Central London died in less than ten seconds.
Not from fire.
Not from impact.
From pressure.
When the S-rank descended above the Thames, the atmosphere itself bent inward. Glass across the city imploded. Steel frames groaned as gravity warped violently toward the glowing figure hanging in the sky like a second sun.
Jack Storm felt it instantly.
His wings snapped wide, air screaming around him as the Nether Core surged to stabilize his body against crushing force.
"Not here," Jack growled.
The S-rank looked down.
"You exist in the wrong tier."
And then London folded.
THE FIRST GOD STRIKE
The S-rank raised one hand.
Every molecule of air between it and the city compressed.
The blast wasn't fire.
It was authority.
Buildings along the Thames collapsed inward like wet cardboard. The London Eye twisted grotesquely before shattering into a rain of glass and metal. Bridges buckled, cars flew, people vanished in shockwaves that didn't even give them time to scream.
Jack launched himself forward, intercepting the force mid-air.
Force Guard screamed.
The impact hurled him backward through the skyline, smashing through six skyscrapers before he could even right himself.
Jack coughed blood as regeneration struggled to keep up.
"…Okay," he gasped. "You hit harder than the last one."
The S-rank drifted closer.
Its eyes burned white.
"That was not a hit," it said calmly.
"That was a greeting."
JACK STRIKES BACK
Jack roared and charged.
His wings tore the air apart as he crossed kilometers in a heartbeat, fist drawn back with Absolute Transmission and void-violet force roaring around him.
He hit the S-rank square in the chest.
The shockwave erased a block of the city below.
And the S-rank… didn't move.
Jack's eyes widened.
"You are not applying enough reality," the S-rank said.
Then it punched Jack.
LONDON SHATTERS
The blow carried the force of a meteor.
Jack was launched downward, slamming into the Thames so hard the river exploded upward into a towering wall of steam and debris. The impact crater swallowed several city blocks instantly, water vaporizing into plasma under the heat and force.
Jack was driven through the riverbed, through bedrock, through forgotten tunnels, before he was finally blasted back into the air by the rebound.
He was already healing.
Barely.
The S-rank descended slowly through the smoke.
"Your regeneration is impressive," it observed. "But meaningless."
Jack wiped blood from his face.
"Funny," he snarled. "That's what demons always say."
Jack unleashed Nightmare Possession.
The S-rank froze for a fraction of a second.
Jack saw it.
He pushed harder.
Visions tore through the godlike entity — worlds it had erased, civilizations reduced to nothing, endless corridors of its own inevitability.
The S-rank blinked.
Then smiled.
"You tried to make me afraid."
It laughed.
"I am the thing fear was invented for."
It slammed Jack into Westminster.
Big Ben collapsed as Jack was driven through it, stone and steel pulverizing into dust.
Crowe watched the feed go static.
"…My God."
THE POWER GAP
Jack tried everything.
Force manipulation.
Void flame.
Soul Authority.
Nightmare loops.
Nothing slowed it.
Every strike Jack landed was answered by something ten times heavier. Every attempt to restrain was overwritten by raw dominance.
The S-rank didn't dodge.
It didn't defend.
It simply let Jack hit it — and then punished him for it.
"You are strong," the S-rank said as it grabbed Jack by the face and dragged him across London's ruins, carving a trench miles long.
"But you are not fundamental."
Jack screamed as the friction tore through him, regeneration flaring wildly.
"Let— go—!"
The S-rank flung him upward.
Jack blasted through the cloud layer in a streak of fire and blood.
Then the S-rank followed.
THE SKY BREAKS
They hit the upper atmosphere.
The sky itself bent around them, auroras igniting as gravity and electromagnetic forces went berserk.
Jack's wings burned as he fought to stabilize.
The S-rank struck again.
Jack was hurled into orbit.
The Earth curved beneath him.
The S-rank appeared in front of him instantly.
"You are contaminating this planet," it said.
Jack spat blood into the vacuum, his body holding a bubble of atmosphere around him.
"Still… breathing," Jack wheezed.
The S-rank punched him.
Jack flew.
INTO SPACE
The blow launched Jack out of Earth's gravitational well like a missile.
Stars streaked past.
The blue of Earth shrank.
Jack smashed through a cluster of satellites, their remains vaporizing against his body as he spiraled through space.
The S-rank followed effortlessly.
"This universe does not require you," it said.
Jack snarled.
"Then it's gonna have to deal with me."
THE ASTEROID FIELD
They hit the belt.
Massive rocks drifted in silent darkness.
The S-rank grabbed Jack and slammed him into an asteroid the size of a mountain.
The impact shattered it.
Jack was hurled through debris like a bullet, smashing through another, and another, fragments exploding into glittering storms of stone and ice.
He barely stayed conscious.
The S-rank dragged him out of the debris field by the wing.
"You have reached your ceiling."
Jack's vision blurred.
"Not… yet…"
The Nether Core flared.
Jack gathered every scrap of force he had left.
He slammed his fist into the S-rank's jaw.
For the first time —
The S-rank moved.
Just an inch.
Jack laughed weakly.
"Got you."
The S-rank's eyes burned brighter.
"That was unacceptable."
It struck Jack with a force that detonated three asteroids simultaneously.
Jack's body disintegrated.
Only the Nether Core survived.
Floating.
Burning.
Still beating.
The S-rank stared at it.
"…Interesting."
The core pulsed.
Matter began to regrow.
Jack reformed in space, gasping, blood freezing in drifting crimson clouds.
The S-rank watched him with something new in its gaze.
Not fear.
Curiosity.
"You regenerate from nothing," it said.
Jack's red eyes flared.
"And I don't quit."
The S-rank raised its hand.
"Then I will erase you more thoroughly."
And space itself began to fold.