As soon as Jean began to free the Phoenix, just as they imagined, the small hole that Jean made in the cage for the Phoenix to begin climbing out of, quickly began to enlarge.
The Phoenix began to use the leaking fire to go back into the hole and further corrode the cage, making the hole bigger and bigger, until it reached the point where Jean would no longer have control.
This strategy was actually working, as the small 5cm hole Jean made had already expanded to over 30cm in a few seconds, and with the scale this was increasing, it wouldn't take more than a minute to completely erode the cage. .
With this fire leaking out, in the real world, the tree that Alex had supported Jean's body on was starting to feel hot, while the air temperature around the two was rising at an alarming speed.
Seeing how the hole was opening beyond her control, Jean began to despair.
"Alex, what do I do?!" She asked.
Without responding, Alex suddenly ran in front of Jean, reaching the hole she had opened.
Seeing Alex approaching the fire, Jean became even more afraid.
But instead of letting fear control her, Jean used the fear she was feeling to control the fire even more tightly as if she let the fire grow, it would definitely engulf Alex completely.
As Jean's control increased, the speed at which the fire was taking to devour the cage slowed, but did not stop.
That's when Alex did something that not only completely shocked Jean, but even Phoenix, who was looking at him curiously.
With his mouth wide open, Alex began to inhale the fire that was corroding the cage and to their shock, he simply began to swallow the Phoenix's fire!
Without the fire that would increase the size of the hole, the amount of Phoenix flames leaking through the hole was constant, and fortunately at a level that Jean was able to control.
But the Phoenix wouldn't leave it as it was, so with curiosity for the human in front of her, and a bit of anger at being challenged, she decided to exert more force.
After so many years locked in this cage, this was finally the time she felt would be when she had the best chance of escaping, and now this little one appeared to disrupt her plans?
Angry, Phoenix decided to see what this human's limit was.
Looking at that large amount of flames coming out of the hole, but instead of coming back to corrode the cage, coming towards him, Alex instead of being worried, started to smile, as he started to eat more and more flames.
This lasted for several minutes, to the point that Phoenix, who had previously been at the limit of not fitting into the cage, was still too big for that spot, but now had some room for extra movement there.
Meanwhile, Jean's body is completely drenched in sweat, both in the real world and in her mental landscape, from concentrating so hard to not let Phoenix open the hole she made even further.
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Alex, who had previously been calmly eating fire, was now starting to have slightly reddened skin.
"You're finally reaching your limit, right human?" For the first time, Phoenix spoke.
Unable to close her mouth to speak, Alex just nodded as she continued to eat the fire coming out of her.
Even though he had purchased the Dragon Slayer Fire Magic from Natsu, Alex realized that this was not enough to eat the entire flame of a cosmic entity like the Phoenix, but fortunately this was not all he had planned.
When the Phoenix saw her response, she simply laughed coldly and commanded even more flames to come out of the hole and go directly into Alex's mouth.
She wanted to see him explode from the flame he ate.
Seeing this happening, Jean became even more worried about Alex, but she couldn't do anything as she concentrated on stopping the Phoenix from breaking into the hole further.
"Please bear with me Alex…" She said in a low voice as she felt guilty for putting him through this.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the air that had only gotten a little warmer around Jean was now starting to evaporate all the liquid around her.
The sand on the ground started to turn to glass, the plants were turning into charcoal, while the air around her was starting to distort.
Fortunately for Alex, as this was just a high temperature, and not the true Phoenix flames, he used ice magic to make a bed of ice around his body, so he wouldn't have to worry about the heat while he had Manna.
And considering the amount of Mana he was absorbing from eating the Phoenix's fire, Alex had practically an infinite supply of Mana.
To expend even more Mana, Alex began to subconsciously increase the intensity of his ice spell, to expend as much Mana as possible, to the point where everything behind Jean was burning, while everything behind Alex was freezing.
Which was a completely beautiful and bizarre sight for Logan, who watched everything from afar with a shocked expression.
Not only for him, but also for Charles and Ororo, who saw everything through Logan's uniform camera, and were shocked as they tried to imagine what was happening in Jean's mind, as there was clearly a battle going on there.
They just didn't know how Alex had gotten into her mind, but considering everything that was going on, that was the least of their worries right now.
Back in Jean's mindscape, the Phoenix began to sense what was happening outside and became furious, as this human was not only using her fire as fuel, he was making ice with her fire!
"Insolent!" She roared angrily, as for the first time she began sending a massive amount of fire out of the hole.
Even without trying to break into the hole, the amount of fire she sent out was so great that the hole began to tear on its own, making Jean start to feel dizzy.
But looking at how Alex was dealing with all of this and enduring it all for her standing, she didn't have the courage to give up and redoubled the efforts she made to stop Phoenix from opening the hole even further.
Fortunately, Phoenix didn't want to open the hole any further and her focus was only on Alex, so with Jean's control, the hole stopped opening, but for Alex, this situation was extremely dangerous.
Looking at the large amount of Phoenix flames coming towards him, Alex had no choice but to use the Sharingan again.
Alex's first idea was to use the Mangekyou Sharingan to try to control the Phoenix, just as Madara controlled the Kyuubi, but he soon had to give up on this idea, since first, if he did that, it would be almost impossible for Jean to get along well. with Phoenix in the future, and second, he did not have the confidence to control a cosmic being like Phoenix, who was several times stronger than a simple 9-tailed fox.
So Alex used the only thing he could think of at the time.
For Phoenix and Jean, it was as if Alex was continuing to eat Phoenix's fire, as if the increased amount of fire she made hadn't changed anything for him, but only he knew something.
At this moment, within his Kamui space, a huge amount of fire was surging, and since this fire was immortal, Alex would have to get rid of it quickly before it burned everything down.
But this concern of his was only in his mind, in front of Jean and Phoenix, Alex was unshakable, as if none of this could affect him.
Looking at Alex this way, for the first time in millions of years, Phoenix was surprised by a being as fragile as a human.
