Bang!
Ankh slammed the door open and immediately saw every member of Crime Sorcière lying in beds across the room.
Frey was tending to Meredy, whose face had turned dark as she struggled for breath.
The moment she saw Ankh, she spoke urgently despite her exhaustion.
"Sawyer brought them back. They're suffering from Magic Deficiency Disease caused by an outside contaminant, along with organ failure and severe breathing difficulties…"
Ever since becoming Ankh's business partner, Frey's career had soared.
She had become a true businesswoman in every sense of the word.
She commanded one of the Magic Council's military units, had taken the right of succession from her useless younger brother, and now controlled the Cureniar family and its vast commercial empire.
Naturally, Ankh had also entrusted her with more important responsibilities.
She knew Crime Sorcière's true identities and the purpose behind their activities.
Most of the time, Frey gathered intelligence, maintained contact with the team, and quietly helped them suppress any dark forces that surfaced.
But earlier that night, she had suddenly lost all contact with Crime Sorcière.
Before she could gather people to search for them, Sawyer appeared outside the company headquarters, dragging his barely breathing companions behind him on a cart.
The alchemists and medical mages Frey had secretly trained were unable to cure them. With no other choice, she urgently summoned Ankh.
The moment Ankh arrived and saw the room full of wounded people, a deep and indescribable fury surged inside him.
He approached the beds and released divine power of life from his palm. Gentle light rapidly spread over everyone's bodies.
Under its radiance, streams of black smoke began "evaporating" from within them, looking like poison being purified from their bodies.
Ankh quickly drew the smoke into himself to prevent it from spreading through the room.
His divine power could alter life force at its very foundation. He had strengthened their bodies' resistance directly, forcing the toxins out.
As for Ankh himself, swallowing a little black smoke was hardly going to kill him.
Once the deadly Magic Barrier Particles were expelled, the mages' Magic Power could finally begin recovering naturally.
Before long, Jellal, who had the strongest recovery among them, was the first to awaken.
He forced his eyes open. When he saw Ankh and Frey, relief immediately crossed his face.
"Is everyone all right?" he asked weakly.
Ankh glanced around.
Ultear had remained inside the contaminated fog for the longest while resisting the particles, and Sawyer had repeatedly crossed through it while rescuing everyone.
Their conditions were more serious, and they would need to recover more Magic Power before waking.
Erik, Sorano, and Macbeth were in much better shape.
"Don't worry. Everyone's safe."
Ankh helped Jellal sit up.
As expected of one of the new generation's greatest monsters, someone capable of being compared to Laxus. In only a short time, Jellal's Magic Power had already recovered enough for him to move without difficulty.
He accepted the glass of water Frey offered him, caught his breath, and began recounting what had happened.
When Ankh heard that Councilor Cid had been killed to silence him, only for Ezel—the demon sent to silence Cid—to be silenced in turn, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
"Those two groups of killers weren't working together?"
Jellal nodded and frowned thoughtfully.
"I wasn't certain at first. But the second attacker spoke as though he considered Ezel and Tartaros beneath him. He most likely belonged to another faction."
"An ally of Tartaros?"
Ankh began running through every force that might cooperate with Tartaros or possess detailed knowledge of its operations.
The answer was not particularly difficult to guess.
Within Ishgar, very few dark forces remained that were stronger than Tartaros.
Which meant the other faction had probably come from outside the continent.
The room fell silent for a moment.
Then Jellal suddenly remembered something and spoke urgently.
"The Council members! We need to protect them. Tartaros may be carrying out a plan specifically targeting current and retired councilors!"
"Relax," Ankh assured him. "I already had the Master warn the Magic Council. Once I finish treating all of you, I'll head back and help catch whoever's behind this."
...
Just as Ankh had said, before leaving Magnolia, he had immediately asked Makarov to contact the Magic Council after Frey told him Crime Sorcière had been attacked by Tartaros.
What Ankh did not know was that almost as soon as he left, Makarov received word that disaster had struck the Council itself.
"Heavenly God" Serena, who had recently been punished and demoted to an ordinary councilor, had suddenly betrayed them and launched an attack from within!
Chairman Hyberion was severely wounded by Serena's surprise attack, though fortunately his life was not in danger.
The other three councilors soon discovered the betrayal and joined forces to drive Serena back.
Serena also appeared to have support waiting outside.
While Ur and the others pursued him, a mysterious elderly man appeared and rescued him.
The old man effortlessly held off three powerful councilors and calmly escaped with Serena.
The enraged councilors had no time to continue the chase.
At that very moment, the Magic Council headquarters came under attack by an army of demons.
Wolfheim and the others were forced to spend considerable effort defending the Council's expensive research facilities.
And as though the internal attack had been a signal, the Council's control over the outside world temporarily weakened.
Guilds throughout the kingdom began sending nearly identical reports at almost the same time as Makarov:
Former councilors living in retirement were being murdered.
The killers were also suspected to be demons.
The overwhelmed Magic Council could barely keep up with the reports pouring in from Makarov and guilds across the country.
With no other choice, they gathered the leaders of the major guilds and asked them to organize their own regional defenses and protect the retired councilors nearby.
Wolfheim even made the decision to reveal the confidential locations where those former councilors were living.
The information could leak to other criminals and place the retirees in even greater danger…
But the Council had run out of options.
The unrest along the northern border remained unresolved, and now they were facing an internal crisis as well.
They simply did not have enough people.
Tartaros had completely abandoned the secretive image it had maintained for years.
The moment it made its move, it went all in.
Countless demonic soldiers attacked cities throughout Fiore, and powerful officers appeared in several cities where retired councilors lived.
Tartaros was fighting as though there would be no tomorrow, throwing everything into a single desperate offensive.
Anyone with eyes could tell there was something deeply strange about it.
Fortunately, the Council's greatest fear did not come true.
Wolfheim's seemingly reckless decision proved remarkably effective.
Once they learned where the retired councilors were living, the strongest members of the guild alliance immediately organized defensive and counterattack forces.
Sabertooth, Mermaid Heel, Lamia Scale, and the other powerful guilds swiftly suppressed the demon uprisings in their respective cities.
After exchanging information with one another, they began strategically sending teams to protect the retired councilors.
Magnolia, as Fairy Tail's home, had also been attacked by a large number of lesser demons.
But with most of the guild's strongest members still present, Fairy Tail quickly wiped out every invading force.
After coordinating with the other guild masters, Makarov dispatched teams of younger Fairy Tail members to several nearby cities to defend the former councilors.
The city neighboring Magnolia was where Yajima had chosen to retire.
And the team that appeared there to confront the demon army led by the powerful officer known as Tempester was none other than the Thunder God Tribe.
Along with Fairy Tail's most dependable man—Laxus.
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