{Welcome, Please Support me on my patreon and read upto 60+ advanced chapters and 5 advanced chapters in every two days.
https://patreon.com/Oreski }
The question now was not whether only the United States was participating in the war, but rather—how many factions were secretly watching, waiting to claim the pieces.
In this cross-dimensional world, where magic and science collide, the geopolitical alliances had long since crumbled. According to the original works, the core conflict should have been a cold but escalating war between Academy City and the Russian Federation, with the United States meddling marginally. But now? The United States had gone all-in. The British Puritan Church had aligned with Academy City's scientific regime, trying to stabilize things from the inside. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church—specifically the aggressive "Right Seat of God"—was fueling the flames globally.
"Still no connection to the outside networks?" Shen He asked, her tone low, her Inhuman senses passively scanning the electromagnetic frequencies nearby.
The quantum server room built beneath Chaldea's Tokyo outpost had been silent. Academy City's layered barriers and particle-bending defense networks had even suppressed her psionic probes.
"The whole world must be in chaos," she muttered. "Just seeing which countries are issuing declarations of war is enough to paint the picture."
But Kushiro Weizi, one of the top data analysts transferred from the Sakuradamon node, only shook her head grimly. "Many of the students still think they can leave. Some even believe the U.S. military would take them home."
"Innocent thinking." Shen He's words were like frozen blades. "These kids don't understand who they've become. They're marked now—every last esper and psionic, every augmented Inhuman or experimental clone within Academy City is a national weapon."
She wasn't being alarmist. All it would take was one whisper—one classified leak—that Academy City was training bioweapons disguised as students, and the world governments would have their excuse. Any student extracted by foreign militaries would be dissected, reverse-engineered, or worse.
And if this truly was the beginning of World War III—a transhuman war between science, religion, and emergent powers—then those with gifts weren't people anymore. They were assets. Currency. Deterrents.
Human rights would be a distant afterthought.
"Is there any way to stop this?"
Kamijou Touma asked the question quietly, his right fist clenched so tightly the bones trembled. "I know I'm just a high school student… but you've all seen what's happening. Someone must know—who's the key to ending this? Who do we stop?"
"…People who say that," Shen He replied, trying not to smile, "aren't just ordinary high school students anymore."
She admired his courage. Though Touma had no scientific origin or governmental backing, his Imagine Breaker—the power in his right hand that could negate any supernatural phenomenon—was a mystery that had stumped both Chaldea and Academy City's top researchers. Some even suspected it could nullify divine phenomena. Shen He knew better than to underestimate him.
Still, she herself felt lost. Her memory had fractured during her encounter with Maximus in Attilan. Her Terrigen-modified powers fluctuated in ways even she couldn't predict. Even with the guidance of Qi Mu Nanzi and Coulson's calm leadership in Chaldea, she couldn't immediately see the next move.
"In any case… let's observe for now."
Though her eyes wavered for a moment, Shen He forced calm into her voice. She had once led battalions in both Attilan's civil war and Chaldea's uprising against Hydra—she couldn't afford to look uncertain. Her voice steadied the group, and even Kushiro nodded with new focus.
The intelligence meeting adjourned, and Shen He followed Kushiro through the reinforced corridor. Above them, the Chaldea-augmented sector of Academy City buzzed with alerts.
The Third World War had begun.
A war not only for territory but for technological supremacy. The Inhuman breakthroughs, the Esper development systems, the Level 6 Shift Project, the quantum soul arrays—all were on the table. Add to that the emergence of threats like Misaka Mikoto—dubbed the "Railgun of Judgment"—whose presence alone had forced the U.S. Joint Chiefs into emergency session.
Behind the curtain, some factions had pushed for this. Perhaps the Board of Directors. Perhaps entities like Aleister Crowley—or worse, beings like Accelerator, whose unstable mind had once warped the Tree Diagram's very predictions.
On the surface of the Sea of Japan, near Academy City's classified coastal territory, three U.S. aircraft carrier battle fleets had positioned themselves. The Japanese government had issued formal protests, but having surrendered sovereign defense rights to Academy City years ago, their objections were mere ceremonial noise.
Ten minutes after the President's televised declaration of war, dozens of armed helicopters and fighter jets launched from the American fleets.
"This is a surgical strike," said fighter pilot Ralph, adjusting his helmet. "We drop the paratroopers, destroy any residual anti-air systems, and pull out."
"Copy that," replied the captain over the encrypted command channel. "Intel says the city's abandoned. Just watch for any rogue supers. That girl—Misaka Mikoto—is listed as a fourteen-year-old threat on par with an entire strike force."
It was said lightly, but no one laughed. The file on Misaka had been terrifying. Her Level 5 electromagnetic control allowed her to manipulate ballistic trajectories, scramble targeting systems, and tear apart armored divisions with ionized air bursts.
Still, the soldiers thought this would be a clean op.
They were wrong.
A flicker of blinding light burst outside the cockpit window, refracted by the reinforced glass. No sound—only visuals.
"What the hell was that?!"
Ralph barely had time to react as searing white beams sliced through the formation.
"It's a multidirectional laser grid! They've deployed a Light-Speed Tactical Defense Array! Dive! Break formation and get into cloud cover!"
The captain's voice crackled with urgency. The moment of delay had cost them. More than half the paratrooper transports were obliterated midair. The rest? Scattered, uncoordinated, vulnerable.
The United States had miscalculated. Badly.
"Target lock! We're being painted! Get us out—!"
Another wave of coordinated fire lanced from the coastline—microsatellite-linked, light-speed guided, and impossible to dodge. This was the defensive matrix powered by a forgotten branch of the Tree Diagram, one that Chaldea believed destroyed.
They were wrong.
"This isn't an abandoned city!" Ralph screamed. "They're still here—whoever they are, they never left! We just walked into a f***ing kill box!"
"How many dead?!" someone cried over the comms.
He didn't know. Maybe dozens. Hundreds. This was supposed to be a simple operation. An easy landing to intimidate the region. But now?
Thousands of Americans were dying within seconds, and no one could explain how.
"Missile barrage! Track source and return fire!"
Dozens of air-to-surface missiles screamed toward the coast, but the city struck first—stealth drones, micro-barrel cannons, rail-deployed sentries rose like phantoms from the ground. The sky above Academy City lit with chaotic explosions as missile tails painted streaks of light against the polluted sky.
"Requesting orbital support! Superlong-range artillery! NOW!"
The voice that came through was half-mad with terror, but Ralph never heard the response.
From below, nearly a hundred unmanned fighters—no bigger than a human torso—swarmed upward with propulsion tech decades ahead of anything in the Pentagon. They had no heat signatures. No predictable flight paths. Their AI was predatory.
Academy City had always hidden its true cards.
It wasn't a school. It wasn't even a research hub.
It was a fortress. A tomb. A machine built to outlast gods.
[I shouldn't be here.]
That was Ralph's last thought before a light tore through his fighter cockpit, engulfing him in silence and finality.
His body would never be found.
The world had just stepped into its darkest hour. And the real war… had barely begun.
IMPORTANT UPDATE –
I WILL BE POSTING 1 CHAPTER HERE ON WEBNOVEL EVERY DAY...
I WILL BE POSTING 5 ADVANCE CHAPTERS EVERY TWO DAYS ON PATREON, JOIN MY PATREON FOR EXCLUSIVE EARLY ACCESS.
🔗 JOIN NOW: patreon.com/Oreski
PS: I HAVE UPLOADED 60+ ADVANCED CHAPTERS ON PATREON ALREADY—DON'T MISS OUT ON THE ADVENTURE.