A mocking voice suddenly rang inside Galactus’s head.
He instinctively tried to warp reality and shove Wayne somewhere else.
Wayne’s Bio-force field flared at the exact same moment and slammed into the attempt, canceling it out.
Left with no clean options, Galactus crossed his arms, dumped even more mass into his body, and threw up another wall of pure cosmic energy.
Wayne was already right in front of him.
He clenched his right fist.
The power behind it was enough to crack the universe itself.
In theory his pure strength alone could push a punch past 850 million times light-speed.
This wasn’t a normal punch.
This was a punch thrown while he was already moving faster than trillions of times light-speed after crossing tens of thousands of light-years in a blink.
The actual strike was even faster.
The fist connected.
A silent, universe-deep roar rolled across the entire galaxy.
Crack.
The void itself shattered.
Pitch-black, lightless cracks raced outward like an abyss opening.
They tore through every nearby star and planet.
None of the expected explosions happened.
Every scrap of energy from the destroyed celestial bodies simply vanished into the cracks and disappeared.
Then the spreading cracks froze.
In the next instant the void healed as if time had rewound.
Wayne had rewritten reality on the spot and forced the full power of the punch onto Galactus alone.
The cosmic-energy shield shredded like wet paper.
The armor on Galactus’s crossed arms disintegrated into powder.
Behind the ruined arms a massive crater opened in his chest plate; raw cosmic energy poured out of the wound.
The kinetic force of a galaxy-killing punch traveling past light-speed twisted space-time itself.
Galactus was launched backward at superluminal velocity once again.
He had never expected a short exchange to force him past light-speed multiple times without using his own power.
Pain blanked his mind for a moment.
Even with his mass cranked to absurd levels, absolute power still treated him like a rowboat in a tsunami.
At his current speed, if he didn’t recover in the next few seconds he would exit the observable universe entirely.
A few seconds was an eternity to both of them.
Wayne accelerated again and caught up.
Fists that could pulverize anything hammered down in a continuous storm.
Half of Galactus’s helmet caved in.
Cosmic energy leaked from his mouth.
The beating finally dragged him back to full awareness and pure rage took over.
Violent cosmic power exploded outward, turning the local galaxy into a raging tide.
Stars and planets shattered under the pressure.
Their remains gathered into a mountain-sized nebula that slammed into Wayne and sent him flying.
Still burning with anger, Galactus twisted space and reappeared right beside the tumbling figure.
Purple light bloomed between his hands.
Every celestial body within hundreds of light-years was ripped free and hurled at Wayne until the younger man vanished under the avalanche.
Strange gravity then crushed the entire mass inward, collapsing it into a single, planet-dwarfing black hole.
Galactus allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction.
A crimson Heat Vision punched straight through the black hole.
The beam swept sideways and sliced the entire singularity cleanly in half.
Galactus stared as the two halves refused to dissipate.
Wayne had one half of the black hole in each hand, locked in place by the Bio-force field.
The two halves of the black hole kept collapsing until they shrank into a pair of tiny black dots floating quietly above Wayne’s palms.
“Catch!”
Wayne grabbed empty space with both hands, ripped an entire small galaxy thousands of light-years across out of the void, and swung it like a club straight at Galactus.
Blinding purple light flared as if it meant to light up the whole universe.
Galactus raised both arms and crushed the incoming galaxy with raw cosmic energy.
He stopped the attack, but the longer the fight dragged on the more a thin thread of exhaustion crept in.
Strong opponents were the worst.
Why couldn’t he just get one easy fight for once?
He glanced at the monster with the capital M on his chest.
The guy’s suit was barely even dirty.
If this kept going, Galactus was no longer sure he could win.
Surrender was out of the question, so he started looking for another angle.
“According to the people of your planet, you’re supposed to be a hero, right?”
“Look around you.
Look at what you’ve done!”
Remembering what the Silver Surfer had told him about Earth, Galactus’s eyes lit up.
Perfect.
Time to climb onto the moral high ground and start pointing fingers.
“Doesn’t matter.
I’ll just fix it when I’m done fighting.”
“…”
Damn it.
Untargetable.
You can actually fix this?!
Galactus was running out of ways to understand where this freak had come from.
The smart move was to leave before his energy bottomed out and the hunger returned.
Even if he survived a hungry fight, just thinking about it made him want to cry.
Running, though, meant losing all his aura.
What would the rest of the universe say?
How was he supposed to keep his reputation after that?
He clenched his jaw, twisted space, and reappeared behind Wayne.
“You still coming at me even though you know you can’t win?”
Wayne spun and charged.
“I’m starting to think you’re like a man!”
The second that thought formed, the towering Galactus suddenly looked weak, pitiful, and completely helpless in Wayne’s eyes.
Wayne’s speed jumped again.
He was in front of Galactus before the giant could react.
Cosmic energy poured out and washed over Wayne like it wasn’t even there.
It didn’t slow him for a fraction of a second.
The next punch landed flush.
Galactus’s entire face caved in.
Cosmic energy sprayed from the tearing wounds.
The reality barrier of the universe ripped open like wet paper under that single strike.
Galactus went tumbling through it into another universe entirely.
…
On the other side, Galactus finally managed to stop himself.
He clutched his skull, which felt ready to split open.
That was reckless.
I should just run.
Of course Wayne had already followed him through the tear.
The moment Galactus saw him, pure panic flashed across his face.
He spun and tried to fold space again.
“Stop!
Stay and keep fighting me!”
Wayne had finally found someone who could actually take a few hits.
He wasn’t about to let the guy leave.
His voice stayed cheerful and almost friendly.
“My bad.
I shouldn’t have treated you like a man.
You can go back to being a mature woman!”
But this was still Galactus.
Gluttonous as he was, and even though this was the first time in Wayne’s life anyone had tanked that many of his punches, Galactus was no idiot.
The freak with the M on his chest was clearly not normal.
The only reason Galactus was still standing was that he hadn’t been hungry.
Another two months of starvation and that first meeting would have ended him on the spot.
He’d survived the last punch, but he looked half-dead doing it.
If he didn’t run now, when the hell was he supposed to run?