Gladiator blocked every one of Hulk's attacks with effortless precision.
So he redirected.
So he parried.
So he simply stopped dead with a palm.
Through the entire exchange, he never took a single step backward.
He even had enough attention to spare for comntary.
"Impressive," Gladiator said calmly while catching another punch. "Even within the Shi'ar Empire, strength like this would place you among elite warriors."
He studied Hulk with genuine interest.
"To find fighters of this caliber on Earth is unexpected."
Then he shook his head slightly.
"But your technique is terrible."
"You possess overwhelming strength and speed, yet you waste most of it through uncontrolled movent."
"Honestly, it's a sha."
Hulk only grew angrier listening to the criticism.
"HULK STRONGEST!"
Despite the roar, the reality was obvious.
Hulk had been attacking nonstop while Gladiator defended casually with one hand.
The gap between them couldn't have been clearer.
At that mont, Juggernaut, Red Hulk, Abomination, and the Thing all charged in together to overwhelm Gladiator through sheer force.
Gladiator remained expressionless.
His arms moved like lightning, intercepting every strike from every direction.
Hulk-level monsters.
Juggernaut.
The Thing.
Any one of them could flatten armies alone.
And yet together they still couldn't break through Gladiator's defense.
Even so, their performance had already left the Shi'ar soldiers stunned.
To them, Gladiator was invincible.
Not rely within the Shi'ar Empire.
Within the entire universe.
Very few beings even qualified to stand in the sa category as him.
And while Earth's heroes were clearly being outclassed, sothing else deeply disturbed the Shi'ar observers:
None of them were seriously injured.
That alone was terrifying.
"Interesting," Gladiator remarked as the battle continued.
"So your world specializes in enhanced warriors of this type."
By now, even Tony Stark had switched into a massive anti-Hulk configuration and joined the lee directly.
Gladiator found the armor fascinating.
He had encountered nanotechnology before and usually tore through it effortlessly.
But Stark's latest symbiote-based armor behaved differently.
No matter how much force Gladiator applied, the armor continuously regenerated and adapted instead of collapsing outright.
As long as it had power, the suit could apparently continue fighting indefinitely.
Watching Earth's heroes rely almost entirely on overwhelming physical combat styles, Gladiator concluded humanity must possess so thod of mass-producing super soldiers.
Crude perhaps.
But effective.
No wonder the Chitauri lost.
Against an army of monsters like this, conventional planetary invasion forces never stood a chance.
More importantly...
Gladiator saw value in them.
With power levels like these, Earth's heroes could hold commanding positions within any of the Four Great Galactic Empires.
So might even rise to beco independent cosmic overlords like the Mad Titan Thanos himself.
Gladiator suddenly felt reluctant to kill them.
If he could recruit warriors of this caliber into the Shi'ar Empire, the empire's ability to preserve galactic peace would rise trendously.
To guarantee victory cleanly and establish dominance beyond question, Gladiator finally beca slightly serious.
And instantly, the heroes felt the difference.
His speed surged.
His strength exploded upward.
Within seconds, every hero in the room got flattened.
Earth had beco an endless source of surprises.
Originally, Gladiator suspected the Chitauri exaggerated Earth's danger to preserve their pride after suffering defeat on such a "primitive" world.
But after arriving personally, he realized Earth's native warriors genuinely exceeded expectations.
If he could recruit them...
The Shi'ar Empire would gain an extraordinary force.
Just as Gladiator prepared to speak, he suddenly turned his head toward Earth.
Several minutes later, the ship's sensors finally detected the incoming energy source.
Gladiator's eyes narrowed.
"There's another one."
Disbelief flickered across his face.
This many enhanced warriors already bordered on absurd.
But the incoming presence felt completely different.
His superhuman senses warned him instantly:
The approaching individual existed on an entirely different level from everyone else aboard the ship.
"The strongest warrior on Earth...?"
Gladiator murmured.
He looked back toward the heroes.
"Your world has soone even stronger than you?"
"Obviously," Tony Stark answered imdiately, sounding extrely confident despite the fact that the entire team had just been steamrolled.
"There's a guy way stronger than all of us."
He grinned beneath the armor.
"And judging by your face, I think he just arrived."
Not one hero looked desperate.
Not one looked hopeless.
Because they still had him.
Gladiator noticed the expressions imdiately.
Recognition.
Confidence.
Absolute certainty.
Interesting.
Even after witnessing his power personally, they still believed this "strongest warrior" could defeat him.
That ant only one thing:
The newcor likely possessed the ability to crush these heroes just as effortlessly as Gladiator himself had.
Otherwise their expressions would have carried shock.
Fear.
Disbelief.
Instead, they looked relieved.
Gladiator's blood began to boil with excitent.
For years he had dominated the cosmos without challenge. His reputation alone terrified civilizations into surrender.
Even the Mad Titan Thanos avoided unnecessary confrontations after crossing paths with him once.
Most opponents collapsed after a single punch.
Hopefully Earth's strongest warrior would be different.
At minimum...
He should be stronger than Thanos.
Then Gladiator saw it.
A streak of golden light tore through the ship's hull and descended into the chamber.
Tony and the others imdiately noticed sothing strange.
Drex Valen had changed armor again.
Black armor.
Black cape.
But unlike before, the suit radiated overwhelming power. Just standing there generated suffocating pressure that weighed down the entire room.
"Gladiator," the Shi'ar warrior introduced himself.
Drex gave a slight nod.
"Dark Knight."
Then both of them punched simultaneously.
Fists collided head-on.
The result stunned every Shi'ar soldier present.
Their commander.
Their undefeated war god.
The greatest warrior of the empire.
Got launched backward like a teor.
Gladiator tore straight through the warship's hull and vanished into space instantly.
The Shi'ar stood frozen in disbelief.
The superheroes weren't much better.
That alien had crushed the entire team effortlessly.
And Drex Valen had just punched him away with casual ease.
Exactly how powerful was this man?
Drex folded his arms calmly.
Through his super-vision and hearing, he watched Gladiator return at over one hundred tis the speed of sound.
The Shi'ar warrior looked completely unhard.
But now his expression burned with excitent.
"I underestimated you, Dark Knight!"
Confidence exploded from Gladiator like a physical force.
And for his species, confidence was power.
His energy skyrocketed instantly.
Then he vanished.
Not movent.
Not acceleration.
To everyone watching, it looked closer to teleportation.
Gladiator reappeared directly in front of Drex, his fist already carrying full-force montum toward the Kryptonian.
And then...
Everything stopped.
Drex Valen caught the punch with one hand.
More terrifyingly, he didn't move even an inch.
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