Chapter 130

Anyway, he was doing everything in his power to shake off the foot on his head.

But what filled Lacus with despair was that no matter how much power he unleashed, the foot on his head remained as immovable as a towering mountain.

Endless lightning surged from Lacus's body, but before it could even touch Aizen Sōsuke, it was shattered by an unnamed force.

To others, the terrifyingly powerful Lacus appeared unexpectedly fragile before Aizen Sōsuke.

Like a child.

"I wonder if this counts as being stronger than Mr. Lacus?"

"To be honest, I'm not really the type who enjoys fighting."

Watching Lacus frantically try to push against his foot and rise, Aizen Sōsuke sighed helplessly and retracted his foot from Lacus's head.

After all, Lacus was also "one of us," so Aizen Sōsuke couldn't go too far.

A little gentle social beating was enough.

What disappointed Aizen Sōsuke was that so far, apart from Lacus providing a high emotional value of about twenty thousand, the combined emotional value of all members of the Weibagong Society totaled only around one hundred thousand.

It was probably less than one-tenth of the total.

There was no way around it—Aizen Sōsuke defeating Lacus was far too expected by the surrounding crowd, barely stirring any emotional response.

Aizen Sōsuke couldn't possibly go all out against Lacus; that would be too exaggerated.

This made the difficulty of harvesting emotional value increase once again.

However, if Aizen Sōsuke himself couldn't trigger emotional value, he could make Lacus perform actions beyond others' expectations, thereby triggering and harvesting emotional value.

This also aligned with Makarov's wink-and-nudge request: to discipline a brat.

"Roar of the Lei Long!"

Sensing Aizen Sōsuke's terrifying power, Lacus finally discarded his last hesitation, puffed out his cheeks, and spat out a thunderstorm brimming with destructive energy from his mouth.

It surged toward the direction where Aizen Sōsuke stood.

"You really don't care about the consequences."

"There are still many ordinary people behind me."

Aizen Sōsuke glanced at the buildings behind him and let out a slight sigh.

Lacus using the "Roar of the Lei Long," an area-of-effect skill, was clearly trying to force Aizen Sōsuke to block his attack head-on—somewhat underhanded, really.

But then again, at this stage, Lacus hasn't yet reached his redemption arc.

Acting recklessly and underhandedly is only natural—after all, the plot following the Tower of Paradise is the Fairy Tail civil war arc, and Lacus is the boss of that arc.

As he spoke, Aizen Sōsuke gathered spiritual energy and casually swatted away the golden column of endless lightning erupting from Lacus's mouth.

Now an S-rank, two-star puppet, Aizen Sōsuke not only possessed the initial stage of the Hōgyoku mode but also saw massive increases in all his base attributes.

He merely needed some visual flair, so he pretended to struggle to block Lacus's attack, cooperating with him.

Otherwise, if Aizen Sōsuke did nothing and let Lacus unleash his full barrage, even now Lacus would struggle to break through Aizen Sōsuke's basic defense.

"Aren't you already blocking my attacks?"

Lacus, watching Aizen Sōsuke's expression remain utterly casual from start to finish, twisted his face in frustration.

He twisted his neck a couple times, hearing several crisp cracks, then pulled forth a lightning-formed Fangtian Huaji in his hand.

"See if you can block this one!"

"Lei Long Fangtian Ji!"

With a roar, Lacus hurled the lightning-formed Fangtian Huaji toward Aizen Sōsuke's position—only for Aizen Sōsuke to casually swat it away.

"…."

Seeing this, Lacus suddenly froze.

Everything before was one thing, but the Lei Long Fangtian Ji wasn't a simple technique—though not his absolute strongest, it was still a formidable move for Lacus.

At this point, even if Lacus were the dumbest, most inflated fool, he knew something was wrong.

This guy with glasses and a repulsive smile on his face seemed terrifyingly powerful beyond imagination—his Lei Long Fangtian Ji had been casually swatted away.

This was truly excessive.

'This guy…'

Without warning, a bead of cold sweat slid down Lacus's forehead.

………

Magnolia, Fairy Tail Guild Hall.

Lacus wore a look of bitter resentment, his body bound tightly by coils of glowing ropes, hanging from the ceiling; his good comrades, the Thunder God Tribe, were similarly suspended above.

"Hahahaha."

"Lacus, didn't see this coming, did you?"

Natsu leaned toward the sulking Lacus, grinning with a provoking expression: "That Aizen Sōsuke guy looks young, but he's actually a few hundred years old."

"You really overestimated yourself, Lacus."

Seeing Lacus humiliated was rare, so Natsu naturally relished the chance to gloat in front of him.

To maximize his glee, Natsu even used a newly learned idiom: "not measuring one's own strength."