(A tide of devastation surged outward, centered on Misaka Mikoto, swallowing nearly half the commercial district.
Buildings snapped like blocks broken by an invisible giant and toppled with a roar; houses were uprooted whole. Rubble, rebar, cars—even pedestrians who hadn't fled in time—were dragged into the ever-expanding death-tornado of lightning and iron sand. Screams, explosions, and the groan of collapsing masonry blended into a symphony of hell.
The tower Kuchiba Hiro was in lurched violently, dust and chunks raining from the ceiling. He snapped the carry-handle without hesitation; the grotesque living sniper rifle twisted and shrank back into its briefcase form. He sprinted to the roof edge and leapt.
As he fell, every muscle clenched, his skin taking on a metallic sheen—Hardening pushed to the limit.
BOOM!
Like a human shell he slammed into the street below, feet sinking deep, spider-web cracks racing outward. The impact was soaked up by his hardened body; he merely swayed, then stepped easily out of the crater.
Time to go. A glance at the sky-piercing tornado and the car-sized chunks of concrete raining down was enough; he spun away and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Priority one: reach safety. The freak disaster had wrecked his plans, but it had also stirred the waters—when the storm settled he could come back to scavenge, maybe turn up a surprise bonus.
At the heart of the battlefield, the fight was already over.
Arashiyama and his three squadmates never managed a real counter before Misaka Mikoto's unbridled fury. Arashiyama had taken two steps before several rebar spears punched through him, nailing him to the ground; the others were swallowed by a black storm of iron sand, ground into crimson paste before they could scream.
Only Kikorou, propped up by top-tier gear, had lasted longer. The ornate white armor's energy shield shrieked, flickered—and finally shattered with a pop.
Stripped of her last defense, she was a leaf in a typhoon, instantly buried and shredded by endless iron sand. The priceless great-axe flew from her grip and vanished; she herself became a fleeting speck of scarlet within the metallic gale, then was gone.
When Misaka Mikoto burned through the last of her strength and surfaced from her rage, the storm began to die.
What had been a familiar shopping street was now utter ruin—broken walls, scorched earth, rubble. The air reeked of dust, smoke, and blood.
Huge concrete slabs lay everywhere; some had crashed into distant blocks, sparking fresh fires and chaos. Uncounted lives had been erased in her moment of out of control.
Misaka staggered, shoulder wound and drained mind nearly buckling her knees. In her tawny eyes flickered bewilderment—and fear. She shoved the thought away, clinging instead to grief for Kuroko and the need for revenge.
Kuchiba Hiro… she growled, scanning the rubble for her prime target. Nothing remained but wreckage and scattered flames.
Then something caught her eye—
Amid that apocalyptic ruin, the luxury hotel she had been heading to—the one that offered shelter under the veil protocol—stood utterly untouched.
Like the calm eye of a hurricane, it hadn't lost a single pane of glass; its neon sign still glowed suggestively, grotesquely bright against the deathly silence and devastation around it.
An invisible line seemed drawn, cleanly splitting annihilation from order.
Misaka's heart sank. The hotel's backing was deeper—and more terrifying—than she'd ever imagined. To emerge unscathed from a Transcendent onslaught of this scale spoke of power that froze the blood.
What chilled her even more was that, after devastation on this scale, violating the veil protocol was an iron-clad fact. She could almost picture her bounty skyrocketing somewhere right now. In an instant she had gone from avenger to a "source of calamity" more conspicuous—and more dangerous—than even Kuchiba Hiro.
The path of revenge had veered off course from the very start, sliding into an even darker, uncontrollable abyss.
In the distance, sirens and ambulances wailed, but against this ruin they sounded faint and futile.)
On the light screen, the heaven-like calamity slowly stilled, leaving only scorched rubble and silence—yet the real-world web erupted like never before.
Previous Transcendent battles were stunning, but still clashes of man against man. This time, Misaka Mikoto's rampage had delivered city-level destruction.
Towering buildings collapsed, iron-sand storms howled, lightning tornadoes twisted—an apocalyptic spectacle rivaling top-tier disaster blockbusters, delivered without a single CGI seam, shocking every viewer as never before.
"My God!! This... can a human really wield such power?! It's insane!"
"I take back everything I said! These visuals—no, this isn't CG! The texture, the physics, those collapsing details—no effects house on Earth could match this!"
"Railgun is epic! (voice cracking) Yeah, it's tragic, but that firepower—top-tier Transcendent, baby!"
"Ahhh, my scalp's tingling! I know it's fake, yet it's so real—those people caught inside... ugh, I feel sick."
A tsunami of comments flooded the stream; the top ten trending lists on every social platform were almost entirely hijacked.
Countless netizens thrilled at the unprecedented spectacle, lost in hot takes of "espers are awesome." For thrill-seeking youths, the visual punch far outweighed any thoughts of plot depth or ethics.
Yet a sizable slice of viewers felt deep unease and dread.
"Guys, let's chill a sec... isn't that destruction too much? If espers like that exist, we norms are less than ants."
"The more I think, the scarier it gets. The Authorities said 99% crime rate earlier and I shrugged—now, one bad mood and boom..."
"That hotel—did you see? Everything around it pulverized, yet it's untouched. Think about it: Misaka Mikoto probably isn't even the strongest!"
Thanks to The Authorities' constant "opinion guidance" and "debunking," branding the light screen footage as "hyper-real immersive fiction" or "an unknown psychological projection test," most people refused to treat it as real.
"Stop spooking yourselves—how many times have The Authorities debunked this? It's just a super-real movie or serial using real people as material. Remember when doomsday got debunked?"
"Exactly; talk plot, not reality. Clearly some holographic trick we don't know yet."
"I'm just binging a grim-dark show. Story's wild—so how high does Misaka Mikoto's bounty go now?"
"Speaking of which, Kuchiba Hiro booked it fast —kid's sharp! Stayed proactive, never let himself get cornered. I'm waiting for him to mop up later!"
Online chatter split bizarrely: while audiences marveled at the light screen's imagination and "tech," heatedly debating fates, powers, and plot, a subconscious unease quietly took root. Most soothed themselves with "it's all fake," yet the ruinous imagery left real chills branded on their hearts.
The more The Authorities insisted "none of this is real," the more some thoughtful viewers sensed a disconnect—if it were mere fiction, why the relentless, heavy-handed "debunking" and "guidance"?
That suspicion, an undercurrent beneath the surface, had yet to become mainstream—but it was swelling. The light screen was reshaping how many saw the world, one subtle frame at a time..
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