bookbashuk Chapter 163 The Battle of New York Part 4
Chapter 163 The Battle of New York Part 4
Chapter 163 The Battle of New York Part 4
Li En stood at the entrance of the hamburger shop, holding a hot dog in her left hand and half a hamburger in her right.
His cheeks were stuffed full, and there was a smear of ketchup on the corner of his mouth.
Hearing Tony's roar, he turned around, swallowed what was in his mouth, scratched the back of his head, and said with a hint of self-righteousness, "It's just that I didn't really want to join in when I saw you guys posing over there. It just felt a bit too embarrassing."
"What nonsense!—Hurry up and help!"
Tony's voice boomed from the helmet speaker, the last syllable cracking from the intensity of his emotions.
He really wanted to fly down, snatch the half-eaten hamburger from Li En's hand, and smash it on the ground.
But there are still Chitauri aircraft gathering in this direction, so he can't free up his hands.
What pose?
That's called tactical discipline, a naturally formed circular defensive formation, and has absolutely nothing to do with shame.
Li En raised his greasy right hand and pointed his index finger toward the sky.
His tone was as casual as if he were saying that it might drizzle a little later: "Don't worry, someone will take care of this."
Tony followed his finger and switched the helmet viewfinder to telephoto mode, increasing the magnification step by step.
There was indeed something flying rapidly towards us from the sky, leaving a straight trail of fire in its wake.
He locked the camera on that thing and performed a quick target identification.
The data fed back from the processor caused his pupils to contract sharply.
It's a missile.
A missile on fire, and someone riding on it?
The next second, he saw the silhouette of the rider on top of the missile.
A skull is burning fiercely, its entire body completely engulfed in hellfire.
Frank lay prone on the missile's body, his hands gripping the riveted seams of the missile's outer shell.
He squeezed his legs tightly against the sides of his body, in the exact same posture he used when riding his Hellfire Harley on the highway.
"Watt, what the hell are you doing! Everyone, get out of the way!"
Tony's reaction was almost a conditioned reflex.
As he roared, he filled the energy bar of his palm cannon to the maximum and began to retreat.
Upon hearing his shout, none of his teammates asked why; they all turned and rushed towards Li En.
Steve held his shield horizontally in front of his chest, lowered his center of gravity, and sprinted at full speed, his combat boots kicking up bursts of debris as they stomped on broken bricks and spent shell casings.
Natasha and Barton ran swiftly along the exterior walls of buildings on either side of the street, their footsteps fast and rapid.
Only Hulk remained still. He stood rooted to the spot, feet apart, staring up at the fireball that was getting closer and closer in the sky.
It opened its mouth wide and let out a deafening roar. The sound that rolled out of its throat made several pieces of broken glass at its feet bounce out a few times.
At this moment, the fiery figure finally came within sight.
Frank rode on the missile, the skull's upper and lower jaws opening and closing repeatedly, making a series of crisp clicking sounds.
That's him laughing.
His right hand was still raised in mid-air, his index and middle fingers joined together in a very arrogant gesture.
Tony's voice came from inside the helmet, his tone subtle: "I know Frank can turn all sorts of mechanical equipment into fiery mounts—but how the hell can he even do missiles?"
"Frank said he wanted to try it, and I didn't expect him to actually succeed. Who says missiles can't be used as mounts?"
Besides, Ghost Rider clearly belongs to the realm of mythology and magic. It's a bit unreasonable for someone like you, a researcher, to try and force a physics-based approach onto it.
Lee calmly stuffed the last bite of the hamburger into her mouth, her cheeks still chewing.
Tony opened his mouth, wanting to refute.
The words lingered on his tongue, but he swallowed them back down.
Hellish spirits have emerged, and souls have been dragged into hell. So what if a skull is riding a missile?
These days, there are too many things that science can't explain.
If we really took everything so seriously, how could we possibly get by?
In the short time it took to say those few words, the Chitauri legion's regrouped air force formation had already pressed up directly above the Crossroads.
They emerged simultaneously from the edges of the rooftops of several surrounding high-rise buildings, with the array of aircraft stacked one on top of the other.
They covered the sky above, and a rough estimate puts them at least in the hundreds of thousands.
The sound of the energy rifle charging echoed between the buildings, the sharp yet continuous hum of charging blending together.
It sounds like a whole swarm of metal locusts is eating up the sky.
Frank rode his missile and precisely plunged into the very center of this dense array.
His skeletal jaw opened wide to the sides, and his loud, clattering laughter exploded abruptly and jarringly amidst the roar of the aircraft engine and the charging of the energy gun.
Then he released his hands, leaned back, and his body transformed into a burst of dark red flames in mid-air.
Flames surged outward from the center of his torso, instantly melting through the outer shell of the missile beneath him—BOOM!
The explosion was so loud that all the glass curtain walls in Manhattan cracked in the same second.
But this was not an explosion in the conventional sense.
There were no fragments, no shockwaves, and no cloud of gray smoke carrying rubble and metal scraps.
What emerges from inside the projectile is a pure, dark red flame without any impurities.
The flames spread in all directions at a speed beyond the comprehension of physics, engulfing the entire sky above the crossroads and all the Chitauri aircraft in the blink of an eye.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers didn't even have a chance to adjust the direction of their aircraft before being simultaneously engulfed from all sides by the ever-expanding sea of red light.
The surrounding buildings were also quickly destroyed in the flames.
The concrete exterior wall emits a piercing sizzling sound the moment it comes into contact with the flame, the surface begins to melt, and then peels off in large chunks.
The load-bearing beams of the steel structure changed from grayish-white to dark red, then softened and bent, eventually flowing down like a candle.
Even the paving stones on the road that were blasted apart turned into grayish-white powder in the flames, which was then swept away by the heat wave.
The temperature in the entire neighborhood soared to a point where it was impossible to breathe properly in a very short time.
The air itself became scalding hot, and each inhalation felt like a mouthful of freshly boiled water being poured into the lungs.
But one thing is strange.
When the flames fell on the living, they did not burn them to death.
The streets were filled with people covered in flames, instinctively slapping themselves, screaming, rolling around, and then stopping one by one.
They discovered that they were not burned.
His skin was intact, his clothes were intact, and not even his body hair was singed.
Someone tentatively reached out and plucked the still-flickering flame from the shoulder, held it in their palm for a moment, and then casually tossed it to the ground beside them.
The flame bounced twice on the ground before going out, without even charring the floor tiles.
But some people are different.
The moment the flames touched them, their bodies began to burn from the point of contact, bursting into flames from the inside out, from every capillary and every bone.
They opened their mouths to scream, but the sound couldn't get out of their throats.
His entire body had turned into a small pile of grayish-white powder, which was scattered and flew away by the heat wave.
The person who was perfectly fine just moments ago is now just a wisp of black ash drifting into the sky and merging into the dust.
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