"Roar—!"

Nicadori seemed to have been heavily wounded by this strike as well. Its body tumbled backward, flying high into the sky above Suspended Blade City.

Just as everyone thought it was going to regroup, they saw the weapon in its hand begin to rapidly change and expand. The metal melted and reshaped in its palm like heated wax, eventually forming an indescribable giant sword.

That sword was truly massive—so large that even Nicadori, who held it, appeared exceptionally small, like an ant wielding a section of a tree.

The sword swept across half the sky. When its shadow passed over the ground, it was like a dark cloud suddenly obscuring the sun—

"Not good! Get down—"

Dan Heng instinctively pressed down on Stelle's head. In the next second, Stelle only felt the earth beneath her feet vibrating violently, as if even the ground were trembling from this blow. In the darkness, countless pieces of rubble poured down like a rainstorm, as if to level the entire Suspended Blade City...

After an unknown amount of time, Stelle felt someone tug at her arm—it was Dan Heng. He brushed the dust off her head, and only then did she crawl out from the collapsed ruins.

The warm light of the setting sun shone on her face, somewhat dazzling.

Wait... weren't they just fighting near the altar in the Soul-Forging District?

Realizing this, Stelle whipped her head around, but the terrifying sight before her eyes made her instinctively gasp.

The majestic inner city of Suspended Blade City was gone, leaving only a small fraction of the building foundations. Not only that, but a cut so straight it was almost cruel had sliced through the high-rises of the entire city at the waist, leaving behind ugly and tragic remains.

As for the distant mountain peaks outside the city, an entire section from the mountainside up had vanished. The exposed rock at the fault line was no longer grayish-white but a burning, searing red, like a branding iron, as if it were still on fire.

Like a wound on the earth that hadn't yet scabbed over, or like bones exposed after flesh had been torn away.

However, after swinging this sword, Nicadori did not continue its offensive. It floated high in the sky, holding its spear aloft as if summoning something.

"What is he... doing?"

Mydei stared fixedly at the sky, pea-sized beads of sweat sliding down his temples.

"It's coming, the blow that levels heaven and earth—"

—

fullmetal alchemist.

"Brother, the sky... has gone dark."

Alphonse's slightly trembling voice echoed from within the armor.

"Gone dark? Stop joking, Alphonse." Edward yawned, forcing one eye open to glance at the wall clock—the position of the hour hand told him definitively that it was 8:30 AM, a time when he could barely justify staying in bed a bit longer.

But after a moment, he realized something was wrong:

—Something was definitely wrong!

It was 8:30 in the morning; how could it be pitch black outside?

Edward jumped out of bed and leaned against the window to look out. He saw the sky was pitch black. A sudden gale had risen, bringing with it countless dark clouds that wrapped the sky as tight as an iron barrel.

"What is that... in the sky?" Edward narrowed his eyes. He saw a strange, pitch-black mass moving across the sky, but because it was so colossal, he couldn't see its full extent at all.

It wasn't until half a minute later, as the perspective in the sky gradually zoomed out, that he finally saw what kind of behemoth it was.

It was a sword, entirely pitch black.

The tip of the sword slowly emerged from the clouds, and even the clouds in the sky seemed to swirl with it, forming a magnificent yet terrifyingly rare celestial phenomenon.

On the streets and in the hallways, countless pedestrians and residents looked up one after another, staring at the sky in stunned silence.

—No one knew what kind of earth-shaking roar would greet them next.

—

The Boys.

Due to the psychological shadow previously cast by Phantylia, almost everyone instinctively closed their eyes before the arrival of that giant sword that seemed capable of destroying heaven and earth.

But unfortunately, they had no idea how terrifying that world-destroying roar would be. The explosion that obliterated everything came from the sky, like a tactical nuclear bomb detonating over New York City. The sound waves carried a destructive impact, instantly shattering all the glass in the Vought Building.

"Ah—!"

The instantaneous impact was like a sledgehammer slamming onto the crown of her head. The glass in front of Ashley shattered instantly, and shards pierced her arm. Fortunately, she felt no pain; unfortunately, the sound wave impact knocked her unconscious instantly. She collapsed without even making a sound.

At the same moment the impact arrived, A-Train felt like he couldn't hear anything. The building became incredibly quiet. The few people who could still stand all had their mouths wide open in terror, yet not a single person made a sound.

He felt as if a red-hot steel pipe was stirring inside his head, stabbing through his left ear, piercing his brain, and coming out his right ear, leaving behind a searing pain. Everything in front of him was warping and deforming, making him want to vomit as his stomach churned. He saw Ashley knocked unconscious by the roar from the sky, her body collapsing to the floor like a piece of paper... The world was spinning; it was damn awful.

He forced himself to the emergency elevator and pounded the down button, but the elevator showed it was full and didn't stop on his floor at all.

"F**k!"

He punched the elevator button hard, leaving a deep dent.

"Damn it, damn it!"

The roar from the Celestial Screen was still torturing him, but he couldn't see or hear anything clearly. The explosion caused by Nicadori's strike continued incessantly, as if leaving a scorched, constantly exploding, and churning red scar in the sky.

—

Stelle let out a long breath.

The fire of the Flame Lance in her hand weakened slightly.

After the dust settled, her vision gradually cleared. Scattered on the ground were red "crystals" of various sizes, all masterpieces of Mydei's work just now. Long before Stelle pulled out the Flame Lance, Mydei had constructed several massive crystal walls to dampen the impact from Nicadori.

This move indeed worked. Under the dual protection of the power of Preservation and Mydei, the five of them were almost uninjured.

It was just that Suspended Blade City behind them wasn't so lucky.

The once majestic city towers were reduced to a pile of rubble; nothing was recognizable. At its peak, a single sword strike from Nicadori could wipe out an entire archipelago, and Stelle had truly experienced it.

After this blow that leveled heaven and earth, Nicadori's burly body could finally no longer sustain itself. It knelt on one knee, barely supporting its frame with that spear.

"Victory is in sight! One last blow—"