What was worse was that the portal's stability seemed to have completely vanished. It no longer transported large rock monsters in any orderly way—instead, it turned into a crazed, gushing breach!
Countless small rock monsters—each maybe only one-tenth the size of the earlier ones, or even smaller—erupted from the expanded portal in numbers so vast it was like a dam breaking, like a dense swarm of locusts. They hissed with a scalp-crawling "sssss" as they poured out, instantly flooding huge stretches of the Moon's surface like a gray tide of death, surging toward the base, toward the heroes, toward all living forces!
"Damn it!" Tony shouted. The micro-missile pods on his shoulders and forearms snapped open—full firepower—sweeping down large swaths of the little monsters. But there were simply too many. The moment one area was cleared, more immediately filled the gap.
Thor roared and swung Mjolnir, drawing massive chains of lightning that lanced through the swarm. Each strike cleared out a huge section, but once the lightning faded, the empty space was instantly swallowed again. The Fantastic Four and the other heroes were dragged into a brutal struggle as well—these small monsters weren't that dangerous individually, but their endless numbers were enough to drown anything.
In the comms channel, the Quinjet pilot shouted in panic, "Portal energy out of control! It's still expanding! Stability readings are zero! An ultimate explosion could happen at any moment, impacting the entire base! We must evacuate immediately! Repeat—evacuate immediately!"
The jet engines began to howl. The hatch started closing slowly, preparing for an emergency liftoff.
Saitama looked at the small rock monsters rushing in like a tide, then at the Quinjet that was about to take off.
"You guys go back first," he said toward the hatch, his tone as calm as if he were saying, "Go on ahead—I'll stay and lock the door."
Then he turned around, alone, facing the gigantic portal that was spewing out endless monsters.
He took a deep breath of the oxygenated air the lunar base had manufactured, then set his stance.
There was no earthshaking aura burst—only his fists beginning to alternate at a speed the naked eye couldn't possibly track.
With every punch, the vacuum ahead of him seemed to be crushed and burst by invisible monstrous force! Hundreds, even thousands, of small rock monsters were shaken into dust instantly along the path of his fist wind. Not a single monster could cross the boundary his punches formed.
He stood there without moving, his two fists like a pair of never-stopping super shredders. Every second, tens of thousands of monsters were destroyed. Green flames and gray fragments formed a constantly exploding, constantly extending death barrier in front of him—forcing the portal's exit to be… "blocked" by brute force!
Not one monster could step across that line.
The heroes and agents boarding the aircraft saw the unbelievable scene: one person—using only his fists—holding back an interdimensional army pouring out like a flood!
Everyone, including the battle-hardened Fury (watching through the video feed), was so stunned they couldn't even speak.
The hatch sealed shut. The Quinjet rose in an emergency ascent, fleeing the zone where a catastrophic explosion might happen at any moment. Looking down through the window, all they could see was that tiny yellow figure—still standing steadily before the raging portal, building an impassable defense with nothing but his fists.
The energy shock from the Sky Lord's self-destruction finally began to subside. The out-of-control, swelling portal—now without a power source to sustain it—started to flicker and twist violently. At last, it released an unwilling, screeching whine of energy, then abruptly collapsed inward and vanished, leaving only a massive ring-shaped scorch mark on the ground where it had been.
(End of Chapter)
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