As one of the most powerful Eternals, Ikaris hadn’t fought in a long time.
Although there were many strong individuals on this planet, none caught his eye.
This was a supreme confidence forged over thousands of years of battle on Earth, hunting Deviants alongside his fellow Eternals.
“Yes, though their appearance is somewhat odd, they should be Deviants.” Having received news from his lover Sersi, Ikaris had flown over at top speed.
Using his super vision to inspect these Xenomorphs, a look of hesitation crossed his face, but he soon brushed it off—these creatures were likely a new breed of Deviant.
After all, Deviants inherently possessed highly mutative genes and could alter their physical size based on the power absorbed from strong lifeforms.
Even if these few Deviants before him—except for the one feeding inside the building—seemed pitifully weak overall.
He looked inside the building, gazing at Abomination, who had already been reduced to a heap of shredded meat.
He couldn’t tell how Abomination died from that ruined mass, but it didn’t matter.
“This Deviant stole the ugly creature’s life energy to evolve, but what’s with this crude feeding method?” Ikaris looked cold and stern.
Growing stronger by absorbing other creatures was indeed a Deviant talent, but that absorption was supposed to be done via proboscis tubes piercing the target’s body to harvest energy, not by eating flesh raw.
What sort of messy abilities had these Deviants evolved?
Why had they regressed instead?
Even stranger, the last remaining Deviants should be frozen beneath the ice lakes of Alaska.
How had a few suddenly escaped…
And so brazenly, too.
“Why are you mixed up with these Deviants?
Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?” Ikaris crossed his arms, his voice icy as he looked down at Duval from above.
“Deviants?
You’ve got the wrong idea.” Duval knew why this guy had come.
Ikaris was a man harboring his own secrets, hiding from the other ten Eternals that a final group of Deviants was concealed in Alaska.
These eleven Eternals were entirely different from Thanos’s ancestors—the Eternals who migrated from Earth to Titan to reproduce.
They were artificial enforcers created directly by the Celestials, repeatedly wiped of their memories.
With every mission completed—protecting a species to accelerate the birth of a nascent Celestial inside the planet’s core—the Celestials wiped their memories and redeployed them to another living world in a continuous cycle.
Yet there were exceptions.
Individual Eternals occasionally had strange, fragmented thoughts pop into their heads—uncleaned memory shards.
Ikaris faintly suspected something was off with his memories, but he was smart enough not to show it.
“Earth’s ecosystem couldn’t possibly give birth to organisms with this morphology.
They aren’t native to Earth,” Ikaris said indifferently.
“You don’t know what Deviants are at all, and you lack proper awe for the one who protected you and your ancestors.” “Awe my ass.
Bullshit.” Duval spoke in a mild tone.
Knowing full well that Ikaris was a powerful and fanatical zealot who wouldn’t leave without achieving his goal, he simply said, “You talk big about Deviants, but inside that head of yours, do you care more about protecting ordinary humans, or covering up the truth?” Ikaris’s expression shifted slightly—not entirely because of Duval’s insult, but more because…
this human seemed to know about the Eternals and Deviants, and even knew that he was concealing secret information about the Deviants!
Was it a coincidence, or a deliberate provocation?
Golden light instantly flared in Ikaris’s eyes as a streak of heat vision blasted forth—an attack guaranteed to vaporize an ordinary human.
At that exact moment, the Abomination Xenomorph, its body having expanded significantly in a short time, finished feeding.
Baring its mouthful of sharp teeth, it easily smashed through the wall and charged out.
In the blink of an eye, it grabbed Ikaris and threw him into a visceral seismic slam!
*BOOM!* That unreserved power slammed him into the ground, carving out a deep crater.
“Is this how you protect humanity?
Completely reckless—willing to slaughter an unidentified human just to eliminate a so-called Deviant?” Duval, entirely shielded behind the massive body of the Abomination Xenomorph, spoke slowly.
“You aren’t ignorant.
You know we protect humans and eradicate Deviants.
Who are you?
How do you know these things!” Ikaris flew up completely unscathed, surprised by the Xenomorph’s strength.
However, through that brief clash, he had already gauged the creature’s power—it was considerably weaker than him.
It could be killed; it would only take a little time.
What drew his attention even more was Duval’s composure and calm.
Duval hadn’t even blinked, as if he knew Ikaris’s capabilities inside out and had anticipated every move.
There was something wrong with this human—something very wrong.
To be protected by Deviants defied Ikaris’s understanding; after all, Deviants were a species specifically meant to devour humans.
Regardless of the mystery, before absolute strength, none of it mattered.
Ikaris wanted to kill Duval and these “Deviants” as quickly as possible to cover up the information.
*BOOM!* Ikaris shot forward like a cannonball, slamming straight into the Abomination Xenomorph’s chest.
As Duval stepped aside with precise timing, Ikaris drove the creature through several high-rises in one breath.
Endless tremors shattered the sky—clearly, the destruction caused by his strike was even worse than Abomination’s duel with Hulk.
Other Eternals might care about protecting innocents, but he certainly wouldn’t.
Over thousands of years of warfare, they had engaged in brawls with Deviants in bustling cities before ordinary humans more than once.
Especially Ikaris—he felt he had made monumental contributions to humanity by safeguarding their reproduction over millennia.
What did it matter if a few people were caught in the crossfire of his fight?
Was there a problem with that?
Ikaris clenched his fists, puffing out his muscular chest, indifferently watching a towering blaze erupt in the gaping hole of the skyscraper ahead.
It was unclear whose gas pipe had exploded.
Not that it mattered.
The Abomination Xenomorph didn’t care either.
It walked out unscathed, silent as it whipped its long, agile tail.
Muscular power surged in its legs, brewing terrifying energy before exploding forward with terrifying force.
The Abomination Xenomorph charged back in almost identical fashion, crashing straight into Ikaris and sending him flying, kicking up endless debris and screams.
“Why is there another monster?!
Wasn’t the fight on Broadway just over?!” “No, impossible…
What is wrong with today?
Two even crazier bastards just showed up!” At first, some citizens thought Ikaris was a superhero, and the Abomination Xenomorph—with a build similar to Abomination and Hulk—was the villain.
Within seconds, however, they realized neither of these bastards was a good person, and neither gave a damn about their lives!
The only difference was that the human-looking one didn’t care about ordinary people at all during his attacks, aiming for lethal spots every time, eager to smash his opponent to death in one punch.
Meanwhile, the ugly, menacing creature—despite its exaggerated muscles and bizarre bone spurs—kept grabbing Ikaris with its huge claws and throwing him toward more remote, desolate areas, as if trying to shift the battle elsewhere.
Even if it got pushed back by Ikaris the next second, occasionally crushing an unlucky citizen in the process.