Boom!
Over the burning skyline of New York, golden bursts of energy exploded like a thousand miniature suns, each flash accompanied by the disintegration of another wave of Chitauri soldiers. The sky became a warzone of blinding lights and death. At the center of it all—undaunted, unshaken, and unrelenting—stood Bella, the Goddess of Judgment.
Just outside the interstellar portal hovering above the city, Bella hovered like a guardian deity. Any Chitauri soldier that dared to exit the dimensional gate was obliterated before it could even breathe Earth's air.
For ten minutes, she had single-handedly held the line.
Below her, corpses of Chitauri piled up like a grotesque metallic mountain—a testament to the massacre she'd delivered. The streets were thick with the stink of alien oil, scorched metal, and faintly glowing mechanical limbs.
Because Bella had taken control of the sky, the burden on the ground forces—police, military, and other superheroes—was reduced drastically. Now, they only needed to deal with the scattered remnants of the Chitauri army wreaking havoc in parts of Manhattan.
But that alone was still a heavy task.
The Chitauri, as a race of cybernetic organisms, were by no means the most technologically advanced in the universe. But compared to Earth's current level of civilization, their weaponry was terrifyingly advanced.
Their energy guns were equivalent in destructive capability to an M67 fragmentation grenade, and they could fire repeatedly with extreme speed. Even a single Chitauri soldier, with its reinforced frame and armor, was the equivalent of five trained SWAT officers in brute strength alone.
While the NYPD was typically armed with serviceable weapons like the Glock 19, Smith & Wesson 5946, or the Sig Sauer P226, these were barely effective unless you landed a perfect shot to a weak point.
Thankfully, the NYPD had deep funding and had procured more substantial firepower—automatic rifles, shotguns, and even anti-materiel weapons.
Even so, the casualties were staggering.
The gangs of New York, with their vicious reputation and illegal armories, had entered the fray. Their ruthlessness and disregard for law strangely became an asset, as they used rocket launchers and black-market alien tech scavenged from prior SHIELD encounters to fight the Chitauri.
Still, despite all this, civilian casualties exceeded ten thousand.
Had Bella not blocked the portal, the number would have easily tripled.
Thanks to her, Manhattan slowly began to stabilize. Civilians were evacuated under the protection of soldiers and heroes alike. The military, though late to arrive, began clearing the remaining Chitauri with sweeping efficiency.
Now that the threat on the ground had lessened, the entire world's attention turned upward—toward the portal.
Especially the media.
As the danger began to recede, helicopters buzzed into the airspace like vultures, their cameras zoomed in on the lone figure battling a cosmic army.
Bella had become the embodiment of valor, violence, and beauty.
In the U.S.—a land that glorified individual heroism—Bella's image soared like a myth in real-time. She wasn't just fighting an alien army; she was doing it alone, for the sake of the people. That spectacle of courage was worth a thousand headlines and a billion clicks.
Every swing of her Black Sword of Promised Victory sent crescent-shaped slashes of gold across the sky, slicing through motherships, vaporizing Chitauri mid-air, and raining metal and flame upon the city.
She didn't retreat. She didn't flinch.
The worm-like motherships stood no chance.
People on the ground were transfixed. Civilians. Police. Reporters. Even the other heroes.
They all stood in awe.
"I want to fight beside her!" one young officer yelled as he fired at a straggling alien.
"She's not a hero… she's a goddess," said another.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Suddenly, U.S. fighter jets roared overhead—F-22 Raptors launching missiles toward the sky portal, hoping to aid in Bella's efforts. Explosions lit the atmosphere as dozens of warheads detonated.
But none of them hit Bella.
The military wasn't stupid. The entire world was watching, and though some within the higher-ups still saw Bella as a potential threat, no one was going to risk global outrage by harming her intentionally.
Besides, even if they tried—could they even scratch her?
Analysts studying Bella's power had already come to a grim conclusion: conventional weapons were useless. Her armor, her speed, her raw strength—all made her effectively immune to standard missiles and gunfire.
Perhaps a direct nuclear strike might do the trick... but even that was only theoretical.
And no one wanted to gamble on the idea of making her an enemy.
After all, she had publicly executed the World Security Council's Defense Minister for attempting to weaponize innocent civilians. If the government tried to cross her again… who would be next?
So, for now, the strategy was simple: show goodwill.
The military "aided" her with fire support, hoping it might curry favor—or at least avoid retaliation.
But reality proved that even goodwill had its risks.
One squadron got a little too eager and dropped their payload right as Bella launched toward another mothership. For a terrifying moment, it looked like they might have accidentally taken her out.
Thankfully, the thick hull of the mothership absorbed most of the blast.
Bella emerged from the smoke unharmed.
She didn't get angry. But she noticed.
It helped that the blast had also annihilated dozens of Chitauri. She let it slide—for now.
Her stats had risen again.
---
Catherine Isa Bella
Strength: A
Stamina: A
Agility: A+
Magic Release: A+
Mental Power: B+
Luck: C+
Noble Phantasms: Bloody Rose (False), Goddess of War (False), Black Sword of Promised Victory (True), Blacklight Armor (True)
Riding: B+
Intuition: A-
Presence: A
---
After personally destroying more than twenty worm-shaped motherships, her magical energy had tripled in magnitude.
Even though her rank only went from A to A+, the actual increase was astonishing.
Her magic was now more dense, more refined, and immeasurably more powerful. She likened it to a surging ocean inside her chest, pulsing with divine potential.
If before, she had enough power to destroy a meteorite the size of Little Boy's payload, now she could decimate something twice the size of Manhattan.
And this wasn't even her peak.
She sensed that if she could raise all her core stats to A+ or higher, she would enter what ancient magical systems called the "Godfather Level"—an apex class of beings considered equal to minor gods, capable of altering worlds.
Her body knew it.
Her soul ached for it.
Her magic flared with such intensity, golden light began to bleed out from her skin like sunlight slipping through cracks.
In the air around her, the glow bent space itself, and ripples distorted the atmosphere like heat waves.
Then, for a single, brief moment, something miraculous happened.
A vision of a golden phoenix spread its wings behind her.
Its feathers shimmered with divine fire, eyes glowing with ethereal intelligence. It stretched across the sky, rising like a new dawn.
And then—gone.
Those who saw it gasped, blinking in disbelief.
"Was that… a phoenix?" a cameraman muttered from his helicopter.
"It was beautiful," said another voice. "The Goddess of Judgment... paired with a celestial phoenix. It's perfect."
"I didn't see anything," a pilot said flatly.
"You're blind, then! It was real!"
News anchors, live streamers, and satellite feeds across the globe replayed the footage over and over again.
Even if it had been a trick of the light—what people believed was already changing.
Bella wasn't just a hero anymore.
She was becoming legend.
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