Year X791...
After lasting a full seven days and costing more than ten thousand "lives," the siege of Magnolia finally entered its final stages.
The last of their forces, represented by the new Magic Council Chairman, Gran Doma, and the remnants of the self-proclaimed righteous Guild Alliance, finally managed to fight their way into the cathedral at the center of Magnolia two hours before dawn on the seventh night.
There was no doubt about it: Annie had been secretly going easy on them.
In fact, the others might really have been strengthened by the spell, but the most important gatekeeper boss of all—the Black Dragon Acnologia, also known as the gatekeeping dragon Wangcai—had instead been severely weakened and restrained by Annie's spell. It couldn't use its true strength at all. Otherwise, even if the Council and those righteous Guild Alliance members fought for another hundred years, they still wouldn't have stood a chance of getting through the cathedral doors!
The Council members thought they had figured out the right "strategy," but all Annie had done was use her spell to place restrictions on the Black Dragon. For example, she'd made it so the dragon couldn't fight at full strength. They only had to hold out for a certain amount of time; once the doors were breached, the dragon would fly off and stop attacking. Then the battered Council members and righteous Guild Alliance, now nearly in despair, could finally face the last battle.
But...
When the Council and the righteous Guild Alliance entered the cathedral, they fell into even greater despair!
Because, at that very moment, there were five people inside the cathedral. They didn't recognize one of them, but the other three were clearly no easy opponents. They were:
The second Guild Master of Fairy Tail, Precht Gaebolg; its