When the eastern Magic Council requested assistance during the campaign against Tartaros, the Alvarez Empire had remained completely silent.
Hyberion had been furious at the time, but with one crisis after another erupting both inside and outside Ishgar, he simply had no spare attention to deal with them.
Even so, he had taken one precaution before leaving the continent's interior.
A number of veteran guild masters—old foxes with decades of experience—had been assigned to defend and maintain order in Ishgar's major cities.
That decision had now paid off.
The Alvarez Empire's powerful army had managed to seize territory from several smaller kingdoms along Ishgar's borders through surprise attacks, but most of the important inland nations remained secure.
Guiltina was nowhere near as fortunate.
Its forces had marched south expecting an easy victory over Ishgar and the chance to seize vast resources.
Instead, they lost the battle at the front, gained absolutely nothing from the war, and then had their completely exposed rear attacked from behind.
The seemingly omnipresent Alvarez army tore through Guiltina's defenses without resistance.
Its forces advanced with astonishing speed, capturing city after city and successfully cutting Rein's army off from home.
Standing amid the scorching wind blowing across the battlefield, the members of Diabolos felt cold inside.
They had accepted an extremely lucrative commission, gone out to complete the job—
Only to turn around and discover that the people who were supposed to pay them were about to lose their entire country.
Kirin, as the group's leader, fell into confused silence.
For once, even he had no idea what they were supposed to do next.
After thinking for a moment, Misaki said,
"The mission has officially failed. We should start considering how we're going to withdraw."
"Damn Alvarez Empire!" Haku snarled. "I'm going back there and beating them up!"
Laxus and the others had already fought Alvarez's forces before and knew perfectly well that the empire possessed a frightening military.
After some consideration, they decided that the best course of action was also to withdraw deeper into Ishgar and stabilize the situation in the rear.
There was no longer anything to gain from continuing this war.
Alvarez had already stolen all the rewards while everyone else fought each other bloody.
Neither side openly discussed it, but through a shared and unspoken understanding, Ishgar and Guiltina both chose to suspend hostilities.
For the moment, everyone needed to go home and defend their own base.
The battle between humans had effectively ended.
The battle involving the Fire Dragon God, however, was nowhere near finished.
...
Two figures shot out of the blazing sea and tore into the sky.
Ankh drove his blade toward Ignia's heart.
Ignia caught the weapon between his hands at the last possible moment, stopping the tip before it pierced his chest, but the sheer force behind the thrust still launched his entire body upward.
Ignia roared and spat scorching flames.
Ankh did not dodge.
He simply punched straight into Ignia's mouth.
Boom—!
A brilliant explosion blossomed across the sky like a gigantic firework.
Ignia was sent flying backward once again.
Night had already begun falling, yet the two combatants were producing so much light that their battle illuminated the entire horizon.
"For someone with such a big mouth, you're not nearly as strong as you make yourself sound!"
Hearing Ankh's taunt, veins bulged across Ignia's forehead.
The black-and-red flames around him grew even hotter as he threw a furious punch and forced Ankh away.
For dragons capable of taking human form, their humanoid bodies were generally far weaker than their true draconic forms.
Even Acnologia was unlikely to be completely exempt from that rule.
A dragon as powerful as Ignia remained terrifying in human form, but against the absolute peak of humanity, fighting that way still left him at genuine risk of defeat.
"I underestimated you."
Ignia sneered.
He had originally intended to kill Ankh while remaining human, thereby proving that he had already surpassed Acnologia.
But now…
Perhaps showing off could wait.
"ROOOAR—!"
Ignia threw back his head and roared.
His slender human body rapidly expanded as his enormous draconic form emerged once again.
The surrounding Magic Power and temperature instantly climbed to another level entirely.
Even Ankh, standing within the inferno, began to feel the heat.
He stared at Ignia's true form while keeping the Dragon God's Arsenal ready to strike at any moment.
Ignia might have been arrogant, but there was no denying his strength.
Still, stronger than Acnologia?
Ankh had personally fought both dragons.
Back then, Acnologia had nearly killed him.
If Ignia meant that his current self, after four hundred years of growth and divine inheritance, had surpassed the Acnologia of four hundred years ago—before the Black Dragon had acquired divine power or four centuries of experience—then Ankh could believe it.
That probably explained Ignia's obsession.
He must have believed that he had surpassed the Acnologia from his memories and deliberately sought out Ankh to test that claim.
Ignia's presence in dragon form was incomparably more oppressive than before.
He gathered flames within his mouth and unleashed a massive roar directly at Ankh.
Ankh charged straight into it.
The blade he had already prepared flashed from its sheath.
In an instant, the aura of death swallowed the terrifying inferno completely.
Faced with Ankh's sword light tearing across the heavens, Ignia showed no fear whatsoever.
Relying on the overwhelming toughness of a dragon's body, he rushed directly into Ankh's reach and brought his claws down again and again.
The two combatants, despite their enormous difference in size, collided repeatedly in the sky.
Every clash between blade and claw detonated like thunder.
The bursts of magic produced by their exchanges were bright enough to illuminate the entire battlefield.
The ordinary soldiers who had already stopped fighting and begun retreating could only stare upward in stunned silence.
A dragon's power was enough to inspire instinctive awe in any mortal.
But then…
What kind of monster was the human fighting it?
After another violent collision between Ankh's blade and Ignia's claw, irritation suddenly appeared in the Fire Dragon God's excited eyes.
Ignia abruptly turned his head toward one side.
Ankh, whose spatial senses were exceptionally sharp, frowned and stopped attacking as well.
At some point, the dim evening sky seemed to have skipped directly into deep night.
The full moon hanging overhead appeared strangely close.
Then, beside them, an enormous circular ring of silver light suddenly appeared.
An elegant, colossal dragon slowly emerged from within it.
Most of her long, slender body was covered in pale violet scales.
Soft white fur grew around her elongated neck, while black fur covered the joints of her limbs.
Dark markings decorated her shoulders.
Her head looked almost more foxlike than draconic, with crescent-shaped horns curving upward and backward. Enchanting black markings surrounded her eyes.
Behind her body, in addition to a scaled dragon tail, seven enormous fluffy white tails spread outward, each tipped in black.
Moon Dragon God Selene — Dragon Form.
Ankh blinked.
With all those features combined, she looked less like a dragon and more like some gigantic nine-tailed fox.
If she were a little smaller, keeping a fox like that as a pet might actually be rather nice.
Ankh sighed internally.
Ignia, meanwhile, glared furiously at the newcomer.
"Moon Dragon God! This is my fight!"
Selene raised her foxlike head and replied lazily,
"I have no intention of stealing your opponent, Ignia."
"I merely came to remind you of something."
"Your father is coming."
Ignia's pupils contracted sharply.
He immediately turned toward Ishgar.
Far across the night sky, a blazing streak of fire could indeed be seen racing toward them.
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