{Welcome, Please remember to Support me on my patreon and read upto 70+ advanced chapters and 5 advanced chapters in every two days.
https://patreon.com/Oreski }
What Shen He was contemplating now wasn't just the outcome of this dimensional battle—but the aftermath.
After all, this world was only a limited-duration instanced copy, a pocket timeline tethered through the transit permissions of the Chaldea system and the Anchor-Card Contract with Accelerator (One-Way Road). Once the time lapsed, only with significant magical expenditure and authorization through a Traveler's Seal could she revisit. But the Misaka Sisters, along with all the students and forces who had been caught up in this war, were permanently bound to this worldline.
"Sure enough… there's no choice but to go all in." Shen He muttered under her breath, her tone calm yet firm.
She wasn't a savior archetype—never claimed to be—but once she had chosen to interfere, walking away heartlessly was not in her nature. That would be unbecoming of someone who bore the weight of both her cultivation sect and Chaldea's interdimensional mission protocols.
No one heard her whisper except Qi Mu Nanxiong, who, having his limiter temporarily disabled through Chaldea's Mental Containment Protocol, caught the thought with a quiet, knowing glance.
Suddenly, the far-off horizon was torn apart by pitch-black lightning—unnaturally dense and filled with malicious resonance. The thunderstorm cracked open the moonlit sky like an ancient curse returning to life. Lightning cascaded like divine punishment. Such devastation within Academy City's wards could only mean one thing—
Misaka Mikoto Alter had awakened her third-phase surge field.
"...She's not in the Misaka clone facilities after all." Accelerator's tone sharpened as his body blurred. The ground beneath him cratered as he launched forward with lethal velocity, a sonic boom snapping in his wake.
He didn't know what had provoked the unstable Mikoto Alter—but this was the window. The last Misaka Sister, the one with partial conscience who had been hidden during the rebellion, could be retrieved now.
Meanwhile, Shirai Kuroko had reached a critical point inside the Misaka Production Facility—her mission was clear: erase all genetic templates, combat data, and personal logs to prevent exploitation by external factions like Hydra, AIM, or even the anti-Academy cultists from outside this worldline.
"Heizi! Someone just offloaded the entire clone genome to a disconnected storage disk!" Uiharu Kazari shouted, her holographic interface flooding with red alerts. "Row thirteen, Room B! It's on a drive that's totally off-grid—I can't hack into it!"
"That bastard—was it a rogue researcher?" Kuroko's expression twisted into fury as she disappeared in a blink, her spatial shift tearing through the corridor.
Despite the heavy casualties inflicted earlier by Misaka Mikoto Alter's rampage, a few rogue scientists had survived—particularly those obsessed with the Absolute Power Evolution Project, and now, it seemed, one had acted.
In the cavernous data core chamber, a lone middle-aged man in a tattered white coat stood before a whirring console.
"Stop right there!" Kuroko snapped, materializing beside him in a burst of space displacement, hands already gripping her leg-bound iron spikes. "Hand over the drive. You're not going anywhere."
"…I never intended to run," the man murmured calmly as he turned. His face was unremarkable—utterly forgettable—and Kuroko's mental registry of facility personnel barely registered him.
But she had no time to waste on vague memories.
"I'm not the same Judgment officer I once was," Kuroko warned, voice low. "Hand over the disk, or I will impale you. And I'm not aiming for non-lethal zones this time."
The man's expression didn't shift, but his words chilled the air.
"I just want to ask… what's more important to you? That so-called justice, or Mikoto Misaka's trust?" His eyes, dull but intense, locked onto hers. "Do you have any idea what your betrayal would do to her? And yet, you still abandon her for your 'mission'?"
"…What?" Kuroko was stunned. That kind of twisted devotion—was he implying Mikoto was his to protect?
She nearly gagged. Goosebumps flared. This wasn't just wrong—it was disturbing. Was he some obsessed fan? A secret loicn sympathizer from the darker corners of the Institute?
"I know what I'm doing," she snapped, disgusted but resolved. "Once I make sure Mikoto is safe, I'll face whatever consequences come. But now—give me the drive!"
Crack!
Her nail vanished mid-sentence—hurtling toward the man's wrist.
Aimed with precision, it wouldn't kill—but it would incapacitate.
However, the man twisted slightly, evading with shocking reflexes.
"You telegraph your intent with your eyes and breath patterns," he said, his voice oddly formal, "and even if you beat me, the drive is hidden. You'll never find it."
Kuroko's teeth ground together. "That's it!"
She vanished again—this time appearing beside a pile of classified blueprints and internal memos.
The man panicked—rushing her with inhuman agility. But she slapped her hand down—and paper scattered like sharp-edged shuriken.
He shrieked as blood erupted from his left wrist—the slicing effect of spatial-displaced paper drawing a deep gash.
Her teleportation wasn't just escape—it could turn matter into projectile. Even paper, with enough velocity and edge, could cut through reinforced steel.
Clutching his wrist, he staggered back—sweat dotting his forehead.
"You little—"
But before he could finish, he pulled something from his inner coat.
A golden chalice, shimmering with ancient runes and inscribed with both magecraft sigils and something alien—cosmic runes similar to those used by the Ancient One in the Book of Vishanti.
"The Holy Grail…?" Kuroko whispered, stunned.
It was real—like in the files from Chaldea's parallel archive. The grail from the Fuyuki system—but this one bore Academy City's temporal signature, meaning it had been constructed from hybrid science and corrupted magic.
The air rippled.
From the shadows, cloaked figures emerged—half-formed, cloaked in black mist, radiating corrupted mana. Some bore lances, others swords. Their outlines resembled legendary warriors—but their faces were obscured, expressions frozen, like puppets on marionette strings.
"Servants—Shadow-grade," the man muttered. "Incomplete, but more than enough."
"Magus tech…?" Kuroko was horrified. "These things aren't even alive…"
The corrupted servants didn't wait for her to finish. They surged forward like phantoms.
Walls shattered like tofu. Energy crackled. The building shook.
Kuroko shifted frantically, her teleportation saving her from being skewered again and again. But her attacks—blades, nails, even high-speed spatial rips—had no effect.
The servants reformed each time—immune to standard damage.
"Damn it! They're not even alive… they're incarnations, mana echoes!" she realized.
These were closer to post-mortem shadows, not true Heroic Spirits. They fed on the corrupted Grail's mana and would persist until its fuel source ended.
And the user—despite bleeding out—was still channeling enough force through that damned artifact to hold the summoning intact.
Kuroko panted, on the verge of desperation.
And then—
BOOM!
A sonic boom ripped across the chamber.
Accelerator arrived, encased in his calculated red vector shell, barreling through with such force that the corrupted servants were hurled aside like confetti.
The Grail's bearer looked up, blood-soaked and swaying.
But it was too late.
Accelerator's gaze was colder than death.
"You shouldn't have made her cry," he said.
And the shadows were wiped away in a single white flash.
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 70+ ADVANCED CHAPTERS ON PATREON ALREADY—DON'T MISS OUT ON THE ADVENTURE.