"Fire Dragon King's—Brilliant Flame!!"
Outside the city, blazing fire dyed the entire sky crimson.
With Natsu's roar rolling like thunder across the mountains, the inferno crashed down with overwhelming force upon Zancrow below.
Now fully transformed into a demon, Zancrow stood amid the black God Slayer flames burning across his body, desperately squeezing out every last drop of power he possessed.
It made no difference.
Natsu's orange-red dragon fire overwhelmed the black flames outright and swallowed him beneath a devastating torrent.
Zancrow's shrill screams echoed from within the blaze as his grotesque body began swelling under the tremendous strain, only to be burned and carbonized under the unbearable heat until it shriveled in on itself.
BOOM—!
The enormous crimson-gold fireball rolled across the ground for a long time before finally dissipating, and when the area at last fell silent, Zancrow lay as a charred mass at the bottom of a crater without making another sound.
Natsu descended steadily from the sky and landed beside the crater, breathing a little harder than usual as he glared down at his opponent.
"Finally. Man, this guy's annoying."
Erza walked over from nearby and gave him a perfectly serious look.
"You took too long. Gray could have defeated him twice in the time you spent here."
"Shut up…"
Natsu pouted and grumbled under his breath.
To be fair, Zancrow had always been a somewhat awkward opponent for him.
Before the demonification, Natsu could practically play with him, but this second-stage demonic evolution had given Zancrow significantly greater resistance to dragon fire and had even allowed him to devour some of it.
Gray would have had a much easier time.
Whether he used his unmeltable black ice or the purple ice specifically designed to annihilate demons, Zancrow's transformed body would have been a perfect target for Ice Devil Slayer Magic.
"Alright, that's enough."
Having successfully rescued Natsu, Erza turned toward Altair.
"We should regroup with Bro and the others."
She had only taken a few steps when something above caught her attention.
Erza stopped and slowly raised her head, her expression immediately changing.
...
"What is that?"
At another battlefield near the volcanic cavern, Wendy still held Kain Hikaru's curse doll.
The absurdly useful little item had allowed her and Carla to turn Kain against Gapri and secure the victory, but neither girl was paying attention to the defeated enemies anymore.
Countless streams of blue light were rising from mineral veins throughout the surrounding land.
Like reverse meteors, they streaked across the sky from every direction and converged toward the royal capital of Altair.
Carla frowned as she watched the unnatural spectacle.
"Could something have happened on Ankh and Lucy's side?"
At that moment, Gray emerged from the cavern with his shirt still missing.
He carried the unconscious Rustyrose in one hand and Doll in the other before casually tossing both beaten demons onto the ground.
Planting one foot on Doll's body, Gray looked toward the distant blue lights and immediately lost his earlier relaxed expression.
"We shouldn't waste any more time. Let's go support Ankh and Lucy."
His eyes narrowed toward the capital.
"I've got a really bad feeling about whatever's happening over there."
Far above Altair, hidden from ordinary sight among the clouds, an enormous dark-blue magic array had begun to take shape.
...
While everyone else raced toward the royal capital, Ankh and Lucy were still facing the newly arrived Mard Geer beneath Zash's estate.
Ankh ignored the mocking remark Mard Geer had directed at Brandish. Instead, his attention suddenly shifted upward as he sensed the vast flow of energy gathering overhead.
His brows drew together.
"You're collecting Magic Power from Stella's Stellarium veins and feeding it into an Alchemical Transmutation Array."
Ankh's eyes returned to Mard Geer.
"What are you trying to create?"
Mard Geer's lips curled into an enigmatic smile.
"Why, I'm completing my plan, of course."
"That's impossible!"
Lucy immediately reacted.
"Dragon Cry has been with Ankh this entire time! How are you supposed to carry out the plan without it?"
An Alchemical Transmutation Array was an experimental technique belonging to the broad family of Lost Magic.
Its principle was terrifyingly straightforward: by combining an enormous amount of Magic Power with a source containing the fundamental essence of a powerful species, then spreading that essence through a specially constructed array, an ordinary human could be forcibly transformed into a lesser derivative of that species almost instantly.
Actually creating such an array, however, was absurdly difficult.
Its structure was enormously complicated and required an immense amount of time to construct, while even the smallest error could render the entire formation useless and force the caster to rebuild it from the beginning.
Maintaining the array also demanded extraordinary amounts of Magic Power, and activating it required proficiency in several other ancient Lost Magics as well as a deep understanding of alchemical transmutation.
The requirements were so severe that the technique could practically be called a Lost Magic among Lost Magics.
It was nearly inconceivable that any modern mage could master it.
That had been one of the main possibilities Ankh and the others had discussed when trying to understand why Animus seemed so confident that he could transform humans across the continent into dragon-like beings.
For the necessary source of draconic essence, Dragon Cry could just barely qualify.
But Dragon Cry had never fallen into Mard Geer's hands.
So why was he activating the array now?
Ankh stared silently at Mard Geer, while the Underworld King merely gave Lucy an openly mocking smile.
Brandish placed a hand on Lucy's shoulder.
"Because Mard Geer's mission from the beginning…"
Her voice was low.
"…was never to help Animus create dragon subspecies."
The Black Magic Cult.
The mysterious power capable of transforming humans into demons.
Pieces suddenly fell into place inside Ankh's mind.
"The civilians the Black Magic Cult has been abducting lately…"
His voice became colder.
"You turned them into demons and sacrificed them to the array as the source material, didn't you?"
Lucy's eyes widened in horror before blazing with fury as she turned toward Mard Geer.
All those people the cult had kidnapped…
All those lives they had destroyed…
Had merely been ingredients for this?
"As expected of the Fairy God of Death."
Mard Geer smiled approvingly.
"You realized it quickly."
Then he began explaining with infuriating calm.
"My assignment in Ishgar was to test whether this technology had reached a viable stage. To make that easier, I recruited the vermin of the Black Magic Cult under Lord Zeref's name and put their fanaticism to use."
He chuckled.
"To their credit, those vermin proved surprisingly efficient. Not only did they locate Stella for me—a kingdom filled with Stellarium that has absorbed a millennium of starlight and provides the perfect power source for the array—but they also continued supplying me with experimental subjects."
Mard Geer raised one hand to his forehead with an exaggerated sigh.
"Humans really are troublesome creatures, though. Such an inferior species."
"I granted them power and attempted to alchemically transmute their flesh into the foundation of an Etherious body, but even now I have yet to achieve a truly complete success."
His smile faded slightly.
"Studying Dragon Cry's structure finally gave me the breakthrough I needed, and if I'd had just a few more days, the process would have been far closer to perfection."
He glanced at Lucy's furious expression, then at Ankh's unreadable face.
"Unfortunately, you were the ones who showed up."
Mard Geer spread his hands almost apologetically.
"So I had no choice but to begin ahead of schedule."
"Dragon Cry would have been an excellent catalyst and dramatically improved the process, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe I can simply take something from you."
His eyes gradually widened as excitement overtook his composed expression.
"So yes, because the demonic source material is incomplete, the array is weaker than I intended."
His grin became increasingly unhinged.
"But for an experiment…"
"It will do."
Mard Geer suddenly threw both arms wide as the enormous array above Altair began drawing in even more blue light from across Stella.
His voice thundered through the underground hall with fanatical delight.
"Rejoice, you miserable humans!"
"You insignificant insects have been granted the privilege…"
"of becoming Etherious!"