"Destroy all cities."
"Destroy all cities."
"Destroy all cities."
As Tony Stark's optical sensors scanned more and more footage, J.A.R.V.I.S. ran a rapid lip-reading algorithm. The fragmented audio and visual data became increasingly complete.
At the same time, the terrifying, monotonous phrase Meliodas kept repeating was fully decoded and flashed across Tony's HUD.
"This is bad!" Tony shouted, panic rising in his chest. "Natasha! Thor! Can you hear me?!"
"Reading you loud and clear, Stark," Thor grunted through the static.
"How is the civilian evacuation going down there? We need to pull out immediately! We must evacuate right now!" Tony yelled, banking his armor sharply to keep his distance from the boy. "Meliodas has been compromised! He's being mind-controlled by the enemy!"
This urgent transmission wasn't just sent to the surviving Avengers on the ground; it was also broadcast directly to Director Nick Fury on the Helicarrier.
The slight, desperate joy and anticipation that had just risen in Fury's heart vanished into thin air. It was instantly replaced by a wave of absolute dread. Meliodas was their ultimate, god-tier combatant; if he was under enemy control, who on Earth could possibly stop him?
"Retreat!" Nick Fury's voice rang out over the team's encrypted channel, entirely devoid of hesitation. "All Avengers, fall back immediately. You must ensure your own safety first."
"No!" Natasha immediately keyed her comms to argue.
She certainly knew exactly how much risk she was taking by staying in a warzone with an out-of-control god. But looking down at the blood staining her uniform—Captain America's blood—her resolve hardened to diamond.
"There are still civilians trapped in the subway stations who haven't evacuated," Natasha said, her voice shaking but firm. "We cannot leave them here. Steve wouldn't."
"Romanoff..." Fury sighed heavily.
"Clint, you and Thor take the first wave out," Natasha ordered, ignoring the Director. "I'll lead the rest of them to the extraction point."
After Ainz Ooal Gown and the surviving Guardians retreated through the portal, Ban—who had finally finished walking away from Sebas's corpse—arrived at the coordinates of the city center.
"Hmm?" Ban scratched his spiky blue hair, looking around in confusion. "Where are the enemies? Captain? Why has this place turned into a freaking jungle?"
Standing on the cracked asphalt, Ban bent his knees and leaped with explosive force, effortlessly reaching the top of the tallest, magically grown treetop.
He spotted Meliodas floating silently in mid-air above the canopy and called out cheerfully.
"Get lost."
Meliodas did not turn around. He did not answer Ban's question. Instead, a cold, dead voice barked a ruthless reprimand.
"Don't get in my way, Ban."
Seeing his Captain's bizarre, rigid posture, Ban used the treetop for leverage and leaped up into the air toward him.
"What the hell are you talking about, Cap—?!"
SWOOSH!
Just as Ban reached Meliodas's side, the Captain gave his best friend a lethal welcoming gift.
A fierce, blinding downward slash from the Demon Sword Lostvayne.
Blood splattered violently in the air as Ban's chest was ripped open. The pain meant nothing to the immortal Fox Sin, but Meliodas's current state shocked him to his core.
The moment their eyes met, Ban understood exactly what had happened. Meliodas's vibrant green eyes were completely vacant, glowing with an unnatural, subjugated magic.
'He's under mind control,' Ban realized, his crimson eyes widening. 'We're screwed!'
Ban's body plummeted from mid-air, crashing heavily through the magical branches until he hit the ground, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
"Eh?" Ban muttered, sitting up in the crater and waiting for the follow-up strike. "He didn't attack again?"
Ban slowly walked out of the dust, his chest already stitched back together. He looked up at the sky in total confusion. Meliodas actually hadn't pursued him to finish the job.
With his injuries instantly healed, Ban leaped onto the treetop again.
Meliodas was no longer hovering in the sky above him. But in the distance, the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan's financial district were violently collapsing one by one, sliced apart by massive waves of demonic energy.
'So, the command the enemy mage gave wasn't for the Captain to kill people...' Ban deduced, watching the destruction. '...but to cause absolute structural destruction?'
"Luckily he's not Diane," Ban sighed, cracking his knuckles. "She'd level this place by accident."
Exerting immense force through his legs, Ban launched himself like a bullet toward the collapsing buildings. No matter what the enemy's ultimate goal was, he just needed to keep his Captain occupied.
"It's been a long time since I've fought the Captain anyway," a wild smile appeared on Ban's face.
This city was already a ruined wasteland, so it was the perfect arena for him and Meliodas to cut loose.
With Meliodas locked in his Demon Mark state, every single swing of Lostvayne was accompanied by the catastrophic collapse of a building. While the demolition work was in full swing, Ban jumped directly into the line of fire to run interference.
The two Sins, who hadn't seriously fought each other for a long time, successfully transformed into a two-man apocalyptic demolition crew.
Neither Meliodas nor Ban had any intention of holding back. Every thunderous collision between Lostvayne and the Holy Rod Courechouse dealt a devastating shockwave to the surrounding environment, shattering glass and pulverizing concrete for miles.
The only thing that deeply annoyed Ban was that Meliodas had absolutely no intention of fighting him properly. Every time the Captain knocked Ban away, he ignored him entirely and went right back to busily destroying skyscrapers.
"Hawk! Hey, bacon!"
Tony Stark, who had been watching the terrifying shockwaves from afar, carefully flew closer to the perimeter of the battlefield after seeing Ban successfully pin Meliodas down.
Hovering near a rooftop, he found the little pink pig who always followed the blonde boy around, shivering behind an air conditioning unit.
"Can Ban hold off Meliodas?" Tony asked urgently.
"Ban?" Hawk squeaked, his ears drooping. "Probably not."
"What do you mean 'probably not'? He's immortal!"
"Meliodas is the absolute strongest among the Seven Deadly Sins," Hawk explained, shaking his head. "Except for Escanor, the Lion's Sin of Pride—who can suppress him a bit at exactly high noon—absolutely no one else is a match for Meliodas when his demonic power is unleashed."
"Escanor? High noon?" Tony Stark logged the precious tactical lore, but it didn't make him very happy. Right now, it was barely mid-afternoon, and there was no 'Escanor' anywhere in sight.
In the distance, Meliodas and Ban seemed to be evenly matched, their shockwaves leveling city blocks. However, after Hawk's grim explanation, Tony began to truly worry. What if Meliodas got annoyed and got serious, and Ban's immortality couldn't withstand the demonic output?
More importantly, after destroying New York... where would Meliodas's next target be?
The phrase Meliodas was mechanically muttering at the beginning echoed in Tony's mind.
Destroy all cities!
Once Meliodas completely leveled New York, where would he fly next? Albany? Philadelphia? Boston? Or... Washington D.C.?
In the densely populated metropolitan areas surrounding New York, the civilians hadn't been evacuated at all.
Thinking of this, a cold sweat involuntarily broke out beneath Tony Stark's faceplate.
"Fury," Tony called over the encrypted channel. "Can you disperse the residents of the major cities near New York? Philadelphia, Boston, D.C.?"
"Do you know what you're asking, Stark?" Fury replied, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "You should understand how much apocalyptic chaos that would cause, right?"
Tony naturally understood what Nick Fury meant. Panic always spreads faster than any virus. Once the official news of a mass, multi-city evacuation got out, there would be total societal collapse. Endless stampedes, gridlocked highways, riots, and violent criminal incidents would surely follow. Millions could die just in the panic alone.
"But..." Tony gritted his teeth. "Are we just going to sit here and watch him wipe the Eastern Seaboard off the map?"
"Stop!" Fury barked. "I know what you want to say. But, Tony... we don't have the authority to make this decision."
The comms went dead silent, the air filled with a suffocatingly heavy atmosphere.
Neither of them wanted Tony's terrifying prediction to come true. They both understood that it might be the most accurate tactical projection they had. But at the same time, they could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Even the combined might of the U.S. government couldn't manage an orderly, panic-free evacuation of ten million people in an hour.
"Stark," Natasha's exhausted voice finally crackled over the radio. "The surviving residents of New York have all completed their transfer. The subways are clear."
"You all should retreat quickly too, Avengers," Fury interrupted, his voice dropping to a grim whisper. "Get out of the tri-state area. The World Security Council is panicking. Congress might launch another nuclear missile."
"What?!" Tony yelled. "Those bastards!"
Tony Stark cursed violently, but his armored hands honestly reached out and scooped up Hawk like a football.
He engaged his thrusters and instantly flew toward the extraction coordinates of the rest of the Avengers at maximum supersonic speed. His Iron Man armor couldn't withstand the power of a direct nuclear blast, and those cowardly idiots in Congress wouldn't care about vaporizing one more piece of collateral cannon fodder like him.
With the Avengers and the surviving New York residents all evacuated, the city fell eerily quiet, save for the roaring explosions of the brawl.
Only Meliodas and Ban remained in the vast, crumbling ruins of New York.
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