Bandages wrapped around his entire body, long hair grown wild from months without tending, both hands transformed into razor-sharp blades — Cutting King, with the build of an ordinary man.
A pale green body with wing-like appendages on its back and curled, atrophied arms. Its surface was unnervingly smooth but in truth composed of a fine, dense carapace — Insect God, born from the finest genes of ants, spiders, grasshoppers, fleas, and more, all fused into one.
Ugly President, who had sunk into the darkest of emotions under the weight of others' stares and contempt, growing uglier and yet far stronger for it.
Jet-black in color, a single soft antenna perched atop its head — Black Sperm, deceptively ordinary in appearance.
A middle-aged man in tattered clothes, sporting the hairstyle of a Western philosopher — Homeless Emperor.
A colossal snowman. A volcanic rock monster. A mechanical creature fused with an iron barrel.
Countless Demon-level and Dragon-level monsters, rarely encountered under normal circumstances, now seemed as common as cabbages on a market stall. The superheroes were plunged into a bitter, desperate struggle.
Oh, but there were exceptions. Thor, the God of Thunder, for instance — tossed into the fray by Zodhis. As for Loki, the God of Mischief, Zodhis had taken him elsewhere.
Thor had initially been worried about his abducted brother. But after several seconds of being swarmed by so many powerful enemies, Thor couldn't even remember whether his brother was a man or a woman.
Wait... do I have a brother?
The Monster Association had staked everything on this battle. Their singular goal: annihilate every last superhero.
"Aha~ I've hooked a big fish!"
With a coquettish cry, a beam of light trailing hundreds of phantom pink hearts shot through the air. As a light-based ability, it closed the distance in an instant, nearly striking Tony Stark dead-on.
"S-Class Hero Iron Man — become my captive! Love Brainwashing Beam!"
Tony stared, utterly dumbfounded. The attacker was a woman in a black slit qipao. If you ignored her heart-shaped hair and heart-shaped glasses, she looked almost like a normal person.
The symbiote armor failed to block this so-called Love Brainwashing Beam. In moments, Tony was reduced to a lovestruck fool, drooling like an idiot, before turning on his own allies.
"Damn it, Stark's been compromised!"
"Someone snap him out of it!"
"Find Natasha?"
"Just hold him off first, goddammit!"
"Motherfucker! I'm about to get beaten to death by him — hurry the hell up!"
In the end, it was Blonsky who took on the task of holding Tony Stark at bay. With his kinetic absorption ability, Blonsky could practically steamroll through almost any monster.
But Tony Stark in his symbiote armor was terrifyingly powerful — especially once he became an enemy. For the first time, the other superheroes gained a newfound appreciation of Stark.
How the hell does this guy either get his ass kicked or end every fight in a draw when he's up against the enemy... but the second he's fighting us, he's an absolute monster? Whose side is he even on?
BOOM! RUMBLE! CRASH!
Without the slightest warning, the ground suddenly began to heave violently. The structures overhead held out for only a few seconds before they began to collapse in massive chunks.
Under these conditions, the superheroes had no choice but to halt their attacks. Getting buried under the cascading debris would cause serious problems even for them.
The Monster Association's base, built for secrecy, had been excavated deep beneath this area — a full fifteen hundred meters down.
The cave-in just triggered might be enough to severely injure most of the S-Class heroes. More importantly, it successfully split the battlefield. Isolated and cut off from support, even an S-Class hero would eventually exhaust themselves deep underground. Without food and water, they would become a corpse slumbering for all eternity.
Divide the battlefield. Only then could they gang up on the most troublesome S-Class heroes and pick them off one by one. Once that was done, the remaining A-Class heroes and below would be nothing to fear.
After all, Dragon-level monsters were each a natural disaster in their own right.
Psykos, her body bizarrely proportioned — not short in length, with waist and bust measurements nearly identical — sped through the underground passage without her feet touching the ground. Her telekinetic powers had already locked onto the location of one of the S-Class heroes.
"There."
Behind Psykos trotted the strange, antennaed figure of Black Sperm. Then came Evil Natural Water, a liquid monster whose massive form, when enlarged, filled most of the tunnel. And Homeless Emperor, surrounded by countless hovering energy orbs. Aside from the Dalmatian, who had used an energy roar to collapse the ground beneath New York and had yet to catch up, every single Dragon-level elite of the Monster Association was gathered here.
Victory was already decided.
Split! Split! Split!
With a gleeful cackle, Black Sperm divided into over a hundred identical clones, matching in both appearance and mass. Aside from a small portion of backup cells kept in other secure locations, this was now his ultimate form — the vast majority of his cellular reserves concentrated in one place.
Ordinary attacks could never truly kill him. At most, they would split his cells into even smaller fragments. Only the most devastating killing blows could completely destroy a divided cell. And once the enemy's stamina ran dry, he could simply reassemble, his power multiplying — more than enough to put up a fight.
Evil Natural Water, its body composed of an unknown liquid with no fixed shape, coiled lazily in place. Strength capable of shearing through steel meant nothing against liquid. Several water tendrils, like reaching tentacles, extended outward, aimed distantly at where The Thing stood.
Hummm...
Homeless Emperor took up the farthest position. Eyes tightly shut, both hands hovering before his chest as if cradling an invisible sphere, he suddenly flung his arms outward with fierce intensity. Through sheer spiritual concentration, white energy orbs the size of soccer balls materialized in a dense swarm around him, covering a radius of over ten meters.
Hummm...
A faint sheen of sweat appeared on Homeless Emperor's brow. His heart swelled with quiet elation — he had managed to conjure nearly a hundred more energy spheres. Though smaller than the ones nearby, they already far exceeded his previous limits.
Finally, at the center of the group, Psykos trembled. A ring of violet-black light erupted outward from her body in an instant.
"Terror Ring."
She channeled her psychic powers, fused with her own negative emotions, into a ring-shaped telekinetic wave. It could deliver not only a physical shockwave but also assault the target's very mind.
An S-Class hero like The Thing, whose power relied purely on bodily mutation, had no way of resisting Psykos's telekinesis. His mind was seized in an instant. Then Homeless Emperor's energy bullets launched.
BOOM! RUMBLE!
A colossal explosion drowned out all other sound. The Thing took the full brunt of the damage without the slightest reaction. When the blast cleared, only a pile of stone rubble remained where he had stood.
"He's finished!"
Psykos was beside herself with excitement. Earlier, when the Monster Association had clashed directly with the superheroes, several Dragon-level monsters — including Gouketsu — had been taken out. She had immediately realized the danger and urgently switched tactics.
And now, it was clear: the new strategy was a resounding success!
She had absolutely no idea that The Thing had already been whisked away by Zodhis. That pile of rubble was nothing more than a decoy.
BOOM!
As if the heavens were collapsing and the earth splitting apart, dozens of tons of building debris came crashing down all at once.
In an instant, the passageway, already poorly ventilated, was completely choked with dust. Visibility was cut to nothing.
/-\
Enjoying the story? Want to read ahead?
Support the novel and unlock early access to unreleased chapters!
~ +20 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon! (+1 Chapter daily)
https://p-atreon.com/Its_Zack
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access Patreon normally)