7: Chapter 7 Infernal Flame Man

"Boom—!!!"

A deafening roar echoed. Lynn threw all four fists out, slamming them fiercely against the two-meter-thick blast door in front of him.

The titanium-alloy-infused metal surface instantly dented with four half-meter-deep fist prints, and the entire corridor shook violently. Even so, the door remained firmly stuck in its tracks. Behind this door, there were eleven more identical blast layers.

One hundred thousand tons of dead weight. Relying solely on pure physical strength, it was impossible to dig through it with bare hands in a few dozen seconds.

Lynn retracted his fists, not continuing the meaningless pounding.

Behind him, Rumlow, collapsed in a pool of blood, endured the excruciating pain of his shattered shoulders and gave a miserable laugh: "It's useless. This is an anti-nuclear bunker. No matter how strong you are, you'll only end up as ash here with me."

[Countdown: Thirty seconds.]

The steel floor underfoot began to turn red, and a piercing sound of metal twisting came from deep underground. It was the sign that the nuclear reactor casing was melting.

The air temperature soared rapidly. Rumlow's tactical suit began to emit a burnt stench, and blisters quickly formed on the surface of his skin.

[Countdown: Ten seconds.]

"Come on..." Rumlow closed his eyes, waiting for death.

[Three.]

[Two.]

[One.]

Boom—!

There was no deafening explosion, because the sound had already been swallowed by extreme energy. A thousand meters deep underground, a blinding miniature Sun burst forth. Temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, mixed with lethal doses of nuclear radiation, instantly shattered the strata and surged toward the elevator hall.

Just at the moment when the nuclear blast's fire was about to engulf Lynn.

[Warning: Super-lethal nuclear fusion radiation detected!]

[Current form: Four Arms (Berserker Variant), unable to exempt from energy annihilation of this level.]

[Forced activation of emergency avoidance protocol...]

[Second alien gene bank, unlocked.]

The inverted triangular Bloodtrix on Lynn's chest erupted with a crimson beam of light even more blinding than the nuclear blast.

A crisp mechanical "click" sounded.

Lynn's massive four-and-a-half-meter body was instantly enveloped in red light. The dark red muscles and bone spurs rapidly receded, and in their place was some kind of more violent, pure energy form.

[Alien gene activated: Heatblast (Radiation Variant)!]

The red light dissipated.

Standing in place was no longer the four-armed demon god.

Instead, it was a two-meter-tall humanoid creature composed entirely of dark magma and radioactive flames. Its head was a mass of raging, ghostly green nuclear flames, and within the black rock texture of its body surface, high-concentration nuclear radiation fluid flowed. It had no facial features, only two violent red lights flickering through the tongues of flame.

The originally crimson Bloodtrix symbol now turned dark gold, firmly embedded in the center of its scorching chest.

The violent sea of nuclear fire rushed up.

Rumlow had already felt the scorching pain of his soul evaporating. But he discovered in terror that he was not dead.

Because that monster, burning all over with nuclear fire, had opened its arms and blocked in front of him.

No, not blocking. It was devouring!

The ghostly green flames on Lynn's head expanded violently, like a whale inhaling water, frantically sucking the surrounding nuclear blast energy, shockwaves, and lethal radiation—enough to vaporize steel—into his body!

The violent sea of fire formed a huge vortex with Lynn at its center. This underground nuclear explosion, capable of triggering a local earthquake, was actually more than half "eaten" by him. The remaining energy aftermath only overturned the floor tiles and failed to completely destroy the hall.

Rumlow slumped on the ground, dumbfounded. "What on earth is this thing?! It can even eat a nuclear bomb?!"

Lynn turned his head, his ghostly green flame head looking down at Rumlow.

"I said, I'd keep your life so you could report back."

His voice was no longer thunder, but the sound of two burning charcoal pieces rubbing together, carrying a scorching sense of radiation, "This meal, it tastes not bad."

After saying this, Lynn faced the twelve one-hundred-thousand-ton blast doors again. Physically couldn't open them? Then he would melt them.

Lynn raised his arms. The massive nuclear energy he had just devoured, mixed with the violent flames of his mutant genes, instantly gathered in his palms.

"Boom—!!!" A nuclear fire column over two meters in diameter, interwoven with dark red and ghostly green, erupted from Lynn's palms and struck the first blast door directly.

There was no resistance whatsoever. Under the temperature of tens of millions of degrees, the titanium-alloy-infused metal couldn't even hold on for a second.

"Sizzle—" The first blast door instantly turned into molten iron, splashing in all directions.

Then came the second, the third... Lynn was like a god walking in a fiery hell. His hands spewed nuclear fire columns, pushing against the torrent of molten steel, forcefully burning through a vertical passage directly to the surface through the one-hundred-thousand-ton blast doors!

The sky was full of boiling molten iron and pungent metal vapor.

Siberia, the frozen tundra. A snowstorm raged.

Suddenly, a muffled roar came from beneath the ice. "Boom!"

The thick ice sheet for one kilometer around instantly collapsed. A dark red column of fire, hundreds of meters high, broke through the surface and shot straight into the clouds! The glacier was instantly evaporated into a sky full of white mist.

Amidst the rolling white mist and flames, a dark fire ball, resembling a humanoid Sun, slowly ascended.

Lynn hovered in mid-air, with the ruins of the HYDRA Base turned into scorched earth beneath him. He clenched his fists, feeling the surging nuclear energy within him, the ghostly green flames dancing wildly in the snowstorm.

At the same time. Washington, S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, the Triskelion. Inside the massive circular command center, a piercing red alarm sounded without warning.

"Officer! The satellite network has captured an abnormal energy burst!" An Agent, covered in sweat, typed on his keyboard, switching the satellite feed to the main screen, "Coordinates, Siberia District 143! Energy level... exceeded the threshold! Equivalent to a 100-kiloton tactical nuclear bomb!"

Nick Fury walked quickly to the screen, his one eye staring fixedly at the image.

In the image, there was no mushroom cloud that should follow a nuclear explosion. Only, in the snow-filled sky, that humanoid monster hovering in mid-air, its whole body burning with black-red flames.

"What... is that thing?" Hill gasped.

Fury did not answer. But his tightly clenched fingers had already crushed the tactical tablet in his hand.