Chapter 604 - 604: Fairy Heart

Fairy Tail had passed through five generations of Guild Masters.

The First Master, Mavis Vermillion, rose to prominence during an age of war. Known as the Fairy Tactician, she founded the guild, established its principles, and laid the foundation everything afterward would be built upon.

The Second Master, Precht Gaebolg, took over during the peaceful years after the war and allowed the guild to recover and grow. Under his leadership, Fairy Tail produced many exceptional mages, including some who would later become the Guild Masters of Blue Pegasus and Quatro Cerberus. His obsession with magic sometimes made it difficult for him to retain talented people, but he nevertheless accumulated tremendous resources for the guild's future.

Then came the Third Master, Makarov Dreyar.

With the foundation left by his predecessors—and his own rather unique strategy of constantly picking up abandoned children—Makarov drove Fairy Tail all the way to the top of Fiore.

The Fourth Master, Macao Conbolt, took over after Fairy Tail's core members vanished. With the guild declining around him, Macao somehow kept everyone together for seven miserable years and prevented Fairy Tail from disbanding. He had inherited leadership during the guild's darkest period and carried that burden until the missing members returned.

And now, after becoming Guild Master for the second time, the Fifth Master Makarov stood before Ankh with unprecedented solemnity.

Ankh's first reaction to the offer was the same one he had given every time the subject came up before.

"Master, Fairy Tail is doing fine right now. Why are you suddenly talking about retiring?"

A trace of loneliness entered Makarov's eyes.

He sighed, then gave a quiet laugh.

"Ankh…"

"I'm old."

The words were spoken almost casually.

Yet Ankh felt something tighten in his chest.

For the first time, he found himself looking at the little old man in front of him as though he were seeing Makarov properly.

No matter what had happened in the past, Makarov had never used his age as a reason to persuade Ankh to become Guild Master.

But now…

Ankh studied him carefully.

At some point, the old man who spent his days laughing, drinking, and making a fool of himself had become more hunched than Ankh remembered.

The exhaustion between his brows could barely be hidden anymore.

Time seemed to have settled into every line of his deeply wrinkled face.

He really had grown old.

Makarov had become Guild Master at forty.

For nearly half a century, he had managed what might well have been the most troublesome generation Fairy Tail had ever produced.

Everyone saw the ridiculous old man falling asleep at the drinking table with a bubble hanging from his nose.

Few ever stopped to consider how much work he had done behind the scenes to keep the guild running.

If the younger generation still hadn't matured, Makarov would have been willing to support them for several more years.

If Fairy Tail were still in the position it had occupied seven years ago—prosperous, powerful, but comparatively simple to manage—then he might still have had the energy to continue.

But things were different now.

Fairy Tail had risen from the strongest guild in Fiore to the strongest guild in all of Ishgar.

And judging from the direction things were heading, becoming the strongest guild in the world no longer sounded impossible.

The workload had expanded enormously.

Even worse, the outside world was becoming more unstable by the day.

Anyone paying attention could see that another war was approaching.

The entire global order was threatening to change, and the Magic Council had begun calling on Makarov with increasing frequency.

All of it had brought fatigue and anxiety that he could no longer shrug off.

So this time, Makarov wasn't merely talking about retirement because he wanted to entrust Fairy Tail to the next generation.

He genuinely couldn't keep carrying everything much longer.

He was nearly ninety years old.

He had long since reached an age when he should have been enjoying a quiet retirement.

Realizing that made the usually unserious old man standing before Ankh feel unexpectedly heartbreaking.

"I understand."

Ankh pushed down the sadness rising inside him and answered with equal seriousness.

"Leave it to me, Master."

A satisfied smile spread across Makarov's face, deep wrinkles unfolding as he burst into laughter.

"Hahahaha!"

"Not Master anymore."

He pointed at Ankh.

"Now you're the Guild Master!"

"The Sixth Master!"

Ankh smiled.

At the same time, he suddenly felt an invisible weight settle onto his shoulders.

He had always thought about Fairy Tail's future and done whatever he could for the guild.

Yet now that he had officially accepted the position, he found himself thinking that there was still far more he could do.

Perhaps that was simply what it meant to become Guild Master.

Makarov looked at the child he had always been most proud of and saw that he had finally grown into the person Makarov had hoped he would become.

Leaning on his staff, the old man smiled.

"Next, I'll tell you Fairy Tail's greatest secret."

"Something only the Guild Master is permitted to know."

Ankh already had a fairly good idea what waited behind the door.

He nodded.

Makarov placed both hands against the enormous doors and pushed.

The instant they opened, an immense torrent of Magic Power surged outward.

Deep violet light filled the chamber beyond like some otherworldly paradise, bathing both the old man and the young man in its glow.

Ankh had known for years that an infinite source of Magic Power existed somewhere beneath Fairy Tail.

Even so, seeing its true form still surprised him.

At the center of the chamber stood an enormous lacrima.

The crystal radiated dazzling violet light.

And inside it—

there was a girl.

Long golden hair fell all the way to her ankles.

Her delicate face showed neither sadness nor joy.

Her skin was pale and translucent, almost like polished white jade.

Her small body was unclothed, though the glowing veins and patterns running through the enormous lacrima obscured enough of her form that she appeared indistinct within the purple light.

But the presence of a girl inside the source of infinite Magic Power wasn't what shocked Ankh most.

It was her identity.

He knew that face.

The First Guild Master.

Mavis Vermillion.

"Shocking, isn't it?"

Makarov gazed at the enormous crystal.

"When Precht brought me here for the first time, I reacted the same way."

"Even now, it still feels impossible."

The Magic Power flowing endlessly through the chamber was so vast that, despite having visited this place many times before, even Makarov still felt a faint sense of awe whenever he stood before it.

"Larcade's research was probably inspired by something like this."

His voice became heavier.

"But compared with what he created, Lumen Histoire is far more complete."

Then Makarov began explaining the guild secret as it had been passed down to him.

Many years ago, Mavis had left Fairy Tail alongside the legendary Black Wizard, Zeref.

When Zeref eventually returned, Precht saw only him—

and Mavis's lifeless body, discarded before him.

In the years that followed, Precht desperately searched for a way to resurrect her.

Nothing worked.

But during his research, he discovered something extraordinary.

Mavis's body had apparently been altered by some transcendent force.

She remained trapped at a point between life and death, an immortal body that could neither truly live nor completely die.

More strangely still, no matter what kinds of magic Precht experimented with on her, that immortal body continuously absorbed and incorporated them.

And so his research deepened.

Precht possessed one of the greatest magical minds in the world.

Little by little, he poured everything he knew into Mavis's already anomalous body.

Eventually, the fusion of his magical research with the miracle already contained within her transformed Mavis into a genuine source of limitless Magic Power.

And this was not the same kind of "infinite" Magic Power Larcade had possessed.

Larcade had merely gained access to the circulation of an entire world and could theoretically sustain himself through that system.

Mavis represented something closer to conceptual infinity.

The miracle within her body existed at an extraordinarily high level, allowing her to continuously convert the energy of the world itself into Magic Power without reaching an end.

There was enough power here to fire Etherion over and over again.

Without limit.

That discovery only drove Precht deeper into his obsession with magic.

He concealed Lumen Histoire beneath Fairy Tail, stepped down as Guild Master, and began wandering the world in search of what he believed to be the ultimate "truth" of magic.

What happened afterward was already known.

Precht eventually became consumed by the idea of creating the Great Magic World he believed represented that truth.

And in the end, Makarov and the others defeated him.

This was the secret Fairy Tail had guarded for generations.

Something with enough power to destroy the world.

Lumen Histoire.

Photon Reconstruction.

The Myth of Light.

And its final name—

Fairy Heart.