"Are you sure this guy is actually helping us?" Tony Stark asked, wincing as he leaned against the Quinjet's bulkhead. "Or is he just annoyed that Meliodas is too slow at demolishing things?"
Watching the entirety of Washington D.C. turn into a literal sea of golden fire from inside the hovering fighter jet, Tony Stark, shirtless and heavily bandaged, still managed to joke with the people around him despite his critical injuries.
Escanor's reflected Cruel Sun blast had completely vaporized a massive area of government buildings, and the rising, ambient flames of his sheer presence now engulfed the entirety of the capital. The apocalyptic destruction Escanor caused completely unintentionally was no less devastating than Meliodas's deliberate rampage.
"Don't joke around, Tony," Natasha said, her eyes locked on the monitors, her voice dead serious. "They are our absolute last resort."
"If they lose..." Banner muttered, gripping a med-kit tightly.
Banner didn't finish his sentence, but everyone in the cabin understood the horrifying implication of his words. If no one stopped Meliodas today, in a week at most, the entire United States would not have a single intact city left. In that case, what difference would it make from their country being completely annihilated?
The Washington battlefield was a scorching hellscape. The air grew impossibly hot, visibly warping and distorting the space around them, which made Meliodas—who was just about to leave—stop dead in his tracks.
He slowly turned to look at Escanor.
The man who had just fallen heavily to the ground was now standing up, completely and utterly unharmed.
All of his remaining clothes had spontaneously combusted into white ash. Blinding, majestic golden flames aggressively enveloped his towering body, making him look exactly like a supreme god born from the core of a star. His previously haughty expression had turned intensely ferocious and stoic.
The roaring lion's head tattoo on his massive, impossibly muscled back was exposed to the burning air, expanding as his body reached the absolute pinnacle of human potential, making him appear even more imposing.
He had reached a towering height of nearly five meters.
"Are you trying to escape?" Escanor asked, his voice echoing like thunder across the burning city.
Meliodas slowly turned his head to look up at the giant.
"Meliodas," Escanor boomed, looking down with a ferocious, god-like gaze. "Is this your strongest state?"
Facing Escanor's condescending question, Meliodas did not answer directly. Instead, his dead, demonic eyes looked up at the sun in the sky.
"It seems it's already noon without me realizing it," Meliodas whispered mechanically.
The pitch-black demonic energy surrounding Meliodas surged wildly, feeling the existential threat. The Assault Mode darkness began to rapidly compress and provide a massive, desperate boost to its master's physical stats.
Meliodas drew the Demon Sword Lostvayne and held it in a reverse grip behind his back. At the exact same time, he crouched low into a lethal attacking stance.
"[Kami Chigiri]." (Divine Thousand Slashes)
In a fraction of a microsecond, Meliodas's figure flickered and vanished completely. When he reappeared, he was already hovering directly behind Escanor's neck.
A thousand blinding streaks of black sword-light appeared simultaneously all over Escanor's golden body. The Divine Thousand Slashes, boosted by the absolute maximum output of his demonic energy, was exponentially more powerful than the attack that had downed Escanor just minutes ago. Its catastrophic power was enough to dice a mountain into gravel.
However, the damage inflicted on Escanor this time was entirely different.
"So itchy."
Escanor slowly turned around and gave Meliodas his deadpan assessment of the ultimate attack.
Not a single drop of blood. Not a single scratch. No pain whatsoever.
This was Escanor at exactly high noon.
[The One: I Alone Am Honored]
Hearing this absolute dismissal, Meliodas spun in the air, a flicker of genuine demonic displeasure crossing his cold face, and launched another relentless barrage. Thick, viscous demonic energy enveloped his entire body, and the magic sword in his hand thrust straight out toward the giant's heart.
Facing Meliodas's renewed, desperate assault, Escanor didn't even bother to pick up his divine axe. He simply, slowly raised his bare arm, his hand held perfectly straight like a blade.
"[Divine Sword Escanor]."
Escanor swung his hand downward in a simple, fluid chopping motion.
The very fabric of space seemed to shatter. The absolute, impregnable armor of demonic energy enveloping Meliodas was completely and instantly dissipated like blowing smoke.
A massive, devastating wound from Meliodas's left shoulder down to his right waist instantly appeared. Countless streams of demonic blood gushed out violently into the air.
A profound look of shock and disbelief flashed in Meliodas's cold green eyes. His body froze in mid-air, entirely paralyzed by the overwhelming kinetic force, before he instantly fell to the scorched earth, lying completely motionless.
Escanor slowly walked over, his heavy footsteps shaking the ground. He looked down at the bleeding, defeated Captain.
"Son of the Demon King?" Escanor asked, his voice dripping with absolute, unmatched pride. "How does it feel to be looked down upon by a human, Meliodas?"
However, only a warm, burning breeze blowing through the silent ruins responded to Escanor's question.
"We won?" Clint breathed out, his hands shaking.
"Phew!" Tony Stark collapsed back against the wall, sliding down to the floor. "We finally won!"
Inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. fighter jet in mid-air, the Avengers watching the satellite feed let out a collective, massive sigh of relief. Their pale, sweating expressions finally relaxed from the suffocating tension.
The battle between Escanor and Meliodas wasn't just about their individual victory or defeat. It concerned the future existence of the entire North American continent.
And as Tony Stark and the others finally relaxed...
In cities across the entire United States, terrified citizens who were frantically packing their bags and loading their cars also stopped their actions, staring at their televisions in disbelief.
Then, cheering erupted in unison. Millions of people fell to their knees in the streets, weeping with joy. They finally didn't have to abandon everything and flee into the wilderness.
Ever since Meliodas had begun systematically destroying cities one after another, even residents of states far from New York had long prepared to flee for their lives. It was terrifyingly clear that the demon's programmed intention was to destroy all human cities. The apocalyptic lessons of Albany and Buffalo were vivid, so who would dare to gamble on the possibility that it wouldn't be their hometown's turn next?
The entire United States erupted in a massive, unified sea of cheers. From Times Square to Los Angeles, everyone was screaming Escanor's name.
And just then...
On the high-definition satellite footage... Meliodas's bloody finger twitched slightly.
The occurrence of this horrifying micro-movement caused the deafening cheers of the public watching the live broadcast to come to an abrupt, chilling halt.
"Are you trying to escape, Escanor?"
Meliodas, who had just fallen completely motionless, slowly covered his massive, bleeding chest wound with his small palm. His demonic mark flared as he forced his broken body to slowly rise from the crushed ground.
Hearing this, Escanor, who was just about to turn and leave the battlefield, slowly turned his massive head.
"Isn't it better to stop here?" Escanor asked, his tone still condescending but laced with genuine warning. "If I'm not careful... I might actually kill you, Captain."
While casually saying "stop here," countless, blindingly bright flames began to violently gather and compress directly above Escanor's hand.
"[Cruel Sun]."
He raised his arm high, the miniature sun expanding to a terrifying, apocalyptic size, and casually waved his hand downward.
The massive sun plummeted from above Escanor's head directly toward Meliodas with the force of a meteor strike.
"[Full Counter]!"
Facing the incoming, incinerating sun, Meliodas stubbornly made the exact same choice. The reflection magic of Full Counter violently condensed around his blade, aggressively confronting the descending sphere of plasma.
However, the sun at this exact moment—fueled by the absolute peak of Escanor's invincible minute—had completely and utterly surpassed the magical upper limit of what Full Counter was capable of reflecting.
The bedrock beneath Meliodas's feet continuously crumbled and vaporized into nothingness. The Cruel Sun, radiating immense, crushing gravitational power, pressed down relentlessly on his small body.
The reflection magic in his hand began to violently crack and dissipate.
At the last possible second, the destabilized magic exploded with a deafening, world-ending roar.
A violent, apocalyptic red light burst forth, blinding the satellite cameras. The kinetic aftershocks spread wildly outward in a massive, expanding dome of destruction.
With the battlefield as the absolute epicenter, the entirety of Washington D.C. was completely wiped from the map, flattened into a molten wasteland. Streams of superheated air and radioactive ash rose from the ground of the endless ruins.
In the central crater, Meliodas lay completely scorched black, his life signs entirely unknown.
"Gowther. It's your turn."
Merlin, with Ban and Gowther in tow, teleported directly to the center of the molten crater, appearing right by Meliodas's side. After Merlin's magical sensors confirmed that the Captain still had a faint pulse, she immediately notified the Sin of Lust to act.
"Understood."
Gowther knelt down, placing his palm near Meliodas's charred head. A soft, pulsing pink glow emanated from his hand, bypassing physical reality entirely.
"[Invasion]."
Inside the mental world.
Gowther walked calmly through the dark, turbulent void, moving as if strolling through an uninhabited park, looking around for Meliodas's true consciousness.
"You're here again, Gowther."
"Yo. Captain, are you alright?"
The distant, dark fog of the mindscape violently dissipated.
Meliodas emerged from the shadows. But he looked completely different.
The darkness of Assault Mode was gone. Instead, a pristine, pure white half-body armor—the physical manifestation of his True Magic—had appeared on his body, radiating an ancient, overwhelming aura.
Gowther greeted him expressionlessly, asking a completely meaningless rhetorical question.
High in the sky of the mental world, the massive Golden Dragon of the World Item was still flying around in circles, trying to maintain its absolute control.
And Meliodas, wearing this white armor of his original power... possessed an aura that was exponentially more terrifying than even his Assault Mode.
....
....
....
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