Chapter 525: It is a Miracle, and an Abyss
"The Second Trade War raged for years until it finally ended in X690," Mavis continued, her voice trembling slightly. "Compared to the First Trade War, the casualties were exponentially higher. The widespread consensus was that the massive loss of life was directly caused by the involvement of Magical Guilds.
"The magical community accepted this grim reality and forged an inter-guild treaty explicitly prohibiting warfare between guilds. With that, a brief era of fragile peace began.
"Six years later, in X696, I had a second chance encounter with him. It was only then that I finally learned his true name: the legendary Zeref.
"During our conversation, he realized that I, too, was afflicted with the Curse of Ankhseram. I had become immortal.
"He explained to me that the only reason my curse hadn't triggered yet was because my sense of morality and the value of life had been dulled by the years of bloodshed during the war. He warned me that the moment I truly realized the precious, irreplaceable value of life, the curse would awaken, and it would indiscriminately snuff out the lives of everyone around me.
"But I was stubborn. I didn't believe him. I ran away.
"Later that exact same year... my dear friend Yuri and his wife, Rita, welcomed their first child into the world."
Mavis turned to look at Makarov. The elderly Guild Master closed his eyes, his expression sorrowful and silent.
"Rita gave birth right inside the guildhall. They asked me to name the child. I remembered reading a story about a kind, just king named Makarov, so I suggested the name. They loved it," Mavis smiled weakly, tears beginning to pool in her spectral eyes.
"But it was in that exact moment—holding a newborn baby, witnessing the absolute miracle of new life—that I finally, truly understood the precious weight of life. And exactly as Zeref had predicted... the Curse of Ankhseram awakened.
"The very first victim of my curse... was the woman holding my hand. Your mother, Rita.
"I am so, so sorry, Makarov..." Mavis sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
"I have known the truth of my mother's passing for a very long time, First Master. Please, do not blame yourself. It was not your will. It was a curse. I have never blamed you," Makarov said softly, shaking his head.
Hearing Makarov absolve her of the guilt she had carried for nearly a century, Mavis finally broke down. She openly wept, her spectral form shuddering with profound, unadulterated grief.
Neither Noah nor Makarov tried to stop her or offer empty platitudes. They simply stood in respectful silence, allowing her to release the century of agonizing sorrow she had bottled up inside.
As the founder of Fairy Tail, Mavis had built the guild on the foundational principle of "harmony" and "family." To her, the word 'comrade' wasn't just a label; it was an absolute, blood-deep bond of unconditional trust. She had created Fairy Tail to be a sanctuary—a home her children could always return to after their adventures.
She valued the lives of her comrades above all else. And yet, because of a twisted, paradoxical curse, she had been forced to watch her own presence snuff out the life of someone she loved. The psychological trauma was unimaginable.
After several minutes, Mavis's sobs finally began to subside. She wiped her eyes and took a shuddering breath.
"Whenever you are ready, First Master, please continue the story," Noah said gently.
"Yes... I'm alright," Mavis nodded, her expression hardening with resolve.
"The Curse of Ankhseram is a paradox of absolute cruelty. The more you love and cherish life, the more the curse violently strips life away from your surroundings. The only way to stop the killing is to completely sever your emotional attachment to the world and stop loving.
"After Rita died, my presence began withering the trees, killing the animals, and threatening the townsfolk. To protect the guild, I ran away. I wandered the continent aimlessly, leaving a trail of death in my wake. I tried to starve myself to death. I didn't eat or drink for over half a year... but my immortal body simply refused to die.
"A year later, Zeref found me again.
"Through our conversations, I realized that his prolonged isolation and desperate attempts to suppress the curse had completely shattered his psyche. His thoughts were fragmented and contradictory. Seeing him suffer so profoundly broke my heart.
"He was the one who had taught me magic. He was the reason I was able to liberate Magnolia. He was the inspiration behind the foundation of Fairy Tail. He was someone I deeply admired.
"But more than that... I was the only person in the world who shared his curse. I was the only person in existence who could truly understand his absolute, suffocating isolation.
"And so... I fell in love with him," Mavis confessed, a wistful, tragic smile touching her lips.
Noah and Makarov remained silent, listening intently to the tragic history of the two greatest mages to ever live.
"The absolute root of all magic, the deepest abyss of the arcane... is the One Magic: Love," Mavis stated softly. "Love can manifest absolute miracles, but it can also forge unparalleled tragedies.
"When two individuals afflicted by the Contradictory Curse genuinely love each other... the paradox reaches its absolute, lethal breaking point. The more you love the other person, the more the curse attempts to kill them. And in our case... Zeref's curse was simply stronger. His love for me... killed my immortal body."
"The One Magic is Love?" Noah murmured, his eyes widening slightly. "If that's the fundamental truth of the universe... then Precht's entire ideology is completely inverted. He is chasing a delusion."
During the war on Tenrou Island, Precht had arrogantly declared that by diving into the darkest, most twisted abysses of dark magic, he was inching closer to the One Magic. But if the One Magic was actually Love, then Precht's descent into absolute darkness and cruelty was dragging him infinitely further away from his goal. He was completely lost.
"Yes. I truly do not understand what happened to him or why he twisted his ideology so completely. He wasn't like that when I knew him," Mavis sighed deeply, her spectral shoulders slumping.
"After I 'died,' Zeref returned my lifeless body to the guildhall. Precht found me.
"Being the genius that he was, Precht quickly realized an anomaly: although my heart had stopped and I had no pulse, a microscopic, almost imperceptible trace of magic still lingered within my core.
"Desperate to save me, he sealed my body inside this massive, emergency stasis lacrima and subjected me to every form of restorative magic imaginable. None of it worked.
"Eventually, through his relentless research, Precht deduced the nature of my curse. He realized I was the one who had accidentally killed Rita. Knowing that revealing this truth would destroy Makarov and fracture the guild, he made the executive decision to cover up my death and hide my body down here.
"In X697, he officially announced my passing to the world and constructed a fake grave on Tenrou Island—my birthplace and the site where we first met. That same year, honoring my final wishes, Precht was inaugurated as the Second Master of Fairy Tail.
"For the next three decades, while publicly managing the guild, Precht secretly dedicated his life to researching resurrection magic, obsessively trying to revive me. But his research began to spiral into something completely unprecedented.
"Precht was an unparalleled magical genius. And my body was trapped in a perpetual, paradoxical stasis—frozen halfway between life and death by an immortal curse.
"When you combine a peerless magical intellect with a body trapped in an immortal paradox... it inadvertently birthed a miracle. A magic that completely transcends the Three Great Fairy Magics.
"The ultimate, classified super-magic: Fairy Heart."
Mavis finally revealed the true nature of the guild's darkest secret.
"A perpetual magic..." Noah whispered, his eyes locked onto the massive crystal.
"Just as the name implies, it is permanent and infinite. Fairy Heart is a source of absolute, inexhaustible magic power," Mavis stated, her voice echoing with profound gravity.
"To put it into perspective: the Magic Council possesses the Etherion cannon, a super-weapon capable of vaporizing an entire country in a single shot, but it requires a massive, coordinated charge-up sequence and has a strict cooldown.
"If hooked up to Etherion, Fairy Heart could theoretically fire that country-destroying blast on rapid-fire, continuously, for all eternity, without ever running dry. It is an absolute, infinite wellspring of magical energy."
Makarov turned to look at Noah. This was the reason the secret was guarded so fiercely. And now, they had entrusted it to the boy they deemed worthy of carrying the guild's future.
Even though Noah had already deduced the general mechanics of the anomaly through Precht's research, hearing Mavis explicitly define it as a source of infinite magic still sent a massive shockwave through his mind.
Having spent the last decade obsessively researching magic, Noah understood better than anyone alive exactly what "infinite magic" truly meant.
Countless theoretical, god-tier spells; massive, continent-spanning spatial enchantments; reality-warping temporal manipulations—all of these concepts were currently impossible simply because they required a volume of magic that exceeded the physical capacity of any living organism.
With an infinite power source, every single theoretical impossibility became a terrifying reality.
It was an absolute miracle. But it was also a terrifying, apocalyptic abyss. One slight miscalculation, and the world would end.
Noah closed his eyes. He took a slow, deep breath, forcing his racing thoughts into submission. He methodically suppressed the sudden, overwhelming surge of academic greed and excitement. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, his expression was perfectly calm, his eyes clear and analytical.
Seeing Noah regain his composure so quickly, Makarov and Mavis both smiled in profound relief.
They had chosen correctly. Noah was the Fourth Master. Only a man with his absolute, ironclad mental fortitude could resist the maddening temptation of infinite power.
"If the existence of this anomaly was ever made public, the entire continent would instantly devolve into a bloodbath," Noah stated rationally. "Every single nation, empire, and dark guild on Earthland would declare war on Fairy Tail to claim it. Hiding it was the only logical option. Your paranoia is entirely justified."
"Exactly. But despite our absolute secrecy, my son, Ivan, somehow learned of its existence. That is why he became so obsessed with obtaining it," Makarov noted grimly.
"Which is why you excommunicated him and planted Gajeel as a double agent within his dark guild," Noah deduced instantly.
"Yes. I needed to monitor his movements and gather enough concrete evidence to crush his operation simultaneously, preventing him from ever leaking the secret," Makarov confirmed.
"It seems Ivan hasn't leaked it yet. If he had, we would have armies marching on Magnolia right now," Noah noted. "If I had to guess, Ivan likely learned of Fairy Heart directly from Precht before the old man completely lost his mind."
"That is my working theory as well. Precht... oh, Precht," Makarov sighed, rubbing his temples. Mavis remained silently mournful.
"So, that explains the Devil's Heart," Noah summarized, looking back at the crystal. "Precht spent decades studying Fairy Heart. When he eventually abandoned the guild and descended into darkness, he used his research to construct the Devil's Heart as a crude, artificial imitation. That explains why his research logs felt like he was working backward from a 'correct answer.' He was trying to replicate this."
"That is our conclusion as well. The similarities in the nomenclature alone make it undeniable," Mavis nodded.
"But Grandpa, if Fairy Tail possesses a source of infinite magic, why have we never utilized it? Even siphoning a microscopic fraction of that power to maintain our localized defense barriers would be incredibly efficient. If we had this, I wouldn't have had to spend months tracking down those massive Lacrima batteries to power the guildhall's defensive matrix," Noah asked, genuinely curious.
When Noah was upgrading the guild's infrastructure, finding magical batteries large enough to sustain his complex enchantments had been a massive logistical nightmare. The Heartfilia Conglomerate had to pull serious strings just to procure them.
"You are correct in theory, Noah. Utilizing Fairy Heart would solve countless logistical problems," Makarov agreed softly. "But... what happens if we lose control?"
Makarov looked deeply into Noah's eyes. "What happens if we tap into the infinite wellspring, and the valve breaks? What happens if the magic simply refuses to stop pouring out? If we connected it to a defensive array, and the array overloaded and detonated with infinite force...?"
"I see," Noah nodded slowly, understanding the sheer, paralyzing terror behind the decision.
"Exactly. If we lose control of infinity, the consequences are beyond apocalyptic. Magnolia, Fiore, Ishgar... the entire world could be consumed in an instant. We simply cannot risk it unless humanity faces absolute, total extinction," Makarov stated firmly.
"Because you recovered Precht's data and were already deducing the truth, the First Master and I agreed it was safer to bring you into the fold early. Knowing your personality, you will inevitably study this anomaly. But you must swear to me, Noah: you will never attempt to actively tap into or activate Fairy Heart. The risk of a cascading failure is too absolute," Makarov warned him, his tone brooking no argument.
"I swear it, Grandpa," Noah nodded seriously.
Infinite magic was the ultimate double-edged sword. If he made a single microscopic miscalculation in a containment array, he could accidentally erase the continent. He wasn't arrogant enough to gamble with billions of lives.
"Good," Makarov nodded, satisfied with Noah's absolute vow.
"So, from a purely magical perspective... the First Master's physical body has functionally mutated into a living, perpetual magical battery?" Noah asked, returning his attention to the telemetry data scrolling across his Archive screens.
"Yes. It is the tragic, paradoxical byproduct of the curse placed upon my flesh," Mavis confirmed solemnly.
~~~
Get early access to 50+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn