Inside the Magic Council, a group of figures had been gathered around the round table for a long time.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
From time to time, their gazes flickered toward an empty chair—one that most chose to ignore.
"Have you gathered all the data?"
A blurry silhouette stepped out from the void, getting straight to the point.
"Of course. Everything you asked for is here."
Yajima, the frail, hunched old man, pushed forward a massive stack of documents, signaling that Papai could take them.
Papai nodded lightly. In the next instant, both he and the thick pile of documents vanished, without another word.
"Phew… finally gone. Dealing with that kind of old veteran is always troublesome."
Jellal's ally, Councilor Siegrain, leaned back in his chair, letting it tilt dangerously, and exhaled.
"Siegrain, mind your manners. This is the Council, not your home."
"I know, I know. But honestly, I never realized that thing had anything to do with him. Would one of you care to explain?" Siegrain chuckled awkwardly, righting his seat, then glanced at the others at the table.
The senior councilors exchanged hesitant looks.
After a long silence, Councilor Org finally spoke, his tone grave:
"…That weapon belongs to him alone."
The Ethereon—the Council's publicly acknowledged strategic weapon—is an orbital array capable of striking any point on the surface of the world. A single blast could wipe out a nation.
The Face Bombs—ancient white relics from forgotten times. Once detonated, they erased the magic particles across the entire continent, reducing the magical world to zero.
Both were the Council's ultimate trump cards, the foundation of its dominance over the magical world.
But beyond raw firepower, there was also its vast research arm. The Council's Circular Satellite Array—Circumference was a name whispered with awe around the globe.
On a macro scale, it monitored every corner of the surface world, receiving signals from the cosmos itself. On a micro scale, it tracked the ebb and flow of magic particles, offering glimpses into the very future of magical civilization.
A weapon, yes—but also a peerless tool of knowledge.
And yet, the origins of this magical superstructure were shrouded in secrecy, the most mysterious among all of the Council's armaments.
Some whispered it was a relic of the ancient era, like Face. Others speculated it came from a far-off world where magic had advanced beyond comprehension.
Now, it was clear: they were all wrong.
The scene shifted.
An endless abyss, as vast and dark as outer space itself. Scattered like sand were countless radiant specks of light, glittering like a dream.
At the very center of these lights, a blue planet orbited its sun. And surrounding that planet—countless tiny dots, almost invisible, circled in silent formation.
The Circular Satellite Array—Circumference.
One of Papai's earliest works after arriving in this world.
The perfect crystallization of his power fused with this world's laws.
A lattice of three hundred and sixty magical satellites.
Each satellite measured roughly ten cubic meters, forged of magically dense alloys—the same substance as the Celestial Gate of Eclipse.
Each one could function independently or link with others to amplify its power.
Together, the 360 satellites formed a global surveillance web, able to observe any corner of the world at will.
And they were more than just eyes in the sky—
They were weapons.
A single satellite carried one percent of Ethereon's destructive capacity.
But linked in groups of fifty, their combined force rivaled—or even surpassed—Ethereon itself.
All 360 together formed a three-dimensional magical matrix, capable of unleashing energy so vast it could scour the planet clean in an instant, returning ecosystems to the desolation of hundreds of millions of years ago.
A true planet-killer.
Of course, the array had weaknesses. Its design was bound tightly to this world's flow of magic, drawing power from stellar dust in the void and the ambient mana within the atmosphere.
If Face ever succeeded in nullifying magic, this doomsday weapon would instantly become little more than space junk.
When Papai was named among the Ten Wizard Saints, he entrusted the Array to the Council, allowing them to sustain it with their resources.
This freed him from the drudgery of maintenance, letting him focus on… other monotonous pursuits.
Truly a joyous arrangement.
Within the core observation chamber of Circumference, Papai appeared.
In an instant, the pitch-dark void transformed—spacious, warm, bright, radiant with endless light.
With a casual wave of his hand, the thick stack of documents he had retrieved dissolved into streams of data, strings of ones and zeros that spread across the vast chamber.
Outside, the 360 satellites shifted in orbit, glowing faintly. As the digital streams vanished, countless crooked lines manifested in the air.
To the trained eyes of researchers, these were familiar: radiation frequency patterns, records of magic particle fluctuations across Aslant during specific intervals.
There were tens of thousands of such records in this databank.
Normally, these datasets were used to chart the ebb and flow of mana—helping nations avoid disasters or harnessing extreme conditions to push magical research forward.
But why was Papai revisiting them now?
"…As I thought. There's some kind of observer effect at work."
Immersed in the sea of data, Papai highlighted several key historical nodes—moments when he was forgotten, and when he was remembered again.
Each of these moments corresponded to violent fluctuations in the movement of magic particles.
And, coincidentally—or perhaps not—these nodes aligned almost perfectly with the timeline of Fairy Tail's story.
At first, Papai believed he could only be remembered outside the "plot."
But one day, during a story event, he had also been remembered.
That forced him to abandon his earlier conclusion.
"…I'll need more data."
He sat down cross-legged, calmly absorbing decades of accumulated intelligence.
Outside the control chamber, Siegrain lingered in the shadows for a long time, expression unreadable, as though wrestling with a decision.
"Lord Siegrain, everything is prepared. Do we… still proceed?" Ultear hesitated, glancing at the chamber, her tone uncertain.
"Zeref… will never lose."
Exhaling slowly, Siegrain's face twisted into a fervent grin, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light.
Of course, Ultear replied, lips curving into a confident smile of her own.