[Hawaii, Inside the Osborn Villa]
Alex sat on the sofa, tasting the wine Norman Osborn had brought over.
On the large screen in front of him, footage of Martin slaughtering everything in his path was playing.
This was footage he had obtained by using his "information domain" ability to take control of national satellites.
Gwen, wearing a Spider-Man mask, stood to Alex's left. Inside the mask, the girl's eyes were wide open.
Just now, Martin had wiped out an entire army as easily as slaughtering chickens and dogs. After that, he even summoned an undead army for himself.
A person like that was practically like a god from legends.
Gwen had originally gained extraordinary power and was full of confidence.
Now she was starting to doubt.
Could a being like that really be defeated in battle, even killed?
"Well?"
"Pretty terrifying, isn't it?"
Alex looked at the TV screen and smiled, "And this is only with his strength suppressed to fifty percent. Otherwise, it would be even more frightening."
As he spoke, Alex took a sip of the wine in his glass.
He himself didn't think it was much.
The strength Martin was showing now was about the same as when he first entered the multiverse and directly faced monsters like Superman and Doomsday.
What made Martin troublesome was that black book.
There was no telling whether it was an ordinary item or some kind of divine artifact.
'As expected, using a human army to probe him is still not enough to test the full extent of this guy's power.'
"Watch closely."
"Very soon, what you'll be facing are monsters at this level."
Alex set down his glass and stood up, "You'd better be prepared to be killed."
"I'm not joking with you."
Norman Osborn's eyes were filled with fear. He had finally escaped from Death's grasp.
And he himself controlled a business empire.
How could he be willing to just die like this?
But at that moment, Alex's voice sounded in his mind.
["Even if you want to fight for him, after I die, he'll still find you and kill you."]
["However, before that, I'll probably twist your head off first."]
Norman Osborn shuddered.
Mr. John can actually speak inside my mind.
'Then doesn't that mean everything I think, he can know?'
Old Osborn quickly lowered his head and said respectfully, "This life of mine was given by Mr. John."
"I will naturally fight to the death for Mr. John."
Hearing Old Osborn state his position, Gwen also spoke from inside her mask, "Even though that man is terrifying, I won't back down."
"When I chose to walk this path, I already knew what I would have to face."
"But no matter what, I can't forgive everything he's done."
"A blood debt must be repaid with blood."
Old Osborn couldn't help but glance at Gwen. He didn't know who she was, but he knew this woman had been brought back by Alex.
Alex nodded and said, "Go make your preparations."
"The human army can't deal with him."
"Next, it's our turn."
He wasn't worried that Martin would run away.
He had already locked onto Martin on a mental level. Even if the man escaped his telepathic range, with Alex's first cosmic velocity, circling the Earth wouldn't take long.
And as long as he sensed Martin, he could immediately use "teleportation" to latch onto him.
However, seeing Martin summon an undead army, Alex suspected that guy had no intention of running.
Alex believed that man should understand clearly that an undead army posed no threat to him at all.
So if he wasn't planning to run, that meant he had other methods.
Some kind of method that gave him the confidence to still fight and kill him even with only fifty percent of his strength left.
Next, Alex made preparations before the battle.
He spent ten "proficiency essences" to raise "high-speed regeneration" by one level.
The reason he didn't strengthen "biological force field" or "heat vision" was because he didn't have enough proficiency essence.
When he entered this universe, he still had thirty-three "proficiency essences."
But the gene serums he gave to Osborn and Gwen had consumed six.
The remaining twenty-seven were clearly not enough to meet the requirements of "biological force field" or "heat vision."
So he invested the proficiency essence into another talent that could improve survivability.
High-speed regeneration!
After this talent was raised by one level, it gained an additional effect.
After High-speed regeneration +1, it could not only regenerate Alex's flesh and blood at an extremely fast rate, it could also regenerate a damaged "biological force field".
———
On the other side—
Alex's guess was correct.
Martin had no intention of running.
Back at the containment camp, the moment Alex appeared and destroyed his "Magneto helmet," Martin knew Alex must have abilities similar to Professor X.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have done that.
He had assumed the worst-case scenario.
The worst case was that Alex's psychic abilities could cover the entire globe.
If that were the case, whether he ran or not didn't matter much.
Now, the undead army he had summoned was building an altar under his command.
This altar could be used to collect energy.
When the time came, all the deaths on this battlefield, as well as the excess energy generated by the battle, would be gathered by the altar.
And then used as a kind of "sacrifice" to power one of his dark magics.
Martin himself did not know dark magic.
The dark magic came from that black book of his.
That was his gain from experiencing the event of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."
A divine artifact he had exchanged using dimensional crystals.
[Incomplete Darkhold]
That's right, the infamous magic book from the Marvel universe.
But what Martin had exchanged was an incomplete Darkhold.
The magic within this divine artifact was divided into four major sections: necromancy, darkness, chaos, and corruption.
When Martin first obtained this incomplete divine book, there was only one necromancy spell inside it.
It was the one he had just used to summon the undead army.
But after obtaining this artifact, the shop would occasionally refresh with time-limited magic scrolls.
If successfully exchanged, the corresponding magic page would be added to the Darkhold.
By opening the page, the magic could be cast.
By chance, Martin had once exchanged for a powerful spell.
A spell that could let him turn the tables even under extremely unfavorable conditions.
But this spell required sacrifices.
That was why he was building the altar.
It was preparation for collecting those sacrifices.
"Come on."
"My 'brother.'"
"Even if you've guessed that I might have a trump card to turn things around, right now, you no longer have any room to choose."
"In another thirty hours, I'll be freed from the second punishment condition. By then, I'll have seventy-five percent of my strength."
"At that point, it'll be even harder for you to defeat me."
"So you can only act within these remaining thirty hours, can't you?"
Martin touched his broad chin.
Watching as a massive altar, shaped like a human skull, gradually took form.
———
[Hawaii Airport]
A private jet was already prepared.
Norman Osborn was wearing a combat suit, fully equipped, and looked toward Alex.
Gwen had also changed into a set of clothes Osborn prepared for her, something convenient for movement.
She still wore the Spider-Man mask, and thought that when this was over, if she was still alive, she would redesign a suit.
She didn't like red.
She preferred white.
At this moment, Alex's voice sounded, "Alright, you head to the battlefield yourselves."
"I'll go on ahead."
"We'll meet on the battlefield and act according to the plan."
After speaking, Alex's figure blurred and disappeared.
Looking at where Alex had vanished, Old Osborn turned to Gwen.
"Let's set off."
"And you are?"
Gwen thought for a moment, then said to the controller of the Osborn Group, "You can call me 'Spider-Man.'"
"Spider-Man?"
Old Osborn nodded, "Then let's board, Miss Spider-Man."
Gwen walked onto the plane, sat down, and fastened her seatbelt.
She looked at the web-shooters on her hands.
"Dad."
"Peter."
"Please watch me."
"Watch me avenge you!"
The plane took off.
———
Not far from the small town occupied by Martin was a stretch of uneven mountains.
Above that mountain range, more than ten thousand meters in the sky, Alex floated with his arms crossed, his red cape billowing, his gaze piercing through the clouds and landing on that open area.
He saw that strange, massive white human skull.
"Could've stuck with the superpower route."
"But you chose the mage path instead."
"Brother, you really are rebellious."
As he spoke, Alex first created a duplicate with eighty percent of his own strength.
Then he took out the "Doomsday Seed" from his inventory, a thing shaped like an egg, and handed it to his duplicate.
After that, he used the ability "mind invasion" to control the duplicate.
Immediately, aside from lacking a cape, this copy was almost no different from the real Alex.
Holding the "Doomsday Seed," the duplicate flew toward the mountains below.
He made no attempt to hide his presence.
So a dull sonic boom echoed across the sky.
Far away in the small town, Martin opened his eyes and looked toward the mountains.
His rough face seemed to glow under the evening sunset.
He looked toward the mountains, where the sun was gradually sinking behind them, forming a huge yellow fireball behind the peaks.
Suddenly, within the dazzling sunlight over the mountains, lightning burst forth, followed by a non-human roar that shattered the stillness of dusk.
The next moment, a black dot rose from the mountains, cutting across the vast distance with a sharp whistle, heading straight for Martin.
Before the shadow overhead could crash down like a meteor, Martin had already moved. He shot up into the sky.
A thunderous boom sounded beneath him, and the ground shook.
Martin looked down. Thick smoke billowed across the ground.
From the smoke emerged an ugly head.
Then came powerful limbs and a deformed body.
Doomsday!
Martin's expression immediately turned grim.
"Doomsday…"
"This probably isn't a summon."
"Judging by how the shop usually works, multiverse characters you can summon are usually not that terrifying."
"This should be something created using an item, and it'll have a time limit."
"But even if it only lasts twenty-four hours, that's still an incredible thing."
As he spoke, the Doomsday on the ground had already lunged toward him.
Martin dodged aside.
The first stage of Doomsday wasn't hard to deal with.
This monster's attack methods were very straightforward, and it didn't have things like energy blasts yet.
But the problem was, the more you attacked Doomsday, the stronger it evolved.
Ignoring it wasn't an option either.
When dealing with Doomsday, the best choice was to create a special prison to restrain it.
Neither attack it, nor leave it unchecked.
That way, once the time limit expired, it would disappear on its own.
In Martin's Darkhold, there happened to be a spell with a similar effect.
He immediately took out the Darkhold, about to cast a spell to restrain Doomsday.
Suddenly, two golden beams tore through the air. Martin had no time to cast the spell and could only raise his head, firing deep red laser beams from his eyes.
One gold and one red stream of light met midair.
The instant they collided, a massive explosion erupted.
At that moment, Doomsday happened to crash into the blast.
The monster took the full force of the explosion. As it lunged toward Martin, its body rapidly swelled, evolving into its second stage.
"Damn it!"
Martin flew backward, letting Doomsday miss and crash to the ground.
The moment the monster hit the ground, living corpses and flesh monsters rushed toward it.
Doomsday roared, electricity crackling around its body, then erupted with a shockwave like a nuclear blast.
Amid the blinding light, a terrifying torrent of energy spread outward, sweeping everything around it.
Whether living corpses or flesh monsters, once struck by that energy torrent, they were instantly reduced to ash.
After the shockwave spread out, everything on the battlefield was flattened.
Buildings, trees, rocks, and everything else, everything was shattered under that impact.
Only the altar remained intact, as if protected by some kind of force.
And although Doomsday had wiped out Martin's undead army in one go, after those things died, pale flames like ghostly fire floated across the battlefield.
They howled as they flew toward the altar, plunging into that massive skull. Soon, within the skull's black eye sockets, pale flames began to burn.
———
In the sky—
A private jet suddenly shook violently.
A powerful air current had just passed by it.
After the turbulence subsided, the plane steadied again.
Inside the plane, Gwen looked out through the window.
She saw, beyond a distant mountain range, flickering lightning fading away.
There had just been a violent explosion there.
"It's started."
Norman Osborn said, putting on a green mask that looked like a demon's face.
The eyes on the mask lit up.
Old Osborn said, "Mr. John has begun his move. We need to hurry as well."
As he spoke, the plane was already descending.
Finally, it landed on an open patch of ground.
The cabin door opened.
Old Osborn stepped out, then placed a wing-shaped glider on the ground.
He activated it, and the glider rose into the air, equipped with micro-missiles and a mini machine gun.
Norman Osborn jumped onto the glider and looked back, "Want to come up?"
Gwen looked at the dense forest in the distance, shook her head, then started running.
At first, her speed wasn't fast.
But as she gradually accelerated, in the blink of an eye, she was faster than lightning, turning into a faint red afterimage that shot into the forest.
"Alright then."
"I'm past the age of being popular with young ladies."
Old Osborn mocked himself, then controlled the glider and flew toward the forest as well.
At that moment, in the distant sky, a mass of white clouds suddenly exploded apart.
As the clouds scattered, the image inside Old Osborn's mask zoomed in rapidly, letting him see two figures entangled like a storm.
Each time they collided, the atmosphere trembled, forming shockwaves that shattered the surrounding clouds.
"Terrifying indeed."
"Both that man and Mr. John."
After muttering, Old Osborn focused, lowered his altitude, skimmed over the grass, sending blades flying everywhere, and plunged into the forest.
At this time, the sun had already dipped to the horizon, outlining a wide arc of light.
At that moment, the two figures at the edge of the sky collided once more.
Shockwaves burst out in rings, dispersing the sea of clouds above and revealing the dark blue night sky.
In the sky, under Alex's control, the duplicate slammed his "counterpart" from another universe down toward the earth with a punch.
But Martin quickly regained control of himself.
At that moment, Doomsday leaped up and grabbed him from behind with both arms.
It locked Martin in its embrace.
The coordination with the duplicate was seamless.
Then, with a roar, Doomsday arched backward, dragging Martin down headfirst toward the ground.
The wind howled.
In the blink of an eye, Doomsday and Martin slammed into the ground.
The ground of the small town surged violently like a storm-tossed sea. The point of impact sank, while the surrounding earth bulged upward.
With a thunderous crash, an impact crater appeared.
Around the crater, massive chunks of rock were pried up by immense force.
They stood in a ring, like the stone statues of Easter Island.
Inside the crater, Martin kicked Doomsday away, spat out a mouthful of sand, and cursed under his breath.
Suddenly, he felt the atmosphere trembling.
He couldn't help but look up.
In the sky, his "brother" from another universe had muscles swelling all over his body, bulging continuously.
Each expansion created a shockwave.
At the same time, his body was wrapped in a layer of blood-red light.
Within that dim crimson glow, Alex's duplicate had already unleashed eighty percent of his divine power.
At the same time, the duplicate's entire body had expanded by more than a full circle, and his height had increased slightly.
A terrifying aura of power radiated from him.
As if a single punch could shatter a planet.
Then, the duplicate dove down.
At first cosmic velocity, he instantly appeared above Martin and threw a punch downward.
Martin reacted in time and dodged. He saw that even before the punch touched the ground, the earth was already collapsing rapidly, as if crushed by some invisible weight.
Then a blast of wind exploded outward.
Within the storm, stones of all sizes rose from the ground, then shattered.
The fragments shot out like bullets and even artillery shells, spraying in all directions.
Martin narrowed his eyes, raised his hands to shield his face, letting the stones strike his body.
Through a vision compressed into a narrow slit, he saw that "counterpart" raise his arm and sweep it toward him.
BOOM!
Alex's duplicate swept out a violent shockwave, whipping up a gale that tore a trench across the ground.
Martin was struck head-on by the shockwave and was immediately blasted into the air.
At that moment, Doomsday lunged again, roared, grabbed Martin, and slammed him hard toward the ground.
Martin quickly braced with both hands, bent his knees, and crouched low, his whole body pressed to the ground like a frog.
Even so, he still pressed a shallow pit into the ground.
Then he lifted his head.
He saw that "counterpart" had already rushed over, his right fist drawn back, gathering power.
Then the punch tore through the air, blasting out rings of shockwaves as it came straight for his face.
At that moment, the corner of Martin's mouth lifted slightly into a faint smile.
He suddenly sprang up, spreading his hands apart, palms facing each other as if holding a large sphere.
Then his hands rotated, generating a strange flow of energy.
When Alex's duplicate threw his punch, that strange flow deflected the trajectory, causing the punch aimed at Martin to instead strike his own left shoulder.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.