Chapter 220: You Wanna Come Out Here? (Patreon)

The gold-and-red beams of heat vision crisscrossed from every angle of space. With every precise sweep, countless Chitauri soldiers were neatly bisected.

Compared to the terrifying speed at which the F-Boy Shadow Clones were wiping out the enemy, the Chitauri's retaliation was like a light drizzle—completely ineffective.

Seeing the starry sky clear up once again with a single command, Kenji accelerated his bio-magnetic field and flew straight toward the distant Chitauri mothership.

Inside the ship.

Maximum-level red alarms blared continuously. The bridge was in absolute chaos.

The Chitauri general commanding the battle—a thoroughly ugly alien—stared at the completely one-sided massacre unfolding on the main screen. His face drained of color.

"Why hasn't the intruder been eliminated yet?! It's just one guy!"

The high-ranking Chitauri officers, who possessed independent consciousness, were frantically marshaling their forces to swarm the attacker. But the result? Their troops were losing life signs twice as fast as they were being deployed, instantly reduced to insignificant cosmic dust.

"General, the target has split into five individuals through unknown means! They're slaughtering our forces!"

"Their physical resilience rivals the High Gods! Our weapons are completely ineffective!"

"General, order a retreat! We cannot fight this enemy! Ahh—"

"Retreat? How can we retreat?!"

The Chitauri general's eyes flashed with a savage light. He casually raised his blaster and shot the staff officer who proposed retreating. The alien's head popped like a ripe watermelon.

The general bared his fangs, roaring viciously. "If we retreat now, how am I supposed to explain this to His Majesty and the Master?!"

"Wouldn't it be pretty easy to explain?"

A voice with a completely different accent echoed through the bridge. "I say, let's just skip the explanation altogether."

The high-ranking Chitauri, including the general, froze. They turned and saw a dark figure draped in a crimson cape standing on the bridge. Their faces twisted in horror.

"It's him!"

"The monster is here!"

"Kill him!"

Whoosh!

The gold-and-red heat vision swept across the room. Without exception, every single Chitauri officer present—save for the general—had their heads cleanly severed, dropping to the floor like basketballs.

F-Boy stepped out of Kenji's body. The scattered soul particles in the room were instantly vacuumed up like a storm, transforming into ugly dog-food cards and joining his deck.

There was no helping it. The Chitauri in the MCU were severely nerfed. An ordinary human with a handgun could take down a grunt, and the high-ranking officers were barely a step above Thanos's other army, the Outriders. Aside from being used as enhancement materials, they were entirely useless.

[Destiny points +18]

'In terms of drop rates,' F-Boy communicated, 'this is the worst one yet.'

Watching the headless corpses of his subordinates slump to the floor, the Chitauri general was struck speechless.

"I'll give you one chance. Take me to Thanos, and I'll spare your life." Kenji clasped his hands behind his back, a kind, gentle smile on his face. "What do you say?"

"Die! For the glory of the Other... Ahh!"

The general's vision was suddenly filled with a massive fist and a giant, vivid Kanji character for "Death."

Before he could finish his dramatic final words, Kenji had already pulled back his heavily pixelated fist. The Chitauri general's headless corpse hit the deck with a heavy thud.

The SR dog-food cards and gacha rolls ticked up once more, bringing a satisfied smirk to Kenji's face. The forcefield gauntlet around his hand vibrated at high speed, violently shaking off the fresh blood and grime, instantly looking brand new.

"Tch. It's not like I can't find Thanos without you."

Kenji had met Thanos once before on the Garden planet. He had an incredibly deep impression of the warlord's unique cosmic aura. Even though this Thanos was from a past parallel universe, his aura hadn't changed in the slightest.

Once F-Boy finished converting the general's soul particles into a card, Kenji teleported off the bizarrely shaped mothership. He gathered the devastating power of a Super Saiyan in his hands.

Just then, Kenji spotted a familiar gold-and-red figure pushing a human-sized nuclear missile through the portal.

"Huh. The nuke still launched?"

Kenji casually tossed his energy blast at the Chitauri mothership. Then, he flashed forward, catching up to the 2012 Iron Man—whose faceplate had just gone black—and effortlessly swatted the about-to-detonate nuke aside.

The Mark 7 armor Tony wore in 2012 wasn't specifically designed for the vacuum of space. Coupled with the fact that he was nearly out of power before intercepting the missile, the suit's life support systems were severely compromised once he crossed the portal.

Right now, the 2012 Tony was practically frozen solid by the extreme cold of space and dangerously close to suffocating. Even so, in his final moments of consciousness, he struggled to look at the Chitauri mothership ahead.

It wasn't until he saw an unnaturally bright flash of fire erupt on the massive vessel, triggering a chain reaction of catastrophic explosions, that he finally passed out in relief.

Before he desperately rerouted the unexpected nuke, Tony hadn't actually expected it to do much. But seeing it completely obliterate an alien mothership in his fading consciousness, he couldn't help but smirk. He mumbled his final thought before blacking out: "What a weak, pathetic civilization."

Kenji read the billionaire's thoughts through his telepathic network. His mouth twitched.

'I'm the one who blew up the ship! How did you take the credit?'

Holding the freezing Mark 7 armor, Kenji shook his head and laughed. "Figures. No matter what timeline he's from, Tony Stark always keeps you on your toes."

With that, he carried the 2012 Tony toward the rapidly shrinking portal below.

"Achoo!"

Meanwhile, the main timeline's Tony, disguised as a SHIELD agent and carrying the briefcase containing his Mark 85, sneezed violently as he sneaked into Stark Tower.

A Hydra agent standing next to him looked at the newcomer with concern. "Hey, you alright, buddy?"

"I'm fine. Just choked on something." Tony rubbed his nose, offering his best rich-guy smile. "Thanks, man. Just swallowed some dust."

His tactical goggles covered most of his face. The Hydra agent found the bearded newcomer rather attractive. He shrugged, leaning in close to whisper, "Yeah, the air quality here is terrible. We're going to have to take two showers when we get back... Wanna go together?"

'???' Tony stared.

"... we'll talk about this later!"

Earth.

The Avengers watched the ship explode through the portal in the sky, but there was no joy in their hearts. The person they were waiting for hadn't returned.

"He did it," Cap sighed, speaking into his earpiece. His face was covered in soot and minor cuts. "Close it."

Natasha, following her orders, plunged the scepter into the energy shield of the portal generator. The next second, the energy radiating from the Tesseract rapidly weakened, and the portal began to shrink.

"NO!"

A desperate roar echoed from the top of the skyscraper. It was Loki. He had just regained consciousness and dragged himself out of the crater.

You had to admit, the Frost Giant royal bloodline was incredibly resilient.

"You cannot close this machine! This is the first step to my rule over the Nine Realms! Why do you ignorant mortals constantly defy your god—"

"Huh?"

Loki's roar was abruptly cut short as a massive shadow fell over him. The sound of heavy, ragged breathing filled his ears.

Gulp.

Loki involuntarily swallowed hard. He looked up and saw a towering, heavily muscled green giant glaring down at him with furious, murderous intent.

"Hey—"

'?'

'DANGER!!!'

A divine sixth sense inherited from the underworld screamed at him that this beast was not to be trifled with. Loki's heart skipped a beat. Just as he prepared to cast an illusion and escape, the Hulk—moving far faster than anticipated—snatched him by the ankle.

'No way. Not again!'

That was the last coherent thought Loki had before—

The signature move—

The Hulk Smash!

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Wielding the God of Mischief like a ragdoll, the Hulk felt incredibly refreshed.

"Puny god."

Wheeze...

After taking two consecutive beatings, Loki looked entirely broken. He lay in a significantly larger crater, his eyes rolled back in his head, his expression strangely peaceful.

Following this unexpected interlude, the sharp-eyed Cap on the ground suddenly spotted a gold-and-red figure plummeting from the sky at terrifying speed. Seeing Tony, whom he thought had sacrificed himself, reappear, Cap couldn't help but cheer. "You crazy son of a bitch, you actually did it..."

Thor, standing nearby, also spotted the falling figure. But he noticed Tony seemed to be flailing his arms and screaming something. "What is he yelling?"

"Uh..."

Cap finally realized something was wrong. He strained his superhuman hearing, catching a few words scattered by the rushing wind. "He sounds like he's saying... Help? Save me!"

"Crap! His suit is out of power! Someone catch him!"

This time, after Kenji tossed the 2012 Tony through the portal, he casually hit him with a quick super-heal. Knowing someone down below would catch him, Kenji didn't bother doing anything else.

The portal snapped shut before his eyes, leaving him entirely alone in the void.

After the surrounding Shadow Clones finished their work and dispersed, Kenji raised two fingers to his forehead.

"Found him."

The surrounding cosmos blurred. When Kenji reappeared, he was floating in a shattered starfield. Massive, stationary chunks of meteorites littered the area. The dim, lightless expanse of space felt entirely dead, radiating cold and isolation.

Strangely enough, despite being in the vacuum of space, a unique medium permeated the area, allowing sound to travel freely.

"My Lord, the Earthlings are not as weak as we anticipated. My vanguard has failed..." The Other, the leader of the Chitauri, knelt before a floating throne, bowing in repentance to the shadowy figure seated upon it. "They are unexpectedly powerful and resilient. My army was throwing their lives away."

The figure on the throne turned slightly, revealing a mysterious, spine-chilling smile. Mostly because the Yeezy-sole chin made the smile look absolutely horrifying.

"No, you did well. This is merely part of the plan... Hmm?"

Before Thanos could finish his sentence, he frowned and swiveled his throne. The next second, an indestructible gold-and-red beam pierced straight through the Other's head, blowing the bewildered Chitauri leader to pieces.

Thanos didn't even bat an eye at his subordinate's death. After all, he could summon a legion of flunkies just like the Other with a single wave of his hand.

Instead, his full attention was on Kenji, whose eyes were slowly dimming back to their normal color.

The powerful young man vaguely reminded Thanos of the Eternals who had lived on Titan during his childhood. They too had been tall and impossibly strong—creations of the gods, born perfect.

That long-lost sense of familiarity softened Thanos's gaze slightly. He rested his chin on his hand, looking genuinely intrigued. "Young Eternal, what is it you seek from me? Tell me, what do you want?"

"Seek from you?"

Kenji scoffed, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. He casually collected the SSR-grade dog-food card, 'The Other, Leader of the Chitauri,' and tossed it to F-Boy to add to the deck.

He looked at Thanos with a sneer. "Should I seek out the dutiful son who personally murdered his own mother? Or perhaps the madman who single-handedly slaughtered his entire home world?"