High above New York, beyond the spatial gateway, an imnse fortress drifted through the silent darkness of deep space.
Countless unidentified chanical creatures swam around it like predators circling prey. Their bodies were covered in dark gray organic armor fused with jagged tal plating, grotesque hybrids of flesh and machinery.
The mont the order for a full assault was issued, the biochanical swarm surged toward the portal.
Chitauri soldiers poured endlessly into New York.
Groups of them rode small aerial craft through the skies, brandishing their weapons as they rushed into the city with savage excitent, fully expecting a one-sided massacre of primitive natives.
Instead, a Decepticon greeted them with a storm of heavy-caliber rounds.
The Chitauri vanished in a burst of shredded tal and vapor before they even understood what had happened.
Then the Leviathans descended.
Massive tal beasts drifted through the portal, their flanks lined with rows of armored Chitauri warriors. Their eyes glowed with bloodthirsty intent as they unleashed barrages of energy fire toward Manhattan below.
The invasion spread across the city like a plague.
Only...
The slaughter wasn't happening to humanity.
The Chitauri were the ones being butchered.
The narrow spatial tunnel limited how quickly the army could deploy. Without that bottleneck, New York would've already been flattened beneath the invasion force.
Even so, Manhattan had beco a battlefield straight out of hell. The skies and streets sward with Chitauri soldiers.
"The boss finally made his move."
The arriving superheroes all ca to the sa realization the mont they saw the battlefield.
Then Drex Valen's voice thundered across every communication channel.
"Superheroes... assemble!"
The mont the order rang out, every hero launched into action.
Drex himself moved first.
Though he was still wearing the Dark Knight armor he used as camouflage, there was no need to hide everything anymore.
A dozen Chitauri had barely erged from the portal when twin crimson beams flashed through the air.
They were erased instantly.
A second sweep of heat vision carved across the battlefield and sliced a Leviathan clean in half mid-flight.
Everyone watching froze for a mont.
An eye-mounted energy weapon with that level of destructive precision was absurd. Wherever Drex looked, sothing died.
His heat vision had already evolved into sothing terrifying. Outside of vibranium, adamantium, atomic alloys, or impact steel-level materials, almost nothing could withstand it.
Most substances vaporized in less than a second.
Across the world, millions watched the live broadcast in stunned silence.
For the first ti, the people of this world witnessed the kind of power associated with Superman.
Then Drex inhaled deeply.
The next second, freezing breath swept across half the sky over New York.
The Chitauri instantly froze solid before raining from the air like shattered statues of ice.
Even the viewers watching the broadcast struggled to process what they were seeing.
Inside S.W.O.R.D., the battlefield feeds were even clearer than the public broadcast. Every movent Drex made could be tracked in real ti.
Under his overwhelming speed and monstrous strength, the Chitauri army looked less like an invading force and more like oversized building blocks being smashed apart by a giant.
The world governnts could barely hide their frustration anymore.
Every ti Drex disappeared for a while, he ca back vastly stronger than before.
Originally, they had hoped the growing number of superheroes would gradually balance his influence. After all, Drex rarely involved himself in politics or managent. He preferred research and developnt over leadership.
That gave them hope they could slowly divide power away from him.
But now?
Compared to Drex, the rest of S.W.O.R.D.'s heroes looked like children trying to play soldier.
Tony stared grimly at the incoming combat data.
The mont Drex fired his heat vision, Tony's systems calculated the result instantly.
His symbiote armor couldn't withstand it.
Not even briefly.
What kind of monster develops weapons like this?
And that freezing attack made even less sense.
Drex, anwhile, was having a great ti.
Scarlet beams swept across the battlefield nonstop. Everywhere his heat vision passed, Chitauri soldiers evaporated instantly while Leviathans were carved apart like paper models.
He alone had effectively halted the alien invasion.
Everyone else was left cleaning up scraps.
There simply weren't enough flying heroes with ranged attacks to keep up.
After seeing Hawkeye land an explosive arrow directly on a Chitauri soldier without killing it, Drex completely gave up expecting aningful support from the ground forces.
Thankfully, he'd prepared in advance by manufacturing the Decepticons.
Now that foresight was paying off.
Especially the S.W.O.R.D.-owned Decepticon units funded through United Nations military budgets. Combined with the U.S. Air Force's own Decepticon divisions, they were carving through the Chitauri army with brutal efficiency.
At this point, even the Chitauri had begun realizing sothing was wrong.
This didn't feel like an invasion anymore.
It felt like a suicide mission.
"How is this possible?!"
Loki stared up at Drex in disbelief.
Like Tony Stark, Drex relied on equipnt.
But the difference between them was overwhelming.
"Loki!"
Thor finally located his brother.
Unlike the others, he hadn't focused on fighting the Chitauri. He trusted his instincts and tracked Loki down directly.
"Co back with ," Thor said. "Father and Mother both miss you."
Loki's expression darkened.
"He never missed ."
Then he smiled faintly.
"And you're far too careless."
His figure vanished.
A split second later, Loki appeared behind Thor and drove two daggers into his brother's lower back.
The blades belonged to Frigga.
They had once been her personal weapons.
Odin had given Mjolnir to Thor, while Frigga entrusted the daggers to Loki.
In all of Asgard, she was the only person Loki truly listened to.
Thor cried out in pain and dropped to one knee, clutching his wounds.
Even for the God of Thunder, having both kidneys stabbed through at once was devastating.
Fortunately, Asgardians possessed terrifying recovery abilities. An ordinary human would've been crippled instantly.
"My dear brother," Loki said with a twisted grin, "this is where it ends."
Yet he didn't finish Thor off.
Thor struggled back to his feet, and even then, he couldn't bring himself to throw Mjolnir at Loki.
To an outsider, the scene might've looked strangely affectionate despite the violence.
Drex barely spared them a glance.
Loki wasn't worth his attention.
If Drex truly wanted him dead, Loki would've vanished before Odin even realized what happened.
Still, watching the battle unfold gave Drex a new idea.
Most superheroes were practically spectators in a large-scale aerial war like this. His future Kryptonian Empire's Cosmic Knights would absolutely need highly mobile flight capabilities.
Then suddenly—
The entire city of New York collapsed.
The ground gave way without warning.
Buildings, streets, debris, and even the superheroes themselves plunged downward before anyone had ti to react.
Wild laughter echoed through the chaos.
"Hahahahaha! Today's the perfect chance to wipe out every superhero in one move!"
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