"...its vigilance is dropping."
Deathblade spoke in a low voice, feeling the change in the chaotic energy fields all around him as the mutant tide was lured away by the Avengers squad.
The "heartbeat" under the rocks—like some core sealed within a shell of stone—seemed to relax its guard here because of all the commotion raging in the other sections of the tunnel.
"Now."
His ghost-green pupils suddenly contracted. The tip of Extinction gave a sharp, keening hum.
A nearly transparent lance of energy shot out from the blade, thin as a needle and precise as a surgeon's scalpel, stabbing straight toward a specific node hidden in the narrow gap within the rockfall.
Just as that energy beam was about to touch the blue glow seeping from the crevice—
"Achoo!"
A single, massive sneeze—deep, booming, carrying a strange resonance and an almost painful sense of "reality"—exploded through the enclosed, echo-filled underground tunnel like a thunderclap.
Pop!
The energy beam that Deathblade had condensed with all his focus shattered on the spot, blown apart by that sudden, utterly unreasonable shock of sound.
Extinction let out a low, pained hum. The eerie light flowing along the blade's surface dimmed for an instant.
Proxima Midnight's whole body went rigid. Her Dark Night Spear snapped around on reflex, aiming straight toward the source of the sound—the tunnel entrance.
Her ears throbbed as if they had been filled with raw noise. Even her soul felt like it had been rattled, an unfamiliar, nameless irritation blazing up in her chest.
"What the hell was that?!" she snarled, shock and fury tangled together.
That sound...
It wasn't like a physical explosion.
It wasn't a sonic weapon.
It sounded more like some enormous person... sneezing.
"...?"
Deathblade jerked his head around. Behind his helmet, his ghost-green eyes turned into two poisoned spears and stabbed toward the thick, impenetrable darkness at the tunnel mouth.
A sneeze? In a place like this?
They weren't the only ones who heard it.
Closer to the core battlefield, Steve's squad was rocked just as hard by the blast of sound.
Even the mutants that had been attacking like lunatics froze for a moment, stunned by the ear-splitting noise, glancing around in confusion.
"Jesus, what was that?" Bucky clutched his ringing ears, face full of disbelief.
"It sounded... like a kaiju sneezing," Clint muttered, stunned on his high perch.
A cold, absurd, yet frighteningly real sense of foreboding coiled around Steve's heart like a frozen vine.
In the shadows at the tunnel entrance—
"Aaah— AACHOO!!!"
The second sneeze was even more earth-shaking than the first, like it might bring the entire flooded tunnel crashing down.
With that thunderous blast, a gigantic shadow—about the size of a small shipping container—burst out of the darkness and dust clogging the entrance, then crashed heavily to the ground.
"Thud!"
It plowed a long trench through the rubble-strewn, rail-crossed, sewage-slick floor before finally slamming into a warped tangle of rebar and coming to a stop with a loud clang.
It was... a huge disposable drink cup, emblazoned with some fast-food chain's logo.
The lid had been blasted open, and murky liquid stains streaked down the sides of the cup.
Right after that, a figure in a bright red cape, with a perfectly bald head and an awkward expression, poked his head out of the gloom at the entrance.
It was Saitama.
One hand was still holding a cheap convenience-store plastic bag. The other was rubbing at his thoroughly reddened nose.
"...Ah... achoo."
He let out a smaller sneeze, then scrubbed his nose hard and grumbled,
"Damn... the dust in this tunnel is insane. Who's in charge of cleaning this place? It's so— cough— filthy."
He frowned, shook out the hand he'd been using to rub his nose, then finally took a proper look at his surroundings.
Dark, ruined, cluttered with obstacles everywhere.
This... did not look much like the "cheap bridge underpass" area marked on the map app on his phone.
Something seemed just a little off.
(End of Chapter)
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