Monster-Class First Battle

Apocalypse's goal was simple: he wanted to test his strength against two giants.

Hulk shook his massive head. "No fight! You friend, no fight!"

Though Hulk no longer possessed Doctor Banner's intellect, he could still distinguish friend from foe.

Apocalypse had just saved his girlfriend, so he naturally did not want to fight him.

But that was not up to him!

Apocalypse stepped forward and attacked Abomination and Hulk at the same time.

Elizabeth, aboard the helicopter, said in shock, "Has he gone crazy? Why is he attacking Hulk too?"

Hulk had not wanted to fight back at first, but after Apocalypse punched him several times and smashed his head through the ground, leaving him with a mouthful of reinforced concrete, his anger immediately surged.

"Roar..."

"Roar..."

"Roar..."

The two huge monsters and one smaller monster roared wildly!

Their thunderous roars echoed throughout New York City!

The entire city descended into chaos. The sound was enormous and violent, coming from nowhere. It felt as though monsters might appear beside them at any moment.

Many people panicked and searched everywhere for cover.

On the streets, crowds ran wildly, cars collided, and horns blared without end.

General Ross watched from the sky with a splitting headache. Tonight's disaster had grown far too large. He had no idea how to clean it up.

On the ground stood three great monsters.

Apocalypse laughed. "Haha... Hulk, you're too slow."

Hulk roared, "Friend... still fight... roar..."

Abomination laughed. "Ha~ ha~ ha~, this feels~ great! Come~ again!"

With that, he pounced again.

Boom...

Apocalypse lashed out with a whip kick, sending Abomination flying dozens of meters. Blood actually trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Abomination had not shed a single drop of blood when the military attacked him with RPGs or when he fought Hulk, yet Apocalypse had beaten him bloody.

Rather than fear, Abomination grew angrier and lunged again. "Ha~ ha~ ha~ ha~ ha~, exhilarating! Exhilarating! Now this is real power!"

Boom... boom... boom... boom...

Apocalypse neither dodged nor retreated. He traded blows with the wildest of fists, disregarding technique and injury alike as he freely unleashed the power he had only just gained.

Often, a single punch would send Abomination and Hulk flying over a hundred meters.

Abomination fought without regard for death. He was knocked away again and again, yet kept leaping back each time, perfectly inheriting Blonsky's battle-hungry nature from before his transformation.

The two giants surrounded Apocalypse, yet they still fell into a disadvantage.

Abomination and Hulk were blasted backward again and again.

Everywhere they passed, the ground exploded. Not a single patch remained intact.

After fighting for a while, Apocalypse determined that his strength exceeded Abomination's and Hulk's by more than three times. He began testing some techniques.

Though his elders had never taught him Eastern martial arts, he had been exposed to them for years. Even if he had never practiced some simple moves, he still knew how to use them.

The foundation of all martial arts techniques was strength and speed.

Ordinary people possessed neither strength nor speed. Techniques were like rootless flames; even if they knew them, they could not use them.

Now Apocalypse had both. Though his skill was far from refined, it was still much better than two raging bulls charging around wildly.

At one moment, Apocalypse tested Wing Chun; the next, he tested Tai Chi.

Many martial arts moves he had learned by watching movies suddenly became crystal clear.

He toyed with Abomination and Hulk until they spun in circles.

Either they could not use their strength at all, or Apocalypse borrowed their force against them, guiding Abomination and Hulk into taking each other's attacks. The two grew even more enraged.

Abomination's and Hulk's helpless roars continued to ring across the ruins...

Up in the sky.

General Ross's eyelids twitched as he watched. Shock was no longer enough to describe what he felt.

Just hunting down Hulk had already cost countless soldiers their lives, along with hundreds of helicopters, tanks, and armored vehicles. Even the most advanced sonic cannons could not defeat Hulk.

Now there were two more monsters who were no weaker than him!

Worse still, this Eastern man retained a normal human build and his rationality. That made him even more terrifying than Hulk and Abomination.

Unless they used nuclear weapons, there was simply no way to take down this Eastern man.

As long as Apocalypse noticed ordinary missiles in the final second, his strength and speed would allow him to instantly escape the core blast zone. They could not inflict enough damage.

Only nuclear weapons capable of covering dozens or even hundreds of kilometers, combined with the tens of millions of degrees of heat at the center of a nuclear blast that could melt all matter, could guarantee a one-hit kill.

Meanwhile, Apocalypse noticed that Hulk's strength was slowly increasing along with his anger, as though it had no limit.

That was Hulk's innate ability: the angrier he became, the stronger he grew!

In the later stages of the comic world, he could even become Planet Hulk and shatter a planet with a single punch.

Apocalypse only hoped this world was not that absurd. It absolutely could not be comic-book Marvel.

Otherwise, even ten lives would not be enough for him to lose.

As for Abomination, as the battle dragged on, he gradually began to gasp for breath. His stamina could not be as inexhaustible as Hulk's.

By now, Apocalypse had verified his strength. There was no need to continue the fight.

Apocalypse stepped forward at an angle and kicked Hulk away.

Then he flashed behind Abomination. His hands curved like hooks and plunged directly into Abomination's spine, as though he were gripping a thick log.

Crack!

Apocalypse forcibly crushed his spinal column!

Abomination roared in agony, his body collapsing limply to the ground. He could no longer get back up.

Apocalypse said to Hulk, "Hulk, that's enough. Go. Come find me after you turn back into Banner."

Hulk growled a few times. "I Hulk... not turn Banner."

"If you don't turn back into Banner, what about your girlfriend?"

Hulk glanced at the helicopter, hesitated for a moment, then let out a low roar. After a few running steps, he made a tremendous leap and vanished into the night.

In the original plot, Hulk had strangled Abomination unconscious with chains. General Ross took him away, and his whereabouts remained unknown from then on.

It was not until many years later, after Thanos wiped out half the life in the universe, that he appeared in the plot of Shang-Chi, fighting Wong in an arena.

However, by then, he seemed to have regained his sanity. He even cooperated with Wong in throwing the match.

Apocalypse smiled faintly toward the sky. "General Ross, I'll leave the rest to you."

After saying that, he made a long leap and vanished from their sight.

Apocalypse found Dr. Sterns.

He discovered that Dr. Sterns had actually endured the excruciating pain rather than drink the Recovery Potion. As a result, the back of his head had swollen high, making him look like an alien.

However, Dr. Sterns did not care about that. Using simple tools, he began observing the Recovery Potion.

Apocalypse took out five Recovery Potions. "You saw what happened tonight. You can't go back to the academy. Why not follow me? You'll have all the potion you need until you figure it out."

Dr. Sterns nodded in agreement. He understood that he had been swept into a massive vortex. He might as well fake his death amid the chaos.

He had witnessed the Recovery Potion's miraculous effects with his own eyes. Compared to it, his previous research was practically kindergarten homework.

Once everything had been settled, Apocalypse finally had the mood and time to consider how he should survive in this world.

First, he needed to figure out what kind of world this was.

The Marvel Universe encompassed countless Parallel Universes and tangled timelines.

The most terrifying and frightening of all was the comic universe. It casually destroyed worlds, altered timelines, and shattered the walls of the universe, with no regard for logic whatsoever.

If he was in such a world, then no matter how powerful he became, he would never know when an even more monstrous powerhouse might appear and crush him to death with a single finger.

In the original comics, Hulk had once been chained by Thanos and enslaved like a dog for millions of years.

In the movies, he had also been kept by the Grandmaster on Sakaar as a combat pet.

If Thor had not arrived on Sakaar and taken him away, he might have remained enslaved until a stronger powerhouse defeated and killed him.

His own power came from Hulk's blood. If he encountered such monstrous powerhouses, he likely would not be able to resist them either.

Fortunately, judging from all the signs, he should be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The movie universe was more logically constructed, within the realm of what normal people could understand.

Hulk also survived until the end. As long as Apocalypse remained cautious, his chances of survival were still high.

But Apocalypse did not dare let down his guard.

In the movie universe, Iron Man, the most popular hero and central figure among the superheroes, died in the end.

If he encountered universe-level powerhouses, Apocalypse still trusted the fists in his hands more.

On the surface, Thanos was the greatest known boss in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there were actually quite a few hidden powerhouses.

The Grandmaster, ruler of Sakaar mentioned earlier, was likely no weaker than Thanos.

There was also Star-Lord's father—Ego, a Celestial who would live forever as long as his planet remained intact. He planted his roots across the entire universe, intending to reproduce throughout it.

And Dormammu, whom Doctor Strange had forced back with a Time Loop. As the ruler of an entire Dark Dimension, he could not be underestimated either.

There was also a place visited in Guardians of the Galaxy. It was the skull of a Celestial. A single skull had allowed the Tivan Group to exploit it for hundreds of years without exhausting it.

One could only imagine how powerful this Celestial must have been while alive!

And who had cut off his head? Where had the rest of his body gone?

There were also the core treasures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the Infinity Stones.

The movies briefly mentioned that these six stones were six singularities left behind by the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, which had been condensed into gems.

Who had condensed the stones? What terrifying level of power would it take to condense singularities into gems?

Then what happened over those ten-plus billion years? How had the six stones scattered across the universe, and why had they gathered on a remote planet in the Milky Way—Earth?

There were also the Watcher, the Eternals who would appear in the future, the Celestial gestating beneath Earth, the supreme Living Tribunal, and even the legendary One Above All.

Judging from the movie plots, the Avengers were far from being a match for these powerhouses in terms of sheer strength, yet they won again and again.

Was all of this truly a coincidence? Was it the protagonists' Fortune? Or was there an invisible hand behind it all, manipulating everything?