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The Texas desert has a distinct character.
Especially at dusk.
The sky looked as if it had been forged in a furnace, burning a deep, coppery red. And beneath this fiery canopy, the endless sea of desert sand seemed to have been painted a brilliant, shimmering gold.
Suddenly.
The sand began to tremble.
It started as a faint vibration.
Then, the vibration intensified, quickly escalating into a synchronized, rhythmic resonance. As the sand on the horizon began to levitate, shaking loose from gravity, the tremors raced toward the lone structure in the distance—the Flint Monastery, built from massive stones that had withstood countless years of wind and rain.
Crack!
As the tremors reached the monastery, a deafening sound echoed across the desert, and a jagged fissure split the ancient stone of the outer wall.
At first, the crack looked like a delicate, black spiderweb tracing its way up the stone. But within seconds, it seemed to come alive, climbing, branching out, and spreading with terrifying speed.
A steady stream of pulverized rock and dust began to pour from the expanding fractures.
Then—
The entire Flint Monastery began to shudder violently, caught in the grip of the resonant tremors.
The next second.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
As the countless black fissures that had originated from the base finally reached the top of the outer walls, the sheer volume of structural failure triggered a catastrophic collapse.
RUMBLE!
The Flint Monastery, which had stood in this desolate wasteland for who knew how long, came crashing down in a spectacular cloud of dust, right under the watchful gaze of a S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite.
"Holy shit."
"Jesus Christ."
Hiss.
"Hawk."
As always, S.H.I.E.L.D. might not have the clearance or the firepower to intervene in a battle of this magnitude, but that certainly didn't stop them from grabbing a front-row seat via satellite.
As the Flint Monastery collapsed, a chorus of shocked gasps echoed through the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. Command Center, where only a select dozen high-level operatives had the clearance to watch.
Sharon inhaled sharply, staring at the screen. The battlefield hadn't even engaged yet, and the building was already gone.
Beside her, Gwen's hands were clenched into tight fists as she watched the monastery disappear beneath a thick blanket of dust.
But because the Flint Monastery was located in such a vast, empty expanse, the massive dust cloud created by its collapse came and went quickly, carried off by the desert wind.
In fact, almost the instant the dust billowed into the air, a single ray of brilliant golden light pierced straight through it, blooming in the heart of the Texas desert, utterly ignoring the obscuring cloud.
The flash of golden light was like a signal flare.
It was the starter's pistol firing before the race began.
As the golden light illuminated the desert, something began to appear on the previously empty horizon...
No.
It wasn't just 'something.' It was a massive wave. To be precise, it was a rapidly expanding arc of blood-red, forming a perfect semi-circle with the Flint Monastery at its center.
At first, the crimson color spread slowly, like a single drop of ink blooming in clear water. But then, it accelerated with terrifying speed, as if the entire horizon was bleeding out.
The next second.
A tidal wave of crimson surged forward.
Tens of thousands of them—a blood-red tsunami composed of countless Blood Angels—swept across the desert floor, rushing relentlessly toward the ruins of the Flint Monastery.
But these Blood Angels looked nothing like Andrew Chloe.
The only difference between Andrew Chloe and a standard angel was that his wings were blood-red.
But these creatures?
Calling them 'angels' felt like an insult to demons.
Because these Blood Angels looked far more demonic than any actual demon.
Their forms were only vaguely humanoid, unnaturally gaunt and contorted into grotesque shapes. And now that they had cast off the black monastic robes that had previously concealed them, their true, horrifying appearance was laid bare.
Beneath the robes, their faces looked as if they had been haphazardly slapped together using flayed muscle and coagulated, rotting blood. Their skin was translucent, pulsing with an eerie, crimson light that flowed beneath the surface.
They had no facial features—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Only two gaping, hollow sockets where eyes should have been, burning with a pure, hellish red fire.
Even their wings were a far cry from the soft, blood-red, downy feathers of Andrew Chloe.
The wings on these creatures were tattered, membranous appendages, formed from something resembling exposed fascia and pulsating energy veins. When they spread them, they emitted a sickening, wet tearing sound, beating the air and whipping up a foul, putrid stench.
As they ran, there were no screams.
No war cries.
No roars of fury. They moved like killing machines in eerie, absolute silence. The only sound was the grating, tearing noise of their fleshy wings cutting through the air. Together, they formed a massive, blood-red tornado, howling toward the golden light that was steadily blooming amidst the settling dust.
It wasn't that the two original Blood Angels, Jack and Allen, hadn't wanted to create an army of ten thousand perfect Blood Angels.
Unfortunately...
That was impossible. When they had crossed the timeline, Yahweh had only given them three drops of Angelic Blood.
These skeletal, abomination-like Blood Angels were actually converted vampires.
To be precise, they were the advanced, final form of the Reaper strain—the same strain that had created Nomak.
The version they had given to Nomak was a heavily watered-down prototype, designed solely to cover up the truth: that vampires across Europe were systematically disappearing, being harvested for this very purpose.
This army of skeletal Blood Angels was the grand welcoming committee they had prepared for the Lord's return. Furthermore, once the Angel of Death awakened, these creatures would serve as the primary invasion force he would lead into the Hell Dimension to seize control.
But for now!
It was time to let this arrogant heretic taste the power of an army of undead, skeletal Blood Angels.
Jack and Allen spread their massive, blood-red wings. A cruel, triumphant smile curled their lips as they looked into the distance, watching the golden light being swallowed by the endless crimson tide.
The desert trembled!
The torrent of skeletal Blood Angels trampled over cacti and crushed sand dunes beneath their clawed feet. They kicked up the golden, sunlit sand, making it look as if the very earth was spewing a mist of blood in their wake.
Their sheer numbers blotted out the sky, slicing the remaining light of the setting sun into jagged, bleeding fragments!
As far as the eye could see—front, back, left, right, up, and down—there was nothing but a sea of scarlet. It was a blood tsunami, seemingly summoned straight from the deepest, darkest pits of Hell.
And in the very center of that tsunami, as the last of the dust cleared, Hawk stood, entirely encased in a suit of Golden Armor, the faceplate completely covering his features. He raised his right hand.
The power of his burning Cosmo rapidly condensed in his palm, forming a blinding sphere of golden light.
With a unified, silent shriek.
The first wave of the skeletal Blood Angels, the ones at the very front of the charge, launched themselves into the air, raining down upon Hawk like a torrential downpour of blood.
Hawk, fully concealed within his Golden Armor, didn't dodge. He didn't even move. He simply turned his palm toward the sky, his voice cold and indifferent.
"Lightning Plasma!"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
Golden light erupted from his palm. One beam, then two. Almost the instant the words left his lips, the entire sky was filled with a blinding storm of golden, phantom fists.
In a flash.
The tidal wave of skeletal Blood Angels that had thrown themselves at him truly did become a rain of blood, instantly dying the sky crimson.
It rained blood and bone. Their shattered skeletons fell from the sky like hail, clattering and smashing into the desert sand.
But the instantaneous annihilation of the first wave did nothing to deter the ones behind them. These creatures felt no fear.
The following waves of skeletal Blood Angels simply trampled over the shattered bones of their fallen comrades, continuing their silent, relentless assault on Hawk.
The moment Hawk had thrown his first punch, he had instantly understood what these skeletal Blood Angels were.
Their souls were gone.
Or rather—
Their souls had been used as kindling. By using vampires as a base, and the blood of a Blood Angel as fuel, their souls had been ignited and entirely consumed, transforming them into these mindless, grotesque, skeletal killing machines that existed only to follow orders.
But…
Understanding what they were didn't stop him from destroying them.
Hawk, currently clad in the Gemini Gold Cloth, his features completely hidden behind the full-face visor, slowly tilted his head up. He watched the endless tide of skeletal Blood Angels crashing toward him. He raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers together, and then, with a seemingly casual, almost dismissive motion, swept them forward.
"Galaxian Explosion!"
ZRRRRT—!!!
There was no sound.
Or rather, the sound was instantly swallowed by a power far greater than sound itself.
Almost the exact moment Hawk swept his fingers forward, the space within a ten-kilometer radius around him abruptly plunged into absolute darkness, as if all the light in the world had been violently sucked away.
The next moment.
Countless stars, appearing as perfectly scaled-down miniature suns, were born within that suffocating darkness. They ignited, expanded with terrifying speed.
And then—
They detonated!
It was an explosion of cosmic proportions. As the shockwave ripped through the area, every single skeletal Blood Angel within that ten-kilometer radius vanished the instant they made contact with it.
Yes.
They weren't crushed.
They weren't blown apart. It was as if an invisible, cosmic force had simply unraveled them at a molecular level, breaking them down into the finest, microscopic red dust, which was then utterly annihilated by the simulated gravitational collapse of a dying universe.
When the cosmic anomaly finally faded and reality reasserted itself…
Hawk, clad in the Gemini Gold Cloth, hovered silently in the air above where the Flint Monastery had once stood.
As for the skeletal Blood Angels?
What skeletal Blood Angels? There was no sign they had ever existed. Forget the Blood Angels; within a ten-kilometer radius around Hawk, every single grain of sand had been transformed into a sheet of smooth, translucent glass.
The sheer, overwhelming pressure of the cosmic-level force had instantly compressed and fused the desert sand into solid glass.
Just then.
WHOOSH!
WHOOSH!
Two blood-red phantoms streaked through the air, appearing simultaneously on either side of Hawk, hovering in the sky.
The next second.
The sound of slow, mocking applause filled the air.
Beating his blood-red wings to stay aloft, Jack looked at Hawk with an amused, patronizing expression, clapping his hands.
"Bravo."
"I must admit, Heretic, your power is truly impressive."
"It's no wonder the Lord wished for you to return to the flock."
"What a pity—"
"The Lord is a God of boundless mercy, but also of terrible wrath. Since you refuse to accept His grace, you have chosen the path of the Heretic."
"Tell me, did you really think such power came without a cost? Did you not know that every gift from destiny carries a hidden price?"
Sizzle—crack!
As Jack's words fell.
Hawk looked down. Across the pristine, golden surface of the Gemini Cloth, a web of dark, blood-red veins began to rapidly emerge, spreading like a disease.
The crimson veins, identical in color to the skeletal Blood Angels, spiderwebbed across the armor in the blink of an eye, covering his entire body.
And then…
Hawk felt it. Something foreign, something insidious, was actively trying to wrest control of this avatar away from him.
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