That dark-red beam appeared without warning—and vanished just as abruptly.
Levi felt a scorching heat wave slam into his face, as if he were standing right in front of a gigantic oven that had just been thrown open.
He instinctively raised an arm to shield himself, yet still felt sharp stabs of pain across every inch of exposed skin.
The surrounding air had been heated to a terrifying degree. Every breath was like swallowing a mouthful of burning charcoal, searing his throat and lungs from the inside.
Struggling, he lifted his head and looked toward the mountaintop where they had been standing just moments ago.
And then he froze.
His entire body locked up, his mind seized by an invisible hand—blank, utterly blank.
Gone.
The summit—once made of ancient rock and thick layers of eternal ice—had simply ceased to exist. In its place yawned a near-perfect circular void more than ten meters across.
At the center of the hole, the stone had been completely melted down, forming a dark-red pool of magma that bubbled sluggishly. Torrents of heat rose upward, warping the air around it.
Levi's brain crashed outright.
In his previous life, he'd been a modern office drone raised on sci-fi movies and video games. He'd seen all kinds of world-ending special effects.
Death Star main cannons. Positron beams. Kamehameha waves.
He'd always thought they were nothing more than lines of code and fancy lighting dreamed up by programmers and artists.
But now—now that this utterly unreasonable power of destruction was unfolding right in front of him—he finally understood what insignificance meant.
What despair meant.
"…Holy… shit…"
A single, meaningless expletive—the distilled essence of human language when words failed—slipped unconsciously from Levi's cracked lips.
He felt his worldview shatter, along with what little courage he had left, pulverized by that one map-erasing blast until nothing remained.
It was over. Completely over. Time to set the table.
How were you supposed to fight this?
One move, and the terrain itself got rewritten.
A bone-chilling sense of helplessness shot straight up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, nearly freezing his blood solid.
Stiffly, like a rusted robot, Levi turned his neck to look at Logan—the fearless berserker who usually charged headfirst at anything that moved. Surely he would still be itching to rush in and throw hands, right?
Instead—
Well, damn.
Even Wolverine was done.
He was kneeling in the snow, one hand braced against the ground, the other clenched so tightly it cracked. His knuckles were bone white from the strain.
It was obvious: that attack—so far beyond the limits of comprehension—had blown the fuse on even his beastlike combat instincts.
Levi turned his gaze to his last shred of hope.
Steve Rogers.
…Nope.
Captain America's face was pale as flour. His lips were pressed tightly together, his chest heaving so fast it rivaled an old sewing machine. Even this battle-hardened super soldier had been shaken to the core by what could only be described as a miracle of destruction.
That peak of human physical perfection? One direct hit and there wouldn't be a molecule left. His prized vibranium shield? Maybe a tiny fragment would survive, if they were lucky.
Three people.
The strongest combatants of the team.
All reduced to the same deathly silence.
The air itself seemed frozen solid.
And just as Levi was thinking they might as well lie down and see who could manage the most dignified corpse pose—
Steve Rogers clenched his teeth hard.
Those blue eyes—still dazed from shock—flared back to life.
Not again.
Sir, are you serious right now?
This isn't surrender territory yet? This is still a "let's fight" moment? What are you running on—built-in lighter fluid? A nuclear reactor for a heart?
Levi had to admit it: Steve's completely ill-timed, aggressively heroic aura cracked his mental defenses.
Yeah. Giving up now did feel a bit premature.
What if the monster was out of energy?
What if the next shot jammed?
What if—
While he was desperately trying to hype himself up with fantasies he didn't even believe, his serum-enhanced hearing suddenly picked up something off.
That annihilating beam had been so powerful it had effectively "cleared" the surrounding soundscape, leaving his ears ringing. Now, as the ringing faded, the world's noises came rushing back.
Wind.
Snow skittering across the ground.
Distant ice cracking.
And—
Hummmmmm—
That horrific noise from the monster's head, which moments ago had sounded like ten thousand industrial drills screaming in unison—
It was quieter.
Levi's heart slammed against his ribs.
He shut his eyes at once, focusing all his attention on sound, turning himself into the most precise acoustic radar imaginable.
Yes.
The turbine on the monster's head was slowing. The shrill, eardrum-shredding shriek had degraded into a labored, uneven whirrr, like an old engine forcibly cooling down after being pushed far past its limits.
Holy shit.
An opening!
"Y—Yao—no, Captain!" Levi blurted, nearly shouting out an old gaming habit as he scrambled over. "That thing sounds weak as hell right now! This is it!"
Steve's eyes lit up instantly—like twin two-kilowatt searchlights, cutting through all the gloom.
"Good! Good! Good!" he roared, shouting the word three times as the despair vanished from his face.
"Listen up! This is our one and only chance! I'm drawing its fire!"
…What?
Levi and Logan both stared at him.
You draw its fire? With what—your handsome face? That thing doesn't take emotional damage!
"I'll get its attention," Steve said, words firing out like a Gatling gun but perfectly clear. "I'll harass it from the front with speed and the shield. That thing's huge—it turns slow. All I need is the few seconds it takes to rotate!"
His gaze locked onto Logan and Levi like red-hot branding irons.
"The moment it turns, its back is completely exposed! Logan, your claws are tough, but you won't punch through that armor on strength alone. You need Levi's help!"
He spun toward Levi, eyes full of trust and expectation.
"Your strength's insane now—I don't think you're any weaker than me. You go with Logan. He lines up the core with his claws, and you—"
He chopped a hand downward.
"—use everything you've got and hammer his claws in like nails!"
…Use Logan's claws as nails?
Levi's jaw nearly hit the snow.
Captain.
This plan is wild.
Are you treating Logan like a disposable anti-armor round or something?!
"I'm in!" Logan didn't even let Levi finish processing. His eyes were blazing again, tongue flicking over his cracked lips as a grin spread across his face—borderline unhinged, no, ecstatically unhinged. "That sounds fun as hell. I'm loving this already."
"Captain, this is insane!" Levi finally blurted. "You're solo up front—what if it recovers and fires another beam? We won't even have time to collect your body!"
"There is no 'what if'," Steve cut him off, voice ironclad. "This is an order—and the only way we survive. We get one shot. Maybe just a few seconds. If we fail, we're done."
And with that, he gave Levi no chance to argue further.
Steve rose and stepped out from behind cover.
The gale at the summit whipped his blue-white-red uniform violently, outlining a physique worthy of a Greek statue. Alone, he stood at the cliff's edge, facing the mountain-sized steel abomination below.
He raised his shield.
"Hey!" His voice boomed through the valley, amplified by the serum like a loudspeaker. "You big, ugly tin can!"
"I'm right here!"
Below, the monster's massive single eye rotated upward, its crimson glow locking onto the tiny figure on the ridge.
A roar of pure fury exploded outward, shaking the mountain itself.
"Come on!" Steve shouted.
His legs exploded with power.
And then—
He jumped.
Straight off the cliff.
Levi's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
He actually went in.
Midair, Steve curled his body, shield held tight in front of him, transforming into a blue meteor streaking downward—carrying with it unyielding resolve and a courage that bordered on madness.
Straight toward the forest of steel.
Straight toward death.
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