Demon King Piccolo was genuinely surprised.
For the first ti since his release, he had t opponents who could actually stand toe to toe with him.
None of the people he had faced before the seal had ever possessed this kind of power.
Had humanity changed that much while he was gone?
The Hulk didn't care about any of that.
Under Drex Valen's deliberate tutoring and repeated exposure to danger, Hulk's mind had beco far more mature than before.
More importantly, Hulk knew Drex was his friend.
Drex built him a playground. Drex bought him good food. Drex gave him a place where he could be happy.
So if Drex had a monster to fight, Hulk would fight it.
The only problem was that Hulk was too slow at it. A whole day could pass without him defeating a single enemy, and he had already started feeling like his effort wasn't equal to Drex's.
Now, at last, a real monster had appeared.
Hulk was thrilled.
The mont he realized this fight might actually be even, sothing inside him lit up.
Ben Grimm moved in as support, while Tony Stark joined the field in his anti-Hulk armor, forged from secondary Kryptonian alloy.
The other heroes held position and waited, watching for any sign that more of the Monster Association might appear.
Piccolo clenched his fist and started forward.
Then he noticed sothing above him.
A huge slab of debris ca crashing down from the sky.
Tony had shoved it into place and launched it at him.
BOOM.
The entire chunk of ruined structure slamd down onto Piccolo.
Tony grinned.
"That wasn't so hard. Guess we're done here—"
The sentence didn't even finish before a massive shockwave detonated from beneath the wreckage.
The impact blew the debris apart in a violent blast.
Stone, concrete, and twisted tal burst outward in every direction.
And there, standing untouched in the center of the ruin, was Demon King Piccolo.
Hulk and Ben charged at the sa ti.
Both fists ca down hard.
Piccolo caught both of them.
For a second, it looked like he had them.
Then he realized too late that he had overestimated his current strength.
With a thunderous crash, Piccolo was driven backward and hurled into a second pile of broken buildings.
The impact tore through the already shattered structure, toppling the entire mass sideways in a collapse of dust and steel.
Ben Grimm didn't think the blow had done much.
He was right.
The next second, another burst of energy erupted.
Piccolo shattered the rubble trapping him and walked out of the wreckage completely unhard.
"Puh."
He spat out a little blood to the side.
It was barely more than a sar, just enough to stain the corner of his mouth.
Hulk's full-force punch had managed to make him bleed.
Nothing serious.
Nothing dangerous.
But it was blood.
And that was enough.
Piccolo's face twisted with rage.
"You filthy insects actually injured ?"
That was the last thing he wanted.
His body was already aging. His strength had already declined. Now these puny creatures had drawn blood from him too?
He raised one hand and snapped it forward in a violent sweep.
A streak of condensed ki tore across the battlefield like lightning.
The blast carried enough force to obliterate cities.
BOOM.
Hulk and Ben were thrown backward like ragdolls.
At the sa ti, the attack flattened half the city.
When the smoke finally cleared, the buildings were gone.
The ruins were gone.
What remained was scorched earth and molten rock.
Tony stared in horror from the air.
"That's the power of a Dragon-Level monster...?"
Around the world, the officials and observers watching the battle were silent.
Not because they were calm.
Because they were terrified.
Dragon-Level had just been moved up several categories in everyone's minds.
That was a walking nuclear weapon.
And thank God the city had already been evacuated.
With Sentinel robots helping, evacuation had gone far faster than it ever would have in the old movies or news reports.
Piccolo continued his assault, raining down wave after wave of energy blasts.
Explosions rolled through the battlefield.
The ground turned red with heat.
Lava-like fire lit the wreckage as dust, stones, and broken concrete were hurled into the air and then buried again beneath collapsing debris.
The whole area beca a living hell.
Tony and Peter watched from farther back, both stunned by the sheer scale of destruction.
This really was a battle for the world.
Neither side was holding back.
And if they couldn't help at all, then what good were they?
Still, neither of them intended to stand aside.
Even the smallest contribution mattered now.
That was how serious this was.
"HULK!"
Green light flared across Hulk's body as he surged back into the fight.
Ben Grimm lay nearby, battered and cracked across his stone skin.
He had taken the brunt of the previous attack himself so Hulk wouldn't lose the ability to keep fighting.
And that sacrifice changed everything.
Hulk was no longer just Hulk.
He beca the angry Hulk.
Stronger.
Faster.
Harder to kill.
And far more dangerous.
Piccolo was already old and physically weakened.
He couldn't react in ti.
Hulk's fist slamd straight into his stomach.
"Guh..."
The impact nearly forced Piccolo to vomit everything in his body at once.
His abdon caved inward under the force.
Then the punch's montum launched him backward through the air.
He crashed into the iron wall of a ruined structure with such violence that the entire barrier split apart.
Piccolo was embedded inside the wreckage like a bullet in tal.
Before he could recover, a massive green blur charged straight at the wall again.
Hulk drove another brutal punch into Piccolo's head and slamd it deeper into the iron barrier.
Tony saw his opening and fired a laser blast from his armor.
But Piccolo reacted faster than expected.
He grabbed Hulk's fist with one hand, then casually lifted his other arm and blocked Tony's beam without even seeming bothered by it.
The attack did nothing.
Piccolo kicked Hulk away before he could keep up the assault and pulled himself out of the wreckage.
Then, without warning, another attack ca from the side.
A web shot across the battlefield and slapped directly onto Piccolo's eyes.
His vision vanished instantly.
Piccolo jerked in surprise and tore at the webbing, but before he could clear it away, Peter Parker ca swinging in from the distance and landed a flying kick square against Piccolo's head.
Piccolo's body swayed.
Peter moved to continue the attack.
Then a hand shot out and grabbed him.
Even blind, Piccolo could still sense exactly where Peter was.
His fighting instincts were that sharp.
And as he caught Spider-Man, his left hand was already curling into a fist.
...
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