At that same moment, aboveground in the royal capital, Crocus.
The once-blazing sun was being devoured bit by bit.
Almost everyone in the Royal Capital had flooded into the streets.
A solar eclipse was something people only encountered a few times in their lives. The vendors on the street corners had made a batch of black crystal lenses overnight, selling them for twenty J apiece. They had sold out before dawn.
Central Square was packed with people craning their necks. The daylight dimmed inch by inch, fading into an eerie, blue-tinged twilight.
"Half of it's gone! Look, half the sun is already gone!"
"Shh-quiet! Listen closely. What's that sound?"
Without warning, the flagstones beneath their feet shuddered violently.
Then an immense surge of magic pierced the underground rock layers and erupted from every crack between the stones!
In an instant, fierce winds swept through the entire street, the entire square, and even the whole city of Crocus!
Every bird in the city took flight in alarm at the same moment, surging into the sky in a mass that blotted out the sun.
They circled frantically above the Royal Palace, crying mournfully, as though some monster lurking underground terrified them too much to land.
"An earthquake?! Run!"
"No, it's not an earthquake! Look at the ground-!"
"It's the eclipse! Heaven is punishing us!"
Panic spread through the crowd like a plague.
Those aboveground had no idea what was happening, but the magic alone was enough to fill them with dread.
A young bakery apprentice stepped outside carrying a tray of freshly baked bread, only to freeze in the chaotic street at the sight before him.
The tray tipped, scattering golden-brown loaves across the ground. He did not even glance at them, merely staring blankly at the sky.
"Master... wh-what is that?"
The old baker's voice trembled as he stared fixedly at the towering building in the distance.
"The birds... they're all circling the Royal Palace! Has something happened over there?!"
On the third-floor balcony of an old apartment building in the western part of the city, an elderly wizard who had been retired for twenty years gripped the railing and shakily straightened.
In his youth, he had been an elite member of the Magic Council's observation department, earning his living by sensing magic for most of his life.
No matter how badly that skill had deteriorated with age, he could still recognize what this disturbance meant.
"Could... one of the Ten Wizard Saints be fighting underground?"
No sooner had he spoken than he shook his head with a bitter smile.
It was not as though he had never witnessed the power of the Ten Wizard Saints in his youth, but magic this terrifying exceeded anything he knew. Could it be one of the Four Heavenly Kings?
"...This isn't magic a human could possess," he murmured.
All of Crocus descended into unprecedented confusion and speculation, with people blaming the phenomenon on the eclipse or some sudden catastrophe.
Not one of them knew that a ritual spanning time and space was taking place beneath their feet, and that the phenomenon shaking the Royal Capital was caused by nothing more than a single wizard unleashing his power.
Deep underground, in the ruined hall.
Zoldeo knelt on the ground, his knees driven deep into the rubble by the earlier impact.
He stared fixedly at the almost miraculous torrent of white light before him. There was no relief at being saved in his eyes, only twisted jealousy and malice.
He was not happy. He was nearly mad with envy!
The way Lady Layla had looked at that man just now-astonishment, admiration, awe-he had served at her side for so long, yet she had never looked at him that way.
Why did it have to be some lowly rat who didn't even dare show his real face?! Was it just because I wasn't strong enough? His fists clenched tight, his nails digging deep into his palms as blood dripped between his fingers.
Boom!
At that moment, the twelfth recess on the Eclipse Gate finally lit up!
Unlike the golden radiance of the other recesses, it emitted a pure white light formed from Blanc's magic compressed to its utmost limit.
It carried no contract with any constellation, nor did it possess any beauty. Instead, it forced itself into the empty recess with utterly brutal force!
At last, the twelve lights linked end to end, barely forming a complete ring that was unstable and even somewhat misshapen.
The twelfth white light thrashed wildly within its recess, resisting it. Unlike the other eleven, which remained calm and docile, it pulsed violently, swelling again and again.
It was like an oversized heart that a large hand had forcibly shoved into someone else's chest!
The entire gate began to tremble violently along with it!
This time, the gate was forced open not by a mere sliver, but by a wide gap.
As space and time repaired themselves, the gate quickly closed again, then was forced open, closed, and forced open once more, over and over.
Crack. Crackle. Craaack-
The piercing sound of breaking stone never ceased. The entire underground hall groaned in agony.
"Forcing it open with one key missing has destabilized the Eclipse Gate!" Layla shouted into the storm, her voice full of urgency.
"You can't stop supplying magic, or the turbulence in space-time will tear the passage apart!"
Blanc pressed his other hand against it as well.
The already terrifying white torrent instantly more than doubled in thickness, becoming a solid pillar of light as broad as a person's encircling arms!
"I won't stop supplying magic! Just focus on opening the gate!" Blanc's voice barely carried across.
"...All right!"
Magic surged from Layla's body as she controlled the opening of the gate!
The power of the eleven golden Celestial Spirits raced toward the gate through their contracts with her, hammering its seal again and again!
And each time the laws of space-time tried to correct the gate by closing it, a surge of pure white magic forced it back open!
Shuddering. Staggering.
Through that struggle of closing again and again, only to be violently forced back open by the white torrent, the forbidden gate that had remained shut for four centuries-
Finally burst wide open!
The black doors swung outward, revealing a passage through space-time that glimmered with an eerie light, spun wildly, and was riddled with countless cracks!
A breeze that did not belong in the underground hall blew out from within.
Overwhelmed with emotion, Layla spoke in a hoarse voice.
"The gate is open..."
Then glowing orbs shot out of the passage one after another before abruptly disappearing.
People from four hundred years ago had made their way to July 7, X777.
Blanc understood why the orbs vanished. He knew it had happened this way in the original story: the five Dragon Slayers had been scattered across different places after emerging. With one key missing, there was no way to bring them through safely and steadily.
One, two, three, four, five. Six?
Blanc froze for a moment.
Weren't there supposed to be five children?
The sixth orb bothered him a little. In the story Blanc knew, there should only have been five. He did not know whether this extra one was a result of the butterfly effect or some part of the story he knew nothing about.
But there was no time to worry about that now, and Blanc quickly pushed the question aside.
Only after the last orb vanished in midair did Blanc withdraw his magic. The gate began to close, slowly and heavily.
Eleven golden keys fell from the gate, returning to Layla's hands one by one.
Blanc lowered his hands. Blood from the webbing between his thumb and forefinger dripped onto the cracked flagstones.
The entire underground hall was deathly silent, with only coughing and the sound of stone fragments falling echoing around them.
Looking at his bleeding palm, he realized this seemed to be the first time he had been injured. His body was still too weak, causing it to become overloaded.
But that was clearly no great problem for him. With a thought, he used Nature Magic to channel life force into healing himself, and the injuries caused by the magical overload healed instantly.
He raised his head and found everyone staring at him.
Their eyes held a mixture of shock, respect, joy, and deep terror.
The knights sprawled in the rubble instinctively shrank back the moment their eyes met his. Meanwhile, King Toma poked his head out from behind the commander of the Order of Knights, his eyes shining as though he were watching a spectacular fireworks display.
The astonishing scene had left everyone's minds blank. No one dared speak.
Arcadios struggled to his feet.
His feelings were complicated, but one realization quickly became clear in his mind:
This power... is not something royal authority can control.
Minister Darton braced himself against a shattered wall and rose, his face deathly pale and his chest heaving.
The veteran statesman surveyed the wrecked hall and issued an order in a low, almost stifled voice.
"Everyone present today... not one word of what just happened is to leave this room!"
"Lord Darton!" King Toma immediately raised his voice in protest. "Something this incredible-"
"Precisely because it is so incredible, Your Majesty!" Darton hurried forward and lowered his voice until it was barely audible, a hint of pleading creeping into it.
"Your Majesty, if word gets out that someone beyond all normal limits is here in Fiore, the Magic Council won't be the only ones knocking on our door tomorrow. Besides, do you really wish to cause trouble for this gentleman?"
King Toma opened his mouth, but at the sight of the old minister's grave expression, he swallowed his words.
His previously upright posture collapsed at once. Even his mustache drooped.
"...Then surely I can hold a small banquet later."
Jude paid no attention to any of that. He scrambled through the rubble, seized his wife's hand, and repeatedly checked her complexion.
At some point, Zoldeo had retreated into the darkest corner of the hall, where he wiped the blood from his hands without expression.
His venomous eyes remained fixed on Blanc's back.
Standing under all those stares, Blanc instinctively wanted to raise a hand and scratch the back of his head, but he forced himself to resist in order to preserve his air of a master.
Then he composed himself and looked toward the center of the hall.
Layla Heartfilia stood there quietly.
Her face was streaked with tears. Whether they came from worry for the children scattered far and wide by the turbulence in space-time, or because the heavy fate the Heartfilia family had borne for four hundred years had finally come to an end today, he could not tell.
Though she looked a little worse for wear, she had survived safe and sound.
Blanc let out a long breath inwardly.
All right. Mission accomplished.