Inside a distant operations command room in Washington, a group of officials and military personnel stared anxiously at the massive display screen. The moment the nuclear bomb successfully detonated, the entire room erupted into cheers. Relief flooded their faces as the blinding light of the explosion filled the feed.
"Great! The power of that nuclear bomb will definitely kill that monster!" someone shouted excitedly.
"Finally! We can destroy him at last!"
"No one survives a nuclear explosion," another man declared confidently. "Even if the entire island of Manhattan is wiped out, it's worth it if he dies. The destruction he's caused to this country is unprecedented. Someone like that cannot be allowed to exist."
A middle-aged officer sighed, though his tone was conflicted. "Still… more than two hundred years of development will be gone because of us."
"Don't feel sorry," someone else replied firmly. "If eliminating him requires ten times this loss, it's still worth it."
The atmosphere in the room was euphoric. In their minds, Leon had already been erased from existence. After all, a nuclear weapon represented the absolute pinnacle of human science—Earth's ultimate weapon capable of destroying anything.
But what they failed to understand was that Leon was far from ordinary. He wasn't even comparable to a typical mutant. His existence itself was an anomaly—something that broke the rules of the universe.
While the command room celebrated, a startled voice suddenly cut through the noise.
"God… look at that!"
The man pointed frantically at the screen.
By now, the blinding flash of the nuclear explosion had faded, revealing the towering mushroom cloud forming over Manhattan. Shockwaves continued to ripple outward from the epicenter, rolling across the sky like a violent storm.
Then something impossible happened.
The expansion of the nuclear explosion abruptly stopped.
The rolling cloud froze mid-motion as if someone had pressed pause on reality itself.
The room fell silent as everyone leaned closer to the screen.
"What… what's happening?"
The shockwave should have continued spreading outward, but instead a strange sight appeared near the center of the explosion. A thin, almost thread-like line stretched downward from the heart of the mushroom cloud toward the ground.
And then the shape of the explosion itself began to shift.
"Oh my God…"
"What the hell is going on?"
"A nuclear explosion… is being pulled away?"
A wave of stunned gasps echoed through the room. Several people instinctively inhaled sharply, while others swallowed nervously as cold dread crept into their hearts.
Because they were beginning to understand what they were seeing.
Someone was absorbing the energy of the nuclear explosion.
The spherical center of the blast, which should have expanded in all directions, was now distorted into an elongated oval. At one end of the oval, the thin line connected downward like the narrow neck of a funnel.
And the direction of that connection pointed directly to the top of the towering sword-shaped building.
"Th-that… was Leon doing that?" someone whispered with trembling lips.
The transformation on the screen shattered everything they believed about reality. This was no longer something a human being could do. It was power that belonged only to myths.
Only a god could manipulate a nuclear explosion like this.
For the first time, the officials in that room realized the horrifying truth.
The man they had tried to destroy… might actually be something beyond human comprehension.
"Lord… if this is a nightmare, please let me wake up," someone murmured weakly.
Meanwhile, the image zoomed closer.
The outer edge of the explosion had become increasingly flattened. The thin line connecting the blast to the building grew thicker and clearer with every passing second.
Finally, the camera revealed the figure standing atop the skyscraper.
It was Leon.
He stood on the roof with both arms stretched wide, as if welcoming the heavens themselves. From his open mouth extended a blazing stream of nuclear energy—the "thin line" everyone had seen—connecting directly to the core of the nuclear explosion.
He was devouring it.
It sounded absurd, something no sane person would believe. But at this moment, the evidence was undeniable.
Leon was consuming the energy of a nuclear detonation.
The reason the explosion seemed frozen in place was because space and time around it had been locked. The nuclear blast remained suspended at its peak state of energy release, unable to expand or dissipate.
Inside that suspended explosion roared unimaginable power.
The energy density was astronomical. Its destructive potential could only be described as catastrophic.
Yet all of it was being drawn into Leon's body.
A brilliant flame burned around him—an eerie mixture of Phoenix power and nuclear fire. The two energies intertwined and surged across his body, making him look like a blazing humanoid torch.
Although describing the scene took time, in reality it happened within moments.
The energy of the nuclear explosion visibly shrank as it poured into Leon's mouth. Anyone watching felt their minds reel in disbelief. No one could comprehend how he was accomplishing this.
At that moment, Leon himself was enduring intense pain.
The nuclear energy scorching his mouth felt like molten lava, but he pushed forward anyway. Fully unleashing the power of the Phoenix Force, he used his telekinetic control to guide the explosion's energy straight into his mouth, where it was forcibly swallowed.
The process lasted only a few minutes.
Within roughly three minutes, the once-overwhelming nuclear explosion was completely consumed. Even the massive mushroom cloud that had begun forming in the sky was devoured along with it.
When everything settled, Manhattan's sky looked eerily calm.
There was no trace of the nuclear explosion at all, as if it had never happened.
Leon slowly closed his mouth.
His body trembled slightly, and two thick streams of gray smoke burst from his nostrils, shooting far into the air. Then he let out a loud burp that expelled another puff of smoke.
"When people smoke cigarettes, I smoke nuclear bombs," he muttered to himself with a crooked grin. "And damn, that one had some kick. Nearly burned my tongue off."
He patted his stomach and burped again.
This time, pure energy erupted from his mouth. The residual power of the nuclear explosion blasted outward like a volcanic eruption, surging into the sky.
Fortunately, Leon was leaning slightly backward. Otherwise, that single burp might have collapsed the entire rooftop beneath him.
Right now, he felt only one thing.
Spicy.
His tongue tingled and felt numb. The taste of nuclear energy had a strange, scorching sharpness that lingered unpleasantly in his mouth.
"Tch… looks like my current level can only swallow a small amount of nuclear explosion energy," he murmured thoughtfully. "If I want to reach the point where I can devour stars, I'll probably have to wait until I reach the fourth stage."
Even so, Leon felt extremely satisfied.
Across the entire world, who else could casually swallow the energy of a nuclear bomb like he just had?
The answer was obvious.
No one.
He snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the spatial and temporal confinement around the explosion vanished.
A thunderous boom erupted across the sky as the delayed shockwave finally exploded outward. The air trembled violently while the remaining force of the nuclear blast surged across Manhattan.
Without the core energy sustaining it, however, the aftershock was far weaker than a true nuclear detonation. The wave spread only about two kilometers before gradually fading away.
Back in the command room in Washington, every person watched this unfold on the screen.
And now, the once-celebrating operations center had fallen completely silent.
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