"Alright, I think we should move forward with this plan," Karna decided after listening to the plan put forward by Zeref.
Right after he had teleported back into the capital from Edolas, Karna was met with a destroyed city. But with his Death Slayer abilities, he was able to sense that only a few humans had died in the ongoing battle.
The Fairy Tail members, boosted by the additional Dragon Lacrima, were easily mowing down dragons left and right, generating and pulling aggro from all of them while Wendy was enchanting the powerhouses of other guilds with Dragon Slayer enchantments.
This was way better than the battle in the original timeline where only eight dragons had managed to take down the majority of the wizards in the capital all on their own.
As he thought about joining them in taking out the rest of the dragons, August appeared in front of him, informing him about how Zeref wanted to meet him to speak about the final plans.
That's when Karna noticed that the Spriggan Twelve had appeared and were helping in dealing with the dragons. He had imagined that high level of magic to belong to the guild masters of many of the guilds. Guess he was wrong.
So Karna had used the mark he left in the leaf to teleport towards Zeref's research centre, where he was met with the birthplace of all Etherious, and Zeref explained the plan they had made.
The only way to deal with Ankhseram is outside time and space, inside the Domain of Death where his soul is currently anchored.
Ankhseram had completed his ascension, which Karna had stopped when it happened to himself on Tenrou Island. If Karna had completed it, he would have become one of the candidates to obtain full control over the Domain of Death.
But if he had gone along with it on that day, he would have killed every single one of his friends and family on Tenrou Island during his ascension. But because he stopped it forcefully, the chances of him ascending as easily as he did that day were impossible.
But today, Zeref and Mavis had the ability to activate his ascension using Acnologia's dead body.
Acnologia too was a being that qualified for ascension, but his obsession with killing every remnant of dragons from the planet was so high that the ascension process was not even activated for him like it was for Karna.
All his death energy did was protect him from dying from the wounds he sustained in his battles.
So Mavis and Zeref were planning on using his body to create a gateway for Karna to participate in the ascension.
But the moment he does, he will be transported to the Domain of Death where he will battle Ankhseram, who had been residing in that realm for countless millennia.
"Karna, are you sure about this? Time is malleable in that domain, so Ankhseram might have spent a long time adapting himself to that dimension. You will be at a disadvantage if you go on your own," Mavis said, worried about sending him to an unknown location.
"You don't need to worry, Mavis. But this is something that we must complete. Ankhseram has completely become our enemy, and the chances of him attempting to take us down in the future are very high.
And if by any chance he attains complete ascension and complete control over the Domain of Death, he will retaliate, and by then we would be powerless to stop him," Karna spoke with a grave expression.
Ankhseram had already been recognised as an enemy by all three of them and vice versa. The chances of him seeking revenge after ascension were a foregone conclusion.
"Let's start the ritual," Karna decided.
The ritualistic array looked like a combination of both magical and mechanical objects.
Acnologia's body was kept at the centre of the room, with connectors linking it to Mavis's body inside the Lacrima.
The plan was to supercharge the fragments of death energy left inside Acnologia's body using the infinite magic in Mavis's body.
The supercharged particles would then be used to create a portal into the Domain of the Dead.
The moment Zeref activated a machine by flicking a lever, violet-coloured sparks began spreading throughout the room filled with magical energy. Then they all concentrated and came into contact with Acnologia's body, gained a blackish hue, and began concentrating on a single point right above the body.
The point then slowly began gaining size as seconds passed until finally a sphere of black liquid with a radius of six feet formed, with ripples spreading across its surface.
"I have never seen such concentrated energy of pure death," Mavis muttered with wide eyes, while Zeref frowned in concentration as he tried to analyse every aspect of the sphere.
Even Karna was startled by the density of the death energy he felt from the sphere. Even his physical constructs never reached this level of density. He realised once more why Ankhseram required the Lumen Histoire. The portal itself had surpassed anything that Karna had created with death energy till now, and Karna was the current strongest wizard in Earthland. And while creating the portal, the amount of energy siphoned from Lumen Histoire had not even caused a dent in the amount of energy in the artifact.
"The ritual seems to be stable. But from what the machines indicate, it's a one-way system. The moment you go in, the ascension process activates" Zeref said as he looked at the readings on the machines. Then he turned towards Karna. "After you go in, it will be up to you to escape from there. And from what I can speculate, you will have to win the battle against Ankhseram and gain control over the entire domain to come back."
Karna did not take long to come to a decision. He stepped closer to the churning sphere and then turned around.
"Alright, wish me luck," he said as he jumped into the sphere.
A/N - Alright, if the recent chapters have been a bit dull, sorry about that. Even the Acnologia fight ended quickly. This was because of a promise I made to myself when I started writing. I always hated stories where the main character becomes too strong but is unable to defeat weaker enemies without any reason. Karna's fights seem dull because he is strong enough to finish those fights in a quick and clean manner. It's not that the enemies are weak; it's that Karna is too strong.