After Hades's execution, Marco spoke with Precht's soul.
Strangely enough, death seemed to restore the man he had once been.
Precht accepted Marco's decision with a smile and even thanked him for ending Hades's evil life.
He had not wanted to continue hurting others or sinking deeper into twisted Black Magic.
Marco also allowed him to meet Mavis and Warrod one last time so the old companions could speak together again.
It was probably the best ending any of them could have hoped for. Even the dead man himself was satisfied, so there was little left to regret.
Many other members of Grimoire Heart also received death sentences.
No one climbed very far within an organization like that without staining their hands.
Aside from Precht, however, there was another person whose circumstances were unusually complicated.
Ultear finally found her own release.
She learned the truth about her past from Gray.
At first, she refused to believe him, but there was no one left from whom she could seek confirmation.
Most of the people involved were already dead, while Brain of Oración Seis had even lost his soul entirely.
Marco, however, found the one person who could settle every doubt and finally free her from the pain she had carried for so long.
Her mother.
Ur, the Ice-Make Mage.
Some knots could only be untied by the person who had created them.
Deliora, the demon sealed away for so many years, finally became useful. The creature itself had little value, but the ice imprisoning it was another matter.
That Absolute Zero ice had been created from Ur's soul.
With Marco's help, Ultear was able to meet her mother again.
Too much time had passed for Ur's soul to retain much of its original awareness, but Ultear could still enter her memories and discover the truth for herself.
In some ways, that made the answer more convincing.
If Ur had simply appeared and told her what happened, Ultear might still have doubted her words.
But by touching her mother's soul, seeing her memories, and experiencing her emotions directly, all the resentment and pain Ultear had carried for years finally fell away.
She felt Ur's love.
She also experienced the unbearable grief of a mother who believed she had lost her child—a pain that had never truly faded.
None of it had been Ur's fault.
She could never have imagined that Brain, the director of the Bureau of Magical Development, was a monster who experimented on children.
Nor had any of it been Ultear's fault.
She had been handed over to cruel people while still a child and raised in hatred and suffering.
She should have lived a happy, carefree life, but that future had been stolen from her before she had any choice in the matter.
In the end, Ultear willingly accepted her sentence.
She understood that what she had done could not simply be forgiven. No one had controlled her when she committed those crimes.
Whatever had shaped her into that person, the cruelty she felt at the time had still been real.
Before facing her punishment, she thanked Marco and offered to use her power to awaken a Second Origin for the members of Fairy Tail.
She also left behind everything she knew about magic.
That second offer was not particularly necessary.
Most of the Lost Magic she had learned came from Precht, and his soul had already passed all of that knowledge to Marco.
Still, Ultear's decision showed that her remorse was sincere.
She wanted Fairy Tail to continue helping people and making the world better.
If her abilities could contribute even a little, then perhaps she could repay part of the debt created by her past.
Precht felt much the same way.
Although dead, he also hoped that everything he had learned could benefit Fairy Tail.
He even handed over the complete methods for creating Fairy Heart and Devil's Heart.
He might have hesitated to give such dangerous knowledge to anyone else.
In the wrong hands, Fairy Heart could bring unimaginable destruction, and he might have preferred to let the secret die with him.
Marco was different.
First, Marco had already grown far beyond anything Fairy Heart could offer.
Infinite magic held little attraction for him.
Second, even if someone else obtained Fairy Heart and tried to misuse it, Marco could deal with them easily.
Possessing an endless supply of magic would not allow anyone to defeat him.
Unfortunately for both Ultear and Precht, their knowledge had become far less valuable after Marco awakened the Eighth Sense.
The workings of different magical systems were now as simple to him as basic arithmetic.
One glance was enough for him to understand how a spell functioned, often more thoroughly than the mage who had created it.
The Eighth Sense allowed Marco to perceive the true nature of all things. Magic, which merely used and shaped magical power, was no exception.
It had taken him quite some time to adjust after entering that realm.
His personality had also grown calmer.
When he first awakened the Eighth Sense, he had carried himself with the wild arrogance of someone who believed there was nothing worthy of challenging him.
That feeling gradually faded as he learned to live with the power.
Ultear and Precht were fortunate that their trials took place only after Marco reached that level.
He now possessed enough control to resolve their regrets and allow both of them to leave the world without unfinished business.
"Haaa..."
Marco released a slow breath.
Even that faint exhalation disturbed the life force of the plants and animals around him.
If a single drop of his blood fell onto an ordinary blade of grass, it might grow into a towering tree—assuming it could survive the power contained in the blood.
The Golden Blood of a Seventh Sense Gold Saint could already cause lower-ranked Cloths to evolve and greatly slow the aging process.
Marco had now reached the Eighth Sense.
His blood could not quite be called Blood of God, but the difference was no longer very large.
His progress within the Eighth Sense had been remarkably fast, completely unlike the difficulty he faced in his earlier stages.
Marco suspected that dying once and returning to life had given him an unusual affinity for this realm.
Of course, regularly exposing himself to Blood of God probably helped as well. He had already consumed two portions during training.
By his own estimation, he was now close to the middle stage of the Eighth Sense, although there was no official division of the realm into such stages.
It was simply a convenient way for him to measure his progress.
"I've finally saved enough contribution points for another Gold Cloth."
Marco stood in the forest east of Magnolia.
The land had long since been restored to its original condition.
At his current level, repairing terrain or reshaping the environment required almost no effort.
"Exchange for the Virgo Gold Cloth."
He made the purchase without hesitation.
Virgo was an unusually special Gold Cloth.
Just as the Aries Gold Cloth had traditionally been inherited by members of the Jamir people, the Virgo Gold Cloth was often passed to Saints connected to the Buddha, such as reincarnations or manifestations of enlightened beings.
The Cloth itself reflected that heritage through its strong Buddhist design.
In its object form, the Virgo Gold Cloth resembled a kneeling woman in prayer, her hands clasped before her chest and a pair of wings rising from her back.
The overall image looked like a sacred statue.
When worn, its smooth golden lines resembled the perfected body of a Buddha and carried a powerful sense of holiness.
Buzz!
The familiar transformation began as soon as Marco completed the exchange.
His Cosmo trembled, and countless new insights flooded his mind.
Marco closed his eyes and caught hold of a faint possibility.
Perhaps once he unlocked every Gold Cloth, he really would be able to reach the Ninth Sense.
At that point, the Saint System itself would disappear and completely merge with him.
Every power it had granted would become a natural part of his existence, as though it had always belonged to him and had merely been divided into smaller pieces so his body could absorb it safely.
If the entire power had been forced into him at once, he would have suffered a fate far worse than Laxus or Ultear.
There would not even have been enough time to save him before his body exploded.
"Haaa..."
After absorbing the latest increase, Marco slowly exhaled.
His earlier impression had been correct.
His training speed within the Eighth Sense was vastly greater than it had been in every previous realm.
In only three years, he had nearly reached what he considered the middle stage through his own effort.
Now, with the Virgo Gold Cloth unlocked, his Eighth Sense had already moved close to completion!
Once another three years passed and he saved enough contribution points for the Taurus Gold Cloth, he would almost certainly step into the Ninth Sense.
That, however, was a matter for the future.
Marco summoned the Virgo Gold Cloth and immediately took out Blood of God.
He intended to evolve it directly into a God Cloth.
The other eleven Gold Cloths had already undergone the same transformation.
It did not take long for the Virgo God Cloth to awaken.
Its object form changed into a standing woman praying atop a lotus pedestal.
Wings spread from her back, while decorative rings and flowing ornaments emphasized its Buddhist design, giving it a far more complete and majestic appearance than before.
"Not bad. God Cloths really are much more impressive."
Marco nodded in satisfaction.
Compared with their ordinary forms, God Cloths resembled complete suits of armor, leaving almost no part of the body exposed.
The difference was less dramatic for Gold Cloths, which already offered considerable protection, but it was enormous for Bronze and Silver Cloths.
Marco had originally possessed twenty-three portions of Blood of God.
Two had been consumed during training, and another twelve were used to evolve the Gold Cloths.
The Five Bronze Saints set had taken five more, leaving Marco with only four portions.
Pegasus, Cygnus, Dragon, Andromeda, and Phoenix had changed beyond recognition after their evolution.
Their new forms were so far removed from the original Bronze Cloths that it was difficult to believe they had once been the same armor.
Those were not the only Cloths Marco had improved.
He had upgraded all the other Bronze and Silver Cloths as well, though he had not wasted Blood of God on them.
Instead, he used his own Eighth Sense Golden Blood.
The results were inferior to true God Cloths, but still enough to raise every lower-ranked Cloth to a level comparable with ordinary Gold Cloths.
Marco also possessed plenty of rare materials for repairing and strengthening them.
Any Cloth personally upgraded by him could no longer be called weak.