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Time seemed to stop.
Acnologia's crimson dragon eyes snapped open, filled with disbelief, fury, and something else — something that could only be described as a relief it had never expected to feel.
"Ugh... h... h..."
One last meaningless sound escaped it.
Then, unwillingly, those dragon eyes went dark. The massive body convulsed once, violently, and the chaotic surges of Magic Power radiating from Acnologia ceased without another tremor.
The sky began to clear, slowly returning to its natural blue.
The Black Dragon, Acnologia, the terrifying shadow that had loomed over the world for four hundred years, drew its last breath on this day.
As the abyss below fell silent, everyone let out a long breath, and one by one they sank to the ground, completely spent.
"We did it!"
"We actually beat the Black Dragon!"
Natsu's shout rang out, his body hollow from the massive Magic output, yet he was punching the air anyway.
Everyone looked at one another, the relief in each other's eyes unmistakable, and then erupted into cheering.
The four Dragon Gods descended slowly from the sky. The Golden Dragon God Viernes stared at the Black Dragon's corpse below, his expression impossible to read. After a long moment, it settled into a quiet, heavy exhale.
The Fire Dragon God Ignia stood apart, watching as the five great dragons descended into the human camp below. His gaze lingered on the Fire Dragon King, who was trading a solid fist-bump with Natsu.
The Water Dragon God Mercphobia let out a low chuckle. "Well? Aren't you going to go greet your father?"
Ignia said nothing. He let out a short, cold snort and pointedly turned his head away.
The Fire Dragon King seemed to sense it. After exchanging the fist-bump with Natsu, he turned just in time to catch his biological son looking the other way, and promptly blew two hot jets of air from his nostrils in obvious displeasure.
That ungrateful brat. Not even a word of greeting when he sees his old father.
Natsu, his godson, was unquestionably the better of the two.
The Moon Dragon God Selene watched this exchange with quiet amusement, and found herself thinking unexpectedly of her own son, the Sword-Saint Dragon, still traveling somewhere on the northern continent. She had let him roam freely for long enough. It was past time he came home.
On the Black Dragon's massive corpse, Kuro stood with heaving breaths. The hatred and obsession that had driven him for four hundred years had finally found release. And yet, rather than the elation he had imagined for so long, what filled the space they left behind was something he could not easily name.
It did not matter. For the first time in centuries, the road ahead was open.
But just as the first stirrings of victory began to take hold among those gathered —
Something went wrong.
Acnologia's enormous shattered corpse suddenly erupted with a brilliance of pure, blazing white light. It was warm, almost sacred in quality, entirely unlike anything Acnologia had ever radiated in life.
But the expression on Kuro's face changed immediately. He felt it: a terrifying pressure, already far surpassing what the Black Dragon had exuded, building rapidly within that light.
He condensed his Five Extremes Dragon Slayer Magic and tried to disperse it. It was useless. Right before his eyes, the white light disintegrated Acnologia's corpse entirely, converting it into the same energy.
In the stunned gaze of everyone present, the white light swept effortlessly past Kuro's attempt to block it and rose into the sky.
The blue that had only just returned to the heavens was swallowed again.
An eerie white light spread across the entire firmament.
Within it, a figure took shape.
A man of imperious bearing, clad in resplendent pure white battle armor, holding a greatsword wreathed in holy flames. His face carried a perfection no mortal could claim, his golden hair falling like light itself, and behind him, a great halo rotated slowly, radiating a divine pressure that struck at something deep in the soul.
His very presence caused every person there, and every dragon, to feel a powerful, involuntary urge from somewhere beneath conscious thought to kneel.
He opened his eyes. They were vast and deep as the night sky, and utterly without warmth. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute authority.
"I am... the Lord of All Gods."
Erza and Mirajane, who had both heard the ancient legends of gods and demons during the mission on Galuna Island, felt their pupils contract. They stared at the man who had named himself the Lord of Gods.
Mirajane in particular reacted as if by instinct. The moment the Lord of Gods appeared, the residual Satan Soul power within her responded as if to a threat, flooding her body and shifting her automatically into her Satan Soul form.
Kuro stared at the figure that had emerged from Acnologia's remains, and something clicked into place. His body went rigid.
"It was you. You were the one who made Acnologia into what he became."
The question had haunted him for four hundred years.
He had saved a gentle white dragon named Acnologia. And then, without warning or reason that he could ever fathom, that white dragon had transformed into a cruel, destructive Black Dragon.
He had always believed it was Acnologia's hidden true nature revealing itself. But perhaps there had always been another answer.
The Lord of Gods let his gaze fall on Kuro. The look in his eyes was the same one a man might give a stone on the road.
He did not deny it.
"Your guess is correct, mortal."
"The white dragon named Acnologia was originally the will of Earth Land itself, the guide chosen by the world for its child — you."
"However, even the will of the world could not detect that I had woven my divine soul into the white dragon's soul. Its corruption, its slaughter, the vast reserves of magical power it devoured over the centuries — all of it was fuel, accumulating toward my rebirth today."
"If the Black Dragon was the force that led you astray, then I am the force that led the Black Dragon."
The Lord of Gods' lips curved slightly, indifferent and cold.
His gaze drifted briefly to the residual Satan Soul form on Mirajane, and something like dismissal crossed his face.
"Countless years ago, I and Satan, the King of Demons, waged war over this world, which overflowed with power ripe for the taking."
"We destroyed one another. Satan was annihilated entirely. My divine soul alone survived, dormant within Earth Land."
"I required power, sufficient and vast, to rekindle my divine flame and reconstruct my divine body. Acnologia's gifts suited that purpose perfectly. I used him as a vessel to harvest magical power."
He spread his arms wide, as if embracing everything beneath him.
Now he had been reborn. His body was constructed of pure magical power, and the will of the world itself could no longer drive him from it.
Furthermore, the troublesome world's will and the Celestial Spirit King had already been immobilized. His allies, the Eighteen Demon War Gods and the God of Life and Death, had struck without warning to ensure it.
"The time has come for me to claim this world entirely."
"We begin with you, the ants who will never kneel willingly."
As his words ended, a divine pressure descended, tens of thousands of times heavier than Acnologia's Dragon's Roar had been, bearing down like the weight of the entire sky made solid.
Save for a very small number of those present, almost everyone was driven involuntarily to their knees. Simply looking upward became a monumental effort.
Even most of the great dragons were forced to bow their heads.
Kuro, the Fire Dragon King Igneel, Zeref, August, Irene, and a handful of others resisted with everything they had, but their faces had gone white, and sweat poured from them freely. Their Magic Power had been all but exhausted in the battle against Acnologia. Simply staying upright was the limit of what they could manage. They had nothing left to contend with a true deity returned to full power.
Of those present, only Mavis, who carried the Fairy Heart's infinite Magic Power, was in relatively sound condition. But even she felt a weight she had never felt before pressing against her.
And the Lord of Gods, having witnessed Fairy Sphere from Acnologia's perspective over long years, turned his attention to Mavis without hesitation.
That absolute defensive Magic, built on unshakeable will and sustained by endless power, was the one thing here he considered a true nuisance.
He would not give her a second chance to use it.
He raised the greatsword burning with holy flames and swept it toward Mavis.
There was no spectacle to it. Only a single blade of condensed holy light, pure and absolute, cutting across space as if distance were a formality. It carried the power to judge and purify everything it touched.
It arrived in an instant. Faster than thought.
Mavis's pupils shrank. She felt the full weight of what was in that strike, something that surpassed even Acnologia's roar. She moved to activate Fairy Sphere on instinct, but the attack had come too fast, from too close.
"Mavis!"
Zeref and August screamed her name, their bodies unable to move a single inch.
And then —
A hand closed around the blade of light.
One hand. And with a quiet squeeze, the holy sword strike that would have killed everyone present shattered like a soap bubble, dissolving without so much as a ripple.
When everyone had a moment to process what had happened, they realized that the crushing divine pressure had vanished entirely.
Standing in front of Mavis, one hand in his pocket, posture utterly unhurried, was a white-haired young man.