User blog comment:AYET/At the upcoming chapter milestone/@comment-5398287-20150622050739/@comment-5398287-20150623024900

It wasn't a spread-out battle with tons of flashbacks in the beginning. Every arc has flashbacks for important characters, such as Rebecca and Kyros, but we've had flashbacks for, like, 10 different characters. And in the beginning, the only fighting was in the Colosseum. In all honesty, the Birdcage is the main reason why this arc was prolonged so much. And like I said, it's not anywhere close to being the final arc like the other two examples are, so it's really not justified in being so long.