All three sky carriers opened fire simultaneously, their scalding shells carving bright trails through the heavy clouds, revealing the starlight hidden behind. Even before the deafening sounds of the cannons reached the lighthouse, violent explosions lit up the sea surface. Massive amounts of seawater were vaporized into dense white mist, then instantly turned to steam by the expanding fireballs. Orange-red flames shot into the sky, engulfing the enormous gray-white worm. Agent Victoria Hand immediately ordered all available firepower to concentrate on the misty steam cloud while the main cannons cooled—machine guns, rockets, and even the latest plasma cannons were unleashed, all aimed to pulverize the monster down to the smallest atom. Meanwhile, assault transports from the hangar, loaded with ammunition, took off and launched their missiles and shells into the same area.
The explosion shattered the storm clouds over the sea, opening a circular patch of clear night sky that cast moonlight down onto the ocean. Gunpowder replaced the thunder, and the surging waves receded as the seawater rapidly evaporated. Even in Yarmouth, residents could clearly see the light illuminating the sky. The overwhelming firepower made the agents on the bridge forget their previous fear, forget those who had been executed for weakness. They stood up, cheering, hugging each other, celebrating the triumph of human ingenuity over monsters beyond human understanding—creatures that could so easily shatter sanity. Even the mages from Kamar-Taj found it hard not to feel joy over this victory.
Wanda curled up, covering her ears against the relentless explosions. Though both her physical and spiritual sight were blocked by a blindfold embroidered with golden runes, her senses still registered the two entangled, destructive forces ahead and the lingering madness wailing silently. Had she lifted her blindfold, she would have seen just how close the explosions were. Scalding white steam almost engulfed Halfway Rock, and the blast brightness even outshone the lighthouse's beacon. Most of the flames and superheated steam were blocked by Solomon's barrier—he stood protectively before her, rarely seen so animated. This was humanity's first time striking an extra-dimensional monster with the hammer of modern war technology; even a mage couldn't help but be moved, for it signified that humanity was not a flock of weaklings when facing threats from beyond. One day, Solomon dreamed, this hammer would strike down aliens, demons, devils, angels, even gods that sought humanity's extinction.
Even the Celestials, who treated humans as lab animals for genetic experiments, would one day face the fangs of mankind!
The coastal residents of Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cumberland, and Freeport didn't know exactly what was happening. They only knew that the earthquake had destroyed their homes, power outages were intermittent, and the storm had left many homeless. When the earthquake stopped, Casco Bay was lit up with a dazzling glow. The darkness and the distant rumbling only heightened their panic; many cried out in terror. Some believed the world was ending or that it was another alien invasion and took to the streets with guns, looting. The local police hotlines were flooded with calls. Residents trying to post the events online discovered they couldn't access the internet at all. Even trying to film the distant war with their phones caused their devices to completely fail.
Someone was covering this up!
Americans familiar with conspiracy theories immediately caught on. Even though local police repeatedly insisted they hadn't received any orders from higher-ups, the public viewed their statements with deep suspicion, and rumors spread like wildfire. Yet from the perspective of those orchestrating the event, public speculation and casualties were negligible—after all, during the 1886 earthquake, the tremors had affected almost the entire East Coast, reaching as far north as Boston, west to Chicago and Milwaukee, south to New Orleans and Cuba, and east to the Bermuda Islands. If the giant devouring worm had not been lured out in advance, it would have eventually triggered the ancient lava belt, resulting in a far more devastating earthquake than the 7.3 magnitude Charleston quake. The current destruction—mostly the collapse of wooden houses and a few concrete structures—was already minimizing the disaster to its lowest possible level.
Steve Rogers desperately tried to rip apart the seatbelts of still-living agents, attempting to save them before seawater completely flooded the Quinjet. But the undercurrents, with waves several meters high, flipped the slowly sinking jet, throwing him from the boarding ramp back toward the cockpit. Icy seawater was pouring into the cockpit. He didn't know exactly what had triggered it—when the Quinjet had been following its designated flight path, the agent piloting it had suddenly started flailing wildly, babbling incomprehensibly. Before Rogers and the other agents in the rear could restrain him, the Quinjet had accelerated and plunged into the sea.
Newton's third law of motion—equal and opposite reactions—Rogers thought grimly. It was a miracle the aircraft hadn't been torn apart entirely.
The pilot had died on impact, his skull crushed against the dashboard. Other agents' corpses floated nearby, most killed either by the force of the crash or by drowning while unconscious. If not for instinctively shielding himself with his shield, Captain Rogers would likely have smashed into the dashboard and died too. Rogers turned in the water, pushing aside the pilot's broken head and feeling around the console by memory—the Quinjet had flipped. He grabbed onto the pilot seat, seawater pouring over his head. He let go, grabbing a survival device and trying to haul an unconscious but breathing agent out through the rear hatch, swimming upward toward the surface.
"Captain Rogers!" Vision's spectral form phased into the flooding aircraft, half his body seemingly ghost-like. Even though Rogers knew of Vision's abilities, it still startled him—after all, the jet was already underwater, and he had no idea how deep. "Need a hand?"
"Of course!"
"Captain, glad to see you alive!" Falcon stood at the bow of a rescue raft, watching Vision lift the Shield One Quinjet from the water. Another Quinjet hovered overhead. Captain Rogers leaped from the rear hatch, a new rescue raft slowly inflating nearby.
"Look what the tide dragged in, huh?"
"Good to see you too, Sam! But I'm not in the mood for jokes right now—a lot of people didn't make it." Rogers helped the conscious agents climb into the raft. "Do you know what happened?"
"Isn't it obvious? It's war. I saw artillery!" Falcon pointed toward the distant web of firepower, and Rogers looked over. Modern warfare after WWII had largely abandoned trench warfare in favor of long-range, beyond-visual-range strikes. On battlefields still using old tactics, there was rarely such dense heavy firepower. Seeing the bright streams of autocannon fire stitched across the night sky, Rogers almost thought he'd been transported back to an old anti-aircraft defense battle—smoke, sea spray, and the scent of hot metal filled the air.
"But that doesn't explain everything!" Rogers shouted to Falcon. "The pilot of Shield One crashed the plane on purpose!"
"We faced similar issues, Captain," Vision said, helping Rogers with the evacuation. "As we neared the target, I detected a chaotic field filled with hatred and hunger spreading outward. It was so powerful it could affect ordinary humans. My stone was able to partially neutralize the energy, and I took control of our flight system, steering us away from the source—but it wasn't enough..."
"Vision saved all of us!" Falcon shouted. "Aside from a few agents needing treatment for broken necks or ribs, there were no major casualties."
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Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 256)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 336)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 542)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 924)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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