Hope's words were like a depth charge, stirring up monstrous waves among the Fairy Tail members.
"Pfft—"
Makarov spat out all the wine he had just drunk, spraying Gildarts' face opposite him.
But at this moment, he couldn't care less about apologizing. He suddenly stood up, his eyes wide, "What did you say?! The First Master and Zeref are... are in that kind of relationship?! And they died for love?!"
"Master, calm down!" Mirajane quickly supported the tottering Makarov, afraid that the nearly ninety-year-old Third Master would faint on the spot.
Makarov's body was fine, but the psychological impact made it difficult for him to accept for a while.
Teacher-student romance, age-gap romance, life-and-death romance... playing it so wild... is this the true worth of the older generation...? Feeling everyone's burning gaze of gossip, Mavis was so embarrassed that her entire spirit body was faintly blushing, wishing she could dig a hole and crawl into it.
Although she was a ghost now, ghosts also cared about their reputation.
"Hope! You're too blunt!" She floated behind Hope, her small fists vigorously pounding his back, but because she was a spirit, they all passed right through him.
"But I'm stating facts, First Master."
Hope shrugged, looking innocent, dealing with Mavis as if she were a child.
Everyone else in the camp was digesting this shocking piece of gossip, their expressions varied: shock, bewilderment, disbelief... and a hint of excitement.
Younger people were much more accepting of new things. For them, hearing such an explosive love story was worth the price of admission, even if they died!
Compared to the First Master and the Black Wizard being lovers, another piece of news also caught everyone's attention: Fairy Tail played both sides, good and evil.
Gray opened his mouth, and after a long while, he finally managed to blurt out, "Is our guild... a bit too complicated?"
Erza nodded seriously: "Indeed, if our relationship with Zeref were to get out, the Council would probably directly classify us as the source of Dark Guilds."
"Eh—?! Will we be wanted?" Lucy's timid nature was triggered, and her expression was a little worried.
"Don't worry, with Hope here, all the legitimate guilds in Ishgar combined wouldn't be enough to fight him."
Cana leaned lazily against a tree trunk, looking like she enjoyed the drama. "But First Master, your romance... was quite spectacular."
"That's enough, all of you!"
Mavis finally couldn't take it anymore. She floated into the middle of the crowd, her small face flushed, but she tried to maintain the Master's dignity, "Those are all things of the past! What's important now is... what's important is..."
She kept saying "is" for a long time, unable to think of how to change the subject.
It was Natsu, who had finally recovered from his shock, whose peculiar thought process helped her out. "The First Master and Zeref are lovers, and Zeref is my brother, so doesn't that mean..."
"According to seniority, the Master has to call me uncle?"
"Aiy—yah!"
A gigantic fist swung, and amidst Natsu's screams, Makarov hit him high into the air like a baseball.
"Carla, look! It's a shooting star!" Happy was holding a grilled fish, trying to please the little white cat, completely unaware that the shooting star he spoke of was his partner.
As the moon hung high, the camp gradually became lively again.
Everyone was chatting and laughing; some were resting, some were playing, and others were gathered around Mavis listening to her stories. Only Hope became busy.
After seeing off Gajeel and Wendy, who had inquired about the whereabouts of their dragon parents, he turned and handed the unconscious humanoid goat to Lucy.
Loki recognized this half-human, half-goat fellow as Capricorn, the Celestial Spirit of the Zodiac who had been missing for many years. According to the time here, he hadn't returned to the Spirit World for almost 7 years.
There was actually a Celestial Spirit who had stayed in the Human World longer than Loki.
It was important to note that Loki was close to death after only two years of staying.
The reason Capricorn could stay in the human world for so long was because he was enslaved by a magic. The mastermind controlled him to join Demon Heart, becoming one of the Seven Kin of Purgatory.
In front of Lucy and Loki, Hope forcibly pulled a living person out of the Capricorn Celestial Spirit's body—the one who controlled Capricorn.
His name was Zoldeo, and he possessed the Lost Magic 'Human Subordination,' which could turn humans into his puppets. However, if used on non-human life, it would merge with the target.
Zoldeo wanted to possess the Capricorn Celestial Spirit, so he used 'Human Subordination' on him, merging into Capricorn's body and thus controlling him.
Besides Capricorn, Hope liberated other victims enslaved by Zoldeo, including Sanja Oshin, the hero of Ruben Caldo, whom the Trinity Raven were trying to rescue.
For such a monstrous scumbag, Hope was always too lazy to interrogate, directly using a mind-reading one-stop service.
This investigation indeed uncovered important information.
Zoldeo had actually been a servant of Layla, Lucy's mother!
Twenty years ago, Layla married Lucy's father and decided to give up her status as a Mage. She then distributed the three Celestial Spirit keys she held—Aquarius, Capricorn, and Cancer—to three servants, telling them to pursue their own lives.
Zoldeo was one of these three servants; he received the Capricorn key.
Seven years ago, due to a certain matter, Layla needed to gather all twelve Golden Keys. With her connections, she successfully borrowed nine keys, and her former servants also returned to provide assistance.
But unforeseen circumstances arose: Grammi, the servant who held the Aquarius key, had married and moved to the Western Continent. When she was returning by boat, she encountered a sea storm, which prevented her from delivering the Celestial Spirit key to Layla in time.
To complete that matter, Layla had to overdraw her magic power to compensate for the missing Aquarius key, which led to her developing a magic deficiency syndrome. She fell seriously ill and passed away within days.
Watching Layla, who was both his former master and benefactor, die while he was powerless, Zoldeo's dark side was awakened, and he became desperate for power.
Driven by resentment and greed for the Aquarius key, Zoldeo took advantage of Grammi's grief and ambushed and killed her.
But because he was too afraid, he fled before he could get the Aquarius key, so the Aquarius key ended up in Lucy's hands.
Later, Zoldeo learned 'Human Subordination.' To make the Capricorn Celestial Spirit stay forever, he used this magic to merge the two.
Although sustained by Zoldeo's magic, Capricorn's power had gradually begun to weaken over the past two years due to prolonged lack of starlight energy replenishment.
During the attack on Tenrou Island, Zoldeo unexpectedly discovered an uncontracted Celestial Spirit even more powerful than Capricorn: Leo, the head of the Zodiac.
However, just as he was preparing to ambush, Zeref, who was being dragged away by Loki, noticed him and casually sealed him in a dark magic space. Due to the huge power gap, Loki wasn't even aware that such an incident had occurred.
Lucy never expected so many things to have happened before and after her mother's death, and she was even more enraged by Zoldeo's disregard for human life.
Grammi couldn't make it back in time because she encountered a natural disaster on the way, and even her mother Layla didn't blame her. Yet this guy, out of greed, killed an innocent person.
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