"I can smell something familiar…"
Atlas Flame's voice was weak.
His draconic head slowly emerged from the flames as he studied the humans he had met so many years ago.
Then confusion clouded his gaze.
"That's right… Four hundred years have passed. I'm already dead…"
Ankh was relieved to find that Atlas Flame was still somewhat lucid.
"You're not dead. Your body has simply become extremely weak."
"I have lost the power I possessed as a dragon. Only this body of flame and my soul remain."
Atlas Flame answered almost instinctively, then looked at Ankh and the others in confusion.
"Who are all of you?"
The Hellfire Dragon was behaving remarkably like an elderly man suffering from dementia.
Fortunately, there was one person who could stir his muddled memories.
Not far away, Natsu had just returned to his normal size and finished dealing with the demonic beast.
The moment he arrived and saw the dragon, he shouted excitedly.
"Oh! It's you, old man! I knew that smell was familiar!"
Atlas Flame heard that familiar form of address, and the flames in his eyes flickered.
"Igneel's child… So it was all of you."
Natsu immediately jumped onto Atlas Flame's head as though they were old friends.
"How did you end up becoming the Eternal Flame of this village?"
Atlas Flame fell silent.
A long while later, he finally answered.
"The Dragon King Festival… Acnologia, the Black Dragon, nearly drove all dragonkind to extinction."
"My body was destroyed, and I fell into a deep sleep. Fortunately, these giants protected me, allowing what remained of me to survive until now."
"The Dragon King Festival…"
Natsu froze and quietly clenched his fists.
"Igneel and the others were injured in that war too, weren't they?"
Ever since learning that Igneel had been living inside him, Natsu had been troubled by the question of how the dragon had been wounded.
At last, he had found the beginning of an answer.
"That is correct. Acnologia brought the end to all dragonkind."
"Any dragons still surviving in this world either cling to existence through secret arts, as I do, preserving only their souls… or, like Igneel, placed their hopes in a new era and hid within Dragon Slayers."
"However, it is said that a number of dragons escaped the disaster and fled to another continent."
Atlas Flame paused.
"One of them was Igneel's son."
"Igneel's son?"
Natsu pointed blankly at himself.
"Aren't I right here?"
Atlas Flame shook his head.
"You are his adopted son. I mean Igneel's biological child—Ignia."
"Ignia?"
Ankh had spoken with Igneel before, but the dragon had never mentioned anything about a son.
"Were the two of them not close?"
Atlas Flame sighed.
"Igneel never explained it in detail. He only hinted that Ignia did not share his compassion."
"On the contrary, Ignia possessed the same pride in dragonkind as the other dragons who favored war. He pursued power with fanatical devotion, and his talent was no weaker than his father's."
"More than that, he inherited a legendary power from the gods…"
Ankh narrowed his eyes.
He remembered now.
Igneel had once told him that there were dragons who had become inheritors of divine power.
So he had been talking about his own son.
Ignia—the dragon who had inherited a god's power and hidden away from Acnologia.
Interesting.
"Which continent did Ignia and the other dragons who fled the Black Dragon go to?" Ankh asked immediately.
"The northern continent, Guiltina," Atlas Flame replied without hesitation, his awareness growing clearer by the moment.
"Guiltina is larger than Ishgar and Alakitasia combined. Its lands are vast, its population sparse, and its governing institutions loosely organized. Most of the surviving dragons who fled the war chose to hide there."
Ankh nodded and committed the information to memory.
The Magic Council had recently mentioned growing conflict between Ishgar and Guiltina. He could use that as an excuse to visit the border and investigate Ignia while he was there.
Natsu was still stunned by the revelation that Igneel had another son.
Gray, meanwhile, asked with a complicated expression, "Do you remember how the village was frozen?"
Atlas Flame let out a low cry and looked across the frozen village.
"It was a man in armor. He carried the stench of death around him."
"He seemed to mistake me for a demon and froze the entire village with Ice Devil Slayer Magic."
'Absolute Zero.'
'So it really had been him.'
Gray fell silent as well.
Now that he had confirmed the distance between himself and that man, the weight in his heart only grew heavier.
Flare had waited nervously until everyone finished asking their questions.
Then she hurried forward, dropped to her knees before Atlas Flame, and pleaded through her tears.
"Lord Eternal Flame, please save everyone in the village!"
Atlas Flame sighed.
"They were dragged into this because of me. They are entirely innocent. Do not worry…"
Four hundred years of hardship seemed to have softened his heart.
When they first met him in the royal capital, Atlas Flame had been a dragon influenced by his old friend.
He did not despise humans, but neither had he particularly liked them.
Now, after being protected by the giants for centuries, he had become a dragon who genuinely cared for humanity.
Atlas Flame raised his head and unleashed a tremendous roar.
His powerful soul transformed into fire. A warm, blazing heat spread from his body and swept across the entire village.
Under its radiant glow, the Devil Slayer ice rapidly melted away, revealing everything buried beneath it.
The ice covering the giants dissolved first.
Their faces still carried the anger they had shown at the moment they were frozen, but that fury quickly changed into confusion.
Silver had frozen them so quickly that most had never even understood what had happened.
Only by watching the distant layers of ice melt away could they begin to guess.
Flare looked at the village slowly coming back to life and burst into joyful tears.
"Thank you, Lord Eternal Flame!"
Atlas Flame paid no attention to the title.
In his current state, simply being allowed to live peacefully was enough. Whether he was still called a dragon no longer mattered to him.
"There is no need to thank me. But I must return to sleep."
He looked toward Natsu, his voice softening.
"Natsu, should you have more questions, you may come to Sun Village at any time."
Natsu finally recovered from his daze and nodded firmly.
With that, Atlas Flame's body once again became pure fire.
Just before his consciousness sank into slumber, his voice sounded only within Ankh's mind.
"Lord Ankhseram… the dragons who inherited the power of the gods may already stand against you."
"So please… do not trust them."