Mjolnir slammed into Mephisto's head again with brutal force, and this time the devil went down hard. His body dropped fast, like an osprey diving for fish, before crashing straight into the river with a towering splash that sent water spraying in every direction.
Locke landed lightly on the ground, barely making a sound despite the divine power now surging through his body. He didn't waste even a second looking at the river. Instead, his eyes shifted toward the towering red beam not far away, the pillar of hellish light still punching through the sky like a wound in reality itself.
Demon soldiers were still pouring out of it, but the flood had slowed compared to before. The battlefield was still ugly, still soaked in blood, smoke, and scattered fire, but the defenders had finally stabilized the situation. At this point, the Avengers and the other heroes had enough breathing room to keep the remaining devils in check.
The real problem wasn't the grunts anymore. As long as that beam stayed open, the invasion would never truly stop, because hell would just keep feeding more monsters into New York until the city finally drowned under them.
Locke raised Mjolnir high. A single bolt of lightning shot upward like a divine spear, and in the next instant the sky answered.
Massive black storm clouds rolled in from nowhere, gathering with impossible speed until they swallowed the heavens above the Avengers base and everything around it. The clouds spread wide and thick, swallowing moonlight, city glow, and smoke alike until the battlefield beneath them looked like it had been dragged into the heart of some ancient apocalypse.
The storm wasn't normal weather. It was raw authority. The power sealed inside Mjolnir reached into the atmosphere and bent it to its will, calling down a tempest vast enough to bury the entire combat zone beneath thunder, wind, and wrath.
The moment Mephisto burst back out of the river, soaked and furious, he saw the sky and his expression changed. Even for a Hell Lord, the sight was unsettling.
He lunged toward Locke without hesitation, clearly intending to crush him before the storm fully unfolded. But just as he closed the distance, something silver-gray dropped from the sky between them with a violent sonic boom.
The Thunder Armor had arrived.
Its intelligent combat system reacted the instant its owner came under threat. The armor planted itself in Mephisto's path, raised both arms, and unleashed the full output of its sonic weapons without the slightest delay.
The blast hit like an invisible beast.
A monstrous shockwave tore across the battlefield, pulverizing the ground in front of the armor and carving a deep trench through concrete, steel, dirt, and shattered debris. The gouge stretched all the way toward the Hudson, and when the blast reached the river, the water itself exploded apart into mist and broken spray.
The attack wasn't enough to seriously injure Mephisto, but it did something almost as useful. It delayed him. It forced him to break stride, alter course, and give Locke the one thing he wanted most.
Time.
By then, the sky was completely covered. Lightning flickered through the black clouds like the pulse of some colossal living thing, and the pressure in the air grew heavy enough to make every breath feel charged.
Locke turned his head and looked at Mephisto, who was rushing him again with obvious irritation, and a grin curved at the corner of his mouth. He moved his lips silently, letting the old devil read the words for himself.
Welcome to New York.
Then he brought the hammer down.
In an instant, the sky erupted. Lightning rained across the area in blinding sheets, strike after strike after strike, until the whole battlefield looked like it had transformed into some impossible forest of thunder. Each descending bolt was like a glowing trunk, while the mass of black clouds above became a roof of storm and violence stretching to the horizon.
Locke had never felt so good in his life.
Standing at the center of that storm, he felt as if every nerve in his body had come alive. The divine current didn't hurt him. It welcomed him. It fed him, strengthened him, and made him feel like he'd been born for exactly this moment.
He even reached out deliberately and let one jagged bolt slam into his palm. Instead of pain, he felt a savage, electric exhilaration race through him from head to toe.
Across from him, Mephisto had no such luxury. Even with all his strength, he could only keep moving, weaving and dodging through the relentless bombardment as thunder crashed around him from every side.
"Old man, here I come!" Locke shouted.
He moved with the hammer leading the way, crossing the distance like a streak of lightning. Mephisto snarled in rage, but what truly angered him wasn't getting hit. What rattled him was the fact that he could clearly feel the nearby Hell Gate trembling under the repeated strikes of divine thunder.
That was the foundation of everything.
The only reason he could wield such overwhelming power in the human world was because two Hell Gates were open and continuously feeding him strength. If even one of them failed, his power would drop hard. This wasn't his territory. This wasn't his home field. Without a direct line to hell, he would be dragged back toward the limits of a manifested avatar.
At this stage of the fight, Mephisto had already realized what kind of power was flowing through Locke's body. It was Asgardian, yes, but not just any random scrap of divine energy. It was one of the most exalted forces in all of Asgard, and it had dropped into this fight out of nowhere like a bad joke played by the universe itself.
Then the red beam flickered.
It shuddered once, twice, and suddenly went dark.
The moment it vanished, Mephisto felt it. His power dropped sharply, like part of his spine had just been ripped out.
He knew immediately.
This was bad.
Locke felt the same shift, and unlike Mephisto, it made him smile. He rushed forward without a word and started swinging. One hammer blow landed, then another, then a third, each one heavy enough to crack air and bone alike.
When Mephisto finally stumbled backward, Locke vanished in a flash and reappeared behind him. He locked the old devil down from the rear, forcing Mjolnir hard under his jaw, then launched both of them straight into the storm.
They shot up into the dark clouds as thunder converged from all directions. Wind screamed around them. Lightning roared through the sky. Their location became a blazing sphere of white-blue light suspended in the heart of the tempest.
Under that merciless bombardment, Mephisto's borrowed human shell began to fail. His skin split apart. It dried, blackened, peeled away, and finally exposed what was underneath.
Red skin. Horns. A demon's face twisted with fury.
He howled into the storm, his voice full of malice and ancient hate. "Mortal, how dare you lay hands on a god? I will curse you forever. Fire will consume you. Crows will tear at your flesh. I will speak your true name every day until your soul breaks!"
Locke leaned close to his ear and laughed. "Tony Stark. That's my name. Go ahead and try it."
Mephisto choked out one final, furious curse, but by then the thunder had already decided the matter. Beneath the endless barrage, his manifested body finally burned away into ash.
…
From somewhere deep in the endless lava pits of hell, a furious roar echoed across infernal wastelands.
"This isn't over, you bastards!"
…
The instant Mephisto's avatar was destroyed, a system prompt flashed before Locke's eyes. A king-level gift pack had arrived, and he opened it immediately without bothering to hide his anticipation.
The reward turned out to be a brand-new ability called Absolute Zero Domain, and he understood the basics almost as soon as he scanned the information. It was a large portable space where time effectively didn't move. Anything stored inside would remain frozen in a state of perfect stillness, with no decay, no aging, and no change.
That meant supplies would stay fresh forever, weapons would remain pristine, and even unstable materials could theoretically be locked in place. As for living things, the description was a little fuzzier. They would probably be frozen in a temporal sense the moment they entered, but whether they'd count as dead or just paused was still unclear.
Locke's instinct said they'd survive. Time wasn't being erased. It was just being held still. Based on every weird sci-fi movie he'd ever half-watched, that usually meant people came back just fine once the effect ended.
But he didn't have time to test it, because the moment he dropped back to the ground, worse news arrived.
A few minutes earlier, the White House had launched nuclear missiles at New York.
Not one warhead. Multiple. High-yield.
Every face around him changed immediately. The surviving Avengers looked exhausted, smoke-stained, and battle-worn, but the fear on them now was different from anything the devils had caused. They had fought their hearts out to save the city, and while they were still doing it, their own government had decided to bury everything under atomic fire.
Storm's voice was tight with alarm. "That's a Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile. Ten independent warheads, each at five hundred kilotons. If those go off, New York is done."
Wolverine sucked in a breath and looked around grimly. "So basically all of you are screwed."
Cyclops shot him a glare sharp enough to cut steel. "I hope you get vaporized so clean not even a single hair survives."
"Enough," Frank barked.
Acting as field leader now, the Avengers' deputy captain was covered in dust and ash, his face lined with strain as he turned toward Locke. "Do you have any way to stop it?"
"Yes," Locke said.
Every eye snapped to him at once.
He drew in a slow breath, then looked toward the final remaining pillar of red light in the distance. "There's only one way."
He raised a hand, and the Thunder Armor flew back to his side. The plating opened and sealed around him in seconds, silver-gray metal locking into place with mechanical precision.
Wolverine's eyes widened as realization hit him. He took a step forward, voice rough. "Locke, don't tell me you're planning to fly that thing into the Hell Gate with the missile. You'll die."
His voice echoed from within the armor, deeper now, but still calm. "Heroes aren't always heroes. Sometimes they're just people who make the right choice at the right moment. I think this is one of those moments."
The others understood instantly, and more than one pair of eyes went wet. Frank straightened to full attention and gave him a solemn salute, the kind reserved for someone already walking toward death.
The armor's thrusters ignited with a roar, flames blasting downward as Locke slowly rose into the air. "Goodbye, everyone," he said.
Then he shot into the sky, leaving nothing behind but a streak of light and a silent shadow in the hearts of everyone watching.
"He's the real thing," someone murmured.
…
At the White House, President O'Connor was stunned speechless.
He stared at the new satellite feed in total disbelief, then ripped off one of his leather shoes and hurled it straight at the nearest Pentagon official. Earlier, the military had strongly urged him to authorize a nuclear strike, and although he had hesitated for a long time, relentless pressure from the war room had worn him down.
He hadn't launched immediately. Deep down, he kept hoping for another option.
But then the massive storm clouds had swallowed the sky over New York, and everyone in the room thought it was a fresh escalation from hell. The generals pushed harder. The pressure mounted. Finally, O'Connor clenched his teeth, shut his eyes, and gave the order.
Now the updated images had come in.
The dark clouds were gone. The red beam near the Hudson had disappeared too. That meant another Hell Gate had been closed. It meant the battle in New York might actually be turning around.
He tried to recall the missile at once, but the response came back fast and cold. The Trident had already entered the atmosphere over New York. Electromagnetic interference was disrupting communications. It could no longer be redirected remotely.
All he could do now was send a wired warning to the Avengers that the strike was incoming.
…
With the Thunder Armor pushing at full power, Locke climbed rapidly into the upper atmosphere. He reached the descending missile quickly, its huge body cutting through the sky as it plunged toward New York like judgment itself.
His Spiritual Eyes swept across it in an instant, mapping every layer, component, and internal pathway with perfect clarity. Inside the warhead section, the separation sequence was already underway. Ten warheads were preparing to split off and complete the final stage of their run.
Locke found the exact point he needed.
He shot forward, tore through the outer plating with one hand, and reached directly into the guidance and warhead control systems. Tiny arcs of electricity flickered from his fingers as he burned out the critical components one by one.
He checked again with his eyes.
The whole combat section had gone still.
In other words, the missile was now a dud.
Locke let out a breath of relief. Come on, nobody actually thought I was going to fly this thing into the Hell Gate and die for New York, right?
What am I, Tony Stark?
The moment he heard about the launch, his first thought had been to toss the whole missile straight into the newly acquired Absolute Zero Domain. But then an even better idea had popped into his head.
Why not save New York in front of New York all over again?
Last time he'd already become a citywide savior. After this, shouldn't that upgrade to ten-million-level hometown messiah status? Once the mayoral term ended, he could run without hesitation. Mayor should be easy. Governor too. Hell, maybe even president someday.
The only real problem was forging himself a perfect birth certificate first.
Carrying the dud missile, Locke angled downward and began to dive. Below him, panicked New Yorkers saw the giant weapon descending and felt despair crush what little hope they had left. Some screamed. Some cried. Some cursed the White House and President O'Connor with all the rage left in their lungs.
"Damn those politicians! They don't deserve the presidency!"
"Curse those bastards! Even if I go to hell, I'm dragging them with me!"
But right in front of everyone's eyes, the missile suddenly veered off its original path and slammed toward the enormous red light in Manhattan…
....
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