Chapter 383 - 383: The Law Dragon
"My name is the Law Dragon, Elefseria! Grant my wish, Mage!"
"Elefseria, are you the one who issued the Hundred Year Quest? What are the contents of the mission?"
Ren looked up at the towering, majestic beast before him, his voice remarkably even despite the overwhelming magical pressure filling the ancient hall. He didn't even flinch at the booming resonance of the dragon's voice.
The massive dragon fell completely silent for a long moment. Its colossal, reptilian eyes narrowed, carefully studying the young man standing completely unfazed in the center of the decaying guildhall.
"..."
"You don't seem surprised by my form," the dragon finally rumbled, a hint of genuine curiosity woven into its deep, vibrating tone.
"A Dragon? No, I should say a Dragon Slayer Mage who turned into a Dragon, right?" Ren replied smoothly, crossing his arms over his chest.
Ren let out a quiet scoff, his eyes scanning the intricate scales covering the beast. "I've seen quite a few Dragons recently, so I'm already immune to the shock factor. Besides, your guild's name is 'Magia Dragon,' so it's not exactly surprising for a literal dragon to be sitting at the end of this hallway."
He said it with a casual shrug, as if discussing the weather. It was the honest truth; he really had seen quite a lot of Dragons lately. Everyone on the continent of Ishgar claimed the Dragon Clan had gone extinct 400 years ago, but lately, they seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork everywhere he looked.
Hearing this, a low, rumbling chuckle vibrated from the beast's chest. The Law Dragon's massive body began to shimmer with a blinding, ethereal light, the heavy scales rapidly receding as its form began to compress and change.
Within seconds, the blinding magical aura faded, leaving behind the appearance of a diminutive, frail-looking old man with a long white beard. He leaned heavily on a wooden staff, though his eyes still carried the predatory sharpness of an apex predator.
"You figured it out quite quickly. I am the founder of the world's very first Mage Guild, and the first Guild Master of Magia Dragon, Elefseria." The old man's voice was now weathered but firm.
Elefseria slowly descended the stone steps, his sharp gaze locking onto Ren. "Are you truly mentally prepared to accept this commission? I can tell you right now that none of the 98 groups of heroes who came before you could complete this task."
The old guild master let out a heavy sigh, the weight of a century of failures resting on his shoulders. "Many of them even lost their lives along the way, completely erased from existence. You are still so young, boy."
He paused, heavily scrutinizing Ren's youthful appearance. "If you just want to challenge the Hundred Year Quest for the glory of it, it would be infinitely better to come back in your forties or fifties. That might be the peak of your magical strength. Challenging it recklessly now will likely result in throwing your life away for absolutely nothing."
Elefseria looked at Ren with a deadly serious gaze, his tone laced with genuine concern. He felt this kid was simply too young and, worse, entirely alone. He couldn't help but wonder if this was a classic case of the ignorant being utterly fearless in the face of true danger.
"I'm already prepared," Ren answered without missing a beat.
He offered the ancient Dragon Slayer a relaxed, easygoing smile. "Right now might be far from my absolute peak strength, but I think taking on the Hundred Year Quest right now is perfect. If I wait until I'm at my absolute peak and can crush everything with a single finger, there won't be any fun in doing it anymore."
Elefseria couldn't help but be taken aback by the sheer audacity of the statement. For a moment, he just stared at the boy in stunned silence before throwing his head back and bursting into uproarious laughter.
"Hahahaha! You are by far the most dangerously confident hero I've ever seen come through these doors to challenge the Hundred Year Quest!" Elefseria wiped a tear of mirth from his eye. "But since you've put it that way, I won't waste my breath trying to persuade you further."
The old man waved his hand, and a glowing piece of archaic parchment materialized from thin air, settling softly onto the dusty stone table between them.
"Then first, sign the contract. You must absolutely not reveal the contents of the Hundred Year Quest to anyone in the outside world," Elefseria instructed, his tone shifting back to absolute authority. "Furthermore, the client—myself—bears zero responsibility if you or anyone else loses their life during the execution of this mission."
Ren didn't even bother reading the fine print. He picked up a nearby quill and signed his name on the glowing parchment without a second of hesitation, binding himself to the ancient magic.
"Excellent," Elefseria nodded, the contract vanishing in a flash of golden light. "Next, I will tell you the details of the task. The objective is incredibly simple to understand: You must seal all five dragons known as the Five God Dragons of Guiltina."
Ren's eyes flashed with quiet recognition. As expected, it was exactly this mission.
He had officially triggered the Fairy Tail Hundred Year Quest arc.
"I originally learned Dragon Slayer Magic specifically to seal those five dragons," Elefseria explained, his voice turning grim. "However, those five dragons are violently destructive, overwhelmingly powerful existences that bear the title of 'God.' It can be said that each individual Dragon possesses destructive power equivalent to Acnologia."
"Acnologia..." Ren muttered, rolling the name over his tongue. "Just based on those five dragons?"
A highly disdainful, almost arrogant smile naturally appeared on Ren's face.
Elefseria frowned deeply at the reaction, clearly offended by the boy's lack of terror. "You think they are inferior to Acnologia? You think this is a joke?"
"Of course they are," Ren replied matter-of-factly.
"Have you even seen Acnologia with your own two eyes?" Elefseria demanded, his voice rising in irritation.
"I have!" Ren shot back casually. "That guy is incredibly troublesome. Any purely magical energy attack has a very limited effect on him, and most spells can even be casually absorbed by him to replenish his own power."
Elefseria's eyes widened to the size of saucers, all his previous irritation vanishing into thin air. "You've actually seen Acnologia?! No! Wait..."
The old man stumbled forward a step, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his staff. "According to your detailed description... have you actually fought Acnologia?"
Elefseria was no fool. He quickly noticed that Ren's description of the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse was far too detailed. The boy even knew exactly how Acnologia's unique magical immunity and absorption powers functioned. This was far more profound than just having seen the beast fly overhead.
"Yeah, I've fought him," Ren admitted with a casual shrug, as if discussing a minor bar brawl.
"You actually survived a head-on battle with Acnologia?!" Elefseria gasped, leaning heavily against the stone table. "That's completely unbelievable!"
Although Elefseria had never seen Acnologia in person, he had spent centuries hiding from the legends. Acnologia was the nightmare who single-handedly ended the era of Dragons. He was a twisted savior to humanity and the absolute harbinger of the apocalypse, his mere appearance representing the end of an entire epoch.
Especially for surviving Dragon Slayer Mages and actual Dragons like Elefseria, Acnologia was the ultimate taboo existence. He was the apex predator of apex predators.
To hear that this human-looking teenager standing before him had actually fought the Black Dragon and walked away without a single missing limb... to Elefseria, this was simply a delusional fantasy.
"It's nothing unbelievable," Ren said, waving off the old man's shock. "His sheer strength is indeed overwhelmingly great, but I'm not exactly weak either. Even if I can't take him down right now, it's impossible for him to actually take me down."
Ren's confidence wasn't unfounded arrogance. He could freely cross dimensional worlds and utilize the Flying Thunder God Technique for absolute, instantaneous teleportation. With such unparalleled, space-bending life-saving methods, even if he couldn't win a battle of pure attrition against the Dragon King, he could definitely escape him.
Elefseria took a long, deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart as he looked at Ren in a completely new light.
"It seems you really are an incredibly, terrifyingly powerful Mage," Elefseria conceded, his tone dropping to a serious whisper. "However, what I am saying is not just alarmist talk. Even if those five dragons individually don't have strength perfectly comparable to Acnologia, the difference isn't as vast as you might hope."
The old man pointed a wrinkled finger toward the eastern horizon. "The ultimate proof of their power is the fact that Acnologia ran rampant across the continent of Ishgar for hundreds of years, hunting every dragon he could sense... yet he never dared to cross the ocean to come to this northern continent."
"Perhaps a single one of the Five God Dragons is not his match in a one-on-one deathmatch," Elefseria continued, his eyes darkening. "But all five of them existing here together definitely have the collective power to threaten Acnologia's life."
"So, do not be arrogant. This task is not simple."
Ren didn't bother to deny this logic. He knew the lore perfectly well. Acnologia's physical strength was indeed astronomical, and his magical immunity ability was nearly unsolvable, but his current strength in this era wasn't at its absolute, legendary peak. In a true peak state, a single breath of Dragon Slayer Magic from Acnologia could directly reap the souls of all living Dragons in a massive radius.
Currently, if the Fire Dragon King Igneel fought with his life entirely on the line, Ren knew for a fact he possessed the raw, blazing power to brutally tear off one of Acnologia's arms. The Five God Dragons of Guiltina were roughly hovering at that exact, cataclysmic level of power. With each of those five dragons landing a synchronized, fatal hit, even the mighty Acnologia wouldn't be able to survive the onslaught.
Ren already knew all of this. "I know. If it was easy, it wouldn't have become an infamous Hundred Year Quest."
"Good. Then I'll give you the detailed information you require," Elefseria said, clearing his throat and slipping into a lecturing tone. "400 years ago, a catastrophic war called the 'Dragon King Festival' occurred over in Ishgar. It is said that the Five God Dragons exist in a history completely isolated from that slaughter. Information about them was deeply hidden; even within the high ranks of the Magic Council, exceedingly few know of their actual existence."
Elefseria began pacing the floor, his staff clicking rhythmically against the stone. "They generally do not appear in human society, but once they do, they bring about natural disasters that rend the earth and shatter the sky. I noticed their existence long ago and began trying to cultivate my own Dragon Slayer Magic, but I was still no match for them. So I set up this 'commission' in the hopes that a miracle would arrive. Before I knew it, over 100 long years had passed, and the board simply dubbed it a Hundred Year Quest..."
"Alright, that's enough," Ren interrupted, unceremoniously cutting off the old man's rambling. "Don't give me a long history lecture. Just tell me the geographic locations of the Five God Dragons. I'm really not interested in their tragic backstories."
Elefseria stopped pacing and rolled his eyes, looking thoroughly annoyed by the interruption. "Young people really have absolutely no patience for the classics these days. Fine, I'll keep it short then."
The old man tapped his staff against the floor, projecting a faint magical map into the air. "Although the exact, current locations of all Five God Dragons are unknown due to their immense power to hide their magical signatures, there is a solid clue for one of them: the 'Water God Dragon' Mercphobia."
"If you head southwest from the Barreira region on this continent, there is a prominent port city called Elmina," Elefseria instructed, pointing to a blinking dot on the holographic map. "That city once actively worshipped Mercphobia as a literal god. If you go there, you should definitely find clues about the Water God Dragon's current whereabouts."
Hearing this, Ren couldn't help but curl his lips. "It doesn't even come with auto-navigation. How troublesome."
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