The sun set blood-red in the west.
It had only been a single day. New York, the shining international metropolis, had become an empty, silent tomb.
Attacked by alien invaders in the first half of the day, and aggressively purged by an army of the Undead in the second half. According to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s frantic, preliminary statistics, only one-fifth of the residents had successfully survived the incident. The population of New York, once over eight million, had plummeted by millions in a matter of hours.
This was not a war. It was an inhuman carnage.
Most of the residents had died instantly under the terrifying Super-Tier magic of Ainz Ooal Gown. The population density in downtown Manhattan was staggeringly high. Under the shroud of the aura of death, all civilians caught in the city center had perished. Subsequently, the Dark Young and the endless undead legion continued their brutal hunt.
Even with the surviving members of the Avengers rescuing people everywhere, the incident had still reached an irreversible stage.
Outside the city, under the strict command of S.H.I.E.L.D., the wounded were being treated in an orderly, desperate fashion at makeshift triage camps. Inside the city, more than half of New York had already been reduced to smoldering rubble.
And the destruction was not over.
"Destroy!"
"Destroy!"
Meliodas had pushed his Demon Mark to an absolute, terrifying extreme at some point during the fight. A pair of massive, pitch-black wings constructed of viscous demonic energy had unfurled from his back.
The Demon Sword [Lostvayne] in his hand continuously emitted massive, crescent-shaped slashes of black sword-light, effortlessly toppling the skyscrapers that were still standing.
"Tch," Ban spat, wiping a thick trail of blood from the corner of his mouth as he struggled to climb up from a massive crater. "This guy... the Captain's magic power is truly unfathomable."
The brutal brawl between the two had lasted for several agonizing hours. During this entire time, Ban had been continuously using [Snatch] to aggressively drain Meliodas's physical strength and magic power. But even so, the Dragon Sin showed absolutely no signs of weakness or fatigue. He simply continued to output catastrophic levels of demonic energy to pulverize the surrounding environment.
"It's not over yet," Ban grunted, his bones snapping back into place. He wouldn't admit defeat to a mind-control spell so easily.
Dust rose violently from the ground as Ban shot out from the crater like a bullet. He brandished his Holy Rod, aiming directly at Meliodas's head.
BANG!
Ban, who had just rushed forward with supersonic speed, was violently swatted back to the ground at an even faster velocity, crashing through three ruined city blocks.
"Ban!" Meliodas commanded, his voice cold, hollow, and devoid of all his usual warmth. "Don't get in my way."
Meliodas slowly lowered his sword, his dead green eyes locking onto the crater where Ban lay.
"Otherwise... I won't be able to stop myself from... killing you."
Hovering high in mid-air, Meliodas scanned the entire city. Everywhere he looked, there were only sprawling ruins of brick, stone, and twisted steel. Plumes of thick black smoke rose from the shattered ground toward the darkening sky. In every direction, piercing emergency alarms were still blaring from buried cars and ruined banks.
'I might as well destroy this place completely,' Meliodas's subjugated mind concluded mechanically.
Wisps of pitch-black demonic energy began to violently swirl and expand around his small body. The energy coalesced, rapidly forming a massive, howling black tornado of pure destruction.
The outer wind-wall of the demonic energy did not stop its expansion for a single microsecond. It continued to spread and surge outward like a localized hurricane. Even an immortal like Ban could only barely struggle to anchor himself to the bedrock under the crushing gravity of such absolute demonic power.
It wasn't until Meliodas's darkness had completely enveloped the entire island of Manhattan that the expansion finally stopped.
Hovering in the eye of the storm, Meliodas reached out a hand and made a simple, pressing downward motion.
The dome of demonic energy, like a loyal subject obeying its king, violently pressed down from the sky, crushing everything beneath it into fine, powdery dust.
The thousands of alarms that had been ringing incessantly across the city vanished instantly.
New York truly became a dead city. Silent, flat, and perfectly still.
Having executed his absolute command, the swirling demonic energy over the ruins dissipated into the wind. Meliodas's body floated over the flattened wasteland, a chilling, satisfied smile appearing on his usually cheerful face.
Then, he slowly turned his head, looking far into the northern distance, as if his mind-controlled vision had just locked onto his next target.
The air violently exploded behind him, generating a deafening sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier, rocketing north.
[News Broadcasts - Nationwide]
"Attention! Attention!'
"That demon has completely leveled New York City!"
"Radar confirms he is now flying directly toward Albany at supersonic speeds!"
"Residents of Albany, please evacuate the city immediately! Evacuate immediately!"
On televisions and radios across the entire country, every single news anchor was non-stop broadcasting this apocalyptic warning, their voices trembling with genuine terror. Accompanied by real-time S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite monitoring, the world watched the black blur streak across the map.
The residents of Albany didn't even need the local police to urge them; the moment they saw the horrifying news... everyone only wished they had more than two legs.
As for driving? At this time, trying to use a car was purely seeking death. The streets and highways were already hopelessly gridlocked with countless vehicles, utterly unable to move a single inch. Desperate residents abandoned their cars and fled on foot, armed criminals took advantage of the absolute chaos to loot and riot, and wealthy politicians leisurely drank red wine as their private helicopters lifted off from secure rooftops.
The best and worst of humanity were revealed to the fullest in the face of the apocalypse.
[Washington D.C. - The Capitol Building]
"Where are the fighter jets?!" The President roared, slamming his fists on the table, looking at General Ross with bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes. "Have they departed?!"
Originally, Meliodas's heroic performance against the Overlord had given the President hope of reclaiming New York from the undead threat without resorting to carpet bombing. But in just half a day, their savior had become a villain infinitely more destructive than the monsters he had chased away.
Not only had he turned New York into a flattened, silent wasteland, but now he was systematically targeting other major population centers in New York State.
"They'll be there soon, Mr. President," General Ross replied, his forehead slick with sweat.
On the massive satellite screen in the bunker, three advanced F-22 Raptor fighter jets were flying in tight formation, heading on a direct intercept course toward Meliodas.
"Target locked," the lead pilot's voice crackled over the speakers.
Six state-of-the-art air-to-air missiles were launched from under the fuselages. Trailing bright tails of fire, they shot straight toward the incoming black blur at Mach 2.
"Payload delivered. Mission accomplished!" the pilot reported to the command center. "We're breaking off and preparing to return to base!"
"Watch out!" Just as the pilot finished his report, a sharp, screaming proximity warning sounded in his headset.
Before he could even process the alarm, a catastrophic heatwave swept through the cockpit. The lead jet was instantly vaporized in a ball of black fire.
Seeing their squad leader instantly annihilated, the other two pilots panicked, immediately pushing their thrusters to their absolute, structural limits. Several brilliant afterburner rings flashed at the rear of the jets as their speed increased violently.
"Mach 2!" "Mach 3!" "Phew, we should have lost him," the second pilot gasped, looking at the impossible speed displayed on his dashboard.
He let out a long, shaky breath. But at that exact moment, a dark shadow loomed directly over his canopy glass.
Looking up, his blood ran cold. A familiar, blonde-haired face was casually flying alongside his jet, hovering right above the cockpit glass. Meliodas was keeping pace with a fighter jet going Mach 3 with zero visible effort.
Above the canopy, Meliodas lazily swung his Demon Sword. A ball of black fire ignited in the sky.
The remaining fighter jets failed to escape Meliodas's clutches. They turned into blooming fireworks in the stratosphere, one after another.
"These are the Military's elite fighter jets?!" The President screamed, pointing a trembling finger at General Ross's nose. "Our absolute strongest weapons?!"
General Ross didn't offer a single word of rebuttal.
If they were dealing with other human countries, their jets' performance would be an unstoppable technological marvel. But against the ancient demon currently displayed on the screen... their multi-million dollar jets were like slow, fragile paper toys.
[Albany]
While the politicians were screaming at each other in the secure conference room, Meliodas had successfully arrived in the airspace above Albany.
Hovering high in the air, a wicked, emotionless smile curled on Meliodas's lips.
Looking down at the millions of humans fleeing in all directions below, causing stampedes, crying, and begging to the sky for mercy... there was not a single shred of pity in his subjugated heart. The World Item's absolute command ruled his mind.
He spread his palm wide. Viscous, terrifying demonic energy continuously swirled, compressed, and gathered in his hand, forming a massive sphere of absolute darkness.
"[Gargantuan Hellblaze Orb]"
Meliodas casually turned his palm downward. The massive sphere of black Hellfire, caught by gravity, fell straight toward the densely populated city below like a dying sun.
The moment it touched the ground, the compressed demonic energy violently detonated. A shockwave carrying pitch-black Hellfire instantly spread outward like a tidal wave, sweeping through the entire city in a matter of seconds.
A minute ago, this was a bustling capital city filled with the frantic noise of desperate people.
A minute later, it had become a silent dead zone.
Whether it was the panicked humans rioting on the streets or the terrified residents hiding deep in their reinforced basements... under this apocalyptic wave of demonic energy, all perished instantly.
Even the reinforced concrete and steel exterior walls of the city's tallest buildings were instantly melted, corroded, and scorched to ash by the bone-eroding, inextinguishable Hellfire.
In just a single, horrifying instant, the entire city of Albany was turned to flattened scorched earth, littered with millions of charred corpses.
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