Ultear Milkovich (Oración) did not choose caution. Diplomacy was too slow, and her decade-old rage—the burning conviction that her mother, Ur, had selfishly abandoned her—demanded immediate, violent release.
The logical assessment of Celestial Forge's immense power was completely overridden by the raw, consuming fire of her personal agony.
"I will not let her simply walk back into this world and join them,"
Ultear seethed, slamming her hand onto her desk in the Council chamber.
The gesture cracked the ancient stone.
"She chose her apprentice over her own child. Now she will face the consequences of that betrayal!"
She knew better than to directly engage Arthur; even Jellal (Siegrain) had tacitly admitted that Arthur was an existential threat.
But Ultear's unique magic, the Arc of Time, gave her a degree of stealth and operational flexibility unlike any other magic in Fiore.
It was a magic that dealt in concepts—specifically, the manipulation of an object's past—making it a perfect counter to any conventional defense, and potentially, a loophole around even Arthur's conceptual power.
Ultear planned a rapid, devastating strike: a concentrated assault on the Celestial Forge building itself, designed to draw Ur out, isolate her, and force a confrontation far from Arthur's immediate intervention.
Ultear left the Council chambers under the cover of a magically-induced sleep spell that affected the entire staff.
She flew toward Magnolia Town under the cloak of deepest night, the moon offering little light.
She approached the Celestial Forge building, a structure that even from a distance radiated an unsettling, disciplined power.
She could sense Ur's newly restored life-force within, mingling with the vast, chaotic energy of Arthur and Rimuru.
Ultear landed silently a few hundred meters away.
Her hands glowed with the silvery-blue essence of the Arc of Time.
She wasn't going to age the building or restore its materials.
She was going for a destructive overload.
"Arc of Time: Rupture!"
Ultear focused the spell on a foundational pillar of the Guild Hall. Instead of aging the stone, she used the magic to forcibly rewind the pillar's structure to a state of maximum instability, a moment before the raw materials were properly formed.
The result was instantaneous and localized.
The pillar didn't crumble; it conceptually failed, dissolving into dust and raw magical energy.
The immense magical defenses Arthur had woven into the structure reacted instantly, absorbing the damage, but the force of the conceptual failure caused the entire side of the building to shear violently away.
The destructive wave of the Arc of Time assault served its purpose. Alarms blared through the guild hall, though Arthur had already sensed the incoming attack.
Ur reacted instantly.
Having just regained her life, she was not about to lose it or her new sanctuary.
She knew this was not a random Dark Guild attack; this felt personal, conceptual, and powerful—a magic she had never sensed before.
She burst onto the shattered balcony, encased instantly in a magnificent, glittering suit of Ice-Make Armor, her power flowing with the renewed vigor of a living, breathing Master Mage.
"Who is there! Show yourself!"
Ur yelled, sending out a massive, defensive wave of Ice-Make: Wall, instantly rebuilding the shattered structural integrity of the building with solid magic.
Ultear stepped out of the shadows, her body taut with repressed emotion.
She kept her Council robes cloaked around her, ensuring her face remained obscured for a moment longer.
"It has been a long time... Mother,"
Ultear snarled, the word dripping with decades of stored bitterness.
Ur froze, the sound of that single word cutting through her battle readiness.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the figure bathed in moonlight and shadow.
The power was immense, focused, and terrifyingly familiar in its execution.
"Who are you?"
Ur demanded, her Ice-Make shield hardening.
Ultear, fueled by the realization that her mother had no idea who she was, let her rage fully consume her.
"I am the child you abandoned! The child you left to rot while you played mentor to those pathetic boys!"
Ultear screamed, discarding her mask of composure.
She focused a massive amount of Arc of Time energy on Ur's armor.
"Time-Make: Decay!"
The attack didn't physically strike Ur; it struck the concept of her armor's integrity, accelerating its timeline forward by centuries.
The flawless ice armor instantly crumbled into ancient, dusty flakes, leaving Ur exposed.
Before Ultear could follow up with a lethal attack, a new presence entered the fight, one that instantly caused the air to feel heavy and the moonlight to dim.
Arthur stepped onto the balcony, Koromon safely tucked away in his robe.
He hadn't been fast—he hadn't needed to be.
He was simply there.
He didn't use an attack. He didn't even activate his Dragon's Aura fully.
He used his Authority to perform a localized, conceptual freeze on the Arc of Time magic itself.
The surging silver-blue energy surrounding Ultear instantly stopped moving.
It didn't dissipate; it just became still, inert, a frozen conceptual statue floating around her hands.
"That's enough,"
Arthur said, his voice calm, yet resonating with the finality of a closing door.
"I won't tolerate acts of aggression against my guild or my members, regardless of how tragic the backstory is."
Ultear, terrified, found that she couldn't move or speak, only her eyes were free to dart between the frozen magic and the man who had done the impossible.
He had just conceptually countered the Arc of Time—a magic that should be immune to conventional attack.
"Ur, go inside,"
Arthur commanded softly, without taking his eyes off Ultear.
"This is a family matter that needs a moderator."
Ur, though burning with a thousand questions, recognized the absolute power in Arthur's tone and obeyed, retreating into the protected heart of the guild hall.
Arthur then walked slowly toward the immobilized Ultear, his voice dropping to a conversational, yet infinitely dangerous tone.
"You are Ultear Milkovich, a former associate of Zeref, currently masquerading as Councilor Oración, and the daughter of Ur. You are using a rare and powerful magic to attack your mother based on a falsehood: the belief that she abandoned you,"
Arthur stated, laying out her entire life's secrets without a trace of effort.
He then released the conceptual freeze on her magic, allowing her to move and speak.
Ultear immediately stumbled back, her facade of cold malice dissolving into stark terror.
No one should have known those things.
"How can you know all of that?"
She stammered, raising her hands to protect herself.
Arthur crossed his arms.
"Does it really matter how I know about that? You came here seeking vengeance and got an earful of truth instead. Now, you have a choice. You can continue your destructive path and face my true displeasure, or you can join your mother and try to fix the mistakes of the past."