The ground trembled as the full might of the United States military opened fire. A furious wall of lead from automatic weapons slammed into the fire elemental, a storm of bullets that should have shredded any conventional foe. The deafening roar of M1 Abrams tanks echoed across the valley as their main guns unleashed a coordinated volley, shells streaking across the sky like vengeful meteors to strike the creature's chest.
Above, F-22 Raptors and Apache helicopters screamed past, loosing a torrent of Hellfire missiles. The ordnance struck true, and for a glorious moment, it seemed to be working. Thunderous explosions rocked the elemental, sending showers of molten rock scattering in all directions. The air filled with billowing smoke and dust.
But it was an illusion. A horrifying, deadly illusion.
When the smoke cleared, the creature was not weakened. It was larger. The purple runes etched into its molten form—the brand of Dormammu's corruption—glowed with renewed intensity. It was madly, gleefully absorbing the metal from the shells and missiles, feeding on the kinetic energy of the explosions. The flames that cloaked its body burned hotter, fiercer, as if they intended to incinerate the very sky.
The soldiers' coordinated assault had done nothing to slow its relentless advance. As it drew closer, the heat wave became an oppressive, physical force. Sweat drenched the soldiers' faces. Inside the tanks and armored vehicles, the temperature soared, the metal hulls turning into furnaces.
"Fall back! Maintain distance!" a commander screamed over the comms. The vehicles began a desperate, organized retreat, but it was too late. Every step the fire elemental took covered dozens of meters. What seemed slow from a distance was terrifyingly fast up close.
The raging flames of its passage reached the now-abandoned defensive positions. The few soldiers who hadn't made it to a vehicle were simply erased, their panicked screams silenced as the supernatural heat incinerated them where they stood.
The retreating convoy was not spared. The creature, finding Tony's agile drones too difficult to target, turned its attention to the slower prey crawling on the ground.
It opened its massive mouth, revealing a bottomless abyss of liquid fire. A surging torrent of magma erupted forth, a tidal wave of liquid earth that swept across the battlefield at astonishing speed. It was a roaring fire dragon that swallowed everything in its path, melting and incinerating all it touched.
The tires of the military trucks vaporized on contact, the vehicles slumping into the molten flow. The soldiers inside looked out at the apocalyptic scene, their eyes wide with horror, before the boiling lava consumed them. A symphony of agonized screams was cut brutally short as the wave of fire washed over them, their bodies instantly charred, their bones melting under temperatures that exceeded two thousand degrees Celsius.
The M1 Abrams tanks, with their heavy steel treads, lasted a few seconds longer, churning through the lava in a desperate bid for escape. But the superheated magma flowed over their hulls, turning the armored vehicles into sealed ovens. One tank commander, choking on the superheated air, tried to force open the top hatch. He grabbed the handle; his glove and the flesh beneath it vaporized in a single, agonizing sizzle.
"Ah! God, my hand!" he shrieked, collapsing to the floor of the tank.
Another crewman, seeing this, wrapped his hands in a piece of flame-retardant cloth and, enduring the searing pain, shoved the hatch open. It was a fatal mistake. The lava that had pooled on the roof poured inside, a waterfall of liquid death. It covered the crewman's head and shoulders, and he fell without a sound. The lava splashed onto the soldier with the burned hand, his uniform igniting instantly, turning them both into human torches. The remaining screams from within the tank were soon silenced.
Fury watched the hellish scene unfold on the main screen at S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. He slammed his fist on the table, the sound echoing through the stunned silence of the command center.
"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!" he roared, his eyes burning with a furious, helpless light.
"May God have mercy on their souls," Hill whispered, unconsciously making the sign of the cross.
"They didn't have to die," Fury seethed, his voice low and venomous. "Those fools in their safe rooms murdered them. And for what? To make the damn thing stronger!"
He was right. Hill brought up the sensor readings. "Sir," she said, her own voice hollow. "Precision instruments confirm its height has increased by forty-seven meters since the engagement began."
The tanks, the armored vehicles, the missiles—even an F-22 that had strayed too low and been swatted from the sky by a magma jet—had all become a feast of steel for the creature.
"Sir, the wildfires are spreading," an agent reported nervously. "Should we notify the fire departments?"
Fury took a deep breath, forcing his rage down into a cold, hard knot in his gut. He turned and strode toward the conference room. "Tell them to contain the perimeter. And to stay as far away from that thing as possible," he commanded. "I'm going to go have another word with our leaders."
He paused at the door, his back to his team. "Get Tony and the others back here as fast as possible. And get me Banner."
"Sir, Banner is still in Africa," Hill reminded him. "He's too far away."
Fury didn't turn around. "Then get me Strange," he ordered, his voice like flint. "If he can bend time, he can bend space. Get Banner here. Now."