A while after the whole Capital City is destroyed, the ruins suddenly are covered with red aura. They start floating before flying at high speed toward Alex who stands in the center of the giant crater.
Only the ruins of buildings are flying toward him while the people, dead or alive are left behind. It's a powerful magic spell with a very great control and precision.
Even without seeing the caster and without any experience seeing the caster's magic, Alex knows that this is Irene's doing. The red aura is a clear sign and he also can sense draconic magic from the spell, which can only come from her among the current Spriggan.
The ruins are crashing at Alex, burying him under the pile of the whole Capital City's structure. Irene even presses them down to solidify them and strengthen the bonds of the ruins.
Then August strengthens her attack by pressing the ruins even further using Gravity Magic. This old man can use a lot of magic skillfully and this Gravity Magic is stronger than any Gravity Magic users Alex ever met.
They don't dare to assume this much is enough to defeat Alex though. Alex's attack has fully shown them that he isn't just a regular strong Mage. Zeref won't be so worried of him if just this much is enough to defeat him.
That's right, it's not enough. While they are still putting on pressure, the pressed ruins that start to become like a solid floor suddenly burst in the middle.
It's not a wide burst, but it's a strong burst that creates a 2 meter hole. Alex floated out of it, already changing his form. He is now wearing purple samurai armor with a pair of wings on his back. It's a human-sized Susanoo armor.
"If only you attacked me first with that kind of attack." Alex walks normally even under August's powerful Gravity Magic, which really surprises the Alvarez people.
"Because we thought you would agree to take the battle elsewhere." Zeref raises his right hand, signaling August to stop his magic.
"Oh, so you're guilt tripping me now. You only said to take the battle to an empty location and I made this place empty. You should say to go somewhere else to fight. But if you said so, I don't think I would agree. There's no way I would trust the words of someone who disregarded my warning and planned to attack Ishgar after I gave you a lot of leeway. You could negotiate for a battlefield and I might agree. But you chose to just ignore everything."
"If we negotiate, I'm sure you would still want to do the war in Alvarez." Zeref knows Alex quite well.
"No doubt about it. I don't want to damage my continent. But at least you could move it to a truly empty land. It's not like you don't have wide deserts or forests. But it's too late to make another choice now. Every action has consequences. After living for hundreds of years, I would expect you to know this."
"..... So you've been expecting this."
"You bet."
A massive wall of sand suddenly rises behind Alex and falls on him like a crashing tsunami wave. It's a surprise attack by one of the Spriggan, Ajeel.
"HAHAHA! TAKE THAT YOU COCKY BASTARD!" Ajeel is ecstatic when his attack hits Alex, but it doesn't last long.
"Now, who is the cocky one I wonder? You haven't even confirmed if your attack has killed me or not but you're already celebrating? Aren't you the one being cocky now?"
Sand particles float above the ground that now is covered with sand. They slowly form into a sand beast covered with black marks. Alex transforms into a mini Shukaku that has a sand body, so Ajeel's attack doesn't affect him.
"Let's play a game, Alvarez. I will use each of my Tailed Beast forms for 10 minutes. So after 10 minutes, I will transform into another Tailed Beast. As you might've already known, I have 9 Tailed Beast transformations. So the total will be 90 minutes. If you can't defeat me within 90 minutes, I will use my ultimate form that I've shown you before and also use my purple Susanoo armor. When that happens, let's say that your winning chance is almost 0."
Alex starts being cocky as Ajeel said, but he should be like this when fighting a whole army alone. He should show that he doesn't fear them even a bit so he doesn't lose the psychological war which is very important.
"Damn! Looking down on us." Ajeel is pissed and tries to control the sand again.
However, the sand doesn't budge even when he uses all his power. He looks at Alex who has a wide grin on his face that looks very sinister. It only looks sinister because of Shukaku's scary face though, not because Alex purposely wants to look that way.
"Thanks for giving me this much sand. Now, this is one of the many ways to use sand."
As Alex says that, all the sand around him forms a very tall sand wall. Then numerous small sand bullets start to form on the sand wall and shoot toward the Alvarez army very rapidly like countless machine guns are bombarding them.
August stabs his staff into the ground and a very wide magic barrier appears in front of Alvarez's side. The sand bullets hit the magic barriers everywhere with very strong forces, but they can't penetrate the barrier.
Alvarez army looks happy, but August is frowning deeply. This is not as easy as it looks and not long after that, many spots of the barrier are cracked. August keeps repairing them but more cracks appear everywhere.
Now the army and Spriggan realize that the sand bullets are much stronger than they thought. They know how durable August's magic barrier is, yet it cracks and he needs to repair it all the time.
Irene helps August by strengthening his barrier and even Zeref also strengthens it. Only then does the barrier start being stable. It stops cracking easily, but if it keeps being attacked like this, it will still break, so they need to stop the bombardment.
Unexpectedly, Alex stops the attack himself. He looks at their confused faces and smirks before extending his left hand at them. Under their widened eyes, he taunts them to come at him with his left hand.
"Come on, show me what you got."
While Alex still taunts them, everything around him suddenly becomes cold. The temperature drops very rapidly and almost in an instant, everything around him including himself turns into ice.
It doesn't reach the Alvarez's side except for 1 person's feet. Invel Yura, the Winter General. The freezing temperature comes from him and there's an ice line connecting him with the frozen area around Alex.
No one dares to think that Alex is finished and as expected, he breaks free from the ice. But then, he notices that an ice collar appears on his neck, tied by ice chains that come out of the ground.
Invel pours a lot of magic power into the ice collar. It's a spell that can affect the target's mind, as if freezing their heart, their will power, so their mind can be controlled by the user.
It works on most people. Even Irene and August can be affected by this spell, so Invel is confident it can also affect Alex. But he severely underestimated the level of Alex's willpower.
"Hmm, this thing makes me feel uncomfortable. I feel uneasiness in my heart. So strange."
Invel is shocked that his Ice Slave spell doesn't seem to affect Alex at all. He doesn't know that using it on Alex also means using it on the 9 Tailed Beasts. There's also a big gap in base power between him and Alex, so his spells won't affect Alex easily.
Furthermore, Alex can passively absorb magic power from spells that touch him. So he also weakens Invel's spell by absorbing its magic power. Mind control magic that doesn't require contacts will be more effective on Alex, but he also has ways to counter it.
"This is so annoying." Alex crushes the ice collar easily with his left hand.
"Just come here and fight me directly because it's more interesting." Alex raises his hands, forms them into fists, and slams them very strongly onto the ground.
The impact creates a very strong shockwave that breaks all the ice on the ground. It also creates a very strong wind that spreads everywhere and pushes the very cold air away because he also uses Shukaku's Wind Magic.
"If you are too much of a pussy to come at me, then I'll be the one coming at you."
Alex takes a deep breath and shoots a very powerful air bullet toward Zeref. Ajeel and Invel make sand and ice walls, but they break instantly upon being hit by the air bullet. They manage to weaken it though, so August's magic barrier can stop it.
Right after shooting that wind bullet, Alex runs toward the Alvarez army on all 4. Despite his fat and heavy body as Shukaku, Alex can run very quickly and reach them in just a few seconds. He feels like coming here alone is the correct decision because now he can enjoy the fun all by himself.
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Ch. 288. 3 Dragon Gods