Buzz!
In the Chitauri army's formation ahead, there was a gigantic ship with a strange design.
That was supposed to be the target the nuclear missile would destroy, but just now it had become the object of Corin's venting.
With heat vision and freezing breath unleashed at full power, the mothership was frozen on one side while being sliced apart on the other.
It didn't take long before, amid a violent explosion, the ship turned into a vast cloud of space debris.
After the explosion, all the Chitauri infantry on Earth collapsed at the same time, as if their souls had been pulled out.
A flicker of energy flashed across the Leviathans' bodies, and they dropped dead on the spot.
They plunged from the sky, smashing into buildings and destroying entire blocks.
Realizing the battle was over, Thor and Colonel Steve Rogers looked up at the slowly closing portal, but Tony still hadn't returned.
"Hang in there, Tony."
Their hearts were full of worry.
Only when the portal completely shut did Natasha on the rooftop vaguely see a figure spinning as it fell.
She smiled.
Because the metallic glint flashing from time to time made her realize it was Tony Stark.
Thor and Colonel Rogers saw him too. The tension in their chests instantly eased.
The worry in the captain's eyes vanished, and even his expression relaxed.
"Son of a gun…"
Thor quickly noticed something was wrong. Tony wasn't slowing down, no flames from his hands or feet, and he was falling faster and faster, about to crash into a building.
"Wait, he's not slowing down."
Tony was just a mortal. If he fell straight down like that, it wouldn't end well.
Before he finished speaking, Thor swung Mjolnir, preparing to go catch him.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Mjolnir spun faster and faster, slicing through the air with a sharp sound.
Just as Thor locked onto Tony and was about to leap, a dark figure shot past from a distance.
The Hulk caught Tony at the very last second before he slammed into the building.
But even the Hulk couldn't easily absorb the kinetic energy built up from free fall.
CRASH!
Bang!
Holding Iron Man, the Hulk first carved a deep trench along the outside of the building, destroying countless materials.
Then he scraped across the roof of a car before hitting the ground.
The car, only lightly grazed, was left with a huge dent and still ended up completely wrecked.
Thor and Colonel Rogers ran over.
"Is he still breathing?"
Ripping off the Mark 7 helmet, they revealed Tony's face inside.
His eyes were shut, silent and motionless.
Colonel Rogers looked at Tony lying there with only his face exposed, running through various first aid methods in his mind.
But with Tony's body covered in battered armor, none of them would work. Were they supposed to give him mouth-to-mouth?
"Uh…"
Rogers hesitated for a moment.
Seeing the small light on Tony's chest, usually always glowing, now completely dark, everyone felt a bad premonition.
'Could it be that Tony…'
"Roar!"
"Whoa!"
The Hulk suddenly let out a loud roar without warning, startling everyone and jolting Tony awake.
"The hell! What happened? Please tell me, nobody kissed me…"
His usual lack of seriousness made everyone instantly realize, "Yeah. That's him."
———
At this moment, Corin was standing in the vast void of space, explosions flickering one after another before his eyes.
The Chitauri army that had invaded Earth was now facing total annihilation.
But aside from this collapsing army, there was nothing else in front of Corin.
Worse still, as the firelight from the explosions grew fewer and smaller, Corin was gradually swallowed by darkness.
Absolute silence. Absolute darkness.
The portal had closed the moment Tony returned. From there, New York was no longer visible.
He couldn't even see where Earth was.
"Damn it! Who would've thought a freaking nuke was only worth 100 million dollars?"
"Isn't that supposed to be some high-end, top-tier stuff?"
"How's it this cheap?"
"If I'd stayed on the ground cleaning up the battlefield, I'd have made more than just 100 million."
What he didn't know was that this type of nuclear bomb wasn't anything rare in the United States.
According to incomplete statistics, there were no fewer than ten thousand of this kind.
Even the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier alone had an entire squadron of aircraft carrying nuclear warheads.
Corin felt like this whole operation could be summed up in one word, failure!
'Total damn failure!'
Not only did he not make money, now he couldn't even get back.
Grrr!
His stomach twisted, the sound of protest from his guts traveling through flesh and bone into his ears.
"So hungry…"
In the face of hunger, demigod body or steel body, none of it mattered.
Corin felt so hungry he could barely stand straight.
But the problem was, how was he supposed to get back?
He tried opening a portal to return directly to Earth.
When he focused and tried to connect with his mental power, he found nothing but blankness in his mind.
A faint sense of weakness fed back from his spiritual power.
Corin guessed it was because the distance was too far. His current mental strength was nowhere near enough to open a portal across the universe.
"Right! I can level up!"
He finally remembered his system.
"If I upgrade the portal, I can go back, right?"
Thinking of this, Corin immediately opened the interface, planning to strengthen the teleportation skill.
"Upgrade!"
[Upgrade failed! Under maintenance…]
"What the hell?"
'Maintenance now? Of all times? When I need you most, you tell me it doesn't work?' [T/N: Microsoft in a nutshell.]
"When's it gonna be fixed? Not even a notice or anything. This is way too dumb!"
Corin felt like he was about to break down. The biggest support he relied on was suddenly unusable.
At that moment, looking at the long string of numbers in his account balance, he felt like cursing even louder.
"Or… fly back?"
But in the scale of the universe, the distance between planets was measured in light-years.
Even if Corin could control magnetism to move freely, his speed was still limited.
Without spatial travel, no matter how fast he was, in front of distances measured in light-years... You get the idea.
When a person is in trouble, the body often becomes more honest.
He had felt hungry while fighting earlier too, but knowing he could eat soon, it wasn't that bad.
Now, though, stranded in the vastness of space, endless darkness, extreme cold, the hunger felt like it could kill him.
He tried moving. With no air, there was no wind. His skin received no feedback at all.
His senses felt like they no longer belonged to him.
Clearly, he wasn't prepared for space travel yet.
"Mapo tofu, roast duck wraps, roujiamo, hotpot lamb…"
All kinds of delicious dishes appeared in Corin's mind.
After eating all over New York, he still believed only eastern food was the best.
"Hell, I'd even take some grilled cold noodles, grilled gluten skewers, rice noodles, or spicy hot pot right now!"
Just as Corin was longing from the bottom of his heart for all kinds of food, a faint white light began to glow from his body.
It was energy from the Tesseract, or rather, from the Space Stone.
Corin didn't notice. His head was full of nothing but food.
The gem on the scepter quietly lit up.
The Mind Stone could influence the people around it.
Just like back on the Helicarrier, when the Avengers and Nick Fury had almost gotten into a fight in the lab, they had also been affected by the gem.
At this moment, Corin's craving for food grew stronger and stronger.
This longing, as if coming from the depths of his soul, stirred the energy stored within his body.
Buzz!
At some point, the light grew brighter and brighter, even accompanied by a faint vibration.
"Huh? What's going on?"
The white light shining through his body carried a slight red tint from his crimson suit, illuminating him.
The increasingly bright glow and the subtle vibration pulled Corin back from his thoughts.
What Corin didn't know was that when he had closed the portal earlier, the Tesseract's energy had flowed into his body through the Mind Scepter.
Because his demigod body was compatible with spatial energy, that energy had remained inside him.
He just didn't know how to activate it. In fact, he didn't even know it was there.
Now, that energy had been triggered.
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