Fire everywhere. Heat rolled in waves off the burning street.
Mandarin could have focused the output — sharpened it to a clean, precise point. He didn't bother. He let it spread, let it roar, watching with cold amusement as it consumed everything around him.
The screaming started. Civilians caught in the initial blast were incinerated before they could process what was happening. The survivors scattered in every direction, their cries mixing with the shouts of American soldiers and local police ordering Mandarin to put his hands up, to surrender.
"Surrender?" He'd absorbed the pilot's English perfectly. Every word reached him clearly.
Contempt. Cold fury. Total indifference. All of it showed plainly on his ancient, lined face.
"This land is mine! You should be on your knees before me, begging forgiveness. Perhaps I would be generous enough to spare your miserable lives." He hovered above the burning street with his hands clasped behind his back — as if the sky itself were his throne room.
The Kandahar police force had been moving in. Then they watched the Americans turn and run. Several soldiers threw their weapons as they fled.
It was US military-issue hardware. Under normal circumstances, a single piece of it handed to the right commander would earn a promotion. Right now, nobody cared.
If the Americans are running, why are we still here?
The police scattered, using their knowledge of the street grid to their advantage. But unlike the Americans, who'd been given the decoy retreat order well in advance, the local officers hadn't been warned — and it showed. They were half a beat slow, glancing back, their flight hesitant and fractured.
It cost them.
About a dozen local officers were sprinting away when they realized they weren't covering any ground. They were being pulled backward. By the time they understood what was happening, the invisible grip had already dragged them back toward Mandarin.
The slower ones died confused. The faster ones had just enough time to start screaming before they slammed into the lightning Mandarin had waiting. A dozen Kandahar police became twelve scattered piles of ash.
Mandarin watched the retreating Americans with a predator's satisfaction, then resumed the chase.
Two blocks in, he stopped.
The fleeing soldiers had reformed. Small-unit configurations, moving with purpose — encircling him from multiple angles, closing off every exit.
"Can ants really bring down an elephant?" He was unimpressed. But he'd been overconfident — riding an unbroken streak of victories, his usual caution set aside. He didn't register the Barrett sniper rifle until it fired from a concealed position less than 30 meters (≈98 ft) away.
The round left the barrel at 800 meters per second (≈2,625 ft/s). Too fast for his reaction time. Too close for his barrier to fully form. He threw his head to the side — barely fast enough.
The bullet opened a shallow gash across his cheek. His regeneration sealed it in seconds. But the feeling — the sheer humiliation of being marked by these people, by something this small — was something he hadn't experienced in decades.
"Fire! Fire!" The Lieutenant General's voice cracked through the channel.
Pre-positioned snipers opened up from every angle. Two M1A2 main battle tanks rolled in from both ends of the street, hammering him with everything they had.
Tank fire was a significant step up from the earlier rifle barrage. Mandarin had seen tanks in the pilot's memories, but he'd misjudged the actual damage output — and the first several hits caught him genuinely off-balance.
Daisy, who knew his patterns, had staged two Black Hawk helicopters overhead. They swooped in and unloaded a barrage of concussion grenades, then peeled off before he could respond.
In the middle of absorbing the tank fire, Mandarin was suddenly hit from multiple directions by blinding strobes and overwhelming sound.
The strobes left smeared afterimages in his vision, and the noise reduced everything else to static.
"It's working — it's working! Outstanding work, Agent Johnson!" Both generals lit up inside the command center.
Daisy accepted the praise gracefully. She'd quietly congratulated herself too.
With a threat like Mandarin, direct firepower was nearly useless. But he was still a human being at his core — and human beings had sensory limits. Heavy weapons could be deflected by the rings. Non-lethal, auxiliary systems were a different story.
While the command center celebrated, Mandarin was in genuine trouble. The noise shattered his ability to channel his chi, and in the gaps the encircling fire tore into him.
Hit multiple times in quick succession, and with regeneration nowhere near Wolverine's level, he couldn't keep absorbing punishment from every direction; the situation turned critical.
He dropped from the air, landed in a crouch, muttering under his breath. The ring on his right thumb blazed black. Four massive stone figures tore free from the ground at the four compass points and rose to surround him in a solid wall.
Both the command center and the soldiers on the ground stared in disbelief. Was this a film set? Stone giants?
"Keep firing! It's just rock — don't let it stop you!" Daisy had no direct command authority over the troops; all she could do was prompt the general to relay the order.
By the time the order reached the front line, Mandarin had summoned over a dozen stone giants, clustered around him in a bristling ring.
The tanks opened up again. Stone golems that might have been invincible in an ancient war were target practice for modern artillery. One shot, one kill, down the line.
But those few seconds were enough.
Mandarin had recovered.
Wounded by ants.
The humiliation burned hotter than any fire ring.
Facing hundreds, possibly thousands of soldiers, Mandarin finally stopped holding back. He brought up his right hand.
The right-hand rings outclassed the left by a significant margin.
Left hand, in order: thumb — gravity control; index finger — fire; middle finger — lightning; ring finger — mental amplifier; pinky — ice.
There were three energy-attack rings on the left hand alone, and in the modern world most of those effects could be replicated by sufficiently advanced weapons systems.
The right hand operated at a different level entirely.
Thumb — matter reconfiguration. Index finger — vibration wave. Middle finger — whirlwind control. Ring finger — atomic cutter. Pinky — dark force field.
The moment Mandarin's right hand rose, the casualty count began climbing.
His vibration wave worked on principles similar to Daisy's own power. The two M1A2 tanks had been the biggest constant threat, and two vibration pulses killed both tank crews. The main battle tanks instantly became scrap metal.