Natsu risked his life and charged into the Celestial Spirit Beast's body without looking back.
Happy pulled him along, staring at the pitch-black space around them, and couldn't help but complain, "We can't see anything in here."
Natsu twitched his nose, then his expression sharpened.
He pointed ahead and said, "There's a familiar smell. It's the real Celestial Spirit King!"
Happy immediately understood and dragged Natsu deeper into the darkness.
As they flew, pale lightning suddenly appeared out of nowhere and struck toward them, accompanied by genuine thunderclaps that roared in their ears.
"Why is there lightning in here too?"
"It's almost like the immune system inside a body attacking invading bacteria…"
"Who are you calling bacteria?!"
The dense lightning and the various celestial bodies that suddenly appeared really did seem just like Happy had said.
They were part of the Celestial Spirit King's internal defense system, constantly rejecting the two outsiders, Natsu and Happy.
But that was not enough to stop Happy, whose flying skills were already extremely polished.
After dodging attacks for a long time, the two of them finally saw a faint light ahead.
And there, they saw the true Celestial Spirit King—the one who had not been corrupted by Eclipse.
The Celestial Spirit King, who represented reason itself, seemed to have lost consciousness.
His limbs were bound by a long chain of gigantic shackles, and his body had been tied to a glowing sphere that resembled a fireball.
The sphere emitted sinister purple-black flames.
It was devouring the Celestial Spirit King bit by bit, and his enormous body was slowly sinking into it.
"Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!"
Without wasting a word, Natsu gathered Dragon Fire between both palms and slammed it fiercely into the glowing sphere.
But those flames sank into it like rain falling into the ocean, leaving no visible ripple behind.
"Damn it! Wake up already, you big-bearded old man!"
Refusing to give up, Natsu turned his attention to the chains binding the Celestial Spirit King, but the result was the same.
The chains did not budge at all and continued dragging the Celestial Spirit King into the darkness.
"What do we do, Natsu?" Happy asked helplessly.
Natsu's expression shifted several times before he finally gritted his teeth. "Then I'll use my usual method!"
He signaled for Happy to let go of him, then landed on the glowing sphere filled with evil Magic Power and took a deep breath.
The sinister and powerful magic around them poured desperately into Natsu's mouth.
His face turned red, and he coughed violently several times.
"Natsu!"
Happy grabbed him in concern and tried to stop him.
"This is the Eclipse Magic Power that's corrupting the Celestial Spirit King! Eating this won't just give you a stomachache!"
"I'm fine, Happy. More importantly…"
Natsu forced himself to stay focused.
His eyes turned serious as he drew in another deep breath, and the flames continued flowing into his mouth.
"Lucy can't lose her Celestial Spirits!"
...
While Natsu was carrying out his reckless plan to save the Celestial Spirit King from inside the Beast, Ankh was also fighting the final battle against his own Celestial Spirit.
Frimorh's divine power had crossed time and space, corroding Ophiuchus while she was still in a weakened state.
At this moment, she had completely lost consciousness and was moving only through the wildness and brutality buried in her heart.
"Roar!"
Green veins stood out clearly beneath the skin of Ophiuchus's face.
She let out a roar, both arms wrapped in eerie emerald mist as she launched a frenzied assault on Ankh.
Ankh dodged her punch with a flash of movement, but when the green poisonous fog hanging in the air entered his lungs, even his expression changed.
"Tch…"
He turned his head and spat out a mouthful of green blood, then felt his internal organs being repaired by the divine power of life within his body.
"That poison is vicious…"
Just inhaling a bit of it caused his organs to rapidly decay, along with all kinds of disease-like mutations.
Fortunately, Ankh could not die.
"So why didn't you two go with Mirajane and the others to deal with the Celestial Spirit Beast?"
Ankh turned his head and saw Elysia and Anmi standing nearby, both covering their noses and mouths.
Elysia frowned and explained, "Ophi has taken care of us for so many years. I'm more worried about what's happening here."
Anmi nodded hard. "Same here."
Ankh fell silent for a moment.
Then he looked at Ophiuchus, whose movements had slowed slightly again, and murmured, "Looks like your dream came true after all…"
"Ankh…"
A faint call squeezed out from Ophiuchus's throat, but it was quickly drowned beneath meaningless roars.
'I'll save you, Ophis…' Ankh said it silently in his heart.
Then the wings on his back shook violently, and he charged straight toward her.
The green poisonous mist swirling from Ophiuchus's hand grew denser and denser, gradually turning into liquid.
That strange green water gathered into a river and surged toward Ankh from above.
"Spatial Fold: Sever!"
Anmixiu's firm voice suddenly rang out.
His hand gripped an invisible blade formed by the twisting and folding of a "surface" of space itself, a weapon impossible to properly perceive.
From a distance, he swung it down toward Ophiuchus.
Ophiuchus suddenly felt the world in front of her blur.
Acting purely on beast-like instinct, she was shocked to discover that the arm controlling the poison had vanished.
That section of space looked like a fractured three-dimensional cube.
Her arm seemed to have been affected by the slash that cut through space and had been shifted to the other side of the cube.
With cover from his own son, Ankh did not hesitate.
He stretched out his palm, and the bracelet on his wrist that collected divine power began to shine, continuously drawing in the power of the God of Plague and Disease.
Ophiuchus tried to break free of the spatial restraint, unwilling to be trapped, but because of that "missing" arm, her entire body seemed to have been fixed in place.
She could only raise her other hand, where a vivid emerald dagger instantly solidified.
It was a blade formed from solidified deadly poison.
If the toxin within it were dropped into a river, it would be enough to poison every country touched by that water source.
Ophiuchus gritted her teeth and brought the dagger down.
But just as the tip of the blade came within a few centimeters of Ankh's neck, the dagger suddenly burst apart in midair and turned into fluttering fireflies.
Ophiuchus froze.
Behind Ankh, Elysia slowly lowered her hand and looked into Ophiuchus's eyes with a complicated expression.
The power of Illusion and Reality.
It was the one power Elysia had not yet managed to integrate into her Requip combat system, but it was also her true trump card—a power capable of rewriting reality itself.
"Ophi, come back…"
As Elysia called softly, the light in Ankh's hand that was absorbing the divine power flared to its brightest.
Ophiuchus's beast roars gradually calmed down.
The entire Celestial Spirit World was filled with dazzling white light.
...
Not far away, the group fighting the Celestial Spirit Beast immediately sensed that something was wrong, and all of them activated their strongest magic at once.
Inside the Celestial Spirit Beast, Natsu's whole body was wrapped in star-like radiance.
Gritting his teeth, he roared and unleashed his Secret Art again.
"Dragon Slayer Secret Art: Modified!"
"Celestial Spirit—Exploding Flame Blade!"
Attacked from both inside and outside, the Celestial Spirit Beast's body began to swell violently.
Then the murky power that had shaken the Celestial Spirit World exploded outward.
A shockwave that symbolized rebirth was released, sweeping across the entire Celestial Spirit World.