As a shield-maiden whose lifelong dream was to die on the battlefield so her soul could return to Valhalla, the thing Sif desired most in her life was to clash with top-tier powerhouses.
Unfortunately, Thor—the man she previously had a crush on—always charged to the very front lines during every battle. While he claimed he was "protecting" her, in reality, he was simply hogging all the thrilling fights for himself.
Furthermore, whenever she wanted to spar with him, that guy would invariably adopt an arrogant posture, practically wearing a sneer that said, "Give it a rest, you could never defeat me in this lifetime."
She absolutely loathed that feeling!
But Peter...
She had witnessed this man's strength with her own eyes. There were barely a handful of beings in the entire Nine Realms who could clash head-on with an entity of Bor's caliber.
If she could continuously practice against Peter with everything she had, she believed her subsequent progress would definitely be staggering.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let us begin right now."
"Hmm?"
"Combat training!" Sif leaped to her feet, twisting her longsword to split it into dual blades. "You promised me just now!"
With that, she brandished her twin blades and swung them straight at Peter.
Peter had no way out with this crazy woman, so he simply waited for her to rush into close quarters before delivering a sharp flick to her forehead.
Though it looked like a simple, casual flick, it instantly sent Sif flying over a dozen meters away, making the massive chasm in their strength painfully obvious.
Despite being instantly taken down in a single move, Sif didn't harbor the slightest regret. She merely gritted her teeth, picked herself back up, and charged at Peter again and again.
Once, twice, ten times, twenty times... over a hundred times.
It wasn't until her legs could no longer support her weight, her sweat forming a small puddle on the floor, and her entire body collapsed limply on the ground without a single shred of remaining strength that the sparring session was finally declared over.
After the practice ended, there wasn't a trace of frustration on her face; instead, it was filled with an unprecedented sense of absolute satisfaction.
This feeling... was way too exhilarating! It was far more satisfying than fighting a hundred mock battles back in Asgard.
This was because Peter wouldn't constantly hold back like Thor did, nor would he deliberately go easy on her just because she was a woman. He fought exactly how he should, delivering blows with the precise weight they demanded.
This was a true battle. This was the kind of husband she actually wanted!
With this thought in mind, the usually unyielding Sif rarely displayed a hint of a girl's characteristic allure:
"Peter."
"Hmm?"
"...Carry me to rest, will you?"
Her voice was incredibly soft, yet it carried an undeniable, burning heat.
Peter blanked for a split second. Then, within 0.1 seconds, he made his decision.
Why hesitate? He had already given Gwen and Felicia a heads-up anyway. Moreover, this girl had clearly been completely tamed by him; if he continued to act reserved now, how would that make him any different from a eunuch!
He immediately bent down and scooped Sif up in a bridal carry.
Sif buried her face into his chest, her ears turning a shade of crimson so deep it looked like they might bleed. Yet, her mouth was still stubbornly making excuses: "Do not misunderstand, I am simply far too tired to walk."
"Mm-hmm, whatever you say is right."
"I truly just cannot walk!"
"I know, I know."
"What are you laughing at! You are not allowed to laugh!"
Over the course of the next month, Peter's schedule was packed to the absolute brim. Aside from deepening his bonds with Gwen, Felicia, Sif, Natasha, and Daisy, the remainder of his time was entirely spent on the construction site.
Yes, a construction site.
Beneath the entirety of New York, an unprecedented, colossal transformation was taking place.
Peter and Tony utilized the air-defense shelters left behind from the Cold War era as the baseline structural framework to officially launch the construction of New York's underground engineering project.
Peter's earth magic was practically a cheat code in this kind of project—other people had to use tunnel boring machines to dig tunnels, consuming a massive amount of manpower and material resources. But for him, it was merely a matter of saying, "LAND PLEASE~"!
Using magic to directly displace the earth, channels were completed instantaneously wherever he passed. The workers then followed along the path to install reinforced steel beams, raising the efficiency by an unquantifiable number of times.
Tony was responsible for the technical design and equipment installation, while Peter handled the civil engineering and the layout of the energy cores. The cooperation between the two had reached an incredibly seamless level of unspoken understanding.
How seamless was it? The answer was to the point that even Pepper and Gwen would feel a faint twinge of envy upon witnessing it.
Relying on this synergy and near-cheating magical power, it took less than a month for the Tier-2 and Tier-3 underground defense fortifications to officially be completed.
The Tier-2 fortifications consisted of fifty-three underground safe houses distributed across all five boroughs of New York.
These safe houses were all independently powered by Arc Reactors as their energy source, possessing a defensive capability sufficient to withstand ultra-high-yield explosives.
Each safe house was equipped with a fully functional ventilation system, an emergency medical station, and a stockpile of provisions capable of lasting at least seventy-two hours.
In theory, these safe houses were spacious enough to accommodate the entirety of New York's population of over eight million citizens.
In the event that the Arc Reactor defenses proved insufficient, three Tier-3 safe houses—infused with a massive amount of Vibranium—would be activated.
One in Manhattan. One in Queens. One in Brooklyn.
Each Tier-3 safe house could hold 1.5 million people. In other words, under the most extreme circumstances, these three Vibranium fortresses alone could preserve nearly half of New York's population.
"This is already the absolute limit of what we can achieve."
On the day of the final inspection and acceptance, Tony stood in the central control room of the Brooklyn Tier-3 safe house, a rare look of exhaustion painting his face. "The rest will depend on whether Freddy's dynamic dispatching can keep pace when things actually go down."
The "Freddy" Tony referred to was an auxiliary AI he had specifically developed for this defense system.
Once the battle commenced, Freddy would calculate the battlefield situation in real-time, determine which areas were the core combat zones, and then automatically open the corresponding safe house channels to guide citizens from the Tier-2 safe houses into the Tier-3 safe houses.
To put it simply—it would prevent the citizens from running around blindly, directing them exactly where to take cover.
"You've worked hard, Tony."
"Don't give me that corporate talk," Tony mumbled, biting into a cheeseburger. "I only hope we never have to use these things."
Peter didn't reply. He naturally didn't want to use them either. But he had an intuition that these fortifications would be put to use very soon.
An intuition is a thing that is sometimes so accurate it makes you want to curse out loud.
Just three days after the fortifications were completed, Peter received a call from Hill.
"Director, Mr. Thor has just arrived at headquarters. He says he has urgent matters to discuss with you face-to-face."
Hearing this, Peter didn't hesitate for a single second. He directly pulled out the Eye of Aurora and teleported straight to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.
Inside the conference room, Thor had already been waiting for a long time.
"What happened?" Peter asked casually upon landing.
Thor took a deep breath, getting straight to the point: "Heimdall saw it."
"Saw what?"
"Five warships."
Thor raised five fingers with a thoroughly grim expression:
"Five Chitauri warships are currently flying toward Earth. Furthermore, they deliberately bypassed the star system where Asgard is located.
Due to the cosmic peace treaty my father signed back in the day... our Asgard cannot intervene in this battle! We can only notify you of this news in advance. As for the rest, it will depend entirely on whether you can withstand their assault yourselves!"
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