"Tunnel... I remember this was supposed to be a subway station, right? Should've been cooler down here..."
Saitama scratched his shiny head, trying his best to recall the directions on his phone, completely oblivious to the chain reaction his two sneezes had just caused.
The gigantic "projectile"—that drink cup he'd blown out with his sneeze—had crashed into several piles of rotten wood and rubble along the tunnel walls, collapsing them. Dust billowed everywhere, thoroughly disrupting the fragile balance of the battlefield.
As the dust began to settle, Saitama immediately spotted, a few dozen meters away, the "shortcut" tunnel Steve's team had tried and failed to break through earlier—a passage choked off completely by massive frozen rocks and twisted rails. It was blocked tight.
But right next to it, he also saw another path—
A side tunnel that looked relatively open and unobstructed.
That side tunnel was exactly where General Deathblade and Proxima Midnight were waiting.
"Oh! That way looks easier to walk."
Saitama's eyes lit up. He didn't spare a glance for the vague human shadows in the dust or the two dark, chilling auras standing before the fallen rocks.
All he wanted was to find a decent spot to lie down as soon as possible.
He started walking straight toward Deathblade and Proxima Midnight's position, grumbling under his breath as he went:
"This place reeks... and it's freezing... If I can't find that bridge underpass, I'm gonna be sleeping in the cold tonight..."
Deeper in the tunnel, General Deathblade tightened his grip on Extinction.
Those two ghost-green points of light in his helmet locked dead onto the red-caped figure walking toward them.
Threat level:
Instantly skyrocketed to annihilation-class.
The target... had walked into this killing ground on his own.
Proxima Midnight swallowed. Her throat bobbed slightly as her fingers clenched down hard on the trigger node of the Dark Night Spear.
On the other side, Steve's squad had also heard Saitama's completely unfiltered muttering.
Their faces went pale in unison.
"Oh, God... why is he here?!" Steve almost groaned.
In front of them, the mutants who'd just been stunned senseless by those sneezes were once again agitated by the sound of Saitama's footsteps, erupting into even wilder howls.
Three factions, in the center of this abandoned tunnel maze, were about to collide in the most chaotic, most unexpected way possible.
For a heartbeat, time inside the tunnel seemed to stretch and compress—
And then, in the very next second, it exploded.
Deathblade moved.
His speed was ghostlike.
Extinction was no longer aimed at the rockfall. Instead, it traced a shrill, dark-golden arc through the air, precise to the extreme.
The slash was soundless, yet carried a killing intent sharp enough to tear open space itself, stabbing straight at Saitama—
More precisely, at the exposed, unprotected artery on the left side of that bald neck.
The movement was simple, efficient, lethal.
He held nothing back. From the very first strike, he sacrificed his own defense to launch a kill-or-be-killed thrust.
Because against a target like this, tests and technique meant nothing.
At the same time, Proxima Midnight sprang into action.
She did not attack Saitama directly—that would have been suicide.
Her target was Natasha Romanoff, who was supporting Steve's team.
The Dark Night Spear left her hand in a blur, hurled like a javelin. The spearpoint ripped through the air with an ear-piercing shriek as a coil of ghostly blue energy wrapped around it, turning it into a venomous serpent lunging for Natasha's back.
She wanted to use the Avengers as bait, to drag the bald man's attention away for just one instant—
To create a single, absolute, kill-shot opportunity for Deathblade's strike.
"Natasha! Look out!"
From his vantage point on the side platform, Clint Barton saw it all more clearly than anyone. He screamed himself hoarse, loosing an arrow on instinct straight at the incoming poisoned spear, desperate to intercept it.
But the moment the arrow touched that coil of blue energy, it was instantly frozen solid—then shattered to powder.
The spear didn't slow down at all.
Natasha was locked in close combat with three mutants. When she heard Clint's warning, every hair on her body stood on end.
That deadly sense of crisis flooded her nerves, and she hurled herself forward purely on survival instinct—
Diving flat to the ground.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For 20+ Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!] [[email protected]/Draumel]
[Thank You For Your Support!]