Chapter 418: A Cosplayer?!
Meanwhile, in some unnamed corner of deep space, an enormous fleet hovered before the spatial jump gateway, waiting — when a sudden, massive energy blast tore through the ranks, obliterating at least several dozen warships in an instant.
The surviving vessels, though spared direct annihilation, still suffered varying degrees of damage from the shockwave alone.
Worse still, the casualties among the crews were staggering — several thousand dead at minimum, possibly approaching ten thousand.
And that was only because the ships had been spaced fairly far apart. Had they been packed in tighter formation, that single explosion alone could have wiped out the entire fleet on the spot.
Looking at the fleet's overall composition, two distinct forces could be made out at a glance — and, indeed, this really was two separate armies combined into one: the Chitauri fleet, and the army belonging to that same rule-breaking reincarnator the quest had flagged.
The sheer number of ships defied belief, packed so densely together that just looking at them was enough to make one's scalp crawl.
None of the truly massive warships had made the trip, though — the spatial jump gateway topped out at just over a thousand meters in diameter, and anything bigger simply couldn't fit through into Earth's atmosphere.
So the ships present, while relatively modest by cosmic standards, still counted as genuine behemoths by Earth's own measure.
At the very center of the fleet sat one particularly distinctive vessel — eye-catching at a glance, and unmistakably, conspicuously more expensive-looking than anything else in the formation.
Inside that ship stood a hulking, entirely inhuman creature — an alien, unmistakably — its round, bulbous eyes fixed on a holographic display in front of it.
Studying the feed on the screen, its gaze sharpened slightly, and it murmured to itself, "What was that beam? Enough to trigger an energy explosion on that scale? Did anything like this happen in the original Avengers 1 storyline?"
The way it spoke made one thing clear immediately — this inhuman-looking creature had, in a past life, absolutely been human.
Just transmigrated into the Marvel world and ended up as an alien this time around. And, from the looks of things... a genuinely ugly one, at that.
This was, in fact, the very rule-breaking reincarnator flagged in the quest — the one topping the Dimensional Chat Group's hit list.
Standing beside this reincarnator was another alien, cloaked in black, radiating an unmistakably ominous presence.
"The Other — trust me, that batch of Chitauri soldiers you were planning to lend Loki wouldn't have moved the needle on Earth at all. Taking the planet actually requires an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands, minimum!"
The reincarnator addressed the cloaked figure beside him by name — or rather, by title: The Other.
The Other turned toward the reincarnator, expression unreadable. "There's a presence on Earth. Are you confident you can actually hold that Ancient One in check?"
The reincarnator gave a light laugh, eyes fixed on the display in front of him. "I've got a way to handle the Ancient One, don't worry — you think I'd be going this big otherwise? As for Odin? Per my own reliable intel, he's already fallen into the Odinsleep."
"I know you're loyal to the cosmic overlord Thanos, my friend. Nothing we're doing here steps on his interests — we're on good terms, he and I, genuine partners. And this whole operation has his blessing besides."
The Other went quiet for a moment, seemingly about to say something, when its eyes flicked toward the display, catching something out of the corner of its vision — its expression froze.
Studying the handful of figures now visible on the screen, The Other said, flat, "I think I might know what caused that explosion after all."
The reincarnator frowned and followed The Other's gaze to the same display.
He could make out the figures clearly enough. One of them struck him as immediately, unmistakably familiar. "The Ancient One?! Wait — why are there four others with her?"
Sure enough, alongside the Ancient One, four more figures floated there in open space, apparently entirely unbothered by the void's radiation.
"That one's... Iron Man? Right, been a while, almost forgot about him. But why's Iron Man hanging around with the Ancient One? This is supposed to be right around Avengers 1's timeline, isn't it?"
Spotting Tony Stark in his suit of armor jogged something loose in the reincarnator's memory, and the identity of the robotic-looking figure clicked into place almost instantly.
His gaze shifted to the other three. One — a black-haired young man — he didn't recognize at all. Never seen him before in his life.
Maybe some obscure, minor superhero from the Marvel universe he'd simply forgotten about?
The other two — one was a green-haired girl who looked faintly familiar, though he couldn't quite place her.
The last one appeared to share the Ancient One's own distinctive baldness — a gleaming bald head that stood out sharply even against the dim backdrop of open space.
And paired with that bizarre, form-fitting bodysuit he was wearing... didn't that look a little like... a little like Saitama, from One Punch Man?
He dismissed the thought almost immediately, though — this was the Marvel world, after all. There was no reasonable way a One Punch Man character could show up here.
Cosplay, maybe?
An unsettling premonition crept over him. For reasons he couldn't quite pin down, the reincarnator suddenly felt like today was about to go very, very badly.
Beside him, The Other — leader of the Chitauri army — turned toward him, noticing his shifting expression, and asked, puzzled, "Gongbieerzi, is something wrong?"
Gongbieerzi was this reincarnator's chosen name in this life — a name that, by now, carried real weight throughout the cosmos, representing one of the universe's genuine major powers.
Not quite on Thanos's level, sure, but not far off either — Gongbieerzi's own forces commanded serious respect across known space.
Faced with The Other's question, Gongbieerzi took a deep breath, shook his head, and answered, "Nothing's wrong... Order every ship to bring their main guns to bear on those five and open fire immediately! No need to actually kill them — just enough to wear them down, especially that Ancient One."
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