Xyrin Empire
Chapter 365 - Chapter 365 Chapter 365 Madness and Destruction

Chapter 365: Chapter 365: Madness and Destruction Chapter 365: Chapter 365: Madness and Destruction The worst-case scenario had finally happened.

The fate of the Sister Misakas had always been something we dared not mention in front of Visca, thinking that the whole plan had been dealt with by some “god of flirtation,” we hadn’t worried too much about it. Although Visca could be crazy at times, for the most part, she managed to restrain herself. But now it seemed that the damned plan was still ongoing?

Damn it, if only we had known earlier, we should have had Pandora thoroughly check the Academy City’s databases. If we had discovered this plan earlier, we might have been able to avoid this crisis!

Visca was born from a similar experiment, created to be an undying Xyrin Apostle with the ability to resurrect infinitely. She was made as a soul container for Pandora. However, due to the imperfection of the plan itself, tens of thousands of Pandora clones went berserk, killing each other until only one survived–the crazed Visca. It was this event that made Visca defect crazily to the Fallen Apostles’ side, and after hundreds of thousands, even millions of dark years, although she regained her sanity, the terrible memories of that time still haunted her heart. In particular, the Death Star Core, where the remnants of the clones drifted, woke the poor girl from nightmares countless times. If it weren’t for the warmth of her family gradually healing those severe wounds, the Visca who had regained her sanity would probably have become even crazier than before.

And what about the fate of the Sister Misakas?

Clones mass-produced to create stronger power users, produced continuously from incubation tanks at the push of a button, existing only to pave the way for some “strongest” being to ascend to godhood–their fate upon opening their eyes was to face certain death. Numerous blurred corpses, countless eyes that could not close, woven into a net of terror. If that had been resolved, all would be well, but if it was still happening, and Visca happened to find out about it, what would happen?

“Sis,” after several failed attempts to call Visca, I could only contact the research institute. “Is Visca at the research institute right now?”

“That girl left half an hour ago, said she was going to the shopping district to find you. What’s wrong?”

“The most severe situation!” When I heard that she had indeed come over, I almost cursed the damn luck that fate had dealt me. Why was it that what I feared always came to pass? Visca, who was usually such an obedient girl, why did she suddenly get the idea to run out? And it looked like she had most likely bumped into Sister Misaka by chance. Regardless of how she met her, the most crucial situation now was that she might have already come into contact with One-Way Street, who had come to “conduct the experiment”!

Besides, I couldn’t find any other reason for her unilateral communication block. Refusing my calls was something that Visca, in a normal state of mind, definitely would not do!

“Pandora, can you contact your sister?”

“Communication interrupted, search failed, she has left my detection zone.”

“Ah Jun,” Qianqian said to me with a serious expression just after I disconnected from the institute, “Shadow City just sent urgent information. An unknown recognizable unit bypassed our authentication system, attempting to summon the Imperial Fleet and three types of powerful weapons capable of causing racial extinction. Bubbles have already rejected such a request.”

I gasped, not expecting the situation to take such a sudden turn. Had Visca already entered a state of madness?

Without hesitation, I connected to the seldom-used highest command line of the Imperial Army and issued the same message to all Xyrin Military Units: “Attention all armed control units, effective immediately for the next two hours, any form of military movement is forbidden. All forces, weapons, and special units are to enter a state of semi-freeze, cease responding to any scheduling signals, and halt reinforcements. Except for Bubbles, all Xyrin Hosts are to enter data monitoring mode and intercept any unfamiliar signals in the data link!”

That wasn’t enough, simply stopping the general troops’ external response was probably still flawed. Visca was a clone of Pandora, and she definitely could disguise her identification signal as Pandora’s. I didn’t know if the frenzied Visca still had such wisdom, but as an Emperor forever plagued by tragedy, I knew that the probability of anything unfortunate happening to me was never zero. So, after some consideration, I still notified Sivis: “Effective immediately, I freeze all of Pandora’s military command authority with the power of the Emperor. Her loyal forces are now under your unified command. Without my orders, do not respond to any commands issued in the name of Pandora!”

“Your Majesty!?”

The moment after I issued my command, Sivis’s astonished call came through. The series of unfathomable orders he received suddenly left the cautious and loyal Imperial Officer somewhat at a loss, especially the last one. If left unexplained, it was practically declaring that Pandora had committed treason!

“Don’t panic, Pandora is fine… um, it’s a bit complicated. I don’t want Pandora to get hurt, understand?”

Even though I knew that those Imperial Officers would unconditionally execute all orders issued by their superiors without me having to say so, I ultimately chose to give such an equivocal explanation. Despite it being something that might as well not have been said, Sivis’s response carried a clear sigh of relief, as he briskly replied, “Yes, Your Majesty!”

But before I could breathe a sigh of relief, I promptly notified Vega to tighten the search for abnormal energy movements within Academy City. Suddenly, Sandora took over the super-space communication line, “Ah Jun, what’s going on? Just now, all the munitions factories inside Barrier Star started operating, and its super-space engine array seems to be charging up!”

“Damn it!!!”

This time I really cursed! Is there no living with this? We’ve just started, and that girl Visca is even going to use the Planet Fortress? Give human civilization some time to buff up, you crazy girl!

“Get Taville and all her technicians up there. We absolutely cannot let Barrier Star go out of control. Sandora, you keep a close eye on it. Turn off any weapon that Visca can control, immediately upon startup… Visca has gone berserk!”

“Ah Jun, we still can’t find Visca’s location,” my sister’s voice came through the wide-area spirit channel with twelve times the urgency, “Pandora herself has set out, but Visca has severed the psychic connection between them…”

“Hey! Director… uh, Uncle Director, what’s the matter? Why did you all suddenly look so serious just now?!”

Since our entire conversation had been on the mental level, to Misaka Mikoto, it seemed like our expressions had suddenly changed dramatically, and then we had all fallen into a bizarre silence.

Regarding the hesitation before settling on “Uncle” for the title, it might be best to pretend I didn’t hear it.

“Now there’s some good news and some bad news,” Qianqian said with a joking mood still intact despite the situation. “The good news is that One-Way Street is about to kick the bucket, so that experiment will soon stop. The bad news is… Academy City might go down with it.”

“Ah?”

Just as Misaka Mikoto uttered such a surprised exclamation, a distant explosion interrupted our conversation.

The runaway had begun to attack.

“That direction…” Qianqian, frowning, looked toward the source of the explosion, “seems to be quite distant from here. How come the battle has started over there?”

“We can’t worry about that now,” I said as I grabbed Qianqian’s hand while notifying Pandora to shield the area where the explosion occurred as best as possible with a barrier. “Vega’s quick-response Scorpion troops have already rushed over. Right now, we’d better figure out how to isolate that place from the surrounding areas, who knows if that crazy girl will bomb Academy City along with it.”

Meanwhile, in a remote undeveloped land, earth-shaking bombings were sweeping across the entire landscape.

“Run, insects! Hahaha! Run away!! The King of Doomsday is here!!”

Amid such mad shouts, a deluge of deep red laser beams cut through the ground like a torrential storm, with explosions shattering the earth over and over again. Hundreds of black-red floating cannons, looking like giant seeds, shuttled across the sky, relentlessly casting deadly beams down onto the terrain. In the midst of this bombardment, a seemingly frail boy was running desperately, with pale disheveled hair and murky red eyes. The strongest power user in Academy City, LEVEL5, who could freely control vectors – One-Way Street – was now fleeing in such a wretched state through this half-melted hell. And responsible for all this was the tiny figure laughing maniacally in the sky.

“Hahahaha!!! Resist! Resist, you maggot! Where’s your vector reflection? Where’s your strongest ability!? It’s failed, hasn’t it?! The magnificent 7535 commands you to resist, you fool!!”

“Boom!”

The massive explosion erupted less than two meters away from One-Way Street, followed by a series of increasingly larger scale explosions. Quantum bombs fell like rain, quickly submerging One-Way Street’s figure in rolling smoke, but the next second, the white-haired boy who should have been annihilated in such a lethal blast burst out of the thick smoke, his face twisted into a ferocious expression as he charged at the “girl” shrouded in black mist, bellowing hysterically, “Don’t underestimate me, you monster!!”

Visca’s face was filled with extreme excitement as she watched One-Way Street lightning-fast approaching. The girl’s eyes were now completely filled with the blood-red of Chaos, a thick blood-like substance twisted madly within them, as if blood demons struggling to break free from their cages. It was only when her enemy was less than three meters away that the mad girl suddenly pulled back her lips and shrieked excitedly, “Ha–human!! I will crush your flesh and bones!!”

The blood-red light screen expanded rapidly from the center of Visca, an ability-suppressing force field enveloped One-Way Street’s entire body without question. This was not the first time such a thing had happened. The interference instrument that had once been used to eradicate the “gods” of Atlantis could erase all superpowers mastered by humans from the level of the law. Deprived of the control over the vector of universal gravity, the white-haired boy had just enough time to curse softly before his body paused in the air, as if a rocket had run out of fuel, and then plummeted rapidly. But that wasn’t all. The more bizarre scene was reflected in One-Way Street’s widened pupils.

Amidst the grating, squeaking noise, just like when those eerie Floating Cannons appeared, the sky quickly filled with circles of ripples, but this time, what appeared were things even more terrifying than the cannons.

Nuclear silos, skies darkened with nuclear silos!

However, after a moment of panic, One-Way Street quickly calmed down. He suddenly realized that his situation was not as terrible as he had first imagined.

He was blinded by the opponent’s endless and nightmarish modes of attack. On closer inspection, it seemed that aside from that red light which could render his abilities ineffective, this “monster” didn’t possess many surprising methods of attack, and that kind of red light probably couldn’t take effect remotely…

Nuclear bombs, even if they were nuclear bombs, so what?

To One-Way Street, even nuclear bombs couldn’t harm him in the slightest. He was initially spooked by the sudden summoning of countless turrets by that brat, but after calming down, the white-haired boy suddenly felt like he still held the key to victory.

Although engaging the opponent in close combat would be suppressed by that red light screen, in long-range combat, on the other hand, the opponent couldn’t touch him at all.

Indeed, Visca had numerous ways to kill One-Way Street – a large-scale spatial deletion would only take three seconds to destroy some, and when even space itself vanishes, the “vectors” that exist only with space naturally couldn’t be discussed. However, Visca chose to bombard her opponent with a barrage of fire, a choice that was undoubtedly a bit foolish, but the current Visca was a mere wild beast, her wisdom in battle entirely replaced by a single-minded desire to destroy.

“Enough! Despicable humans, I’ve had enough of this boring game!”

With that suddenly calm voice, the sky-full of cannon bombardment suddenly stopped, One-Way Street looked up in astonishment, but the next second, the roaring that resounded across the sky caused his complexion to change drastically, even the confidence that had just surged was drowned out by extreme astonishment.

“Die! Die with all of humanity! Just like the foolish civilization of Atlantis, kneel, beg for mercy, and then turn to ashes!!”

The “nuclear” silos floating in the air trembled as they revealed their launch ports, the cap on top flowing with blood-like dark red light and then slowly opened, revealing the ferocious warheads inside.

“I will put an end to all of this!! I will destroy the entire ecosystem of your planet! Can’t you reflect attacks?! Then wait to starve to death after the entire Earth’s biosphere has been exterminated, you fool!! Fragile carbon-based life! Turn to dust before the might of 7535!”

“Zaccis-Drexint! Ghost Energy Radiation Bomb!”

Monster, madman, a madman!

To choose to extinguish global life to starve an individual to death as a method of killing just one person!? What kind of madness is this!!

One-Way Street, who is always called thus by others, was finally at a moment where he used such a term to describe someone else.

From the very beginning, I had questioned how Academy City could harbor such a freakishly powerful ability user, how humans could grasp such unfathomable things. Now everything became clear, pointing to an even more terrifying reality: I was facing a non-human force.

Though I represented the darkest aspects of Academy City, and had always seen myself as a demon incarnate, to be feared and hated by everyone, One-Way Street never thought there would actually come a day when I’d have to battle a demon.

How had I angered this demon masquerading as a human?

With the “nuclear bombs” ready to launch, set to reach every corner of the world, I, One-Way Street, found my mind unexpectedly clear.

“Tch… The clones are here again… Planning to challenge me head-on and then be swiftly killed by me?”

That’s what I said when I saw Sister Misaka standing in front of me, completely ignoring the little girl beside that clone, never imagining that the little brat I overlooked could be such a terrifying “thing.”

“You, take back what you just said, or else, death.”

I should have realized there was something off about her the moment I heard that sentence, but the habits I had developed over time led me to make a fatal mistake.

“If you don’t want to die, then get out of the way, or I’ll turn you and this useless clone into fragments!”

Then, without warning, she attacked.

After all, One-Way Street is just a student. No matter how strong or twisted he might be, facing a mad Imperial General as a mere student seemed completely absurd.

“Deploy the space interference net, for the Empire, to prevent the materialization of the launch shaft!!”

As One-Way Street’s mind was in utter chaos, awaiting humankind’s destruction because of me, a decisive woman’s voice suddenly rang out behind me.

Turning around in surprise, I didn’t see the expected security team or other reinforcement units from Academy City, but more… monsters.

Dozens of half-human, half-beast mechanical scorpions.

The upper bodies were images of beautiful women in revealing war armor resembling short tank tops, while the lower halves were bizarre black mechanical structures. The whole scene looked like a science fiction product of humans and scorpions crudely stitched together through surgery, these dozens of mecha creatures in two neat rows, each shoulder carrying something resembling a rocket launcher, all aiming at the “nuclear bombs” that were emerging more and more urgently from their silos up in the sky.

“Fire!”

“Boom, boom, boom,” a series of muffled sounds, dozens of bright white light balls shot out from the rocket launchers, then spread into massive nets in the sky. The silos covered by the nets wobbled like reflections in water, then slowly retreated back to their respective space rifts.

Thank God, the scorpions had arrived just in time to prevent Visca from causing even greater destruction. If they had come any later, all they could have done was punctuate human history with an exclamation mark.

“I don’t like long-range firepower,” Vega muttered sulkily, knocking her long knife in the air a couple of times, “Armored Scorpion is a fighter, not a gunner…”

(To be continued. If you want to know what happens next, please visit www.NovelFire.net. More chapters are available. Support the author, support genuine reading!)

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