On the most front airship's head, Alex can see the man known as the strongest Mage in Ishgar. The man who's arrogant enough to call himself a God and adds God into his name, God Serena. Well, Alex doesn't want to call him God, so he just calls the man Serena.
'If one could be called God here, then it should be that giant flying lizard over there. Zeref and maybe even Irene can be called that too as they are monsters who have lived for hundreds of years and possess incredible power. Compared to them, he is not worth mentioning.'
Though Alex needs to admit that true to his title as the strongest in Ishgar, Serena really possesses an incredible amount of magic power. Even he and Gildarts don't have that much magic power currently.
Just from the amount he senses now, Alex can tell that Serena has at least 5 times more magic power than him. But that's still insignificant to the amount of magic power owned by August, Zeref, and especially Acnologia.
'Even with the boost from 8 Dragon Lacrimas, he still doesn't have half of Acnologia's magic power. I'm not even sure if Acnologia has even shown his full magic power capacity yet. So the gap might be even wider and that's just from the amounts of their magic power. The gap in their skills' power should be very wide too.'
It's already clear when Acnologia just slapped Serena's giant lightning spear like nothing. Well, he could one shot Serena in the series, so that shows just how big the gap between their power is. Though Alex hoped that they would show a proper battle between those 2.
No matter how much he thinks about that, it just doesn't make sense that Acnologia just one shot Serena but took his time to fight the other Dragon Slayers.
Well, it was just how the mangaka wanted to end Serena immediately because he couldn't make their battle more epic than Fairy Tail's and Natsu's battles.
Alex was so disappointed with how Serena ended because his character has been built up as the strongest in the continent, so he has been waiting to see his strength, a real strength that's not buffed with the power of friendship.
(A.n: Warning! It will hurt some fans' feelings, but that's my true concern about many plots in FT, hehe.)
Fortunately, unlike in the series, Acnologia doesn't just rush to kill Serena. Probably because his body is still intact. He must be really mad with any Dragon after Igneel tore off his left arm in the series, so he just went for kill after he recovered.
Acnologia actually just floats on the spot, waiting to see Serena's next attack. He even taunts Serena with his left index finger. Since his talk with Alex earlier, Acnologia seemed to show more emotions, which is very surprising for Alex.
'What changed him to be like this so suddenly? Or is this his actual personality?'
Alex isn't sure why Acnologia acts like this now, but he's sure this isn't the Acnologia he knows from the original Fairy Tail story he knows.
'Maybe it's just like what I thought. The Gods that gave me my abilities and created this world didn't make it exactly the same as the original Fairy Tail world. They must've made changes here and there as if they were doing experiments.'
While Alex knows that his actions so far should also have changed the future events, he's sure some things are still not affected. Acnologia is an example. Whatever he did in the past shouldn't affect Acnologia and their short interaction before shouldn't be enough to affect him.
Yet, Acnologia seems different from what he remembers. Of course, he could be wrong because his memory of the original Fairy Tail story is already hazy now and yes, he is quite wrong about this because of his vague memory of the details from the original story.
While it's true that Acnologia is very violent and has a great desire to destroy everything, it's also true that he is also a battle maniac. He loves fighting strong opponents, defeating them, and getting stronger.
That's why while he has the power to rule the world, he doesn't do it because it doesn't entertain him. It's also the reason why he often sought Zeref to fight because he wants to fight and Zeref could give him exciting fights whenever he wants because Zeref will not die.
Zeref also promised to give him a great fight in the series. Maybe that's why he chased after Zeref in Tenrou Island and focused on him when Alvarez attacked Ishgar, so he wasn't really interested in easy foe like Serena.
Acnologia was probably anticipating the tough battle that Zeref promised him that Serena couldn't take his interest. Only Irene could take his interest at that time, showing she is much stronger than Serena who has 8 Dragon Lacrimas in his body.
(A.n: this is pure personal assumption. It's a setting i want to add for this story too, so it might be different from the original.)
His thirst for battle could also be the reason why he attacked Gildarts. It was because he sensed Gildarts's great amount of magic power and decided to check it. It was also the real reason he returned to Ishgar, to find Alex who could injure him before with Isobu's Tailed Beast Bomb.
So Alex is the reason Acnologia comes here again. He made a mistake by attacking Acnologia and injuring him a little, picking the Dragon King's interest. Acnologia loves to fight strong opponents and he acknowledges Alex's power because Alex could injure him even a little.
Fortunately, Acnologia's interest is now switched to Serena. After all, he can sense the Dragons' presence from the 8 Dragon Lacrimas inside Serena's body. Currently, Serena is still stronger than Alex and he is also a Dragon Slayer, so he takes Acnologia's interest more.
"HAHAHA! I can finally kill a Dragon and be a true Dragon Slayer. Even better, the first Dragon I'll kill is the Dragon King himself. I truly am loved by the Heaven, HAHAHA!" Serena laughs arrogantly even though he hasn't even started fighting Acnologia.
"God Serena, we need to fight him together! It's not an opponent you can take alone." Draculos, the 2nd rank Wizard Saint warns Serena, but the arrogant man doesn't like it.
"Are you looking down on me? You?" The angry Serena fully releases his magic power, suppressing everyone on the airships, including the other Gods of Ishgar.
"Your insignificant power will only hold me back. So get out of here! I'll do it alone."
If Alex, Makarov, or the others say that, it would be out of worry so that everyone else can retreat while they sacrifice themselves. But Serena truly means what he says. He sees them as burdens and he is really confident he can fight Acnologia alone.
Serena doesn't even wait for an answer and immediately uses one of his spells. He spreads his arms and a pair of massive whirlwinds appear on his sides. The whirlwinds rotate violently as if they'll break anything they touch.
They cause strong wind to blow everywhere, pushing the other airships away and even damaging their hulls. Serena really doesn't care what happens to the others because for him, no one is more important than himself.
The other airships don't have any other choice but to back away and while they are frustrated by it, the other Wizard Saints need to admit they really won't be able to match Serena's magic, so they'll just see how it goes for now because fighting among themselves now won't do anything good.
Serena transforms the massive whirlwinds into a pair of massive wind drills. They rotate very violently in different directions. Then Serena shoots the massive wind drills toward Acnologia and they fly very quickly.
Acnologia amusedly waited for the massive wind drills to reach him. Then when they almost hit him, he moves his hands forward to catch the wind drills. He grabs them and they keep rotating violently.
The sharp edges of those wind drills try to cut Acnologia's hard scales. Serena smiles arrogantly while seeing that, thinking that he can shred Acnologia's scales with his wind drills. But his smile drops as soon as his wind drills get destroyed.
Acnologia simply crushes the wind drills with his hands. He doesn't even use any fancy spell and destroys Serena's attack simply with his physical power as a Dragon.
It shocks Serena and everyone else. But Alex is still silently watching from the sea. He has retreated and now swims right below the retreating airships.
Alex is trying to learn anything he can from the battle, like Serena's elemental spells to improve his own spells. After all, he can use all basic elements using the Tailed Beasts' abilities, but he still lacks variations, so he always tries to learn from others.
Also, he's preparing himself to save his acquaintances like his Guild Master and teacher on the airships in case Acnologia suddenly attacks them. He can let some people here die, but there are some he absolutely must protect.
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Ch. 204. Disappearing Future