Frank and the six others suddenly turned toward the ruins where Hong Fei had just fallen, a scene that immediately caught the attention of Steve and the rest.
Natasha asked in confusion, "What are they doing?"
Steve shook his head. "I don't know."
The seven of them surrounded the ruins. Led by Abomination's Iron Fist, the other six's armors simultaneously released high-energy pulse beams.
Under the pulse energy, the reinforced concrete fragments rapidly exploded and dissolved. Seeing this, Steve's eyes suddenly lit up.
"They're saving someone!"
"Could it be that Hong Fei is awake?" Natasha was puzzled.
Barton, along with Matt and Luke Cage, was clearing out minions on the street. The three frowned deeply as they looked at the ruins shrouded in bright light not far away.
Barton thought for a moment and reported, "Officer, Hong Fei might not be dead."
"Understood!"
Fury didn't care about that right now. He was only afraid that the nuclear bomb would actually land and detonate in the center of Manhattan. The resulting consequences made his hairless scalp tingle just thinking about it.
Thor shouted while chasing Loki, "Loki, if you don't hand it over, I will never forgive you!"
"If you want it, come and get it yourself!"
Thor was furious, constantly releasing lightning as he chased Loki, but he only ever struck Loki's illusory clones.
The ruins were quickly cleared, and a deep pit soon appeared in the center of the piled debris.
Roar!!
Suddenly, a resonant dragon roar echoed through the city once more, the powerful sound waves filling everyone's eardrums. In an instant, countless eyes converged. Thor, who was chasing Loki, landed on a rooftop and looked toward the source of the roar with a face full of pleasant surprise.
A golden light suddenly soared from the ground, winding and rising rapidly as if it had reached the nine heavens in the blink of an eye. As it suspended high in the air, the scattered golden light retracted inward, revealing a set of Black-Gold Armor.
Black was the original color of the armor, while gold was an additional effect granted by the Dragon Power. The black-gold effect produced by their fusion was completely different from the visual impression of either color alone.
Behind the Black-Gold Armor, a blade and a sword were also coated in a thin layer of golden light. When Hong Fei opened his eyes, the dark lenses at the eye sockets suddenly surged with brilliant golden light from the inside out. Soon, the dark crystals were dyed golden.
On both sides of the outer corners of his eyes, two pale gold air currents drifted backward slightly with the wind.
Dragon Power Integration: 17.13%
Clashing fists with Hulk increased it by 1%, trading beams with Thor increased it by 0.7%, and the energy breakthrough directly increased it by 5%.
From 10.43 to 17.13, the most direct impact was that the Dragon Power could be utilized by Hong Fei in a smoother and more domineering way.
Hong Fei extended his hands, and two thick streams of Dragon Power flew from his palms. The golden light, like long silk ribbons, pierced through space and instantly reached the two Leviathans, binding them immediately.
As Hong Fei retracted his arms, the two giant beasts about to crash into the building were pulled backward by a massive force. The survivors in the building cheered wildly after their initial terror, celebrating their narrow escape.
The Dragon-Capturing Hand dragged the two giant beasts into a thunderous collision, causing sparse metal fragments to fall.
When Hong Fei's dragon claws suddenly clenched together, the Dragon Power wrapped around the giant beasts instantly tightened inward. The beasts opened their mouths to let out strange wails, but after just a moment of stiffness and struggle, the Dragon Power snapped tight, slicing the beasts' bodies into smooth, even fragments.
At this moment, Hong Fei felt his health bar jump up a bit.
Active skill card: Cold-Blooded Killer (Blue) — Murakami. "Killing enemies restores a small amount of health."
Hong Fei spread his arms, and the air around him circulated like a soaring dragon. The Dragon Power constructed two lifelike dragon claws.
Following Hong Fei's movements, the dragon claws shuttled through space, continuously crushing and tearing apart Chitauri airships, causing countless explosions in the sky. His arms swung, and his palms cupped together. A ball of golden air current was born out of thin air, like a surging tsunami imprisoned in an invisible sphere, emitting low, muffled roars.
Hong Fei looked up abruptly, the golden gas in his eye sockets drifting toward the back of his head. When the golden light in his hands became as brilliant as the sun, he thrust his arms toward the portal!
Roar!!
Suddenly, light erupted. Outside the golden torrent, a massive figure with a clear dragon head but a phantom-like body emerged.
It wound through the air, quickly rushing toward the portal, sweeping away all obstacles in its path. It fearlessly charged out of the portal. As its figure disappeared, a deeper and more resonant dragon roar echoed from the other end of the dark gateway.
The dragon roars sounded near and far, light and heavy. Though people could only imagine what it looked like on the other side, they kept their eyes fixed on the portal, unwilling to blink.
After a short while, countless fragments of all sizes fell rapidly from the circular portal, including various metal pieces, biological tissues, and even hideous, distinct heads.
At this moment, New York was like a junkyard, and the portal had become a channel for dumping alien trash. When the dumping of these fragments neared its end, the portal, which had been swarming with aliens just a moment ago, was suddenly empty.
Instantly, endless cheers and screams echoed through the city, rising to the sky like a tide.
Hong Fei looked down at the crowd nearby and thought to himself: 'Go ahead and scream, practice your voices first; there will be plenty more times you'll need to scream in the future.'
Loki looked at Hong Fei's Black-Gold Armor and his eyes flowing with golden gas, his heart suddenly pounding wildly. Thor, however, didn't care about anything else. He stood on the rooftop, waving his hammer and shouting at Hong Fei.
"Hong! Wow! You're alive! That's great!"
Hong Fei nodded to him and asked, "Arthur, how much longer?"
"Three minutes."
"Then there's still time."
With that, Hong Fei turned his head, his gaze piercing through the dense crowd of Chitauri soldiers to lock directly onto the uneasy Loki.
As their eyes met, the corner of Hong Fei's mouth curled up, and Loki turned to run.
With a thunderous boom, the Black-Gold Armor instantly broke the sound barrier, plunging into the Chitauri formation with a thick ring of vapor. In an instant, the surrounding alien ships fell from the sky like dumplings in boiling water after the shockwave.
Suddenly, Hong Fei's flight path took a sharp right-angle turn, and his trajectory began to move unpredictably. The Loki who was initially being chased watched his movements with a grim face, then vanished the next second—it was just an illusion.
Suddenly, Hong Fei reached out again toward the empty void ahead. The Dragon-Capturing Hand instantly grabbed a pocket of air.
Upon retracting his hand, Loki's figure flickered into existence within that air. The two closed in instantly. Loki looked down at the Dragon Power locking his arms and chest, then looked up with a smile: "I..."
Just as half a syllable escaped his lips, Hong Fei threw him directly onto the roof of Stark Tower. Loki disregarded his image and did a clumsy roll to the side to dodge.
The next moment, Hong Fei landed with a crash where Loki had just been.
"Hey, wait, I think we can talk." Loki scrambled up, extending his hands in an attempt to get Hong Fei to stop.
Hong Fei reached out and pulled the Mind Stone lying nearby into his hand, then aimed the scepter at Loki's chest from a distance and fired a blast of blue energy.
Loki was blasted backward, crashing directly into the Tesseract device, causing a surge of energy ripples. The long scepter spun lightly in Hong Fei's hand, soon resembling a spear as it whirled into a blur of afterimages and whistling wind.
He charged forward. Upon reaching him, Hong Fei twisted his waist and soared into the air. After spinning once, his arm drove the sharp tip of the Mind Stone toward Loki's head!
"No! Wait!"
A loud shout suddenly came. Hong Fei's movement came to an abrupt halt. Looking at the blade right before his eyes, Loki didn't even dare to blink, for the sharp metal seemed to be touching his pupil.
Hong Fei turned his head.
Thor quickly flew over, sighed in relief at the scene before him, and then said to Hong Fei, "Hong, do you remember me? I am Thor, Thor Odinson. We've met before."
The nano armor on Hong Fei's head quickly retracted, revealing a cold face.
"Thor, of course I remember you. Thank you for waking me up just now."
'I've already noted you down in my little book.'
Thor forced a smile. "You're welcome."
Loki swallowed hard. Hong Fei glanced at Loki and then back at Thor.
"You want to save him?"
Thor stopped after taking two steps closer, then sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Hong. Yes, I know he made a terrible mistake, but Loki... he is my brother."
Hong Fei narrowed his eyes and suddenly said, "Loki? I remember now. He's the one who tried to kill you in New Mexico last time?"
Thor nodded with a bitter smile.
Suddenly, Hong Fei swung the scepter violently. The golden staff swept behind him, and after a muffled groan, the Loki lying on the ground disappeared, and another Loki lay on the ground clutching his leg.
"How did you find me?" Loki was extremely annoyed, but at this moment, he was even more bewildered.
Hong Fei didn't say much. He reached out and snatched him up, his fingers tightly gripping Loki's throat, then looked at Thor.
Thor felt that this might be the most embarrassing moment of his life, bar none. His hand holding the hammer tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened, wishing he could grind Loki into the ground. After deliberating for a while, he said with embarrassment, "Hong, actually, he's adopted..."
Hong Fei shook his head and said, "What are you keeping someone like this for? Even if he doesn't kill you in the future, having him around will cause trouble sooner or later. Besides, his strength doesn't seem to live up to the title of 'God.' Aside from that pitiful bit of magic, he's far too weak compared to you."
"Hahaha, is that so?" Thor suddenly burst out laughing, but soon seemed to feel that such a reaction was inappropriate, so his laughter stopped abruptly, and the embarrassment grew. "Hong, could you be a bit gentler? Loki looks like he's about to die."
Hong Fei turned his head. Loki's hands were clutching Hong Fei's arm guard, which glowed with a gold-red light from being filled with Dragon Power.
He was suspended in mid-air, kicking his legs, his face already starting to turn blue. The Dragon Power had already wrapped around Loki's body along Hong Fei's arm; he probably couldn't use magic right now.
This scene felt familiar. Hong Fei didn't know why Loki, as a god, was so pathetic compared to Thor. Could the genes of Odin and Laufey really be that different?
With a swing of his arm, Loki slammed into the ground, immediately clutching his throat while gasping and coughing. Thor looked at him and wanted to step forward to help, but after thinking about it, he stopped.
This time, Loki's actions were truly too much in his eyes. Because of his selfishness, countless innocent lives had died so far.
"Abomination!" Hong Fei spun around, his voice cutting through the chaos.
The hulking brute paused mid-swing, crushing the last drone underfoot as he snapped to attention. "You got orders, boss?"
"Keep an eye on him." Hong Fei jerked his chin toward Loki before locking eyes with Thor. He pressed the Mind Stone's scepter into the thunder god's hands. "You're closing the portal when the time comes."
Thor hefted the weapon. "Why not now?"
"Because someone's about to nuke this entire block."
"They're what?!" Thor's eyes widened.
"It's fine, it has nothing to do with you. You should be able to withstand a nuclear explosion?"
"What's a nuclear explosion?"
"Later." Hong Fei's armor snapped into place with a mechanical whir. "Wait for my signal!"
Before Thor could protest, Hong Fei rocketed toward the city limits, leaving a sonic boom in his wake.