[Ding! Mission complete.
Mission Name: "One of the Three Great Powers of Balam: Oración Seis"
Mission Progress:
Stop Oración Seis's plan and defeat all of Oración Seis. (Completed)
Mission Reward: A random Gold Cloth or skill.
Claim mission reward?]
Just as Marco was about to check on Brain's condition, the system popped up at just the right moment to announce the mission's completion.
Looking at the reward, Marco felt his heart surge with excitement.
If he pulled even one Gold Cloth, then there was a very high chance he would finally be able to truly awaken his Cosmo!
"Calm down... calm down!"
Marco took a deep breath.
This was not the time to start celebrating recklessly.
After all, there was still a chance he might not draw a Gold Cloth. This reward didn't guarantee one.
"If I get it, that's my good fortune. If I don't, that's my fate. Stay humble, stay steady, don't get cocky, don't get discouraged."
Marco muttered the little rhyme under his breath like he was trying to build up good karma, while walking toward the center of the area devastated by the Rozan Hyakuryuu Ha—where Brain lay.
To be fair, Brain really did live up to being the "master."
He was definitely tougher than his disciple Midnight.
In the middle of that cratered wasteland smashed apart by countless blue dragons, Brain lay sprawled at the center, looking miserable.
His clothes were completely in tatters, and his whole body looked limp and broken, as if he had been thoroughly beaten to pulp.
Yet somehow, he still had one last breath left in him.
Of course, part of that was because the Rozan Hyakuryuu Ha was an area-of-effect skill. It covered a huge range rather than delivering precise lethal damage.
It wasn't like Lightning Speed Fist, which was more of a pinpoint kill.
"You... got even stronger."
Watching the outcome of the battle, Jellal—who had been silent and motionless the whole time—finally spoke.
He just couldn't hold it in anymore.
Marco was stronger now than he had been when he fought Jellal.
Jellal could see that clearly.
Against Zero, whose combat ability wasn't far from his own, Marco was handling things far more easily than he had back then—so easily that it could even be called effortless.
Against Zero, Marco had clearly been absolutely certain of victory.
He hadn't shown the slightest tension the whole time. He had been in complete control from beginning to end.
Jellal already knew Marco was an even greater prodigy than he was, a true genius among geniuses.
But how long had it even been?
No matter how talented someone was, there had to be some limit, right? Marco's rate of growth was just too outrageous.
Even though his days in prison—recovering his sanity and repenting for the past—had passed in a haze, Jellal still knew how to count the time.
Yet seeing Marco again after only a few months still left him utterly stunned, as though he were dreaming.
"You didn't actually think he could win, did you?"
Marco gave Jellal an odd look.
If Jellal really had been hoping for that, Marco supposed he could understand.
After all, if Brain couldn't win, Jellal would definitely be going back to prison. Marco had no intention of letting him walk free.
"Of course not. I just didn't expect him to lose that quickly... or that cleanly."
Jellal shook his head and gave the real reason for his surprise.
"To be honest, if you had lost to him, that's when I'd have started wondering if I was dreaming."
Looking at Brain, who was barely clinging to life, Jellal let out a bitter laugh.
What kind of delusion would he have to be under to expect Brain to defeat Marco? Besides, he had never wanted to escape in the first place.
"At least you're honest."
Marco glanced at Jellal, then stopped paying attention to him.
The Gemini Gold Cloth appeared on his body, and he walked over to Brain and punched him directly—using, of course, the Phantom Demon Emperor Fist.
Jellal recognized the move at once.
He knew it was a mind-control technique, because it was the very same method Marco had used on him before—bringing him back to his senses and freeing him from Ultear's manipulation.
At the thought of Ultear, Jellal couldn't help grinding his teeth.
If there was one person he hated most, it was without question Ultear.
If not for that woman manipulating him, his life would never have turned out like this.
Meanwhile, Marco controlled Brain and began digging into the story behind him, probing for information about the other two powers of the Balam Alliance.
And the more he learned, the stranger his expression became. When he looked at Jellal again, there was even a trace of pity in his eyes.
"W-what is it?"
Being stared at like that by Marco, Jellal felt thoroughly uncomfortable.
The main problem was that the look in Marco's eyes was just too strange—like he was looking at the unluckiest man alive.
"I have to say... you really are unbelievably miserable."
Marco couldn't help sighing as he looked at Jellal.
In Brain's memories, he had seen the shadow of Ultear, and also the shadow of Ur, the master of Gray and Lyon.
Before Oración Seis, Ultear had also been one of the children Brain had chosen.
She just hadn't been compatible enough.
When Ultear was very young, she ran into the same problem as Laxus: the magic power she inherited from her mother was too strong, and it went out of control while she was still a child.
To save her, Ur handed her over to the Director of the Magic Development Bureau for treatment.
That was truly like sending a lamb into a tiger's den.
Brain had always been searching for magically gifted children to use for the Living Link Seal, so there was no way he would let Ultear go.
He directly deceived Ur, making her believe that Ultear had died because of a violent magical rampage.
Even though Ultear wasn't a suitable fit, Brain still didn't release her. Instead, he made her develop misunderstanding and hatred toward Ur, then sent her off to another dark guild—Grimoire Heart, one of the other two great powers of the Balam Alliance.
Which meant that the one who manipulated Jellal into building the Tower of Heaven had not actually been Oración Seis at all, but Grimoire Heart.
It was hard to say what kind of fate Jellal had that made him so deeply entangled with not just one, but two of the Balam Alliance's Three Great Powers.
Jellal really had been unlucky—deceived and played by someone who had herself been deceived.
These tragedies truly were linked one inside another.
The survivors of the Tower of Heaven hadn't known how to face Jellal, because Jellal too had been a victim—someone deceived and controlled. So they had turned their hatred toward Ultear instead.
And now, it turned out that the one who had manipulated and deceived Jellal—Ultear herself—was also just another pitiful victim of deception.
"This really is..."
Marco rubbed at his teeth and looked toward Brain.
After thinking it over, he decided to spare the man's life for now. Some truths existed only inside Brain's head.
When the time came to go up against Grimoire Heart, the information Brain could provide might become a very useful card to play.