"Is it finally my turn?"
Under the gaze of tens of thousands of spectators inside and outside the battlefield, the magic-powered ship belonging to Fairy Tail slowly descended into the bay's central square.
From the cabin, a third girl—besides Brandish and Uta—stepped out into the sunlight.
She stretched lazily, basking in the warmth, as if completely unfazed by the chaos raging all around.
Seeing the girl emerge, both Marines and pirates across the battlefield exchanged puzzled looks.
"Is that… a new Fairy Tail member?"
"I don't know. I've never seen her before."
"She's been hiding all this time and only shows up now… could she be their secret weapon?"
"Yes! That must be Fairy Tail's trump card!"
"She's gotta be terrifying—or maybe she's got some kind of special power!"
"Special power? What kind of ability could be more special than Sugisawa Yuuto's?"
All across the battlefield—and even in the live-broadcast squares of Sabaody Islands—people were buzzing with speculation.
Of course, it wasn't as though no one recognized the girl.
At the very least, the highest-ranking officers of the Marines and the World Government knew exactly who she was.
"Why is she here!?"
Marshal Sengoku's eyes went wide with disbelief.
"When we confirmed that Vegapunk defected to Fairy Tail," murmured Vice Admiral Tsuru, "this kind of development was… inevitable."
"Damn it! Damn it all!" Commander-in-Chief Kong slammed his fist down, his expression grim.
"No need to panic," said Figaland Garin quietly, his gaze sharpening. "Everything is still within our control."
Meanwhile, within the Marine Science Division, one man had completely lost his composure.
"Punk-02 Lilith—what are you doing here!?" shouted Sentomaru, captain of the Science Corps, his voice breaking through the chaos.
The girl who stepped out of the magic-powered ship was none other than Vegapunk No. 2 — Lilith.
She didn't even glance in his direction.
Lilith clapped her hands lightly, surveying the entire battlefield with a confident smile.
"Alright then," she said cheerfully, "this exercise is over. Seraphim—assemble!"
At her command, the seven Blazing Seraphim Angels—each one cloned from the original Seven Warlords—paused mid-battle.
Without hesitation, they abandoned their fights and took flight, soaring across the field to gather before Lilith.
She placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head.
"Well?"
All across the battlefield, both Marines and pirates were left completely stunned.
"Wha—what the hell is going on!?"
"Those little Warlords… they—they're obeying her orders!?"
"Th-this… how is this even possible!?"
"Who is that girl!?"
"She really must have some kind of special power!"
"As expected of Fairy Tail's hidden trump card!"
"No… no, something's not right! Why did only the Warlord clones respond to her!?"
The uproar spread beyond the battlefield to the live broadcast plaza in Sabaody Islands, where the crowd of onlookers and reporters gaped at their screens in disbelief.
And then—
The answer came.
"Oh, right!" Lilith suddenly slapped her forehead as if she had just remembered something.
"I forgot to introduce myself," she said sweetly, her voice echoing through the amplifiers across the world. "Everyone on the battlefield, my name is Vegapunk—the creator of the Seraphim project!"
Her words fell like thunder.
The entire battlefield—packed with hundreds of thousands of warriors—fell into absolute silence.
Even the distant plazas in the Sabaody Islands went still. Reporters froze mid-sentence. The sea breeze itself seemed to stop.
Seconds passed. Then minutes.
And finally—
"Wha—what!?"
"Ehhhhh!?"
The eruption of sound was deafening.
"Vegapunk!? That girl is Vegapunk!?"
"The genius scientist of the Marines—a beautiful girl!?"
"She's the one who created the Seraphim!?"
"This is insane!"
The astonished cries echoed across the battlefield and the islands alike, shaking the skies above them all.