"D-Death God...?" Coco repeated, her lips trembling and her face pale.
At her words, everyone nodded emphatically. None of their faces looked much better than Coco's; some looked even worse!
"Coco, do you know how many Magic Combat Units our Kingdom Army has?" Pantherlily asked gravely.
"Four!" Coco answered without thinking. Seeing their strange expressions, however, she looked at Lily in confusion. "Is something wrong? Doesn't the Kingdom only have the four great Magic Combat Units led by you, Hughes, Sugarboy, and Erza?"
"You're right, Coco. The Kingdom does indeed have only four great Magic Combat Units—but that's only now!" Pantherlily slowly nodded, his expression grim, then delivered a shocking revelation in a deep voice. "In the past—five years ago—the Edolas Kingdom had ten great Magic Combat Units!"
"Ten?!" Coco covered her mouth in astonishment. "Then what happened to the other six?!"
"They died. Every last one of them died at the hands of that terrifying demon," Lily said bitterly. "And beyond those six completely annihilated Magic Combat Units, nine of the captains at the time also died in that campaign against the demon known as the Death God..."
"Nine captains? Wait! Doesn't that mean one survived?!" Coco keenly caught that detail in Lily's words. "Who was the remaining captain, then? Was it you, Lily?"
"No, of course not. Back then, I was only a detachment commander in the First Magic Combat Unit!" Lily shook his head. "Besides me, Erza, Hughes, and Sugarboy weren't even members of the Magic Combat Units yet. The captains of the first four units at the time were the previous owner of my advanced magic weapon, the Bustermarm—the former First Squad captain; the previous owner of Captain Erza's Ten Commandments Magic Spear—her father, the former Second Squad captain; the previous owner of Captain Hughes's Command