The eyes of the entire world were fixed on New York.
Even Iron Man had decided to deploy on an emergency sortie.
“Tony Stark!
You’re not needed here!” General Ross shouted through a megaphone from inside a helicopter.
“Ha!
You don’t tell me what to do.
If I were you, and I ruined a perfectly good Super Soldier Program like this, I’d jump right out of that helicopter,” Tony mocked loudly.
Descending from the sky like a blazing meteor, he opened his hands, pointing his palm repulsors at the clashing Abomination and Hulk.
“Make a wish, boys.” *BOOM!
BOOM!* Two repulsor blasts fired off—and accomplished absolutely nothing.
They couldn’t even scratch the surface.
The two behemoths ignored him completely, roaring as they pounded on each other—though neither could truly breach the other’s defense either.
“Sir, the density of their subcutaneous fat is at least three times greater than steel.
We need to increase power output,” his loyal butler, JARVIS, reported.
“Will boosting the power bring these two down?
Maybe I should use the shoulder-mounted armor-piercing micro-missiles.” “That might break their skin, sir.
Which would only cause them to spare us a second glance.” “Aren’t you witty?
I really need to upgrade your AI programming.” Tony zipped back and forth between the two monsters, but he could do no more than harass them.
He simply lacked the raw power to contain the situation.
The Mark III alone wasn’t built for a battle of this scale.
Worse yet, Tony’s sensors indicated that Hulk’s strength was steadily climbing over time.
From being completely suppressed by Abomination at first, he was now fighting him to a standstill.
It was easy to predict that before long, Hulk would completely overcome the effects of the suppressor serum, becoming stronger and stronger until he smashed Abomination to bits.
But once that happened, would a dramatically empowered Hulk be able to control his instinctual urge for destruction?
“Hey, Vampire!
You’re not gonna help out?” Tony called out, flying down toward Blade.
Blade was quite famous, with intelligence about him circulating across the dark web, so JARVIS had identified him instantly.
Blade’s eyelid twitched.
Tempted to slice Tony just to test the quality of his suit, he said coldly, “I’ve already saved over a dozen people.” “Then what’re you waiting for?
Or are you constantly looking over at that kid with the weird creatures, hoping he’ll turn the tables for you?” Blade glared at Tony in cold silence.
This was the first time he’d ever hated an AI so much.
If he wasn’t mistaken, JARVIS had already intercepted and decrypted the feed from the satellite constantly observing this sector from orbit.
But Tony wasn’t wrong about one thing: Blade was indeed deeply interested in Duval’s next move.
Intuition told him that Duval was waiting for something specific to happen.
But what could it be?
“Dammit!
Dammit!!” By now, Abomination was covered in blood as Hulk battered his face.
To his horror and rage, he realized that Hulk’s peak strength had already surpassed his own!
Did Hulk’s strength truly have no limit?
“If I hadn’t wasted so much time and stamina on those strange creatures, there’s no way I’d lose!
I just hope that Mr.
Blue is still alive.
As long as I inject more of Hulk’s serum…” Abomination flew into a rage of helpless fury.
He had transformed into this monstrous, hideous freak, obsessively chasing Hulk’s power, all to surpass Hulk.
Nobody could understand the visceral shudder and awe he had felt the very first time he saw Hulk back when he was still a normal human.
*BOOM!* Taking another heavy strike, Abomination skidded backward through the air and crashed onto the pavement.
He scrambled back up, suddenly overwhelmed by a profound sense of exhaustion—which was terrifying.
Why was he feeling exhausted?
The more he fought, the more it felt like something far more terrifying inside his body was draining his strength!!
Abomination felt the muscles across his entire body going numb.
He realized he couldn’t keep this up.
His internal organs—exponentially stronger than before—had lost all sensation, as though they no longer belonged to him.
Something horrific felt as if it were about to burst out of his chest.
The sensation was terrifying beyond belief.
*I just need to rest, inject more serum, and I can surpass Hulk!
Once I beat him, I’ll drain every drop of blood from his body and transplant his spinal cord into mine!* Ultimate worship had bred ultimate envy and possessiveness.
Clutching his chest with both hands under the spotlights of numerous military helicopters, Abomination turned and fled.
Even his running speed had dropped drastically, not even half of what it was at his peak.
If anyone had been able to observe him up close, they would have seen weird, pulsating bulges rising beneath his tightly pressed hands on his chest, as if something were on the verge of ripping its way out.
“He’s running away!” “Man, I still haven’t figured out where these two came from or why they were fighting in the first place!” “That Blonsky guy…
even though he disappointed me completely, at least he still has a brain!” Countless people were feverishly discussing this shocking turn of events.
Hulk hesitated, unsure if he should give chase, but ultimately took advantage of the chaos to leap away in several massive bounds.
General Ross saw this unfold, still refusing to give up.
Hulk was far too difficult to control, but the soldier he had personally cultivated, Blonsky, was still salvageable.
He viewed Blonsky as the crowning achievement of his Super Soldier Program—not only had Blonsky grown unimaginably strong, but he had retained his intellect.
Just then, a civilian news helicopter broadcasting live over New York seemed to spot something.
Its searchlight swiveled abruptly, illuminating a figure moving briskly through the shadows.
Though the image was blurry, it was enough for the recording equipment to capture their silhouettes.
A man seen only from behind was sprinting at extraordinary speed, accompanied by several bizarrely shaped creatures.
The camera quickly lost sight of them, losing Duval’s trail amidst the cluttered and ruined city streets.
“Did my eyes play tricks on me?
Did we get that on camera?” A reporter rubbed his eyes and turned back to inspect the camera footage.
This brief clip spread rapidly, seen by millions glued to their television screens.
Most people didn’t pay it much mind; too many unbelievable things had happened tonight.
A muscle-bound giant monster, an armored billionaire—so seeing someone walking strange pets didn’t seem particularly shocking…
right?
“Deviants!
Those things are Deviants!
But all the Deviants on Earth were supposed to have been wiped out by us over five hundred years ago!
Why are they back?!” In London, Sersi—a member of the Eternals, a group of living tools created by the Celestial Arishem—was working as a high school teacher.
She stared at the television screen in absolute shock.
The live broadcast footage was dark and blurry, but judging purely from their physical structures, those creatures looked unmistakably like Deviants.
After the eleven Eternals were deployed to Earth by the Celestials, they spent thousands of years hunting down and eradicating every last Deviant.
Why were there still survivors?
And why was a human on Earth running alongside them?!
In an instant, Sersi realized how dire this was.
Deviants were monsters that preyed specifically on intelligent life.
Left unchecked, they would only slaughter more humans.
Of course, at this point, Sersi had no idea of the true purpose behind their existence as artificial tools.
It was never to protect humanity, but to foster human population growth to accelerate the emergence of the Celestial sleeping within Earth’s core—a god that fed on the energy of human consciousness.
An emergence that would cost the destruction of Earth and the extinction of humanity.
Sersi immediately began reaching out for backup.
The first person who came to her mind wasn’t their leader, Ajak, but her lover and the strongest fighter among the Eternals—Ikaris, who possessed powers like flight, cosmic energy eye-beams, and an invulnerable body of steel!