With his waist and abdomen crushed in Kingpin's grip, Captain America's face flushed a deep, furious red. His eyes burned hotter and hotter, as if the last thread of reason inside him were being singed away.
He had held back before. Now he stopped holding back.
Driving his elbow upward, he hammered Kingpin's abdomen. The blow forced a strangled gasp out of Kingpin, nearly breaking his hold. He staggered, recovered at the last possible heartbeat—and that recovery only fed the storm inside him.
His arms tightened again, slow and merciless, like a python coiling for the kill. Rogers felt his ribs protest, his breath crushed to a thin, ragged thread.
But his fury only sharpened. "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Each elbow strike detonated against Kingpin's torso. The larger man gagged, bile rising in his throat, yet he refused to let go. He treated the pain as fuel.
The watching prisoners froze. No one expected the explosive brawl to twist into this brutal contest of endurance—two monsters locked together, testing which body would fail first.
Would Captain America's spine snap first?
Or would Kingpin's shattered organs give out?
The tension crawled across everyone's skin. Dozens of eyes stayed fixed on that violent knot of bodies.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Someone whispered it, and the murmur spread like a spark catching dry grass. Voices rose, rough and uneven at first, then fell into a twisted, unified chant—cheering Kingpin, cheering Captain America, cheering the spectacle itself.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Rogers didn't hear them. Rage drowned everything. His instincts howled. His spine felt like a burning rod shoved into his back, but still he drove his elbows into Kingpin again and again.
Kingpin endured through nothing but raw will. Teeth clenched, blood dripping from his lips—blood stirred up from inside where organs were tearing. None of that mattered. He lived for moments like this, and at this moment, all he wanted was to crush the man he held.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
More elbow strikes. Blood burst from Kingpin's nose.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
The muffled impacts grew slower, heavier. His vision swam crimson.
"Strangle him! Strangle him!!"
The prisoners roared, but Kingpin's thoughts drifted. Pain blurred into memory. He seemed to fall backward in time—back to the wrestling ring of his childhood… back to the moments where death brushed past him like an old acquaintance… back to the reckless life he carved with his own fists.
They say that when your whole life flashes before your eyes, death is standing one breath away.
And sure enough… under Captain America's relentless, savage barrage, the outcome surfaced. Kingpin's eyes filled with blood. His mouth and nose spilled red. His arms trembled. His body slackened.
He died first.
A king of the underworld—toppled by brute force and stubborn will. There was something bleakly poetic about it.
Even in death, his arms remained locked around Rogers, refusing to release him.
"Huff…"
Rogers slumped atop the corpse, gasping. The haze in his eyes slowly cleared. He had won. Kingpin might have been the apex of normal humanity, but against a remade warrior like him, he was still human.
Rogers pried those rigid arms apart with sheer brute strength, then pushed himself upright, one hand bracing his aching lower back. When he noticed the prisoners staring in stunned silence, he let a blood-slick, wolfish smile stretch across his face.
In a triumphant growl, he declared,
"From this day forward… I am the King of the WORLD!!"
The prisoners snapped out of their trance and erupted in a frenzy.
"King of the World! King of the World! King of the World!"
Sandman and Electro shouted the loudest, practically ecstatic.
Tri-Wing Tower—
Nick Fury was deep in thought, trying to smoke out the mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D., when Agent Melinda sent him an urgent video file.
Seeing who it was, Fury's heart skipped a beat. Rogers and the others had been cursed by Gilgamesh almost simultaneously, but while everyone else displayed clear symptoms, Captain America alone remained unaffected. That unease had been gnawing at Fury from the start.
You can't treat an illness unless you know what the illness is.
Rogers was clearly "sick," but no one understood his exact symptoms, making it impossible to diagnose or counter the curse.
So Fury had assigned Melinda to monitor Captain America closely—hoping to catch the curse in action.
Now she had sent him a video. And judging from her urgency, something had gone terribly wrong.
He opened the file immediately and froze. On-screen, Captain America stood before a roaring crowd of prisoners and criminals, leading a mass escape from Base 17. They were exchanging fire with arriving military and police forces—and with Bullseye providing pinpoint support, the attackers were nearly unstoppable.
Fury's mind went blank. Captain America, the symbol of the nation… had defected?
"Melinda, report. What's happening?!"
He initiated a video call at once. Melinda's face appeared on-screen—hair messy, uniform torn, streaked with blood. "Rogers has joined the Evil Alliance," she said, voice strained. "He's defected. Our squad engaged him, but we suffered heavy casualties."
"My God…" Fury swayed, dizziness crashing over him.
Decades of government and military propaganda had built Captain America into an untouchable icon. Internationally, he embodied the image of the United States itself. If he had truly defected… it would be the greatest scandal in American history.
"What do we do? What do we do…?"
Even the ever-calculating Nick Fury faltered. But he was the king of spies for a reason. After a single moment of panic, his composure snapped back into place. He had to retrieve Captain America—before the truth spread.
Either remove the curse… or bury Rogers quietly until the world forgot.
Otherwise, Americans' faith would shatter—and the resulting protests could engulf the entire country.
"Summon the Avengers. Now!" Fury burst out of his office, firing off commands as he moved. "Notify the FBI and U.S. military—lock down Hell's Kitchen immediately. Seal every one of Kingpin's factories, ports, and warehouses!"
He paused only to add, "And monitor the Brooklyn sewers! Track every movement of the Evil Alliance!"
"But, sir…" an agent spoke hesitantly. "Hell's Kitchen is a major criminal hub—armed gangs everywhere. A mass operation like this could ignite a citywide conflict."
Fury stopped cold. Then he turned, expression sharp as a blade. "I don't care! Carry out my orders—immediately! Do I make myself clear?!"
His roar echoed through the corridor, startling nearby agents. Once they saw who it was, they quietly turned back to their work.
The hesitant agent flinched and hurried off to deliver the commands.
Meanwhile, in the White House…
Gilgamesh lounged lazily on a sofa, stifling a yawn. Wasn't America supposed to be a "land of freedom," where shootings happened daily?
He'd been here ages and hadn't heard a single gunshot. What a disappointment.
"Hill," he drawled, stretching. "Prepare the car. I'm going out for a drive."
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