Mercphobia had joined their side, Ignia had been sealed away, and both Aldoron and Viernes were dead.
Of the so-called Five Dragon Gods, only one remained.
"Selene, the Moon Dragon God. We lost all trace of her three or four years ago," Elefseria said, his expression darkening.
"There's a good chance she's no longer in northern Guiltina."
Selene was every bit as cruel as the others.
She had slaughtered countless humans over the years, including many of Elefseria's friends.
"She controls spatial magic," Mercphobia explained. "Her ability to move through space is extraordinary. She can even travel freely between parallel worlds, which is why she's sometimes called the Dragon Who Transcends Dimensions."
If Selene had no intention of showing herself, finding her would be almost impossible.
"Parallel worlds?" Marco blinked.
He had actually visited one before—Edolas, a world completely different from Earth-land.
"I don't know much about it," Mercphobia admitted with a shake of his head. Spatial magic had nothing to do with his own abilities.
He only knew the stories surrounding Selene, who had been a famous dragon since the distant age more than four hundred years ago.
"That's probably where she went," Elefseria said with more certainty. "She's been completely silent for the past few years. If she were still somewhere in Guiltina, she would never have kept such a low profile."
Selene was vicious, unpredictable, and never stayed quiet for long.
Whenever she had been on the continent, trouble had followed.
"That makes things difficult..."
Marco clicked his tongue.
Finding someone in another world was no simple matter when they had no destination to lock onto.
Selene could have gone to any number of parallel worlds.
"We may have no choice but to wait for her to return," Elefseria said. He did not like it either, but they had no clear alternative.
"All right. We'll leave it there for now." Marco nodded. "I'll look elsewhere and see whether I can find a lead. The two of you can start cleaning up the territories left behind by the Dragon Gods and remove any forces still loyal to them."
There was nothing to deal with in Aldoron's territory.
Marco had already taken the dragon's entire body away and put it to use.
Viernes had left no mess behind either. Gold Owl and everything connected to it had vanished without leaving so much as a scrap.
That was actually a shame.
Gold Owl had been an extremely powerful alchemist guild, with a vast collection of research and records.
Marco could have brought those materials back and added them to Fairy Tail's library.
The only territory that still required proper cleanup belonged to Ignia.
His followers in Fire and Flame would need to be dealt with.
"There's no point wasting time. I'll go ahead."
Once he had assigned the work, Marco offered no further explanation. Space rippled violently around him as he locked onto Edolas.
He planned to ask Mystogan whether his world had any information about other parallel worlds.
Edolas was far more likely to have useful records on the subject.
Its people had once poured enormous resources into searching for other worlds, while Earth-land knew almost nothing about them.
...
A moment later, Marco appeared inside the grand royal palace of Edolas.
Its architecture was magnificent, though completely different from anything in Earth-land.
The sudden absence of magic was still an unusual sensation, but with Cosmo at his disposal, it no longer bothered him much.
The palace had clearly undergone basic repairs since his last visit. At the very least, it was once again fit for people to live and work in.
The scars left by the battle that overthrew the former king had begun to fade, and both the kingdom and the world itself were slowly taking on a new life under Mystogan's rule.
Marco swept his gaze across the palace and quickly found him.
Mystogan sat behind a desk in plain clothes, quietly working through a pile of documents.
Despite becoming king, he still dressed simply and carried none of the flashy excess one might expect from royalty.
Buzz.
"Mystogan. It's been a while." Marco appeared in front of the desk.
Mystogan looked less like an absolute ruler and more like a man working himself half to death for his country.
"Huh? Marco?" Mystogan flinched at first, but once he recognized his visitor, a smile quickly spread across his face.
"What brings you here?"
"Come on, sit down. Is something wrong?"
He showed no royal distance around Marco. Mystogan stood, led him into a reception room, offered him a seat, and personally prepared tea.
"Nothing too serious," Marco said once they had settled in. He took a sip before explaining why he had come. "I wanted to ask whether you have any records on other parallel worlds."
"Parallel worlds?"
Mystogan looked surprised. He clearly had not expected that question.
"I'm hunting a dragon," Marco explained. "She's extremely dangerous and specializes in spatial magic. We believe she may have escaped into another world. Since Edolas spent years researching parallel worlds, I thought you might know something useful."
As Marco gave him a brief account of the situation, Mystogan's expression gradually became strange.
"A dragon... and another world..."
The coincidence was almost too perfect.
"We actually do have something."
That immediately caught Marco's attention. It seemed the trip had been worth making after all.
"When my father was preparing the Anima Project and trying to steal magic from other worlds for Edolas, Earth-land wasn't the only parallel world his researchers discovered," Mystogan explained.
"They found another one as well—a world with so much magic that Earth-land barely compares."
"A world with far more magic than Earth-land?" Marco narrowed his eyes. "Then why didn't they target that world instead?"
He already suspected the answer.
"Because of exactly what you just mentioned," Mystogan said, his expression turning serious.
"There was a dragon there, one with powerful spatial magic. My father and his people were afraid of her."
There was little doubt that dragon was the one Marco had been looking for.