Chapter 257: All-encompassing Furnace

After invoking Yamata no Orochi, Hebi no Miko didn't waste any time as she immediately unleashed a forbidden technique.

She wanted to eradicate all of her enemies with a single devastating attack.

The serpentine head that represented fire opened its mouth, and the air temperature instantly began to rise rapidly. Diana knew that this was extremely bad news, and she immediately began to attack Yamata no Orochi with her draconic flames and technomancy.

However, the attacks that had been able to inflict significant damage onto Oni no Miko's Yamata no Orochi were next to completely ineffective against this Yamata no Orochi. Not only did the attacks fail to stop the mighty serpent from unleashing its forbidden technique, it drew retaliation from one of Yamata no Orochi's other heads, which released a torrent of venom onto Diana's body. The intensely corrosive venom melted through part of Diana's dragon scales, displaying incredible destructive properties.

While Diana was frantically shaking off the corrosive venom from her body, Yamata no Orochi had completed its forbidden technique, unleashing an all-encompassing furnace.

First, a ring of fire emerged around Yamata no Orochi before rapidly proliferating outward, and slicing cleanly through all of the buildings in its path. The cross-sections of the severed buildings were all burning with scorching flames, reducing all of the glass, metal, and concrete to molten lava.

At the same time, the dark clouds up above were vaporized by the unbearable heat, and the entire sky turned bright red, while the air temperature continued to rise at an alarming rate.

The entire city had been transformed into an enormous furnace. All of the buildings began to melt like ice cream, and the ground beneath Adam was also becoming very sticky and viscous. Before long, even the ground had turned into molten laval.

Adam dragged his broken body to a small area that still hadn't yet melted, and he was looking around at the unfolding scene with a stunned expression.

The entire city was melting, presenting an astonishing spectacle to behold.

The melting point of glass was somewhere between 600°C and 800°C, while the melting point of steel was 1,500°C, and the melting point of the rocks on the ground ranged anywhere between 800°C to 2,000°C. The fact that the entire city was melting indicated that the air temperature had already climbed to in excess of 1,500°C.

Adam was stunned by what he was seeing, but in the next instant, he wasn't able to see anything anymore as his eyes had already begun melting.

Every time he inhaled, he felt as if he were sucking in flames that were about to burn his lungs to a crisp.

He immediately began holding his breath, then hurriedly withdrew Nun back into his body. With its lackluster physical resistance, it was going to be burned into charcoal in just a few more seconds.

Immediately thereafter, he invoked Sludge before instructing it to spread itself all over his entire body.

Initially, Sludge was able to provide a cool and soothing sensation, but it didn't take long before its body began to boil, and a short while later, it was completely baked into hardened clay, following which the clay also began to melt.

It was as if doomsday had arrived, and Adam and his allies were like ants in a flood, desperately doing everything that they could to survive even a second longer.

The only one who was still in decent condition was Diana.

Even though she was also laying in the molten lava, and her body was riddled with injuries, she was still able to hold on thanks to her incredible physical resistance.

Even in the face of death, there was no fear in her eyes at all, only vengeful fury that was just as scorching as the air around her. She let loose a defiant roar as she unleashed her draconic technomancy once again, conjuring up a large number of balls of black light that rained down upon Yamata no Orochi in a torrential downpour.

She knew that her efforts were going to be completely futile, but she was still attacking with all her might.

Emboldened and empowered by her fury, Diana was feeling no fear or hesitation. Her gaze was focused solely on her enemy, and her mind was filled with the image of King Arthur's face.

The balls of black light crashed into Yamata no Orochi's body, and they were able to shatter some of its scales, but those scales were quickly healed thanks to the continued influx of black mist.

However, Diana didn't give up, and she continued to attack with all her might, despite the enormous psychic power expenditure required and the fact that she was being roasted alive.

The balls of black light were the only token symbols of resistance in the scorching red world.

Finally, the entire city was transformed into a sea of flames, but all of a sudden, one of the black balls of light smashed a massive hole with a diameter of several dozen meters straight through Yamata no Orochi's body.

Yamata no Orochi let loose a thunderous howl of agony, and the surrounding air temperature plummeted drastically.

What happened?

Diana was furious, but she wasn't stupid. She knew the power of her own draconic technomancy better than anyone else, and she certainly wasn't naive enough to believe that she could inflict such a severe wound onto Yamata no Orochi so easily.

After sustaining that gruesome wound, Yamata no Orochi immediately left the psychic world without retaliating. It took Hebi no Miko less than a second to flee from the psychic world after sustaining that injury, and it seemed that the situation was extremely urgent.

After emerging from the psychic world, Diana was immediately struck by a splitting headache, but she was still able to remain conscious. She could see that Adam and the three psychic mutants were sprawled out on the ground, and she didn't know whether they were still alive. Gathered around them were several Mechguard units, and thanks to their presence, the surrounding bystanders were all kept at bay.

Diana was clutching at her own throbbing head as she made her way over to one of the Mechguard units. The automated police officer was just about to stop her when she flashed her badge and allowed the unit to scan her face and retinas, following which she was immediately granted free passage.

After being allowed through, Diana began to inspect the condition of her three companions, and she discovered that they were all on the verge of psychic death, but miraculously, all four of them had managed to survive.

The fact that they were still alive meant that they could still recover, and due to the fact that all four of them were psychic mutants to different extents, the recovery process wasn't going to take very long for them.

After ascertaining the conditions of her four companions, Diana turned to a Mechguard before asking, "What... happened?"

Instead of providing a verbal response, the Mechguard unit played a piece of footage for Diana to display to her the events that had just taken place.

After receiving that instruction from Adam, the Mechguard units arrived on the scene to detain Alan. However, on the way to Alan's apartment, they discovered Adam standing completely still on the street. Once it was determined that there was an extremely high likelihood that he was under a psychic attack, they immediately began searching the nearby area.

Initially, they were unable to find any suspects, but using their infrared sensors, they were quickly able to spot a person who was seated in an unnaturally still manner in a nearby restaurant.

After scanning her facial data, they discovered that she was an international fugitive, and one of the Mechguard units immediately opened fire, striking her with a bullet.

However, her body had clearly undergone military retrofitting, and her prosthetics automatically kicked in to shield her from most of the damage. Even so, her abdomen was still wounded by the shrapnel from the bullet, and after returning to the real world, Hebi no Miko immediately fled the scene, able to outrun the Mechguard units thanks to her prosthetics.

Upon witnessing this footage, Diana finally understood how Yamata no Orochi had suddenly sustained that severe wound at the end of the battle. As it turned out, the wound was a reflection of the injury that she had sustained in the real world, rather than a result of Diana's attacks.