At Kyoka's furious command, Plutogrim—who should have obeyed only the Underworld King—somehow began to slow down.
Its enormous head tilted toward the defensive line far below.
Now that everything had reached its final stage, Kyoka had no intention of letting Ishgar escape unscathed.
"You do realize the Four Gods of Ishgar are down there," Ankh said. "They're strong enough to stop an island this size."
"So what?!" Kyoka screamed, having seemingly lost all reason. "As long as we take a few of them down with us, we still win!"
"Exactly."
Hearing the unexpected agreement, Kyoka felt a spark of hope flare in her heart and immediately spun around.
Sure enough, Mard Geer—the true master of Tartaros—was approaching at an unhurried pace, a faint smile on his face.
"Lord Mard Geer!"
Kyoka called out excitedly.
Mard Geer glanced at her with pity.
"What a disgraceful sight, Kyoka."
His tone made her freeze.
Thinking back on Tartaros's near-total destruction, Mard Geer sighed wistfully.
"Our losses in this operation have been considerable. Fortunately, the Face plan has already begun."
Ankh looked at Mard Geer and the book in his hands, then sneered.
"How cowardly. So the leader of Tartaros only dares show himself through a Thought Projection."
"A Thought Projection?"
Kyoka hurriedly looked toward Mard Geer.
Only then did she notice that his body was slightly transparent, clearly nothing more than a false form created from Curse Power.
"Surely you jest," Mard Geer replied, entirely unbothered by the mockery. "I knew we were at a disadvantage. I'm hardly foolish enough to challenge an entire continent's strongest mages by myself."
Then his smile took on a pointed edge.
"You should hurry, however. Face will activate in less than thirty minutes."
"When that happens, the people of Ishgar will either lose their Magic Power and die… or be conquered by the northern continent."
Ankh stared directly into his eyes.
After a moment of silence, he suddenly asked a seemingly unrelated question.
"Who ordered you to do this?"
Mard Geer's hand tightened around the Book of E.N.D.
His smile quickly widened.
"This humble plan was entirely my own."
"Once Face succeeds, Ishgar's mages will lose their Magic Power, while demons who wield Curses will rule the continent."
"Before this operation even began, you were already preparing to move Tartaros into Guiltina," Ankh replied. "If your true goal was to conquer Ishgar, those two plans contradict each other."
"It was merely a precaution. If the plan failed, we needed somewhere to retreat."
Mard Geer delivered the explanation with perfect composure.
'Completely unnecessary.'
Ankh silently dismissed the excuse before continuing.
"Judging by your behavior, activating Face looks less like your primary objective and more like a backup plan."
"Or perhaps… the first step of something larger."
"And why did you come here specifically to tell me about it? Are you hoping I'll find a way to shut Face down?"
Mard Geer frowned, pressed a hand to his forehead, and gave a helpless laugh.
"I never imagined that simply appearing before you would inspire so many suspicions. You truly are an excessively distrustful man."
Ankh was about to question him further, but Mard Geer quickly turned away.
His Curse-made Thought Projection faded until it was almost transparent, leaving behind only one final warning.
"Feel free to test your suspicions."
"Let us see how many humans in Ishgar—including your companions—lose their lives because of Face while you stand here questioning everything."
His voice faded, and Mard Geer vanished entirely.
Only Kyoka remained, kneeling on the ground in stunned silence.
Her superior had apparently planned to take everything and flee from the very beginning.
Meanwhile, she—the loyal employee who had devoted herself completely to the cause—had been abandoned as the idiot left behind to cover his escape.
Even a cold-blooded killer like Kyoka felt overwhelmed by despair.
Ankh continued staring at the place where Mard Geer had disappeared, several questions still unresolved.
'Did he run because I struck a nerve?'
That would mean his suspicions were probably correct.
Still, Mard Geer had not been wrong about one thing.
Even if Face was merely the beginning of a much larger chain of events, Ankh could not stand by and allow it to activate.
Pulling his thoughts free from the trap laid before him, Ankh focused on the immediate crisis.
He looked down at Plutogrim's bloodred body and decided to kill the enormous demon first.
Once Plutogrim died, everyone trapped inside it should be freed.
The first step was—
...
At the northern defensive line, Hyberion stared gravely at the enormous shadow looming overhead.
He was already preparing for it to fall at any moment.
His magic allowed him to drain blood from living creatures at a distance, making it extremely lethal against biological opponents.
But when it came to destroying something the size of a building—or an island—he simply could not compare with the monsters from Fairy Tail.
Even if he had to rely on raw Magic Power alone, however, Hyberion absolutely could not allow Tartaros's island to crash into the battlefield.
Their soldiers were still fighting desperately on the front lines. If an island-sized meteor suddenly flattened their own army, the war would be over.
Just as Hyberion prepared to risk everything, he blinked.
Plutogrim had stopped moving.
"Huh?"
While he stared upward in confusion, an enormous magic circle slowly appeared beneath the demonic beast.
Its intricate patterns and overwhelming scale revealed the immense power of the mage controlling it.
Hyberion's eyes widened as a possibility occurred to him.
'Is someone… holding it up with gravity?'
There was only one person Hyberion knew who could accomplish something like that.
...
High in the sky, Ankh stood atop Plutogrim and ignored the colossal creature's terrified roars as it struggled helplessly beneath him.
He slowly lowered his weapon.
Countless particles of black energy emerged and condensed around the blade.
As the power of death grew increasingly dense, Plutogrim sensed the approaching danger and thrashed even more violently. Its roars gradually took on an unmistakably pleading tone.
"Death Calamity…"
Ankh paid it no attention.
He lowered his stance, finished gathering power, and tightened both hands around the hilt.
Then he drew the blade in a single explosive motion and whispered,
"Life-Severing Annihilation."
For one instant, even the sunlight seemed to fade.
Boundless darkness swallowed the entire island.
A single pitch-black slash tore across the sky, splitting into countless dragon-like trails of sword light that completely engulfed Plutogrim.
Then the light returned.
The darkness vanished.
Plutogrim's terrified screams abruptly stopped.
Hyberion and countless soldiers along the northern front raised their heads—and witnessed a sight they would remember for the rest of their lives.
The island-sized demon had been covered by countless slashes spilling from that single strike.
Its entire body had been cut into countless perfectly shaped cubes.
Every surface was smooth and even, and each piece was almost exactly the same size—large enough for a single person to stand upon.
One of the trapped teams rested safely atop each cube.
Setting aside the brutality and overwhelming scale of the scene, the result was so geometrically perfect that it resembled an enormous work of art.
The pieces remained suspended motionlessly in the sky, possessing a strange and almost delicate beauty.
Hyberion stared at the miracle in speechless disbelief before finally shaking his head with a helpless smile.
"The younger generation really is terrifying…"
Once again, the people of Fairy Tail had left a lasting impression on him.
Now that was how you built a reputation!
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