Chapter 187

Chapter 187: Chapter 187

Jellal was finally ready to make his move?

A cold glint flashed through Marshall’s eyes.

He had been waiting for this day for a very long time.

Because Ultear had remained undercover within the Magic Council, she had access to Jellal’s entire plan.

The Tower of Heaven was now complete.

Jellal intended to formally begin his operation one week from now.

When the time came, he would send Erza’s childhood companions to "invite" her to the Tower of Heaven, where Erza would then be used as the sacrifice required to resurrect Zeref.

At the same time, Jellal would deliberately leak the news that the Tower of Heaven had been completed and that Zeref was about to be resurrected, forcing the Magic Council to vote on whether to fire Etherion.

For various reasons, some members of the Council would be unable to attend the meeting.

As long as Jellal secured more than half the votes—five in total—he could authorize Etherion’s activation directly.

He had already prepared the necessary magical array.

Once Etherion struck the Tower of Heaven, all of that immense magical energy would be absorbed by the Lacrima making up the tower.

At that point, all Jellal would need was Erza as the final sacrifice, and the resurrection of Zeref would supposedly be complete.

Jellal’s calculations were meticulous.

Unfortunately for him, he had absolutely no idea there was a mole standing right beside him.

Marshall now knew his entire plan.

Naturally, he had no intention of allowing Jellal to succeed.

He would let Erza see Jellal’s true ugliness for herself.

Then, at the moment Jellal believed victory was finally within his grasp, Marshall would personally tear apart the illusion he had spent years building and send him plunging into the darkest possible despair.

’Hahaha...’

Marshall could barely suppress an evil smile.

He genuinely wanted to see what expression Jellal would make when the plan he had painstakingly prepared for years collapsed right in front of him and every last shred of hope vanished.

Nearby, Lucy suddenly shivered.

For some reason, she had the feeling Marshall was thinking about something extremely unpleasant.

"So... what exactly do you need me to do for the experiment?"

Marshall snapped back to reality.

"I’ve got something urgent to deal with."

He stood.

"You can entertain yourself for a while."

"???"

Before Lucy could respond, Marshall teleported away.

She was left staring blankly at Lust.

That rotten little bastard!

What was that supposed to mean?!

"Idiot!"

Lucy stomped her foot angrily.

Marshall, however, had no time to tease her right now.

Now that he knew Jellal was preparing to act, the first thing he needed to do was share the news with Erza.

...

At that moment, Erza was deep in the eastern forest, sparring with Mira.

Pride and Wrath were sitting nearby watching the fight.

Erza had been training extremely hard lately in preparation for confronting Jellal.

There weren’t many people in Fairy Tail qualified to serve as her sparring partner, and Mira was one of the best.

That had become even more true after Mira acquired Devil Slayer Magic and received another major boost in strength.

The quality of their training had risen considerably.

Erza’s Magic Power had already broken past 70,000, and she could vaguely feel that her swordsmanship was approaching another breakthrough as well.

When Marshall teleported into the clearing, Erza and Mira were in the middle of an intense exchange. Their colliding magic had become powerful enough to disturb the weather overhead.

The gap between them was extremely small.

Taken together, the two of them could already be considered roughly equivalent to a Wizard Saint-level fighting force.

"Marshall?"

Erza and Mira naturally stopped when he appeared.

"What brings you here?"

Marshall looked toward Erza.

"Erza, I’ve got new information."

He glanced briefly toward Mira.

"Can we... talk somewhere else?"

Erza immediately understood what he meant.

She turned to Mira.

"Sorry, Mira. We’ll have to stop here for today."

She picked up her sword.

"We’ll finish this another time."

Then she looked at Marshall.

"Let’s go."

Marshall took Erza’s hand, waved to Mira, and teleported away with her.

Mira remained standing in the clearing.

"...?"

She blinked.

Something felt wrong.

Very wrong.

Although she had been spending most of her recent time training with Erza, Mira had still been paying attention to Marshall.

After all, compared with Erza, Marshall was obviously more important to her.

And while the changes were subtle, Mira had definitely noticed something different about him lately.

Marshall seemed to have been in an unusually good mood.

It was difficult to describe exactly what she meant, but it reminded Mira of the sort of suspiciously pleased expression someone might wear after secretly getting away with something without being discovered.

There was another difference too.

Marshall’s general presence seemed to have matured slightly.

Only slightly.

But enough for Mira to notice.

And recently, he and Levy had become unusually close, as though the two were hiding some little secret from everyone else.

Now he had appeared without warning, taken Erza away, and explained absolutely nothing!

Mira frowned.

Her instincts told her that something was wrong.

It felt as though a bright red DANGER sign had suddenly appeared over her head.

That subtle sensation that everyone else knew something while she alone had been left outside...

Had she missed something extremely important?

That shouldn’t be possible.

She and Marshall were incredibly close!

Whenever Marshall wanted to do something interesting, he had never forgotten to include her before.

They were best friends!

Mira slowly began biting one of her nails as she paced around in circles, unable to figure out what was happening.

Wrath watched the entire one-woman performance before immediately deciding to make things worse.

"Hahaha!"

She looked toward Pride.

"Pride, my lord has been privately meeting women quite often lately."

Wrath grinned wickedly.

"But there’s one scrub who never gets invited."

She pointed toward Mira.

"Guess who?"

Pride barely looked at her.

"Boring."

She lifted her chin.

"Wrath, do not speak recklessly. Such behavior merely reveals your weakness."

"?"

Wrath’s expression twisted.

"Can you speak like a normal person for once?!"

She jumped to her feet.

"You wanna fight?!"

Pride remained completely calm.

"No."

Her expression didn’t change.

"If one wishes to step over an ant without crushing it, controlling the necessary force is rather difficult."

Wrath froze.

Then exploded.

"YOU BASTARD!"

She pointed furiously.

"I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH AND MAKE MASTER THROW YOU BACK INTO THE FURNACE!"

Pride and Wrath immediately looked ready to start fighting.

Those two really were spectacularly incompatible.

"AHHH! BOTH OF YOU, SHUT UP!"

Mira stomped her foot.

A dangerous light flashed in her eyes.

Her great wisdom had finally reached a conclusion.

It was time to stop relying on wisdom.

She would just find an opportunity to catch Marshall and make him explain exactly what the hell had been happening lately!

...

Meanwhile, Marshall brought Erza back to Cake Tower and told her everything their "informant" had reported.

"Next week..."

Erza’s expression immediately became serious.

"My childhood companions?"

She paced slowly across the room.

"That should mean Sho, Simon, and the others."

Her gaze lowered.

"So they became Mages too..."

After another moment of silence, Erza turned toward Marshall.

"Marshall."

There was unmistakable concern in her eyes.

"Can the two of us really handle the Tower of Heaven?"

As expected.

Whenever the Tower of Heaven was involved, Erza became vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.

That was still the hurdle she had never truly crossed.

The deepest wound in her heart.

’Jellal...’

Marshall’s expression cooled.

’You really deserve what’s coming to you!’

Then he smiled reassuringly at Erza.

"Jellal doesn’t actually have many useful people under him."

He began explaining the intelligence Ultear had provided.

"Your old companions haven’t even reached the threshold of S-Class yet. Because of that, Jellal spent a lot of money hiring Trinity Raven from Death’s Head Caucus as additional muscle."

Marshall shrugged.

"The three of them should have roughly S-Class combat ability, but individually, none of them is a serious threat to you."

Erza listened quietly.

"If you’re still worried..."

Marshall smiled.

"Why don’t we bring the Apostles with us?"

"The Apostles?"

Erza immediately thought of those surprisingly powerful little girls.

She didn’t want her personal history with the Tower of Heaven exposed to everyone in Fairy Tail.

But the Apostles were different.

Bringing them along didn’t bother her.

If anything, the thought made her feel a little more secure.

After considering it for a moment, Erza nodded.

"All right."

Her expression hardened with determination.

"When the time comes, we’ll bring the Apostles with us."

She rested one hand on her sword.

"And together..."

"We’ll intercept the Tower of Heaven."

---------

Read 40 Chapters ahead and support me on patreon.

patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator