Chapter 56: The Chitauri Army Presses the Border, the Battle of New York Erupts Early
Above Manhattan, that deep blue pillar of light, like a red-hot branding iron, forcefully scorched through the atmosphere.
The sky was wailing.
The originally grey-blue clouds were twisted into a huge, pitch-black funnel, with blue thunder fire churning at the edges.
Deep within that pitch-black hole exuded a dead and cold heavy metal aura, as if connecting to the deepest graveyard of the Universe.
The air was ionized into a pungent smell of ozone, rushing straight into the nasal cavity.
Aaron stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.
The wind poured in from the gap just shattered by Iron Man, blowing up his bangs.
On the anti-corrosive wooden floor beneath his feet fell a layer of fine grey dust, which was the floating ash drifted out after the city buildings were shattered by high-energy particles.
"It has arrived." Aaron said softly.
These two words had just fallen.
A deep, hoarse, long cry with the texture of metal friction came out from the gap in the clouds.
That sound did not sound like the roar of any creature, but rather like tens of thousands of rusted hydraulic presses starting up at the same time.
Immediately following.
A huge dark shadow tore open the black vortex and poked out its head.
That was a semi-mechanical behemoth with a body length exceeding two hundred meters.
The Leviathan.
Its spine was covered with dark gold armor plates, and its belly extended with countless energy exhaust ports flashing blue light.
It was like a whale wandering in the deep sea, yet swimming gracefully above the steel jungle.
Every inch it moved, the huge shadow blocked the sunlight of the entire block.
Behind the Leviathan.
Dense small black dots, like yellowjackets whose nest had been poked, gushed out from the wormhole.
Chitauri flyer.
These individual combat flyers brought up sharp whistles, shuttling wildly among the glass curtain walls of skyscrapers.
Beam after beam of azure energy beams shot from the front of the flyers, hitting the yellow taxi below.
Boom!
The oil tank exploded, fireballs soared into the sky, and the rolling black smoke instantly swallowed the sidewalk.
"Good lord... What are those things?"
Mary Jane shrank behind the sofa armrest.
She was still clutching that deflated cola can in her hand, her knuckles turning white from excessive force.
Her nails sank deeply into the aluminum skin.
Gwen stood behind Aaron, her palms full of cold sweat.
She glanced at the spider silk gland on the inside of her wrist.
The Ghost suit was slightly warm.
Facing this level of war, she felt that the few jewelry store robbers she had just captured were simply like kindergarten brawls.
Thor stared fixedly out the window.
In his azure-blue eyes, the originally extinguished fighting spirit was like cold water dropped into a pan of oil, exploding with a roar.
He threw away the remaining half piece of pizza in his hand.
The pizza fell on the Persian rug, the cheese leaving an oil stain next to that charred black hole.
"Loki!" Thor let out a roar.
The sound echoed in the spacious living room, shaking the ornaments on the bookshelf.
He turned his head abruptly.
His gaze swept towards the kitchen.
Loki was holding an empty black tea pot, leaning against the counter edge.
On his pale face hung a trace of an extremely faint, mocking arc.
"It seems that my friends are very punctual." Loki's fingers tapped gently on the edge of the porcelain pot, making a crisp sound.
Thor crossed over in two or three steps, grabbing hold of Loki's apron embroidered with "Top Butler".
The fabric made a wailing sound of tearing.
"Turn it off! You know that will destroy this Planet!" Thor's fists clenched tightly.
Aaron turned around.
He did not care about the entanglement of the two brothers.
His mind sank into the system space.
Lying there were a few top-grade mystery boxes obtained after solving Mysterio's scam just now.
"Open."
[Reward obtained: Vibranium Full-Body Armor (OdinDivine Power Enhanced Version).]
[Item description: Crafted from Wakanda's top-tier raw ore, and attached with Asgard's Rune defense runes.]
A pitch-black metal suitcase appeared out of thin air at Aaron's feet.
The surface of the suitcase had no gaps at all, exuding a steady matte luster.
Aaron bent his index finger and flicked it on the case.
"Thor, stop talking nonsense there."
Thor let go of Loki and strode over.
He looked at the suitcase, somewhat puzzled: "What is this? Earth's iron shell?"
Aaron did not explain.
With one kick, he kicked the suitcase towards Thor.
The suitcase slid across the carpet, hit Thor's heavy leather boots, and with a click, the latch popped open automatically.
Countless fine black nano-metal armor plates, like living ant colonies, crawled wildly upward along Thor's legs.
Three seconds.
The metal armor plates covered every inch of Thor's skin.
The originally ragged plaid shirt and jeans disappeared.
Replaced by it was a set of aggressive dark purple heavy armor.
Three silver discs on the chest flashed with faint divine power light.
Thor swung his right arm.
Faint thunder sounds actually came from the air.
He clenched his fists, feeling the potential vitality stimulated by the armor plates inside his body.
"This power... incredible." Thor looked at Aaron.
Aaron put his hands into his pockets and walked to the shattered edge of the floor-to-ceiling window.
He looked at the block below.
Several Chitauri flyers had already noticed this independent towering mansion.
They were turning their nose cones, and the laser crosshairs swept randomly across the glass debris.
"Go down, work."
Aaron's tone was flat.
He raised his right foot and kicked directly onto Thor's thick butt armor plate.
Thor was completely unprepared.
The whole person, like a dark purple meteor, flew directly out of the eighty-story high altitude.
"Ah——Aaron you bastard!"
Thor's roar fell down from outside the window.
Immediately following, a huge ball of electric sparks burst out on the ground one kilometer below.
Two unlucky flyers were directly smashed by Thor's flesh, turning into a sky full of fire rain.
The living room became a bit quieter again.
Maria Hill and Natasha both ran to the window, watching the battlefield below.
"Mr. Parker, are you not going down?" Hill's hand pressed against the tactical gloves on her waist.
"Captain America and Stark are already surrounded."
Aaron lowered his head and looked at his clean white short-sleeve shirt.
Then he looked at the behemoths outside the window that were rampaging on the streets, kicking up a sky full of lime and exhaust.
He reached out and touched the floor-to-ceiling window frame.
His fingertips were stained with a trace of black, fishy-smelling ash.
"It's too dusty outside."
Aaron flicked away the dirt on his fingertips.
"Going down in this environment, this shirt will be ruined."
He turned around, not looking at the tragic war outside the window, but instead walking toward the sofa.
At this moment.
Three blocks below.
Steve Rogers was kneeling on one knee behind a side-turned Humvee.
He tightly grasped that circular Stars and Stripes shield in his hand.
The surface of the shield was covered with dense dents, and the edges were still steaming with scorching heat.
In front of him.
Dozens of Chitauri soldiers were jumping down from the tilted outer wall of the office building.
The blue beams of the laser rifles battered the concrete bunker, sending stone chips flying wildly.
"Stark! Fire support! I am pinned down on 12th Avenue!"
Steve roared into the headset.
His chest heaved violently, and his uniform was covered in black bloodstains.
In midair.
Tony Stark, controlling his tattered armor, was desperately pulling up his altitude.
Behind him followed four haunting flyers.
"I have no time! Steve! This guy wants to cut Manhattan in half!"
Tony narrowly dodged a laser beam.
The right shoulder of his Mark VII armor still retained the huge scar torn out by Aaron's bare hands that day.
The thrusters made a piercing screeching sound.
Tony swept across the sky above the Upper East Side.
He turned his head abruptly, looking at that familiar top-tier duplex mansion.
Across the cracked panoramic floor-to-ceiling window.
He saw Aaron.
That white-clothed youth was walking out of the kitchen leisurely.
His movements were brisk, as if the war outside was just a holographic projection background board.
Tony was so angry that he almost grinded his teeth to pieces inside his mask.
"That boy in white clothes!"
Tony pressed the loudspeaker of the public channel, his voice reverberating in the sky.
Carrying hysterical anger.
"New York is about to be torn down! Do you plan to just watch the show up there all the time?!"
Aaron certainly heard it.
He even heard the sound of Tony's teeth chattering.
But he ignored it.
He walked to a clean area at the edge of the terrace.
His right hand waved idly in the air.
A rectangular device of solid silver, flashing with a cold metal luster, appeared out of thin air in front of him.
Four stable brackets extended from the bottom of the device, firmly locking onto the anti-corrosive wooden floor.
That was a top-tier smokeless smart barbecue grill.
Aaron took out another bag of packaged fruit charcoal from the system space.
He untied the nylon rope.
Leisurely stacking the charcoal into the center of the barbecue grill.
Chapter 57: The Avengers Struggle Bitterly, Aaron Sets Up a BBQ Grill on the Rooftop
Tony Stark's roar echoed in the high altitude of Manhattan, accompanied by the piercing scream of armor thrusters cutting through the wind.
Because of extreme anger and anxiety, that voice changed pitch in the loudspeaker, stinging people's eardrums painfully.
The red and gold figure, like a shooting star, dragged black smoke across the outside of the eighty-story glass windows.
Aaron heard it, and could even see the wide-open eyes inside Tony's mask through the one-way explosion-proof glass.
But he didn't look back.
Aaron's fingers gently fiddled with the electronic knob on the side of the BBQ grill.
"Click."
A cluster of tiny electric sparks jumped at the bottom of the fruitwood charcoal.
The pale blue flame, like a greedy snake, quickly burrowed into the gaps of the charcoal pieces.
The red light spread inch by inch across the grayish-black charcoal surface, bringing a faint crackling sound.
The wind was strong.
At the height of eighty stories, the airflow was like invisible sharp blades, frantically cutting the edges and corners of the building.
The decorative green plants on the edge of the terrace were blown all over the place, and their leaves frictioned violently in the wind, making a rustling sound.
But around this silver smokeless BBQ grill, the air was eerily quiet.
Aaron opened a weak biological force field.
When the wind arrived here, it was like hitting a soft wall, turning into a gentle breeze that caressed the fiery red charcoal.
The street below had completely turned into a meat grinder.
"Bang!"
A muffled impact came from hundreds of meters below, and even at the height of eighty stories, it could be heard clearly.
That was Hulk jumping from one building to another.
The glass curtain walls shattered in patches, and the crystal-clear debris refracted dazzling white light under the sunlight, like a rainfall of death.
"Stark! I'm out of arrows!"
In the communication channel, Clint Barton squatted on the edge of the office building's rooftop, his right index and middle fingers trembling slightly.
His quiver was already empty.
Below, swarms of Chitauri soldiers were climbing up along the exterior wall, those ugly metal masks gleaming with a cold light in the sunlight.
"Then use your close combat!" Tony made a sudden stop in mid-air.
Two micro-tracking missiles shot out from his shoulder ammunition bay, pulling two trails of white smoke in the air, blowing a Chitauri flyer into a sky full of fireballs.
"I can't hold on much longer over here either! Energy is down to thirty percent!"
Tony wiped his face, and the sweat inside the mask blurred his vision.
He swept his gaze across that overly quiet penthouse apartment once again.
Through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows, he saw the firelight.
It wasn't the firelight of an explosion.
It was charcoal fire.
Aaron was holding a long-handled stainless steel tong, evenly spreading out pieces of silver charcoal.
"The heat isn't ready yet," he muttered.
Felicia walked over in black tactical leather boots.
She had taken off that British maid outfit and changed into a tight black vest, outlining a wildly untamed curve.
She was holding a heavy wooden cutting board in her hand.
On the cutting board lay a whole piece of top-grade Kobe Wagyu beef.
Densely distributed within the red lean meat was snowflake-like fine white fat, as if someone had drawn a delicate map on a ruby.
"Master, 1.2 centimeters."
Felicia spoke.
Flipping her right hand, a ceramic chef's knife as thin as a cicada's wing spun around her fingertips.
"Snap."
The blade sliced through the beef.
Without any laborious pulling, the blade slid down along the grain of the meat, like cutting through a lump of warm, smooth butter.
The thickness of each slice of meat was completely accurate, neatly piled on one side of the cutting board.
There was a faint scent of grease and raw meat in the air.
Loki stood at the windward side.
His dark green leather armor was already tattered, and the gold trim had cracked in several places during the fierce slamming just now.
The dark red collar on his neck flickered with a faint light.
Now, this God of Mischief was holding a large folding paper fan in his hand.
He was expressionlessly fanning the wind, with a frequency as constant as a broken pendulum.
"If you plan to smoke those aliens to death with charcoal ash, I suggest you be a bit faster."
Loki's voice was cold and grim.
Every time he waved the fan, the corners of his eyes twitched violently.
He was a god.
Now he was acting as a human blower for an Earthling's lunch.
"Shut up, fan your wind."
Aaron didn't even raise his head.
He pinched a pinch of pink sea salt from the seasoning box.
His fingers rubbed gently in mid-air.
The crystal-clear salt grains fell evenly on the glowing red charcoal, making a slight popping sound.
Mary Jane and Gwen were sitting on the velvet swivel chairs next to the BBQ grill.
Both girls held a bone China plate printed with small floral patterns in their hands.
MJ flicked the pull tab of the cola can with her finger.
With a "sizzle" sound, the sound of bubbling rolled across the terrace and vanished.
"That big fish outside looks really disgusting," she pointed at the Leviathan sliding across the distant sky.
The scales on the monster's back gleamed with a heavy heavy-metal luster under the sunlight.
"That's not a fish, that's a semi-biological, semi-mechanical combat platform."
Gwen corrected.
She was still tightly clutching that white ghost mask in her arms, her knuckles turning white from the force.
"Their bite force is preliminarily estimated to be three hundred tons, and under every piece of armor is an anti-gravity engine."
She watched a skyscraper in the distance have a corner smashed and collapsed by the Leviathan.
Huge blocks of concrete fell, smashing onto the tank below, instantly crushing it into an iron pancake.
Gwen's throat moved.
She instinctively leaned closer to Aaron.
Only in this man's shadow could she feel a sense of security that would not be damaged even if the heavens fell and the earth cracked.
Natasha walked over.
In her hand, she was holding a Thuringian-style sausage sizzling with oil from being grilled.
That was what Aaron had casually thrown on the fire just now.
She parted her red lips and took a gentle bite.
The meat juices burst open in her mouth, carrying the rich aroma of black pepper and nutmeg.
"The heat is just right."
Natasha commented vaguely.
She leaned against the railing of the terrace, her tight black combat suit stained with a little strawberry jam.
She swept her peripheral vision over the tragic state of Manhattan below.
Everywhere was firelight, everywhere was screaming.
Captain America Steve was being besieged by five Chitaurisoldiers, and the muffled sound of his shield hammering against their helmets was endless.
And she was standing right here eating grilled sausage.
Natasha felt that all the sense of absurdity in her life had been used up today.
"Parker, are you sure you're not going down?"
Natasha wiped a little oil stain from the corner of her mouth with her fingertips.
"When Stark flew past just now, his heart rate had already reached one hundred and sixty. He's going crazy with anger."
Aaron picked up the tongs, picked up a slice of Wagyu beef, and placed it steadily on the BBQ grill net.
"Sizzle——!"
The moment the grease touched the scorching hot metal, it burst into an enticing sound.
An extremely rich meaty aroma, mixed with the unique charred fragrance of fruitwood charcoal, instantly burst open.
This smell was too domineering.
It ignored the smell of gunpowder smoke in the air, and ignored the smell of blood in the distant ruins.
Following the turbulence of high altitude, it frantically spread around.
Aaron turned his head sideways, avoiding a wisp of rising blue smoke.
"I said, the dust is too big. Getting clothes dirty is very troublesome."
He stared intently at the degree of discoloration on the surface of the beef.
When the edges of the meat slice began to curl slightly, oozing transparent grease.
With a flip of his wrist, he neatly turned the beef over.
The bottom had been grilled with a yellowish grid pattern, and the aroma became even richer.
Right at this moment.
The sound of the wind at high altitude suddenly changed.
The originally violent turbulence seemed to be forcibly knocked open by some behemoth, emitting a muffled low roar.
An extremely cold, putrid smell, mixed with metallic engine oil, drifted over with the wind.
In the sky behind Aaron, the sunlight was blocked.
A huge, mountain-like shadow slowly covered the entire eighty-story terrace.
The originally bright tile floor instantly plunged into dimness.
That Leviathan, over two hundred meters in length, stopped its ravaging of the financial district.
Its ugly, huge head weirdly twisted 180 degrees in the air.
In those eyeballs wrapped in dark gold armor scales, greedy and cruel red light flashed.
It smelled it.
In this city full of death and ruins, there was actually an enticing aroma belonging to high-energy protein.
That was the purest temptation to biological instinct.
"Roar——!!!"
The Leviathan let out a deafening roar.
The sound wave crashed against the exterior wall of the apartment, shaking the wine glasses in the wine cabinet to sway frantically, making clattering impact sounds.
It opened that mouth like an abyss.
Between the interlaced lava fangs, half a chewed-up helicopter propeller still hung.
Black engine oil dripped down the corner of its mouth.
The anti-gravity engine at the behemoth's tail suddenly erupted.
A circle of blue energy rings rippled in the air.
It swung its huge body, like a giant falcon diving at its prey, crashing straight toward the terrace where Aaron was!
A violent wind rose from the flat ground.
The huge wind pressure blew the napkins on the table fluttering all over the sky.
Gwen gasped.
The bone China plate in her hand dropped to the ground.
"Clatter!"
White porcelain shards shattered all over the floor, and that shiny little fork jumped to Aaron's feet.
Aaron frowned slightly.
He looked down at the stained carpet.
Then he looked at the beef he had just flipped.
Under the high-frequency vibration brought by the behemoth's dive, a drop of dark red BBQ sauce splashed out.
It landed precisely on the hem of Aaron's clean-as-new white short-sleeved shirt.
Smudging a dazzling red mark.
Aaron sighed.
He put down the stainless steel tongs in his hand, casually grabbed a tissue, and wiped it on his clothes.
It didn't wipe off.
Instead, the color seeped into the fibers, becoming even deeper.
He raised his head.
His gaze crossed over that behemoth with a bloody maw wide open, which had already rushed to less than fifty meters in front of him.
Deep within his pupils, that extremely faint blue light instantly turned ice-cold and bone-chilling.
"Interrupting someone's meal is very impolite."
Aaron's voice was very soft.
So soft that it was completely drowned out by the behemoth's roar.
Chapter 58: I can't bear to watch this anymore, let's throw a blind box item to clear the screen.
The Leviathan's mouth, large enough to swallow half the terrace, pressed down.
The air was torn apart by sharp teeth, making a sound like thousands of exhaust fans operating at overload right beside the ear.
The stench was thick to the point of bitterness—the smell of rotting alien stomach fluids mixed with high-viscosity motor oil.
The deep blue glow in the depths of the Leviathan's throat grew brighter and brighter, which was the halo overflowing from the anti-gravity engine in an overclocked state.
A gale swept away a pot of petunias at the edge of the terrace. The plastic flowerpot was churned into pieces mid-air.
Gwen and Mary Jane were hit by the wind pressure so hard that they couldn't open their eyes.
MJ gripped the sofa armrest tightly, her nails leaving a few white marks on the genuine leather.
Gwen instinctively reached out, wanting to pull Aaron's arm.
Aaron was still sitting in that velvet swivel chair.
He didn't move.
Not even the feet stepping on the anti-corrosive wooden floor had moved half an inch.
He was lowering his head, staring intently at the dark brown mark on the hem of his white short-sleeved shirt.
That was splashed on during the tremor earlier; it was originally only the size of a grain of rice, but after he wiped it with a tissue just now, it had now turned into a dark patch the size of a fingernail.
On the flawless fabric, this mark looked abrupt and disgusting.
" Why won't it wipe off? "
Aaron muttered in a low voice.
He threw the crumpled wet tissue into the nearby wastebasket.
The tissue spun in the wind, and before it even hit the ground, it was swept into that big mouth by the airflow sucked in by the Leviathan.
" Aaron! Dodge quickly! "
Natasha shouted from behind.
She had already drawn the stun combat baton from her waist, but facing this two-hundred-meter-long semi-mechanical monster, those two batons looked like two toothpicks used for picking teeth.
The Leviathan's nostrils flared.
It was less than thirty meters away from the terrace.
The tentacles covered in dark gold armor plates had already swept against the terrace railing.
" Creak—— "
The stainless steel railing instantly deformed under heavy pressure, twisting together like a twisted dough twist, with sparks flying everywhere.
Aaron sighed.
This sigh was very light, yet inexplicably clearly distinguishable amidst the deafening roar.
He finally raised his head, his gaze crossing that pile of interlocking lava fangs, looking straight into the darkness deep within the beast's throat.
" I can't even eat a meal in peace. "
Aaron extended his right hand, reaching into the side pocket of his black jacket.
His movements were unhurried, even carrying a bit of a resigned, trivial feeling.
His consciousness sank into the system space.
In that pile of blind box items flashing with various lights, a black icon lit up.
That was top-tier stuff he had accumulated previously when he took down Kingpin and dealt with Mysterio's scam.
He originally planned to keep it to blow up some Planets for fun later, but now, he just wanted to clean up this flying trash in front of him.
His palm grew heavy.
A pitch-black metal sphere with no reflection whatsoever appeared in his palm.
This thing was about the size of a baseball.
There were no seams on the surface, nor were there any pull rings or buttons.
It was like a piece of obsidian dug from the deepest part of the Universe, yet held in the hand it was as heavy as a lead ingot.
[ Area-of-effect Antimatter Screen-clearing Grenade ].
The system's description was very simple: Eradicate all xenogeneic energy signatures and physical entities within the field of view.
Aaron pinched the metal ball.
His fingertips rubbed against the cold surface for a moment.
The Leviathan's bloody maw had already reached above his head.
The stench of metal abrasion had already rushed to Aaron's nose tip.
He could even see a deformed Police car steel plate stuck between the beast's teeth.
" Catch. "
Aaron sat on the swivel chair, his waist exerting a slight force.
There was no exaggerated run-up.
No roar.
He just very casually swung his lower arm.
His wrist flipped.
Like throwing a tennis ball to a dog in a park.
The black metal ball left his hand.
It traced a straight black trajectory in the air.
There was no sound of breaking air.
Because wherever it passed, even the air was pushed aside by that extremely condensed mass.
" Swish. "
A very faint whistle.
The black sphere accurately flew into the Leviathan's abyss-like big mouth.
Following that powerful suction force, the metal ball smashed two blocking fangs and rolled all the way into the depths of the beast's esophagus, which was covered in electronic components.
" Roar... "
The beast emitted a muffled, half-cut sound.
It was as if it was choked by something, its massive body pausing weirdly in mid-air.
In its brutal, red-glowing eyeballs, a trace of human-like confusion flashed.
Afterwards, the beast's big mouth slammed shut.
Producing a heavy metallic collision sound.
Aaron picked up the long-handled stainless steel tongs again.
He flipped the slightly overcooked Wagyu beef on the grill net.
The grease on the meat slice dripped onto the charcoal fire, emitting another faint " sizzle " sound.
" Alright, everyone sit tight. "
Aaron instructed without turning his head.
One second.
The entire sky above Manhattan fell into an absolute, and even somewhat absurd, dead silence.
The wind stopped.
The screeching sound made by the Chitauri gliders weaving between buildings disappeared.
The Police whistles on the street below, the screams of civilians, the roaring sound of distant buildings collapsing.
All sounds seemed to have been pressed with a mute button by the hand of God in this instant.
That dead silence made people's eardrums swell with pressure.
Gwen felt her heart skip a beat.
Inside the body of that Leviathan.
The shell of the black metal sphere disintegrated silently.
The moment the antimatter core inside came into contact with regular matter, no conventional explosion occurred.
There was no flame.
There was no shrapnel.
There was only a process named " annihilation ".
The Leviathan's two-hundred-meter-long body froze rigidly in mid-air.
It was still maintaining its diving posture.
The engine at its tail was still spewing the final cluster of blue fire.
But it didn't move anymore.
As if cast inside a giant piece of transparent amber.
Immediately following.
At the beast's chest position, a trace of light leaked out.
That light was neither red firelight nor blue electric light.
That was a pure, absolute white without a single trace of impurity.
Like stuffing a thousand midday Suns into a matchbox.
" Hiss—— "
The light gushed out along the gaps of the Leviathan's armor.
At first it was one beam.
Then thousands of beams.
The white light pillars pierced through the dark gold armor plates.
Pierced through its heavy flesh.
Pierced through its complex electronic meridians.
The Leviathan looked like a light-leaking lantern that had been poked to pieces.
Less than half a second.
The beast's body could no longer contain that violent energy.
" Hum!!! "
A dazzling, absolute white light.
Silently erupted from its belly with an overwhelming momentum.
There was no fireball.
There was no gunpowder smoke.
Only a vast expanse of white.
This white light was like a giant rag capable of bleaching the entire World.
Centered on the Leviathan, it spread wildly outwards in a ring shape.
The speed of the light surpassed the limit of what the human retina could capture.
It swept across the eighty-story terrace without damaging a single hair, nor shattering a single piece of glass.
It only grazed past Gwen's hair strands, and past Aaron's soiled T-shirt.
Then.
The light surged toward the sky like a tidal wave.
Instantly.
Completely sweeping across the entire sky above Manhattan.
Within a radius of more than ten kilometers, the sky that was originally obscured by black smoke and the alien army.
At this moment.
Turned into a pure, blinding white.
Chapter 59: Alien warships all over the sky instantly vanished into ashes, absolute silence fell across the scene!
That absolute white light swept across Manhattan's night sky.
There was no expected Impact, nor any ear-shattering explosions.
The light was as gentle as the warm sun at noon in winter, and it didn't even singe a single strand of Gwen's golden hair that had been blown messy by the wind.
But to those cold, metallic anomalies, this light was the God of Death's dustcloth.
Wherever the white light passed, the once arrogant and domineering Chitauri flyers were like sugar cubes thrown into strong acid.
Their metallic shells instantly softened and collapsed.
The alien soldiers sitting on the flyers couldn't even let out a single wail before their bodies turned into countless fine grey particles in the white light.
High in the air, dozens of mountain-like Leviathan let out their final half-long howl.
For these semi-biological, semi-mechanical behemoths, even heavy artillery could hardly pierce their dark golden armor plates.
At this moment, their two-hundred-meter-long bodies turned pale from the inside out.
Armor plates peeled off, and muscle fibers disintegrated at the molecular level.
They were no longer invincible War Machines, but rather looked like inferior sculptures piled up from dried river sand, crumbling inch by inch in the wind.
That white light did not stop; it flowed upstream along the dark blue energy beam.
Like a sharp scalpel, it cut into the pitch-black vortex at the top of the sky.
The Chitauri mothership on the other side of the wormhole had just revealed a corner of its huge shadow when it was ignited by this touch of white light.
The blinding annihilation light burst open in deep space, reversely destroying the mothership's core power reactor.
"Hum—"
An extremely low-frequency vibration came from the air.
The space gate, having lost its energy supply, looked like a scroll violently torn apart.
The blue halo rapidly shrank and collapsed toward the center.
Finally, with a "bang", like a soap bubble shattering, it completely closed at the top of the firmament.
The heavy cumulonimbus clouds were leveled by this touch of white light.
New York, which was originally obscured by the flames of war and smoke, unexpectedly revealed a corner of pure blue sky at this moment.
Only countless grey powders, like a bizarre heavy snow, drifted down gracefully from a height of ten thousand meters.
On the street.
Captain America Steve Rogers was holding up his round shield, having already prepared to welcome the last wave of suicidal Impact.
His uniform had three charred holes burned by lasers, the web of his left hand was split open, and blood was dripping down along the edge of the shield.
In his vision, the densely packed Chitauri legion had all turned into dust flying all over the sky.
This dust fell on the tip of his nose, icy cold, without any breath of life.
Steve froze in place, still tightly clutching that slightly warm Vibranium shield in his hand.
He looked dazedly at the empty road.
The sound of energy beam bursts that had been rising and falling one after another just a second ago had disappeared.
Replacing it was a death-like silence.
Not far away, Hulk let out a puzzled low roar.
He had just been preparing to twist the heads of two alien soldiers together, but ended up grabbing only two handfuls of ash in his hands.
Hulk scratched the back of his green head, looking somewhat at a loss at the grey powder swirling in the wind.
"Jarvis... What just happened?"
Tony Stark hovered in mid-air, and the Mark VII thrusters emitted an unstable "buzzing" sound.
The surface of the armor was covered with scratches and dents, and the energy repulsor on his right hand was still smoking.
He had just been ready to carry a nuclear bomb on his back to block that damned wormhole.
His hand was already resting on the launch rack of the nuclear bomb, and he had even drafted his last words to Pepper in his mind.
"Sir, all enemy life signals and energy characteristics... completely disappeared within 0.3 seconds."
Jarvis's electronic voice echoed inside the armor, exuding a thick sense of electronic confusion.
"No heat source can be detected. The abnormal radiation in the air has also dropped to zero."
Tony opened his faceplate.
On his face, which usually always wore a cynical smile, was now full of doubt about life.
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and the sweat mixed with dust smeared several black Marks on his face.
He felt those grey powders drift into his mouth, carrying a burnt metallic taste.
Thunder God Thor was standing on a pile of ruins.
On his dark purple Vibranium heavy armor, there was still the blue blood of the Chitauri hanging on it.
That was what he had smashed out with his physical body just now.
Thor felt the lingering violent aura in the air, his eye corners twitching wildly.
That kind of power that annihilated everything and completely ignored the laws of the Nine Realms made him feel a shudder deep in his bone marrow.
"Not thunder... not magic..."
Thor muttered to himself.
He clenched his fists, feeling the slight tremor transmitted from the Vibranium armor plates.
This level of cleanup method, he had never seen it in Odin's classics.
The grey powder all over the sky fell heavier and heavier.
It was like laying a thin mourning garment over the scarred streets of New York.
In the originally noisy city, apart from the "crackling" sound of burning flames, there was no other sound.
The surviving citizens timidly poked their heads out from behind abandoned cars and under the rolling doors of shopping malls.
They looked at the dust all over the ground, and then looked at the superheroes standing dazed in the middle of the road.
No one dared to cheer, no one dared to speak.
This peace exchanged by ultimate violence suffocated everyone.
The members of the Avengers moved simultaneously.
Steve put down his shield.
Tony controlled the armor to slowly land on the curb, his metal boots stepping out two clear Marks in the dust.
Hulk closed his big mouth, quiet like a huge green stone.
They seemed to be following some kind of invisible summon.
Turning around in unison.
Following the source of the white light that had just erupted, they looked up.
That was a luxury apartment independent of the financial district ruins.
Although many glass curtain walls on the outer wall of the building were shattered, the main body was still standing tall.
The terrace on the eightieth floor.
There was still a faint red light there.
That was the light of charcoal fire.
White powder descended from the air.
Falling on the shoulders of the teenager who was sitting on the velvet swivel chair.
Aaron was holding a long-handled stainless steel tongs, gently flipping the last piece of Wagyu beef on the grill.
On his white short-sleeved shirt, that red sauce stain appeared particularly eye-catching under the reflection of the charcoal fire.
On the ground, those Avengers who were ready to die in battle or had even written their suicide notes were stiff all over.
Standing on the empty road with their necks tilted up, their gazes spanned a height of several hundred meters.
Staring fixedly at that leisurely and busy back amidst the hustle and bustle of life.
Chapter 60: The Entire Avengers Petrified: Turns Out We Were Fighting for Our Lives While You Were Playing Around
Grey powder was still floating across the sky.
Tiny particles fell into the puddles on the street, dissolving instantly like an indelible layer of grease.
New York was so quiet that only the sound of the wind remained.
Tony Stark swayed as he ascended into the air.
The left thigh thruster of the Mark VII completely died out, and charred black smoke billowed from the nozzle.
He had to tilt his body, relying on the single-sided balancer to trace a crooked arc in the air.
The shattered metal shell emitted a harsh whistling sound in the wind.
He flew to the height of the eightieth-floor terrace.
His battle boots slammed heavily onto the anti-corrosive wooden floor.
"Bang," momentum forced him to lunge forward two steps, and his knees crashed into a wicker flower rack.
Tony didn't care to steady his footing.
He abruptly ripped off his mask.
Sweat slid down his charred forehead and into his eyes.
He wiped his face hard, his gaze sweeping across the terrace.
Then.
He froze completely in place, as if Captain America's shield had struck him squarely in the forehead.
Steve Rogers's hand gripped the edge of the terrace.
His bare forearms were covered in tiny cuts, and his muscles trembled slightly from exhaustion.
He flipped over onto the terrace, and his shield clattered against the tiles.
He gasped heavily, his lungs heaving like a bellows.
Hulk followed closely behind.
A huge green palm crushed the stone railing of the terrace.
He squatted on the ground, snorting heavily through his nostrils, his originally angry green eyes scanning his surroundings.
In the center of the terrace.
A silver smokeless grill was emitting a gentle heat.
The fruit charcoal was glowing red all over, and sparks danced lightly in the breeze.
The aroma of meat.
That was the domineering aroma of top-grade A5 Wagyu beef after high temperature forced out its grease.
This scent pierced through the smoke of gunpowder and the smell of engine oil inside Stark's armor.
Striking squarely into the nasal cavities of the three people.
Aaron was sitting on a velvet swivel chair.
He was holding a slender silver pair of tweezers in his hand.
His movements were very steady.
The tip of the tweezers picked up a piece of beef grilled to perfection.
The edges of the meat slice were slightly charred, and the middle still showed a hint of alluring pinkness.
Aaron turned sideways.
He gently placed this piece of beef onto the bone china plate in front of Gwen.
"This level of doneness is just right."
Aaron spoke, his voice as calm as if he had just stepped out of a library.
"I sprinkled some rosemary on it, give it a try."
Gwen sat in the chair, still holding that pink ghost mask in her hand.
She looked at the meat on the plate, then at the blood-stained Avengers who had just climbed onto the terrace.
Subconsciously, she forked the beef and shoved it into her mouth.
Her cheeks puffed out, and for a moment she didn't know whether she should swallow it.
Mary Jane leaned against the back of the sofa.
She shook half a can of iced cola in her hand, the bubbles sizzling at the mouth of the can.
She looked at Tony's dust-covered face and raised an eyebrow.
"Yo, big genius."
MJ pointed at the wine cabinet, "There's unopened whiskey over there, want some?"
Tony's mouth twitched violently.
He looked down at himself.
The chest armor of the Mark VII had a large indentation, and the light of the reactor flickered on and off.
Two fragments of Chitauri armor were still stuck in the chambers of his palm repulsors.
Five minutes ago, he had prepared himself for certain death, ready to rush into the wormhole with a nuclear bomb.
At that moment, he had gone through all the heroic vocabulary in his mind.
He had even figured out what to carve on his tombstone.
And the result?
He was over here saving the World, while Aaron was over there studying the doneness of the meat?
He was fighting for his life down below, and this kid was up here enjoying the warm breeze and eating barbecue?
"You..."
Tony's voice was as hoarse as if he had a mouthful of broken glass.
He pointed at the still-steaming grill, his fingers trembling.
"You just now... did all this for a piece of meat?"
Steve Rogers silently picked up the shield from the ground.
He glanced at the dining table beside them.
On it sat three bottles of decanted dry red wine.
And a plate of neatly cut iced honeydew melon.
This World War II veteran felt like his brain cells were dying off in patches.
He had experienced the gunfire of Normandy.
He had experienced HYDRA's secret Base.
But he had never seen this kind of scene.
An interstellar war that almost destroyed all humanity seemed, in Aaron's eyes, not even worth being the prelude to this picnic.
Loki stood to the side.
His ornate leather armor was torn to shreds, making him look just like a distressed vagrant.
But the paper fan in his hand didn't stop.
Mechanically, he fanned the grill, his eyes as hollow as if he had lost his soul.
"Stark."
Aaron turned his head.
He pointed at the remaining raw meat slices on the edge of the grill.
"This steak is quite tender, don't want a couple of pieces?"
"The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. just soiled my clothes, and I'm in a bit of a bad mood."
Aaron patted the dark red sauce stain on the hem of his white short-sleeved shirt.
Tony felt like his blood vessels were about to burst.
He forcefully closed his mask, producing a crisp metallic clashing sound.
"I want to take back my evaluation from just now."
Tony gritted his teeth in the communication channel.
"This kid isn't a monster, he's a complete lunatic."
Hulk tilted his head.
He looked at Aaron, then at the honeydew melon on the table.
He extended a huge green finger and pinched off the smallest slice of melon.
Then tossed it into his mouth like eating beans, chewing it twice with smacking lips.
"Sweet."
Hulk muttered a sentence, and sat heavily on the terrace floor, shaking the entire building with a jolt.
Right in this absurd silence.
In Aaron's ears, a grand and cold prompt tone that only he could hear suddenly sounded.
[Ding!]
[The Battle of New York has officially concluded.]
[Detected that the host unilaterally ended the cross-dimensional war in an outrageous manner.]
[The World's law of causality has suffered a devastating collapse.]
[Main Universe timeline anchor has been reset.]
Aaron's hand holding the tweezers paused slightly.
He felt an unprecedented chill rush straight from the soles of his feet to his crown.
[Issuing ultimate battle reward: Timeline-collapse-grade blind box.]
[Grade: Supreme.]
[Description: This reward contains the primitive power to change the foundation of the Universe.]
In front of Aaron, the air began to vibrate violently.
A dark red square box emerged out of thin air.
There were no patterns on the surface of the box, only countless black cracks slowly writhing.
Deep within each crack, a wailing Universe seemed to be hidden.
Tony held his breath.
The sensor on his chest emitted an unprecedentedly sharp alarm.
"Jarvis! Energy readings!"
"Sir... the instrument's range has burned out. That thing... is not within known physical dimensions."
Aaron put down the silver tweezers in his hand.
He looked at that dark red blind box, a trace of interest finally appearing in his eyes.
"Since it's already been given."
Aaron extended his right hand, his fingertips touching the cold box surface carrying an aura of destruction.
"Then let's see what is hidden inside."
Aaron's fingers gently hooked.
The dark red blind box collapsed with a bang.
There was no explosion.
There was no sound.
Only a dark red energy, as viscous as blood and as crazy as rambling,
broke out from Aaron's fingertips like a volcanic eruption.
"Boom—!"
The top floor of the entire Manhattan building was instantly dyed a heart-palpitating dark red.
The dark red energy pillar pierced straight into the clouds, tearing the originally pure sky apart once again.
Natasha and Hill were directly overturned by this wave of air.
Tony controlled his armor to grip the railing tightly, only to find that the alloy floor beneath his feet was undulating like water waves.
No, it wasn't the floor moving.
It was space itself twisting.
Aaron stood at the center of the energy.
His white short-sleeved shirt fluttered loudly in the red storm.
He spread his hands, letting those violent dark red threads wrap around his arms.
Chaos magic.
The most primitive, most unreasonable power to rewrite reality.
At that very moment.
The tables and chairs on the terrace, the grill, and even the dust in the sky.
All experienced a repeated cycle from solid to liquid, and then to nothingness within a second.
The laws of reality collapsed around Aaron.
He turned his head.
Looking through that distorted red light membrane at the completely dumbfounded Avengers.
Aaron's pupils had completely turned a deep dark red at this moment.
"The next show looks like it's going to be a bit livelier."
Aaron casually waved his hand.
A dark red ripple covering half the city, carrying enough power to reboot the World, swept toward the depths of the multiverse.