I adopted a child demon from the Gap, and I'm a special agent for the Bureau of Supernatural Ab

However, Shinji Matou, who spends all his time at home playing games, never goes out, never reads any news, and doesn't even live in Tokyo, looked completely bewildered by Li Cheng's question.

The boy's completely unpretentious expression convinced Li Cheng that he was probably genuinely unaware of the recent chaos that had gripped the country.

In fact, it wasn't until a week ago that Shinji Matou learned about the establishment of Academy City, this technological metropolis, through a hacker circle he had joined. This sparked his idea to hack into the city's central system and leave a trace of his presence. He completely ignored the series of events that resulted from the city's establishment, treating them all as junk news.

This kid really is a brat!

Li Cheng sighed, rubbing his forehead, suppressing the urge to give the brat a good beating. He frowned and continued to ask:

"So what did you do with that barrier system? You just said you broke through the barrier system, so you must have modified something, right?"

"Ah, that thing, speaking of which, that barrier system is really amazing. It can actually reconstruct magic barriers with formulas. Even I was amazed when I first saw it."

Li Cheng raised his hand and clenched it into a fist, signaling to Matou Shinji to get to the point. The other man was quick to understand and, seeing Li Cheng's expression, immediately coughed and stopped rambling.

"I modified some of the equations of the barrier so that it wouldn't block the magicians from entering, allowing their companions to come in. Those of us who entered first used a spatial teleportation spell. According to the magician leader, that thing is quite expensive and can't carry many people, which is why we needed to break the barrier."

Does that mean those magicians can now freely cross the barrier and attack this place without restraint?

Li Cheng's brows furrowed even more deeply.

In that case, this place has completely turned into an arena. The out-of-control machine guards and the invading magicians—their battles will likely be quite intense. However, there are also many people in the city who are simply there to observe. While most of them are superhumans with some fighting ability, the majority are low-level superhumans, closer to ordinary people. Letting them get involved in this chaotic battlefield would definitely not be a good thing.

The guy responsible for this situation is this idiot kid in front of me with an ugly seaweed hairstyle who came here for the sake of challenging himself and is now messing around in the Academy City system.

"Can you modify the system again?"

Li Cheng suppressed his anger and asked.

"It's still possible, but the original warehouse was destroyed in the robot attack. If we want to modify the system again, we'll have to go to another warehouse."

Shinji Matou raised his hand and said in a low voice.

Where is the other warehouse?

Li Cheng asked directly.

"It's near the city center, close to that tower in the city center, but that's just a deduction. I'm not really sure if I can find it..."

The central tower?

During the daytime visit to the exhibition, Li Cheng did see a very tall tower-shaped building in the distance, but since it was not in the exhibition area, he did not walk in that direction.

Speaking of which, when we interrogated this kid earlier, he mentioned that the magicians said the central tower was where Aleister was hiding, and that it seemed to have a very strong barrier and guards. No, the magicians couldn't break through it with their strength.

Is it around there...?

"You have to bear the consequences of your mistakes. Since you caused all this trouble, then take matters into your own hands and restore things to normal."

As Li Cheng spoke, he reached out and grabbed Matou Shinji's shoulder, pulling him up from the stool.

"I'll take you to the central tower. You have to find the system for me and restore the robot system and the barrier system to normal. If you can't do that, I'll take you to the top of the tower, stuff your butt inside the spire, and let you experience what it feels like to have your rectum pierced."

"Oh my god, this is too much!!"

"Destructive kids have no right to bargain!"

After Li Cheng delivered a sharp rap on the head, Shinji Matou, looking utterly dejected, chose to cooperate.

……

Meanwhile, on the rooftop of the hotel where the visitors were staying, Wuming let out a soft breath and put down the simple longbow in his hand. In front of him, the streets were densely packed with the fragments of robots.

Behind the hotel, the brown-haired girl jumped off a charred car. A surge of electricity erupted from her body, short-circuiting the last struggling robot, causing it to spontaneously combust and finally explode.

Wuming, Misaka Mikoto, and other relatively powerful ability users organized themselves to annihilate all the out-of-control robots attacking the hotel. Occasionally, robots from other areas would approach, so Wuming and Misaka Mikoto each took turns guarding the front of the hotel and moving around the back, ensuring that they were eliminated before the robots entered the hotel.

"Still unable to contact Mr. Li Cheng and the teacher?"

After detonating another robot squad, Mikoto asked with some concern over the communicator.

"Unfortunately, neither Senior Li nor your teacher, Miss Misaka, are still in a state of being out of contact," Wuming's voice remained calm, but a hint of impatience could be heard in his tone. "I'm afraid they are also in a rather troublesome situation."

An hour earlier, Li Cheng and Eric lost contact one after the other, and shortly afterward, the out-of-control robots began firing indiscriminately in the streets.

Wuming immediately thought of the hotel guests and rushed over, successfully arriving before the robots attacked the hotel and issuing a warning, allowing the hotel's ability users to prepare in advance. Misaka Mikoto, having learned what Wuming was doing through her communicator, also arrived to help guard the hotel's security.

Although there were quite a few people with superpowers in the hotel, only a few were truly capable. There were only about four or five B-level superhumans, and none of them were A-level. Therefore, Wuming and Misaka Mikoto took on the responsibility of guarding the hotel's security, which prevented them from searching for the missing Li Cheng and Eric.

In other words, the two of them could be considered trapped near this hotel.

"This is truly a terrible situation that makes it hard to stay calm. I just hope that the situation on the other two sides will be a little better."

Wuming said in a low voice, casually projecting a short arrow, drawing his bow and shooting it, piercing through a drone that emerged from a blind spot in a building not far away.

The drone, after being pierced, plummeted rapidly and finally exploded in the middle of the road. The flames were particularly striking in the dark night. Even though the distance was far, it felt as if the flames were right in front of you, scorching your face.

Wuming squinted at the flames that were rapidly disappearing. For some reason, he recalled his past life, the past before he achieved the stability he had now.

The wreckage of the machine amidst the flames seemed to suddenly transform into the very people he had killed in the past.

No, these are different.

Wu Ming closed his eyes to calm himself down.

The journey of the nameless hero has ended. From the moment he was summoned to this world, from the moment he gained a real physical body, he has acquired a life completely different from the one he once had. Those parts that he almost completely lost during his long journey have now vividly returned to him.

Protecting the life you have now is what you should be doing.

With another draw of his bow, Wuming fired three arrows in quick succession. The arrows, imbued with powerful magic, struck three slowly approaching drones, causing three dazzling flames to erupt in the sky above the city. Amidst the flames, the wreckage of the drones crashed to the ground with a deafening crash, followed by an even more violent second explosion, which seemed to shake the ground itself.

No, it seems the ground is indeed shaking.

Wuming squatted down and touched the concrete ground on the rooftop. He felt a clear vibration, which then traveled to his palm.

As if sensing something, Wuming stood up and turned around. Then, in front of him, on the edge of the distant Academy City, countless buildings were being uprooted from the ground, crumbling and floating into the sky.

"This is……"

The darkness did not hinder Wuming's extremely powerful vision. He opened his eyes wide and carefully observed the situation in the distance. Soon he discovered a black current flowing and converging at an extremely fast speed among the suspended buildings.

Is that... iron filings?

Wuming had some impression of this move because not long ago, he had seen Misaka Mikoto, an A-level electromagnetic ability user, use this move to separate the metal elements in the soil using electromagnetic force and gather them into a torrent of iron sand like a long whip. It was a very practical technique.

But isn't this range a bit too broad?

Within that area of ​​floating buildings, Wuming was certain that the torrent of iron sand he saw was at least fifty times larger than the metal used by Misaka Mikoto, and possibly even more.

Wuming already knew who had orchestrated those events. Such power could only have come from Misaka Mikoto's teacher, the Freedom Alliance professor named Eric Lansheer.

This level of control is absolutely impossible for an A-level vehicle to achieve.

boom--

In the distance, an extremely heavy sound seemed to be echoing in that area, and then the suspended buildings began to twist, making the scene increasingly chaotic.

Who is that man named Eric fighting?

Amidst the deafening roar, more buildings were uprooted from the ground, and in the center of the battlefield, a torrent of countless metal objects had transformed into an enormous tornado.

…………

Thank you to the reader "I'll Go to Hell" for the monthly pass.

Thank you to readers 風永魂飛, 恐怖的兔子, 羽生林淨, 我可去你的丫, 无丧, 某雷9号, and 天明寻梦 for their recommendation votes.

Section 346, Chapter Twenty-Five: The Torrent of Transcendence

Eric Lancher.

The tall, thin man walked expressionlessly down the dark street.

Ahead on the road, another man stood silently, holding a huge club that was almost five meters long, which reflected a cold light in the moonlight.

With fifty meters to go, Eric stopped.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Mr. William.”

Eric bowed slightly in greeting.

"Or do you want me to call you by the name you received in the Roman Catholic Church, Water of the Rear?"

"Your presence here signifies that you have already decided on your stance?"

Standing in the middle of the street under the dim moonlight, the man named Houfang Zhishui asked in a cold voice.

"Progress inevitably involves sacrifice, which is only natural. Old things will do everything in their power to oppose new things in order to protect their own interests. But if we want to make progress, we must face up to the sacrifices that will inevitably occur in this process, rather than continuing to maintain old things that should have been replaced long ago for the sake of false peace."

Eric replied calmly.

"Even if this sacrifice is extremely heavy, will countless innocent people lose their families and homes because of it?"

The water behind him had an icy expression as he stared intently at Eric's face and asked another question.

"That's right, because that's the price of progress."

Despite the opponent's almost tangible pressure, Eric remained calm and composed, his expression unchanged.

"...Is that so? Then there's no need to continue this discussion."

Indeed, ideological contradictions are always irreconcilable.

The man behind gripped the massive iron bar tightly, closed his eyes, and refused to look at Eric. Eric, too, lost his calm demeanor and became serious.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the water vanished from where he stood, as if it had never been there in the first place. Then, he suddenly appeared above Eric, his enormous, incredibly long iron rod thrusting violently towards Eric, the force of the movement causing the surrounding air to explode.

thump—

It wasn't the sound of a stick hitting a human body, but rather the clanging of metal objects colliding. The stick stopped half a meter away from Eric; a layer of black iron filings firmly blocked the water's attack, preventing it from advancing an inch further.

"Although I had heard about your control abilities before, I have to admit that I am really surprised that you were able to block an attack of this level so easily."

After the probing attack failed, Shui withdrew her attack and retreated to a distance of about twenty or thirty meters, looking at Eric who was still standing in the same place.

“If this is all you’re surprised about, then I’m disappointed,” Eric chuckled, turning his gaze to the iron rod in the sailor’s hand. “But magic is indeed a wondrous thing. Even though it’s a metal object, I can’t control that iron rod at all. Is this what they call a spirit suit?”

“For the next strike, I will unleash my true power,” Shui said without replying, raising the iron rod in his hand once more. “To prevent the sacrifice of more innocent people, I will show no mercy to those who stand in my way. If you insist on blocking my path, then I will have no choice but to eliminate you.”

Accompanying the words of water was a sudden, hundreds-of-fold-expanding pressure—an unparalleled oppressive force possessed only by those who transcend, surging forward with immense force towards Eric. Such a powerful aura caused Eric, whose physical abilities were not significantly different from those of an average person, to grunt and nearly fall to the ground. However, countless metallic particles immediately supported his body, firmly holding him up, and an invisible force field was also generated, resisting the force.

"The transcendent are far superior to ordinary extraordinary individuals; this is a universally acknowledged common sense and an undeniable truth."

Eric gazed at the water in front of him and slowly raised his right hand.