Buzz.
Crack. Crack.
Just as the group stood there, furious at what Aldoron had done, the Wood Dragon God began to react.
The city residents all turned toward Marco's group at the same time, moving in perfect unison as if some invisible force had taken control of them.
"See? Here it comes."
Marco shrugged.
Aldoron really was not completely unaware.
He had clearly sensed a danger.
With Marco, Elefseria, and Mercphobia here together, their presence was more than enough to alarm the self-sealed Wood Dragon God.
The residents gathered into a circle and slowly surrounded them.
They did not speak or attack. They simply held hands and trapped Marco's group in the middle.
"What... what is this supposed to mean?"
The eerie sight made goosebumps rise across Gray's skin.
He immediately prepared for a fight, but looking at the silent people around him, he could not bring himself to attack first.
"He's buying time," Elefseria said, understanding it at once.
The residents were not attacking because Aldoron was using their hesitation against them. He knew they would find it hard to strike fellow humans.
"Yeah. He's probably undoing the seal already."
A glow lit Marco's eyes.
Through his sight, he could already see some residents elsewhere trying to destroy crystal orbs.
Once those orbs were broken, Aldoron's seal would likely be undone.
"What do we do?" Mercphobia asked, looking at Marco.
"What else? We strike first."
Buzz.
The moment Marco finished speaking, his figure vanished.
The next instant, he appeared above Aldoron's head!
"You want to undo the seal now? A little late for that. Honestly, you dug your own grave with this one."
Standing on Aldoron's head, Marco make a few comments.
Aldoron was seriously confident in his own defense.
He had actually dared to create a seal that restricted his own movement.
He really was not afraid someone might show up and kill him before he could react.
Maybe no one else on Guiltina had that ability. Maybe not even the other Dragon Gods could do it.
But Marco was here now.
Aldoron could only blame his bad luck!
Buzz!
Marco floated into the air, and three Gold Cloths appeared behind him.
His Cosmo erupted, resonating with the three Gold Cloths.
At the same time, the other Gold Cloths were also drawn out, shining together as they supported him.
"Athena Exclamation!"
Marco released the ball of gathered energy in his hands and slammed it down onto Aldoron's head.
This move was clearly Athena Exclamation, but with how Marco used it now, it was getting closer and closer to Zodiac Clamation.
The only reason he could not fully draw on the power of the Twelve Zodiac Temples was that he still had not collected every Gold Cloth.
Boom!
Terrifying power poured from Marco's hands and crashed into Aldoron's head, swallowing it whole in an instant!
Boom!
Once Marco's attack landed, the result was never in doubt.
Aldoron's head, huge enough to rival an island, was swallowed by Athena Exclamation and erased completely.
Nothing was left of it.
The blast still had power to spare even after destroying his head, carving a deep crater into the earth before finally fading away.
Mercphobia and Elefseria hovered in the sky, staring at the destruction in stunned silence.
"Aldoron's body is enormous, and his defense and regeneration are supposed to be his greatest strengths," Elefseria murmured. "Yet he couldn't even withstand one attack from Guild Master Marco..."
The more he saw, the more unbelievable Marco became.
This power was not Dragon Slayer Magic, yet it had gone beyond ordinary magic altogether.
Because of that, dragons could not simply resist or ignore it the way they did with most magic.
"No wonder... No wonder he was able to drive back Acnologia..."
Mercphobia was just as shaken.
He had already been shocked once when Marco captured Ignia alive, but that had happened too quickly and had mostly shown Marco's physical power.
This was different.
This time, Marco had shown destructive power on a massive scale.
If someone wanted to impress people, this was clearly far more effective.
Even someone who understood nothing about combat would be able to look at this scene and realize just how terrifying Marco was.
Buzz!
And yet, even after losing his head, Aldoron still did not die.
The cities on his back collapsed in an instant.
The humans who had been kept as "nutrients" transformed into trees and merged into Aldoron's body, feeding him a fresh surge of magic.
"So wood-types are this hard to kill? Pretty on-brand, honestly."
Marco noticed it immediately and shook his head, though he was not exactly surprised.
He had read enough stories to know that wood-related powers were usually tied to life, healing, and rebirth in one way or another.
And Aldoron himself looked like some ancient tree spirit that had become a dragon.
He even had a massive tree growing from his back, almost like the Tenrou Tree, and could absorb humans as nourishment to grow.
If losing his head had killed him that easily, that would have been the stranger outcome.
Buzz.
Marco grabbed Gray and flew up, joining Mercphobia and Elefseria in the air.
"I suspect Aldoron has something like a core inside him," Elefseria said once Marco arrived. "To kill him properly, we either need to destroy that core or drain his magic completely."
He was experienced enough to come up with several possibilities right away.
"That sounds right," Mercphobia agreed. "Aldoron wouldn't be easy to kill. The fact that he survived Acnologia at all already proves that."
Gray blinked, unable to add anything.
Before coming here, he had hoped he might be able to help.
But after seeing Aldoron for himself, he genuinely had no idea what he was supposed to do.
Even if he threw his life away and used Absolute Zero, he doubted he could freeze even one of Aldoron's legs.
"Probably. But we don't need to waste time looking for a core."
Marco nodded.
He agreed with their guesses. In the end, the situation came down to a few simple possibilities.
Either Aldoron had some kind of core, or he could keep reviving as long as he had magic.
"We're not looking for the core?"
Elefseria looked surprised.
Was Marco planning to leave Aldoron alive? That had not been his attitude earlier.
"Too much trouble. We don't even know what the core looks like, so we'd have to test things one by one. There's an easier way."
Marco smiled.
Aldoron was basically the perfect target for testing abilities.
He was huge, stationary, and unable to dodge anything.
All he could do was sit there and take the hit.
Elefseria and Mercphobia exchanged a look, clearly not understanding what Marco meant.
Marco did not bother explaining.
He handed Gray off to Mercphobia and dropped straight down onto Aldoron's body.
By now, Aldoron had broken the sealing stones in all five cities and absorbed every human nutrient on his back.
His destroyed head was slowly beginning to regenerate.
His body still had not moved.
He was only recovering by instinct, which meant he remained a giant target that could do nothing but endure.
Buzz.
Marco switched Cloths.
Although he could use Accumulated Corpse Qi even without the Cancer Gold Cloth now, its power was obviously greater when he wore the Cloth itself.
The boost from a Gold Cloth was important.
He was going to test Sekishiki Meikai Ha on Aldoron!
If destroying Aldoron's body was going to be annoying, then he would go after the soul instead.
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
Marco pushed his Cosmo and awakened the power of Accumulated Corpse Qi.
The Cancer Gold Cloth answered him, and high above, the Beehive Cluster within the Cancer constellation began to shine.
"Sekishiki Meikai Ha!"
Marco poured Accumulated Corpse Qi into Aldoron's body, attacking the soul of the massive Wood Dragon God and trying to force it out of the body.
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
Aldoron had no defense against the soul-striking force of Sekishiki Meikai Ha.
He could not defend himself at all.
His head had been erased, and he was currently recovering purely on instinct. He could not even issue a proper command to resist.
Still, Aldoron's soul was extremely heavy, tied tightly to his enormous body.
It was just like what Marco had seen in the Underworld.
The more magic someone possessed in life, and the stronger they had been before death, the tougher their soul became.
Aldoron's soul was naturally far stronger than most.
For a moment, even Marco's Sekishiki Meikai Ha failed to push Aldoron's soul out completely.
It only shook the soul until it became unstable.
But that was already enough.
The moment Aldoron's soul began to tremble, the regeneration of his body slowed and started to stall.