The ground trembled as the full might of the United States military opened fire. A furious wall of lead from automatic weapons slamd into the fire elental, a storm of bullets that should have shredded any conventional foe. The deafening roar of M1 Abrams tanks echoed across the valley as their main guns unleashed a coordinated volley, shells streaking across the sky like vengeful teors to strike the creature's chest.
Above, F-22 Raptors and Apache helicopters scread past, loosing a torrent of Hellfire missiles. The ordnance struck true, and for a glorious mont, it seed to be working. Thunderous explosions rocked the elental, sending showers of molten rock scattering in all directions. The air filled with billowing smoke and dust.
But it was an illusion. A horrifying, deadly illusion.
When the smoke cleared, the creature was not weakened. It was larger. The purple runes etched into its molten form—the brand of Dormammu's corruption—glowed with renewed intensity. It was madly, gleefully absorbing the tal from the shells and missiles, feeding on the kinetic energy of the explosions. The flas that cloaked its body burned hotter, fiercer, as if they intended to incinerate the very sky.
The soldiers' coordinated assault had done nothing to slow its relentless advance. As it drew closer, the heat wave beca an oppressive, physical force. Sweat drenched the soldiers' faces. Inside the tanks and armored vehicles, the temperature soared, the tal hulls turning into furnaces.
"Fall back! Maintain distance!" a commander scread over the comms. The vehicles began a desperate, organized retreat, but it was too late. Every step the fire elental took covered dozens of ters. What seed slow from a distance was terrifyingly fast up close.
The raging flas of its passage reached the now-abandoned defensive positions. The few soldiers who hadn't made it to a vehicle were simply erased, their panicked screams silenced as the supernatural heat incinerated them where they stood.
The retreating convoy was not spared. The creature, finding Tony's agile drones too difficult to target, turned its attention to the slower prey crawling on the ground.
It opened its massive mouth, revealing a bottomless abyss of liquid fire. A surging torrent of magma erupted forth, a tidal wave of liquid earth that swept across the battlefield at astonishing speed. It was a roaring fire dragon that swallowed everything in its path, lting and incinerating all it touched.
The tires of the military trucks vaporized on contact, the vehicles slumping into the molten flow. The soldiers inside looked out at the apocalyptic scene, their eyes wide with horror, before the boiling lava consud them. A symphony of agonized screams was cut brutally short as the wave of fire washed over them, their bodies instantly charred, their bones lting under temperatures that exceeded two thousand degrees Celsius.
The M1 Abrams tanks, with their heavy steel treads, lasted a few seconds longer, churning through the lava in a desperate bid for escape. But the superheated magma flowed over their hulls, turning the armored vehicles into sealed ovens. One tank commander, choking on the superheated air, tried to force open the top hatch. He grabbed the handle; his glove and the flesh beneath it vaporized in a single, agonizing sizzle.
"Ah! God, my hand!" he shrieked, collapsing to the floor of the tank.
Another crewman, seeing this, wrapped his hands in a piece of fla-retardant cloth and, enduring the searing pain, shoved the hatch open. It was a fatal mistake. The lava that had pooled on the roof poured inside, a waterfall of liquid death. It covered the crewman's head and shoulders, and he fell without a sound. The lava splashed onto the soldier with the burned hand, his uniform igniting instantly, turning them both into human torches. The remaining screams from within the tank were soon silenced.
Fury watched the hellish scene unfold on the main screen at S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. He slamd his fist on the table, the sound echoing through the stunned silence of the command center.
"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!" he roared, his eyes burning with a furious, helpless light.
"May God have rcy on their souls," Hill whispered, unconsciously making the sign of the cross.
"They didn't have to die," Fury seethed, his voice low and venomous. "Those fools in their safe rooms murdered them. And for what? To make the damn thing stronger!"
He was right. Hill brought up the sensor readings. "Sir," she said, her own voice hollow. "Precision instrunts confirm its height has increased by forty-seven ters since the engagent began."
The tanks, the armored vehicles, the missiles—even an F-22 that had strayed too low and been swatted from the sky by a magma jet—had all beco a feast of steel for the creature.
"Sir, the wildfires are spreading," an agent reported nervously. "Should we notify the fire departnts?"
Fury took a deep breath, forcing his rage down into a cold, hard knot in his gut. He turned and strode toward the conference room. "Tell them to contain the periter. And to stay as far away from that thing as possible," he commanded. "I'm going to go have another word with our leaders."
He paused at the door, his back to his team. "Get Tony and the others back here as fast as possible. And get Banner."
"Sir, Banner is still in Africa," Hill reminded him. "He's too far away."
Fury didn't turn around. "Then get Strange," he ordered, his voice like flint. "If he can bend ti, he can bend space. Get Banner here. Now."
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