The year was X784, and the era of peace was over.
The Phantom Lord guild, in a brutal, unprovoked attack on Fairy Tail, had shattered the night and the guild hall, leaving a skeleton of iron beams and broken dreams. They were trying to kidnap Lucy Heartfilia, the guild's newest member.
Lucy, a girl Blake had befriended years ago during his business dealings with her mother, had run away from her house to find her own path. She joined Fairy Tail because she heard their stories of adventure and family from Blake whenever he was at their house.
Her mother, Layla, knew she was leaving and, in a final act of support, didn't stop her. Instead, she entrusted her with three of her own Celestial keys: Sagittarius, Taurus, and Aquarius, confident that her daughter, whom she had trained in magic, was capable of defending herself.
But her father, Jude Heartfilia, in his grief and arrogance, saw it as a betrayal. He made a quest to Phantom Lord to bring Lucy back.
The guild master, Jose Porla, a man bitter with envy and waiting for any chance to attack Fairy Tail, took the job with pleasure.
Team Natsu—Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza, and Happy—returned from a mission to discover their guild hall had been wrecked. The initial shock turned to rage when Gajeel Redfox, Phantom's Iron Dragon Slayer, brutally attacked Shadow Gear, crucifying Levy, Jet, and Droy to a tree.
Makarov, enraged, declared war.
The conflict was a catastrophe. Fairy Tail's counter-attack on Phantom's fortress failed when Aria of the Element 4 ambushed Makarov, draining his magic and leaving him comatose. Lucy was kidnapped, and Jose taunted the guild with the truth of her father's bounty.
Then, the true terror began: Phantom Lord's mobile guild hall marched toward Magnolia. Its Magical Convergent Cannon: Jupiter, fired a blast that Erza, in her Adamantine Armor, barely blocked, leaving her gravely wounded. With another shot 15 minutes away, the guild rallied.
The fights were desperate. Natsu infiltrated and destroyed Jupiter after a fiery battle with Totomaru.
Elfman, pushed to his absolute limit, finally unleashed his Beast Soul: Full-Body Take Over, conquering his trauma of nearly killing Lisanna to defeat Sol.
Gray's Ice-Make clashed with Juvia's Water Body, his magic freezing her lonely heart and stopping the perpetual rain. And Erza, despite her injuries, pushed through Aria's "Zero" airspace to avenge Makarov, defeating him with a storm of swords.
The Element 4 were down, and their ultimate spell, Abyss Break, was halted.
But the war was not over.
Gajeel recaptured Lucy, torturing her in full view of the guild. Enraged, Natsu, powered by the fire of Lucy's spirit, Sagittarius, battled Gajeel in a primal clash of Dragon Slayers.
The fight was brutal, leveling what remained of Phantom's guild, but Natsu's Crimson Lotus: Fire Dragon's Fist finally pummeled the Iron Dragon Slayer into submission.
The guild had won... but the master had not.
Jose Porla descended from his throne room, his eyes burning with a Wizard Saint's cold fury. His guild was in ruins, his elite defeated by children. His darkness magic exploded from his body.
"Insolent gnats!" he roared, unleashing his Shades—shadowy, spectral soldiers that swarmed the exhausted, wounded Fairy Tail members.
"Stand back, everyone!"
Mirajane Strauss, her gentle persona shattered by the threat to her family, met his advance, her Satan Soul: Sitri form radiating demonic power.
She clashed with Jose, demon against ghost, light against dark.
Erza, her body screaming in protest, joined her, requipping into her Heaven's Wheel Armor, her swords a silver cyclone.
The two S-Class women fought with the last of their strength, but Jose was on another level. He was a Wizard Saint, and his magic was absolute. He blasted Mira through a wall, her Take Over flickering and failing. He shattered Erza's swords, his Darkness Magic binding her.
"It is over," Jose hissed, his hand raised, a massive, swirling orb of pure, deadly darkness—his Deadly Sin—forming above his palm. "As I will unleash my final move on you both and grant you the honor of being the first to die in your new graveyard!"
The orb pulsed, ready to extinguish the lives of Fairy Tail's strongest women. Erza closed her eyes, her body too broken to even requip a shield. Mira tried to stand, but her legs buckled.
Zzzzzzzzz-CRACK!
A sound tore through the air. It was not the boom of Natsu's fire or the crack of Gray's ice. It was a sharp, violent hiss, like the air itself was being ripped in two.
A flash of black lightning—so fast it was just a streak of negative color—ran past them. It wasn't an attack. It was a person.
In the single, frozen millisecond between Jose's attack and their deaths, a figure materialized. He was massive, 6'6" in height, his back to his guildmates, his dark cloak billowing in the sudden vacuum of his arrival.
The newcomer didn't even look at the Deadly Sin. He just... swung.
He unsheathed his sword, its black blade seeming to drink the light. He coated it in the crackling, terrifying black lightning of his Advanced Conqueror's Haki, and infused it with the corrupting power of his Anti-Magic.
"Divine Departure."
He didn't hit the orb. He hit Jose. The wave of pure, condensed Haki and Anti-Magic was invisible, but its impact was absolute. Jose's "final move" dissolved instantly, its magic nullified. The Wizard Saint's eyes went wide in disbelief as the attack hit him straight in his chest.
There was no explosion. Just a thud.
Jose was seen flying backward. He was launched from the Phantom Lord fortress like a cannonball, a screaming black speck against the morning sky. He tore through the air, hit the distant trees, and broke rows of trees in his path for half a mile before crashing into a small mountain, his form disappearing in a cloud of dust and rock.
The battlefield fell silent. The Shades, their master gone, dissolved into nothing.
Blake Corvus landed on the ground, the black lightning receding from his blade. He sheathed Tensa Zangetsu with a soft click.
He turned, his face calm, and looked at the utterly battered, shocked, and weeping members of his guild. He offered them a small, tired smirk.
"Miss me?"
The silence stretched for one more second, broken only by a single, choked sob from Lucy. Then, Gray Fullbuster, his body bruised and broken, was the first to find his voice.
"BLAKE!"
Hearing that, every guild member shouted, "BLAKE! YOU'RE BACK!"
It was a roar of pure, unadulterated, hysterical relief.
Blake held up a hand. "We will party later. And by the looks of this place, we'll need a new hall to do it in."
His gaze turned cold, and he looked toward the mountain he had just made. "But first, let me take care of this pest."
He used Soru and vanished.
He reappeared in the forest, standing over the massive crater. Jose was slowly getting up, his body broken, his Wizard Saint robes in tatters. He looked up at Blake, his mind unable to comprehend the situation.
"You... you..." Jose coughed, blood trickling from his lips. "Corvus... Impossible. Why are you here? You... you accepted a 10-Year Quest! I checked the Council registries! You left two weeks ago! You shouldn't be here that early!"
Blake just stared down at him, his frame blocking the rising sun.
"Yes, I was supposed to be going on a quest," Blake's deep voice rumbled. He casually inspected his glove, feigning nonchalance. "But... I had a feeling something was not right."
He shrugged, as if discussing the weather. "So I had to return to check on the guild."
He finally met Jose's gaze, and all the warmth vanished, replaced by an abyss of cold rage.
"To my surprise, I saw you attacking my guild. I saw you crucify my friends. I saw you make my family cry. And, Jose..."
Blake's hand fell to the hilt of his sword.
"...no one touches my family."
Jose screamed, a final, desperate burst of shadow magic erupting from his body. "I AM A WIZARD SAINT! I WILL NOT BE MOCKED BY A—"
Blake lifted his sword. This time, he didn't hold back. He poured every ounce of his will, every bit of the power he'd honed against giants and gods, into the blade.
The black lightning of his Conqueror's Haki and his Anti-Magic swirled together, creating an aura that made the very air disintegrate.
"Hakoku Sovereignty."
He brought the blade down. A colossal, horizontal wave of pure, crushing nothing swept through the forest. It was not a physical attack; it was an execution of will.
Jose's desperate Darkness Magic didn't stand a chance. It was erased. The wave hit him, and the Wizard Saint's power was not just broken; it was shattered. His magic, his pride, his very spirit—all of it was crushed. He collapsed, unconscious, defeated, and utterly broken.
Fairy Tail emerged victorious. The guild hall was in ruins, but their spirits were high, their family intact. Blake returned to the cheers, lifting a battered Erza and Mira to their feet.
Lucy, tears streaming, ran to her friends, affirming her place in the guild as family, rejecting her father's control forever.
The Magic Council arrived, horrified at the scene. They promptly disbanded Phantom Lord and stripped Jose of his title.
Fairy Tail was acquitted of all charges, thanks in no small part to a quiet word from Makarov's ally, Yajima, on the council.
While the main guild began the long, arduous process of rebuilding, they were unaware that the war was still being fought.
Far across Fiore, Laxus and his Thunder Legion, along with the guild's other S-Class phantom, Mystogan, were systematically finding and destroying every base of Phantom Lord, wiping every trace of their rival guild off the map.
The message was clear: You don't just fight one member of Fairy Tail. You fight all of them.