Surprisingly, no one attacks them until they enter the building. As soon as they enter the building, Alex can sense the thick demonic energy filling the building. He has been hunting Etherious Demons for years, so he is very familiar with their energy already.

"Don't hesitate to use your emergency calls if needed. I don't want to see any of you dead at the end of this war."

Alex has distributed some small lacrima crystals to all of them. Those lacrima crystals are used for emergency calls. Once they break their lacrima crystals, the others here will receive their call for help through their crystals and it will tell them the location, so they can go there to help.

"Well then, I'm going first."

Alex cracks his neck while transforming into his mini Matatabi form. In his tiger-sized blue-black flame cat form, Alex charges deeper into the building at a very high speed.

He can sense the demons' energy, so he can just follow them. No demons can hide from Alex who is used to hunt demons, especially those from the Book of Zeref.

With fast movements, Alex finds and kills the small fry Etherious Demons. These demons don't even have intelligence and only act on instinct, similar to Deliora, but they are weak unlike Deliora, so he can kill them easily with just a single attack.

Alex simply uses his claws to rip the small fry demons' bodies apart. Their bodies are harder than magical beasts, but they are still no match for Matatabi's claws.

As Alex keeps moving forward, more and more small fry demons are attacking him. He has entered the Cube and Alex can tell that the interior of this Cube is changing as he moves, as if trying to lead him to more demons.

The number of demons that he faces at a time also keeps increasing. So he quickly realizes that Mard Geer is controlling the Cube and sends more weak demons at him, most likely to tire him by sacrificing more demons.

But it doesn't matter for Alex because these demons actually supply him with more magic power. Their ability might be called Curse, something different from Magic. But the fuel is still the same, Ethernano.

His Rinne-Sharingan absorbs their energy in pure form, that is in Ethernano form. So even if their ability is not Magic, he still can take their energy. Besides, even if it's a little different, he has already adapted to it after absorbing so many Etherious Demons' energy in the past.

Their energy isn't the only thing he has adapted into, but also their basic characteristics. That's why he can defeat them very easily now even though it would take him a while to defeat these levels of demons in the past.

Meanwhile, the other groups that have spread after entering the Cube also encounter small-fry demons. They have harder times than Alex because most of them don't even have experience fighting Etherious Demons.

The Demons' Curses are also new things for them. But they can adapt quickly. They quickly understood that they don't have any resistance to Curse, unlike with Magic, so they just blocked the Demons' Curse with their Magic and avoided touching them.

But they are also being careful because Alex has told them about some very troublesome Curses like Magic Barrier Particles and Macros that can enter their bodies, destroying them from inside, so they need to stay careful all the time.

There might also be traps on their way because this Cube is like a labyrinth for them. This is the enemy's lair, so it won't be strange for traps to be placed anywhere.

While Alex's group is battling in the Cube, Makarov is also doing his part. He is at Warrod's home now, together with Cana who has just returned.

Makarov is there to ask for Warrod's help to talk with the Council about Tartaros and the spy that he has discovered now.

"Is this information reliable?" Warrod looks surprised when reading the paper that Makarov gives him.

"I won't come here if I just want to joke. This is urgent, that's why I ask for your help. You know the Council's opinion about Fairy Tail. It will be hard to convince them and the spy will use the Council's bad opinion about us to deny all allegations. While our reputation within the Council is much better now compared to years ago, many officers are still not looking at us favorably. But if the Gods of Ishgar support this information, it will be a different story."

"Hmm, you're right. So some people have already moved to attack Tartaros now?"

"Yes. Alex leads them. There are some from Fairy Tail, Mermaid Heel, and Sabertooth. I have also contacted Blue Pegasus, Lamia Scale, Heaven's Runners and Quatro Cerberus. They are ready to move anytime if the enemy manages to somehow control Faces. Right now, they are sending their members to protect the Keys."

The biggest threat that can happen is Face. It's a weapon of destruction that can destroy this whole continent. There are many of them placed all over the continent and they should only be used in emergencies.

But Tartaros plans to detonate them all and destroy this whole continent. To do that, they need to kill some people who act as "Keys" to activate Faces upon their deaths and all of them are Magic Council's high-rank officials.

"This is very serious. Alright then, I'll inform Draculos and Wolfheim about this. Let's go to the Council now. We'll say that this is the Gods of Ishgar's order. Send people to the spy's place and capture him without killing him. We need to extract information from him." Warrod stands up from his seat while giving instruction to Makarov.

"I've already sent people to watch over him from afar to prevent him from running away in case he heard that Tartaros is already being attacked." Makarov follows Warrod moving out of the house with Cana.

"Good. Tell them to capture him now. They can break his bones, but don't kill him."

After hearing Warrod's order, Cana immediately contacts Freed who is tasked to watch over the spy with Bickslow and Evergreen. All of them were called to return by Makarov after Alex's group left to attack Tartaros HQ.

Warrod, Makarov, and Cana quickly go to the Magic Council using a teleportation device in Warrod's house after informing Draculos and Wolfheim, the other 2 Gods of Ishgar.

They quickly understand the situation and also go to the Magic using their teleportation devices. All Gods of Ishgar have teleportation devices in their homes that are connected to the Magic Council that can be used all the time.

The 3 Gods of Ishgar arrive almost at the same time, surprising everyone in the Magic Council. They immediately know that there must be something very important for the 3 of them to suddenly come here.

Warrod immediately asks for all the high-rank officials present in the HQ to gather in the conference room. He says it's an emergency, so the guards quickly move to call the officials.

It doesn't take long for the officials to gather, including the Chairman of the Magic Council, Gran Doma.

After they gather, Warrod explains everything he heard from Makarov, which obviously surprised everyone. The Magic Council has also started putting attention to Tartaros that has started causing more problems lately, but now the Gods of Ishgar suddenly come with something surprising.

"A spy you say?" Gran Doma narrows his eyes. Of course, he already suspected that Tartaros must have spies in the Magic Council, but he couldn't find them and never thought that Warrod would find it first.

"My information is reliable, but there is still a room of error in anything. So I've sent some people to capture this spy and bring him here to be interrogated. I'm sorry if I overstepped my boundaries because this should be the Council's authority. But if I informed you first, I'm afraid the spy would inform Tartaros about this. If the information turns out to be wrong and he is not the spy, then I will take full responsibility for all the damages I caused. But for now, let's trust this information and I ask all of you to stay here until that suspect comes."

Makarov and Warrod will handle the situation in the Magic Council and about the spy. They found out about the spy because Silver told Alex about it. Alex couldn't remember the spy's name clearly, so it really helped a lot.

Back to the Cube, the 7 groups are finally facing the direct subordinates of the now 8 Demon Gates. There are also many small-fry demons and even demonized humans who are mostly Zeref Worshippers who joined Tartaros's sub-guilds or Dark Mages who are tempted with power.

Of course, among them are Jiemma and Minerva who joined after leaving Sabertooth. Jiemma is facing Sting and Rogue while Minerva is facing Erza and Lisanna.

There are many undeads too, especially in Keyes's squad because he is a Necromancer. The number of enemies is much higher than Alex thought actually, but most of them are not that powerful.

The biggest threats are still the 8 Demon Gates and Mard Geer. To Alex's surprise, the 8 Demon Gates are now gathering at the same place and blocking his path, all of them.

He initially planned to just kill 1 of them and left the remaining 7 to his friends that formed 7 groups so he could face Mard Geer sooner and saved energy for when Acnologia and Zeref appeared.

But now, the 8 main demons excluding Mard Geer are there to fight him. He immediately knows that this is Mard Geer's plan to stop him because they know his power, so he knows that his friends are also led elsewhere to fight different enemies.

In other words, he is alone and can't ask for help.

"Well, this might be better. Now I can just beat all of you up myself." With a smirk, Alex is ready to fight the main enemies.

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Ch. 263. Just Irene