Senju Haruto soared into the air, gazing down from above at Chthon, who stood at the center of the Nameless Bar.
Under Haruto's control, Susanoo unfurled its massive wings, standing tall against the moonlight. Its silhouette loomed like a demon towering over the heavens.
Having devoured the natural energy of an entire city—combined with Haruto's own vast reserves of chakra—the manifested Susanoo swelled to a height of over a hundred meters in an instant.
Once again, the citizens of New York were struck speechless.
"Oh my God… what the hell is that thing?!"
"It's a demon! That guy is a demon!"
"Mom, pack our things now—we have to get out of New York, the farther the better!"
"In just a few days, so many monsters have appeared here… what's next? Aliens invading Earth? A war for New York? I feel like my entire worldview is collapsing!"
The streets of New York buzzed with panicked chatter. People raised their phones, trying to capture the sight of Haruto in the sky. But because of Susanoo's nature, no matter if it was civilian footage or the military's cutting-edge tech, none of it could record Haruto's true form.
What they captured instead was a single, terrifying image—the grim, spectral face of Susanoo itself.
In the streets, countless people dropped to their knees in fear, praying desperately to their gods to send down a miracle.
Even if not everyone had witnessed Haruto annihilating two kilometers of Broadway with their own eyes, by now every New Yorker knew of the disaster. Every last one of them had realized that this world was not as peaceful—or as beautiful—as they had once believed.
There was no question: the people of New York were now living in fire and flood.
And through the power of the internet, the situation spread instantly across the globe.
All around the world, people saw the enormous "demon of the skies" that was Susanoo.
And the world trembled.
Those who held the reins of global power—the U.S. military, Hydra, Wakanda with its claim of being a thousand years ahead in technology—all of them felt the same crushing pressure and seething fury at Susanoo's appearance.
At that moment, Haruto was like a deep-sea bomb, detonating far below the surface. The shockwaves rippled outward endlessly, tearing apart everything caught beneath the waves.
The surface might have looked calm, but only because no one could see the devastation unfolding below.
It was no exaggeration to say: Haruto's reemergence had shaken the entire world.
But Haruto himself remained unaware of the far-reaching consequences—and more importantly, he did not care.
His eyes were cold as he stared down at Chthon.
At the god's stunned expression.
Chthon, the God of the Abyss, was a legend in the Marvel world—a master of black magic. Even titans like Mephisto and Dormammu had once borrowed his power. Even Wanda Maximoff's Chaos Magic traced its origin back to him.
But the truth was simple: once a being like Chthon left his own dimension, he could no longer wield his full strength. And inhabiting Viper's mortal body only shackled him further.
What stood before Haruto now was little more than an empty name.
"Susanoo…"
Never in his darkest dreams had Chthon imagined that he would one day be suppressed.
Though he suspected Haruto might not be human at all, but a god of his own tier, Chthon had no memory of any such deity being born on Earth. He was deceiving himself, clinging to the idea of some "ancient god," anything to avoid admitting defeat to a mortal.
Even if this was not his true form, not his full strength, he refused to believe he had lost to a human.
"Your name!"
Chthon lifted his head proudly, his voice laced with black magic as it rolled across all of New York.
It wasn't just his question—millions of others wondered the same.
Who was this demon standing in the sky?
But Chthon was far from surrendering.
Before he left this place, he chose to ignite himself.
All his black magic—his consciousness avatar, his power-made-flesh—burned in a final, desperate act.
He turned himself into a superweapon, launching one last strike against Haruto.
And in doing so, Viper was consumed.
Her consciousness flickered awake at the last moment. She screamed, thrashed, raged.
She had only wanted Chthon's power to keep her youth, to help Hydra fulfill its great ambition. She had never wished for a fight to the death with Haruto.
She did not want to die here. Not like this.
But what could a human like Viper do against the will of a death god?
Her cries, her struggles, her pitiful resistance—all of it was devoured without a trace.
Her clothes burst apart, shredded by the swelling black magic, her pale body bared before countless eyes.
For a fleeting moment, many were struck dumb, for Viper's allure was not just her venomous heart, but her devil's figure.
But beauty lasted only a heartbeat.
Black mist seeped from her skin, twisting her form.
In the blink of an eye, Viper's flawless body warped into the massive frame of a jet-black dragon.
This was the strongest attack Chthon could muster in his current state.
And it did not stop there.
From the original dragon head, a second sprouted. Then a third.
In just a few breaths, nine heads reared into the sky, the colossal hydra crushing half the Nameless Bar beneath its weight.
Arthur and the gathered sorcerers gasped in horror—they had never seen black magic of such terrifying scale.
The ripple of power shook New York's three Sanctums to their core, drawing sorcerers from all directions.
Tony Stark, aided by Anna, donned his newest Iron Man suit and stared in disbelief at the sight.
Bruce Banner, marching with the sorcerers, took one look at the nine-headed black dragon and knew: he needed the Hulk again.
Elsewhere, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Director Fury, Agent Coulson, and even the Ancient One herself in Kamar-Taj all sensed the black dragon's emergence.
The Ancient One rose to her feet at once. The sheer depth of this black magic made her soul shudder.
Without the Time Stone, even she could not be certain of victory against Chthon—against even a fragment of him.
But none of their fears or astonishment reached Haruto.
Or perhaps more accurately—he simply didn't care.
Suspended in the heavens, Haruto looked down on Chthon—and on the beleaguered city beneath him.
And in the next instant, Chthon struck first.
The nine-headed black dragon roared skyward, wings thundering, as it hurtled at Haruto with all its might.
But Haruto only raised Susanoo's colossal chakra blade.
"One."
With that single word, Susanoo's sword fell.
The strike split the heavens.
In an instant, the nine-headed serpent was cleaved in two.