The clash between Abomination and Duval drew the attention of quite a few people.
“Looks like the fight was pretty intense, but who were you fighting?” Blade asked, standing on a high-rise building in the distance and looking down.
“I found a knockoff Hulk and dropped by to say hello,” Duval said indifferently.
“If you’d wash and heal your pets first, maybe I’d believe you.” Blade let out an eerie smile and pointed at the few Xenomorphs beside Duval.
“Looks like you suffered heavy losses.
That makes it easy for your enemies to find an opening to kill you.” “Don’t worry, I’m not that easy to kill.
If the enemies you’re talking about are vampires, I hope they come in as large a crowd as possible,” Duval replied.
Blade observed the Xenomorphs closely, lost in thought.
He could tell that Duval possessed extraordinary confidence in the creatures he created.
Furthermore, he still hadn’t seen the Xenomorph wearing the crown.
The two chatted casually until Abomination, barely recovered, roared as he emerged onto the street.
Blade looked surprised.
His sharp instincts naturally sensed a powerful threat from Abomination.
In fact, even for him, taking a direct punch from Abomination would be brutal.
What truly caught Blade’s attention, however, was the state of the small half of Abomination’s body that had barely regenerated.
“Your doing?” “My doing.” “How many Xenomorphs did you lose?” “Nearly half.” “Lost nearly half and still have six left?
Looks like you made plenty of preparations in secret.” Blade was astonished.
How long had it been, and there were already a dozen?
Among the six survivors, one looked exceptionally robust, with a design that was even more eerie and sci-fi—clearly a new Xenomorph.
Paying such a painful price to swarm Abomination and still failing only further demonstrated Abomination’s danger.
Next, the two watched as Abomination went on a rampage through Broadway, violently kicking one car after another down the street.
If it were just empty vehicles, Blade could have sat still.
But when he saw civilians getting dragged into the chaos, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer.
Drawing his blade, he charged forward.
Relying on his powerful physique, he sprinted across several building walls in quick steps and rescued a civilian.
Duval, however, didn’t move.
He waited patiently, filled with deep anticipation.
This strange silence surprised those who were watching closely.
“What is he doing?” Dum Dum pointed at the screen.
“Someone is about to die, yet he’s just waiting?” “Perhaps it’s fear.
He fought that monster first and suffered massive losses, so he’s afraid to keep fighting,” Fury said, shaking his head inwardly.
Was that all?
Having a timid heart wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
At least knowing how to fear power made someone easier to control.
While thinking, Fury operated the computer, lowering Duval’s estimated rating by two levels, down to “usable but not worth relying on.” Fury was disappointed, but Blade was not.
He was puzzled by Duval’s silence, speculating on what crucial revelation Duval had uncovered.
From start to finish, he had never felt any form of fear or hesitation from Duval.
This entire tangle came to a halt the moment Dr.
Banner jumped from the helicopter, stumbling as he transformed into the Hulk.
Even Fury stopped paying attention to Duval, staring dead at the Hulk on the screen.
With Hulk around, who cared about Duval?
Did anyone understand Hulk’s worth?
Did anyone realize how terrifyingly strong that thing was?
“Hulk!” The moment Abomination saw Hulk, he grew instantly ecstatic.
His frantic heart, provoked earlier by Duval, exploded completely.
Dropping Blade like a lunatic, he began sprinting toward Hulk, leaving massive craters in the asphalt with every footstep.
*Boom!* Hulk was knocked flying.
Having undergone Mr.
Blue’s experiment earlier and been injected with a suppressor, Hulk felt weak all over.
He could barely exert much of his true strength, allowing Abomination to overpower him in the engagement.
Two giants brawling, crashing, and rolling—resembling two giant gorillas—turned the entire street into complete chaos.
Abomination grew increasingly excited, pounding Hulk punch after punch.
Deep inside his chest, something seemed to be brewing, on the verge of erupting.
“Do you see it, Hulk?!
I’m stronger than you!
I, Blonsky—Abomination—am the strongest!!” Abomination roared toward the sky.
Countless eyes watched him.
Through various channels, this scene was uploaded to the internet, exploding across the globe.
This was destined to be a landmark event: an individual possessing extraordinary power displaying his terrifying might without restraint, engaging in slaughter and destruction.
Watching these two giant monsters fight, ordinary fists and feet flattened sturdy cars like tin cans, and solid buildings crumbled before them like blocks of tofu.
At this moment, many people across Earth who also held extraordinary power noticed this scene.
“Professor, if we leave now, it’s not too late.” “No, we cannot act.
At its root, this is internal human strife.
Acting recklessly will irritate the sensitive nerves of certain people.” The members of the X-Men watched the breaking news broadcast on TV, divided in opinion, before finally turning to look at Professor X in his wheelchair.
Yet Professor X wore a look of shock and suspicion.
“Something isn’t quite right…
That Abomination…
it isn’t just him.
There is another consciousness inside his body, and this consciousness rejected my telepathic connection.
It’s a very strange feeling.” Professor X was encountering such a thing for the first time.
Having another distinct conscious entity inside Abomination was strange enough, but what was most bizarre was that the entity that rejected him seemed faintly bound to a third, unknown mind at a deep level.
Was Abomination really just the product of a simple experiment gone out of control?
Or was he deliberately created by certain individuals…?
Professor X hesitated, now even less inclined to move.
He could easily use his telepathy to soothe Abomination and Hulk to stop the fight, but considering the dire plight of mutants…
“Destiny said that in countless futures, the mutants end up destroyed.
I must remain vigilant and refrain from doing anything unnecessary, smoothing over relations with ordinary humans as much as possible.” Professor X felt profound pain inside.
He didn’t dare tell anyone about the endless futures Destiny had foreseen.
No matter how mutants developed, was death the only path forward?
What exactly should he do to make things right?
Someone else, however, was far more carefree than Professor X.
Sitting atop a snowy mountain peak, the Ancient One sensed information from numerous cosmic dimensions, assessing the potential threats posed to Earth by beings across various universes.
She took a moment to glance at New York.
“Hmm.
Reality has shifted direction once again.
But this isn’t the work of an interdimensional demon lord—it’s the result of Earth’s own internal development.” As a Skyfather-level entity, armed with the Time Stone, the Book of the Vishanti, the Book of Cagliostro, and a host of ultimate artifacts—bringing her actual combat power close to the Universal level—the Ancient One acutely noticed the subtle shift occurring on Earth.
She didn’t particularly wish to intervene.
She didn’t possess the Reality Stone in her hands; she couldn’t casually rewrite established facts as if they had never happened.
Compared to that, she was far more concerned about the upper limit of her debt.
“The Vishanti didn’t demand payment from me, nor did Cyttorak.
So using white magic and demonic spells is temporarily safe.
The biggest issue remains black magic…” In the entire multiverse, the magic used by all sorcerers was ultimately borrowed from magical entities across infinite dimensions—every single magical entity being a Multiversal-level deity, terrifying beings capable of wiping out countless universes with a wave of their hand.
Since it was borrowed, it naturally had to be repaid with various prices.
No one dared default on a debt to a Multiversal entity.
What specific price had to be paid depended on the preferences of each magical entity.
Entities like the trinity Vishanti were relatively easy to talk to.
As a magical entity condensed from three Multiversal deities, backing Kamar-Taj across numerous universes, their interest rates were low.
The Ancient One had always maintained the good habit of training ascetics, because ascetics could help the Sorcerer Supreme split the debt burden.
But right now, she didn’t need them; she decided to save these ascetics for Strange.
Cyttorak was easy to deal with as well.
As the supreme demon of the multiverse residing in the ultimate terror outside dimensions, the Crimson Cosmos, he was usually quite passive.
Rather than chasing down debts across the multiverse, this archdemon preferred lying low.
Using a little bit of his power usually went ignored by him.
The issue lay with black magic.
The Ancient One’s black magic power was “borrowed” from Dormammu, the Lord of the Dark Dimension.
And Dormammu’s black magic, frankly speaking, was borrowed from Chthon, the God of Dark Magic.
Chthon was notoriously foul-tempered, stingy, and insanely powerful.
Even when sealed, a single breath from him could tear through countless universes and erase debt-defaulters from the multiverse.
So the current dilemma was: the Ancient One used the black magic, but the debt owed to Chthon was primarily shouldered by Dormammu.
This put the Ancient One in a difficult position: she wanted the goods, but she didn’t want to pay the money.
What could be done?
She could only let Dormammu suffer a bit longer.
The Ancient One seemed to hear Dormammu’s hysterical curses once again.
Look at that—it was all Chthon’s fault, driving the noble Dormammu into such a state.
“The future of this sick universe is destined to be bleak.
Even without those weird, incomprehensible figures, there’s still Strange…
I wonder how long I can delay it.” The Ancient One murmured softly, casually firing off a blast of black magic to extend her lifespan another notch.
Deep in the Dark Dimension, Dormammu—who was scheming day and night to kill the Ancient One and devour Earth—suddenly snapped his eyes open, overflowing with resentment.
*Fuck, the debt increased again.*