"Boom-!"
The deafening roar of swirling wind rang across the sky.
Tremors that shook the earth swept outward in waves.
For a moment, Mikoto Misaka and her companions, who had already joined up with ITEM and the Cross Church forces including Kanzaki Kaori, were all startled. They stopped moving and looked toward the source of the tremors.
A gigantic tornado suddenly rose from the distant disaster site, still shrouded in dust and smoke.
Biting gusts like white mist swept across the distance and struck them head-on, stinging the girls' faces.
But before they could understand whether this heralded a turn for the better or worse in the battle, the vast magic power following the tornado answered everything.
That distant, profound presence, through nothing more than the aftershocks reverberating across the sky and clouds, was enough to make everyone feel a terrifying pressure, as though someone had seized them by the throat.
Even Kanzaki Kaori, whose physical abilities already surpassed all Saints after training in magnetic field power, was no exception.
This was already a disparity beyond anything genetic instinct could describe.
Humans might compare their size to a planet, harbor desires toward the universe, and even try to describe beings above that through spiritual realms.
And that was the limit imposed by human comprehension.
Even if they truly encountered an existence beyond that,
apart from expressing the encounter through such strained concepts as their own sensations, the only thing these living beings could recognize was the fact that they were being suppressed in every respect. Nothing more.
Some swelling presence followed close behind the gale, invisibly brushing over everything in the city.
And almost the instant the girls felt that pressure, immense magic power and a faint divine radiance suddenly welled up inside their bodies, which had grown excited through