Saitama stepped forward, curious, wanting to take a closer look. But the moment he got near it, the black crystal suddenly generated an invisible energy fluctuation on its own, rapidly spreading outward.
"Bzzzt..."
In an instant, every communications device inside everyone's bodies—including the internal comms system inside Iron Man's armor—turned into a wash of static. After a burst of noise, they completely died.
"Communications are down!" Captain America immediately raised his shield in alert—"057."
Doctor Strange strode forward quickly, gathering magical energy in both hands as he cautiously sensed the black crystal. His expression grew heavier and heavier. "This crystal... contains an extremely powerful and completely unknown dark force. Its energy signature... seems to have a deep connection to the dark creatures we encountered before, and even to the aura we sensed from Nazalor earlier."
Given how dangerous this suddenly appearing black crystal was—and how significant it might be—everyone decided to bring it back to the Avengers base in New York for tight containment and research.
Inside the highest-security isolation laboratory, Dr. Banner, Tony Stark, and top scientists assigned by S.H.I.E.L.D. used all kinds of cutting-edge instruments to perform a preliminary analysis. Yet the results were baffling: the crystal's material structure couldn't be parsed, and its energy radiation pattern differed from any known type of energy.
Even more astonishingly, under a high-precision microscope, the scientists discovered that the crystal's surface was naturally etched with extremely complex and delicate ancient runes. Their style and structure didn't match any known scripts on Earth—records from Asgard, the Frost Giants, or even other dimensional civilizations couldn't find a match.
Saitama didn't understand any of the scientific analysis, but he stayed outside the lab's isolation window the whole time, frowning as he stared at the crystal. His instincts told him this wasn't merely leftover energy. There had to be a bigger plot behind it—like a deliberately planted "coordinate" or "beacon."
At the same time, strange, inexplicable phenomena began appearing in remote corners of New York outside the Avengers base. First came faint interference with local radio signals. Then sensitive energy detectors captured brief, small-scale dark energy fluctuations. These fluctuations were extremely weak and vanished in an instant—like they were probing, or like they were continuously sending a silent call or signal toward the inside of the base, toward that black crystal...
The situation quickly escalated. As time passed, those faint dark energy fluctuations became more frequent and stronger. Finally, in the wilderness and abandoned industrial zones around the base, the energy began to take physical form—
Sticky, tar-like clumps of dark matter seeped out of the void, writhing and condensing into all kinds of grotesque, small dark creatures driven only by hunting instincts.
Individually, these monsters weren't that strong—only slightly tougher than well-trained soldiers. But there were countless of them, and they seemed endless, surging in from multiple directions toward the base. Their goal was clear: break through the defenses.
Alarms blared throughout the base. "Prepare to engage!" Captain America issued the order immediately.
All members capable of fighting deployed at once, launching a defensive battle along the base perimeter. Spider-Man used his unrivaled agility to dart between towering walls and watchtowers at high speed, firing webs with precision to stick and fling away the monsters trying to climb or leap, carving out one safe passage after another.
(End of Chapter)
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