Chapter 393: The darkness in her heart, We will seal it
Simon reached for his face, brushing a finger near the scarred edge where his left eye used to be. The memory stung.
"Back then... Erza suddenly awakened her magic. She led us to fight back and defeated the guards with overwhelming courage."
The name "Rob" was unfamiliar to Rhodes. Curious, he glanced at Mira and Gray, but both shook their heads.
According to Simon, Rob had already been quite old when they met him. He once claimed to be a wizard from a legal guild, but after leaving the guild life, his magical power had declined severely. If not, he wouldn’t have been caught and forced into labor at the Tower of Heaven.
Hearing that even elder wizards had suffered under the hands of the black magic cult, everyone fell into a quiet, simmering anger. The pain of a generation’s sacrifice weighed on them—especially when the ones responsible had long since vanished into the shadows.
Simon continued, "We eventually hijacked a ship belonging to the cult. Erza went to rescue Jellal, who was being tortured in solitary confinement. The rest of us waited, thinking we’d all escape together."
But Simon paused, face tightening.
"Then... Jellal came running back alone. He said Erza had planted a magic bomb on the ship and ordered us all to abandon it immediately. The ship exploded moments after we jumped into the water."
"What?!" Mira and Lucy gasped in shock.
"That’s impossible!" Gray exclaimed, practically leaping from his boat into Rhodes’. "Erza would never do something like that!"
"We didn’t want to believe it either," Simon said solemnly. "But after what we saw... it was hard to argue."