The Statue of Liberty.
The one who cried out in anguish was none other than Jean Grey.
Earlier, Fenric had knocked her unconscious. Now, she had finally awakened.
As her eyes opened, the first thing she saw was Cyclops—lifeless beside her.
"Scott, w-wake up!"
Her trembling voice carried desperation, but his body remained cold and unmoving. The light in his eyes was gone forever.
"No! Scott!"
Jean's grief was immeasurable. Even though there had been unspoken feelings between her and Wolverine, it didn't diminish the love she bore for Scott Summers.
The memory of Fenric—the murderer responsible—turned her sorrow into fury.
Her pupils darkened, her gaze burning with rage, while her body glowed crimson.
The power of the Phoenix, long suppressed within her, finally erupted.
The air around her warped. Buildings near the Statue of Liberty began to dissolve into dust, crumbling under the decomposition force of the Phoenix's flames.
This was the true might of the Phoenix Force—an ability to reduce all things to nothingness.
—---
At Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Professor X sat rigid in his wheelchair, his mind linked across vast distances. Through telepathy, he had witnessed Storm and Cyclops fall. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
He had raised them as his own children, guiding their every step. Now both were gone.
His heart broke—but another realization soon struck him cold.
The Phoenix inside Jean Grey had fully awakened.
"Jean…" Charles whispered with deep regret.
He knew all too well how terrifying she could become once control was lost. If unchecked, her fury could unravel the world itself.
This was no longer Jean Grey. This was the birth of a demon.
—--
Back at Liberty Island, the colossal statue began dissolving at alarming speed, the metal structure eaten away until a gaping hole split her midsection. Without her core support, the Statue of Liberty swayed precariously.
"What in the world…?" Magneto's face twisted in shock.
Beside him, Toad and Mystique exchanged uneasy glances, equally baffled.
Then, a piercing red light burst forth.
From the flames rose the shape of a gigantic phoenix, wings unfurling wide. At its center floated a slender figure—Jean, reborn as the Phoenix.
"No—!"
Toad and Mystique barely had time to scream before their bodies disintegrated into particles, erased from existence.
"Jean…" Magneto gasped, horrified.
Yet despite her transformation, Jean retained a sliver of her mind. She seized Magneto with invisible telekinetic force, dragging him before her.
"Tell me… where is he?" Her voice was ice, laced with killing intent.
The "he" was, of course, Fenric.
Magneto, weakened from Rogue's absorption of his strength, trembled. Under the Phoenix's gaze, he quickly pointed.
"Over there!"
It was betrayal without hesitation. But Magneto's alliance with Fenric had always been brittle, held together only by necessity. In truth, he had long wanted to kill Fenric himself and reclaim Rogue.
Jean's eyes followed the direction he indicated—and there she saw Fenric, standing along the distant coast.
With a furious beat of fiery wings, she dragged Magneto with her, streaking across the night sky like a blazing phoenix.
On the shore.
"You killed a mutant. Current mission progress: 4,512,845 / 1."
Over four and a half million.
Hearing the system's cold notification, Fenric allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction.
But the expression quickly faded.
An overwhelming sense of death seized his body—his death sense intuition screamed louder than ever before.
His entire body tensed, hairs standing on end. It was as though fate itself whispered: today, you die.
Fenric's hand shot to Renée Chu's bracelet. He turned sharply—
Behind him, a blazing red phoenix surged across the skies.
His face hardened. He knew instantly what it was. In the original stories, this was the terror beyond all terrors—Jean Grey, fully awakened as the Phoenix.
She had come for him.
A sharp whistle split the air.
Before the Phoenix even reached him, she hurled something toward his position.
Fenric's sharp eyes caught the dark shape. It was Magneto, flung like discarded prey. He raised a hand and caught the weakened man.
"Hu… hurry… run!" Magneto rasped, his face pale, his body frail.
He knew all too well how unstoppable the Phoenix was.
Fenric shook his head, his gaze locked firmly on the fiery figure. "There's no running now."
The space around him had already warped under her telekinetic might. Escape was impossible.
"I'll kill you slowly," Jean's cold voice echoed, layered with the Phoenix's otherworldly power.
Fenric exhaled, then tossed Magneto onto the beach below. His eyes blazed with determination.
At that moment, his own aura erupted.
Black mists coiled around him, dark and foreboding, before igniting into hellfire that scorched the very air. The ground cracked as flames expanded in a circle twenty meters wide, a searing sea of fire where even oxygen burned.
From the inferno emerged dragon-shaped armor, sheathing his body in dark majesty.
Fenric now stood clad in the terrifying regalia of an underworld general—an Immortal Shura.
He had activated his strongest form: the Indestructible Demon Body.
Facing the Phoenix, whose power could unravel the world itself, Fenric knew he had no choice but to unleash everything.
The fiery phoenix paused for only a second, briefly surprised by the surge in his strength.
But her eyes remained cold. No matter what he became—he would die today.
She unleashed her telekinetic force, crushing space itself as she sought to bind him and tear him apart piece by piece.
Her power dwarfed his own, yet—
Fenric resisted.
The Phoenix's expression flickered with surprise. Her telekinesis could not fully restrain him.
"Jean!" Fenric roared, clenching his fists. "Try this!"
His right arm drew back, wrapped in a blinding white aura that condensed into his fist.
Then—
With a deafening crack, he thrust forward.
The Shura Fist tore through the void, shattering space itself inch by inch.
The battle between god and demon had begun.