"A complete victory! Just as she declared, Fairy Tail's Erza has successfully wiped out all one hundred monsters and claimed first place!"
Chapati grabbed the microphone and roared excitedly,
"So this is the true weight of the guild that was once the strongest seven years ago?! Fairy Tail's strongest woman—Titania!"
Deafening cheers erupted across the arena one after another.
As Pandemonium vanished, Erza reappeared on the field with her sword still in hand.
"Well done."
Ankh approached with a bright smile, while Millianna immediately pounced on Erza and rubbed against her like a cat.
The other contestants all looked deeply impressed, yet Erza only smiled modestly.
"Sorry. It took me a little longer than I expected."
The moment she said that, several of the contestants were left utterly dumbfounded.
Was speed really the issue here?!
King Pumpkin listened with cold sweat pouring down his face, and once again began worrying about what to do with the rest of the event.
Sure enough, as soon as Erza came out of Pandemonium, Sabertooth's Orga strode over in clear irritation and demanded,
"Hey, referee. She already cleared the whole thing. So how are the rest of us supposed to compete now?"
There was no helping it.
Erza had completely shut off the other teams' path to scoring and secured first place outright.
The remaining contest had effectively turned into a battle among the other seven participants for the lower ranks.
King Pumpkin ran backstage and discussed it for quite a while before finally returning with a hastily arranged new mini-event.
The officials had urgently decided to bring out an MPF—a Magic Power Finder—a device capable of accurately measuring the destructive force behind a wizard's attack.
The remaining seven contestants would step forward one by one and strike the machine with a Magic attack.
Based on the displayed values, they would be ranked from second to eighth place.
It was a rather dull event.
A straightforward contest of pure firepower.
And that made it perfectly suited for Ankh.
The moment Fairy Tail heard the rules for the substitute event, nearly everyone in the guild broke into the same victorious smile.
In the test that followed, Millianna went first, slamming the test crystal with her Cat Rope Binding and producing a value of 365.
The audience did not react much to the number, since they had no idea what counted as high or low.
But from the announcer's platform, Lahar of the Magic Council immediately began explaining things in real time.
A score like Millianna's would already be considered quite high among the Council's enforcement troops—high enough, in fact, for someone to serve as the captain of a squad.
For example, Lahar himself could only produce a little over 400 with a full-powered strike.
That said, Millianna was not a power-type wizard to begin with, so a result like this still showed tremendous potential.
Especially compared to the contestants who followed…
Quatro Cerberus's Nobarly scored 124.
Blue Pegasus's Hibiki scored 95.
And Raven Tail's cloaked mage, Obra, only managed a score of 4—most likely because he was deliberately hiding the nature of his Special Magic.
The string of low scores began to bore the crowd.
But it did not last.
After stewing in frustration for quite some time, Orga finally stepped up and fired off a blast of Black Lightning like a particle cannon, producing a staggering score of 3825.
That was an absurdly high number—far beyond anything ever recorded by the Magic Council's internal forces using an MPF.
While Orga proudly stood there showing off like a rock star, Jura calmly stepped forward as well.
A heavy yellow-brown glow burst forth like a collapsing mountain. Fortunately, the MPF machine survived the impact, and the value that flashed across it was 8594.
The entire arena went into an uproar!
Orga, who had still been basking in his own glory a second earlier, instantly froze.
Judging from raw output alone, Jura could have blown Orga apart with a single strike.
"And now… it is finally time for the strongest contestant in this year's Grand Magic Games! The man who defeated Jura on the very first day and rose to become the Fifth of the Ten Wizard Saints—Ankh!!"
The roar that greeted Ankh was even more overwhelming than the one Erza had received after clearing Pandemonium.
Ever since defeating Jura on the first day, Ankh had become a looming shadow over every contestant in this year's Grand Magic Games.
"Do your best, brother."
"If it's Ankh, he'll definitely win!"
"Go finish this, Ankh!"
Behind him came the voices of Erza and the rest of Fairy Tail, full of confidence and expectation.
Ankh slowly walked up to the MPF.
Jura gave him a small nod, his expression gradually turning serious.
Placing a hand in front of the MPF, Ankh suddenly flashed a remarkably kind smile.
"Just so we're clear, Mr. Pumpkin… if this thing breaks, I'm not paying for it."
"Uh…"
King Toma stammered awkwardly, about to say something—when a powerful mass of black Magic suddenly condensed at Ankh's fingertip, shrinking inward until it seemed ready to swallow the entire MPF whole.
"Death Calamity: Hades."
A destructive aura spread across the entire arena.
The piercing spell detonated with terrifying force—and before King Toma's horrified eyes, the MPF, as expected…
shattered.
It was blasted straight through in a single strike, exploding into fragments and vanishing within the dark radiance of Death Calamity before it could even display a number.
The whole arena fell silent.
And then—came an explosive wave of cheers and screams that bordered on frenzy.
Cold sweat ran down Orga's forehead as he muttered stubbornly,
"That's impossible…"
Erza planted a hand on her hip and laughed proudly.
"In a contest that tests nothing but raw power, you never stood a chance to begin with!"
Jura could only shake his head helplessly and sigh.
"As I thought… defeating Ankh-dono is still far too difficult."
In Fairy Tail's spectator stand, the supporters were jumping up and down in wild celebration, rejoicing over Ankh's overwhelming victory.
With his emotions running high, Chapati loudly announced the final results of the event:
"With the supplementary event concluded, today's competition portion has officially come to an end! Fairy Tail really dominated the field today, taking both first and second place in succession and pulling far ahead of the other teams!"
"And now the other teams are going to have to work even harder, because next comes the battle phase—Fairy Tail's greatest specialty!"
"That's right! Up to this point, Fairy Tail's two teams have not lost a single battle event!"
The three commentators went back and forth discussing the widening gap between the teams, while Ankh and Erza each returned to their respective waiting rooms.
Ankh caught Mirajane as she threw herself at him and said with a smile, "Well, I didn't get first, but at least I still won."
"You can only blame your bad luck at the draw," Laxus said with a half-smile.
Originally, the ideal outcome would have been for Fairy Tail's Team A and Team B to draw first and second, then split the hundred monsters between them—fifty-one and forty-nine—securing first and second place outright while leaving everyone else to struggle for the scraps.
But in the end…that extra mini-game had turned out to be unexpectedly easy to win!