The moment Stark was thrown out of the building, Jarvis's voice sounded in his earpiece.
"Sir, the Mark 7 is ready."
Stark, enjoying the thrill of freefall, shouted, "Then what are you waiting for?"
No sooner had he spoken than the Mark 7, under Jarvis's control, swiftly flew toward Stark.
Just as Stark could make out the ants on the ground below, the battle suit finally wrapped around him. Feeling secure at last, Stark let out a long sigh of relief and flew over to Loki. "You've managed to piss off another person—Agent Coulson," he said.
With that, Stark raised his hand and blasted Loki with a satisfying shot from his Energy Cannon.
Meanwhile, the Tesseract chose that exact moment to activate.
A blue energy pillar shot skyward, tearing open a massive spatial rift in the heavens. Immediately afterward, a horde of grotesque aliens came pouring through, riding some kind of vehicle as they charged toward Earth.
Seeing this, Stark realized he wouldn't be able to capture Loki anytime soon and abandoned the idea. Instead, he turned and rushed toward the alien invaders while instructing Jarvis to call Li Ming.
Just as Stark finished tearing apart two aliens with his bare hands, Li Ming's weary voice came through the communicator: "Don't you know I'm busy? Don't bother me unless it's important."
Before Li Ming could finish speaking, Stark interrupted rapidly, "I'm busy tearing aliens apart with my bare hands. You think you're busier than me?"
"The Chitauri are here?" As he spoke, Li Ming stepped out of the RV and looked up at the massive Teleportation gate hovering over the city.
The stage was set. Li Ming smirked silently, hanging a necklace embedded with the Mind Stone around his neck before draping himself in an invisibility cape and donning a skull mask. Riding a dark cloud and carrying a scythe, he swiftly flew toward Stark Tower, shouting, "Hold on a bit longer, I'll be right there!"
Moments later, Li Ming arrived beside the Tesseract. After sending the unconscious Shavig back to the RV to be cared for by Klee Che, he unleashed a swarm of Dementors and ordered Wang Cai to protect him.
Li Ming glanced up at Stark and spoke into the phone, "Hang in there a little longer, buddy. Let me charge up a fireball."
A fireball? Just one? Stark turned his head to look at the ever-increasing number of Chitauri soldiers and twitched his lips before yelling, "Make it a few more, will you? One probably won't be enough."
"Heh heh," Li Ming chuckled coldly as he cast his spell, licking his lips excitedly. "Give me two minutes to finish the casting time, then you can tell me how many fireballs you want."
Aboard the Helicarrier, Fury stood poker-faced at the command console, watching the Chitauri on the satellite feed. Silently praying for Stark to hold out a little longer until reinforcements arrived, he was interrupted by an agent monitoring energy fluctuations suddenly shouting, "Sir, we've detected a surge of mobile energy on the rooftop of Stark Tower, but the satellite isn't picking up anything visual."
Fury's heart skipped a beat as he pondered what this energy could be. Then Stark's voice crackled over the comms: "That's Austin and his army of Dementors."
Dementors? Fury instinctively recalled Coulson's vague report about Li Ming's invisible forces. Now that Stark seemed familiar with them, Fury's eyes lit up, and he asked, "How many Dementors are there, and what's their combat capability?"
Annoyed that Fury was probing Li Ming's secrets at a time like this, Stark snapped, "Ask him yourself."
Fury nodded silently, reasoning that since Li Ming had deployed his Dementor army, he wasn't trying to hide anything. But just as he was about to call Li Ming for details, the energy-monitoring agent suddenly gulped, wiping sweat from his forehead as he shouted, "Sir, we're detecting a nuclear reaction at Stark Tower!"
No sooner had the agent spoken than a one-meter-wide orange fireball appeared on the satellite feed, streaking straight toward the Teleportation gate. Any Chitauri unfortunate enough to be in its path were either severely injured or obliterated on contact.
When the fireball passed through the gate and detonated, Fury's face turned ashen as he gritted his teeth and muttered, "Austin's nuclear fireball!"
Meanwhile, Stark, who had heeded Li Ming's warning and retreated to a safe distance, watched the mushroom cloud rise from the other side of the gate. Swallowing hard, he said to Li Ming, "That's what you call a fireball? I like it. Mind tossing a few more?"Panting heavily, Li Ming said irritably, "Again? Damn it, the Chitauri aren't idiots. They know I'm charging a fireball—you think they'll just stand there waiting for me to finish? They'd have sent an army after me ages ago."
Glancing at the countless floating corpses in space, Stark remarked belatedly, "Alright, this thing really does draw aggro." After a pause, as if recalling something, he asked, "By the way, do you have a way to break through a pure energy shield?"
"I can, but I'll need a lot of time."
As he spoke, Li Ming glanced at the Tesseract beside him. Hanging around his neck now was the Mind Stone, and the scythe on his staff was, in terms of material, no worse than the staff in Loki's hands.
In truth, Li Ming already understood what Stark wanted him to do without further explanation. But—this thing was emitting spatial fluctuations. Wouldn't it be a waste not to take this golden opportunity to study space?
"Well, that's at least some good news," Stark said, casually blasting away a Chitauri soldier before shouting, "I'll draw these ugly freaks away. You focus on shutting down the Tesseract."
If an ordinary person couldn't detect Li Ming while he was invisible, that would be understandable. But for Loki inside Stark Tower to miss him? That would be downright pathetic.
Seeing Li Ming seemingly meditating on the spatial fluctuations, Loki instinctively assumed the Wizard was figuring out how to close the Teleportation gate.
The Chitauri were his allies in achieving his grand ambitions. How could he let them be inexplicably blocked in space like this?
With that in mind, Loki donned his armor and prepared to charge at Li Ming, planning to mock him along the way: You actually dared to fabricate some nonexistent Ancient One to scare me, even claiming she could beat Dormammu? Where's this Ancient One now? Bring her out—let's see if I don't knock her teeth out!
If Li Ming had known what Loki was thinking, he would've immediately contacted the Ancient One to see who'd end up picking their teeth off the ground.
Just as Loki was about to leap onto the rooftop to confront Li Ming, Thor, the ultimate doting brother, descended in a flash of lightning, appearing right in front of Loki. Pointing at the Tesseract, he roared furiously, "Loki, shut down the Tesseract now, or I'll destroy it!"
Destroy the Tesseract? Who do you think you are? Loki sneered at Thor, looking every bit the terminal chuunibyou patient, and declared smugly, "You can't do it. And you can't stop me anymore. There will only be war now."
"Fine then," Thor muttered, heartbroken, before swinging his hammer and charging at Loki. He planned to give Loki a thorough "electrotherapy" session. As for the side effects?
Well, Loki was a god, after all. It shouldn't be a problem... right?
On the rooftop, Li Ming, who had been cautiously guarding against Loki, watched as Loki and Thor clashed. He rolled his eyes in exasperation.Loki, this guy, was clearly a Wizard, but his old habit kicked in again when fighting Thor, stubbornly abandoning spells to engage in close combat. Needless to say, how could Loki possibly be a match for the God of Thunder? In no time, Thor had him pinned to the ground, grinding his face into the floor.
Only because Loki knew Thor inside out did he manage to pull off a small trick, stabbing Thor to avoid further humiliation.
Perhaps well aware that minor injuries were nothing more than a band-aid for Thor, Loki took advantage of Thor's carelessness, flipped away, and escaped Stark Tower.
Seeing this, Li Ming curled his lips: With Loki gone from the building, my safety is naturally guaranteed.
In high spirits, Li Ming waved his hand grandly, commanding with the air of a general: "Wangcai, take the Dementors and go feast."
"Yes, Master," Wangcai, who had been drooling over the Chitauri souls, immediately obeyed.
Wangcai had figured it out—though the Chitauri were half-mechanical beings, the other half was still living flesh.
As long as they were living creatures, they had souls.
True, the interaction between soul and body left these Chitauri souls somewhat incomplete—low-quality, small, barely enough as appetizers.
But for Dementors, even a mosquito was still meat. Besides, if quality was lacking, quantity could make up for it. Hadn't they seen the endless swarm of Chitauri pouring out of the Teleportation gate?
Soon, Wangcai led the Dementors to hover beside the Teleportation gate, quietly waiting for the Chitauri to deliver themselves straight into their mouths.
As the Dementors happily feasted, Steve, Hawkeye, and Natasha, who had just arrived at the battlefield, stared dumbfounded at the sky raining Chitauri soldiers.
Baffled, Steve asked, "What's going on? Are the Chitauri not acclimated to Earth's environment?"
No sooner had Steve spoken than Stark's dry voice came through the comms: "Did you guys take an ox cart here? As for why New York is raining Chitauri soldiers, you'd better ask Austin. It's all the Dementors' doing—those skull-faced things are having a meal."
Clicking his tongue, Stark glanced back at the few remaining pursuers, then at the Chitauri soldiers free-falling the moment they passed through the Teleportation gate, and remarked lightly, "I must say, it's the first time I've seen how spectacular a Dementor feeding frenzy can be."
"Feeding?" Steve frowned, confused. "You mean Austin's subordinates can instantly kill Chitauri?"
Stark shrugged. "Sorry, I meant feeding literally. Dementors eat souls, and those Chitauri in free fall? Clearly, their souls have already been devoured."Suddenly struck by a thought, Stark added with a grin, "By the way, Dementors are immune to physical attacks, immune to energy attacks. Unless you use soul-damaging spells or special energy, they're invincible."
In reality, the Chitauri had already lost several waves of soldiers inexplicably. Through energy detection, they found 365 Dementors gathered around the Teleportation gate, feasting. But they soon realized—damn it—their weapons were useless against the Dementors.
Seeing energy pass harmlessly through their bodies, the Dementors, unharmed, paid no mind to the Chitauri weapons and happily fought among themselves for food.
What could they do? The Teleportation gate was only so big, and with 365 companions present, if they didn't fight for it—would they even get a single bite?
This left the Chitauri captain bewildered: Was this the backward Earth he remembered?