"Stay sharp—clean them up!" Captain America's voice was steady and forceful. His vibranium shield traced a clean arc, smashing a humanoid monster that tried to pounce on the evacuation route and sending it flying.
"Copy that, Cap!" Spider-Man swung between the towering load-bearing pillars, his web-shooters flashing again and again as he pinned several panicked stragglers to the ground so they couldn't move. "Hey, big guy—over here!" He even had time to pull a face at an especially large monster, successfully drawing its attention and creating an opening for Hawkeye.
Hawkeye watched with a hawk's sharp gaze. The bowstring twanged, and a specialized explosive arrow was already in flight, striking the large monster's eye—its weak point—dead on.
Boom!
"Focus, kid," he said flatly, though his hands never slowed. Three more arrows followed in quick succession, snuffing out three threats from three different directions before they could fully form.
Doctor Strange hovered half a foot off the ground. The Eye Of Agamotto on his chest gave off a soft golden glow as his hands formed seals. Complex magic arrays built themselves in front of him and vanished in an instant, silently erasing several streams of dark energy that tried to slip around the front line and hit the rear.
"The spatial structure down here is being corroded by dark energy. It's very unstable—watch yourselves."
Saitama simply stood there in silence. Whenever a stray slipped through and charged him, it was one punch. No flashy technique. No massive energy flare. Just the simplest, most direct physical strike—and every single punch guaranteed the total annihilation of one, sometimes several monsters. The efficiency was ridiculous.
The threats in the concourse were cleared out quickly. Nobody dared waste time. They immediately pushed toward the deeper entrance where the Dark Lord had first emerged—a downward-slanted passage that looked like an abandoned subway maintenance tunnel… or the hidden access to some unknown underground facility.
The deeper they went, the narrower and more jagged the tunnel became. The cold concrete walls were gradually swallowed by a writhing black substance that looked almost alive. The concentration of dark energy in the air rose exponentially, nearly solidifying—pressing down so hard it became difficult to breathe.
A freezing, evil presence seeped into everything, trying to erode their will. Except for Saitama, whose expression stayed flat, everyone else had to tighten their focus or gather energy just to resist the mental pressure.
"Watch the ceiling!" Spider-Man's spider-sense screamed the warning first.
Almost the moment he spoke, a dense, teeth-grinding shriek poured down from above.
A black swarm—bat-like creatures with sharp bone spines and crimson eyes—dove out of the shadows in the ceiling like ghosts. They were insanely fast, whipping up foul wind as they plunged. Worse, the moment they opened their mouths, they spat thick streams of stinking, corrosive black fluid.
Wherever the liquid splashed—floor or wall—it immediately hissed, smoking and carving deep pits.
"Defensive line!" Captain America roared, raising his shield high and stepping in front of Doctor Strange and Hawkeye. Several globs of toxic fluid splattered against vibranium and ricocheted away.
Hawkeye ducked behind cover and fired in rapid succession. Every arrow pierced a bat-creature through the head or the heart area with frightening precision.
But there were too many of them—and they were too fast.
Even his arrows couldn't catch every single one.
(End of Chapter)
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