This was an attack so sudden, so seamless, that even the signs of magical activation couldn't be felt.
Crack crack!!
Boom!
In the instant that icy voice sounded behind him, the horizontal movement spell activated. Golden light flashed, and as if blinking forward, Fiamma of the Right attempted to escape. But in the next second, space-time shuddered—he hadn't even moved more than a few meters before he crashed down hard, as if he had tripped and fallen face-first.
"Cough cough—argh... damn it. Horizontal movement spell disrupted... the surrounding space is sealed off, huh."
On the jagged steps, Fiamma of the Right couldn't calm himself.
From his pierced right arm to his ribs, chest, neck, and cheek, veins of Honkai erosion were crawling across his body. And with them came a searing, violent pain.
"Aaaaahhhhhhh!!"
It felt as though his joints were being forcibly dislocated and snapped, his muscles pulled out and stretched like violin strings.
The wound from the subspace lance was bizarre—not only did it not bleed, but instead, a thick, invisible liquid seemed to be seeping into his body through the injury.
"My, my... how unsightly, Savior. The herald of a new era."
"Urgh... aaaargh... ha—!"
Turning toward the voice, Fiamma of the Right's bloodshot eyes locked onto the figure atop the high platform. That perfectly symmetrical face only enraged him further. The pain had ignited his brutality; malice swelled within, his desire to destroy overflowing.
The more beautiful the heretical being, the greater its sin and blasphemy—as the Savior of the Roman Catholic Church, it was his duty to annihilate her!
"Heh heh heh heh... HAHAHAHAHA! That was close! So you're the strongest on the science side? What a disappointment. You can't even manage a surprise attack properly."
"You should've cut off my head... or maybe severed my right arm."
Leaning forward, trembling violently like an epileptic from the pain, Fiamma of the Right let out a manic laugh. Under his disheveled, flame-red bangs, his eyes gleamed with mad frenzy.
"Now... it's my turn!"
With a sidelong glance, he looked at the "third hand" protruding from his right shoulder.
It was soaked in blood and gleamed with a twisted light—a hand that jutted from his shoulder like a dragon's claw or a demon's hand. It radiated arcane mystery and miracles, the air around its shriveled, sharp fingers warping like stirred syrup.
As long as the "Holy Right" remained, he was invincible!
"I'll kill you, Selene! Wail like a beaten dog! This is—the power of God!!"
With a bloodthirsty grin splitting his lips, Fiamma of the Right swung his "third hand" toward Selene. Just like always—with this motion, all foes before him would be obliterated.
And then...
The stratospheric winds howled overhead.
Nothing happened.
"Impossible?!!"
His crazed expression froze in place. He instinctively raised his head, only to see Selene's crimson, rhomboid eyes brimming with unhidden mockery and contempt.
"I think you're mistaken about one thing."
Bathed in scattered magical light, Selene descended the steps with elegant grace. "A new era? Hm, you're half right. But let me correct you—it's not your new era."
"It's my new era."
Thump thump~
Each step she took felt like a hammer blow pounding Fiamma's body. For kilometers around, the land was ripped apart by violet-red energy tides. The entire region caved inward, sending rubble flying and dust billowing.
Rippp—!
Massive rifts tore through the barriers of reality. Blinding white light burst forth, cloaking the entire "Star of Bethlehem" fortress in a veil of Honkai.
Crack crack!
Feather-like sources of light drifted from the sky. One after another, colossal angelic knights clad in gleaming silver-white heavy armor appeared above the fortress amid violent spatial tremors!
With just a flick of Selene's hand, shattered rubble exploded in all directions. The Roman Catholic Church's punitive force, which had just gained the upper hand, was instantly reversed—from hunters to prey.
In the sky, the archangel Gabriel, who had been wantonly slaughtering Academy City's armed forces and attacking the Lv5s, was suddenly besieged by hundreds, even thousands, of giant angelic knights within mere seconds.
"No... impossible, I can't do it. Even though I possess the same world-saving power as the 'Son of God'... yet I can't save it... gack—!"
Fiamma of the Right hadn't even finished his muttering when his pale lips suddenly split apart. His whole body spun through the air, smashing headfirst into the wall, blood splattering everywhere.
"Pwah..."
His face embedded in stone, Fiamma of the Right slid down the wall, spitting out broken, bloodied teeth. Miserable as it looked, the agony had oddly cleared the fog from his mind, which was so often clouded by pride and fury.
He tightened his grip on the cylindrical metal ingot in his left hand.
Buzz—!
Radiating with light, the object was the John's Pen Remote Control.
"Warning: Chapter 4, Section 6... confirmed: user life-force depletion beyond threshold. Foreign power detected. Commencing threat removal protocol for all entities endangering user safety."
The garbled, staticky voice of the little nun played like a scratched tape.
Boom!
With a gust of force, the girl in a white habit sprouted dark red wings from her back, shielding Fiamma of the Right.
Rather than flame, the wings looked like they were dyed in blood. Her pupils flickered with complex magical arrays as she locked onto Selene, who stood poised atop the platform, one arm behind her back, issuing a simple pointing gesture.
"Warning: Chapter 22, Section 1. Designation: 'My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me' — two seconds until full activation."
BOOM!
Crimson flashes burst outward.
"I haven't lost control of my body... my magic hasn't been destroyed... the 'Holy Right' still resides in my hand..."
Fiamma of the Right muttered to himself, then turned his gaze toward the subspace lance that had pierced through his shoulder.
"It's that...!"
"Oh? Finally noticed? But it's too late."
Splurt!
With a rush of air, the dark golden lance tore through the sky. The floating little nun in white was suddenly slammed backward as if struck by a mountain. A long arc of blood sprayed out as she crashed through several clustered fortifications, demolishing a chapel before falling silent beneath its rubble.
The searing, numbing sensation creeping up his neck left Fiamma powerless. His consciousness was fading, and he could no longer control his body.
Crack!
With unnervingly precise gravitational control, Selene pried open Fiamma's fingers, one by one, releasing his grip on the metal ingot.
"You've become far too dependent on the 'Holy Right', Fiamma of the Right."
"Why would I cut off your head or your right arm? They're my property. Not just them—your entire body belongs to me."
Taking the John's Pen Remote Control, Selene parted her lips and exhaled softly. Yet the gentle voice that followed sent a chill down Fiamma's spine.
"Your arrogance and pride surpass even mine. Aside from the 'Holy Right', your flaws are all too glaring."
Fiamma of the Right—oh, how powerful that 'Holy Right' was. Even after scouring the minds of countless cardinals within the Roman Catholic Church, Selene couldn't deny the praise for that divine limb: formidable, truly formidable.
Except when facing Imagine Breaker, which causes an indeterminate response, the "Holy Right" automatically adjusts its power to a level sufficient to defeat any opponent.
As long as the opponent was weaker than Fiamma of the Right, they would inevitably be defeated. All technique, skill, or strategy was meaningless before him. It ignored distance, needed no speed, and required no amplification—a single swing would always connect, and always destroy.
Like an unbeatable hand in rock-paper-scissors, as long as he swung that hand, Fiamma won. Victory was always delivered in a single strike.
As for whether Selene's split-avatar form was within the upper limit of the Holy Right's adjustment capacity—truthfully, she didn't know. Nor did she care to find out.
Because she'd taken the back door—a different path entirely.
She wasn't some musclehead. Why clash head-on?
The Holy Right was extremely unstable and would disintegrate midair if maintained too long. Most of the time, Fiamma of the Right was merely swinging it without control. Mastering its power, overcoming its usage limits, and unleashing its full potential? He was far from it.
This was why Fiamma needed Index's knowledge and relied on the power of Imagine Breaker.
Put another way: Theresa was the Judas launcher; Fiamma of the Right was just the Holy Right launcher.
Once he lost his right hand, Fiamma was practically crippled. That was Aleister's view—in the original timeline, Aleister neutralized Fiamma by severing his right arm.
To be safe, Selene had hidden herself for a long while, watching from the shadows. She had waited for that precise moment—the instant Fiamma deployed the Holy Right.
No matter how vast its upper limit, the power Fiamma himself could actually output was limited.
Selene had accounted for all constraints: number of uses, recognition thresholds. With Fiamma targeting Kamijou Touma, the uncertainty caused by Imagine Breaker gave her the perfect chance to strike the moment he swung the Holy Right.
And thus—he ended up like this.
In addition to physical measures preventing the Holy Right from unleashing its power, Selene added a safety layer: Honkai Energy corrosion, especially concentrated around his neck. She violently severed his central nervous control between brain and body—top from bottom.
"This power only resides in your right hand. It was never truly yours. Your strength is borrowed."
She gripped his throat with one hand, slowly lifting his reed-thin body into the air. With a squeeze, his bloodshot eyes bulged wide. He glared at Selene, but couldn't utter a single word.
"...."
"The more you struggle, the faster the corrosion spreads, doesn't it, Mr. Fiamma? There's a new guest in your body. As the host, shouldn't you be more welcoming?"
Expression calm, her crimson eyes like a still lake, Selene delivered Fiamma's sentence as casually as one would drink water.
As the leader of God's Right Seat, the host of the Holy Right, the heaven-chosen genius among two billion Roman Catholic followers, Fiamma's talent and potential were unquestionable.
Otherwise, the Holy Right—containing all miracles from Christian legend—wouldn't have chosen him.
Even after Aleister's surprise attack, he survived with heavy injuries. After losing his right hand, he rapidly learned techniques like fairyification, rebounded from adversity, rose again as one of the strongest humans below Magic God level. He even refined fairyification and caused serious trouble for Magic God Othinus.
Unfortunately... all that was after.
Without having received a corrective punch from Kamijou Touma, the current Fiamma of the Right, holder of the Holy Right, remained the same madman who prioritized his own agenda, full of arrogance, believing everything was within his grasp.
Selene had no interest in giving him moral correction.
"Tsss..."
A splitting headache.
Whatever Selene said next, Fiamma of the Right was no longer able to respond. It felt like something sharp was proliferating inside every cell of his body. The energy particles that had entered his bloodstream devoured him entirely in an instant.
Pop.
A sound like a balloon being crushed rang in his ears. His eyes overflowed with a liquid that wasn't quite tears—a rusty red substance, darker and more turbid than blood.
Then, in the haze of fading consciousness, he saw a strange magician.
Why is someone else present in my mind?
Long silver hair brushing the ankles. A composed face betraying no emotion. Barefoot in a boundless void of violet-flecked darkness, clad only in a green surgical gown.
The atmosphere was bizarre—man or woman, child or adult, saint or sinner—all blended into one.
Fiamma of the Right knew this magician.
"...Academy City's Board Chairman... Aleister Crowley..."
Dazed, the violet-red erosion force invading his thoughts coiled around him. What awaited was an abyssal blackness, utter silence.
"As expected. Only by emerging from the vessel can true awareness be attained. What an intriguing sensation. So this is Selene's authority—a power that can be shared, a power that belongs wholly to oneself, absolute command over all that one possesses."
Aleister flexed his fingers, seemingly testing the composition of his current state, muttering to himself.
...
"...???????..."
Suspended midair, completely descending into incoherent babble, Fiamma of the Right began a verbal meltdown. His mouth unleashed such a barrage of slurred, erratic speech that even Selene was quietly impressed.
"The severed right hand..."
First, she used the John's Pen Remote Control to command Index into a repair standby state. Then Selene retrieved a severed arm from the surrounding wreckage.
"I doubt Kamijou-kun needs it reattached. He can just grow another one."
"And now... are you two planning to do the same as me? Sit back and enjoy the show? Interested in the future of this new era too?"
Tossing the bloodied arm back and forth with an eerie calm, Selene cast a sidelong glance toward a section of cloud beyond the fortress wall.
Tilting her head, the golden rhomboid cross-ring in her crimson pupils contracted slightly.
"Still not coming out?"
BZZZZT—!
RUMBLE RUMBLE—!!
An enormous bolt of lightning burst out of the clouds, trumpeting the wrath of a thunder god. In a flash, a thunderstorm spanning over a hundred kilometers erupted!
At that moment, the 40-kilometer-wide "Star of Bethlehem" fortress looked like a tiny leaf drifting in a sea of thunder. Everywhere the eye could see was covered in crisscrossing bolts of lightning. The vast radiance threatened to tear open the heavens, penetrating even space-time itself!
"Did you do that?" asked Mugino Shizuri, mouth agape as she lowered the diffuse support semiconductor she was holding. Her wide eyes turned toward the chestnut-haired girl beside her.
"Huh?"
Catching on a beat late, Misaka Mikoto blinked and raised her hands.
I did that?
She had been furious—furious that her fellow soldiers from Academy City had been killed by the archangel Gabriel. She had done her best to draw lightning from the clouds above, but... am I really that strong?
Why didn't I know that myself?
Clap clap!
Applause echoed from beyond the wall. Amid the thunder, Selene clearly picked it out.
"Hahaha... such a powerful assault. Young people these days truly humble us elders... Though, I must say, the lady's temper is a bit too fiery."
Two figures stepped forth from the thunderclouds—a man and a woman—and landed upon the fortress.
Selene was not surprised. She turned.
"Aleister! Are you done yet? Guests have arrived!"
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