One-way traffic

—11:35 AM, Solar System, Earth.

The rotation of the planet inhabited by human civilization in the past was forcibly slowed down by five minutes.

Chapter Fifteen: His Behind-the-Scenes Preparations

Although only for a moment.

However, it was a truly horrific thing that happened.

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boom--! !

Hatsune Miku and Takibayashi ran to the rooftop, and the last thing they saw was Accelerator plunging his right hand directly into the concrete ground beneath his feet.

So, what exactly happened next?

They witnessed a scene they would never have believed in their lives.

"What is that...?"

Whether it's Takibayashi or Hatsune Miku, in this situation, there's no need to dwell on who it is or which individual would show such a shocked expression.

The two stared wide-eyed at everything.

In this world, there are no other people besides the two of them.

All the zombies on the planet were blown away.

Just as if due to the immense force of inertia, all the zombies scattered on the ground were sent flying backward for some unknown reason. It wasn't just one or two, nor was it limited to just this city.

All the zombies exposed on the surface of the Earth have been ejected from the atmosphere.

It only lasted for a moment.

The Earth's rotation was forcibly slowed down for five minutes by a monster, but it did not affect everyone. The monster targeted only the zombies and the humans in the city, except for Hatsune Miku and Takibayashi.

Only the two of them survived on this planet.

boom----! ! !

Somewhere, a tremendous sound came from, sounding as if a tall building had been pierced through.

The first one, crouching on the ground, grinned like a demon.

"Found you, you scoundrel."

Thump! He stomped on the ground and instantly left the ground.

There is only one goal.

That was the guy who had been mocking him and driving him to the brink of despair, the one who had infuriated him so much.

The first person didn't know who that guy was, whether he was a good person or a bad person, or whether he had any real malice towards them, or whether he was just being used.

These things don't matter anymore.

When he was willing to manipulate the rotation of the entire planet to find that guy, no one could stop the monster's rage.

A truly evil party does not regard innocent people as enemies.

However, if someone is considered an enemy by him, that person will never have a chance to survive.

His future will only be a bloodbath in hell.

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boom----! !

A figure suddenly darted out of the building; this was not his own will, but a completely passive action.

"Pfft—whoa?!"

Blood gushed from his entire body.

An unimaginable force tore him apart into the air; had it not been for some special means, the impact would have killed him instantly.

This man, as the absolute mastermind, should be in the safest place.

But he made a mistake.

He never imagined that his enemy would be a complete monster.

This applies to both the spiritual and physical aspects.

"Damn it...this guy can even manipulate the Earth's rotation?!"

No one could have imagined this.

The first person's superpower is not the ability to manipulate vectors or scalars. Calling it a vector is just for convenience of definition, and it is not just a vector in essence.

Accelerator, the strongest esper in Academy City, has the ability to manipulate the direction of all 'energy'. No matter what this thing is, as long as it is still energy itself, it can never escape the definition of this power's essence.

Just like temperatures of thousands of degrees, heat itself may be a scalar quantity, but heat transfer is knowledge that even a junior high school student should know. Relying on this, the number one ability user can even do things like surviving directly inside the core of the sun.

Of course, essentially, Accelerator doesn't need to care about the exact quantity of these things.

Anything that is energy cannot escape his control. Because it is energy, it can be controlled by him, and therefore, it will have direction. This is the order of priority for the primary abilities.

This principle applies even to the rotational and orbital forces of an entire planet.

As the number one rival in Academy City, this man never understood what Accelerator's abilities were from the beginning. Unlike Takibayashi, he didn't know anything about Accelerator, so he had no way of knowing anything about it.

The man realized something: if the Earth's rotation had been slowed down, he shouldn't be the only one facing this situation; all living things and buildings on the entire surface would have been flung away by that terrifying attack.

But this didn't happen. In other words, the other party did this only to confirm their location, and only with themselves and the group of zombies.

He's a madman.

To use something as exaggerated as the Earth's rotation force to suppress oneself just to confirm one's geographical location—what else could such a monster be but a madman?

But he was even more certain of one thing.

"That guy, if he realizes I didn't fly out of the atmosphere like those zombies, he'll definitely spot me..."

If the other party has the ability to manipulate the Earth's rotation, then he also has the ability to find out whether the enemies whose power he has interfered with are dead or not.

If he discovers that he survived thanks to some special power…

The man couldn't help but swallow.

Bang! His body crashed directly into a warehouse. Even though he had used some special power to offset the force of the Earth being forcibly slowed down for five minutes, he was still seriously injured.

Moreover, he can no longer use that trump card ability.

There won't be a next time. If that white-haired bastard finds me again, I'll be doomed.

"Damn it...why did that monster suddenly appear out of nowhere? Wasn't this mission supposed to only have a few naive newbies?!"

The man slammed his fist directly into a stone pillar.

No, he can't die. He can't possibly die. He absolutely can't die in this ambiguous little world.

But for him, the abilities he can use to attack are very few, so few that he himself feels inferior. They are basically just some manipulation abilities.

If it were just those two newbies, it would be fine, but if they were to face that white-haired monster head-on, they wouldn't have any chance of winning.

He had to survive, even if it meant barely clinging to life.

"Hurry... If I remember correctly, there should be a place nearby where we can take refuge!"

He took out his phone, opened the points he had marked in advance, and ran towards what he thought was the closest place.

We have to be quick; we have to get there before that monster.

Otherwise, it will be too late!

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Accelerator sensed it.

All the creatures that flew out of the atmosphere were just zombies; there were no humans at all.

He also investigated the area in the direction of the breached building, and found many signs of disturbance along the way, which could not possibly be the work of zombies.

That's about it, right?

"That bastard is still alive, he's not dead, right? And even his personality is like a coward's, he's the worst of the worst."

The first one was not troubled by this.

A colder smile appeared on his face, and relying on his power to control all the directions of energy, he easily flew into the air.

Looking down at everything below, the monster raised its hands.

"I don't want to play hide-and-seek with you anymore, so I'm going to tear all of this apart in one minute!"

boom------! ! !

Something was gathered up by him.

The sky above the entire city began to become strange. A storm raged, but not a single drop of rain fell, and all the storm gusts converged in one direction.

It was the wind; the strongest ability user in Academy City had gathered all the wind in the city.

The storm, like tiny rays of light, constantly condensed, swirled, and compressed in the monster's hands.

Compression, compression, compression, compression, compression, compression, compression—

"Hey... what's that?"

Both Takibayashi and Hatsune Miku noticed this.

The white-haired strongest figure hovered in the sky, and pure white energy continuously condensed in his hands—no, that's not all.

Even the sky above was filled with unimaginable brilliance.

—Plasma.

A force that continuously compresses and condenses the wind, forcibly breaking down the surrounding atoms into cations and electrons, ultimately reaching temperatures exceeding ten thousand degrees Celsius.

This is what is often mentioned in science fiction movies: plasma.

The enormous sphere of light had a radius exceeding twenty meters. If the First One were allowed to continue growing it, its size would be large enough to cover the entire city's sky.

Even at this stage, dropping it would be enough to surpass the power of a nuclear bomb, and in one fell swoop it would perfectly shatter even a nuclear bunker buried underground that could easily withstand the impact and temperature of a nuclear bomb. This is what the first one created.

Even though his current computing power is less than half of what it used to be, he can still do this.

Takibayashi stared wide-eyed at Accelerator high above. The intense heat of the plasma was so strong that it was blinding even from a distance, and his skin felt a little stinging. But the first one below was completely unharmed.

He was going to throw that ball of light, powerful enough to destroy everything, into the city.

It's just to completely eliminate the mastermind behind it all.

"Stop it! Yifang!"

Having fully grasped this point, Takibayashi's eyes widened, and he shouted.

"This is going too far! If we throw it down, we'll all be in trouble too!"

"Whatever? I can protect you two no matter what. There can't be any other humans in this city. Right now, all I want to do is crush this little thug playing hide-and-seek."

"It's not just that!"

Takibayashi gritted his teeth. He knew very well that if he threw that dangerous thing down, even the entire city would be reduced to ashes, so he had to stop Accelerator.

It wasn't because he was worried about the city, but because of more pressing issues for them.

"If we just kill that guy like this, what if he knows how to escape? Besides, killing him won't do us any good, and with the whole city destroyed, what are we supposed to do next?"

At this point, Takibayashi uttered the decisive words.

"Besides, this is not the time to waste electricity on something like this! The whole city is without power, and if this continues, your battery won't be able to keep up!"

The first person was taken aback.

If, as he said, I throw down this plasma, then the other party will indeed be killed. But what happens after that?

The city will be completely destroyed by his attack, and they will have absolutely no resources left to survive.

If they still can't leave this place after dealing with that bastard, or if that guy holds the only way to escape from here.

That would mean he had personally cut off his own lifeline.

"...Tsk."

I was too reckless.