Fairy Tail: Collapsing Stars

Fairy Tail Collapsing Stars Chapter 345

“Thank you, Evan!”

“This time, I owe you a personal favor. If you ever need anything from me in the future, just ask, I’ll never refuse.”

It was nighttime. August and Evan stood atop the Fairy Tail guild building, looking down over the peaceful town of Magnolia as they chatted casually.

At this moment, August truly felt grateful to Evan. If it weren’t for Evan’s help, he had no idea when, or if, he would have ever had the chance to meet his beloved mother. He might’ve lived his whole life without exchanging even a few words with that beautiful woman who had given him life.

“No need to thank me…”

Evan heard August’s thanks and simply shook his head with a smile. He was never someone who cared for gratitude.

“Evan…”

August felt genuinely moved. In the whole world of Earthland, who else would go to such lengths for him without asking anything in return? Probably only Evan…

“If you really want to thank me, then cut it with the words, I don’t care much for lip service. Give me something real instead…”

Yes, Evan didn’t care for verbal gratitude. He wanted action.

“How about this? Tomorrow, you resign from the Alvarez Empire and report directly to Fairy Tail. I’ll make you our vice guild master. And if you don’t want that position, fine, I’ll convince Master Makarov to retire and let you become the fourth guild master of Fairy Tail instead!”

Evan patted August’s shoulder and spoke half-jokingly.

He believed that Makarov, the current guild master of Fairy Tail, would be overjoyed to hand things off if someone capable was willing to take the reins. After all, the old man was over 80, and managing the guild was becoming more and more taxing for him.

“Damn brat! I knew you couldn’t be trusted! Give me back all that emotion I just felt!”

August was speechless at Evan’s sudden request. He had just thought Evan was someone who helped him purely out of goodwill, and then Evan immediately laid out his demands.

“Come on, August! I am helping you! Think about it, becoming the master of Fairy Tail means inheriting the will of the first master, Mavis. That’s your mother’s will! Isn’t that your lifelong wish?”

As August silently fumed inside, Evan’s voice kept ringing in his ears.

“…”

August stayed quiet. He knew Evan was insulting him somehow, but he just couldn’t find the evidence.

“Anyway, when I’m not too busy in Alvarez, I’ll come visit. Occasionally I’ll lend Makarov a hand managing the guild…”

August gave a vague answer, carefully sidestepping Evan’s offer to become vice guild master. He left it open-ended, when he had time, he would help out. But when exactly that would be was entirely up to him.

“Sneaky old man. Just remember that I helped you big-time!”

With that, Evan disappeared from the rooftop in a flash.

“Don’t worry. I won’t forget, for the rest of my life, brat…”

August, holding his staff, smiled gently in response to Evan’s words.

In the blink of an eye, August vanished as well.

Shortly after August disappeared…

Evan smirked faintly to himself. Did August really think that after bearing the Fairy Tail guild mark, he still had the luxury of remaining neutral?

Don’t be ridiculous.

From the moment that emblem was stamped on him, August’s fate had already been sealed. He was one of them now, he was a Fairy Tail mage.

Time flew by…

In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.

It was now June 17, X779.

On this day, a crowd had gathered outside the wizard prison BLACKVOX. All of them wore clothing marked with the same emblem, clearly mages from the same guild.

As a slightly overweight young man with his eyes wrapped in white bandages was escorted up from BLACKVOX by its guards, the gathered mages immediately surrounded him.

“Aria, how did it go? What did the prison officials say? Are they still refusing to release Master Jose?”

The mages pressed the young man, Aria, with anxious expressions.

“Sigh…”

Aria could only shake his head helplessly in response.

“Damn it! If Master Jose Porla, one of the Ten Wizard Saints, doesn’t return soon, our guild, Phantom Lord, will lose all standing in the Fiore magic world! We have to do something to bring him back, or the entire guild could collapse!”

Yes, these people were mages of Phantom Lord. Ever since Jose Porla had led several Fiore guild masters to protest against the Magic Council, only to be defeated and imprisoned by Warrod, Phantom Lord had been left in chaos.

At first, it seemed manageable, the guild could still operate without a master. But not long after, all the other arrested guild leaders were released… except for Jose.

That made the Phantom Lord mages uneasy, but they didn’t dare cause trouble for the Magic Council. Jose’s example was warning enough.

But now, something worse had happened.

Those very guilds that were released, ones that used to follow Phantom Lord’s lead, had suddenly started turning against them. They would sabotage Phantom Lord’s missions, provoke their branches, and even cause public disturbances.

What was worse, there were dozens of such guilds acting this way. It had become impossible to figure out who to retaliate against.

After suffering repeated humiliations, the members of Phantom Lord finally decided, it was time to break Jose out of BLACKVOX.

Unfortunately, their first rescue attempt had already ended in failure.

Though BLACKVOX had implied that a bribe might help, once the money was delivered, they swallowed it and claimed the matter needed a Councilman’s authorization. In other words, they took the money and refused to release Jose.

But what could Phantom Lord do? BLACKVOX was an official prison, backed by the Magic Council.

Could they really stir up trouble with the Council itself?

No one dared. Jose had gone there and was still rotting in prison.

“What now…?”

The Phantom Lord mages all looked miserable.

With the rest of Fiore’s guilds openly targeting them, and with no strength to resist, the guild was on the verge of dissolution. And if things didn’t turn around soon, Phantom Lord would vanish before Jose even got out.

“Everyone, don’t panic!”

“It’s true I couldn’t get Master Jose out of BLACKVOX… but I did manage to speak with him, and I learned a shocking secret! This secret could be the key to Phantom Lord’s comeback!”

Just as despair was beginning to set in, Aria, the current acting master, finally dropped a bombshell.

His words instantly lifted the spirits of the downtrodden guild members.

“What?!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Aria, if you knew something this big, why didn’t you say so earlier?!”

The mages crowded around Aria, bombarding him with questions.

“You all should know this, our fall from grace wasn’t by chance. It was all thanks to those bastards from Fairy Tail…”

“And the one who hurt us most wasn’t anyone else, it was that so-called Wizard Saint, Evan Belserion! He ignored the Council’s rule that forbids Wizard Saints from fighting among themselves and beat Master Jose within an inch of his life. He bullied us when we couldn’t fight back, sabotaged our missions, he’s crossed every line!”

“Tell me, as members of Phantom Lord, can we really allow someone like that to keep walking this earth?!”

At the memory of that infamous meeting of Fiore’s guild masters, and the brutal kick Evan had delivered to him, Aria’s face twisted with rage. He didn’t even bother hiding the fact that he wanted revenge. Yes, he was out for payback. So what if it was personal?

Fairy Tail can keep living peacefully, but Evan, that guy, Aria would make sure Evan felt the same pain he had suffered.

“Aria, don’t try to drag us into your revenge!”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

“That Evan guy is a Wizard Saint, just like Master Jose! Other than Master Jose himself, who among us can deal with someone like that?”

“Besides, even Master Jose suffered badly at Evan’s hands. He’s clearly a monster! Even if all of us teamed up, we couldn’t lay a finger on him!”

“Aria, we know Evan beat you up too, but seriously, let it go. Just give up already! There’s no hardship in this world that can’t be solved by giving up!”

Phantom Lord’s members had always been fickle and opportunistic. As soon as they realized Aria wanted to mess with a Wizard Saint, they immediately started talking him down.

They weren’t smart, but they weren’t suicidal either.

“It’s true, we can’t beat a Wizard Saint under normal conditions. But in abnormal ones… heh heh heh… that’s a different story.”

Aria let out a cold laugh, clearly confident that he had a way to bring down Evan, despite the difference in power.

“You’re dreaming, Aria. Unless that Wizard Saint stands still and lets you hit him, there’s no way you’re winning.”

The Phantom Lord mages spoke in unison, firmly advising him against it.

“Exactly! Unless that Saint just lets us beat on him without fighting back, we’ve got no chance!”

“Which is why…” Aria grinned, looking at the crowd coldly. “We’ll make it so Evan can’t lift a finger against us. We’ll force him to stand still and take the hits.”

“Oh?! There’s a way to do that? Tell us more!”

The same crowd that was just warning him now instantly changed tone. Beating a Wizard Saint without retaliation? Who would pass up that opportunity? They swarmed around Aria, eager to hear more.

“Actually, during my meeting with Master Jose, I learned a secret, something a former Council member once told him.

“It turns out that Evan Belserion isn’t invincible. That bastard has an eighty-year-old mother and a little sister in her early teens. It’s precisely because he’s taking care of them that he works so desperately, even hiding his identity to do dirty jobs for the Magic Council.”

“You all know, at the level of Wizard Saints, reputation and pride are everything. To ask one of them to work without name or recognition is practically unthinkable.”

“But Evan did it. What does that tell you?”

Aria smirked, certain that Evan’s fate was sealed.

“I get it!”

One mage’s eyes lit up as he shouted.

“Oh? You do? And what exactly did you get?”

Aria smiled like a teacher whose student finally understood.

“It means Evan must be incredibly strong! His mom is over eighty, and his sister is only a teen! Which means his mom gave birth to a child in her seventies! That’s some terrifying power!”

“So you see, folks, we shouldn’t just envy Wizard Saints, maybe their families are monsters too, totally different from us!”

The mage grinned as he explained his revelation.

“Ah, I see!”

“As expected of the mother of a Wizard Saint! Giving birth at seventy-plus, truly terrifying!”

The Phantom Lord mages all nodded in agreement, totally missing the point.

“You absolute idiots!”

Aria nearly burst a lung from rage.

He’d just spent all that effort explaining how Evan, despite being a Saint, had weaknesses, an old mother and a young sister. They could use them to blackmail him into submission!

And this was what they took away from it?!

That Evan’s mom must be super powerful because she had a kid in her seventies?!

That’s not the point! That’s got nothing to do with what I was saying!

“Sigh…”

Aria sighed in frustration. Phantom Lord, once one of Fiore’s most prestigious and ancient guilds, with over a century of history, was now full of brain-dead idiots.

In his heart, four words formed clearly, Phantom Lord is doomed.

“Anyway, just so you all know, if we capture Evan’s mother and sister, I’m confident he’ll be at our mercy.”

Aria spoke seriously to the others.

“Tch! I see now…”

The mages suddenly perked up, why hadn’t they thought of that?

“But… what do we do after we capture them?”

One asked, scratching his head.

“Yeah! If we go too far, won’t that make us no different from a dark guild?”

Others quickly chimed in. Even if they hated Fairy Tail, they didn’t want to be labeled evil. With Jose in prison, Phantom Lord had been behaving a bit more honorably this past year.

“That’s where you’re wrong…”

“Heh heh heh. We’re talking about Evan’s mother and sister, after all.”

Just then, a sleazy-looking man with a thin mustache stepped forward, stroking his facial hair as he grinned.

“Oh? Got a good idea, do you?”

The Phantom Lord mages all turned to look at him curiously.

“We can force Evan to quit Fairy Tail and join Phantom Lord!”

“That way, we’ll have a Wizard Saint on our side again. We won’t have to be afraid of other guilds pushing us around anymore! And once we have two Wizard Saints, we’ll finally be able to go head-to-head with Fairy Tail!”

The sleazy man smiled as he laid out his plan.

“Genius!!”

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