Crack!
Like a bird with broken wings, the Quinjet tumbled through the sky. Its twisted folding wings shook violently, turbine engines bursting with sparks and shrieking with a piercing wail as thick black smoke trailed behind it and it plummeted downward.
At this moment, the aircraft's lighting system was nearly offline. Red emergency lights flashed wildly. Amid the violent shaking and the nauseating sensation of weightless spinning, Steve Rogers did everything he could to stabilize the jet, struggling to maintain control. The coastline of Long Island, New York, was already within sight.
"Wanda, Vision, I need assistance!"
However—boom!—just as Captain America urged the two strongest heroes on the team to snap out of their intimate daze, a bald figure reflecting the sunlight suddenly rushed into view. In the next instant, a violent explosion shook Rogers so hard that the control stick was torn straight from his grip.
"Fuck!"
Rogers instantly lost consciousness. The savage shockwave made the Quinjet groan as if struck by a massive hammer. Thick smoke flooded the cabin. The control system failed, lift vanished, and the aircraft began to break apart midair.
Crash—!
Trailing black smoke, the spinning fuselage sliced across the sea like a blunt blade, skipping toward the reefs along Long Island's coast like a skipping stone. Along the way, waves burst upward from the shallow waters like cream filling squeezed from a sandwich. It tore across the beach, then smashed straight through a seaside resort hotel before exploding against an artificial rock formation.
The blast hurled fragments of the fuselage in all directions.
Flames scattered, black smoke billowed, and nearby buildings and vegetation ignited. The resort's walls let out a long, tearing groan before collapsing together with the roof, kicking up a cloud of scorched dust.
Thud!
Saitama descended from midair, his white cape fluttering as he landed heavily in the ruined swimming pool of the resort. Murky water splashed up in all directions, spraying over the blaze and forming a thin veil of evaporating mist.
"Hey, Merlin, didn't you say we'd try talking first? Why did you skip the asking part and just use me as a cannonball to knock them down... And are they even C-Class heroes?"
Feeling vaguely cheated and completely unmotivated, Saitama scratched his head.
No one even counterattacked. They seemed kind of weak.
"Circumstances demanded urgency. Master is currently holding talks at the Avengers' base outside New York City. If these Avengers, brimming with obvious resentment and hostility, were allowed to arrive, things would become rather unsightly."
A breezy, utterly punchable male voice drifted through the air.
"Cough... cough..."
Inside the twisted wreckage of the Quinjet, Captain America slowly regained consciousness. Shielded within a dark-red chaos magic barrier and awakened by the conversation outside, he struggled to open his eyes. His stomach churned violently, and every muscle in his body felt as though it had been torn apart, aching unbearably.
Even with the barrier's protection, the brutal spinning during the crash had been unavoidable. The fact that he hadn't vomited was already a testament to his superhuman physique.
"Blegh—" Sam, the Falcon, regained consciousness at nearly the same moment. He immediately turned and braced himself on the ground before vomiting violently.
Black Widow's expression was just as grim. As an enhanced human, at least she managed not to throw up like Sam.
"Wanda, thank you."
Knowing who had saved them at the critical moment, Rogers forced himself to stand and looked toward the red-clad woman whose fingertips swirled with churning chaos magic, holding the barrier open.
Wanda's face appeared slightly distorted in the flickering firelight.
She looked at her lover beside her. Those once tranquil, lake-like eyes now burned with tenderness and fury. The heightened activity of her chaos magic turned her irises blood-red.
"Wanda..."
Vision's eyes were moist. Suppressing the restless tremor of the Mind Stone in his forehead, he struggled to stand, his lips trembling faintly. "You shouldn't..."
"I'm not leaving! No one is taking you away from me!" she shouted sharply. Bringing together the index and middle fingers of both hands, her fingers coiled like a writhing dragon. "Hah—!"
With the frenzied surge of chaos magic pouring in, the spherical barrier protecting them flared brilliantly and expanded in an instant!
Crack crack—BOOM!
In a single moment, the cold chaos magic crushed and disintegrated what remained of the Quinjet's cabin. Its force did not diminish as it swept up sand and debris from the ground, blasting outward in all directions together with the flames. The deafening explosion echoed across the entire beach.
"...Although I appreciate your cognitive magecraft, Merlin—it's boosted my foreign language skills quite a bit—I think I'll go look for Scáthach instead... Hm?"
While muttering to Merlin, Saitama suddenly turned his head. His right hand, clad in a long red superhero glove, swung out in response.
BOOOOOOM—
A thunderclap-like roar erupted. The collision of two shockwaves created an explosion that sent steel fragments and building debris flying everywhere. The ground sank, cracks spreading outward like a spiderweb as violent gusts lashed everything nearby.
Saitama looked at the massive opposing trench carved out by their clash, his eyes lighting up slightly.
At least this trip wasn't a waste...
"Come! Guardian of the secret treasure! I will take it from your hands!" he shouted, even sounding a little embarrassingly dramatic. Yes, in English.
"Never!" Wanda roared in fury.
Her love for Vision—deep and unwavering. She would never allow anyone to harm him.
Saitama's indifferent description of Vision as though he were nothing more than an object, even if devoid of emotional intent, appeared in Wanda's eyes as the words of a villain come to kill him.
Through a lens of malice and prejudice, Saitama's vacant, half-lidded stare and casual tone only fueled her uncontrollable rage.
It was as if a volcano on the verge of eruption lay within her heart. Boiling magma churned beneath the surface, battering her reason. Never before had chaos magic responded to her so obediently. Never before had the pathways of magic appeared so vividly clear.
"You will never take him from me!"
Whoosh!
What greeted Saitama was a dark-red fireball radiating a sinister, searing heat—a massive chaos-magic sun more than ten meters in diameter. Several eerie chaos runes flickered as it expanded further, its terrifying waves of flame already incinerating everything nearby.
Gloop...
Under the blood-red blaze, reinforced concrete foundations, asphalt roads, bricks, even the fine sand of the beach were instantly dyed crimson, like a river of molten lava flowing outward. A choking sulfurous stench filled the air.
"Oho... So this is the guardian of the secret treasure? Pretty strong indeed. I'd better not get grazed by that. Saitama, I'm merely a humble caster—no match for warriors like you. I'll take my leave for now... Mm, and you have more than just her as your opponent. Do your best."
Merlin patted his chest with exaggerated theatrics. Before his words had even finished echoing, the ever-reliable Big Brother Merlin had already flashed a hundred meters away, cupping his hands around his mouth as though calling out dramatically.
The moment his voice fell, the golden sands along Long Island's coastline erupted with light that shot straight into the sky, as if a tactical nuclear bomb had detonated. A world-shaking roar followed.
"You cannot take him from my side... You cannot..."
Panting heavily, Wanda's bloodshot eyes were filled with the savage satisfaction of destroying an enemy. Her hands clenched tightly, beads of painful sweat rolling down her forehead.
But in the next instant, the corner of her eye twitched. The muscles of her face convulsed like a squeezed accordion, bulging and hollowing in uneven rhythm. That silent distortion conveyed her fury and disbelief more clearly than any words could.
Heat waves roared. Amid the flickering flames and flying sand, Saitama stood completely unharmed within a massive crater whose surface had been glassed and melted by extreme heat and compression.
"My turn." Saitama clenched his fist.
Die.
It took only a single instant.
The compressed crater collapsed together with the surrounding ground, kicking up a storm of dust.
In Wanda's eyes, that utterly ordinary, not even particularly muscular fist—wrapped in an old-fashioned crimson hero glove—suddenly seemed as vast as heaven and earth. As the wind-wrapped punch descended toward her, she felt her entire body trembling from the inside out.
She seemed to foresee her own death.
"Wanda!"
Death hung by a thread.
Slap.
Appearing behind her, pressing a hand against his lover's back, the Mind Stone in Vision's forehead erupted with unprecedented radiance. Closing his eyes, his consciousness focused as never before.
Gemstone—at least in this moment, you are still with me, bound to my life. So answer me. Help Wanda!
Bzzzz—
A gorgeous crimson brilliance bloomed.
At the same time, the fist wind descended. After a fleeting instant of silence—
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
The deafening explosions continued without pause, tearing apart the earth, shattering the sky, splitting the ocean—as if Moses parting the sea were reenacted.
The seawater divided beneath his punch, revealing rocks and silt at the seabed. The sky was swept clear of clouds by his fist's pressure, exposing the colossal moving steel behemoths above the firmament.
Only Saitama withdrew his fist and blinked.
He felt like... he hadn't quite connected.
...
"Truly astonishing..."
Let alone those directly facing it—watching from afar, Merlin was left in awe at such pure physical violence. He saw it clearly. Not only had Saitama not gone all out, he hadn't released even the slightest trace of energy. Even his stance was sloppy, lacking any seriousness or exertion.
"However... she did not die. That burst of ancient, primordial power—was that the Gemstone?"
Merlin turned his gaze elsewhere.
"Puh—!"
In miserable condition, Rogers, Sam, and Black Widow were swept away by the residual shockwaves, slammed into the ruined wasteland outside the main attack's trajectory, and left embedded in human-shaped craters. Scarlet arcs of blood shot from their mouths.
"Is this really a fight we can even participate in, Captain...?"
Just an ordinary elite soldier without any enhancement to rely on, Sam spat out bloody saliva. His body was covered in split wounds leaking blood, a horrific sight. He coughed and gave a bitter laugh. He had clearly lost the ability to move.
"Is this still the world we thought we knew?"
"I don't know."
Swaying, Rogers forced himself upright once more. "I only know that I have to do something."
"Trust Wanda. Trust Vision. We can't add more pressure on him. I'll hold that one off."
He looked toward Merlin's position.
That white-haired man, more delicate-looking than a woman, dressed in flowing white robes and holding a staff—he must be a mage, a sorcerer.
I can do this.
Once he made a decision, his will hardened like steel. Rogers immediately sprinted toward Merlin's location.
Merlin had already noticed the three mortals. He ignored Sam the Falcon and Natasha the Black Widow entirely.
His gaze settled on the rugged, bearded man with resolute features. Though not powerful, from the perspective of heart and will, Captain America—Steve Rogers—was the most steadfast person he had found in this world. Among ordinary humans, perhaps even without equal.
As a half-incubus and the court mage who presided over the selection of King Arthur, he had always possessed keen insight into matters of the mind and will.
"Still, I do feel somewhat underestimated. Even if I am but an ordinary half-blood mage, Mr. Steve Rogers—do you truly believe you can hold me back?"
With a gentle—almost frivolous—smile on his handsome face, Merlin turned to face the scruffy man who had climbed the artificial rock formation to confront him.
"I can do this all day!"
"Oh? Is that so?" Grinning cheekily, Merlin waved his staff. Pink flower petals filled the air. "I, however, have no intention of spending all day with you."
"I'll do everything I can!" Rogers raised his tactical baton and charged forward—and then...
Bang!
Like a torn sack, his tall body spun through the air and tumbled down from the rock formation under the pull of gravity.
From confrontation to conclusion, the battle lasted only an instant.
"Mage Merlin? You called me over from the lunar theater for an opponent like this?"
Holding a short yellow blade in one hand and resting a crimson demonic spear over his shoulder with the other, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne emerged from a dreamlike six-pointed teleportation array of flowers. After surveying the battlefield, he spoke helplessly.
"Well, after all, I am merely a dream mage... Look over there, Sir Diarmuid—a splendid spectacle. Mr. Saitama appears to have entered a rather excited state."
Quickly shifting the topic, the incubus spoke casually with him, not treating the blonde female agent who had followed as any threat.
Ahead, the sea and sky had already been dyed the color of blood. Dense, viscous, fusing chaos magic had undergone complete qualitative transformation. Within it, endless sonic booms and violent explosions rose and fell without cease.
Diarmuid pondered. "That woman has borrowed a form of cosmic fundamental power. Void magic? Her spells are being continuously amplified."
Granted a Limiter by Selene and bathed in the primordial essence of a newborn multiverse, this Heroic Spirit vessel made him particularly sensitive to the universe's original energies.
"It's the gem on that humanoid cyborg's forehead... That gem—is it one of the tributes offered by the North American authorities?"
"Obviously. An Infinity Stone—a Gemstone. That is the term our intelligence personnel obtained from the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Collector of Knowhere. And there are other such stones on Earth as well."
Curiosity flickered across Merlin's face. "Why not give it a try? Release your Noble Phantasm and thrust your spear at that woman. Let's see if any other guardians of the Gemstones appear."
He whispered the suggestion in a most unscrupulous tone.
"...That would violate the code of chivalry. And Master has not issued an order to act at all costs."
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Just pretend Master did—it's all the same. Allow me to—"
Just then, bzzz—
"There is no need for such trouble. Since you have extended the invitation, Mage Merlin, I—Ancient One—have come for a meeting."
A woman's voice sounded quietly.
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