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Above the Atlantic Ocean.
As the phoenix phantom manifested behind Hawk, its wings slowly unfurling—the moment his Cosmo reached its absolute peak—
Hawk spread his arms wide. Palms facing the sea. Expression calm. Two words fell from his lips.
"Part."
THRUM!
Without warning.
Under the energy of Cosmo burning at maximum intensity, the churning waves beneath his feet froze in place. Even the spray hung suspended in midair, shimmering with silver light.
The next instant.
Hawk's hands moved as if prying open a durian—pulling the ocean apart, tearing the sea itself in two directions.
RRRUMMMBLE—!!
The ocean responded with the sound of being ripped alive. In that moment, the entire surface began to boil.
The sea beneath Hawk was splitting.
Not metaphorically. Physically splitting.
The water parted with thunderous rumbling, exposing an empty corridor. On either side, the ocean rose like walls of churning fury—climbing higher and higher.
In the blink of an eye, both walls had risen a thousand meters.
But—
One thousand meters was only the beginning.
Three thousand meters.
Five thousand meters.
Seven thousand meters.
Until...
The Hydra installation anchored to the Romanche Trench seabed lay completely exposed. Only then did the water walls—now over seven thousand meters tall—finally stabilize.
This was parting the sea.
This was what parting the sea meant.
Moving mountains. Parting oceans.
A Silver Saint could effortlessly lift a mountain. Could split ten-thousand-meter depths and stroll across the ocean floor.
Seven thousand meters underwater?
Please... That might represent the pinnacle of Hydra's engineering. It was nowhere near Hawk's limits.
From miles above, the view was breathtaking.
Two walls of water—each over seven thousand meters tall—roared and churned. Hawk stood suspended between them. And in the seven-thousand-meter abyss beneath his feet, the Hydra installation sat fully exposed on the seabed.
Unfortunately.
Those towering water walls blocked any outside observers.
But not the Hydra operatives inside.
"What the—"
"Jesus Christ!"
"It's over."
"We're finished."
Seconds ago, these operatives had been celebrating in the command center—convinced Hawk couldn't possibly reach them at this depth.
Now, watching Hawk casually tear the ocean apart like some descending deity, they were completely stupefied.
Especially the operative who'd considered suicide but ultimately hadn't.
That operative stared at the screen—at Hawk standing godlike above them, their base laid bare for the world to see. Countless emotions flickered across his face. Then his gaze dropped to the gun still in his hand.
The next second.
He didn't hesitate.
Raised the gun.
Barrel in mouth.
Pulled the trigger.
One fluid motion.
He was a senior Hydra operative at this facility. He knew what they'd done here. He knew what awaited him if Hawk captured him alive.
So—
He chose to end it. At least this way, he wouldn't suffer.
BANG!
The shot echoed.
Skull fragments and brain matter sprayed outward.
THUD!
The self-decapitated operative's body hit the metal floor. The impact jolted every Hydra operative in the room back to reality.
Some turned with vacant expressions toward the headless corpse on the floor.
Others flinched at the gunshot and instinctively drew their sidearms.
Still others—having witnessed Hawk part the sea—simply snapped.
"HAHAHA!"
"It's fake."
"This is all fake! I must be hallucinating!"
"Yes!"
"This is a hallucination!"
"WAKE UP!"
The operative who'd stepped up moments ago—the one who'd given everyone hope by insisting Hawk couldn't possibly reach seven thousand meters—had only been trying to impress Strucker for a promotion.
Now, watching the sea-parting miracle on screen and the suicide beside him, something inside him shattered. He burst into hysterical laughter.
The sound was shrill. Piercing.
It devolved into madness.
And the instant he screamed "WAKE UP!"—he drew his weapon and opened fire indiscriminately on his fellow operatives.
That kicked the hornet's nest.
Several operatives—nerves already frayed, weapons already drawn—watched this happen and snapped too. Without hesitation, they squeezed their triggers.
In an instant!
Following Hawk's godlike miracle of parting the sea, the Hydra operatives descended into their final frenzy.
Gunfire erupted throughout the command center.
Within seconds, dozens of Hydra operatives lay dead.
They couldn't face Hawk. So they chose suicide.
What they didn't know was that Hawk now held dominion over all deaths in the Western Hemisphere.
So—
Dead or not, their souls belonged to him.
Though—
From a certain perspective, setting aside whatever torments awaited their souls in the Underworld, their choice to die now was actually the merciful option.
Because the instant their base—seven thousand meters beneath the surface—became exposed to open air, a far more horrifying catastrophe struck.
Water exerted pressure at depth.
A deep-sea installation at seven thousand meters had to maintain one standard atmosphere internally to keep personnel alive.
But the external pressure at seven thousand meters was roughly seven hundred atmospheres.
When that surrounding pressure suddenly vanished—what happened next?
The answer was catastrophic.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Almost simultaneously with Hawk completing his sea-parting feat, the Hydra base's walls, windows, hatches—every structure designed to resist external water pressure—exploded like overinflated balloons.
Bulkheads groaned. Rivets shot out like bullets. Pipes twisted and tore apart. The entire installation stopped being a shelter and became a bomb disassembling itself.
The moment of exposure was the moment of collapse.
But—
The base died horribly. The operatives inside died far worse.
An operative named Jack—fully armed, positioned to ambush Hawk the moment he entered—suddenly felt an irresistible force pushing outward from his lungs, intestines, blood.
His eardrums burst silently.
His eyes seared with agony. Tears didn't flow—they boiled and bubbled on his eyeballs.
His chest swelled grotesquely. Blood vessels beneath his skin bulged like twisted vines, then ruptured—
Jack wasn't alone.
Every operative who'd assembled to give Hawk a deadly welcome. Lab technicians frantically destroying evidence. Command center survivors who'd dodged the shootout. Even the teams rushing toward Wanda's quarters to seize her family.
Their bodily fluids began boiling the instant the base exploded.
Everyone knew... Under normal atmospheric pressure, human fluids—blood, saliva, tears—remained liquid. But under this sudden, massive pressure differential, everything inside them flash-boiled.
Countless operatives watched in horror as their bodies began inflating like balloons.
But there were no screams.
By the time they noticed, they'd already reached the end.
Accompanied by the continuous sound of human bodies detonating, the command center, laboratories, corridors—everywhere operatives had stood—were now filled with bloated, scattered remains.
In an instant.
Hawk sensed a massive influx of souls flooding into his Underworld.
"Kai."
"Throw them all into the Fifth Prison."
"Understood, Master!"
In the First Prison, Blood Elf Kai dropped to one knee, receiving Hawk's command.
Just then.
Hawk's eyebrow rose.
Strucker wasn't among them?
Hawk's consciousness swept through the flood of Hydra souls entering his Underworld. Finding no trace of Strucker, his gaze dropped to the collapsing installation below.
The next second, He vanished.
By the time Hawk touched down on the seabed, the secret deep-sea Hydra base—built at untold cost—had become rubble.
As the installation groaned and crumbled, the seabed itself rumbled. Dust billowed outward like smoke signals.
And within that endless dust, a rose-gold light flickered.
Following that glow, Pietro—wrapped in the Nebula Chain—emerged from the wreckage alongside Wanda and the Billy and Tommy protected by the Andromeda Cloth. They rose into the air, then gently descended before Hawk.
The Nebula Chain retracted rapidly. The instant it rejoined the Andromeda Cloth—CLICK—the Cloth disassembled into countless fragments that shot outward in all directions.
With the Cloth's dissolution, Billy and Tommy reappeared.
Wanda gasped and rushed forward, scooping up both boys—one in each arm—and clutching them to her chest.
At the same time.
Jean—still in Pietro's arms—seemed to sense Hawk's arrival. Her eyes fluttered open. She spotted Hawk, and her face lit up. Before Pietro could react, she'd already launched herself into Hawk's embrace. "Daddy!"
Hawk caught her instinctively with one arm.
The next second.
His gaze met Wanda's—who stood there holding Billy and Tommy.
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~# 70 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!
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~# Bonus Chapter every 300PS