"ROAR!!"
The beast's roar caused smoke and dust to fly, and everyone's expressions turned to panic. There was nothing visible, yet they could clearly feel the abnormality in the air.
"Stop! We are not the enemy!"
Natasha Romanoff hurriedly yelled. She didn't expect the situation to escalate like this. Director Fury had said that this "unknown entity" shouldn't be treated as an enemy for the time being, but the situation had changed so quickly that it caught her off guard.
"When your gun is pointed at me, you already are," Light looked at Natasha, pushing his black-framed glasses up his nose. He spoke indifferently. "You aren't going to tell me that was actually friendly fire, or a simple misfire, are you? Perhaps it was intended to be, but it certainly isn't now."
He raised his hand. "Come forth, my pet."
"ROAR!!"
In Light's eyes, a huge and burly monster stood by his side. It had a hollow cavity in its chest and a light gray body with a white, bone-like mask on its face.
There was another roar. Except for Daredevil, everyone was confused.
Daredevil, with his super senses, could feel an unknown monster standing next to Light through the small changes in air pressure and the vibrations of the ground.
But to everyone else, it was invisible. Was it a cloaked monster?
What surprised Daredevil most was that there was no heartbeat. It was incredible.
Daredevil did not make a sound to warn them. The appearance of S.H.I.E.L.D. now showed that they intended to reap the benefits of the battle like a fisherman waiting for the snipe and clam to fight. The most annoying thing for a vigilante like him was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interference.
Then he reconsidered. Since this was Light Inksworth, how could he have such strength? The cartoonist was not doing his job properly; he was fighting S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of drawing.
"Natasha, the Chief said that support has been sent. What we need to do is hold him here," Hawkeye whispered into his comms.
Hawkeye squinted his eyes and used high-tech equipment to scan various spectrums, but there was no result.
'Not invisible?' he thought.
Modern science and technology could detect invisibility and camouflage through X-rays, thermal imaging, and motion sensors, but the scans showed nothing.
This indicated that such creatures either did not exist on the physical spectrum, or they were shielded by something beyond science.
Either way, the equipment was useless.
"Yeah," Natasha had no choice but to respond. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents separated and surrounded Light, just like they had done with the ninjas earlier.
However, they did not act rashly. The bullet storm earlier had been caught bare-handed. They could only rely on heavy weapons to fight against him.
The Hollow began to move. A sickening click sound made people's hearts throb. The keen-eyed Hawkeye saw the ground slightly collapse under an invisible weight and hurriedly shouted: "Attack the sinking position!"
He turned around and said to an agent behind him: "Always pay attention to the source of the sound waves and transmit the data to the communicator."
"ROAR!!"
The Hollow's speed got faster and faster. Its heavy body rushed toward the surface agents, raising a massive fist.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets vented toward the void, but they penetrated directly in the next second, without the blood splashing they had imagined.
Natasha gritted her teeth and fired her pistols, but the result was the same.
Did they simply miss? Or did the bullets pass through without injury?
Buzz!
"AHHH!!!"
Invisible claws swept the agents away. They screamed in pain as they were slammed into the cavern walls by an unseen force.
"Die!"
An agent rushed to the front, setting up a rocket launcher.
BOOM!
The shell flew out. It was a Stark Industries product, extremely powerful.
The rocket passed through the Hollow's spiritual body and hit the wall behind it. The crashing rubble collapsed, and the stone wall smashed into cobweb-like cracks, spreading in all directions.
"Impossible! I should have hit it!"
The agent shouted with a dull face. In the next second, he was swatted away like a fly. Until now, he couldn't understand how he could miss when the target was close at hand.
Hawkeye's face was pale. Did such a big body really dodge?
At this time, the underground ceiling kept shaking off rubble. The surrounding walls were already covered with cracks, and countless grains of sand fell.
"No, the shell hit the support pillar just now! Retreat!" Natasha shouted to the team. "Coulson, pull us up!"
S.H.I.E.L.D. was a powerful emergency response agency. They had contingency measures. Quickly, a small rescue pod was lowered from the surface, and the agents hurriedly fled into it.
The faces of Daredevil and the Defenders were tense. The collapse would undoubtedly bury everyone underneath. Just as Matt was hesitating whether to try and find a way out, the Punisher waved at them from the pod.
When they saw this, they had no choice but to run over and scramble inside.
Light unsummoned the Hollow, stuffing it back into the warehouse. Anyway, it was just a mindless spirit; it wouldn't complain.
He looked up at the rescue pod that was about to fly out of the ground. He stepped gently on the air.
Hirenkyaku.
White air waves surged from his kick point, spreading out like ripples in water. Light's whole body burst out like a cannonball.
In an instant, he overtook the rescue pod and flew out of the ground. Shunpo flashed again and again, and he cleared the building within a few strokes.
Natasha and the other agents finally let out a breath as they watched Light's back retreating. A man who knew how to fly could easily attack the pod in the air, leaving them all dead without a place to be buried.
RUMBLE!
The building began to sink into the earth. As soon as the rescue pod cleared the collapse, a dazzling fireball appeared on the horizon.
"Hey! Did you do this? I'll need you to get down fella, I can't control this power yet, I'm warning you!"
Light stepped onto the sky. At this time, the clouds became more and more gloomy, as if pressing down on the city. At that moment, a dazzling flame flew violently from the distance. The burning flame took the shape of a young man.
"Human Torch?"
Light raised his eyebrows. There was no one else with this appearance.
'It seems that the Fantastic Four have already appeared,' he thought. 'That's right. The five of them went to space in the last news cycle.'
"Dude, what's with the flashy shoes? Is that what's allowing you to walk on air? Did you create it? How about you turn off the flashiness for sec and face me!"
Johnny Storm, covered in flames, was triumphant. Soon after getting his abilities, S.H.I.E.L.D. had begged for help, and he flew out impulsively.
He wanted to end the wrangling with S.H.I.E.L.D. for the other three. Johnny even thought about how the New York Times would report tomorrow.
It should be titled: "How Human Torch Saved Manhattan." He would be praised by people all over the world.
Light looked at Johnny's eagerness and said calmly, "Johnny Storm, the most idiotic of the two siblings? Can you shut the fuck up? You practicing saying all of those quips in a mirror or something?"
Johnny looked down, who felt humiliated by the comment, shouted in anger, "Fuck! How did you know?!"
Immediately, he waved his hand. A pillar of flames burst out of his body, swallowing Light under the raging fire.
The extremely high-temperature pillar of fire swept across the air. The billowing heat waves burned the clouds, turning them dark red. It looked like a sea of fire in the sky.
Fiery and violent energy exploded quickly, and sparks began to fall to the ground like meteors.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the ground were stunned. Aside from Magneto's assassination attempt on the President, even the Green Goblin had only used technology.
Now, a superpower display that could destroy the world refreshed their worldview.
Even Daredevil and the others were shocked. They took this opportunity to escape quickly; otherwise, it would not be easy to get out of the blast zone.
"You alive? Sure hope I didn't cook you, I don't cook that way."
The frivolous Johnny approached slowly with rebellious triumph.
Thousands of degrees of high-temperature flames boiled the air. The thin atmosphere was scarce, evaporated and changed. Even the clouds had been burned through, leaving a large hole. It was jaw-dropping.
"Hey, is he dead?"
Johnny explored the falling sea of flames. The average soldier rich in combat experience would never be so reckless.
But Johnny was not a soldier. He just wanted to see if his opponent was burnt to charcoal.
At this moment, a hand drilled out of the glorious sea of fire. It grabbed Johnny by the neck like lightning. The high temperature climbed onto the arm.
However, it seemed that the burning of thousands of degrees only made the arm turn light red. It did not seem to cause any harm.
"You shouldn't have let your guard down."
Light, in the guise of Aizen Sōsuke, had an eerie smile on his face.
The Toughness of Level 4 brought strong defense, and combined with Regeneration (Complete), this temperature could only make him feel heat, not burn him.
Light clung to Johnny's neck tightly. He stepped on the air and turned around suddenly, as if throwing a ball.
BANG!
A ring of air exploded at the place where he released his hand.
Whoosh!
The violent air wave quickly turned into a hurricane and attacked in all directions, immediately extinguishing the raging flames.
Johnny was thrown away from the clouds in an instant like a cannonball. He fell down rapidly. The flames on his body were blown out by the powerful airflow, flickering intermittently until they extinguished completely.
"Quickly! Move!"
Natasha shouted, her face pale. A meteor in the sky pointed directly at where they were—no, it should be said that it was aiming at the ruined building foundation.
"No, no! Flame on! Flame on!"
Johnny, awake from his recklessness, was horrified. He knew that if he didn't turn into a flame man and fly again, he would fall to the ground as flesh and blood. Undoubtedly, a pool of blood was waiting for him.
Johnny, who had just obtained superpowers, didn't know how deep the water in this world was. He was so unhappy that he felt he would become the master of the flame with a wave of his hand.
Ben was just a stone man. His sister Susan could only open barriers. Reed was like noodles. None were as strong as him. He felt like the strongest in the world.
But he didn't expect to be slapped down in a few days.
Under the desire to survive, layers of burning flames began to erupt. The air became distorted, and he finally turned back into a flame man just before impact.
However, the force that pushed him still made Johnny crash into the ruins like a meteor falling to the ground. A wave of horror spread out.
The ruins burned. Johnny lay on his stomach in the center of the crater, flames spewing out of his mouth like liquid.
However, this was not over yet.
Hummmmm.
Light raised his hand. Several stars lit up in the sky, piercing the night.
Energy Ball (Level 3).
"Sir! This is a high-explosive reaction!" a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent holding an instrument yelled in horror.
"Stop!"
A blue light curtain instantly appeared over Johnny's head.
The white energy balls slammed onto the barrier.
BOOM!
A vast expanse of whiteness resounded across the world. Then, a pillar of fire that covered the entire ruin rose into the sky.
The billowing black smoke dazzled from the fire. The surrounding rubble was all destroyed and disintegrated. The shockwave of dust and soil burst out with the sand.
The lifeboat stretched out a barrier of its own, engaging its claws into the ground to anchor itself against the blast.
"Pay close attention!!!"
Hawkeye called out hysterically, but his voice was overwhelmed by the wind.
The loud noise was like a mountain collapsing and the ground cracking. It was deafening.
Light pushed his glasses up with his fingers. He looked down at the entire ruin covered by black smoke, which had been wiped out into a huge crater.
Under the reflection of the lens, Light squinted his eyes.
"Look at that explosion... Megumi would be proud..."
The full version of the Energy Ball could destroy a city with three shots. Even if it was only Level 3, it still had a tenth of that power.
The Fantastic Four blocked it.
Johnny's body was being shielded by a rubber mesh—Reed Richards. Susan Storm was sweating profusely, a blood stain on the corner of her mouth from the strain of her force field.
"Ben, how is it? Are you okay?" Reed panted, caring more for his friend.
The Thing, made of crimson rocks, crossed his massive hands in front of him. His entire front body was burnt black. He coughed dumbly.
"Fortunately... it just hurts."
After speaking, he fell heavily.
"Ben!!!"
Reed and Susan hurriedly rushed up and shouted.
Johnny, who couldn't make any sparks, got up at this time. He had just returned from the edge of death's door. Regretting and guilty, he cried with tears on his face.
"It's all my fault... It's all me... It's all because of me."
"He's passed out in a coma," Reed checked Ben's vitals and finally let go of his heart a little.
Not far away, there were bursts of "buzzing" sounds from high in the sky. Several fighter planes flew at extreme speeds, and there was a huge shadow in the clouds further away—the Helicarrier.
"Because of your arrogance, you didn't hear what I said."
The sound from the dark sky was quiet, but extremely clear.
Everyone looked up. Maria Hill and Director Fury on the Helicarrier looked at Light in the ultra-clear picture on the big screen.
Light stepped into the dark clouds. He looked down condescendingly, and then he crushed his glasses. He raised his hand and sleek his hair back.
"From the beginning, no one has stood in the sky. No enhanced, no mutants, not even the Gods. But that unbearable vacancy of heaven's throne ends now."
"From now on... I will stand atop the heavens."
_______________________________
Word count: 2460
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