While Kiana and Maria were chatting about superpowers.
Far East Government.
A military base stood quietly in the wilderness, resembling a steel fortress.
Around the base, towering reinforced walls rose high into the air. Barbed wire atop the walls glinted coldly under the sunlight. Watchtowers were scattered throughout, and armed soldiers stood guard like statues, vigilantly scanning their surroundings.
Inside the base, the atmosphere was so oppressive it was hard to breathe.
In an airtight room, a superpower user capable of foreseeing the future sat blankly in a dim corner, wearing a helmet-like control device.
His eyes stared fixedly at the television screen in front of him. On the screen, a military officer was reporting on recent events.
Yet the superpower user's gaze was hollow and vacant.
Suddenly, his cracked lips trembled slightly as he muttered, "The future has changed. Everyone is dead."
The recording officer standing nearby instantly lost his composure. A flicker of panic flashed across his previously calm face. He hurried forward and demanded anxiously, "What exactly did you see? Explain it clearly!"
The precognitive superpower user did not answer. He merely repeated the same sentence mechanically: "Everyone is dead... Everyone is dead!"
Anger and helplessness crossed the officer's face. He immediately pressed the communication button and shouted urgently, "Bring in the memory-reading superpower user! Now!"
Before long, another superpower user wearing a control collar was escorted into the room.
He closed his eyes and began reading the precognitive superpower user's memories.
Moments later, he snapped his eyes open. Terror filled his gaze as his trembling voice described a series of horrifying events that would soon occur.
Nuclear explosions, network viruses, volcanic eruptions, monsters, global cooling, human extinction!
The recording officer hurriedly grabbed the phone and reported this world-shattering future intelligence to his superiors.
In the high-level conference room of the Far East Government, the lights were stark white, and the atmosphere was so heavy it seemed ready to drip with tension.
Upon learning of this dreadful future upheaval, each official's expression grew uglier than the last. Fine beads of sweat covered their foreheads.
An emergency meeting was convened immediately. While frantically discussing countermeasures, they simultaneously contacted governments of other nations without pause.
Soon, a despairing message spread among countries worldwide: the future had undergone unpredictable and terrifying changes. Humanity was on the brink of total annihilation.
In truth, a precognitive superpower user could normally only foresee future events closely related to themselves—things they would personally see or hear.
However, through methods unknown to the public, the military could "implant" specific future intelligence into such superpower users' consciousness, allowing them to know about events that originally had nothing to do with them.
For example, if a car accident were about to occur in some remote location, it would ordinarily have nothing to do with a precognitive superpower user. But through carefully arranged television news, the superpower user could learn of the disaster in advance.
It was precisely through this method that once the military detected a potentially dangerous superpower user, they could plan ahead—capturing them or even silencing them in secret.
As intelligence continued to be compiled and analyzed, governments around the world made a horrifying discovery: in the future, a large number of powerful superpower users would emerge. A second full-scale war between humanity and superpower users was on the verge of erupting. In that war, humanity would stand almost no chance of victory and face complete destruction.
The news hit like a bombshell, throwing governments everywhere into chaos. They all realized the same terrifying possibility: were these superpower users planning to perish together with humanity?
Under urgent orders from the highest levels of government, the military and police mobilized swiftly. Like bloodhounds catching the scent of prey, they began hunting down superpower users believed to threaten humanity's future.
However, the students from Academy City were one step ahead of them.
Acting decisively and without hesitation, they quietly began a frenzied campaign to destroy the existing order of human society.
The global network seemed as if it had been invaded by demons, suffering relentless attacks from unknown viruses.
Critical facilities such as nuclear power plants and military bases were not spared. They were assaulted to varying degrees, explosions erupting one after another, flames soaring into the sky.
Some cities were mercilessly bombarded by missiles launched from out-of-control military bases. Skyscrapers collapsed amid thunderous explosions. The streets fell into chaos, cries and screams intertwining like a living hell.
To rebuild the world's social system, the existing human society had to be completely destroyed first—plunging the entire world into chaos.
Because of the brutal war against superpower users a century ago, the world's governments and militaries had long been like startled birds, constantly guarding against another uprising.
Thus, in the face of this crisis, their reaction speed was not slow.
Only a few days after Kiana and Maria stepped into a prosperous metropolis, the Far East military had already sharply locked onto their whereabouts.
Inside the hotel room, the atmosphere was as tense as a fully drawn bowstring, ready to snap at any moment.
Suddenly, with a loud Bang, the door was violently smashed open. A squad of fully armed soldiers surged in like a tide, weapons raised, their eyes vigilant and fierce.
Maria moved like a phantom among the soldiers, fists and kicks striking cleanly and efficiently.
In the blink of an eye, the soldiers lay scattered across the floor, groaning in pain.
Maria clapped her hands and turned to look at Kiana, who was calmly lying on the bed playing on her phone. She could not help asking, "Are you just going to stay like that? The place outside is packed with soldiers and police. We're completely surrounded. There are even snipers aiming at us."
Without looking up, Kiana's fingers continued gliding across the screen as she replied casually, "Can't you handle them yourself?"
Maria shook her head helplessly. As a superhuman possessing A-rank Valkyrie-level strength, she indeed did not take ordinary soldiers seriously.
Kiana glanced at the soldiers who had merely been knocked unconscious and clicked her tongue. "What's the point of just knocking them out?"
With that, she snapped her fingers.
In an instant, agonized screams erupted from outside the hotel.
The soldiers and police surrounding the building suddenly felt excruciating pain shooting through every part of their bodies, as if countless ants were gnawing at their bones. They collapsed to the ground, writhing in torment, faces twisted grotesquely as miserable cries burst from their throats.
Inside the room, the unconscious soldiers were jolted awake by the same piercing agony. They rolled across the floor in pain, bodies contorted beyond recognition, screaming endlessly, "Aaaahhh—"
Maria stared at Kiana in shock. "What did you do?"
Still playing on her phone, Kiana replied lightly, "Nothing much. I just used a skill developed from my superpower to disable them."
"You know my ability can corrode and devour things, turning them into monsters—whether organic or inorganic.
"I've been creating mutated microorganisms and letting them spread quietly through the air.
"With the fragility of the human body, do you really think they can withstand being invaded by microorganisms that transform into monsters inside them?
"Since you don't seem to want to kill anyone, this will count as punishment. From now on, they'll remain in constant pain, unable to control their own bodies."
Looking at the soldiers writhing on the floor, Maria felt a trace of unease.
As if seeing through her thoughts, Kiana reminded her, "If you think it's cruel, you can help them find release."
Maria lifted her head. "Is this how you've always done things?"
Kiana stood up from the bed, picking up a soldier's rifle and magazines from the floor as she spoke. "Not really. I only did this because you didn't want to kill them."
"It also adds a bit of burden to our enemies."
As she spoke, she tossed a rifle to Maria.
Maria caught it but shook her head. "I don't need this kind of weapon."
Kiana smiled. "Guns are quite useful for killing people."
She stepped over the soldiers convulsing painfully on the floor and walked outside.
Within a five-kilometer radius of the hotel, she had already filled the area with mutated microorganisms. The place was like a massive trap. Anyone who stepped within its range would be walking straight into it. Unless they were wearing specially designed protective suits, coming here was no different from delivering themselves to death.
Following behind her, Maria asked, "Where are we going?"
Without slowing her steps, Kiana replied, "Iselin, Nina, and the Insect Queen are very close to us. Let's find them first."