"Come on." Rhode proudly raised his head, looking down at the disheveled Accelerator, a playful arc gracing his lips.
"Ah, right, if you can Awaken the 'Black Wing' state in the upcoming battle… I'll be merciful and spare your life."
These contemptuous words, like a death sentence announcement, completely ignited Accelerator's remaining fury.
"Bastard—!!!" Accelerator's eyes were bloodshot, his teeth almost grinding to dust, the fear that had just sprouted in his heart instantly replaced by raging anger.
What Black Wing? What sparing his life? This condescending, charitable attitude was the greatest insult to his title of "Strongest"!
"Die!" Accelerator roared, the airflow around him instantly twisting and compressing! Several visible shockwaves tore through the air, like invisible siege cannons, shooting towards Rhode in the sky with deafening shrieks!
However, Rhode merely narrowed his eyes slightly, casually making a cutting motion in front of him with his fingertip.
"Disperse."
Several sharp, invisible slashes appeared out of nowhere, as if they could cut through space itself!
They arrived later but struck first, precisely colliding with those violent compressed air cannons—
Rip—!
Like a hot blade cutting through butter, the compressed air cannons, capable of pulverizing steel, were easily torn apart and annihilated by these strange slashes, without even creating a ripple!
"What?!" Accelerator's pupils constricted, and before he could comprehend this scene, an irresistible immense force enveloped his face!
Rhode's figure flashed like a ghost in front of Accelerator, his large hand descending, fingers gripping his face like iron tongs!
"Ugh ah!" Accelerator felt his vision go black, the world spinning!
He was flung into the higher night sky by Rhode with terrifying force, like a stone projectile launched from a catapult, amidst the piercing sound of rushing air!
"Is that… Accelerator!?" In the distance, Frenda, who had been holding binoculars, shrieked.
Mugino Shizuri, Kinuhata Saiai, and Takitsubo Rikou all looked up at the sound, only to see a white-haired figure uncontrollably tumbling towards the sky under the bright moonlight—it was Academy City's pinnacle, Accelerator!
"What the Hell!" Kinuhata Saiai was the most horrified, her voice changing pitch,
"That's the First Ranked Accelerator!? His 'Vector Manipulation'… why isn't it working!?"
Her mind was in chaos; her own "Nitrogen Armor" was based on an optimized transplantation of Accelerator's calculation model's defensive components.
If even Accelerator himself could be touched and thrown so easily… then her own defenses would be like thin paper in front of Rhode, completely useless?
"Tch," Mugino Shizuri scoffed, but her eyes gleamed with fanaticism, "Don't be so surprised! Lord Rhode is naturally the strongest!"
"Mugino," the usually calm Takitsubo Rikou's voice held a subtle tremor, "The energy reaction… is too terrifying. We'd better evacuate immediately; this place is about to become a true Hell!"
Mugino Shizuri fell silent for a moment, her gaze sweeping over the two figures confronting each other in the distance, and the collapsing district.
She uncharacteristically didn't argue, decisively waving her hand.
"Get in the car! Leave the Seventeenth School District!" It was this wise decision that allowed them to narrowly escape the coming storm of destruction.
"Is this all you've got!? First Ranked—!!!" Rhode's mocking shout thundered like a lightning strike!
His figure flickered, instantly breaking the sound barrier, leaving an invisible trail of air currents in the sky, catching up to the flung Accelerator at an even faster speed!
"You beast ahhh!!!" Accelerator's eyes were crimson, his sanity almost burned away by fury!
He forcibly controlled the turbulent airflow to stabilize himself, and facing Rhode, who was attacking like a meteor, he stacked all his vectors onto his right fist, meeting the blow head-on with kinetic energy capable of collapsing mountains!
Boom—!!!
Two fists, imbued with utterly different yet world-destroying powers, collided violently in the air!
At that moment, time seemed to freeze!
Immediately after, a terrifying, visible circular airwave, mixed with a shockwave, exploded violently!
Like a nuclear blast's shockwave, it instantly blew away and evaporated the thick cloud layers within several kilometers!
The remaining building glass below shrieked in despair as if struck by a giant hammer, simultaneously shattering into billions of glittering shards of deadly rain!
At the center of the airwave, Rhode stood motionless, the mocking curve of his lips deepening.
Accelerator, however, grunted, a bone-cracking pain shooting through his entire right arm, his body uncontrollably thrown backward by the overwhelming force!
A cold light flashed in Rhode's eyes, and his figure plummeted!
He casually swung a hand-blade, an invisible arc flashed, and a nearly hundred-meter-tall skyscraper was silently cut in half at its waist!
The massive upper half of the building emitted a grating metallic screech as it began to tilt and fall!
Rhode kicked in mid-air, like kicking a pebble, fiercely striking the severed half of the building!
Whoosh—!!!
The colossal object, carrying destructive wind pressure, transformed into a 'meteor,' whistling down towards the backward-flying Accelerator! Its sky-obscuring shadow instantly enveloped him!
"Ahhh!!!" Accelerator let out a beastly roar, forcibly stopping his retreat!
Accelerator plunged his single hand into the half-building smashing towards him, activating his terrifying Vector Manipulation at full power!
"Get back—to me!!!"
Accompanied by his hysterical roar, the half-building, carrying immense power, was actually twisted in direction by Accelerator, smashing back towards Rhode with even more ferocity!
At the same time, Accelerator frantically waved both hands! The air was compressed to the extreme, and countless air cannons, thicker and swifter than before, like a dense swarm of bees, sealed off all of Rhode's dodging space, overwhelmingly blasting towards him!
Facing this deadly counterattack, Rhode's figure was like a willow catkin in the wind, lightly weaving through the hail of attacks!
Every dodge and maneuver was executed with perfect precision, accurately avoiding every deadly air cannon, the Chi Hong Curse Power faintly visible on his body.
His dodging trajectory seemed to have already predicted the landing points of all attacks!
Boom boom boom boom boom—!!!
The missed air cannons struck the ground like heavy hammers, each explosion raising dirt waves tens of meters high!
The already dilapidated district was completely pulverized by this indiscriminate bombing!
In a short moment, within several thousand meters, nothing remained intact, only a scorched earth of doomsday, burning with flames and thick smoke!
A furious storm gathered and roared around Accelerator, forming four gigantic, tornado-like wind wings behind him!
These wind wings granted Accelerator aerial maneuverability beyond limits, transforming him into a demon god wielding the storm!
"Damn monster! Where did you even come from?!" Accelerator hovered in the eye of the storm, letting out an unwilling roar towards the figure below, who was strolling as if in a leisurely garden.
Why? Why were all his attacks ineffective? Why could he touch him? What was that strange power that so easily cut through his compressed cannons and ignored his vector defenses?!
"Hahahahaha!" Rhode's wildly arrogant laughter pierced through the roar of explosions, clearly reaching Accelerator's ears, every syllable carrying extreme mockery,
"Angry? It seems you've finally realized you're nothing but a frog in a well? Your laughable 'strongest' is merely a self-proclaimed plaything in this false city!"
Before his words finished, Rhode's figure vanished as if teleporting!
A warning sign blared in Accelerator's heart, and his wind wings spun rapidly! But it was too late!
A large hand entwined with Chi Hong Curse Power, ignoring the violent vector field around him, easily gripped Accelerator's arm as if passing through a thin mist!
"Got you." Rhode's cold voice sounded behind him.
The next instant, the world spun!
Accelerator felt like a rag doll, violently swung by an irresistible immense force! Rhode, holding his arm, swung him like a human heavy hammer, smashing him violently into the dense cluster of buildings below!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each impact was accompanied by the collapse of buildings and the groaning of Accelerator's bones!
Steel rebar and concrete sparked against his body, rubble and dust engulfing him! Accelerator tried to manipulate vectors to counterattack, but the strange energy remaining on the arm that had just been gripped was like a maggot in the bone, carrying an incomprehensible, unanalyzable strange characteristic, firmly suppressing his proud computational power!
Each impact was not just a physical shock; that dark power also pierced his body and mind like a poisonous needle, bringing a pain that felt like his Soul was being torn apart!
"What a joke… The strongest? I am the strongest! AAAAHHH!!!" The ultimate humiliation and intense pain drove Accelerator completely insane! He no longer tried to break free from Rhode, but instead poured all his strength, all his anger, all his unwillingness, into controlling the flow of the atmosphere!
Centered around Accelerator, an unprecedented giant vortex began to form!
The fierce winds shrieked like wailing ghosts and howling gods, and a terrifying suction instantly uprooted everything on the ground—whether burning cars, broken rebar, or entire ruined buildings—and swept them into it! The vortex rapidly expanded, transforming in an instant into a world-ending tornado, thousands of meters in diameter, connecting heaven and earth!
The roar of the storm echoed throughout the Seventeenth School District! This was no longer human power, but the personification of a natural disaster! If it continued, this area would be completely wiped off the map within minutes!
Misaka Mikoto, desperately fleeing with a Misaka Sister, felt the world-destroying suction behind her and couldn't help but look back. When she saw the terrifying tornado swallowing the heavens and earth, she was struck as if by lightning, frozen in place.
That apocalyptic scene filled her heart with unprecedented fear—not just fear of the tornado itself, but also worry for the figure caught in the center of the storm!
"You have to come back, old man! I still don't know your name!" Misaka Mikoto bit her silver teeth, forcing back the tears that were almost spilling out, and looked at the still vacant and lifeless eyes of the Misaka Sister beside her. She suddenly bent down, carried her sister on her back, and, using all her strength, ran for her life in the opposite direction of the storm!
In the center of the storm, Accelerator watched Rhode's figure instantly swallowed by the violent airflow, powerful enough to tear apart an entire city, and a twisted, gleeful sneer finally appeared on his face.
"Serves you right! Scum! Be torn to pieces!!!"
However, his wild laughter lasted only for an instant.
A dark, massive arc of light, as if capable of severing light itself, suddenly flared up without warning from the core of the storm, from the exact spot where Rhode had disappeared!
"Dismantle."
A cold voice pierced through the howling wind, clear and distinct.
The dark arc of light extended forward silently, and wherever it passed, the violently rotating wind wall was smoothly cut open like fragile cloth! The tornado was split in two from its core!
The arc of light continued its momentum, like the scythe of the Grim Reaper, fiercely striking the earth!
Crack—Boom!!!
A massive rift valley, dozens of meters wide and unfathomably deep, instantly tore open in the earth, accompanied by a deafening cracking sound!
It stretched for tens of kilometers, like an ugly scar, fiercely splitting the Seventeenth School District! The edges of the abyss were neatly cut rock layers and building foundations!
Accelerator's laughter abruptly ceased, as if an invisible hand had clutched his throat. The sinister smile on his face completely froze, leaving only extreme bewilderment and… a deeper trace of fear.
Accelerator subconsciously manipulated the airflow, sweeping up the few remaining relatively intact tall buildings nearby, and, like throwing giant spears, hurled them with whistling air-splitting sounds at Rhode, who had just emerged from the remnants of the storm!
"Be buried!"
Several hundred-meter-tall buildings blotted out the sky, seemingly about to completely bury Rhode!
Rhode simply raised his hand calmly, fingers spread, facing the incoming cluster of tall buildings.
"Hachi."
This time, the invisible slash was not a single one, but instantly wove into a giant, dark grid!
The grid flashed and disappeared.
Hum—
Time seemed to pause for an instant.
The next moment, those several imposing hundred-meter-tall buildings, along with the solidified steel and concrete inside them, instantly transformed into countless cubic fragments, each with perfectly smooth cut surfaces and sides less than a meter long! As if precisely scanned by an invisible laser!
With a thunderous roar, billions of cubic fragments, like a collapsing mountain of building blocks, poured down towards the ground, forming a spectacular waterfall of debris!
Accelerator was completely stunned. This attack method, which completely defied the Law of physics, this strange power that ignored all defenses… What exactly was it?!
Just as his mind faltered, a large face, with a reckless and uninhibited smile, abruptly filled his entire field of vision!
Rhode was already within arm's reach!
Bang!!!
A heavy punch, wrapped in Chi Hong Curse Power, landed squarely on Accelerator's abdomen!
"Pffft—!" Accelerator's eyeballs bulged, and a mouthful of blood mixed with organ fragments sprayed out! His body, as if hit head-on by a high-speed train, turned into a blurry white shadow and slammed violently into a not-yet-fully-collapsed building behind him!
Rumble!
A series of loud crashes as walls were pierced through! Accelerator felt like an armor-piercing shell, ploughing a path through the jungle of reinforced concrete. The violent vibrations and bone-deep pain left his brain blank, and all his calculations, all his Vector Manipulation, came to a halt.
He was dazed.
His body was embedded in a broken wall, large patches of blood quickly spreading across his white clothes. Intense dizziness and nausea continuously assaulted his consciousness.
'Why… is the gap so vast…' A desperate thought uncontrollably emerged. The belief in being "the strongest" that had always supported him began to crumble inch by inch in the face of this overwhelming, incomprehensible power.
His proud "Vector Manipulation" seemed to have become a clumsy joke in front of that dark, unanalyzable, strange Chi Hong energy.
His vacant eyes reflected the terrifying figure that was stepping through the ruins and dust, approaching him step by step.
A large hand, wrapped in Chi Hong Curse Power, as if cast from refined steel, suddenly pressed down on Accelerator's head!
"The game isn't over yet, 'First Rank'." Rhode's voice was like the cold wind of Hell.
The next moment, their figures transformed into a blurry streak of light, plummeting vertically from the upper floors of the building towards the ground!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Like a human pile driver! Rhode, pressing Accelerator's head, broke through layer after layer of thick concrete floor slabs with irresistible force!
Debris, rebar, and dust sprayed out like an explosion! Each impact brought a dull thud and the subtle sound of Accelerator's bones shattering!
The terrifying acceleration and suffocating pressure made Accelerator completely lose the ability to think, leaving only pure, near-death fear!
Finally!
Thud————!!!
An extremely dull thud! The two had pierced through the entire building, slamming violently onto the ground of the lowest level! Dust rose like a mushroom cloud!
The dust slowly dissipated.
Accelerator lay sprawled like a broken doll in the center of the huge crater, painfully curled up, his hands clutching his seemingly mangled abdomen. Blood continuously gushed from his mouth like a spring, winding across the ground. Every breath brought a heart-wrenching pain.
The almost blindingly bright moonlight, unimpeded, pierced through the completely dispersed clouds, like a spotlight on a stage, precisely casting into the deep pit, clearly etching Rhode's figure, standing like a Demon God, into Accelerator's blurry vision.
Fear!
Boundless, bone-deep fear, like a cold tide, instantly submerged his consciousness, making him tremble uncontrollably!
"Tsk, the moon is really bright." Rhode, bathed in the cool moonlight, looked down at the "strongest" who was like a puddle of mud at the bottom of the pit, his voice filled with biting mockery, "Thanks to it, I can clearly appreciate your current, utterly disgraceful and pathetic appearance."
The moonlight clearly illuminated Accelerator's face, stained with blood and dust, and his eyes, diffused with extreme fear and dilated pupils.
Rhode stepped forward, roughly grabbing Accelerator's collar as if picking up a chick to be slaughtered, and lifted the limp body off the ground. He leaned close to Accelerator's ear, whispering in a chilling, Yin and Yang tone,
"Come on, ganbare ganbare~ (Go, go) Until I get tired of playing…" Rhode's smile looked exceptionally cruel in the moonlight, "I'll keep 'playing' with you."
"Ugh… ugh…" Accelerator's throat emitted incomprehensible gurgling sounds.
His pupils, dilated with fear, gradually lost their last light, becoming hollow and dead, under the continuous assault of Rhode's demonic whisper and the strange power that constantly corroded his body and mind.
His brain… was trembling!