"With all due respect, modern tech weaponry can't even scratch this thing's hide—unless some hidden monster even more ridiculous than us pops out of nowhere... you know, the kind that can split the sky with a punch."
"Maybe we should try requesting a nuclear strike from the brass. Granted, that means we all go down together."
"Here, here, take the phone—you make the call!"
"Reyyyyyyy——"
A bizarre howl tore across the sky. Even the gloom hanging over Canghai City was blasted apart by the Velociraptor's skyward roar—yet the gloom didn't fully disperse, because the moment the clouds parted, something moving at high speed was revealed...
"Is that the Space Battleship Yamato?"
"Yamato my ass. That thing's called a floating battleship, and it's pretty clearly not from Shenzhou. Shenzhou doesn't go in for that kind of flashy nonsense!"
"Still, that's gotta be reinforcements, right? Yeah, I keep saying Shenzhou should set up a dedicated organization like this. I'll submit a proposal when we get back."
Well, aren't you just the most capable son of a bitch ever?
No time to joke about how "no supernatural critters allowed after the founding of the nation." The moment the enthusiastic civilians saw the descending floating battleship's bow start glowing, they spun around and bolted—outrunning even the artillery vehicles parked on the streets. At the battleship's bow, light gathered and concentrated, and then a brilliant energy cannon blast thundered forth.
"Arrrrrr——"
The monstrous howl echoed without end, the sheer percussive force shattering windows across most of the city's buildings.
The Velociraptor, upon sighting the floating battleship, seemed to register the threat. It wrapped its massive forelimbs around a tall building, snapping it in half at the waist, and hurled the debris into the sky.
In the next second, the building's remains were blasted to pieces in midair. Flames, rubble, and dust sprayed outward. The Velociraptor curled its streamlined body into a roll, diving sideways and narrowly evading the residual force of the accelerated particle cannon.
It was a speed-type Kaiju, after all—dodging the opening salvo was still within its capabilities.
"Canghai City really is calamity-prone."
Zod gazed down at the intact monster amid the ruined cityscape and couldn't help a touch of sentiment, even if this Canghai City wasn't that Canghai City.
Still, as his eyes tracked the Velociraptor evading the accelerated particle cannon, a look of genuine interest crossed his face.
"Switch to saturation bombardment, then."
The super battleship's AI sprang into action instantly. Dozens of golden particle streams erupted simultaneously, and the blinding radiance transformed into a rain of annihilation—a sky-blanketing storm of light descending upon the Kaiju below. Every bit of thrown debris in its path was pierced and detonated, until the Velociraptor was completely enveloped.
In that instant, the beam-storm triggered an earth-shattering detonation. The city ruins within a kilometer radius suffered a second wave of bombardment.
The destructive energy pulverized the ground. Blue blood and chunks of flesh, mixed with metallic-scaled hide, splattered out from the thick smoke—only to be utterly annihilated moments later by the expanding shockwave of energy, not even remnants left behind.
"This kind of attack... it's nothing short of divine judgment!"
The gloom shrouding Canghai City scattered with the Kaiju's disappearance. The thick smoke gradually faded on violent gusts of wind. What was left behind was a devastated landscape pockmarked like the surface of the moon—the nightmare behemoth of this city's inhabitants, subjected to such terrifying firepower, was now unrecognizable. Even its skeletal frame lay in a mangled, incomplete state.
Perhaps the monster's entire cycle of emergence and death hadn't lasted that long. Beyond the damage dealt to the city, it hadn't really accomplished anything.
And yet, the behemoth's death did grant them an overwhelming rush of joy. That sense of having survived calamity—that feeling didn't lie.
...
Calling it an invasion plan was less accurate than calling it a revenge plan. Having suffered the humiliation of their previous failure, they naturally understood their own strengths and weaknesses by now. With the Precursors in play, the supply of individual monsters was effectively endless—but ensuring an endless flow of those monsters to Earth was no simple matter.
Establishing a spatial wormhole, even with a beacon planted on Earth, required time. The three Precursors dispatched by Thanos had to build multiple wormholes while simultaneously producing more monsters.
And if a wormhole was discovered before it could be closed or destroyed, the Precursors—the very source of fresh forces—would inevitably die with it.
"We did find the trench's location, but across thousands of meters of the area, there's no sign of the so-called spatial wormhole..."
Fingers sliding lightly across the screen, Stark, seated at Divine Sword Bureau headquarters, turned slightly toward Zod as a flood of mind-numbing data appeared on the display.
"No. We found it. The wormhole is composed of atoms—its construction principles are consistent with what we already know. Folding spacetime to bring two spatial points into coincidence. The deep-sea probe carried my diagnostic detection apparatus. It absolutely detected residual atomic data in that trench."
Zod shook his head. Everyone else was slacking off—some playing with their fingers, some with pens. Only Dr. Banner wore an expression of thoughtful contemplation.
He was the only one in the room who could actually follow the conversation.
"In other words, the passage through which the monsters reached Earth is indeed there. Originally, that is."
After having his face figuratively slapped by the data Zod presented, Stark silently resolved to upgrade his own detection apparatus next.
"Based on my deductions, this type of spatial wormhole draws its energy from tectonic plate activity. The energy generated by Earth's geophysics keeps it in a long-term, stable open state. However, the wormhole itself is extremely fragile. Its physical structure and the electromagnetic waves it emits indicate that if any external energy exceeds what the tectonic activity provides, the wormhole will be destroyed."
"And I've detected no anomalous energy fluctuations exceeding tectonic output in the surrounding area. That means the wormhole was manually closed by whoever orchestrated this. As for why—that remains unclear for now. But we can't rule out the existence of other wormholes in different waters."
Most of what Zod said before this left Fury's head a complete blank. But that last sentence—that, he understood perfectly.
"You mean... there's more than one wormhole?"
Fury felt a wave of dread. He'd assumed all they needed to do was locate that single wormhole and let the two super-geniuses, Zod-Sith and Tony Stark, handle it. Now he was being told there wasn't just one.
"This is an invasion. Who'd be stupid enough to concentrate all their forces on a single point?"
Zod replied.
"That said, since a spatial wormhole was once constructed in that area, something akin to a beacon signature will inevitably remain. If they weren't careful enough on the other side, we might even be able to construct a spatial passage leading directly to their home base."
"Of course, that presupposes we have technicians with a considerable degree of expertise in spatial mechanics... Why are all of you staring at me? I'm just a researcher in weapons and materials."
Seeing every gaze in the room fix on him, Zod corrected them with righteous indignation.
/-\
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