The battlefield was shrouded in smoke and fire.
A longsword pierced into a chest; blood and soil mixed. Black shadows drifted in the sky, and from the distant heavens, falling sparks exploded into raging flames, leveling everything below.
This was the cheapest way to "clean up" the battlefield—one both sides, or rather all sides of the war, routinely used.
It prevented corpses from piling up and festering into plague, and destroyed the final death-curses or lingering spells soldiers sometimes unleashed with their dying breaths. It lowered casualties for the victors.
As for material losses? No one cared. To these nations, the world's magic was infinite.
Anything destroyed could simply be recreated with magic.
Food could be created, houses could be rebuilt, even magic devices could be conjured anew.
It was simply a question of how much magic one could expend, and the power of the "magic printers" used.
And after the thunderous bombardments, silence followed. Nothing remained.
A black-haired child stood there, a white cloth tied around his chest, his small body covered in wounds. He stared blankly at the devastation.
"Father… Mother…"
Step by step, the boy approached the edge of a massive crater. He reached out with trembling hands, as if to hold onto something—yet the last fragments of two voices broke apart in the void, shattering as if severed by his very grasp.
"Zeref… you're the only man left in the family now. After your mother and I are gone, you must take good care of your little brother."
Broken light gathered together, forming an image: a pink-haired man clad in armor, his smile radiant, patting the black-haired boy's shoulder with a father's warmth.
"Father…"
The scene shifted.
A gentle, black-haired woman appeared, softly rocking a crying pink-haired infant. She laid him gently into a cradle, humming a sweet lullaby. Then she looked at Zeref and beckoned him closer.
She entrusted the responsibility to him—before walking to stand beside the armored man.
"Zeref, you must love your little brother. Don't bully him, alright?"
"Mother!"
The vision shifted again.
The pink-haired child lay sickly and frail in bed, skin pale as paper. A bowl of water and porridge sat untouched by the bedside. His eyelids fluttered open, and in a faint mosquito-like voice, he whispered:
"Brother… am I going to die?"
"No, you won't die. I swear it."
Zeref's expression froze, then hardened with absolute seriousness. He clutched his brother's hand tightly.
"Mhm… I won't die. I'll stay with Brother, and together we'll find Father and Mother."
The pink-haired child forced a smile, speaking with a maturity far beyond his years.
"Brother… It's so dark. Are you still there? I'm scared of the dark… really scared… Brother, hold me…"
Tears slipped down Zeref's cheeks, soaking into the pillow. The boy's voice grew weaker and weaker.
"Natsu!!!"
"Why… why does it always end like this?!"
In a daze, Zeref felt the light in his palm scatter like grains of sand. He collapsed to his knees before the crater, crying out in agony.
When his tears finally dried… he simply left.
X377
The prodigy mage Zeref rose to fame. At a young age, he had already published numerous groundbreaking papers on temporal theory.
"What a brilliant seed of potential. In the future, perhaps mankind will no longer need dragons,"
The headmaster of the Magic Academy praised, holding Zeref's file in his hand.
Although no dragon had yet formally proposed coexistence or friendship with humans, such ideas had already existed in some circles.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible for a single dragon's advocacy of human-dragon friendship to spark such controversy later, even splitting dragonkind itself.
Dragons who befriended humans often stopped hunting, instead being provided for by humans. When humans went to war or faced impossible enemies, those dragons would intervene.
This wasn't rare.
Some did it out of laziness.
Some because they enjoyed the benefits.
Some because, long ago, they had been saved by humans.
What was rare, however, were the few dragons who went so far as to become part of human society itself, living and working among them.
"Best of all, he's a victim of war. His parents all died, directly or indirectly, in the conflict. He'll be a perfect weapon when we march out."
Another voice spoke in the headmaster's office.
"Indeed. The Aiken Kingdom will pay dearly for their arrogance," the headmaster replied, sipping his wine contentedly.
Meanwhile, Zeref, lying in his own quarters, opened his eyes.
He had recently published another study on time-space theory, attempting to reverse time itself to save his loved ones. For this, the God of Time had blessed him, granting him the doorway to time magic.
His first gift was hyper-sensitivity—awareness of a vast scope beyond normal perception.
Now, the entire academy's every move was laid bare to him. Naturally, that included the secret discussion between the headmaster and the mysterious voice.
X379
The Aiken Kingdom fell.
Zeref, leading the vanguard, annihilated Aiken's forces, decapitated its Guardian Dragon, and nailed the Aiken King to his throne.
That same year, Zeref stepped into politics.
He succeeded the old academy headmaster, becoming the new leader of the Kingdom's academic magic faction.
He became one of the kingdom's rising stars.
He then proposed his Magic Circulation Theory:
Humanity's methods of plundering magical resources were crude and inefficient.
Zeref argued that the world's total magic remained constant, circulating with the atmosphere. Humans, however, have utilized less than 4% of the planet's total reserves. Even if one included underground resources, it barely reached 20%.
He cited dragons as an example—using extensive data on their changing lifestyles and fluctuating strength to support his claim.
Zeref proposed constructing Magic Conduits, devices that could draw ambient magic from the atmosphere into the earth, allowing humans to harness it more effectively.
The idea ignited the kingdom. Nobles, merchants, and government poured wealth into Zeref's research.
Within three years, the Magic Conduits moved from theory into reality. Because they were buried deep underground, they came to be known as the Magical Veins.
Since Zeref's theories were openly published, other nations quickly replicated them. Within ten years, Magical Veins spread across the world.
The balance between humans and dragons shifted. In human lands rich with Magical Veins, dragons began surpassing the solitary, wild dragons living in harsh terrains.
More dragons befriended humans.
Human development accelerated rapidly.
But so did dragon attacks. The human-dragon conflict grew sharper.
To strengthen control over scattered magic, Zeref proposed Magic Control Hubs, centralized systems that could regulate the Magical Veins with precision.
This meant that even if dragons conquered a city, they couldn't exploit its magic network.
The plan dealt a severe blow to hostile dragons—and simultaneously empowered centralized human governments immensely.
Magic technology evolved at breakneck speed.
But this had unintended consequences.
As humans and dragons merged socially, external racial tensions eased. In turn, conflict between nations flared hotter than ever.
Ambitious kingdoms, now with consolidated power, began expanding aggressively.
They engraved nation-scale super-magic arrays over their land, using the enemy's Magic Vein Hubs and industrial cities as primary targets. A single strike could obliterate an opponent's capacity to resist.
Then conventional armies would move in, occupying the ruins.
Magitech engineering corps followed, studying the enemy's Magic Veins, constructing new Hubs, cementing control.
Wars became lightning-fast conquests.
The world turned into a "dark forest":
Hesitate, and you would be destroyed.
The First World War erupted.
Several great magic nations perished, and the war's ferocity peaked.
Until…