Earth Blades

After hearing the announcement, the maintenance crew member raised his voice.
“Part B is beginning!!”
As he spoke, 4 of the bombers flying nearby changed course.
They rotated and moved 15 km away like spreading out the radius of a circle.
Then they turned their noses and accelerated away.
The bottom of the bombers had a part on them that the one the Level 5 was on
did not.
It was a jet black blade about half as long as the bomber itself.
The blade was elongated like a baton and its surface was made so it could
electrically contract. In 1/100 of a millimeter units, the concavity/convexity and
pattern could be controlled.
That long but sensitive blade sliced through the air as the supersonic bomber
flew at 7000 kph.
From that alone, the wind currents created by the blade held tremendous
destructive power.
But what would happen if a small amount of iron sand was mixed in?
The answer to that would soon be displayed.
The four bombers caused the ground to be sliced in a square with Avignon
trapped inside.
Only a few grams of iron sand were disseminated from the side of the blade.
Because that metal powder reached a tremendous speed higher than 10,000 kph,
an orange flash cut into the ground even though it started from a few thousand
meters in the air.
The bomber the Level 5 was riding on shook.
The air had been disturbed by the passage of a friendly bomber.
“…”
The Level 5 put one hand on the wall without taking his eyes away from the
monitor.
The first blast had created a trench 20 meters across and 10 meters deep.
Directly afterwards, the trench melted into orange and collapsed. The earth itself
was being cooked until it was like magma. And just like that, the old city of
Avignon was trapped inside a river of lava. The electricity and water lines and
even the Rhone River flowing near the city were severed. The outer
circumference had already started to flood.
Now everyone inside the old town of Avignon was completely trapped.
The city did continue on past the outer walls and the residents in the area that
was going to become a river of lava had been forcibly removed by the powered
suits, but none of them were going to be very thankful.
(Ha. So this is the “Earth Blade”. With only 3 kilograms of iron sand and an
hour, it could cut the entire supercontinent of Eurasia in two. Academy City
certainly does make some fun things.)
Normally, bombers were protected by a few fighters.
Unlike small fighters, large bombers couldn’t turn very sharply. If they did, they
would immediately stall and might even succumb to inertia and come to pieces
in midair. In other words, if an enemy got a lock, they had no way of avoiding
the missile. Chaff or a flare could help to a certain extent, but they weren’t
perfect methods. Therefore, fighters would be deployed around a bomber to help
prevent the enemy from making a lock.
But the HsB-02 supersonic bomber was different.
Since it could only fly straight, it was made so that it could shake off a missile
just by flying straight.
Overwhelming speeds of over 7000 kph made that a reality. With air-to-air
missiles fired by fighters and even surface-to-air missiles lying in wait at
bombing points, the idea was to carry out the bombing and get out of range
shortly after the lock was made.
The supersonic bomber changed the traditional rules of an air battle through pure
power.
And when the Academy City high power stealth functionality was added in, it
became next to impossible to defend against an attack from the HsB-02.
“The objective area is confirmed to be isolated!!” The maintenance crew
member said loudly.
The bombers that had fired the Earth Blade went an ample 20 km away and
decelerated. They must have altered the “pattern” of the blade’s surface because
the wind currents stopped.
To Aru Majutsu no Index Vol 14 Chapter 4 Part 5