Chapter 145: The "Savior" Arrives

In the underground bunker of the Pentagon, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, along with a large contingent of aides and officials, watched the external live feeds with tense expressions. As they listened to the staggering casualty reports continuously delivered by their staff officers, their faces turned grim and ashen.

Some of the more cowardly officials were even trembling uncontrollably, a display that earned the utter contempt of the generals present.

Yet, the generals looked no less grim. Most of them had participated in numerous conflicts—the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Afghan War, and many had even lived through the Vietnam War and the Korean War.

However, fighting an alien invasion? Well, this was a first.

The overwhelming military might of the extraterrestrial forces, their technology far surpassing that of Earth, and their flawless military coordination sent shudders through the hearts of the generals.

In a battle lasting less than an hour, hundreds of fighter jets and tanks had already been destroyed, entire military units wiped out, and their designations erased from the rolls!

Had not all the nearby garrison troops rushed forward in a desperate wave to temporarily hold back these alien demons, the Pentagon itself would likely have fallen by this very moment.

And yet, what were those two gigantic monsters? Were those things something they could possibly conquer? Good God!

"Dammit! Why aren't the Avengers here yet?" Both the President and the Secretary of Defense waited in anxious dread.

The distress signal had been sent, but reinforcements were nowhere to be found.

They knew, of course, that the Avengers were holding back an even greater number of aliens in New York. But this was the Pentagon.

This was the nerve center of the nation's military power! If this place fell, the United States ceased to exist. What good would New York be then?

Beside the US President sat a briefcase. The case was already open, and the nuclear launch button lay right before him.

The password consisted of eight zeros, and it had already been entered.

Now, all the President had to do was press that button...

"No, there's still a chance... Wait another ten minutes—no, another five minutes... If they still don't arrive, we'll have no choice but to use this..."

Naturally, the nuclear strike would not land on Washington itself; the targets were locked onto several other East Coast cities that were likewise under invasion, with New York as the primary focus.

Conventional forces could no longer stop these alien invaders.

The high-ranking officials gathered in the room unanimously agreed that the moment of destiny determining the survival of humanity had arrived... It was time to deploy mankind's most powerful weapon.

Time ticked away second by second.

With the deadline fast approaching, the failure of reinforcements to arrive meant they simply could not make it in time. The President’s trembling hand hovered directly over the button.

"Look! What is that?!"

An aide suddenly cried out at the top of his lungs, startling the President so badly he nearly pressed the button.

Pulling back his hand as if electroacted, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the others instinctively turned their gaze toward the surveillance monitors.

There, on the screen, a colossal humanoid mecha was tearing through the Chitauri army in the sky like a ferocious lion, striking with terrifying speed. In its hands, the robot wielded nothing less than a massive sword!

A mecha? And a sword?

"The Apostle! It's the Apostle!" someone immediately shouted in ecstatic relief.

Across the entire globe, aside from the Apostle, who else would pilot a mecha and use a sword as their weapon?

"The Apostle has come to save us! We're saved!" Officials cheered, embracing and celebrating, some even shedding tears of joy. The terror they felt moments ago had been suffocating. They had come within a hair's breadth of launching the nuclear missiles.

The US President let out a long breath of relief. He and the Secretary of Defense exchanged a glance and smiled at one another.

They were well aware of the Apostle's might. Those highly classified files had revealed many insider secrets unknown to ordinary people. If the superheroes of Earth were to be ranked by combat power, the Apostle would undoubtedly take the undisputed number one spot!

Although the outside world always claimed that the Apostle and Iron Man fought to a draw, only these few top-tier figures knew that a war machine of the Apostle's caliber could never unleash its full power when fighting someone like Iron Man.

It was like a lion hunting a rabbit—possessing overwhelming strength with no way to apply it.

For a war mecha of that scale, the true battlefield was an environment precisely like the one before them. Once it was unleashed at full capacity, people would truly comprehend the terrifying power of the Apostle.

Just as the Apostle was demonstrating right now.

High above, every sword swing from Voltron swept massive waves of Chitauri soldiers out of the sky amidst a brilliant golden radiance. From a distance, it looked like a giant swatting away a swarm of moths; no matter how the moths swarmed and attacked, the giant needed only to swing his blazing torch.

The weapon wielded by Voltron was the ten-meter-long Bludgeon of Agath—the Lightsabre, whose plasma blade could freely alter its length and width. To match Voltron's gargantuan size, the energy required to sustain this sword was a terrifying amount.

Fortunately, Luke had nothing if not an abundance of Clear Cube Fragments, having them by the handful. To maintain the glowing, ten-meter form of the Lightsabre, a single Clear Cube Fragment was consumed every minute.

"Frightening power... The Apostle is even stronger than he appeared last time! Without a doubt, when he fought Iron Man previously, the Apostle was holding back his strength!" An Air Force general said with a flushed, excited face, his eyes gleaming with intense envy toward this supreme aerial combat unit.

The Apostle's might instilled enormous confidence in the high-ranking officials present. The battle tide clearly shifted drastically in humanity's favor immediately upon the Apostle's arrival, setting their minds completely at ease.

The US President smiled as he locked the nuclear briefcase, his demeanor and posture returning to his usual composed and unruffled self.

He stood up, calling for everyone to quiet down, and invited them to sit together to discuss the counterattack strategy. The Apostle would handle the enemies outside for them.

The fighter jets in the sky and the tanks on the ground also received orders, fully coordinating with Luke in combat. Because of Luke's appearance, which pinned down the vast majority of Chitauri firepower, the US military was able to open fire unhindered. A torrential storm of artillery and missiles inflicted catastrophic losses on the Chitauri in an instant.

Luke shifted his target to the two Leviathans.

The mecha crashed down heavily onto the back of a Leviathan, and Voltron's eyes flashed brightly.

"Illusion Sword Dance!"

The ten-meter light blade swept about with phantom-like brilliance, completing twenty-four consecutive slashes in the blink of an eye. With a kick of its foot, Voltron didn't even bother to check on the first Leviathan, immediately leaping onto the second.

"Illusion Sword Dance!" Luke repeated the exact same move.

Clear Cube Fragments burned at high speeds within the mecha's core, consuming two fragments with a single Illusion Sword Dance.

It was only after Luke had turned and flown away that the two Leviathans below crashed heavily onto a street with a thunderous roar. Their massive bodies had actually been sliced into dozens of enormous fragments. Moments later, raging flames of explosions completely swallowed the street.