A police officer thought he was going to die when he shot and killed Bourke Street attacker Hassan Khalif Shire Ali.
Shire Ali stabbed Melbourne identity Sisto Mapaspina to death and injured two others in a CBD rampage on November 9, 2018.
One of the first two officers on the scene has told an inquest he feared Shire Ali would kill them.
"I thought he was going to kill us," the man, who cannot be named, told coroner John Cain on Tuesday.
"After I shot him, he stopped. He stopped on the spot."
A wounded Shire Ali repeated the phrase "Allahu Akbar", recounted an off-duty officer who had rushed to help his colleagues.
"He just kept saying it over and over again. He must have said it at least 10 to 15 times," Senior Constable Lachlan Hefferman said.
Shire Ali, 30, had been a national security person of interest, and flagged by counter-terror police as potentially violent and armed.
He was to be arrested the day after the attack and died in hospital during surgery.
Earlier, he drove into the city with gas canisters in his car.
They exploded, and Shire Ali pulled out a knife and stabbed someone who rushed to help him.
He then attacked Mr Malaspina, the 74-year-old co-owner of Pellegrini's Espresso Bar, and a security guard.
Shire Ali was pepper sprayed but didn't stop and lunged at police, refusing their demands to drop the knife.
"His face was gnarled and angry. He was scowling at both of us," said the officer who fired the fatal shot.
Sen Const Hefferman didn't believe his colleague had any other choice but to shoot the man.
"After observing the way he was slashing at these coppers, it was my opinion that he was trying to kill them," he said.
"If he had, he then would have then turned on me or on the other off-duty officer, and this incident would have escalated to horrifying depths."
The inquest was previously told Shire Ali adhered to an extremist Islamic ideology and his attack was inspired by Islamic State terror group.
His brother, Ali Khalif Shire Ali, was jailed earlier this year for plotting a terror attack on Federation Square in December 2018.
He was in custody at the time of the Bourke Street attack.
