"Strongest candidate?"
Hearing that, Gajeel looked curiously toward Galena, who was currently charging into battle.
On the other side, several Celestial Spirits surrounded her.
Although Capricorn had become short and fat, his movements had not weakened in the slightest.
He launched a powerful flying kick straight at Galena.
Galena's eyes darkened, and astonishing Magic Power released from her body. A dark-gray sheen flashed across her from head to toe.
With a bang, Capricorn hugged his foot and collapsed to the ground, howling in pain. Galena stepped over him without hesitation and charged toward Loke.
The self-important Loke disdainfully summoned dark flames and blasted them at her.
However, Galena suddenly spread her hands forward, and the armor on Loke's body began to glow faintly.
"Hm?"
Loke lowered his head in confusion, only to see that his sturdy armor had actually started melting and breaking apart, flying toward Galena!
In the next moment, Natsu, who had been fighting Loke just now, watched in shock as Galena's seemingly delicate fist became wrapped in gold.
With one punch, she sent Loke, whose armor had been torn open, flying away.
Boom!!
Loke suffered another defeat and flew off miserably into the distance.
Seeing this, the other Celestial Spirits were shocked and hurriedly moved to protect him.
Natsu looked at Galena, who had seemed so gentle and delicate earlier, and said in surprise.
"That's amazing. What kind of magic is that?"
Galena smiled politely and said softly, "It's a new magic I developed myself, based on Father and Mother's magic."
"That was Iron Dragon Slayer Magic? Doesn't look like it," Panther Lily said in surprise from Gajeel's shoulder as he watched the battle not far away.
Gajeel turned his gaze toward the proud-looking Anmi, clearly wanting him to explain.
Anmi smiled as if sharing in the glory. "Galena studied both Iron Dragon Slayer Magic and Solid Script Magic at the same time. Then, inspired by Father, she improved Dragon Slayer Magic."
Ankh pointed at himself in confusion. "Me?"
"Yes. You once told Galena that she could use the Solid Script Magic she had trained to the extreme to manifest all sorts of subtle elements, then merge or combine them with the iron of Dragon Slayer Magic to alter or fuse its properties. You also said a bunch of stuff about 'formulas' and things none of us understood…"
Anmi tried hard to recall the process of Galena developing this magic and continued, "Later, Galena became obsessed with researching it. She slowly figured out a bunch of things none of us could understand and combined all kinds of strange metals. So she stopped being the original Iron Dragon a long time ago. She's a true Metal Dragon now!"
"Gold Dragon, Silver Dragon, Copper Dragon, Steel Dragon, and more and more forms have been developed and unlocked by Galena. The number of metals she can control is also increasing. There are even some weird gases and materials she created herself, but Galena refuses to explain them to us…"
At the end, Anmi remembered something else and added, "Oh, right. Before we traveled here, Dad, you seemed to say that Galena had recently been researching a new mode called something like… Plutonium Dragon."
"What the… fuck…"
Ankh could not help sucking in a sharp breath.
When he heard that last name, his eyelid twitched wildly.
Confirmed.
What "inspired Galena to develop new magic"...
This was definitely something he had said while bragging, only for the girl to hear it and take it seriously.
The ridiculous part was that she had actually carved out this path, and it seemed like this path could keep climbing straight into the sky…
"Plutonium Dragon?"
Gajeel muttered the name a couple of times in confusion, then curled his lip and said, "Doesn't sound as cool as Steel Dragon."
Ankh said nothing.
He only silently looked at Gajeel with an expression that seemed to hate iron for failing to become plutonium.
If Galena really managed to develop that, it probably would no longer be a matter of the next generation surpassing the previous one…
The waves would probably smash the entire coast apart.
This was truly…
A brain smarter than her mother's and an ability to act even fiercer than her father's.
Earlier, Ankh had thought Galena might not be able to firmly hold the position of "strongest candidate."
Now it seemed that if not for her personality, she would probably have the right to compete for the title of strongest in the younger generation.
As the four little ones displayed their strength, the entire battlefield turned into their showcase.
On top of that, Natsu and Gray were especially excited because their children were present, and the
Ten Zodiac Spirits were beaten back again and again.
Loke clutched his armor, which had been easily decomposed, and stared at Galena with bloodshot eyes.
Then he turned his head toward Lucy and growled, "This isn't over! We Celestial Spirits are destined to truly move toward freedom!"
With that, Loke and the other Celestial Spirits, who had made such a domineering entrance, disappeared completely under the cover of golden light from the Celestial Spirit World.
Ankh said rather speechlessly, "What did they even come here for? They blew up my house, got beaten up, and ran away?"
Talk about losing dignity…
Lucy looked saddened, her eyes dim as she said, "They came specifically to make that declaration to me."
The others had no choice but to comfort Lucy.
Everyone knew how deeply she cared for the Celestial Spirits.
Who would have thought that one day, the Celestial Spirits she loved would personally tell her they wanted to leave her? That kind of blow was no less than shaking her very beliefs.
"Bad news… bad news, Ankh!"
Just then, the head maid, Mrs. Sotney, let Cana in as she came running and shouting with an anxious expression.
But the moment Cana entered the courtyard, she froze.
In broad daylight, he found a bunch of kids to cosplay as themselves?
Seeing Cana freeze, Ankh immediately knew what she was thinking and quickly said, "I'll explain this situation to you later. Tell me what happened first."
Cana snapped back to herself and hurriedly said, "Someone rummaged through the guild library and stole several books!"
Stole books?
Ankh frowned and took the note Cana handed him. Written on it were the names of several missing books.
"They're all books about the hidden history of the Celestial Spirits…"
After hearing that, Lucy could not help worrying. "Could the Celestial Spirits be searching for information about that forbidden ritual? Old man Crux said the Zodiac Spirits had also forced him to answer questions about the ritual."
"That's not all," Cana said helplessly. "The libraries of several other guilds were also secretly visited. Their collections just aren't as large as ours, so not many books were stolen."
"Whether it's the Celestial Spirits or someone else, if they're looking for information about the ritual, there are only a few places they can go."
Ankh turned back to look at everyone.
Lucy and Levy, who had read the most books, immediately understood and nodded.
On the eastern continent of Ishgar, there were only a few famous magic libraries.
One was the Magic Library south of Magnolia, which required taking a train from the station.
Its books and materials were most famous for ancient historical documents spanning an extremely long period of time.
Another was an old acquaintance of Ankh and the others: Sabertooth's library, the Sabertooth Grand Library.
Its books covered all sorts of subjects and even included materials from the western and northern continents.
Although it was not as ancient as the Magic Library, its coverage was extremely broad.
"Let's split into two groups. One team goes to each side. You may run into the Celestial Spirits, or you may run into some unexpected people. Everyone, be careful."