"Is that... still human?" Everyone who witnessed the sight couldn't help but think the same thing.
The instant the "Honkai Beast" hit the ground, every person present instinctively covered their ears—but it was useless.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The impact was apocalyptic. The sound was deafening, like a meteor crashing down from the sky. The instant it landed, a colossal shockwave rippled outward, the earth-shattering boom shaking the entire district. Debris and dust erupted skyward, enveloping the entire area in a dense, suffocating cloud.
From above, it looked like a rain of shattered stone. "Everyone, evasive maneuvers!" Yomikawa Aiho shouted over the chaos.
A thunderous crack rolled across the battlefield. The reinforced glass of Anti-Skill's armored vehicles shattered instantly, shards raining down. Even the birds in the sky panicked, flapping wildly—some dropping mid-flight, stunned by the sheer pressure of the sound.
Every person's eardrums rang violently. Voices were lost amid the roar—they could only communicate through gestures now.
From afar, the scene was surreal. A calm, modern metropolis suddenly gave birth to a massive "mushroom cloud" of dust and debris. The rising smoke resembled a dragon awakening beneath the earth. The sound waves spread like invisible tsunamis, shaking the air itself as they radiated outward.
The overpass trembled, the ground quaked, and even the sky seemed to distort in response. Could something like this truly be wrought by human hands?
Gripping the railing tightly to steady herself, Kiyama Harumi stared at the newly arrived Selene, her exhausted body barely keeping upright. "So this is the power of the First-ranked Level 5... To think such brute strength could come from a human body... Truly, the strongest monster of them all."
ROOOOAR!!
Slammed hard into the earth and now beyond Selene's restraint, the Honkai Beast entered a berserk state, releasing a deafening roar.
Its helmet-like face split open, and within seconds, crimson-violet energy began to gather. With another ear-piercing screech, a massive beam of condensed energy—ten meters thick—shot skyward, searing through the air as it blasted straight toward Selene.
"Selene!" Misaka Mikoto's eyes widened in alarm as the blinding light filled her vision. She knew she couldn't withstand an attack of that magnitude. Her only hope was—
BOOM!!
The explosion roared—but Misaka felt no pain. As her eyes adjusted to the dazzling light, her jaw dropped.
Selene was standing firm, completely unharmed—her single armored hand effortlessly blocking the massive beam.
In front of her, a faint, invisible barrier shimmered. The monstrous beam had been entirely contained within that narrow half-meter of space between her palm and the energy's edge. Not a single trace of it leaked beyond, not even close enough to threaten the Honkai reactor behind her.
Standing behind Selene, watching the massive beam dissolve into a spray of particles, Misaka couldn't help but feel a strange sense of awe. "Selene... you're okay?"
"I'm fine. Just a minor nuisance. Now watch closely..." Selene's tone was calm, almost playful. After all, the beast's attack was nothing more than an energy wave—and such attacks could easily be absorbed.
"...This is how lightning is really used."
Before Misaka could even respond, Selene's left hand reached out—and tore the energy beam apart.
Zzzzt...!
In an instant, torrents of electricity enveloped Selene's body, wrapping her in a blazing aura of blue-white light. A massive lightning pillar erupted upward, piercing the clouds.
"You're—" Misaka's words caught in her throat. From her perspective, arcs of thunder-blue lightning poured off Selene's skin like liquid fire. Each spark burst through the air with a thunderclap that made her chest vibrate.
What stunned Misaka most was that Selene wasn't discharging the energy like she did—she was containing it, compressing it, locking it beneath her own skin. Every volt was being drawn inward, condensed into her right arm.
Within seconds, Selene's entire arm had turned into a radiant azure glow, shining brighter and brighter until it resembled molten crystal.
The scent of ozone filled the air.
"..."
Misaka could only gape speechlessly. Only a freak like her could pull that off, she thought in disbelief. Anyone else would've fried their own arm before they even got halfway.
"Watch closely!" Selene declared, sliding one foot back as the ground beneath her cracked with tension. The next moment, her figure vanished.
"Wait! I'm still—" Misaka Mikoto's warning came too late.
BOOM!
The instant Selene launched forward, the ground within a ten-meter radius exploded downward, spiderweb cracks spreading in every direction as soil and debris burst skyward.
THOOM!!
Sound couldn't even keep up with her movement. By the time Misaka reacted, a shockwave hit her square in the chest, throwing her off her feet and covering her in a rain of dirt and rubble.
In the blink of an eye, Selene had crossed over a hundred meters, appearing right before the Honkai Beast's forehead. The lightning coiled around her arm could no longer be contained—it erupted in a blinding sphere of crackling energy, aimed straight at the creature's head.
"Die."
Zzzzzttt...!
The blinding light expanded, engulfing the Honkai Beast's entire head in searing brilliance. For a brief second, the world went white.
Then the light compressed—
—and detonated.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion's roar drowned out everything. The shockwave that followed was even more terrifying than before, an unstoppable, divine fury that made the air itself scream.
As the thunder rolled, Shirai Kuroko and the others—still retreating from the battle zone—instinctively covered their ears. Even kilometers away, the sound rattled their bones.
Through the haze of dust and lightning, they saw it—a colossal beam of blue-white thunder piercing the heavens. For a moment, none of them could speak. Even Kiyama Harumi, who had been watching in disbelief, was utterly speechless. Only Kuroko's mouth twitched as she muttered under her breath, "I knew it... with Selene-senpai around, there's no way the collateral damage would be small."
Back on Misaka's side, the battlefield had changed completely. The once-unstoppable "Honkai Beast," whose thick armor and rapid regeneration had made it seemingly immortal, was now barely clinging to existence. Under Selene's overwhelming presence, it couldn't even draw energy from Imaginary Space to heal.
Still, its vitality was monstrous. Even with a third of its upper body annihilated, its remaining mass writhed and struggled to move.
"Oh? Still breathing?" Selene murmured coldly. "Then allow me to end this properly."
She raised a single finger toward the creature's half-destroyed form. A faint violet glow enveloped her fingertip, condensing into a tiny, perfectly spherical orb of crimson-purple light—barely two centimeters across.
"This ends now..."
"Wait!!!"