Chapter 408: Arriving in Edolas
"Alright, alright, I'll bring back souvenirs. Don't worry about it," Noah sighed in fond exasperation.
While he was genuinely happy that the guild had so much faith in him, their borderline absurd lack of concern for the interdimensional war they were walking into was a little ridiculous.
"Hehe, it's just because everyone trusts you so much!" Sorano giggled, patting Noah on the shoulder.
"Then I suppose I should thank everyone for the vote of confidence," Noah smiled warmly. He turned to face the strike team. "Alright, everyone who was selected for the mission, step forward. It's time to move."
"Right!"
The S-Class mages—excluding Gildarts and Ur—stepped forward as one.
Natsu, Gray, Wendy, Meredy, Yukino, and Gajeel simultaneously took a step forward.
Lucy, trembling like a leaf, nervously shuffled forward to join them.
Naturally, Mystogan, Lisanna, Happy, and Carla—the ones originally born in Edolas—stepped up to the front line as well.
"That's quite a large group."
"Yeah, and Wendy and her friends are going too... Aren't they a bit too young for this?"
"It'll be fine! They have half our S-Class roster going with them. They'll be perfectly safe!"
The guild members murmured among themselves as the strike team assembled. Given how young Wendy's squad was, it was only natural for the rest of the guild to worry about their safety.
"Happy and Carla are originally from that world, so they need to return and find the truth of their origins," Noah explained to the crowd. "Meredy and Yukino are deeply worried about Carla, so they're coming along as well. With the rest of us there to run interference, they won't be in any real danger."
Hearing Noah's calm reasoning, the guild's worries evaporated. Noah's strength was an absolute guarantee, and every single person on the strike team was a powerhouse in their own right. Even the younger girls—Wendy, Meredy, and Yukino—possessed combat abilities that easily eclipsed standard mages. With a lineup this stacked, the only people in danger were the enemies on the other side.
"We're leaving the guild in your hands," Noah said, walking over to Gildarts and Ur.
"Just go already. And make sure you tell me all about the crazy stuff you see over there when you get back," Gildarts waved him off casually.
The very next second, Gildarts sprinted over to Cana, throwing his arms wide for a massive hug, only for Cana to ruthlessly stiff-arm him in the face.
"Cana-chan~! You're going to be gone for so long! Daddy is going to miss you so much!" Gildarts wailed, tears streaming down his face. Having only just reunited with his precious daughter after three years, he was absolutely devastated to see her leave on a dimensional crusade.
"Stop crying, old man. We'll be back before you know it," Cana sighed, trying to comfort him while actively keeping him at arm's length.
"Alright... just promise me you'll stay safe," Gildarts sniffled, finally backing off with a deeply reluctant expression.
"I know, I know," Cana replied with a confident smirk.
"Don't worry about things over here. We'll keep the guild perfectly safe," Ur assured Noah with a confident smile.
"I'm counting on you," Noah nodded.
Leaving Gildarts and Ur behind had been a tactical decision made well in advance. Fairy Tail needed heavy-hitting S-Class mages to guard the home front. The two veterans had insisted that the younger generation needed the experience of exploring an unknown world, volunteering to hold the fort so the guild wouldn't be left vulnerable in their absence.
"Oh, right. Everyone heading to Edolas, take one of these pills and swallow it immediately," Noah instructed, turning back to Ultear and the rest of the strike team as he handed out small medicinal capsules.
"What exactly is this?" Ultear asked, inspecting the pill before casually popping it into her mouth and swallowing. The others quickly followed her lead.
"Because of the unique laws of that universe, Edolas is a world entirely devoid of internal magic, and it actively drains magical energy from its surroundings. If mages like us—who generate our own magic power—cross over, our magic will be completely sealed away. We wouldn't be able to cast a single spell," Noah explained calmly. "These pills are specially formulated to stabilize our internal magical circuits, allowing us to freely use our magic while over there."
Hearing this, the team's expressions instantly hardened, only to immediately relax again.
As mages, losing access to their magic meant losing ninety-nine percent of their combat capability. Wandering into a hostile dimension completely stripped of their powers would have been a pure suicide mission. But thanks to Noah's terrifyingly flawless preparation, that fatal weakness had been completely neutralized.
Seeing that everyone had swallowed their medicine, Noah looked up toward the sky.
High above, the massive spatial void in the center of the clouds remained perfectly suspended, locked in place by Noah's shimmering golden runic arrays.
"Alright. Let's head out," Noah declared.
Ultear, Laxus, and the others nodded firmly. Following Noah's lead, the team walked out to the open courtyard, putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the guild.
Before taking off, Noah pulled out two intricately carved bracelets and snapped them onto his wrists. He then slipped several runic rings onto his fingers, clasped a heavy magical necklace around his throat, and finally placed a metallic, circuit-lined crown atop his head.
"What is all that for?" Sorano asked curiously, the rest of the team watching his bizarre wardrobe change.
"Wait, do we all need to equip stuff like that to survive the dimensional crossing?!" Lucy panicked, her anxiety instantly flaring up again.
"No, you're fine. I'm just equipping these as an extra layer of security so I can safely transport all of you. You guys don't need them," Noah clarified.
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
"Here we go," Noah announced. After double-checking the magical flow of his newly equipped artifacts, he simply raised his hand.
Instantly, the gravity around the strike team vanished, and their bodies gently floated off the ground.
"I've completely stabilized the spatial tunnel, but we still need to punch through the barrier in one breath to avoid any dimensional turbulence. Brace yourselves," Noah warned.
With that, the team began rapidly ascending toward the heavens. Everyone instinctively steeled their nerves, their bodies rocketing upward faster and faster.
"Dimensional breach in three... two... one!" Noah's voice echoed directly into their minds via telepathy.
WHOOSH!
Their ascent accelerated to blinding speeds, the city of Magnolia becoming nothing more than a blur beneath them as they shot straight into the heart of the swirling clouds.
As they breached the Anima portal, an overwhelmingly brilliant white light engulfed them, forcing everyone to squeeze their eyes shut against the glare.
When the blinding light finally faded and they opened their eyes, they were greeted by a breathtaking, utterly alien landscape.
Massive, oddly shaped islands drifted lazily through the sky, completely defying gravity. Bizarre, alien flora covered the floating landmasses, and crystal-clear waterfalls cascaded directly off the edges of the islands, vanishing into the clouds below. Fluffy white clouds drifted around and between the floating continents, painting a picture of absolute, surreal beauty.
The team couldn't help but gasp in pure awe.
"This is... Edolas..." Carla murmured, completely stunned by the majestic scenery. Out of sheer habit, she was gripping the back of Wendy's collar as they hovered in the air.
"Our... home..." Happy gasped, dangling Natsu by his vest as he stared wide-eyed at the floating islands.
"It really is... a completely different universe..." Lucy whispered, spinning around to take it all in.
"So this is where you're from, Happy!" Natsu cheered with a massive, excited grin, completely unfazed by the fact that he was dangling thousands of feet in the air.
"I can't believe... I'm actually back..." Lisanna muttered, her eyes tracing the painfully familiar landscape. Even though she knew this operation was going to bring her home, actually seeing it with her own two eyes felt like a surreal dream.
"It's a beautiful world. It's exactly the kind of place I'd expect my sister to grow up in," Mirajane smiled warmly, placing a comforting hand on Lisanna's shoulder.
Hearing her sister's gentle words, the lingering anxiety in Lisanna's chest melted away. A bright, genuinely happy smile bloomed across her face.
"Yeah. It really is stunning," Cana agreed from the side.
"An alternate dimension, huh..." Gray mused, crossing his arms—having naturally stripped off his shirt at some point during the dimensional transit.
Beside them, Mystogan remained completely silent, his eyes locked onto the horizon. This was the world where he was born. The land where he grew up. It held countless beautiful memories, and an equal amount of profound sorrow. Returning after seven long years, an overwhelming tidal wave of emotion crashed through his heart.
Gajeel silently scanned the environment. While his primary objective was to find a flying cat partner, he couldn't deny that the bizarre, anti-gravity landscape was incredibly cool.
"Look, Carla! The islands are actually floating!" Wendy pointed excitedly.
"There are so many of them!" Meredy gasped in wonder.
"It's gorgeous. I don't think Earth Land has any natural floating landmasses like this," Ultear noted, highly intrigued by the spatial anomalies.
"It seems to be a defining characteristic of this world's ecosystem. The islands are being kept aloft by localized pockets of magic," Noah explained. He was hovering just ahead of the group, actively pinging the surrounding environment with his sensory magic. His scans revealed concentrated deposits of magical energy embedded directly into the bedrock of the floating islands.
"Is it similar to your Gravity Magic, Noah?" Yukino asked curiously.
"Probably similar in application, but I'd need to run a deeper analysis on the structural composition to know exactly how it works naturally," Noah replied.
"Whoa! So cool! Look, Happy, look at that! There's a literal river flowing through the sky! How is that even possible?!" Natsu bellowed, pointing wildly into the distance.
Everyone followed his gaze. Sure enough, a massive, winding river of crystal-clear water was casually flowing through thin air, strictly following an invisible, suspended current without spilling a single drop onto the lands below.
"That sky river operates on the exact same principle as the floating islands. It's a natural phenomenon sustained by residual magical energy," Noah explained, seeing everyone's baffled expressions.
"But didn't you say this world's magic is rapidly depleting? How is there still enough ambient magic to keep entire islands and rivers floating?" Sorano asked, tilting her head.
"The magic is definitely draining, but it's a gradual process, not an instant deletion. If they were completely out of magic, the kingdom wouldn't have possessed the massive reserves required to continuously fire Anima portals at Earth Land," Noah pointed out.
Sorano hummed in agreement. That made perfect logical sense.
Suddenly, the team's forward momentum abruptly halted.
And then, without any warning whatsoever, Noah completely dropped out of the sky, plummeting straight toward the earth below!
"NOAH!" Ultear and the others screamed in absolute terror.
Sorano instantly summoned massive white angelic wings. Erza rapidly Re-Equipped into her Flight Armor. Mirajane immediately activated her Satan Soul.
Moving with blinding, synchronized speed, the three women instantly dove after his falling body.
Laxus had already sparked with golden lightning, fully prepared to bolt downward, but seeing that Mirajane and the others were already on it, he let the electricity fade.
"What just happened to Noah?! Why did he just randomly fall out of the sky?!" Lucy shrieked, her panic mirroring the rest of the team. Noah was undeniably the absolute strongest person among them. To see him suddenly drop like a stone was terrifying.
"I can almost guarantee he's running some kind of insane, reckless experiment," Laxus sighed, crossing his arms with a deeply exasperated expression. "He most likely intentionally avoided taking that magic-stabilizing pill he gave the rest of us. He probably wanted to physically experience exactly how this world forcefully strips away a mage's power."
Laxus had quickly deduced the truth. Given Noah's monstrous power, a genuine, life-threatening accident was practically impossible. If something went wrong, it was entirely because Noah had orchestrated it himself.
"Exactly. It's entirely his own fault. That idiot never stops giving us heart attacks," Ultear scowled, her arms crossed in deep annoyance. Her aerial mobility was heavily restricted compared to Mirajane and Erza. She had instinctively started generating Ice-Make: Wings to chase after him, but the other three had already beaten her to the punch, leaving her hovering in the sky in an incredibly foul mood.
Hearing Laxus and Ultear's logical deduction, the rest of the team finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Wait... if Noah completely lost his magic just now, how are the rest of us still floating?" Lucy realized with a jolt. Since they were all relying on Noah's anti-gravity magic to fly, his sudden loss of power should have sent all of them plummeting to their deaths right alongside him.
"That's exactly why he equipped all those magical artifacts before we crossed over," Ultear explained, connecting the dots. "He would never burden himself with unnecessary gear. Clearly, one of those artifacts was pre-programmed with an automated levitation spell to keep us airborne in the event his internal magic was sealed."
"Spot on. That guy always calculates ten steps ahead. He fully prepared a fail-safe specifically so he could run this suicidal experiment without putting us at risk," Laxus agreed with a huff.
A few moments later, Mirajane and Sorano flew back up, each carrying Noah by one arm, with Erza trailing closely behind them. All three women wore identical, intensely unamused expressions. They had genuinely been terrified for a split second.
"Haha... sorry about that. I guess I spooked you guys," Noah laughed awkwardly, seeing the collective glare of his strike team zeroed in on him.
"Laxus and Ultear said you intentionally didn't take the pill. Is that true?" Lucy asked, staring at him in disbelief.
"Yeah. I was incredibly curious about the exact mechanics behind how this world violently suppresses internal magic, so I decided to use myself as a test subject to gather firsthand data," Noah admitted, looking entirely too cheerful for a man who had just nearly plummeted to his death.
"And? Did you discover anything?" Ultear asked. Despite being immensely irritated that he had pulled a stunt like that without warning them, seeing his excited, mad-scientist grin made her genuinely curious about his findings.
~~~
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