Just as Tony ignited his thrusters and prepared to check on Lynn's condition, Fury's voice came through the communication channel. Gone was his usual calm and deep agent's voice; instead, it was filled with the urgency of the collapsing battle, the anger at the high command's reckless orders, and the suffocating feeling of being powerless to reverse the situation.
" Stark World Security Council believes the situation is out of control. To avoid further damage, they have decided to launch a nuclear missile at Manhattan. You have three minutes."
Tony hovered in mid-air, and the moment the bright red countdown appeared on his helmet's HUD, he instantly fell silent. He glanced up at the wormholes spewing out enemy forces overhead, then looked at Lynn, who was locked in fierce combat in mid-air. Lynn's tri-colored wings were fully extended, and silver particles surged violently from his fingertips, simultaneously locking onto five Chitauri fighters. Each dismantling was brutal and direct, completely lacking the previous order and restraint, filled with an uncontrollable sense of catharsis. Broken metal debris fell densely like rain. Tony closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, only helplessness remained in his eyes.
"There was already an out-of-control madman killing indiscriminately, and these bureaucrats are just adding fuel to the fire."
He decisively cut off communication, switched to the team's internal channel, and said with a hint of sarcasm, "Everyone speed up. The World Security Council bigwigs are going to use mushroom bombs to clear the ground. We have three minutes left."
The devastating news of the nuclear countdown arrived, and everyone on the battlefield froze in shock. Rogers, who was shielding civilians evacuating along the street with his shield, suddenly swung his arm, smashing the Vibranium Shield down and sending the nearby Chitauri soldier and his Goblin Glider flying. Natasha, curled up behind the wreckage of a fighter jet, quickly changed magazines, deftly cocking the gun, her grey-blue eyes fixed on the humming Tesseract atop Stark Tower, her gaze sharp and taut. In the distance, Ivan unleashed a thick arc of blue-white electricity, a white parrot on his shoulder screeching as he cursed under his breath in Russian, whipping two enemy planes that had attacked from the flanks in a fit of rage, the crackling of the exploding arcs piercing the roar of artillery fire.
Tony's thrusters blasted forward at full speed, their golden-red trails tearing through the sky as he hurtled toward the incoming nuclear missile. JARVIS locked onto the trajectory in real time, and the two-minute-forty-second countdown ticked incessantly on the HUD screen. Natasha darted through the ruins, trying to snatch a usable spacecraft. The Tesseract atop the building continued to spin, its eerie blue light constantly radiating outwards, sending enemy troops with it.
The wormhole high in the sky suddenly shifted between light and darkness, with dark blue energy ripples surging and spreading in layers. A deep, heavy roar pierced through the clouds, far from the mechanical sound of an ordinary fighter jet, carrying an oppressive feeling as heavy as a mountain, and tightly enveloping the entire Manhattan.
A Leviathan slowly emerged from the wormhole rift. Far larger than a typical Chitauri troop transport, its entire body was covered in thick, dark gray metallic armor. The gaps in its ribs were crammed with fully equipped Chitauri infantry, countless energy rifles aimed at the streets below. The behemoth's head had no eyes, only a massive metal jaws containing a ghostly blue energy core, which whirred and clanked as it opened and closed.
The second one.
The third one.
Several enormous beasts slowly swam between the buildings, their massive bodies sweeping across the air. Their tails grazed the facades of office buildings, instantly shattering entire panes of glass, sending countless fragments cascading down the skyscrapers, forming a rain of falling glass.
Just as the first Leviathan crouched down, about to crush the dense residential buildings below, a violent bolt of lightning crashed down.
A thick, blue arc of electricity cleaved straight down, striking Leviathan's head precisely. The massive metal behemoth was instantly slammed to the ground by the lightning, collapsing an entire section of the viaduct with a deafening roar.
Thor Odinson stepped down from the center of the lightning, his red cloak billowing wildly amidst the remaining arcs of electricity. Mjolnir spun rapidly, creating a ring of dazzling lightning. He landed steadily on the remains of the behemoth, Mjolnir slammed into the ground. The shockwave instantly swept in all directions, sending all the surrounding Chitauri soldiers flying and crushing them.
"Sorry I'm late!" Thor's booming voice pierced the communication channel, carrying the excitement of fierce battle and the raw power of energized thunder. "Something unexpected happened; Loki gave me quite a bit of trouble."
"What exactly is the trouble?" Rogers asked in a low voice while covering the civilians' evacuation.
"We'll talk about it after the battle!" Thor smashed the soldier who had ambushed him with his hammer, looked up at the ever-expanding wormhole above his head, his excitement quickly fading, replaced by an extremely grave expression. "The enemy's numbers far exceed our expectations; we can't hold out for much longer."
At the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street, a high-rise building damaged by a fighter jet is slowly tilting and collapsing. The muffled sound of the foundation cracking continues, the twisted steel beams emit a piercing scream, and the glass on the facade peels off and falls layer by layer. A dozen civilians who were unable to evacuate in time are trapped at the intersection by rubble, broken walls, and collapsed billboards.
A deep, violent roar suddenly rang out from the street corner.
The massive green body roared out, its heavy feet crushing the asphalt, leaving a trail of cracks. Hulk slammed his shoulder into the leaning base of the building, gripping the deformed steel frame with both hands, and forcefully pushing the collapsing skyscraper back into place. The steel beams creaked and groaned under his immense force, and the precarious building was finally stabilized. Taking advantage of this fleeting window of opportunity, Rogers immediately guided the remaining civilians to evacuate through the alleyway on the north side.
" Banner's here too!" Rogers ' voice was tinged with excitement.
Hulk suddenly looked up at the Leviathan hovering in mid-air, his green pupils blazing with intense fighting spirit, and a fierce, ferocious, yet childlike smile spread across his lips.
High in the sky, Lynn's tri-colored particle wings expanded further. He hovered in the airspace above the building, the imitation Mind Stone on his chest flickering with light, a pale yellow glow winding along his collarbone and neck, intertwining with the silvery-white particles flowing around him to form intricate and eerie patterns.
The former laziness and playfulness have long since vanished. The sickly smile still lingers at the corner of his mouth, but the initial composure and calmness are gone, replaced only by layers upon layers of persistent restlessness.
The chaos is never truly over.
The wormhole kept spewing out new enemy formations. He had just cleared an area of airspace when two or three times the number of enemy troops poured in. After finally managing to eliminate the small fighters, the Leviathan, whose size crushed everything, followed one after another.
The magic array washed over his short-term memory once per second, constantly erasing his recent actions, thoughts, and achievements. He had long forgotten how many fighter jets he had dismantled, let alone how long this tug-of-war had lasted.
The arrival of Thor and Hulk temporarily halted his relentless dismantling offensive. He casually tossed aside the half-dismantled wreckage of the fighter jet and turned to look at the two newcomers below. His reddened and unfocused gaze lingered briefly on them, his tone calm and gentle, yet his speech was unusually rapid, revealing an uncontrollable anxiety.
"The smaller ones are yours. The big ones..."
The words suddenly stopped.
He paused, his mind blank, completely forgetting what he had just intended to do.
The clear division of labor that had been in mind just a second ago was instantly wiped away by the magic array. A trace of confusion flashed in his eyes, only to be swallowed up by anxiety. Only one thought, etched into his very bones, remained in his mind... to clear away the chaos.
With a sudden flap of his wings, a fierce torrent of particles erupted once more, and he darted out, lunging again at the newly formed enemy aircraft below the wormhole. Particle threads burst forth from both hands simultaneously, instantly pinning down three Chitauri infantrymen who were attacking Thor's flank, locking them and their skateboards in mid-air.
His dismantling speed became faster and faster, and more and more brutal. Instead of gradually peeling off the armor and dismantling the core, he directly and violently ripped out the engine core. The powerless fighter jet crashed into the surrounding buildings with inertia and exploded into pieces.
Just as Thor was about to raise his hand to unleash the second bolt of lightning, he caught a glimpse of a silver-yellow tail of light streaking overhead. Several fighter jets that had been secretly preparing for an attack were all shut down the moment Lynn passed by, their cores emptied, leaving them no room to struggle before they were reduced to scrap metal and plummeted to the ground.
"Why is this kid so fierce?" Thor asked casually over the comms after dispatching a nearby enemy with a single blow.
Tony was speeding towards the nuclear intercept point, the roar of his thrusters filling the channel. His voice carried a hint of helplessness and apprehension. "It's more accurate to say it's close to going out of control. Don't try to understand him, just finish up quickly, the nuclear missile is almost here."
On the ground, Hulk roared at Leviathan high in the sky, a blatant provocation.
Lynn suddenly swooped down, his silver-white particle threads precisely piercing the gaps in the giant beast's head armor, melting away the entire power circuit and energy transmission system in just a few seconds.
Leviathan maintained its diving and attack posture, its energy instantly extinguished, and its massive metal shell completely lost power, crashing heavily into the abandoned commercial building below, creating a deafening explosion of metal and concrete debris.
Amidst the billowing smoke and dust, Lynn didn't linger; he turned and continued searching for his next target.
He wouldn't linger, nor would he savor the victory. The kill, the balance of power, the judgment he had just made—all of that had been washed away by his memory. In his world, there was only the ever-growing chaos before him and the obsessive command he had to carry out.
"Nuclear missile remaining in one and a half minutes." Tony's tense voice echoed through the communication channel, the thruster overload screams growing increasingly piercing. "I cannot guarantee a 100% successful deflection."
"Where is Natasha?" Rogers pressed in a deep voice.
Natasha's voice broke through the silence, panting heavily from running, the background filled with the shrill screams and deafening explosions of energy guns. "I've managed to snag a flying vehicle, I'm going up right away!"
"Big guy, come with me!"
Thor gripped Mjolnir, lightning crackling around him once more, and together with the Hulk, who was poised to unleash his power, they charged at full speed toward the top of Stark Tower.