Chapter 291

Chapter 291: Chapter 291

Erza’s revelation left everyone staring at her with their mouths hanging open.

The Master of Grimoire Heart was Fairy Tail’s Second Guild Master?

If Precht had never stepped down, then technically they would all have been his subordinates too.

Following that logic far enough, didn’t that mean Grimoire Heart was almost an offshoot of Fairy Tail?

Had their perfectly legitimate guild secretly possessed a Dark Guild background this entire time?

Fortunately, Mest wasn’t there to hear any of this.

With his current memories telling him that he was a Magic Council spy sent to investigate Makarov, a secret of this magnitude probably would have made his head explode.

Reporting something like this to the Council ought to have been worth several promotions by itself.

Once the initial shock passed, however, everyone quickly realized that it didn’t actually change much.

Whatever connection Grimoire Heart’s Master had once possessed to Fairy Tail had ended when he left the guild.

More importantly, Grimoire Heart had already invaded Tenrou Island and attacked them directly.

At that point, nobody cared whether the enemy leader had once been the Second Master, the Second Master’s teacher, or the king of Ishgar himself.

They had come looking for a fight, so Fairy Tail would simply beat them back.

"Erza, your group is too conspicuous to sneak around inside that airship," Older Wendy said as she stepped forward, pulling Lucy with her while Happy followed along almost by accident.

"Why don’t you leave the mission of destroying the Heart to us?"

This was her first real battle since joining Fairy Tail on this side, and she wanted to accomplish something meaningful rather than merely follow everyone else around.

As for why she had dragged Lucy into the infiltration team, the reasoning was simple enough: neither of their original partners was currently with them, so they might as well form a temporary team together.

Happy was essentially an extra attachment.

Erza didn’t hesitate. "All right. We’ll do everything we can to keep Hades’s attention focused on us. Whether we can actually win the battle in the end may depend on you destroying that Heart."

There was no lengthy argument or warning. Erza trusted her companions completely.

Not long afterward, Natsu finally returned after getting Tiny Wendy to reinforce him against motion sickness.

Once everyone had recovered as much as they reasonably could and reorganized their formation, Fairy Tail prepared to move out.

Standing on the shore, they could already see the battlefield over the distant sea.

Black storm clouds churned above Grimoire Heart’s airship, lightning flashed through the sky, and violent winds tore across the water hard enough to whip the ocean into chaos.

The entire area looked less like the aftermath of a magical duel and more like the beginning of the apocalypse.

That was the kind of phenomenon produced when three Mages with Magic Power around the million mark fought seriously.

At that level, calling them human-shaped natural disasters was barely an exaggeration.

Bickslow swallowed as he stared at the storm. "Are we... actually supposed to jump into a fight on that level?"

"The old man is still fighting, isn’t he?" someone replied. "This isn’t exactly the time to start getting cold feet."

"Exactly!" Natsu clenched his fists, somehow becoming even more excited at the sight of the disaster zone

"Erza already said the final stage of this S-Class exam is beating the Second Master! Hehehe! That means I’m definitely becoming S-Class this time! I’M ALL FIRED UP!"

"In your dreams! I’m the one getting promoted!"

"Like hell! It should be me!"

"You’re not even a candidate, dumbass! What are you yelling for?"

The idiots immediately began arguing again, showing so little tension that anyone watching would have assumed they were heading toward another guild brawl rather than a battle against one of the most powerful Mages alive.

In truth, most of them still had no idea exactly what kind of monster they were about to face.

Eventually someone remembered the most immediate practical problem.

"So... how are we getting over there?"

Lightning began crackling around Laxus.

"You figure that out yourselves. I’m going ahead."

Before anyone could respond, he transformed into a bolt of lightning and shot away from the shore, streaking directly toward the distant airship.

"Damn it! Laxus ran off ahead again!" Natsu immediately looked toward Happy. "Happy!"

"You don’t need to bother," someone interrupted. "Greed already prepared the teleportation."

A large magic circle lit up beneath the entire group.

In the next instant, everyone standing within it disappeared from Tenrou Island and reappeared on the broad open deck of Grimoire Heart’s flying vessel.

The moment Natsu realized what he was standing on, his face changed.

"It’s a vehicle! Bleeegh—"

He froze, waited for the nausea that never came, and straightened again.

"Oh, right. I got buffed. Never mind."

Before anyone could laugh at him, a streak of light came hurtling across the deck and slammed down directly in front of them.

It was Laxus.

His attempted surprise attack had evidently failed, because someone had just kicked him straight back across the battlefield.

"Oh?"

Hades looked toward the newly arrived Fairy Tail members with mild interest.

"So the current generation of Fairy Tail has all come to join us."

His gaze settled briefly on Laxus before shifting to Makarov.

"Is that boy your grandson, brat? To think your children actually defeated all of the Seven Kin of Purgatory... I have to admit, Makarov, I underestimated you."

Hades had already been fighting Makarov and Gildarts for quite some time, yet he still looked remarkably relaxed.

Makarov and Gildarts, by contrast, were both sweating heavily and bore obvious signs of having gone through a difficult battle.

The difference was immediately unsettling.

No matter how long the fight continued, Hades’s Magic Power never seemed to diminish.

He could unleash one powerful spell after another without showing any meaningful sign of exhaustion, as though his reserves simply had no bottom.

Only after standing directly in front of Fairy Tail’s Second Master did Natsu and the others finally understand the oppressive pressure everyone had been warning them about.

Hades’s Magic Power was absurdly powerful.

Gildarts spat a mouthful of blood to the side and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

"This is ridiculous. We seriously can’t put him down?"

Despite the complaint, there was more exasperation than despair in his expression.

"Our guild really does have way too many old monsters."

Sometimes there was nothing to do but admit that experience mattered.

Apparently the saying about old ginger being the spiciest still had some truth to it.

Even so, Hades wasn’t so overwhelmingly strong that Gildarts had lost hope.

He and Makarov had deliberately avoided exhausting themselves with an all-out offensive earlier, choosing instead to keep Hades occupied while gradually wearing down his Magic Power.

At least, that had been the plan.

After fighting for so long, however, Hades still looked almost exactly the same as when they started.

There was no obvious decline in his magical reserves at all.

That confirmed what Marshall’s intelligence had warned them about.

They had to destroy the Heart.

Hades calmly surveyed the reinforcements.

"Defeating the Seven Kin changes nothing. I remain a mountain none of you can cross, because so long as I stand here..."

He slowly rose into the air.

"I am invincible."

Hades extended one hand toward the gathered Fairy Tail Mages.

A sphere of pitch-black Magic formed in his palm before compressing into a dense mass of darkness.

"Dark Wave!"

The black sphere erupted into a violent shockwave.

Erza and several others were blasted backward across the deck, but Natsu roared and charged straight through the chaos.

"Don’t underestimate the bonds of Fairy Tail!"

He swung a flaming fist at Hades, only for the old man to sidestep him with contemptuous ease and kick him away.

Gray came in immediately afterward with a katana in hand, but Hades slapped his blade aside and sent him tumbling across the deck.

Gajeel didn’t even manage to reach striking distance before a beam of dark Magic hit him head-on and knocked him down.

The others tried to attack from different directions, but spells began forming around Hades faster than they could close in.

Bursts of darkness, magical bullets, waves of force, and other techniques drove Fairy Tail’s Mages back one after another.

Hades laughed arrogantly as Magic seemed to dance around him.

"Magic itself moves with me! Your understanding of the magical arts barely scratches the surface of mine, yet you believe you can challenge me merely by gathering more people?"

He raised his hands.

"You thought overwhelming me with numbers would be enough? Then allow me to show you what true Magic looks like."

An ominous magical formation spread across the deck.

"Heaven’s Executioner: Nemesis!"

Objects scattered across the airship began to twist and mutate.

Wood, metal, wreckage, and other materials containing Magic Power transformed into hideous demonic creatures one after another, artificial pseudo-life-forms created on the spot through Hades’s spell.

They might have been temporary creations, but the magical presence radiating from them made it clear that none were harmless cannon fodder.

Makarov’s expression tightened.

He had already been fighting for ages, so where the hell was Marshall’s promised support?

The brat had specifically told him to hold out until his secret weapon was ready.

Surely he wasn’t actually planning to make an old man like Makarov throw his life away before finally showing up.

Then, almost as though answering his thoughts, another teleportation circle suddenly opened in midair.

Something large dropped through it.

A compact blue-and-white machine nearly three meters tall burst from the magic circle and accelerated directly toward Hades.

Makarov’s eyes lit up.

"Finally!"

His exhaustion seemed to vanish as he drew in a deep breath and shouted to the others.

"Children! Prepare to counterattack! Our reinforcement is here!"

Hades remained perfectly calm.

He studied the strange blue-and-white figure approaching him and quickly noticed that there was no living person inside the armor.

A magical puppet, then?

Hades almost looked disappointed.

"Makarov, this is what you’ve been waiting for?"

A faint sneer appeared on his face.

"Ridiculous. Do you truly believe a mere artificial golem can influence a battle of this level? Watch closely. I’ll destroy it right—"

A cluster of black magical bullets formed around him and fired.

More than a dozen projectiles slammed directly into the incoming machine.

Hades expected it to be blown backward.

Instead, the blue-and-white armor accelerated.

His expression finally changed.

"What?"

The machine tore straight through the barrage without slowing in the slightest.

Hades immediately raised a magical barrier, intending to stop the charging construct and hurl it back with brute force, but the result was even more absurd.

The barrier struck the armor, yet the blue-and-white giant passed through the magical resistance almost as though the spell weren’t there.

For the first time since the battle began, Hades looked genuinely confused.

The Gundam crashed through his defenses, closed the distance before he could adjust, and drove a vicious mechanical fist straight into his face.

The impact launched Hades across the deck.