Mira really shows the gap of power between her and Jenny. People already thought that Jenny's attacks were strong. Yet Mira tanked them all easily and then she defeated Jenny with just 1 attack.
Furthermore, Fairy Tail Mages know that she hasn't shown her full power. This is just her basic form and she still has stronger forms. One of those forms is even banned to use by Makarov because she can easily wipe out a town when using that form.
Anyway, Mira has really put up a little show just as Alex asked. Now those who thought of flirting with her have become too afraid to do it. Though some who have confidence in their power like Bacchus are getting more interested instead.
Well, if her opponents are Mages, then Mira wouldn't mind using force to push them away. In fact, she might be more than happy to beat some senses into their pea brains that are stupid enough to ignore this clear warning.
Now, it's time for the 3rd match between Flare and Minerva. Alex has told Ultear to be careful about this match through telepathy with Warren's help. He told her he heard some bad rumors about Minerva, so she needs to keep an eye on Flare all the time.
When the battle starts, Flare immediately extends her hair to attack Minerva. But Minerva suddenly disappears from her spot. A strange twisted sphere suddenly appears in front of Flare's face, surprising her.
From that sphere, an arm suddenly comes out and grabs her face. Then Minerva comes out of that twisted sphere and throws Flare away. She is strong enough to throw Flare quite far with just 1 hand.
Flare rolls on the ground, but she quickly stands on her feet again. Then she tries to attack Minerva again with her hair that's now covered in flame. Again, Minerva disappears from her spot and a twisted sphere appears on Flare's left side.
Surprisingly, Flare has prepared for this same pattern. She kept some hair strands to defend against Minerva's attack. But to her surprise, Minerva doesn't come out of that twisted sphere.
The twisted sphere explodes instead, sending Flare flying again. Fortunately, her hair that she kept back to stop Minerva blocked the explosion. So she isn't badly injured, though that explosion wasn't too strong anyway.
But the weak explosion makes Alex concerned. After all, with Minerva's magic power, he's sure she can use much stronger explosions that could defeat someone at Flare's level immediately. Yet she chose to use such a weak explosion.
"She is playing around."
Alex himself likes to play around with his opponents. But he doesn't do it by torturing them. He usually just plays around by being defensive and tires out his opponents like what Mira did before, not attacking with weak attacks and slowly injuring his opponents.
Then as Alex thought, Minerva just keeps using weak attacks. She only uses small exploding spheres that she aims at Flare's various body parts. Even the audience starts to feel that something is wrong, but no one can do anything because Flare still wants to fight.
Flare stubbornly refuses to give up and keeps trying to attack Minerva, only to get hit by small explosions all over her body. She is badly beaten, making the whole Mermaid Heel furious. But they can't stop the match because Flare still wants to fight.
"How stubborn. But I don't hate it. Let's see if you can still continue after this." Minerva creates a small sphere with her hands before throwing it at Flare.
It looks the same as the previous spheres, but Alex can feel that it packs more power. The explosion will be much stronger and it will be too dangerous for the weakened Flare. He wants to make a move, but then he sees something and stops.
Minerva's exploding space sphere reaches Flare and explodes. As Alex thought, the explosion is much bigger than before. Flare who is very low on magic power will without a doubt get badly injured by that explosion.
The audience is excited to see such a powerful attack. But they are also concerned by the effect on its target, Flare. Their worries turn into surprise instantly when the explosion effects disappear.
On Flare's spot is a wall of ice. Flare is behind the ice wall, falling on her butt with a terrified expression. She knew that if that explosion hit her directly, she would be badly injured.
"We forfeit the match." Ultear jumps into the arena and moves toward Flare, followed by Kagura and Riley who rush to help Flare.
"W-was that your spell, kabo?" Mato asks Ultear.
"Yeah. Seeing how you clearly couldn't stop such a dangerous attack that could kill my teammate, I decided to interfere and stop it myself." Ultear looks at Mato coldly, making him shiver before quickly announcing that Minerva won the battle.
Minerva smiles smugly, but she quickly looks serious when seeing Ultear's ice wall. That explosion might not be her strongest, but it was still really strong. Yet Ultear's ice wall doesn't even crack.
She moves her gaze to Ultear and she suddenly takes a step back with some fear in her eyes. Ultear is staring dagger at her with a very furious gaze. It's clear that if they have a chance to fight, Ultear will rip her out.
"You could just end the fight quickly, yet you chose to hurt her slowly. I don't have any problem if you just defeat my teammates, but what you did was unforgivable. You better hope that we won't meet in the same game, or I will pay you back for this. Ah, and our Guild Master also has a message for your Guild Master. Try playing around like this once more, and she'll break every single bone in his body. A failure who can't even become a Wizard Saint shouldn't act so arrogant."
Ur raises an eyebrow at her daughters' last sentence. She did say she would break Jiemma's bones when she saw how Minerva torture Flare with her attacks. But she never said anything about the Wizard Saint bits, so it's all Ultear's improvisations.
Ultear wants to hit Jiemma's nerves and it seems to succeed because Jiemma seems to be furious. Alex can't help but laugh seeing Jiemma getting angry while sitting on the audience seat, scaring some civilians who sit near him.
"Oi, oi, oi, old man! Don't scare the normal people! You know that it's a fact, so don't be too angry. Geez! What a short-tempered old man. Age really can't reflect someone's maturity." Alex shakes his head with a disappointed expression, making Jiemma even more furious.
Even the organizer is troubled by Jiemma's anger now, so they tell him to stop releasing his magic power and scaring the civilians or they will disqualify Sabertooth. Thanks to that, he suppresses his magic power even though he is still furious.
So he moves to Sabertooth's booth to stop scaring the civilians, but he scares his Guild members instead. Well, it's their Guild's problem, so the organizer lets them be and starts to fix the arena that got a little damaged by Minerva's attacks.
Despite their Guild Master's anger, the members of Sabertooth team now know that there is another dangerous opponent here. They know Minerva's power, so seeing Ultear's Ice Wall that was cast from afar could block it without a scratch was surprising.
The participants also realize this after seeing the unscratched ice wall. They now put Ultear among the top fighters in this competition alongside Alex, Laxus, and Jura.
"I see. So she might have told me the truth when she said her daughter is stronger than her." Jura smiles when he remembers what Ur once told him. He thought she was joking before, but now he thinks that it might be true.
She has never participated directly in this tournament. Even when Mermaid Heel won the tournament a few years ago, she only helped behind the scenes as the strategist because she wanted to help her Guild Mates grow.
The only reason she joined this year is because of Alex. She wants to fight Alex in a real competition, not just some friendly sparring matches. But now, she has 1 more target to beat, that is Minerva.
Then while everyone is thinking about the possible battle between those 2 Guilds, the next match is about to be started. Elfman enters the arena together with Bacchus. They fought in the series too, but now, it should be different.
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Ch. 233. Scheme