Chapter Eighty-Seven: Driven to Fury, Shattering the Void

The moment the real battle began, Alpha was stunned.

She had seen psychic combat more than once before, and the vast archive of the imaginary realm was packed with all manner of hero and monster archetypes, but this was the first time she had ever felt the force of such power so directly, face to face.

To put it plainly, her imagination had not been enough. She had underestimated these apocalyptic psychics.

A Level 5 ability from Academy City was certainly formidable, but it might not truly surpass a five-star powerhouse from this world.

Misaka Mikoto was strong, wasn’t she?

Yet even against Ximen Qiong, she could not gain a decisive advantage.

True, she still had area attacks, hacking abilities, and several other powerful tricks, but Ximen Qiong was clearly benefiting from his weapon.

Still, one must remember that fireseed weapons were precisely the most important vessels of power for apocalypse-era ability users, and besides, Ximen Qiong was only four-star, not yet five.

In Academy City, how many Level 4s could stand toe to toe with Railgun and keep the exchange going?

Accelerator was strong, wasn’t he?

Near-invincible in Academy City, the number one beneath Level 6. Yet the warrior Liu Dadong all but perfectly countered him, because what that man cultivated was not the common fireseed weapon, but Blood Dominion.

What was Blood Dominion?

What were called fireseed weapons were not truly all weapons. A little sun, an electric blanket, a microwave oven—if all of those were called weapons, it would be rather absurd.

Nor did they have to be technological creations. Technology was merely more common, its structure more intuitive, easier to understand and to inscribe into memory.

In truth, one could simply take a bottle of water, a can of gasoline, or a ball of air, inscribe it, and render it into a fantasy object. Plenty of people did exactly that.

Those who inscribed faucets, gas cylinders, even motorcycles—the equipment itself was not the point. What was inside it usually was.

And there were two directions: one could keep the same old soup forever, or change the soup often and keep it fresh, though with far less control.

By the same logic, the blood, bodily fluids, even hair, skin, and other organs of the body could all be inscribed and rendered into fantasy form. As long as one possessed the proper talent and had some knowledge of medical biology, this was collectively known as Body Dominion.

Blood Dominion was Body Dominion directed specifically at blood.

The “same old soup forever” type could, no matter what kind of blow one suffered, avoid shedding even a single drop of blood, thereby gaining an unimaginable self-healing ability. Most fatal injuries, in fact, were deaths by blood loss; if one could avoid losing blood, then many fatal wounds would no longer be so fatal.

Of course, one could also pump oneself full of bloodlust and erupt with several times the strength of an ordinary person, like the assassins in Wanted.

The “frequently changed and renewed” type could control the speed of another’s blood flow, slowing an ally’s bleeding to aid recovery, or causing an enemy to move sluggishly, oxygen-deprived and suffocating before they even realized it.

Though Accelerator was powerful, he had a fatal weakness: his body was not properly trained. And Liu Dadong’s Blood Dominion could not be stopped by vector control, because it did not belong to any conventional force such as kinetic, thermal, or electrical energy.

As long as he got close, Accelerator might not even need Liu Dadong to strike; the very aura of Blood Dominion alone could already suppress him into unconsciousness.

Of course, Alpha would never let him be approached so easily.

At the start she sent Armor Brother to entangle Liu Dadong—a natural enemy, in a sense, because he had no health bar.

But after only a couple of exchanges, Teacher Mo Ming came roaring in on a motorcycle.

And not just any motorcycle, but one rendered with several hundred horsepower after inscription—far more ferocious and heavy than Guan Yu’s centaur charge! No matter how mighty Red Hare might be, it was still only a horse. Could it have two horsepower, three? Ten? A hundred?

Even Armor Brother, just as mighty and heavy, was sent flying in an instant, leaving a helmet-shaped set of tire tracks.

This forced Alpha to call out to Ye Chao and tell him to cover them with illusion magic at once.

“Huh? Mm? ...What is it?” In the end, Ye Chao took more than ten seconds to reply, and by then Accelerator was already dead.

“What are you doing?” Alpha snapped in exasperation.

“Reading,” Ye Chao answered, as if it were perfectly natural.

...

I was wrong! I was wrong!

I never should have woken up in the first place. If I had not awakened, I would not have ended up with such an unreliable idiot; if I had not gone with this unreliable idiot, I would not have fallen into such a miserable place...

After crying and wiping away her tears, Alpha still had to keep going.

She simply seized Ye Chao’s permissions and took control directly, first attempting to become invisible, then creating layer upon layer of phantoms...

But the effect was not very good, because the other side had a scout-type combatant, Chen Kai, whose ability was Air Dominion.

His ears could distinguish the faintest movement, the slightest breath, even the beat of a heart; his nose could, like a shark scenting blood, detect the nearly invisible molecules of odor in the air. With him present, illusions that could only deceive the eyes were almost meaningless...

Of course, real combat was not so simple. Once one side had a victim firmly in hand, it did not mean the prey would necessarily be taken, for enemies could flee and allies could rescue; strengths and weaknesses continually traded places and canceled one another out, and the situation shifted in an instant.

But in general... the Jiangcheng team had the upper hand.

Yes, Team 404 was being suppressed.

In terms of individual combat ability, the roles Alpha had chosen might well have been stronger; but the Jiangcheng team was far more familiar with their abilities, more deeply steeped in them, and knew far better what could be done and what could not. They also knew one another well and worked together with practiced ease. Alpha, by contrast, was alone, splitting her attention four ways, and the roles she chose were all offhand, never meant to coordinate in the first place.

With no other choice, she had to use divine-mode cheating...

Strengthening Accelerator’s physique so he would not pass out so easily.

Strengthening Railgun’s telekinesis so she could withstand Ximen Qiong’s magnetic-dispersion sniper rounds.

Enriching Armor Brother’s attack patterns so he could master a shattering style of hand-to-hand combat, attack several enemies at once, and resist Mo Ming’s motorcycle charge to a degree, then combine with Railgun’s electromagnetic fire—the scene was simply too beautiful to behold...

And of course, strengthening Ye Chao’s illusion magic so that illusions had sound, even scent... that was a far more advanced technique.

In short, the situation was gradually being pulled back by Team 404.

In the imaginary realm, Alpha was God. How could there be any reason for her to lose?

The only difference was whether she wanted to put on a performance, and how convincingly she wanted to perform.

Just as the kill count was slowly being evened out, the Jiangcheng team began to grow anxious...

Because before the match, they had agreed on no game rules, no standard based on whether the crystal tower was destroyed, only a contest of which side had more kills.

Among them, Guan Junyuan was the most anxious of all.

From the night before last until now, he had taken part in nearly every battle between the two cities, and so he had also suffered the most defeats...

From the initial frustration, to hope, to despair, to seeing hope again, only to fall into yet another round of despair...

It was all too damn miserable. Too damn infuriating.

Thinking, yearning, waiting, hoping—“Aaagh!” He suddenly let out a heart-rending scream, veins bulging at his temples as if they were about to burst, writhing like worms.

The three little suns he controlled, each as large as a door panel and radiating boundless heat around his body, suddenly blazed with light, and their heat intensified even further.

At the same time came a burst of clashing sounds: ding, ding, clang, clang.

Misaka Mikoto’s railgun and Accelerator’s vector-shifted stone shells were actually all blocked by the little suns. The attacks of two Level 5 ability users had failed to break through his defense.

Damn it, no way...

Had this guy... leveled up?!

Alpha stared blankly, dumbfounded.

And the effect of Guan Junyuan’s breakthrough did not stop there...