"Awesome! We finally got rid of that bastard!"
Natsu threw a fist into the air.
He knew exactly what Acnologia's death meant.
The Black Dragon was the enemy Igneel and the others had spent centuries trying to destroy, a monster powerful enough to threaten the entire world.
Now that he was gone, Igneel and the other dragons were finally free.
They no longer had to live with Acnologia hanging over them, and Fairy Tail could stop pouring so much time into tracking him down.
"With Marco around, there really isn't anything we can't handle," Gray said with a sigh of amazement.
Compared with Acnologia's death, completing the 100 Years Quest suddenly felt almost minor.
The Five Dragon Gods had been a legendary problem, but Acnologia had haunted the world for more than four hundred years.
"About the quest reward..." Elefseria began awkwardly.
Now that the time had come to pay Marco, he realized there was probably nothing he owned that Marco would actually want.
"Don't worry about it. I've already received what I came for."
Marco waved the matter aside with a smile.
He had never cared about Elefseria's promised reward.
His real goal had been to trigger the system mission, and Elefseria could not have offered him anything comparable to what he had gained.
Once everyone had recovered from the news, Marco looked around the area.
"How did things go here?"
"Well... there was one small complication."
At the mention of Ignia's territory, everyone's expression became slightly awkward.
Their eyes drifted toward Igneel, making it obvious that the matter involved him.
"What happened?" Marco asked.
When his senses had swept across the world earlier, he had not noticed any major trouble here.
Igneel cleared his throat, looking strangely embarrassed. "Ignia... left behind a son."
"Huh?"
That was nowhere near the answer Marco had expected.
"So Natsu's an uncle now," Gray said with a grin.
Natsu did not seem amused.
His newly discovered nephew was a devoted supporter of Ignia and had shown them nothing but hostility.
"Wed is one of Fire and Flame's senior members," Igneel explained. "We defeated the guild without much trouble, but he refused to surrender. We have him imprisoned for now."
Most of Fire and Flame had been dealt with.
Some of its leading members had died in the fighting, while the rest had been captured.
Wed was the only part of the operation that had created any real difficulty.
"So what do you want to do with him?" Marco asked.
From the way everyone was behaving, Wed had clearly committed crimes alongside his father.
Otherwise, Igneel would not be having such a hard time deciding his fate.
"He's half human," Igneel said. "Ignia had him with a human woman, so he isn't a true dragon. Ignia never accepted him and treated him poorly. The boy.... has had a miserable life."
Wed was Ignia's son, a half-dragon swordsman.
"Right. I understand."
Marco rubbed his forehead.
Igneel was clearly asking him to show mercy.
With Acnologia dead, the weight Igneel had carried for centuries had finally lifted, and his state of mind was very different from when they had dealt with Ignia.
Back then, he had genuinely prepared himself to accept his son's death.
Perhaps this was simply the old dragon developing a soft spot for his grandson. Or perhaps Wed's life had genuinely moved him.
Apparently, Wed always fought in full armor and never removed his helmet because he wanted to hide a face that closely resembled his father's.
For some reason, that sounded strangely familiar.
He was a powerful swordsman whose father was a red fire dragon...
Yes, that was becoming far too familiar.
Marco silently wondered whether Wed would complete the resemblance by trying to kill his father someday, though so far, there was no sign that he had any such intention.
"Lock him up with Ignia."
That seemed like the simplest solution. The grandson could join his father in prison!
"I hope he eventually sees the error of his ways."
Igneel relaxed and accepted the decision. He treated Marco with even more respect now than before.
This was the man who had killed Acnologia alone.
Igneel did not doubt Marco's claim for a moment. Marco had even offered to show them the Black Dragon's corpse if they wanted proof.
"Then everything here is finally settled," Elefseria said.
With all five Dragon Gods dealt with, northern Guiltina had finally escaped dragon rule.
Its people would no longer need to spend every day fearing the monsters that controlled their land.
"Not quite," Marco replied. "The Earth Dragon God is still alive."
Elefseria's expression stiffened.
Dogramag had supposedly died long ago, leaving behind the Great Dogra Labyrinth.
Elefseria had sealed its entrance because the place was far too dangerous, but Dogramag's soul still remained somewhere inside.
"I knew it..."
Elefseria let out a tired sigh.
He had always suspected something was wrong with the Great Dogra Labyrinth.
After watching Marco destroy the souls of the other Dragon Gods, that suspicion had only grown stronger.
Dogramag had never truly died. His soul had survived, which meant he might one day return.
"Let's go finish him off and recover the human heart you used to seal him."
Marco smiled, then teleported the entire group to the entrance of the Great Dogra Labyrinth.
"Wait—the seal has been broken!"
The moment they arrived, Elefseria inspected the barrier he had placed over the entrance and immediately noticed the damage.
"Dragon Slayer Magic did this."
A brief examination of the magical residue was enough for him to identify what had broken the seal.
"Yeah. It was Diabolos."
Marco had already seen the people exploring the labyrinth.
Every one of them was a Dragon Slayer.
"What are they doing in there?" Elefseria asked, clearly confused.
He had revoked Diabolos's right to attempt the 100 Years Quest and cut all contact with them. Why had they broken through his seal and entered Dogramag's labyrinth anyway?
"What do you think of them?" Marco asked. "You know Diabolos better than the rest of us."
"They aren't evil," Elefseria answered after some thought. "They're arrogant, certainly, but not criminals. Their attitude toward dragons is much like that of the dragons' old war faction. They believe humans and dragons can never coexist, so every dragon must be destroyed."
Although Diabolos had offended him personally, Elefseria did not twist the truth out of spite.
They were not a dark guild. They were simply humanity's most extreme anti-dragon faction.
"They also place strict limits on how often their members use Dragon Slayer Magic," he continued.
"They know overusing it can cause dragonification. Since they gain their power by eating dragon flesh, they are even more vulnerable to that transformation than ordinary Dragon Slayers."
That gave the others a basic picture of Diabolos: a guild of Dragon Slayers who devoted themselves to hunting dragons.
"Then we'll talk to them."
Marco nodded.
He had no reason to kill them. Arrogance alone was not a crime, and unless they were hurting innocent people, he would not treat them like a dark guild.
Buzz.
Marco disappeared.
A moment later, he returned—and every Diabolos mage who had been inside the labyrinth suddenly appeared outside with him.
"Huh? What just happened?!"
The Dragon Eaters stared around in confusion.
One moment they had been exploring the Great Dogra Labyrinth, and the next they were standing at its entrance again.
"Elefseria! Is this your doing?!"
A heavily muscled man pushed to the front.
He recognized Elefseria immediately.
He had been the one who originally approached the old mage about the 100 Years Quest, and he had also been the one who later fell out with him.
"That is Georg Reizen, Guild Master of Diabolos," Elefseria explained.
Georg had already stopped paying attention to him. His gaze had fallen on Igneel.
"Ignia, the Fire Dragon God?"
At first glance, he mistook Igneel for Ignia.
But he quickly realized the differences, but that only left him more confused.
"Where did another fire dragon come from? And why is this one so huge?"
Even stranger, the dragon appeared to be standing peacefully beside Elefseria.
"Georg Reizen, allow me to introduce Guild Master Marco," Elefseria said with a faintly satisfied smile.
"He has completed the 100 Years Quest."
The old man was not entirely above enjoying this moment.
Georg had once declared that Diabolos did not need Elefseria's help and would destroy the Five Dragon Gods on their own.
Before they had even made real progress, however, someone else had already finished the quest.
"Hah? Have you finally gone senile, old man?"
Georg laughed openly.
He looked Marco up and down and saw nothing but an absurdly handsome young man.
He could not imagine someone who looked like that completing the 100 Years Quest.
Buzz.
The Aries Gold Cloth appeared around Marco.
His already overwhelming power surged under the Cloth's amplification and swept across the Diabolos mages.
Crushing pressure dropped onto them before anyone could react, forcing every Dragon Slayer to their knees.
"What... what is this?!"
Georg could not even raise his head.
From their perspective, Marco had merely looked at them.
Then their bodies had collapsed under an invisible weight, as though they were not worthy of standing in his presence.
"Stop hunting dragons," Marco said, looking down at them. "And unless you're willing to become dragons yourselves, stop using Dragon Slayer Magic so carelessly."
His voice remained calm, but no one dared ignore it.
"From this point forward, humans and dragons will learn to coexist. If you do choose to continue using your magic and eventually complete your dragonification, no one will hunt you simply for becoming dragons."
People as proud as the members of Diabolos would never listen to a polite lecture.
First, he needed to break through their arrogance and make sure they understood who held the power in this conversation.
Buzz.
The pressure vanished.
The Dragon Slayers regained control of their bodies and slowly looked up, every one of them drenched in sweat.
Fear and confusion filled their faces as they stared at Marco.
His strength was beyond anything they had ever encountered.
"Who... are you?" Georg asked, still shaken.
He had killed many dragons over the years.
Some had required his whole guild, while others had fallen to him alone.
Yet despite all his experience, he had never encountered a power like this, nor had any creature ever made him feel so helpless.
"You'll hear soon enough." Marco answered casually.
Now that northern Guiltina's greatest problems had been solved, he intended to increase contact between the northern continent and Ishgar.
Guiltina was another market waiting to be opened, and once exchanges began, his name would naturally spread here.
"Are all the Five Dragon Gods really dead?" Georg asked.
He still found it difficult to believe.
Diabolos had entered the Great Dogra Labyrinth to search for the Earth Dragon God's remains.
Their goal had been to gain another source of power before challenging the Five Dragon Gods.
Dogramag had been considered the sixth Dragon God.
He was weaker than the other five, but still far stronger than an ordinary dragon.
If Diabolos could recover his power and create an Earth Dragon Slayer, their chances of defeating the Five Dragon Gods would rise dramatically.
"Not all of us," Mercphobia said, finally breaking his silence. "I'm still alive."
He sounded mildly offended that everyone had apparently included him among the dead.
"I'll be moving to a desert to help reverse desertification."