For the next five days Alex continued his training regimen. He would spend twelve hours training each day, which meant that with Seekvaira"s time manipulation his training sessions were actually 36 days long, before he would return to the Manor. While Alex focused on his training however, Ravel was focused on the strategizing while Grayfia helped her. The problem they were having was that their opponent was known for his strategizing capabilities, and was said to even have abilities such as mind reading, and possibly even foresight.Then if this wasn"t enough, Indra also possessed enough physical fighting capabilities to earn himself a spot in the top ten rankings, along with Typhon. When Ravel asked the two of them about it, both Grayfia and Serafall told her it would take all four of the Maou if they wanted to beat him. As far as she could tell it would take Crom Cruach, Serafall, and Grayfia all working together to even come close to matching him, and that wasn"t likely to happen since Crom didn"t like fighting alongside others. That only left Alex to fight him. Since they couldn"t really have the situation where Alex fought all by himself again, Ravel had decided to draft a plan where they would weaken Indra"s team as much as possible, then leave the rest for Alex.
As Ravel thought of using this type of strategy, Alex walked in from finishing his training, and she immediately stood and went to pitch her plan to him.
***
It was the day of the match now, and it had already been going for a couple hours, longer than most thought it would have been. A lot of people were surprised since it was widely considered that Alex would try and steal the show like with Wukong to end as quickly as possible, well they weren"t completely disappointed. Every person watching the match now could only watch in obvious shock, none wanting to believe what they just witnessed, as Alex utterly destroyed the entire game field. The match of the Red Dragon Emperor vs the Heavenly Emperor Indra was widely antic.i.p.ated since it would be a match of a top strategist vs someone considered a contestant for taking one of the positions of top ten strongest beings. However, none would have guessed just how far he would take his drive for strength, or just how drastic the results would be.
The ones most shaken were the higher tier beings, the ones who could see the difference between the usual times Alex went golden compared to this time. Most people just thought Alex himself was being flashier, but a certain few had noticed. Alex"s aura had become more chaotic compared to before, and even though his hair always stood straight up when he used this power, it seemed to have also changed slightly in color and became more rigid. The most drastic change however, was that his muscles seemed to have bulged slightly to increase his strength. The most noticeable difference though, was that Alex was noticeably more aggressive with this change as he decisively defeated Indra.
He didn"t even touch his sacred gear in this match, yet had completely overwhelmed the heavenly emperor in raw power with this simple change in transformation. The most frightening part of this to them, was that Alex"s transformation powers were a complete unknown, so how many more stages were there to it? Those that already had a fear of Alex"s capabilities now felt as if he needed to be rid of for good, but the issue with that was that they didn"t know if anyone was capable of such a feat anymore. Instead of the top ten strongest, it was thought killing him would require beings like Great Red or Ophis.
As for the man in question, Alex had hurried to the infirmary as soon as he defeated Indra. The only other person on his team not beaten, was Ravel since she was functionally immortal as a relative of the Phoenix family. The plan had been to have everyone else go and try to thin Indra"s team as much as possible, then once they were inevitably retired Alex would step in and clean house. He hated this plan since it required sacrificing his teammates, but eventually conceded when they all agreed to it instead. As a result, Alex was forced to sit back and do nothing while his team was systematically eliminated one by one, until Indra himself retired Crom, then Serafall and Grayfia after the two eliminated most of his own team members.
After that, let"s just say it wasn"t a good time for Indra. Fueled with rage at letting his teammates sacrifice themselves, and the increased aggression from the second stage super saiyan, Alex had no mercy for Indra. First he destroyed the entire game field itself, effectively eliminating the remainders of Indra"s team. After that he engaged Indra in close combat since he was strong enough to survive Alex"s initial attack, which had resulted in a one sided beating on Indra"s part. After changing back however, Alex"s main priority was to check on his team. He entered the infirmary to find several other Manor residents already there, including Kuroka who was poking fun at a certain masked maid.
"Nyahahahahaha, you got beaten so bad miss maid, serves you right!" As none of the staff was present Grayfia removed her mask, and was glaring at Kuroka in response to the taunting. Rias however was sitting on the edge of Grayfia"s bed and had a look of obvious concern, as she had never seen her big sister defeated before. They all looked up however when Alex entered with Ravel behind him, and some of them immediately rushed him, with the first being of course Kuroka.
"Nyan, that fight looked so amazing, beating a G.o.d so decisively in that way, with a look of rage on your face." As she was talking Alex noticed a look of pa.s.sion in her eyes, and noted that him being ruthless to his opponents was a turn on for her. The rest of the girls however, didn"t seem to have the same opinion. They all started giving him looks of concern, to which he explained,
"The golden form I use increases the amount of aggression I feel, and since I moved into the next stage of it the amount of aggression increased. Well it also didn"t help that I didn"t like seeing my teammates being beaten so badly, and didn"t do anything about it. Also it doesn"t mean I"ll start going psychotic, so you don"t have to worry." At his words all of the girls made obviously relieved faces, but Rias didn"t seem convinced and asked,
"You said the next stage, how many stages are there?" At her words the rest of the girls looked concerned again, and though Alex was slightly annoyed they didn"t seem to have faith in him, he was also touched they worried about him so much. He flung his arms out and pulled as many of them as he could into a hug, while saying,
"Truthfully I don"t know how many forms there are, but as I said you don"t need to worry about me losing control. The only form I know of that is truly a risk to those around me is the ape form, and I already have that under control." When they heard his words the girls truly started to relax, and they moved on to the results of the game. Though none really doubted if he"d make it, officially making it to the finals was something everyone found exciting, and those not on his team told him how they"d all cheer him on.
Once they got the all clear for his team to leave the infirmary, after Asia helped with their healing, Alex and the rest headed home to share the news he was heading to the finals. They had to tell some people like Yasaka, Ophis, and Gabriel as they didn"t leave Asora much, but also recently added to this list was Barakiel, who was still hiding in Asora ever since he shamed himself in his match against Rias. After that, though they didn"t actually party, everyone went to the beach to put the brand new stage to use for the first time.
With Ingvild joining them a while back Alex wanted to do something for her, and this led to a stage being built on the beach. Although it was already winter again in the "real" world, it was still at a summery climate in Asora. A while back Lauren reminded Alex about how Asora"s seasons wouldn"t necessarily match the world"s he was in, and would differ depending on where he was. Though instead of a simple area, this was instead based off of what world he was in, meaning when he went to his next world it could very well be winter in Asora the whole time he was there. These thoughts were driven from his mind suddenly, when a voice spread out from the stage.
As the first ever concert in Asora began, a smile spread on Alex"s face. Ingvild"s singing was very lovely, and since she wasn"t using her sacred gear at the moment he was able to enjoy it fully. Though the deadline until the final match was drawing nearer, and he intended to reach grade three super Saiyan before then, Alex decided to just relax that night and enjoy Ingvild"s singing.