New York City, usually a symphony of sirens and traffic, was tonight screaming a full-blown opera of chaos. The source? A maelstrom of noise and catastrophic impacts tearing through Broadway on 121st Street in Harlem, Manhattan.
The air wasn't just filled with sound; it was thick with the dust of pulverized concrete and the acrid stench of burnt rubber and oil. Sparks flew like malevolent fireflies, and every few seconds, a full-sized sedan or taxi—turned into a makeshift projectile—would hurtle through the night sky, carving deep, jagged wounds into the facades of nearby high-rise buildings.
The street was an absolute torrent of humanity. People didn't just run; they scrambled, stumbled, and clawed over each other in a desperate, panicked effort to flee the epicenter of destruction. But against this tide of terror, one figure moved with unsettling calm, drifting from the mouth of a quiet side street directly towards the heart of the explosion.
"Seriously, Manhattan?" Leander Hayes murmured to himself, his black eyes surveying the pandemonium. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his faded hoodie. "This is loud. Let me just cross-reference... It's only 2007, right? The big league events shouldn't be starting for another few years. What in the blazes is the local entertainment committee cooking up this early?"
The boy, deceptively ordinary with his slight build, black hair, and a mixed European-Asian face that looked far too young to be wandering through an apocalypse, casually reached into his backpack. He produced a simple, matte-black metal mask—not a sleek, comic-book accessory, but something functional, minimalist, and menacing. He smoothly clipped it over his nose and mouth.
"Doesn't matter," he concluded, adjusting the chin strap. "If it's big, it's a resource drain. I need to get back to the basement ASAP. Time spent here is time wasted on my next System upgrade."
He hadn't taken three steps before the sheer, grotesque reality of the Marvel Universe slammed into him, literally.
A mangled, unrecognizable chunk of flesh and bone—what was undeniably a human body moments ago—dropped from the sky, hitting the pavement with a sickening, wet splat directly in front of Leander Hayes.
The impact was so forceful that blood, gore, and glistening, multi-colored internal organs exploded outward, instantly soaking his sneakers and spattering his jeans and hoodie with steaming, bright red human residue.
The incredibly stimulating, revolting, and horrifying scene ripped the veneer of the 'casual transmigrator' right off Leander. His previously aloof, system-enhanced confidence vanished. He froze, staring down at the unrecognizable remains. This wasn't a comic panel or a movie screen. This was death. Brutal, messy, and right there.
"Ugh... Ah!"
A tidal wave of nausea hit him. He instinctively stumbled back, slapping a hand against the grimy brick wall of a nearby bodega for support, and bent over, dry-heaving violently.
His body convulsed a few times, but his efforts were fruitless. There was nothing to expel. Thanks to his unique existence, which was tied to his ability, any organic matter he consumed was instantly and ruthlessly converted into energy for his Metal Control System, bypassing normal digestion entirely. His stomach was perpetually empty.
Damn it, damn it, damn it, he thought, his throat burning. That's the kind of visual that sticks with you.
He peeled off his blood-flecked jacket with shaking hands and, swallowing his rising bile, gently draped it over the horrific remains on the ground. It was a pointless, futile gesture of respect, but he couldn't leave it exposed. His hands, though, wouldn't stop trembling. That tremor wasn't fear of death; it was the raw, primal shock of seeing reality torn to shreds.
With a sudden, desperate surge of adrenaline, he sprinted forward, rushing towards the last corner that separated him from the main street. He needed to finish this, get the hell out, and process the trauma later.
As his head just peaked around the brick corner, an object—fast, flat, and lethal—buzzed straight at his face. It was a car door, ripped clean from its hinges and spinning like a massive, silvery saw blade, threatening to decapitate him the next microsecond.
Instinct.
It wasn't a conscious thought; it was a reflex honed by hours of grinding practice with his System. Leander's eyes narrowed, his breath hitched, and his right index finger made the smallest, sharpest flick of movement, a gesture less noticeable than brushing away a fly.
The terrifying projectile instantly slammed to a halt.
The car door hung frozen in mid-air, fifty centimeters from his face.
It stopped so abruptly, without a tremor or a metallic groan, that it seemed to defy physics itself. Several dark streaks of dried and wet blood stained its edge, mute testimony to the lives it had already claimed as a spinning metallic weapon.
But Leander barely registered his own feat of power. His eyes were locked past the floating steel, transfixed by the monstrous figure standing in the middle of the street, illuminated by the flickering flames of burning vehicles.
"No... No way. Hatred? They actually call this thing the Abomination?"
The creature was an absolute behemoth. It towered over four meters tall, a living monument of bulging, sickeningly overdeveloped muscle and bone. Its skin was a sickly, jaundiced yellow-brown, stretched tight over layers of corded, inhumanly dense tissue. A row of cruel, sharp bone spurs jutted aggressively from its spine, elbows, and shoulders—pure, organic weaponry.
Completely naked, the yellowish-brown giant casually hoisted a massive garbage truck, ripping it off the ground with laughable ease, and hurled it into a cluster of fleeing civilians. The resulting explosion was deafening, the blast wave washing over Liu Chong even from this distance.
Nearby, a couple of armored military trucks, battered but still operational, desperately tried to engage the monster. An RPG—a high-explosive anti-tank round—screamed from the launch tube of one of the trucks. The rocket, barely a blur, flew straight and true, only for the Abomination to catch it.
Not dodge it. Catch it.
With a dull, concussive K-BOOM! and a flash of brilliant orange light, the RPG detonated in its massive fist. Yet, in the blink of an eye, the creature stomped out of the smoke cloud, utterly unscathed, without so much as a scorch mark on its grotesque skin.
The noise of the explosion finally drew the monster's attention. Its gaze, predatory and filled with psychotic rage, settled on the remaining military vehicle. It grinned—a horrifying, cavernous display of oversized teeth—and began moving towards its target.
In the apocalyptic cacophony, no one—not the fleeing crowds, not the soldiers, not even the creature—noticed the small boy standing at the corner with a heavy car door suspended weightlessly before him.
Leander Hayes watched the towering figure rush towards the military truck, and a sudden, sharp jolt of fear made him take two steps back. The floating car door, momentarily forgotten, clattered onto the pavement.
The Gatling gun on the truck barked relentlessly, its tracers ineffective against the creature's hide. The truck's driver, seeing the inevitable, performed a sharp, desperate reverse maneuver, tires screeching in a frantic attempt to escape. But the Abomination's strides were tectonic. In less than two hundred meters, it was upon the vehicle.
CRUNCH!
With a casual, contemptuous punch, the Abomination tore the truck in half. It then lifted the mangled wreckage high overhead, roaring a challenge that shook the nearby windows.
"Finally! Someone who can actually fight back!" the monster bellowed, his voice a gravelly, echoing thunder.
SMASH! The truck wreckage was hurled down, instantly flattening the three occupants into a pulp.
Just as the Abomination was about to turn away, its massive legs were suddenly and completely immobilized.
The surrounding metallic debris—shattered car frames, guardrail segments, and street signs—suddenly rose as if pulled by an invisible, powerful magnet. The wreckage climbed and twisted, locking together to form thick, metallic cuffs that bound the monster's ankles and knees. Other fragments followed, a silvery-gray tide flowing upwards, encasing its fists and head in a rapidly hardening metal cocoon.
A hundred meters away, Leander Hayes was not fighting. He was wielding. He sat comfortably on the car door he had just let drop, now floating beneath him like a magic carpet. His hands were clasped together, fingers interlaced, his expression one of intense, strained concentration, facing the direction of the trapped Abomination.
The veins on his right forearm bulged and pulsed, reflecting the extreme mental effort required. He pressed his hands down hard, urging the scrap steel to hold fast.
"Bind!" he gritted out.
In less than a second, the steel had completely covered the Abomination's head, silencing its initial confusion and fury. Above him, a military helicopter arrived, its spotlight cutting through the smoke.
As the Abomination roared and strained, tearing jagged holes in the steel trying to peel the metal from its face, Leander's own delicate features were contorted into a mask of pure, frustrated rage.
"It had to be this! I knew about the Abomination and the Hulk, but I didn't think the timeline was ready yet! This is a massive, inconvenient accident!" he mentally screamed. "Give me three more days, just three days, and my Control Level would break the fifty-point barrier! Then this wouldn't be a struggle; it would be target practice!"
The car door Leander was sitting on fell with a loud clank. He shot upright, his small frame trembling with the effort. He took two steps forward, opened his arms wide, and then slammed them together like closing a heavy book.
The remaining three intact cars nearby—a yellow taxi, a delivery van, and a beaten-up sedan—were instantly yanked skyward, moving with the speed of projectiles. They converged, driven by Leander's immense will, and slammed into the metallic cocoon surrounding the Abomination.
The huge, multi-ton impact sent the creature reeling, knocking it directly to the ground. Then, adding final, crushing weight, a massive billboard, ripped from its rooftop moorings, plummeted down, crushing the Abomination and the three cars under its immense, dense bulk.
The ground shuddered. The steel frames of the cars and the billboard buckled, groaning and twisting under the force, forming a jagged, twisted, embedded tomb. Tiny cracks spider-webbed across the asphalt around the point of impact.
Leander's eyes were bloodshot. He let out a low, ragged cry—part exertion, part frustration—gritting his teeth as he held the immense weight down. He was pushing his System far past its safe limits.
The suppression lasted less than a minute.
BOOM!
A massive, armored fist—raw, yellowish muscle tearing through the confines—exploded from the metallic pile, sending shrapnel flying. The fragments, obeying Leander's will, tried to reverse course, clinging to the fist's surface and pressing down again.
But it was too late. Another fist erupted, and the subsequent, deafening roar of fury shattered every remaining window pane on the street.
The monstrous fists tore the car bodies apart like damp tissue. The bald giant burst out, radiating primal, unfiltered hatred. He ignored the metal shards that desperately tried to reattach to his limbs. He looked around wildly, stomping and tearing, sending the surrounding metal blocks flying with powerful kicks, which in turn punched massive holes into the surrounding storefronts.
"You pathetic insect! Playing games in the shadows won't work!" the Abomination thundered, scanning the periphery for his unseen attacker. "Come out, coward! Fight me like a man!"
Leander slowly lowered his aching arms, his breath coming in short, harsh gasps. He looked at the tall, raging figure in the distance, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two objects.
They weren't ordinary knives. They were sleek, sharp, silver throwing blades, crafted from an exotic, dark alloy.
"You absolute animal," he muttered, his voice hoarse. "This is bad. Ordinary structural steel can't even dent that armor-plated hide, and using this little bit of titanium-steel alloy that I spent months coercing out of a low-level military junkyard... It feels like cutting steak with a dollar bill. But I don't have a choice."
In the distance, the Abomination was distracted again, turning its destructive attention to a nearby pharmacy, tearing it to pieces in a mindless rampage.
Above, the military helicopter stabilized its position. The camera flash from its cockpit glinted off a figure descending rapidly, clad in red and green... The monster had another distraction, but Liu Chong knew the battle was far from over.
I have to thin the herd of scrap metal and find a target, or I'm dead, Leander thought, his expression turning cold. If the System wants me to be a God of Metal, then tonight, I need to start acting like one.