Chapter 217

Chapter 217: Chapter 217

Marshall hadn’t felt this panicked in a very long time.

In his mind, Gildarts had always been practically synonymous with the word invincible.

Marshall’s instincts even told him that Makarov probably wasn’t Gildarts’s match in a serious fight.

For years, Gildarts had been one of the goals Marshall constantly chased.

Knowing that absurd monsters like him existed in this world was exactly why Marshall had spent so much time quietly grinding away in safety, keeping a low profile, and resisting the temptation to swagger around before he was strong enough to back it up.

So seeing Gildarts suddenly appear in front of him covered in wounds that could easily kill an ordinary person hit Marshall harder than he could have imagined.

His hands were actually trembling as he treated him.

Despite being horribly injured, Gildarts still wore that same carefree, unserious expression.

"This is... Wendy’s Sky Magic, right? You learned it pretty well, kid."

He managed a grin.

"Not bad at all. Looks like I’m not dying today."

"Could you shut up for a minute? Are you seriously not afraid of dying?"

Marshall’s expression grew uglier as he examined the damage.

"Your arm and leg... damn it. Too much time has passed. My restoration spell can’t fix them anymore..."

Nearly seventy percent of Gildarts’s internal organs had been damaged or ruptured, and both his left arm and left leg were gone.

The fact that he was still alive with injuries this severe was almost entirely thanks to the sheer amount of Magic Power keeping his body going.

Marshall’s Time-based restoration could currently reverse injuries suffered within roughly the previous minute.

He had already rolled Gildarts’s body back by sixty seconds, yet the wounds barely changed.

That meant Gildarts had survived and continued moving for quite some time after receiving them.

"Hahaha! Marshall, it’s only been two or three years and you’ve already gotten way more naggy."

Gildarts waved it off.

"Relax. I’m not dying that easily. I’ve always been hard to kill."

"Are you an idiot?!"

Marshall glared at him.

"If you run into someone you can’t beat, use the teleportation card I gave you and get the hell out! Now look at you. Even when I’m trying to heal you, half the damage is already too old to reverse."

Gildarts looked down at Marshall’s trembling hands, then noticed the faint redness around his eyes.

For once, the older man didn’t immediately have a joke ready.

He scratched his head awkwardly.

’Huh... Am I really that important to this kid?’

It was almost embarrassing.

"Don’t flatter yourself."

Marshall immediately caught the thought.

"You saved my life once. I save yours today, and we’re even. After that, you can go die wherever you want. I’m not cleaning up after you again."

"Hey! Since when could you read minds?"

Gildarts laughed.

"Your Telepathy has gotten scary."

His smile faded slightly.

"Still, it really wasn’t as reckless as it looks. I knew these wounds probably wouldn’t kill me."

For the first time, bitterness entered his expression.

"But yeah... this time I really got beaten."

Gildarts looked toward the empty space where his left arm and leg should have been.

"I ran into an enemy I simply couldn’t defeat."

His voice became quieter.

"One attack. That was all it took."

"My arm and leg were gone before I even understood what happened. If I hadn’t dodged when I did, I probably really wouldn’t have made it back."

Gildarts let out a slow breath.

"The difference between us was just too large. That thing wasn’t an enemy humans could fight."

Marshall’s pupils contracted.

"How is that possible?"

He knew exactly how proud Gildarts was.

"What kind of monster could beat you badly enough to make you lose confidence?"

"It wasn’t a person."

Gildarts looked directly at him.

"It was a dragon."

"A dragon?!"

Marshall froze.

"You mean a real dragon? Like the one that taught Natsu?"

"Well, it definitely wasn’t the red dragon Natsu’s looking for."

Gildarts’s face became unusually grave.

"The one I encountered was black."

He paused.

"And unbelievably powerful."

"There wasn’t even a glimpse of hope that I could beat it."

"..."

The room fell silent.

Both of them sank into their own thoughts.

Marshall knew just how arrogant Gildarts could be when it came to his strength.

For a dragon to completely crush even his confidence...

just how overwhelming had that creature been?

’Can I really protect everyone?’

Without realizing it, Marshall’s forehead had already become covered in cold sweat.

After a while, he forced himself back to the immediate problem.

"The emergency treatment is done. You’re not in immediate danger anymore."

He steadied himself.

"I’m moving you somewhere else. This laboratory has been abandoned for ages."

Marshall had already repaired most of Gildarts’s internal injuries with Sky Magic, but there was nothing he could currently do about the missing arm and leg.

He teleported Gildarts back to the medical laboratory beneath Cake Tower, then summoned Sloth and had her continue treating him with Sky Magic.

Gildarts stared at the small girl.

"Huh?"

He squinted.

"Is that Wendy? Why does it look like she hasn’t grown at all?"

"That isn’t Wendy."

Marshall gestured toward her.

"You can call her Sloth. She’s a magical life-form I created, not a human."

Gildarts sucked in a breath.

"Damn, Marshall. Looks like you’ve made some serious progress while I’ve been gone."

His eyes wandered around the highly advanced medical room.

"Is this Magnolia Hospital?"

"No."

Marshall answered casually.

"This is my house."

"Huh?"

"My private medical facility. There’s another patient in the room next door."

Marshall waved the subject away.

"That doesn’t matter right now."

His expression immediately became serious again.

"Tell me exactly what attacked you. Is there really something in this world capable of leaving you completely helpless?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"Or did it catch you by surprise?"

Marshall’s brows hadn’t relaxed since the moment he saw Gildarts.

For the first time in years, he felt a genuine sense of existential danger.

Unless he understood exactly what had happened, he doubted he would even be able to sleep properly.

"The legendary Black Dragon of the Apocalypse."

Gildarts looked at him.

"Acnologia. Ever heard of it?"

"I’ve read about him in ancient records."

Marshall’s expression changed.

"The strongest dragon from four hundred years ago—the one said to have brought the Age of Dragons to an end."

He stared at Gildarts.

"He’s still alive?"

"Yeah."

Gildarts gave a humorless laugh.

"I only found out recently myself. Apparently that dragon has been wandering around this world all along."

His face darkened.

"Its body is absurdly strong. Completely beyond anything a human can reach."

Then he added,

"And the worst part is that my Magic didn’t work on it."

Marshall immediately frowned.

"Your Magic didn’t work? What do you mean?"

"My Crush Magic."

Gildarts’s expression turned strange.

"It ate it."

Marshall stared.

Gildarts continued, "My guess is that dragons are immune to most ordinary Magic. Maybe only Dragon Slayer Magic can effectively damage them."

"No."

Marshall rejected the idea almost immediately.

"I can use Dragon Slayer Magic too. Fundamentally, it’s Magic that grants a draconic attribute to the caster’s power."

He shook his head.

"It probably does have an advantage against dragons, but that doesn’t mean ordinary Magic should become completely useless against them."

"Maybe you’re right."

Gildarts leaned back.

"The real issue was probably the difference in raw strength."

His smile disappeared.

"I fought as hard as I could and still couldn’t win."

Then came the part that truly disturbed Marshall.

"I couldn’t even properly sense the upper limit of that dragon’s Magic Power."

Gildarts paused.

"But it had to be at least ten times mine."

"Ten times..."

Marshall’s eyelid twitched.

Makarov possessed roughly 880,000 Magic Power.

Gildarts almost certainly wasn’t far behind him, and Marshall suspected his actual reserves were probably even greater.

Right now, with Gildarts this badly weakened, Marshall couldn’t accurately sense his maximum capacity.

But suppose Gildarts had Magic Power somewhere around the million mark.

And Acnologia possessed more than ten times that amount...

That would put the Black Dragon somewhere in the range of ten million Magic Power.

Ain’t that insane?

If a single dragon possessed more than ten million Magic Power, how the hell were humans supposed to fight something like that?

That gap was far too enormous for a mere Dragon Slayer advantage to erase.

Marshall glanced inward at his own reserves, which had only recently passed a little over 100,000, and felt a chill crawl from the base of his spine all the way to the back of his skull.

’You’ve got to be kidding me.’

So enemies this terrifying actually existed in this world?

For the first time, Marshall thought he understood why the mysterious person had sent him the Heart of Time.

At his current level, there was simply no fight to be had.

The problem was that he couldn’t activate the damn Heart of Time!

’Is that mysterious bastard an idiot?’

’If you’ve got enough power to screw around with time, then hurry up and send me into the past! Let me grind for a few years and bring me back when I’m actually strong enough!’

’If that Black Dragon suddenly gets bored and flies over to Magnolia, then I—’

"Marshall."

No response.

"Marshall!"

Gildarts struggled upright and placed a hand on Marshall’s shoulder.

Marshall snapped back to reality and only then realized that his entire face was covered in sweat.

Gildarts, meanwhile, had somehow returned to his usual carefree grin.

"Hey, don’t scare yourself like that."

He laughed.

"What’s there to panic about? If something like that really comes after us and there’s nowhere to run, then nobody’s surviving anyway."

He shrugged.

"Worrying won’t change anything. Worst case, we all die. Hahahaha—"

Marshall immediately bristled.

"Bastard! How can I not worry?!"

He glared at Gildarts.

"How can you be that selfish?! What if that dragon gets pissed off one day and flies straight to Magnolia?"

Marshall’s voice rose.

"What happens to everyone in the guild?! What happens to your daughter?! Are we all supposed to sit around and wait to die?!"

Gildarts’s laughter stopped.

"W-Wait."

His face went completely blank.

"My..."

He swallowed.

"Daughter?"