The moment the boulder tore free from the cliff, the whole world seemed to fall silent.
Levi's pupils shrank to pinpoints. The Super Soldier Serum had pushed his senses to their absolute limit—he could hear the teeth-grinding screech of stone dragging against ice, could feel the faint wail of the frozen ground beneath his boots, could even smell the cold, sharp tang of compressed air mixed with dust and snow.
His brain, that enhanced biological computer, spun at insane speed—only to reach a single conclusion:
They were done for.
The boulder was enormous, the size of a truck, falling with the unstoppable weight of a mountain. And Steve—he was pinned to the near-vertical wall of ice by that damned strap, with no room to dodge.
No escape. No defense.
Even Dr. Erskine's so-called "perfect human being," hit head-on by that thing, would end up as nothing more than a smear of red and white paste on the ice.
"Steve!"
A hoarse roar ripped through the air from the side. Logan's bloodshot eyes flared with primal fury—the instinct of a beast that could sense death itself. He didn't even think; his muscles detonated, ready to leap. But those few meters between them were an uncrossable chasm. No one was faster than gravity.
In Levi's perception, time stretched into infinity. He could only watch as the massive shadow swallowed Steve whole.
And then—within that half-second window between life and death—Steve Rogers did something Levi would remember for the rest of his life.
He didn't panic. He didn't despair. Not even for an instant.
He snapped his head up, and those clear blue eyes blazed with light. Instead of looking at the boulder, his gaze flicked down the ice wall below it, processing data at inhuman speed. His mind surged past its limits, crunching countless details in the blink of an eye.
He wasn't waiting to die. He was searching—for that one-in-a-billion lever that could tilt fate itself.
Found it.
"Logan!"
His voice was no longer calm—it was thunder, forged from iron and command.
"Up left—three o'clock! You see that black rock sticking out? Hit it! With everything you've got!"
What? Levi's mind blanked. Now? He wanted Logan to hit… a random rock? Was he insane?
But Logan didn't hesitate. Not for even a tenth of a second.
He didn't care whether the order made sense. Because the man giving it was Steve Rogers.
That was enough.
Absolute trust—tempered in fire and blood, carved into his bones through countless battles across Europe.
"RAAAH!"
The snarl tore out of Logan's throat as his body moved before his brain could follow. His legs exploded with power, the ice beneath him cracking as he launched upward like a wild beast, claws flashing.
CLANG!
Three gleaming bone claws burst out of his fists, shrieking against the ice and throwing up a shower of sparks as he shot toward the target.
The black rock was no larger than a basketball, completely inconspicuous.
But the instant Logan's claws sank into it—Levi's hyper-sensitive hearing picked up a single, crisp crack from deep within the mountain.
Something vital had just broken.
That small, dark stone was the hidden fulcrum supporting the massive slab above!
And once the fulcrum shattered—
the boulder's trajectory shifted. Just slightly. Barely enough for the human eye to see.
But that tiny deviation split the line between life and death.
The boulder no longer came straight down on Steve—it passed just inches to his right, slicing through the air with a scream that made Levi's heart stop.
BOOOOM—!
The sound finally caught up. The impact slammed into the mountain with a thunderous roar. Shards of ice and rock exploded outward, triggering a localized avalanche that crashed down the slope toward the monstrous giant below.
Though Steve had escaped a direct hit, the passing shockwave hit him like a giant's backhand.
"Ugh!"
He grunted, muscles straining as the strap wrenched taut. His arm bulged with veins as he swung outward, nearly torn from his grip. Levi's heart lodged in his throat.
But Steve was still Steve.
"HRAAAH!"
With a furious roar, he flexed his core and pulled himself back toward the wall, slamming against the ice like a magnet locking into place.
They were safe.
Levi sagged against the ice, gasping for air, his body drenched in cold sweat. He stared up at Steve, then over at Logan adjusting his position—and only two words echoed in his mind:
Trump Card.
Steve's beyond-human battlefield instinct, Logan's absolute obedience—their synergy defied logic, transcending language. Compared to them, Levi's own panicked "Watch out!" had been utterly worthless.
"Don't just sit there! Move!"
Steve's bark snapped Levi out of his thoughts like a slap.
Down below, the monster had taken the full force of the avalanche. Tons of snow and rock buried it, but the sound it made was little more than plink, plink, plink—like hail on metal.
It shook itself violently, flinging the snow away. Its single burning eye found them again, filled with molten fury.
BOOM!
Another strike. The whole ridge quaked, fresh cracks zigzagging across the mountain like black lightning. Any longer, and the monster would bring the entire cliff down.
The three of them scrambled upward, faster than they ever had in their lives.
At last, gasping, lungs on fire, Steve hauled himself over the ridge. He immediately reached down, pulling Logan up, and together they dragged Levi over the top.
The three collapsed in the snow like corpses, gulping the freezing air as if it were salvation.
Survivors. Barely.
Levi turned his head. Steve was checking his shield—the edge was nicked where the falling rock had grazed it. Logan flexed his hands, blood at his knuckles already freezing into dark red frost. But his grin was pure exhilaration.
Maybe… having these two monsters as teammates wasn't so bad after all.
"Are we… safe now?" Levi panted.
Steve stepped to the edge and looked down. The massive creature paced below, claws scraping furrows into the snow. With that bulk, it would never be able to scale a near-vertical cliff.
It looked—for the moment—like they'd lost it.
Levi exhaled in relief. But Steve's expression stayed hard.
"Something's wrong," he murmured.
"What's wrong?" Logan asked, his animal instincts prickling as well.
"It's too calm," Steve said, voice cold as ice. "After losing us, it should be thrashing everything in sight. But it's not—it's waiting."
Waiting?
Levi's heart skipped. A surge of dread crawled up his spine. He shut his eyes, pushing his hearing to its limits.
Heartbeat steady. Footsteps stopped.
But there—something new.
A sharp, high-frequency whine, like a swarm of bees buzzing directly against his eardrums. Louder. Sharper. Rising fast—originating from its head.
That turbine.
"Oh, no!" Levi's face drained of color. "The turbine's spinning up! It's charging energy!"
Below them, the monster slowly tilted its head back. The half-turbine half-skull was spinning so fast it blurred, shrieking as it ripped through the air.
A vortex of wind formed in front of it, compressing into a single, searing point of red—so bright it hurt to look at.
The temperature skyrocketed. The snow at the mountaintop began to melt in seconds, clouds of steam rising all around them.
It wasn't trying to climb.
It was going to erase the mountain.
"Scatter!"
Steve barely got the word out before hurling himself sideways like a leopard.
Levi and Logan dove in opposite directions at the same time.
And in the instant they cleared their positions—
A colossal beam of molten red energy erupted from the monster's mouth, screaming as it tore through the air faster than sound.
It hit the mountaintop dead-on.
There was no explosion. Just a chilling HISSSSSS—
And Levi watched in horror as the mountaintop—solid stone and ancient ice—melted, vaporized, and then vanished. Not shattered. Not burned. Erased.
A ten-meter-wide, perfectly circular hole, its edges smooth and glowing red-hot, now gaped where solid rock had been.
Levi lay prone dozens of meters away, feeling the scorched heat radiate through the snow beneath him. The air reeked of sulfur. He stared at the void carved into the earth, as if some god had simply taken an eraser to reality itself.
And all he could think was—
How the hell are we supposed to fight that?
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