"----"
At this moment, everyone in Academy City who still retained consciousness felt a sense of oppression.
It drilled in from the surface of their skin, reaching deep into their organs, sparing not a single blood vessel—a pressure like sharp ice blades.
The source of that pressure was a terrifying aura.
Centered on a corner of the Seventh District, the dreadful aura surged in all directions like invisible waves.
The air shook.
The earth shook.
The sky shook.
The entire Academy City trembled as though it were shaking apart.
Even ordinary people completely unrelated to combat could feel that aura, breaking out in cold sweat as their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
At last, it was as though the world itself had begun to shake, the pressure continuously mounting.
And on a street in the Seventh District, the girl named Kazari Hiyuka began to change as well.
"..."
Like a broken doll, the trembling wariness in Kazari Hiyuka's eyes vanished completely.
In its place were unfocused pupils.
They grew increasingly vacant, as though even her consciousness had been devoured by an invisible beast.
"Zing----!"
The next second, Kazari Hiyuka's entire body erupted in a blinding flash.
Wherever that flash passed, everything was leveled.
Yes.
Leveled.
Silently, without the slightest sign, it was leveled.
Then, like thunder arriving a beat later than lightning, violent roars and shockwaves finally swept forth.
Standing atop Academy City's outer wall, Fang Li could see it all with perfect clarity.
At one corner of a street in the Seventh District, an intense radiance overflowed.
Within that radiance, countless wing-like objects emerged, stretching outward.
Those wings were sharp as blades and dazzling as light itself. Like enormous crystal peacock feathers, they varied in length—some only around ten meters, others over a hundred—as they spread freely through the air.
Yet