Chapter 406: [510] - Have You Ever Lived for Yourself?

Wall Street was known for one of Manhattan's most famous landmarks: Charging Bull, the bronze symbol of American wealth.

Somehow, the statue survived the Sentinel's fight with the mutants. It even made it through Ikaris crashing into Manhattan like a meteor, hard enough to shake the whole island.

But its luck didn't last forever.

As soon as Hawk's fist hit Ikaris's, Charging Bull broke apart into a cloud of metallic dust.

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!"

That ended the debate. When violence took over, money knew when to stay quiet.

A round shock wave burst out from the impact. Luxury cars that had survived earlier were torn from the curb, tossed through the air, and smashed into twisted metal.

The alarms in the nearby buildings had already blared until they wore out. It wasn't that they quit—they just had nothing left.

Ikaris shot up, smashing through a falling high-rise before hovering over the burning financial district. His eyes glowed like two golden suns, and the energy lines in his blue-and-gold armor pulsed as if the suit was alive.

"WOOSH!"

Golden beams shot from his eyes and slammed into Hawk, who hovered about a hundred and sixty feet away.

Hawk didn't try to dodge. He faced the attack directly, letting the Cosmic energy crash against his godly body.

"I already told you," Hawk called through the glare. "The same trick won't work on me twice."

Ikaris's expression remained cold.

He kept the beams on Hawk and lunged forward, closing the gap between them in an instant.

"DIE," Ikaris said, driving a straight punch toward Hawk's face.

"You can try," Hawk said. He stepped into the punch, pulled his right fist back, and threw it forward with a quick twist of his hips.

Their fists collided again.

A white ring of compressed air burst out around them. Glass, concrete, and steel disappeared into the growing wall of destruction.

Neither fighter suffered so much as a scratch.

Wall Street wasn't nearly as fortunate.

The street below them caved in section by section. Water mains burst, but the tall jets of water turned to steam as soon as they hit the shock waves from the fight. Broken gas lines caught fire one after another, setting off explosions through Lower Manhattan until flames covered the financial district.

Ikaris changed tactics, flattening his hand into a blade and slashing for Hawk's neck.

Hawk ducked under the attack and used the move to swing a hard leg sweep. Ikaris jumped over it, but the street behind him took the hit—a crater sixteen feet wide opened where Hawk's heel landed.

The two men fought through the ruins, trading blows faster than anyone could see. Each hit changed another part of Lower Manhattan—if "changed" meant letting a demolition crew loose with endless explosives and no rules.

"Fall back!" an NYPD captain screamed from beyond the wreckage. "Everybody move! Get the hell out of here!"

The police showed up when the first alarms sounded but stayed back during the mutants' fight with the Sentinel. Now, after watching Hawk and Ikaris destroy buildings with just the shock waves from their punches, they gave up on trying to help.

For years, too many mutants had let the authorities push them around. The NYPD and Washington had gotten used to cracking down on mutants, then mistaking their patience for proof that humans could bully anything they didn't understand.

They had forgotten that the unknown deserved caution.

Hawk and Ikaris were making them relearn that lesson the hard way.

As the police rushed to get away, Hawk spotted a tiny gap in Ikaris's defense. He slipped past the Eternal's block and drove his fist into Ikaris's stomach, right against a patch of golden energy that looked a bit different from the rest of his armor.

For the first time, pain crossed Ikaris's face.

Not even being driven through Manhattan like a meteor had forced that reaction from him.

His body bent around Hawk's fist before he flew backward, crashing through the main walls of three buildings in a row. The towers fell behind him, sending huge clouds of dust into the sky.

Before the dust could settle, Ikaris's eyes flared again.

Twin golden beams ripped through the debris and slammed into Hawk just as he moved to pursue.

The attack couldn't hurt him, but it could disrupt his rhythm.

Hawk crossed his arms and pushed forward into the attack. The beams hit his arms and scattered everywhere, cutting through the wreckage around him. Steel rebar melted and flowed like chocolate, while the concrete turned smooth and glassy from the heat.

From the roof of the only high-rise left standing on Wall Street, thanks to Wanda's protection, Jean watched without blinking.

Her mouth had fallen open as far as it could go.

She used to think watching her father fight the Sentinel at Quantico had changed her idea of strength forever. But compared to the fight happening below, Quantico now seemed like just a warm-up.

"So Dad really was screwing around at Quantico?" Jean asked, unable to hide her disbelief. "He wasn't even trying?"

"Of course not." Wanda spared her daughter a brief glance before returning her attention to Hawk.

Jean swallowed.

"Is he going all out now?"

"Shh." Wanda raised one finger to her lips.

Jean understood and nodded quickly. She put every other thought aside and focused on the fight.

Below, Hawk continued forcing his way through Ikaris's eye-beams.

Only one thought stayed in his mind: he would kill Ikaris, or Ikaris would kill him. Either way, Hawk kept moving forward.

Each step left a burning mark on the ruined street. His crossed forearms glowed red-hot under the nonstop attack.

The good news was that he was getting closer.

The bad news was that Ikaris wasn't backing down either. Golden energy flowed from every line in his armor and rushed to his eyes, making the beams even stronger.

Thirty feet.

Twenty.

Ten.

Then Hawk broke through.

Thin cracks spread across his forearms, branching over his skin like tiny spiderwebs. He ignored them and pushed himself as fast as he could go.

Six images of Hawk appeared around Ikaris at once, each occupying a different angle and holding a different attack posture.

Hawk wasn't just some nobody who let a system carry him to godhood.

Without that system, he never would have gotten Cosmo in the first place. But it only gave him a start. Once his Cosmo awakened, the system finished its job and left.

If anyone asked, Hawk would gladly give the system ten percent of the credit for his power now.

The other ninety percent was all him.

Saints learned, adapted, and grew through fighting. Hawk was no different. Even without using his Cosmo, he could push his godly body—if only for a few heartbeats—to reach speeds he usually hit only by burning it.

Ikaris's expression changed when he saw the six images surrounding him.

Far too late.

All six of Hawk's fists struck at once.

Ribs.

Spine.

The back of the neck.

Temple.

Kidney.

Heart.

Six vital points took six crushing hits at the same time. Ikaris's blue-and-gold armor broke open, and a flood of gold poured from his mouth.

It looked like blood, but it wasn't.

It was raw energy.

Ikaris roared. The sound no longer resembled any human voice—it was deeper and harsher, like the dying thunder of a collapsing star.

Cracks raced through the golden patterns on his shattered armor. Instead of fading, the light inside them surged brighter with every passing second.

Every warning instinct in Hawk's body went off at once.

'Oh, shit.'

The Celestials really had rebuilt Ikaris. But instead of making him a better fighter, they had turned him into a living bomb.

The energy inside Ikaris wasn't obeying him.

It was controlling him.

If Ikaris lost the fight, that energy would explode and take his enemy with him.

Hawk tried to pull back right away. But before he could get away, Ikaris lunged forward with the last strength he had and grabbed Hawk's forearms with both hands.

Golden energy poured from the wounds across his body. Light blossomed behind his teeth as he gave Hawk a vicious grin.

"I told you I'd kill you," Ikaris said.

Hawk stopped struggling.

The certainty of approaching death still screamed through every instinct he possessed, but he ignored it. Instead, he laughed softly and looked directly into Ikaris's glowing eyes.

"Tell me something," Hawk said. "In your entire life, have you ever once lived for yourself?"

Ikaris's grin froze.

The question stopped him cold. His thoughts turned inward, searching for an answer he had never needed—or perhaps never allowed himself—to consider.

He had only begun to look when his body started to swell.

The golden light pouring from him got brighter and brighter until even Wanda, watching from far away, had to close her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, a golden sun was rising from the ruins of Wall Street.

The explosion made no sound at all. It had crossed some invisible threshold where noise ceased to matter.

A ring of golden force expanded from its center, sweeping outward in every direction. If it escaped the financial district, there was no question what would happen. Manhattan would be wiped from the map, and everyone still living on the island would vanish with it.

The shock wave raced toward the edge of Wall Street—

Then it shuddered.

Something had caught it.

The blast stopped spreading, and the explosion began to collapse inward, shrinking faster and faster as all that energy was pulled back to the blast's center...

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