Over 100 years have passed.
Zeref now has the appearance of a young man. He wears high-collared black robes with gold trim, along with a large, flowing white toga draped around his torso. He has short black hair, dark eyes, and abnormally sharp canines. He also wears a pendant, where he keeps a childhood picture of Natsu and himself.
Yes, over 100 years have passed, and he was still alive, still ''young''.
Zeref has become immortal. A gift from Mundus. Along with a full demon physiology.
Standing on a cliff watching the forest below him, he reflects on what had happened in the last century.
He had grown strong, yes, but not on Ankhseram's level. Speaking of Ankhseram, he had not come back to finish him. Supposedly, Igneel gave him quite a beating, even though he took one himself.
He met Igneel a few years ago. He knew Ankhseram's reasons for attacking them; he knew he resurrected Natsu. He was not as angry as I thought he would be at something like this. He knows Natsu is special, unique, and their first meeting was quite amusing. Igneel launched a dragon roar to the sky, and Natsu watched it like it was the best thing he ever saw; it probably was at that point. Igneel got attached to Natsu, even calling him his son, and trying to teach him the draconic tongue and his magic, even though Natsu can barely speak the human tongue.
Dying as a 4-year-old and getting resurrected as a demon with barely any memory of your past takes quite a toll on a child, but he is improving fast. He's curious about everything and tries his best to understand how things work.
A lot more happened in the last 100 years. Dragons started fighting amongst themselves, even the kings, some of the transcended Dragons too. Some dragons decided to eat humans, others did not approve of this. Igneel's battle with Ankhseram left him weakened, not to the point of helplessness, but it will take a few centuries to fully recover, if he can, that is.
This eventually caused the dragons to separate into factions, some that wanted to eat and conquer the human world, some who wanted to fight against them, some who tried to usurp Igneel while he was still weak.
Two main factions remain on our planet. The one that wants to conquer the planet and the one that wants to protect humans.
The dragons that fought alongside the humans were outnumbered, so they eventually created magic to give them an advantage.
Dragon Slayer magic, humans with dragon abilities, they did not, however, foresee the humans turning on them. They did not foresee that thing emerging from the ashes of the war.
Only one victor, Acnologia, the dragon of Apocalypse. His origin is unknown to us; was he a human dragon slayer originally? A dragon? A sort of demon? That does not matter anymore; he is a Transcended Dragon now.
And me. I've done a lot of things in the last 100 years. Become a demon, learn magic our world's humans have never seen, created many types myself, found out how to create life from nothing, created a new species of demons, and much more. The humans named me The Black Mage, from my mastery of the Black arts. Quite fitting, though they keep attacking me, calling me The Source of All Evil. How disappointing. Again, humans try to put all the blame on someone else instead of admitting they act like animals.
I tried to help them, teach them magic; of course, they demanded more, the 'secret' to my immortality, how I created demons. When I refused ,arrogantly, they tried to force me to tell them, as if they had that kind of power. Naturally, I had to eventually kill them. Of course, they hid the fact that their 'sudden' advancement in magic came from me.
That's what the majority of the human race is like; you give them a hand, and they try to take everything.
But that does not matter; they are nothing more than mongrels barking with no bite.
Natsu's resurrection. He is truly unique, even amongst demons. His resurrection created a sort of ability based on Demonic source. I called it Curse power; it seems to get empowered by negative emotions of all beings. It is a sort of combination of rune magic and enchantments; it can be used to create powerful objects and new magics or abilities not rooted in magic. It can also be mixed with magic, which in turn empowers that magic and, in theory, could lift some rules of that magic.
Most Etherious cannot use advanced curses and mostly unconsciously mix it with magic.
Ah, how could I forget about Etherious, the new race of demons I created.
Most of them are quite primitive and refuse to learn from what they consider lesser beings. They are quite arrogant. I came to the realization that many of them have a sort of 'hole' in their soul which, in turn, causes them to be extremely violent and attempt to devour souls to try to fix themselves. They are unaware of this, and unfortunately, devouring souls usually makes it worse.
I tried to see if I can fix them, but it's not possible after their creation. Myself and those that are 'whole' did everything we could to fix this situation.
Many of them had to be killed; others were sealed back into their books. Sometimes humans go looking for the books, and if they find them, they try to control them or take their power for themselves. Of course, that only frees the demons to rampage and pushes them further into hatred and insanity, having humans try to steal their essence.
Back to Natsu, he has awakened almost a year ago, even though his resurrection happened almost 100 years ago. It took a long time for his soul and power to adapt to his new existence. Nearly 100 years in a coma. The magics keep his body from decomposing or growing up until he awoke.
He picks up magic fast, even though he can't fully talk yet. Igneel wants to teach him his magic, to make him his son, a prince of the dragons. I allowed this. Igneel said "You had no choice anyway, brat," while smirking. Prideful bastard. But a fun one and sometimes wise. He'll take good care of Natsu. He'll make him strong.
I am currently working on creating a sort of servant or assistant for Natsu, one perfect for Natsu. We'll see. Seilah is her name.
She's not done yet. I have to make sure she won't end up a failure like her predecessors.
Natsu's full demonic abilities should manifest in a few weeks. After that, Igneel can start teaching him dragon magic. I wonder how his demonic and draconic abilities will work? Demon power and Dragon power are compatible, and so is Natsu with both of them. And I made sure to keep the innate abilities of the humans of adaptability; sometimes it's like his power simply manifests the abilities he needs in that instance.
The next few years will be very interesting.