After being turned into a woman by the potion, Loki looked ashen, eyes hollow, completely ignoring Harry's questions.
Harry set Loki aside for the moment and shot straight toward the wormhole in the sky!
At the same time, the Avengers—along with the soldiers who had just arrived—fought the Chitauri in a brutal, grinding struggle.
But even with Earth's side pushing themselves to the limit, the next stretch of battle still slid into an overwhelming disadvantage.
On one side of the battlefield, Black Widow and Steve's cheeks were covered in tiny cuts—shrapnel wounds from earlier explosions.
That familiar, ear-splitting whistle of something tearing through the air rang out again. The two of them jumped off a skybridge together, landing hard on a stalled city bus below.
In the next instant, a massive fireball dropped from the heavens and slammed into their position, detonating violently.
The blast wave snapped the skybridge in half. Part of the structure went flying—straight toward where Steve and Black Widow were rolling to a stop.
Both of them were seasoned veterans. Electricity wrapped around Steve's shield in a crackling sheath as he lunged forward and drove it out with a brutal shove, actually forcing a huge chunk of the broken bridge away.
Black Widow wasn't so lucky. She tried to use telekinesis to yank herself into a safe zone the moment it happened, but she was already too late.
A metal shard punched into her inner thigh at terrifying speed, tearing right through.
Her tight black pants darkened instantly as red splashed across them. Black Widow collapsed, one leg completely useless—most of her mobility gone in a heartbeat.
Steve surged in, raised his shield to block a streaking laser blast, and roared over the thunder of gunfire:
"Natalie, can you hold on?!"
Blood loss drained the color from Natalie's lips until they were nearly white.
As an agent, she understood her body better than anyone. Her femoral artery was ruptured. She was bleeding out fast—and their healing potions and other supplies had already been burned through earlier in the fight.
If nothing changed… she was going to die here.
Facing death, Black Widow stayed eerily calm. Weakly, she warned Steve:
"Steve, go. There are too many of their mages—no matter how strong you are, if you get surrounded, you'll die too!"
Captain America never abandoned a teammate. Steve's jaw set, stubborn and unwavering.
"No. Just hold on a little longer—Tony and Barton will get here. They've still got some healing potions. They can fix this."
But it was worse than either of them realized.
The Chitauri had underestimated Earth's superhumans, so they'd been focusing their fire on the heroes from the start.
Now that they finally had a real chance to kill one, how could they possibly let it slip?
In the blink of an eye, dozens of Chitauri mages rushed in. Through their translators, they jeered at Steve:
"Weak Earth humans. You have no chance!"
Then the sky fell.
A storm of explosive fireballs poured down like a curtain of rain, swallowing Steve and Black Widow whole.
With that many fireballs, the heavily injured Black Widow had no chance of surviving—and even Steve, still in fighting shape, could be blown apart.
The danger hit absolute critical.
Other Avengers spotted it. Tony dove from the sky and rocketed toward them.
Even at several times the speed of sound, the distance was too far. He wouldn't make it.
Opening a portal was even more impossible—neither he nor Coulson had the skill to cast something like that instantly.
"Damn it…"
"No—Steve! Natalie!"
Tony and Barton could only watch in helpless horror as the fireballs were about to smash into their teammates.
Up on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Nick Fury saw it too. Even he couldn't keep the tension from spiking—his heart hammering hard in his chest.
He was the king of spies, but he still had emotions. Losing two comrades in one strike was unacceptable.
But who could save Steve and Natalie now?
Tony was too far. Barton getting there wouldn't change anything. Coulson was tied down by several Leviathan warships. And Harry…
The one person most likely to save them was Harry—but he'd been fighting the interdimensional demon god Mephisto. How could he possibly spare a hand to rescue them?!
So what now?
And then—space above Black Widow twisted.
A spiral of warped air appeared, and someone stepped out of the vortex.
Facing dozens—hundreds—of descending fireballs, the figure was calm in a way no one else could manage.
A silver-white cloak draped over his shoulders. He swung a staff wrapped in shimmering magical light—
And in an instant, countless spell circles flared into existence around him.
The explosive fireballs—enough to wipe out everything within a hundred meters—were stopped cold by those overlapping arrays.
But it didn't end there.
After touching the spell circles, the fireballs didn't explode. Instead, they were shoved outward as the arrays advanced—then snapped back like fired arrows, screaming toward the direction they'd come from.
Amid the Chitauri mages' panicked cries, the redirected fireballs scattered and struck with ruthless precision right in their midst.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A chain of explosions thundered without pause, tearing Chitauri bodies apart. Blue blood sprayed toward the cloaked figure—only to be stopped by an invisible telekinetic barrier.
Harry turned back. Steve stood there, stunned, and Black Widow lay on the ground breathing like she'd just crawled back from hell.
Harry grinned.
"Surprise! Didn't expect that, did you?!"
Black Widow let out a long, shaking breath and gulped air. She'd just had one foot through the gates of death.
Harry crouched beside her, pointed his wand at the wound high on her thigh, and gave a sharp, forceful flick.
A wash of brilliant white light poured from the wand tip and settled over the several-centimeter-long gash.
The blood inside the wound cleared away quickly, replaced by thick, pearly magic. The torn flesh knitted together at speed, restoring itself—until it became smooth, pale skin again, as if it had never been pierced.
Steve and Black Widow just stared at him, saying nothing.
That surprised Harry.
"Hey. I just saved you two. The least you can do is say thanks."
Steve snapped out of it, stiff and earnest as always.
"Thank you—thank you, Harry. If it weren't for you, Natalie and I would've been dead."
Black Widow's gaze, on the other hand, turned soft enough to melt steel.
She pushed herself up slightly, lips curved into something dangerously inviting. With her model-perfect figure and that sharp, delicate face, she was pure temptation.
In a low, husky voice, she purred, "Thank you, Harry. When the Battle of New York is over… I'll use everything I have to repay you."
She'd stumbled the last time she tried to lure him, but back then they were strangers—both guarded, both wary.
Now they were comrades who'd survived life and death together, both Avengers. In her mind, there was no way he'd refuse her.
But Harry reacted like he'd been jumpscared.
He backed up fast, staring at her like she'd just pulled a knife.
"Sorry, Natalie. You're a good girl, but we're really not right for each other. Like I said when we first met—our age gap is way too big!"
Black Widow: "..."
F*** you!
That one sentence dried every last drop of warmth from her eyes. She shot him an icy look, turned her head, and fell silent—genuinely questioning her own charm for the first time in her life.
Steve covered his mouth and chuckled. If he didn't know Harry had a girlfriend, he'd honestly start wondering whether Harry swung the other way.
After confirming they were both alright, Harry told them:
"Get as far from this area as you can. I'm ending Earth's fight for good."
Harry swept his gaze across the ruins. Red smears streaked the shattered buildings. Everything ahead looked broken and desolate—nothing like the bustling heart of Manhattan it had been.
Rubble could be repaired with Reparo.
But the dead couldn't be brought back.
So whether it was Mephisto, the other interdimensional demon gods invading alongside him, or Loki—
They were all going to pay.
Harry stared up at the wormhole. Out in the vast, lonely dark of space beyond it, powerful flashes of magic kept bursting like silent lightning.
He knew what that meant.
The Sorcerer Supreme was using a trinity guardian array to hold the line against the interdimensional demon gods—this was the real निर्णiding battlefield, the key to everything.
No matter how the Chitauri were doing on the ground, once victory was decided in the cosmic battle, this war would end instantly.
That was what true strength looked like: crushing the weak so completely that numbers couldn't change the outcome.
The Chitauri fought with a hive-mind. Ordinary Chitauri weren't very intelligent. Their mages were smarter—but still weaker-minded than a normal human.
Of course, that was also why they were fearless. They didn't hesitate. They didn't run.
One Chitauri mage spotted Harry's Apparition arrival—and saw him reflect every single fireball in an instant. He froze, not understanding what had just happened.
By habit, he turned to his smartest partner, hoping for an explanation.
But his "smartest" partner was shaking all over, muscles twitching—like he was… terrified.
Terrified?
As an idiot, this mage had never felt fear in his life. Other people feared him. He didn't fear anyone!
Worried his partner had caught some kind of illness, he asked, "Kaka, what's wrong?"
The mage named Kaka stared at his dim-witted partner in utter despair.
For the first time, he envied them.
They were too stupid to feel fear.
Even when death stared them in the face, they could accept it easily.
At the end, Kaka screamed in the universal language of the cosmos:
"Damn it—that's the one who controls chaos magic! Wasn't he supposed to be tied down by the demon lord?! Why is he here?!
I'm dead—Kaka is so dead!!"
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