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With Mard Geer fallen and Plutogrim destroyed, the endless demon army lost the force sustaining it all at once. Like a chain reaction, Etherious collapsed and self-destructed one after another across the city, bursting apart in flashes of dark light.
In moments, only one demon remained standing anywhere in Magnolia.
Torafuzar, a towering shark-like Etherious, fought on alone. His Tenchi Kaimei flooded the streets around him with black water, and his Super Armor — which he had always claimed was the strongest defense among all the Nine Demon Gates — kept him standing where his comrades had not. His powerful physique made him the last survivor, but it only slightly delayed the inevitable.
His massive body had already plowed a bloody furrow through the ground. His hardened skin was now covered in wounds from end to end.
Looking up at the red-haired woman surrounded by a swirling array of blades, Torafuzar felt as though he was living inside a nightmare.
He had come to this human town on Mard Geer's orders, expecting a massacre. Instead, he had watched the Nine Demon Gates fall one by one.
Franmalth, whose Absorption Curse could take in the power of anything he touched, had been battered to death by three Celestial Spirits summoned by a young blonde Celestial Spirit Mage. Even when he tried to survive in his last hidden parasitic form, Loke himself rooted him out and ended him for good.
Ezel, whose Tenga Goken turned his four great arms into blades that could cut through anything, had been torn apart by a white-haired mage who left not a single intact bone in his enormous body. He had been blasted to pieces while screaming.
Tempester, who proudly called himself a Calamity, never even had the chance to unleash the full force of his Curse. A single world-shaking bolt of golden lightning reduced him to nothing.
Jackal, the arrogant Bomb Curse user who could turn anything he touched into an explosion, was utterly defeated by a pink-haired young man, and even the roaring flames of his final self-destruction were devoured whole.
At first, none of this worried Torafuzar. He had laughed at his comrades for dying too quickly.
Deep inside Cube, there had been a device called Hell's Core, capable of reviving fallen demons. Ordinary Etherious were not eligible; Hell's Core was reserved for the Nine Demon Gates, and only they and Mard Geer knew of its existence. That knowledge was Torafuzar's greatest source of confidence.
"The Fairy Tail mages are stronger than expected," he had told himself. "But they cannot exhaust demons who can be revived endlessly."
That confidence crumbled steadily as none of his dead comrades returned to the battlefield.
Franmalth staying away was plausible; he preferred research over fighting. But the others had loved slaughter and chaos. Once revived, they would have come straight back. Their absence meant only one thing: Hell's Core had been destroyed.
Torafuzar was rattled, but not yet desperate. Kyoka, leader of the Nine Demon Gates, had been stationed on Cube alongside Seilah and Silver. He could not imagine anyone fighting through all three of them to reach Hell's Core.
Then purple ice erupted straight through the heart of Cube, and the cold truth hit him: Silver had betrayed them.
Even then, Torafuzar held onto one final hope. Mard Geer had gone to deal with Hades, master of Grimoire Heart. Mard Geer would return and set everything right.
He clung to that thought through two entire streets of Erza chasing him down and cutting him apart.
Then Cube transformed.
The fortress warped and split open into the rampaging Plutogrim, and all hope drained out of Torafuzar at once. The transformation meant only one thing: Mard Geer had been completely defeated.
And then even Plutogrim was gone.
When Erza, Requipped into her Heaven's Wheel Armor, approached the motionless Torafuzar, she found that the demon who had fought with such ferocious will to survive now had nothing in his eyes but despair.
"Do demons also despair?"
"Have you ever considered," she continued, her voice steady, "that the innocent people you slaughtered felt exactly the same way?"
Erza raised her longsword. The hunt was over.
But the moment the blade fell, something sharp flickered in Torafuzar's eyes. He activated his Super Armor, slamming his hardened palms together and catching the sword between them.
"Damn humans!"
"Even if I die, I'm taking you with me!"
His body detonated with a deep, thunderous boom. Black Magical Barrier Particles erupted outward in an expanding cloud, spreading rapidly across the entire town from where he had stood.
It was a technique shared by all Etherious born from Zeref's books: the ability to shatter one's own body and release Magical Barrier Particles that corrupted the Ethernano in the air and poisoned any mage who breathed them in. Without a complete purge of the particles from within, even the best treatment could only slow the dying, not stop it.
Erza had not anticipated the move. She held her breath the instant she understood what was happening, but not quite in time. Some of the particles reached her.
The corrupted Magic Power spreading through her body sent waves of cutting pain through her chest. Her vision swam. Her legs gave way beneath her.
A hand caught her around the waist before she could fall, and a familiar voice came from right beside her ear.
"Magnetic Field Rotation: Cell Reorganization!"
A warm, steady power moved through her, and the Magical Barrier Particles dissolved along with the corruption they had caused, replaced by clean Magic Power.
Erza straightened immediately. She opened her eyes and found, as she had known she would, the face she knew better than any other looking back at her.
Her cheeks warmed slightly, but she remembered herself fast. "Noah, the Magical Barrier Particles — they've already spread across the whole town!"
"They've been dealt with."
The calm in his voice steadied her. She looked up. The sky was clear. Not a trace of the black cloud that had erupted seconds before.
Erza's sharp eyes found August standing on the roof of the guild hall. She understood without needing to be told. With Zeref present in Magnolia, even stripped of his magic and living now as an ordinary man, he knew every weapon and contingency the demons had created. He had moved the moment Torafuzar detonated.
Then Erza noticed the battered airship descending slowly into the guild's backyard, and a look of confusion crossed her face.
"You'll understand when we get back to the guild."
Noah smiled and held out two books, Kyoka's tome and Seilah's tome. "Oh, and take these two home. A little light reading."
Erza had no idea what to make of any of it. But she let her lover take her hand, and they walked back to Fairy Tail together at an easy pace, leaving the last quiet of the battle behind them.