After taking one look at Ultear's battle with God Serena, Lucy and Wendy immediately realized there was no sensible way for them to interfere.
The two were bombarding each other with attacks on such a scale that getting involved would only make things more dangerous.
More importantly, Wendy's Sky Dragon Slayer Magic shared the same attribute as Serena's Tempest Dragon power, meaning he could simply devour her Magic. With that in mind, Wendy chose to go help Athena instead.
Serena spread both arms wide.
"Cavern Dragon's Earth Collapse!"
The ground surrounding Ultear began violently shaking.
Cracks raced through the earth as the terrain beneath her abruptly collapsed inward.
Ultear did not move.
One of the magical crystal spheres floating beside her shone with white light, while four white magic circles appeared behind her.
She swept out one hand.
"Arc of Time: Restore!"
The earth that had been breaking apart immediately reversed course.
Cracks sealed themselves, collapsed ground rose back into place, and within moments the battlefield had returned to its previous state.
Serena immediately launched into another dramatic pose.
"Now this is interesting, GOD! You're quite the Mage, GOD! But you're still nowhere near the level of the man who once stood at the top of Ishgar—me!"
After being defeated by Raizel and subsequently dying, Serena had lost most of his memories.
The majority of what he currently knew had been supplied to him by Duke and the Signario Sisters.
His narcissism, however, had survived completely intact.
Apparently, some things were simply carved into the soul.
"Purgatory Dragon's Blazing Hell!"
Serena clenched his left hand, and a sphere of scorching fire formed above his palm, distorting the air around it.
"Sea King Dragon's Water Formation!"
A violent whirlpool of water twisted around his other arm.
"Tempest Dragon's Storm-Snow-Moon-Flower!"
He inhaled deeply, his stomach swelling as enormous amounts of Magic Power gathered inside him.
Then all three spells were unleashed at once.
A massive sphere of hellish fire came from one side, a raging horizontal water vortex from the other, while a roaring tornado tore straight through the center.
Three different elemental attacks converged on Ultear simultaneously.
Standing in the heart of the storm, her hair whipped wildly around her face, yet she showed no trace of panic.
The magical crystal sphere beside her flashed.
Then it divided into three.
One turned blue, one red, while the third remained green. The three spheres positioned themselves to her left, right, and directly ahead.
Each one absorbed one of Serena's attacks.
Serena's jaw dropped.
"NANI?! How did you do that, GOD?!"
Serena could consume all eight of his Dragon Slayer attributes, but even he could not devour three different elements simultaneously.
In fact, he could not even handle two at once.
He only had one mouth.
It was not as though he possessed Acnologia's attribute-less Dragon Slayer Magic and could casually devour whatever he pleased.
If he could do that, Serena would probably have declared himself the Little Black Dragon years ago.
Ultear casually held one crystal sphere in her palm.
"I don't see why I need to explain it to you."
Using Arc of Time, Ultear had pulled the same crystal sphere from several different points in its own timeline and brought those versions into the present.
She then adjusted each one to correspond with a different Dragon Slayer attribute.
That allowed her to absorb several different elemental attacks at the same time.
Serena stamped one foot in frustration.
"You can absorb three? Then try this, GOD!"
Eight different Dragon Slayer attributes gathered around both of his arms.
"Eight Dragons' Scattering Bloom!"
The eight powers merged into an enormous multicolored tornado dozens of meters across, rising high into the sky as it ripped bricks, stones, fallen leaves, and debris from the ground before surging toward Ultear.
Serena covered half his face with one hand and laughed arrogantly.
"Hahahaha! How about this, GOD?!"
"Not particularly impressive."
The instant Ultear finished speaking, new magical crystal spheres began appearing beside her one after another.
In the blink of an eye, twenty-four spheres arranged themselves in front of her in eight columns and three rows.
Each column corresponded to one of Serena's eight Dragon Slayer attributes.
The eight colors within the massive tornado separated from one another, each stream of elemental energy being drawn toward its corresponding crystal spheres until the entire attack had been steadily absorbed.
The multicolored tornado disappeared.
All twenty-four crystal spheres remained floating neatly in front of Ultear.
Across from her, Serena stood frozen with his mouth hanging open.
Ultear planted one hand on her hip and casually brushed back her hair with the other.
"I never said three was my limit."
As soon as she finished speaking, the twenty-four crystal spheres split again.
Forty-eight.
Then ninety-six.
Only after making her point did Ultear return them to their respective positions in time.
She could have created even more.
There simply was no reason to.
God Serena was an extremely confident man. Someone who constantly referred to himself as Ishgar's strongest Mage, a god among men, and the chosen one blessed by dragons clearly did not suffer from a shortage of self-esteem.
But after dealing with Ultear for this long, even Serena's confidence was beginning to crack.
That was precisely what Ultear wanted.
She was not merely fighting him physically. She was deliberately attacking his pride, trying to provoke him until frustration overrode his judgment.
Had Serena remained calm, he might have noticed an important detail.
Despite absorbing such an enormous amount of Dragon Slayer energy, Ultear's own Magic Power had not increased at all.
That was one of the weaknesses of implanting the Eight Dragon Slayer Lacrima into her magical crystal spheres.
The spheres could absorb all eight elemental attributes, but the absorbed energy could not replenish Ultear's personal reserves.
On the contrary, maintaining large numbers of crystal spheres actually consumed additional Magic Power, which was why she had only kept the ninety-six-sphere display active for a brief moment.
Fortunately, that hardly mattered right now.
Ultear had developed her Second Origin to an extraordinary degree, and her remaining reserves were still more than sufficient.
Just as she expected, Serena finally lost his temper.
Losing to Raizel was one thing.
But losing to Ultear?
Those Dragon Slayer Lacrima had originally belonged to him, yet somehow she was using their powers better than he ever had.
He could not accept that.
So Serena abandoned ranged combat and charged directly into close quarters.
Dragon Slayer Magic had given him tremendous physical abilities, especially the Diamond Dragon attribute.
He slammed one foot into the ground and shot toward Ultear like a cannonball.
Just before he reached her, however, a spatial rift opened behind Ultear.
She calmly took one step backward and disappeared into it.
Serena stopped and began sniffing the air, trying to locate her by scent.
At that exact moment, more than a dozen plants suddenly sprouted beneath his feet and wrapped around his legs.
Serena looked down in surprise and struggled to pull himself free.
"What is this?!"
A spatial rift opened behind him.
Ultear stepped out.
"The seeds from those plants you swept toward me earlier."
She raised one hand.
"Ice-Make: White Rose Garden!"
Countless white roses made of ice bloomed around Serena and shot toward him from every direction, their frozen petals and thorns aimed straight at his body.
"Purgatory Dragon's Blazing Hell!"
Serena had survived far too many battles to simply stand there and accept the attack.
The ground beneath him cracked apart, and fire erupted from the fissures.
The plants restraining his legs were burned away while the surrounding ice roses rapidly melted.
Flames and ice filled the battlefield with thick white steam.
Then Serena suddenly realized something.
Ultear had disappeared again.