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Jiro stepped out of the portal, his black boots hitting the cracked asphalt.
An arrow whistled toward his throat the second he arrived.
He didn't even look up. His eyes flashed red—and the arrow disintegrated in midair.
Next, a blast of heat vision shot out, cutting the zombie Hawkeye hiding behind a wrecked car clean in half.
"Clint," Jiro muttered as he watched the once-legendary archer's body twitch on the ground. His rotten face still twisted in a hungry snarl.
But there was no time for sentiment.
As the portal closed behind him, the whole street went silent.
Then—dozens of blood-red eyes turned toward him at once.
Zombie heroes.
Captain America, his tattered uniform barely hanging on his rotting frame, bones peeking out. His shield was streaked with dried blood.
Wolverine's adamantium claws dripped with bits of flesh, and he growled like a feral beast.
The Thing—Ben Grimm—was covered in grayish corpse blotches, his rocky footsteps leaving cracks with each step.
"ROAAAARRR!!!"
With a roar from zombie Cap, the heroes charged all at once!
Cap flung his shield. Jiro caught it with one hand, then backhanded him across the neck.
Crack! Cap's head twisted at a grotesque angle, but his body kept moving forward—until Jiro blasted it with heat vision, vaporizing his skull.
Next came Wolverine.
"Logan… rest in peace," Jiro said, his eyes blazing.
A searing heat ray sliced Wolverine clean in half.
But he still wasn't dead. His charred lower body started regenerating, and his upper half clawed at the ground, dragging himself forward.
"Annoying."
Jiro frowned and threw up a telekinetic field, suspending the writhing mess in midair.
Burned guts and twitching muscles flailed inside the forcefield—but couldn't escape.
The third attacker was The Thing.
A punch weighing hundreds of tons came crashing toward Jiro's face—but stopped cold just three inches from his nose, blocked by his bio-field.
"You're too slow."
Jiro spun and delivered a whip-like kick, a sonic boom exploding off his ankle.
The Thing was blasted back, smashing through three buildings before finally stopping.
Zombie Human Torch dove from the sky, blue flames engulfing his whole body.
"Burn to ashes!" he sneered.
Jiro didn't even blink—his heat vision pierced the Torch's forehead.
The blue fire died instantly. His charred corpse hit the ground with a thud.
Jiro was just about to deal with the rest of the horde when an earth-shaking roar erupted overhead.
"HULK! SMASH!!!"
A massive green blur crashed down like a meteor.
Jiro stayed right where he was—he knew it was Hulk.
He wanted to test a theory.
He crossed his arms to block.
The moment their blows collided, the ground for a hundred meters around them shattered like a spiderweb.
Jiro's bio-field locked the shockwave inside the impact zone—otherwise, all of Manhattan would've sunk into the ocean.
"Interesting… looks like comic book logic really applies here."
He stared at the decaying yet still terrifying Hulk, a spark of excitement playing at his lips.
Red light flickered in the Hulk's hollow eye sockets. Acidic saliva dripped from his mouth, burning holes into the pavement.
This was a real fight.
Hulk swung again. Jiro didn't dodge—he swung right back.
BOOOOM!
The impact sent all nearby zombie heroes flying.
Jiro floated up just in time. The bio-field absorbed most of the blast, and he barely moved.
Hulk crashed into a building—but immediately came roaring back out.
"Mirror Dimension."
Jiro quickly formed a hand seal. Golden sparks traced intricate patterns in the air.
Reality shattered like glass, and all the zombies—including Hulk—were sucked into a strange, shifting realm.
Distorted buildings floated around them. The laws of physics no longer applied.
"Now I can really cut loose." Jiro cracked his neck.
The Hulk didn't give him even a second to breathe. That rotting, massive fist was already flying at his face!
Jiro didn't flinch—he threw a punch right back. In the Mirror Dimension, the two turned into black and green blurs, clashing over and over. Each impact sent violent tremors through the very fabric of the space around them.
Hulk's decaying fist carried insane force, but Jiro slipped to the side. The mirror-structure behind him shattered to dust from the aftershock alone.
"ROAR!"Hulk opened his giant mouth, spraying green drool everywhere.
Jiro's eyes flared gold. Twin beams of heat vision shot straight into Hulk's throat—burning a bloody hole that started healing almost instantly.
His cell regeneration is way faster than expected...
Jiro smirked. "Now we're talking."
He dropped the biological energy limiter, and his right fist lit up with full Kryptonian power, glowing bright gold from the sunlight charging his cells.
"BOOM!"
The shockwave from their next punch spread out like a bomb. The mirror version of New York collapsed like a stack of toy blocks.
Hulk got launched kilometers away, smashing through more than a dozen mirror-buildings in a row.
Jiro shook the numbness out of his arm and muttered to himself, Damn, comic-book Hulk really is something else.
I'm almost maxed out here… I'll need some serious sunbathing after this.
Hulk came charging back.
"BAM!"
Jiro uppercut him into the sky—but Hulk grabbed a floating chunk of building midair and used it to launch a counterattack.
Just then, Zombie Spider-Man tried a sneak attack from the side, webbing Jiro's right leg.
Without turning, Jiro blasted his head off with heat vision. At the same time, he brought his left leg down like a battle axe, cleaving another zombie hero in half.
Hulk saw his chance and slammed a heavy punch at Jiro's exposed back.
Too slow.
To Jiro, Hulk's punch moved like a snail. He twisted midair and whipped a brutal roundhouse kick right onto Hulk's skull.
"ROOAARR!!"
Black blood sprayed from all of Hulk's facial openings, but the monster only got more enraged.
He tried to grab Jiro by the waist—but Jiro snatched his throat and started ramming him through a row of mirror-buildings like a battering ram.
Wherever they went, the space twisted and tore apart like ripped canvas.
Then Jiro's eyes lit up—brighter than ever.
"That's enough."
Solar Flare.
White-hot light exploded from every pore on Jiro's body. Hulk took the full blast up close—his rotting skin immediately turning to charcoal.
But somehow, he still didn't let go. In fact, he opened his massive jaws and lunged for Jiro's throat!
"Stubborn."
Jiro grabbed Hulk's neck with one hand. The other hand turned blade-sharp, stabbing right into Hulk's chest with a sickening shlkk!
When he pulled back, he was holding a still-beating green heart, black veins pulsing across it.
Hulk froze.
His blood-red eyes slowly dulled… and right at the end, a flicker of peace—like relief—crossed his face.
"Dr. Banner?" Jiro narrowed his eyes.
Hulk's lips moved, barely whispering: "Destroy… Reed's… lab…"
The green giant collapsed with a thunderous crash.
The Mirror Dimension began to collapse. The remaining zombie heroes dissolved into black smoke one by one.
Jiro floated in the void, staring at the dying heart in his palm.
"Time to check out the Baxter Building's underground lab."
[Sir, coordinates locked. But I'm detecting unusual energy readings,] JARVIS's voice came through Jiro's multifunctional watch, sounding unusually tense.
[Recommendation—]
"Not interested."Jiro crushed the heart in his hand. A new portal opened in front of him.
"Let's see what kind of mess Mr. Magic is cooking up now."
"....."