"Spatial mastery... So that's how it is. You haven't just mastered point-to-point teleportation? You placed your actual physical body in another spatial dimension, which is why my slash only tore your clothes..."
Kanzaki Kaori looked solemnly at the boy walking casually toward her.
'A Level 5 in Academy City is advertised to the Magic Side as being comparable to a Saint who hasn't activated their Stigmata, and that assessment is certainly true,' Kanzaki thought, her grip tightening on her sword. 'I haven't felt this kind of oppressive, suffocating atmosphere in a long time.'
'Moreover, this boy definitely has more than just spatial abilities. It was absolutely not a spatial ability that so effortlessly crushed Stiyl.'
She never underestimated the Level 5s of Academy City. After all, they were the ultimate pinnacle of the Science Side's military might. If she and Stiyl still wanted to take Index away, they would have to fight him to the bitter end.
However, if a full-scale battle broke out involving a Saint, this entire district would surely be reduced to ruins, and she and Stiyl would trigger a massive international incident. The fact that a Saint from the Magic Side and a Level 5 from Academy City were openly fighting inside the Science headquarters was a highly dangerous political spark.
'We can't afford a drawn-out fight. I have to grab Stiyl and retreat,' Kanzaki decided, her eyes darting past Yuuya to Index, who was standing safely in the distance. She took a deep breath.
"Where are you looking? You dare to be distracted while fighting me?" Yuuya's voice suddenly cut through her thoughts. "Don't you take me seriously? You just struck me, and now I'm going to get my revenge."
As Yuuya spoke, he activated his Spatial Movement and instantly teleported directly in front of Kanzaki. Her body suddenly tensed, and she instinctively swung the massive Nodachi in her hands.
Whoosh! In a fraction of a second, Kanzaki's right hand inexplicably became a blur as she executed her signature technique.
Nanasen (Seven Flashes).
With a deafening boom accompanied by howling wind, seven invisible, razor-sharp wires hurtled toward him at a terrifying speed. It looked like the illusion of giant vacuum blades shooting in from all directions, creating a localized, shredding tornado.
Centered on Yuuya, the asphalt pavement, steel streetlights, and evenly spaced roadside trees were violently ripped apart as if hit by a high-pressure industrial water jet. Fist-sized chunks of asphalt flew into the air. Yuuya's white coat instantly developed dozens of cuts of varying sizes, exposing his skin.
Yet, despite such a dense, supersonic barrage of lethal attacks, Yuuya didn't lose a single hair. His Vector Manipulation flawlessly redirected the kinetic force of the wires.
Yuuya grinned, completely unconcerned by the onslaught. He simply stretched out his hand, clenched his fist, and threw a light, seemingly casual punch toward Kanzaki.
To an ordinary person watching, this punch would seem slow and feeble. But Kanzaki's superhuman muscles instantly pulled taut, every combat instinct screaming as if she were facing the lethal claw of an impossibly terrifying monster.
'The punch looks so weak... but I can't react in time... let alone dodge it!' Kanzaki thought in sheer alarm. She desperately crossed her arms and the flat of her blade in front of her chest to block the blow.
THUD!
With a sickening, muffled impact, Kanzaki felt as if she had just been struck head-on by a speeding bullet train without any warning.
BOOM—!
Kanzaki was launched into the sky like a fired cannonball, moving so fast she left only a blur in the air.
"Ugh...!" Kanzaki groaned mid-air, feeling her internal organs trembling violently from the sheer, immense kinetic force transferring through her body.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Stiyl's pupils trembled in absolute horror from where he lay bleeding on the ground. The breath caught in his throat, and a cold chill ran down his spine. He had actually sent Kanzaki flying with a single punch.
Kanzaki was a Saint! She was one of fewer than twenty such god-like beings in the entire world, yet she was still casually swatted away even with her guard fully up.
"Impressive. Her body looks so delicate, yet she took a 25-ton punch head-on and didn't suffer any critical damage," Yuuya muttered excitedly. He knew that Kanzaki's Saintly constitution would leave her relatively unharmed, which was exactly why he had pushed his enhanced physical strength to such an absurd limit.
When Kanzaki actively tapped into her Stigmata, she gained speed that entered the realm of the divine, easily breaking the sound barrier to dodge subsonic bullets. She could execute her Nanasen slashes in a mere one-hundredth of a second. Her body was extremely durable; even with only bare-minimum protective spells, she could smash through reinforced concrete walls at supersonic speeds without a scratch. She possessed the raw vitality to survive a direct battle against an Archangel wielding a fraction of its true power.
Even without fully activating her Stigmata, shrugging off 25 tons of kinetic force was just her normal baseline durability. The baseline state of a Saint meant their physical bodies were already at the absolute evolutionary pinnacle of human strength.
Yuuya teleported instantly, appearing directly in the air above the airborne Kanzaki. He clenched his fist tightly and threw a devastating downward punch.
"Take this!"
Kanzaki reacted with blinding speed this time. Gritting her teeth, she swung her Nodachi upward, blocking the strike with the flat of the heavy blade above her head.
CLANG!
A terrifying shockwave of pure kinetic impact exploded from the clash.
'Such immense power!' Kanzaki's expression changed drastically. The resulting sonic boom shattered the air, generating a shockwave far beyond the low-frequency range that ordinary human ears could tolerate. She was being driven straight down into the earth at atmospheric-breaking speeds.
BOOM—!
Like a meteorite striking the city, she crashed into the already broken street. The impact sent up a massive cloud of pulverized rock and soil, carving out a fresh crater five meters in diameter and three meters deep.
As the dust settled, Kanzaki was seen kneeling on one knee in the center of the deep pit. Her hands gripped the hilt of her longsword to support her weight, a single bead of sweat rolling down her cold, beautiful face.
'Such immense physical strength...!' Kanzaki thought, her arms aching. 'This is the kind of ability possessed only by those legendary martial artists in the Eastern nations—those who specialize entirely in physical body refinement and unlocking human potential without ever learning magic.'
She had once fought alongside such individuals in the East. Those martial artists possessed no mana, yet they could wrestle lions and shatter boulders simply by mastering every single inch of their body's muscular output. They called those who had perfectly mastered their internal Qi and physical strength 'Immortals'. They could rival Saints purely through their refined physical bodies.
'That boy's power... it's completely comparable to a Saint. It definitely mimics the explosive kinetic force of a martial artist who has fully mastered their body,' Kanzaki analyzed.
Add to that his endless stream of completely unknown, physics-defying powers, and his spatial teleportation... even escaping this fight alive was quickly becoming a serious problem.
"I haven't even used a tenth of my full strength, and you've already been forced to kneel. Tsk, tsk. Looks like all of you are going to be staying here in Academy City permanently," Yuuya grinned, his eyes gleaming with fighting spirit.
His gaze was fixed intently on the glowing, holographic Treasure Chest symbol that had just materialized over Kanzaki's body.
[Ding! Congratulations to the Host for discovering a hidden Platinum-tier Treasure Chest. The first condition for unlocking it is: Defeat Kanzaki Kaori in combat.]
A Platinum Treasure Chest! In all of Academy City, only Suzushina Yuriko currently possessed a chest of that tier. This was only the second one he had ever discovered.
Without giving her a moment to recover, Yuuya teleported directly in front of Kanzaki. He threw another punch, but this time, a massive, crackling surge of high-voltage blue electricity erupted from his fist.
BZZZT!
Even the superhuman, divine physique of a Saint was instantly paralyzed as the intense, Level 5 electrical current flooded Kanzaki Kaori's nervous system.
"Electric current...?! Oh no—!" Kanzaki gasped, her muscles locking up completely.
.....
.....
.....
Support me and read advance chapters on patreon.com/ImmortalDaoWriter