Chapter Eighty-One: Illuminating the World — The Ten-Thousand-Meter Railgun

The turbulent sea of thunder let out a muffled rumble, like the furious roar of a savage beast before it attacks. Hundreds, then thousands of lightning bolts shot forth from the thunder sea at the speed of light, all targeting the large-headed infant controlling the Banner of Ten Thousand Infant Souls.

Though the lightning was swift, he had prepared in advance, pouring his mana into the black silk brocade before the lightning struck. The black silk spun slightly, transforming into a dark shield that blocked the oncoming lightning. When the lightning touched the black shield, it vanished, just as two top-grade flying swords had disappeared earlier. But this was only the beginning; in the blink of an eye, thousands more bolts arrived and were absorbed in turn.

In a single breath, over ten thousand bolts had been absorbed into the black shield, yet the thunder sea showed no sign of shrinking, its violence unabated.

The gigantic wraith infant let out a mournful wail, spewing forth dense, gray resentment like a sweeping gale, clashing with the equally immense thunder sea.

A harsh sizzle filled the air as the resentment met the thunder, the sound not unlike cold water poured into acid. The resentment dissipated, and the thunder sea was consumed in turn. Though lightning restrained resentment by nature, in terms of sheer volume, the resentment pressed back against the thunder, the two forces cancelling each other and locking in a stalemate.

The large-headed infant retreated, but no matter how far he was from the thunder sea, the lightning struck him almost instantaneously. The black shield, having absorbed tens of thousands of bolts, began to waver under the strain. Unabsorbed lightning gathered around the large-headed infant, their numbers growing rapidly.

His brow furrowed. The troublesome persistence of that female infant had exceeded his expectations, but only just. He began to chant and form seals with his fingers, sending a series of invisible symbols into the body of the massive wraith infant.

The wraith infant shuddered, its struggle with the thunder sea ceasing. The gray resentment boiled, shrinking rapidly until it was the size of an actual infant—black as ink, its eyes brimming with overwhelming, almost tangible resentment.

With a piercing shriek, it ignored the thunder sea entirely, hurtling straight toward Mikoto Misaka at the center. The blue-violet lightning covering her slowly corroded the black wraith infant, much like acid eating away at iron.

Yet the corrosion was far slower than the wraith infant’s flight; it would definitely reach Mikoto before being dissolved. With her weakened body, her chances of survival were slim.

“Pervert, don’t forget I’m still here,” came a voice.

Having dealt with matters in the Demonic Abyss, Qi finally emerged. The first thing he saw was the enormous wraith infant, just condensed into a black entity, hurtling toward Mikoto at the heart of the thunder sea.

Those two foolish women could only intercept the large-headed infant from behind, wary of his escape. The woman with the silvery hair could cast spells to attack him through the lightning barrier, helping to deplete his defensive artifact’s mana. The seductive woman, meanwhile, could only command dozens of foundation-stage female corpses to form a defensive array—her own attacks would only cancel out with the lightning, making it unwise to interfere.

They were equally stunned by the clash of these two infants at the core formation stage. If that large-headed infant was a hundred-year-old evil cultivator, then what was the story of the female infant?

There was no time to ponder—events were unfolding too quickly, and neither woman was a speed-type cultivator, unable to intervene in time. The seductive woman didn’t even bother to try; their alliance was temporary and fragile, and as long as no one stabbed anyone in the back, it would suffice.

Qi’s top speed matched that of an ordinary newly formed core cultivator, but it was enough. He was already closer to Mikoto, and with the thunder sea hindering the wraith infant, he intercepted it with ease.

Lightning flickered around him, allowing his body to blend into the thunder sea without harm.

“Strange man, do you have any high-melting-point, high-hardness metals on you?” Mikoto’s voice was hoarse—a sound that seemed to come from hell itself. She had sensed Qi’s arrival the moment he entered the thunder sea.

“Fragments of magic treasures, remnants of core cultivators’ artifacts—I’ll give you everything.” As Qi flew past Mikoto, he tossed out a pile of fragments from his storage space.

The electromagnetic fields of the thunder sea drew all the fragments to Mikoto.

Back in Academy City, she had never been this powerful—was it her new body, or something else? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that now she wanted to unleash a barrage, to blast that monster to smithereens.

So she declared, “Let the railgun traverse heaven and earth!”

The mountain peaks, previously dark beneath the Banner of Ten Thousand Infant Souls, blazed bright as day once more. In the blue-violet thunder sea, an orange-red pillar of light suddenly flared—this beam had appeared before, but had vanished after flying a few dozen meters. This time, however, the massive pillar, over three meters across, shot forth at three times the speed of sound, accelerating rapidly. As the orange-red turned to violet-red, the beam streaked across hundreds of meters, surpassing Mach 15, and struck the large-headed infant—still surrounded by lightning—head-on.

His face changed dramatically. Mana surged, but the black silk shield shattered like glass struck by a bullet. In desperation, he raised his treasure shield to meet the violet-red beam squarely. The next instant, a tremendous force hurled him toward the horizon, launching him tens of thousands of meters away. Not until he reached the speed of Mach 50 did he finally stop.

The fragments of the artifact had already vaporized from the heat of their passage through the air. That pillar of violet-red light, four meters in diameter, had traversed several kilometers in the blink of an eye, its passage twisting the air into a distorted trajectory.

The visual impact was beyond anything the two high-ranking women of great sects had ever witnessed. At that moment, they were deeply shaken, overwhelmed by a sense of awe—what kind of infant was this, what kind of light beam was that?

The shock lingered in their hearts, their gazes following the railgun’s trajectory to fix on the large-headed infant, struck squarely by the blast. At Mach 50, he couldn’t stop himself at once; inertia carried him onward until he collided with the Banner of Ten Thousand Infant Souls that covered the sky, his figure vanishing.

Whether he lived or died, none could say.

But the answer came soon enough.

“Heheheheh, what a surprise you’ve given me! The force of that speed alone dented my treasure shield and left my body scorched, not a patch of unburnt skin left. But that’s all it is.

Heheheheh, little girl… you’re no cultivator, are you?” The large-headed infant’s eerie laughter echoed from the sky.

(The railgun reappears—Misaka is mighty indeed.)