A magic merchant infiltrating Fairy Tail

No, no, calm down and think it through. Kira, you can do it!

In the original storyline, Giladas' return occurred after the Oración Seis raid and before the Edolas raid, which should be some time away from now, so it's unlikely to be such a coincidence!

“Gildas… I have a question for you…”

"Hmm? What's wrong?" Gildarts asked, his eyes half-closed, noticing Kira's unusual expression.

To avoid surprising him too much, Kira felt he should phrase it more tactfully: "When you said before that the Zonya Mountains were connected to your mission objective, did you mean those demons who were suspected of being hostile to dragons, or that dragons were appearing here?"

puff--!

Gildas spat out a mouthful of wine: "How...how did you know..."

The incident caused a huge stir, and everyone looked at Kira and Gildarts in surprise, not expecting their topic to be so explosive, and they all raised questions.

Do dragons really exist?

"Is Gildarts's mission to slay dragons?"

Upon hearing Kira's words, Natsu reacted the most, jumping up immediately. "Gildas, is your mission related to dragons?"

Gildas looked serious. The leak of mission information was neither a big deal nor a small one. The key point was that, as far as he knew, everyone who had accepted the mission had signed a confidentiality agreement, and all the previous mission takers were dead. There shouldn't have been any leaks of the mission details.

Kira hadn't received any missions, so how did he find out?

"Hey, Gildarts, did you really see a dragon?"

"Well..." Gildarts hesitated to answer Natsu's direct attack, trying to avoid the question as much as possible, thinking: 'Kira should know, right? It's not like I told him...'

As for Kira, he was in a panic and just wanted to run back to Magnolia as soon as possible, and he had to get away from Gildarts.

"Natsu, let's not talk about this now," Kira hurriedly stood up and pulled Natsu off Gildarts. "We can talk about this when we get back to the guild. Let's do this now..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he sensed something was wrong with the airflow and hurriedly looked up at the sky.

Above them, the once bright night sky was shrouded in ominous clouds, and at the same time, the ancient Zonia mountain range was once again swept by wind and snow.

Suppressive, oppressive, the surrounding magic thickened; darkness, vastness, and a distant roar echoed from the horizon.

Gildas's extensive experience alerted him to something amiss. He immediately stood up, his expression grave: "What's going on?"

Kira: "@#￥％……&＊!"

Is this going to be an early ending?

Chapter 90 The Black Dragon Strikes

"Everyone, come here!!" Kira's heart was pounding faster than when he first became a billionaire. "Get on the airship, get ready to run away!"

Fortunately, they had already prepared for a retreat. Upon hearing the roar, Kira immediately pulled out his fairy airship.

How could this be?

He was just doing some archaeological work out of curiosity, and he also wanted to make an adventure video for the children at the orphanage and bully Natsu a bit. This should have been three times the fun!

How did I end up meeting Acnologia?

Acnologia, a black dragon recorded in the Apocalypse Chronicle, is of the magic attribute, meaning it is immune to magic and can recover by consuming magic, making it almost a perpetual motion machine.

Because he practiced Dragon Slayer Magic, he transformed from a human into a dragon four hundred years ago, during which time he slaughtered all the dragons on Ishgar, making him the strongest being in the Fairy Tail world.

So Gildarts was injured here?

This black dragon doesn't follow the principles of morality. In the original work, the Tenrou Island arc also saw it attack after the war, truly demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the "Six Paths".

The heavens and earth trembled, wind and snow howled, and demonic power pressed down. Acnologia descended from the monstrous clouds, its enormous black wings blotting out the sun, and its dragon roar echoed through the heavens!

Kira looked up and saw a black dragon tens of meters tall, its wings spread wide, creating surging air currents when it flapped; its eyes were blood red, each as big as several people put together; its skin was jet black with dark blue dragon scales, which looked very hard; its claws were as long as a person, which was simply terrifying!

With roars emanating from its wide-open mouth, an unprecedentedly immense magical force pressed down on Kira, making it difficult for him to move an inch.

He glanced at the reactions of the others out of the corner of his eye. They were basically the same as him, or even worse. Their bodies were trembling, their eyes were unfocused, their hair was standing on end, they were sweating profusely, and all they felt was fear.

“A dragon…this is a dragon…” Everyone unconsciously swallowed, their voices trembling.

"Dragons are still alive!" Natsu stepped forward and shouted at it, "Hey! Do you know where Igneel is?"

Clearly, his question did not receive a response from Acnologia; instead, the name Igneel only fueled its murderous intent.

Gildas was the first to sense something was wrong and shouted to the people behind him, "Run!!"

"But……"

Seeing that Natsu was still reluctant to leave, Killer stepped forward and stopped him, "Natsu, stop asking! This guy won't answer you, he's not a friend!"

The others quickly retreated to the fairy airship. It would be an idiot to think there was no one here. Even the youngest and most naive Harpy knew that the current crisis was not comparable to the small-scale missions they had taken before. The sheer malice emanating from the black dragon alone indicated the positions of both sides.

"Could this... be the dragon mentioned in the mission? Which one could it be?"

Gildas's face was also very ugly. Compared to the others, he was more knowledgeable and had a higher level of understanding. He was also more experienced in combat. He recognized at a glance that this was not someone he could defeat. In fact, it could be said that this was not someone a human could defeat.

'I didn't expect dragons to actually be active here, but... the timing of their appearance was terrible! If it were just me, I might have had a chance to escape, but the others... damn it!'

Gildas's strong sense of responsibility led him to choose to fight Acnologia to buy time and give the others a chance to retreat, rather than turning around and running away on his own.

If Kira knew Gildarts's true feelings, he would definitely be very moved and say, "Uncle, you're overthinking it. If Acnologia really wanted to kill someone, even if you were the only one, you wouldn't be able to escape!"

Forget it, there's no hope. Should we just give up? How are we supposed to fight the Black Dragon at this stage?

Zonia isn't Tenrou Island; it won't be able to save its life without Mavis's Fairy Ball!

Acnologia has always targeted dragons, so is it here for Natsu this time?

No! If its target was only Dragon Slayers, then why did it attack Gildarts in the original timeline? Did it want to kill everyone who had ever seen it?

"#￥％……&＊！！！！！"

As it pondered, Acnologia let out an unintelligible roar, its black wings flapping and its claws slamming into the ground, unleashing a terrifying force that swept towards the fairy airship.

"Oh no! Get off the airship immediately!"

But it was too late. With a loud bang, the entire airship shattered into three or four pieces, and the ground beneath it cracked and crumbled under the force!

“I @#￥％……&＊”

Kira, utterly lacking in composure, launched into a tirade of curses. If he weren't outmatched, he would have made Black Dragon pay for it.

Dragon roar, wind howl, avalanche, landslide.

In a mere instant, with a single strike, the heavens and earth trembled as if shattered and collapsed. Everyone was uncontrollably blasted away by the aftershocks. Fortunately, this was in Zonia, where the snow beneath their feet was thick enough; otherwise, they would have already been injured.

But the biggest problem now is that the airship that was intended for escape has been destroyed by Acnologia.

Fairy airships are magical artifacts, not creations of words of power; there is a significant difference between the two.

The so-called shaping magic refers to magic that uses magic to create a certain shape. In other words, the created object only has the same shape and does not have any real function.

Take ice-creating magic as an example. Whether you create weapons, animals, or plants from ice, it is the ice itself that causes the damage. The ship Gray created in the finale only had the same shape; it was not actually capable of sailing and could hardly even float on the sea.

Word magic is different. Rather than a form magic, it is closer to the Arc of Concreteness because the objects it creates have actual effects. It has created things like ships before.

However, the more complex something is to create, the more difficult it becomes to construct magic—a principle that anyone can easily grasp.

As things stand, we definitely can't win in a fight, and handing over Natsu is out of the question, so we can only run away! But how can we escape?

Conjuring a prop with the function of an airship using the power of words is extremely complicated and cannot be done in a short time. Without an airship, escaping is even more difficult!

Fortunately, Kira always had a backup plan and carried another spare airship with him.

That's the first fairy airship. Although its functions are a bit lacking, it can still take a few people away. However, we need to find an opportunity. We can't take it out now, otherwise it will be damaged again.

Kira thought that Acnologia must have destroyed the airship to prevent the people here from escaping. Of course, it was also possible that it was just a means of transportation... wait, a means of transportation?

There might actually be a chance!

Perhaps because there were Dragon Slayers present, or perhaps because there were many people around, Acnologia did not attack Gildarts directly as in the original work, but instead toyed with the group like a cat playing with mice.

This gave Kira time to think, though it wasn't much, less than 10 seconds, but enough time for him to come up with a solution. This time was also enough for the others to prepare for battle.

Kira got up from the snow and ran over, seeing Winter already possessing the spirits of the Black and White Goddesses, protecting Poole and Happy, who were unable to fight.

Perhaps because they share a common origin, both celestial maidens were able to be received by Winter at the same time, making it seem as if they had a triple personality.

Flame and ice mingled unexpectedly, harmonizing perfectly; the key and card collided, subtly resonating with each other.

In the wind and snow, the soul of the Beast King confronts a centuries-old evil dragon; under the stars, the lion's light illuminates a thousand-year-old snow mountain.

In front of the six of them stood the Fairy Queen, clad in armor, sword in hand, her long red hair flowing, her bearing unique and captivating.

The seven men stood ready, their eyes resolute, knowing full well the difficulty of the battle, yet their faces showed no sign of weakness.

Seeing this, Kira was speechless: "What are you guys doing? Why are you still striking poses at a time like this?!"

Gildas rushed over too: "I'll hold him off, you guys get out of here!"

"How could we possibly abandon you!" Natsu shouted. "Isn't it the responsibility of Dragon Slayers to fight dragons?"

Erza nodded and said, "Natsu is right. No one in Fairy Tail would abandon their comrades and run away! Besides, the airship has been destroyed; there's no way we can leave now!"

She has always considered taking care of her guildmates as her responsibility, and if someone had to cover the rear, she would prefer to be that person herself.

"Yes, Gildarts, let's fight together!"

"We've become stronger!"

"Don't joke around! That's no ordinary enemy. Even I'm not sure I can survive. You'll only be in the way!" Gildarts shouted anxiously. "Kira, I know you have a way. Get them away from here right now!"

Chapter 91 Borrowing Magic

Upon hearing Giladas's words, the group fell silent, their faces filled with grief and their eyes filled with unbearable sorrow. They knew that Giladas must be risking his life to buy time for the others to escape.

"I won't leave!"

Before Kira could refuse, a voice rang out. He turned around and saw Cana with tears in her eyes.

She had not yet become an S-class mage, she had not yet become a daughter worthy of his strength and reputation, and most importantly, she had not yet revealed her identity to Gildarts.

"Kana?" Gildas looked at Kana, who was sobbing and unable to speak coherently, and suddenly felt that her face looked familiar, overlapping with a blurry figure in his memory. "You...?"

“At times like this, there’s no need for anything else,” Kira patted Cana on the shoulder and said to Gildarts, “No matter what kind of enemy we face, no matter what kind of danger we are in, we will never abandon our comrades and run away!”