“A God Walks Among Men?
Silver Giant Appears in Brooklyn!” In the digital age, news traveled faster than ever.
Within twelve hours, footage of the battle in New York had spread across every major news network, social media platform, and video site on the planet.
Millions had watched the grainy helicopter footage.
By morning, billions had.
The world had changed overnight.
At first, the headlines had focused on the monster.
The U.S.
military had thrown everything it had at the creature the government officially identified as the Abomination, only to be completely outmatched.
Tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery…
none of it had made the slightest difference.
The beast shrugged off bullets, ignored tank shells, and tore through entire platoons with terrifying ease.
For a few horrifying minutes, it had looked invincible.
Then something even more unbelievable arrived.
A silver giant descended from the sky.
One punch.
That was all it took.
The creature that had humiliated an entire military force was driven into the earth so completely that it never even had the chance to fight back.
For many viewers, it barely mattered what the giant actually was.
Alien.
God.
Ancient guardian.
Whatever explanation people preferred, one thing was beyond debate.
Humanity had just witnessed a being operating on an entirely different level.
The following morning, newspapers around the world competed for readers with increasingly dramatic headlines.
In New York alone, nearly every front page featured the same image: the silver giant standing amid burning city blocks after defeating the Abomination.
Yet one publication stood above the rest.
The Daily Planet, a relatively young newspaper that had only been established a few years earlier, somehow managed to publish the sharpest photographs of the incident.
Its front page captured the giant from behind, framed by towering flames and shattered skyscrapers, the composition so striking it resembled the poster for a blockbuster film.
The issue sold out before noon.
Newsstands across Manhattan were already requesting additional shipments.
The Daily Planet wasn’t the legendary newspaper from another universe.
It simply happened to share the name.
Its owner was a young Chinese American entrepreneur named Richard Carter.
And he possessed a secret no journalist on Earth could have imagined.
He wasn’t originally from this universe.
Looking back, Richard still found the circumstances almost embarrassingly ridiculous.
One evening, he’d been feeling nostalgic and dug out an old collection of pirated DVDs from childhood.
On a whim, he’d decided to rewatch a favorite Japanese tokusatsu series.
Halfway through the first episode…
His computer exploded.
The next thing he remembered, he’d awakened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
If that sounded absurd, Richard had long since accepted that reality wasn’t interested in his opinion.
The series he’d been watching before the explosion had been Ultraman Nexus.
Apparently, that detail mattered.
Unlike many fictional reincarnation stories where the protagonist awakened with an all-powerful system, Richard had received something much simpler.
An object.
The Evoltruster.
The transformation device of Ultraman Nexus.
At first, he’d assumed it was nothing more than an elaborate prop.
Then he’d transformed.
Everything after that had become significantly harder to dismiss.
For all its dangers, Richard considered himself unusually fortunate.
If someone had to be dropped into the MCU, there were worse abilities than becoming Ultraman.
Much worse.
His years of observation suggested this reality followed the continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe far more closely than the comics.
That distinction mattered.
Comic-book Marvel contained beings capable of casually destroying planets and rewriting reality.
Compared to them, the MCU was far less crowded with cosmic entities of that scale.
Characters like the Grandmaster and the Collector existed here, but they hardly inspired the same awe as their comic counterparts.
Even Ego, who called himself a Celestial, had ultimately been defeated by a well-placed bomb.
That didn’t mean the universe was safe.
Only that it was survivable.
There was always the possibility that far greater powers existed somewhere beyond Earth’s awareness, waiting for the wrong moment to enter the story.
Richard preferred not to test that theory.
Nexus possessed another secret.
Unlike most Ultras, Nexus wasn’t necessarily the final destination.
Given enough growth, enough trials, and enough light, Nexus could evolve into Noa.
Even among Ultramen, Noa occupied the realm of legend.
The first light at the dawn of the universe.
A being spoken of almost like a god.
How powerful Noa truly was remained a mystery.
Even longtime fans had spent years debating the limits of that power because there were so few canonical appearances to judge from.
Richard had no intention of relying on legends.
He was far more concerned with reality.
The power came with limits.
Unlike many Ultras, Nexus wasn’t bound by the familiar three-minute timer.
That sounded reassuring until Richard discovered the tradeoff.
Maintaining the transformation placed a tremendous burden on the one wielding it.
Every second consumed stamina.
Every battle demanded more.
Rest allowed his body to recover naturally, but prolonged transformations or repeated fights drained him faster than recovery could compensate.
If he exhausted himself completely and continued fighting anyway…
The Evoltruster would keep supplying power.
By burning his life instead.
The previous wielders of Nexus had nearly died because of that exact mistake.
Years of accumulated injuries and relentless battles had pushed them to the brink.
Richard had no desire to repeat their fate.
Power was only useful if he survived long enough to keep using it.
That lesson, more than any fantasy about becoming invincible, was the one he intended to remember.