Left with no other option, Congress finally called the S.W.O.R.D. Bureau for help.
The superheroes who had been stalled by endless bureaucracy and political interference were finally cleared to move.
At the sa ti, S.W.O.R.D. deployed a special operations unit equipped with War Machine armor.
Drex Valen had done it openly, too.
He used the funding various nations poured into S.W.O.R.D. to purchase War Machines and Iron Mongers directly from his own companies without the slightest attempt to hide it.
Inside the troop transport, the squad commander's voice thundered through the cabin.
"We are the blade hidden in the dark! We control. We protect. Until death!"
Behind him, armored soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder in matte-black War Machine suits.
"Humanity stands behind us. There is nowhere left to retreat."
"No stepping back. No surrender. You are the final line!"
"Carry the light forward. Let the shadows chase us forever, but never overtake us!"
"The greatest weapon weak n possess against monsters is sacrifice! Endless sacrifice!"
The atmosphere inside the aircraft ignited instantly.
Every mber of the task force roared in unison.
"We are ready to walk into hell, sir!"
The commander nodded.
"Good. Then honor the dead by joining them later."
The rear hatch opened.
One after another, armored figures jumped from the aircraft into the darkness below.
War Machine thrusters flared blue beneath them as they descended safely toward the battlefield.
A transmission crackled through their comms.
"Target designation confird. Ice Cream Monster. Threat Level: Demon."
Several squad mbers instinctively tightened their grips on their weapons.
A Demon-Level monster.
Even hearing the classification felt heavy.
Far away from the battlefield, Drex watched the deploynt through a live feed alongside the Black Queen.
"Sir," she asked quietly, "I still don't understand why you're doing this."
Drex rolled a coin slowly across his knuckles while watching armored troops descend into Afghanistan.
"To create a certain kind of human."
The Black Queen remained silent.
Drex continued calmly.
"I didn't co to this world just to sit around and follow the script. Knowing the future and changing nothing would be the greatest waste imaginable."
The coin stopped spinning.
"What I want... is to force humanity to evolve."
On-screen, explosions illuminated the ruins of Afghanistan like lightning storms trapped on earth.
"Fear breaks people," Drex said. "So freeze. So pretend to be dead. But others go insane and charge straight into the nightmare. If you control the pressure correctly, you can manufacture heroes."
His gaze remained fixed on the battlefield.
"I have no interest in a future where humanity survives only because superheroes save them every ti."
There was a cold edge in his voice now.
He still rembered Wakanda hiding behind its borders while the rest of humanity bled against cosmic threats.
If Wakanda wanted isolation, then it could stay isolated forever.
Humanity would move forward without it.
"When the world faces ten thousand different horrors at once," Drex said softly, "I want ordinary people to stand up too. Not just superheroes."
Weapons were easy.
Drex could arm entire nations overnight if he wanted.
The difficult part was finding people willing to fight.
Too many humans waited for superheroes to solve everything for them.
That kind of civilization would collapse the mont its heroes failed.
Drex refused to let that happen.
"The unit will be called Hellfront."
He leaned back slightly, already considering future plans.
Maybe containnt anomalies.
Maybe engineered horrors.
Maybe monsters pulled straight out of nightmare fuel.
If Hellfront soldiers survived hundreds of encounters with terror and madness, the survivors would beco elite beyond imagination.
Veterans would forge the next generation.
Humanity needed soldiers capable of walking through hell without losing their minds.
On the battlefield, the Hellfront Task Force finally encountered the Ice Cream Monster.
No warnings.
No speeches.
The instant visual confirmation ca through, they opened fire.
Their pulse rifles unleashed streams of deep-blue light.
The weapons looked nothing like conventional firearms. Each needle-thin projectile was accelerated through pulsed electromagnetic force, producing terrifying penetration power far beyond chemical-propellant weapons.
Blue exhaust vented downward from the rifles with every shot, giving the armored soldiers an almost futuristic aura beneath the burning Afghan sky.
The effect was imdiate.
Massive fist-sized holes exploded through the Ice Cream Monster's body.
Before this, the creature had tanked direct hits from 105mm artillery without injury.
Now it was finally taking visible damage.
Morale skyrocketed instantly.
"We're hurting it!"
"Keep firing!"
Then the wounds regenerated.
Fast.
Far too fast.
The Ice Cream Monster retaliated imdiately.
Several gigantic ice cream projectiles slamd into the front ranks of Hellfront soldiers, blasting them through the air like rag dolls.
Fortunately, S.W.O.R.D.'s War Machine armor had all received secondary Kryptonium coating upgrades.
Without it, those soldiers would have died instantly.
One Hellfront operative suddenly stepped forward and pulled out a different weapon.
A fusion gun.
Its effective range was only fifty ters, but that hardly mattered.
The weapon launched a basketball-sized sphere of concentrated thermal energy capable of generating temperatures in the thousands of degrees upon impact.
Enough to lt or vaporize almost anything.
Drex rarely deployed weapons like this.
They were too dangerous.
Too advanced.
One mistake and entire city blocks disappeared.
The mont the operative aid, the Ice Cream Monster reacted instinctively.
Danger.
Real danger.
It dodged imdiately.
The deep-blue energy sphere streaked past and hit the ground behind it.
In an instant, everything within ten ters vaporized.
Soil disappeared outright.
What remained lted into glowing magma that slowly bubbled across the battlefield.
"Shit! It learned!"
"It's avoiding the fusion gun!"
"Suppress it! Cut off its escape angles!"
"Where's the gravity grenade?!"
The Hellfront Task Force adapted rapidly.
Their combat experience against previous Monster Association attacks was already paying dividends.
Pulse rifles scread continuously, tearing apart buildings, vehicles, and terrain alike. Entire sections of the battlefield were shredded into debris under the overwhelming firepower.
The Ice Cream Monster willingly tanked rifle fire rather than risk another shot from the fusion gun.
That weapon could kill it.
It knew that instinctively.
"DOWN!"
One Hellfront soldier ripped a gravity grenade from his belt and hurled it forward.
The rest of the squad hit the ground instantly.
They all knew what those things could do.
Drex Valen's inventions were absurdly advanced.
And horrifyingly destructive.
The Ice Cream Monster initially ignored the grenade entirely.
It had seen explosives before.
Then the grenade entered a hundred-ter radius.
Sothing changed.
Its body suddenly beca heavier.
Much heavier.
The grenade detonated.
The earth itself twisted upward violently as if an invisible hand had grabbed the battlefield and started crushing it into a ball.
The ground curled inward.
Buildings collapsed toward the center.
The pull intensified rapidly.
Even a Demon-Level monster like the Ice Cream Monster found itself struggling to move.
For the first ti since the battle began...
Fear appeared on its face.
Real fear.
Death was suddenly very, very close.
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