"WAAAAH—!"
Elsewhere, after the group split up, Natsu and the others had already plunged into an even deeper section of the underground world.
Lucy hit the ground with a thud, sat up rubbing her backside, and groaned,
"Are we there yet—whoa! This place is huge!"
The chamber beneath them stretched farther than she could see, a vast layer of stone buried deep beneath Elentear.
The air itself was saturated with extraordinarily dense magical particles.
Natsu dusted himself off and turned toward Faris.
"Alta Face is here?"
Faris hesitated before pointing toward a branching passage ahead.
"Down there. That's where Larcade-sama established the core of Alta Face."
Gray stood behind her in silence, his eyes cold and suspicious.
"You look nervous."
Faris stiffened.
Gray stared directly at her.
"You're still hiding something from us, aren't you?"
After a moment, Faris lowered her head.
Her expression became complicated.
"I think… Larcade-sama deliberately appeared in front of all of you."
"To lure you here."
Natsu pointed toward the passage.
"What do you mean? Destroying Alta Face's core will still save Elentear, right?"
"It should."
Faris swallowed.
"But Larcade-sama gave me a specific order before this."
"He told me that if a man named Natsu Dragneel appeared…"
"I had to bring him before Alta Face."
With her entire world facing destruction, Faris finally revealed the task Larcade had forced upon her by threatening the people she cared about.
Natsu blinked and pointed at himself.
"He mentioned me specifically?"
"Is there something special about Natsu-san?" Wendy murmured, lowering her head in thought.
Lucy, however, felt her heart tighten.
She remembered what she had seen within the Memory of the Stars.
And that surname.
Dragneel.
Lucy had secretly investigated it before.
It wasn't a common family name at all. Most surviving records connected it to people who had lived roughly four hundred years ago.
If Natsu truly had some connection to Larcade—
or even to the terrifying Black Wizard Zeref—
then what exactly did that mean?
A heavy silence settled over the group.
Natsu was the one who broke it.
He grinned.
"We came this far already. We're not turning around now!"
He cracked his fist against his palm.
"And if Larcade jumps out at us, I'll just punch him flying!"
His confidence was so straightforward that the others could only set their worries aside for the moment.
Gray shook his head with a faint laugh.
"He's got a point. We can't abandon the job just because there might be a trap."
Natsu raised a fist.
"Let's go! We're smashing Face!"
"Right!"
The group charged through the passage and entered the deepest chamber containing Alta Face's core.
The moment they stepped inside, they stopped.
The space was enormous.
And at its center stood a gigantic white tree.
No—
calling it a tree wasn't quite right.
It was more like a grotesque organism formed from countless enormous white hands twisted together into roots, branches, and a massive central trunk.
The creature connected the stone above and below, its enormous body pulsing intermittently.
There was no longer any doubt that the countless giant Hands erupting across Elentear's surface originated here.
And embedded within the "trunk" was a huge white human face.
It resembled Earth Land's Face weapons.
Unlike those lifeless machines, however, Elentear's Alta Face possessed disturbingly expressive features.
When the five intruders entered, the muscles of its face shifted.
Its pupil-less eyes slowly swept across them.
Then it spoke.
"Humans…"
"Have you come to stop me?"
"It can talk?!"
Lucy and Wendy recoiled at the sight of the revolting creature speaking.
Natsu immediately pointed at it.
"If you can understand us, then stop destroying this world!"
"Otherwise, we're taking you down!"
"Hehehehe…"
Alta Face's expression twisted into something almost manic.
"It cannot be stopped!"
Its voice rose triumphantly.
"This world shall become an Infinite Source!"
"Larcade-sama's great wish is about to be fulfilled!"
The roar thundered through the chamber hard enough to shake loose dust and stone from the ceiling.
Gray grimaced.
"Enough talking. Let's just destroy it."
"Take this!"
Reasoning had failed.
So Fairy Tail returned to its preferred solution.
Natsu struck with a blazing fist.
Gray unleashed his ice.
Wendy fired a Dragon Slayer roar.
Lucy summoned a Celestial Spirit.
Four completely different forms of magic slammed toward Alta Face—
and vanished the instant they reached it.
Their spells dissolved into pure Magic Power and were absorbed directly into the creature's body.
Fuel.
Nothing more.
"Endless Magic Power flows through this world!"
Alta Face's crazed voice reverberated through the cavern.
"Feel the agony of being ruled by it!"
Its enormous body began swelling.
Countless pores opened across the white mass, releasing terrifying concentrations of magical energy into the environment.
"Damn it…"
Natsu clenched his fists.
"If magic doesn't work, then I'll just—"
He stopped.
His expression changed.
Nothing happened.
His magic wouldn't activate.
And it wasn't only Natsu.
Gray, Wendy, and Lucy discovered the same thing.
They could still feel tremendous amounts of Magic Power inside themselves—far more than usual, thanks to Elentear's environment.
Yet the path required to actually release that power seemed to have vanished.
No matter what they tried, their magic refused to activate.
It felt almost exactly like Edolas.
Alta Face's core itself wasn't especially durable.
Its direct destructive ability wasn't particularly impressive either.
Its true danger lay in this single, troublesome ability.
It flooded the surrounding environment with enormous quantities of Magic Power—
and simultaneously forced that Magic Power into every mage inside its range.
Put simply, if Natsu's magic container could hold a maximum of 99, Alta Face forcibly filled it beyond that limit.
If his capacity were represented by a counter, the overflow effectively wrapped the value back around to 00.
Their bodies were overflowing with power.
Yet they could no longer properly access or circulate any of it.
Break that effect, however, and Alta Face itself would be easy to destroy.
Fortunately, this kind of problem was practically designed for people like Natsu.
If the container was too small—
then all they had to do was make it bigger.
Natsu roared and reached inward for his draconic power.
Horns emerged.
Wings unfurled.
Dragon scales spread across his body.
As his physical tolerance and the quality of his Magic Power surged, his body immediately adapted to the hyper-saturated magical environment Alta Face had created.
Wendy followed his example and entered her own draconic state.
Gray transformed into his Ice Devil form.
Lucy crossed her keys and activated a combined Star Dress.
Leo x Virgo Star Dress Mix.
Their bodies became larger and stronger "containers," capable of holding and controlling the Magic Power flooding into them.
And the moment their magic became usable again—they attacked.
This time, nobody held back.
Powerful spells erupted from all four mages and crashed into Alta Face simultaneously.
The result was immediate.
The monstrous core that had been poisoning Elentear finally began to break apart.
Cracks tore through the enormous white trunk.
The twisted mass of hands shattered.
Across the entire world, the giant white Hands protruding from the earth began collapsing and melting away.
The runaway Magic Power saturating Elentear reacted at once.
As if released from enormous pressure, it rapidly compressed back toward its source.
Streams of magical energy converged upon the remains of Alta Face.
More.
And more.
Until everything condensed into a single object resting among the wreckage, a white-gold heart.
And it was beating.