Sorry had to go for a jog.
Erza only said that Laxus is stronger than she expected, not that he is so much stronger then Alvarez Laxus. And Lax on the other hand said that he will show her the ability he picked up during his fight against Wahl. Sure he probably learned to use it better but even then Erza was still questioning if thats all Laxus could do. Which gives me the idea that Erza grew more then Laxus did, in the months before the 100YQ. Plus logically Erza did no see Laxus's full power during the entire war, so im not sure how is she measuring.
Erza on the other hand has new utility that she got from Wendy, which is a pretty great boost, but except for her battle against Laxus, are her 100YQ feats actually better then Alvarez. Just an example; in Alvarez Erza could shoot down RoT Acno from the sky like he was some fodder wyvern, while 100YQ Erza could do absolutely nothing to Merc who was at half strength (which means this Merc would be dinner to Acno).
Now for Irene. Just look at what only a part of her magic power does to Spiderman and scale it to the city. And thats Irene as a personality using only part of her power and Wendy's body.
Now back to Erza, yes i can definitely say that current Erza as a combatant is stronger then Alvarez Erza, and probably in magic power as well. That would be the most logical thing to say, but contrary to some feats, i wouldnt say by that much. And i would say that combatwise Erza would give Irene some trouble but in a contest of magic power and prowess its no contest for Irene. There has yet to be a human in 100YQ where the FT characters actually say that their magic power is so overwhelmingly huge that they never felt something like this before, and back in the day that was a low spriggan. Irene and August were dimensions apart from the other spriggans.
Ok, she said he is much stronger than she thought he was. Which is again something she wouldn't think of, if he didn't grow a lot since x792.
Erza did see that Laxus was about to one shot (or at least severely injure) Ajeel. So, she has something to compare.
Erza shooting down an Acno which didn't even resist (cause he is mindless and acts on instinct only against weaknesses such as other DS, ship etc) doesn't mean anything at all. All it needs is physical strength to move that amount of mass. This is same thing that Makarov did in Tenrou arc, which is even more impressive cause Acno was actually sane and was resisting ever so slightly.
Ok, Nebal was fodder. Even after DF he had some trouble putting down Wendy. While Kyria casually one shotted her with a roar. Yes, it was only partial power of Eileen, but it was only really used against the weakest DE
How would we conclusively say that Eileen is far superior to Erza in magic power? This is the thing.........I can very well accept that I can't prove Erza does have MP on/above Eileen, but the same holds for the reverse as well. We have no means for direct comparison.
Also, Erza actually said that Suzaku was
powerful beyond reason. So, there is at least one character having that "hype" in 100YQ.
Hm not sure how i would compare MP with CP. But Alvarez Erza is beating Mard Geer imo, but with difficulty. FT made it clear that they grew a lot stronger during the timeskip and Mashima himself stated that the spriggans are the strongest characters introduced yet (not sure what he meant by that since we had Zeref and Acno lol).
The thing is, from x791 to x792, Erza wasn't even stated to have trained. She spent part of her time in some cake shop, part of her time as sky for Crime Sorciere.
So, on what basis is she a lot stronger from x791 to x792, but not from x792 to x793?
In fact, the only one who trained his ass off was Natsu. And Laxus, to a lesser extend. Mashima doesn't care for logic, training etc, characters simply scale to keep portrayal intact.
Point being, they trained more/less isn't much of a valid reason IMO, cause Mashima doesn't care. If anything, at least we have the verbal confirmation from Natsu that he trains every day lol, so we can at least assume Natsu grew a lot stronger, so just by scaling to Natsu, Erza did as well.
As for "Spriggans are the strongest characters yet", I'm pretty sure he meant it as a collective (like Tartarus, OS etc).
Cause, even disregarding obvious outliers like Acno and Zeref, and even other possible contenders like Mard Geer and Hades (with GH). There are many other characters who are also stronger than Spriggans:
- 5 parent dragons (they all would fodderize Spriggans)
- GMG dragons (well, with possible exceptions of top 3 and God Serena)
- Animus (he tanked several hits from an all out assault from x792 DF Natsu, in one of his most dragonized forms. In contrast, dragon Eileen got one shot )
was it too nonsensical of a statement.
but again Ajeel himself stated that that would not have downed him (then again he is an arrogant idiot so you might have a point here). I see what you mean about Acno, but i disagree with you on that. Even as a mindless monster this should not have worked on him. This is RoT Acno, a far stronger version then Tenrou Acno. Makarov didnt do a thing. Like Zeref said Acno was playing with ants, and like Gildarts said he wasnt even serious. Compare that to a mindless rabid dog who was planning to destroy the world.
