'll just keep moving forward!" Erza said as she broke through the next wall. As the wall crumbled, it revealed the open night sky and the Domus Flau arena right in front of them.
"We found it!" Natsu cheered.
"Yeah but the path is up there!" Gray said, pointing to the path leading to the entrance that was at least a hundred meters above them. Meliodas suddenly ran past them, jumping right out into the open air. From his back, black wings sprouted out.
"I'll take us up there." Meliodas said.
"Right! Meliodas can fly!" Natsu said as he jumped and held onto one of the wings made of darkness. Erza, Lucy, and Gray immediately followed suit and grabbed onto Meliodas' solid darkness wings.
"Ok. Just give us a warning before you STAAAAAAAAAAAAR-" Lucy screamed as Meliodas suddenly took off at blistering speed towards the pathway.
In no time at all, Meliodas flew right up to the pathway, and landed on the ground for everyone to dismount.
"The arena is right there! Let's go, everyone!" Natsu shouted as he began running, with everyone else right behind him.
The group ran forward to the arena where they approached a closed door with the words "Congratulations" carved over it. The group entered through and standing in front of them was the pumpkin headed man.
"Congratulations, you passed the preliminary test!" The man said. "Although that was certainly an unorthodox method, I did say no limits after all."
"So what place did we get?" Natsu asked eagerly.
"Third Place." The pumpkin man said.
"WHAT?!" Natsu shouted. "How did we get only third? We busted straight through all the walls!"
"You actually just missed the other two teams ahead of you by about a minute." The pumpkin man answered. "The pathing they took was a tad more efficient. But third place is not bad at all! I'll see you all tomorrow at the opening ceremony!"
"I guess we spent too much time beforehand walking around without coming up with that strategy then." Gray commented.
"Those other two teams must be formidable…" Erza commented as the group began walking towards the exit.