At the northern front, the tide had completely turned.
Elite guilds from across Ishgar had joined the battle through the Magic Council's teleportation device, erasing the advantage Guiltina had gained through its surprise attack and driving its forces toward total collapse.
The only truly troublesome battlefields left were those involving the mages of Diabolos.
Watching his army fall apart around him, Commander Rein had already sunk into despair.
It was over.
Completely over.
Guiltina's already impoverished Magic Council had emptied its coffers to fund this crucial campaign, yet this naval battle alone had nearly wiped out their entire military.
Rein could already imagine what awaited him upon his return: a chamber full of elderly councilors pointing at his face and screaming abuse before making him accept all responsibility and sentencing him to death.
"Damn you, Diabolos! What a load of garbage about being the strongest mage guild!"
Having thoroughly given up, Rein stood at the bow of his command ship and screamed toward the distant battlefield.
"You talked like you could flatten an entire continent before the war, but the moment the fighting started, every last one of you bastards disappeared!"
None of the Diabolos mages were nearby, so Rein freely vented every scrap of frustration in his heart.
In truth, he could only blame the difference between the two continents' foundations.
Diabolos had already contributed more than enough to justify its payment.
Nearly every one of Fairy Tail's strongest mages had been tied down by one of its members.
The remaining defeats were simply the Magic Council's own fault for being weak.
After being destroyed and rebuilt several times, Ishgar's current Council of the Four Gods had entered something of a honeymoon period with the legal guilds.
Its political structure was already shifting toward an alliance in which the guilds collectively governed the magical world.
Guiltina's Magic Council, by contrast, was even more backward than Ishgar's old Council had been.
It possessed little military power of its own, while the guilds scattered across the continent were loosely organized and answered summons only when they felt like it.
The Council could create laws and regulations, but whether anyone obeyed them depended entirely on their mood.
Even for this continental war, Diabolos had been the only guild willing to accept the commission.
No other guild wanted to step into such a mess.
Rein, however, had no awareness of any of that and continued cursing the allies who had come to support him.
While he was still enjoying his rant, he suddenly felt a hand settle heavily upon his shoulder.
Rein spun around, ready to bark at whoever had interrupted him—
Then froze.
"F-F-Fairy…"
"God of Death," Ankh kindly finished for the stammering commander, patting his shoulder.
Rein collapsed onto the deck and frantically scrambled backward, terror filling his eyes.
He had read Ishgar's intelligence reports. Naturally, he knew exactly how powerful the man standing before him was.
According to those reports, Ankh had run the former strongest mage in Ishgar through within five moves.
He was Ishgar's true trump card in this war.
Ankh grabbed Rein by the collar and lifted him with a pleasant smile.
"So, will you order your entire army to surrender, or should I kill you and carry your head—"
"The first one! I definitely choose the first one, my lord!"
Before Ankh could finish, Rein screamed his answer and forced the most ingratiating smile of his life.
Ankh had not displayed even a trace of his power, yet Rein felt a suffocating pressure more terrifying than anything he had sensed from the members of Diabolos.
"I like sensible officers."
Ankh gave his neck an approving pat.
Rein shuddered so violently that he almost believed his head had already been knocked off.
As Rein stumbled away to locate his adjutant and issue an order for unconditional surrender, a Communication Lacrima inside the cabin suddenly began flashing urgently.
His heart tightened again.
Feeling Ankh's gaze fall upon him, Rein swallowed and quickly connected the transmission from the Magic Council's headquarters.
"My deepest apologies, Councilor! The situation here—"
Before he could report how badly the battle had deteriorated, the chaotic noise on the other end drowned him out.
A terrified roar nearly shattered his eardrums.
"RETREAT, YOU IDIOT! YOU'VE DRAWN THE FIVE DRAGON GODS OVER THERE!!"
The shouting and frantic commotion in the background showed that headquarters had descended into complete chaos.
The elderly councilor's hysterical panic also made it clear just how terrifying these so-called Five Dragon Gods were.
Rein's hand trembled.
His vision went black, and he nearly died on the spot when he forgot to breathe.
Ankh caught the Lacrima, grabbed Rein by the shoulder, and asked curiously,
"What are the Five Dragon Gods? Are they strong?"
"You don't even know the Five Dragon Gods?! Rein, what kind of intelligence have your subordinates—"
Both men ignored the councilor barking from the Lacrima.
Rein's face had gone deathly pale.
"The Five Dragon Gods of Guiltina… Every one of them bears the title of a god. They rarely reveal themselves, but whenever one appears, it can cause a disaster on the scale of the world's destruction!"
"Everything destroys the world these days," Ankh complained. "Is everyone in Guiltina that sheltered?"
"I'm serious!"
Rein became so anxious that his explanation started falling apart.
"Of all the dragons living in Guiltina, those five are the only ones no organization has managed to injure in over four hundred years!"
After Acnologia's Dragon King Festival in Ishgar, a considerable number of dragons had fled north and settled in Guiltina.
Unlike Ishgar, where dragons were now considered extinct and existed only in legends, dragons in Guiltina were merely an extraordinarily rare species.
Most of the northern continent's dragons had either been young four hundred years ago or had suffered crushing psychological trauma and severe losses of strength after encountering the Black Dragon.
When humanity united and fought with everything it had, those dragons could still be defeated.
Stories of dragon slaying were therefore not particularly unusual in Guiltina.
That was precisely why the people of the northern continent feared the Five Dragon Gods so deeply.
For four centuries, countless challengers had risen against them, yet not one had succeeded.
"The Water Dragon God, Fire Dragon God, Wood Dragon God, Gold Dragon God, and Moon Dragon God," Rein explained, struggling to keep his pale lips from trembling. "Those are the five mighty dragons who bear the names of gods."
"Four hundred years ago, they fled to Guiltina to escape the Black Dragon Acnologia. But after four centuries of growth, legend says each of the Five Dragon Gods has become powerful enough to rival Acnologia…"
"Perhaps even surpass him!"
Ankh stared at him.
"…"
"What did you say at the end?"
Rein blinked and repeated himself.
"The Five Dragon Gods are strong enough to rival Ishgar's Black Dragon—perhaps even stronger!"
"Pfft—"
Rein stared at him.
"???"
Ankh covered his mouth and struggled to force down the corners of his lips.
"Sorry. I couldn't hold it in."
"That was pretty funny."
"Why don't you believe me?!"
Before Rein could continue arguing, the ship beneath them began shaking violently.
Towering waves surged across the sea, while a hurricane tore through the sky overhead.
Rein pointed toward the heavens in terror.
"They're here! The Five Dragon Gods are here!!"
Ankh followed his finger.
Sure enough, a dark speck had appeared in the distant sky and was rapidly closing in.
---------
Read 40 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator