Monster-Class First Battle

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

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

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

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

But that was no longer up to him!

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

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

Hulk had initially been unwilling to fight back, 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 flared.

"Roar..."

"Roar..."

"Roar..."

The three monsters, two large and one small, roared recklessly!

The enormous roars spread throughout New York City!

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

Many people panicked and scrambled to find cover.

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

General Ross watched from the sky, his head throbbing. Tonight's disaster had grown far too large. He had no idea how to clean it up.

On the ground stood the three great monsters.

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

Hulk growled, "Roar... friend... still fight... roar..."

Abomination laughed. "Ha~ ha~ ha~, exhilarating! Come~ again!"

With that, he pounced forward once more.

Boom...

With a whip kick, Apocalypse sent Abomination flying dozens of meters. Blood actually flowed from the corner of his mouth.

Earlier, Abomination had been struck by the military's RPGs and fought Hulk without shedding a single drop of blood. Yet Apocalypse had beaten him until he bled.

Rather than fearing him, Abomination grew angrier and pounced again. "Ha~ ha~ ha~ ha~ ha~, wonderful! Wonderful! Now this is the kind of strength that has some punch!"

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

Apocalypse neither dodged nor evaded. He traded blows with the wildest punches, ignoring technique and injury alike as he recklessly unleashed the power he had just gained.

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

Abomination fought without regard for his life. Time and again, he was knocked away, only to leap back again, 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 back again and again.

Wherever they passed, the ground exploded, leaving not a single intact patch behind.

After fighting for a while, Apocalypse confirmed that his strength was more than three times that of Abomination and Hulk, then began testing some techniques.

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

The foundation of all martial techniques was strength and speed.

Ordinary people possessed neither strength nor speed. Techniques were like fires without fuel; even if they knew them, they could not use them.

Now, Apocalypse had both. Though his skill was not particularly refined, it was still far superior to the two reckless bulls charging about wildly.

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

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

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

Either their strength could not be brought to bear, or Apocalypse redirected it against them, causing Abomination and Hulk to take each other's attacks. The two grew even more enraged.

Abomination and Hulk's helpless roars rang constantly through the ruins...

In the sky.

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

Just capturing one Hulk had caused countless soldier casualties, and hundreds of helicopters, tanks, and armored vehicles had been lost. Even the most advanced sonic cannon had failed to defeat Hulk.

And now, there were two more monsters no weaker than him!

What was even more terrifying was that this Asian man had a normal human build and had retained his rationality. That made him more frightening than Hulk and Abomination.

Unless nuclear weapons were deployed, it was simply impossible to take down this Asian man.

As long as Apocalypse noticed ordinary missiles in their final second, his strength and speed would allow him to instantly escape the heart of the blast, preventing them from dealing sufficient 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 explosion that could melt all matter, could guarantee a one-hit kill.

On Apocalypse's side, he discovered that as Hulk's anger rose, his strength was slowly increasing as well, seemingly without limit.

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

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

Apocalypse could only hope this world was not that absurd. It absolutely could not be Marvel from the comics.

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

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

By now, Apocalypse had tested his strength. There was no need for the battle to continue.

Apocalypse shifted forward and kicked Hulk away.

Then he flashed behind Abomination. His hands hooked like claws and plunged directly into Abomination's spine, as though he were gripping a huge log.

Crack!

Apocalypse crushed the spinal column with brute force!

Abomination roared in agony, his body going limp on the ground. He could no longer get back up.

Apocalypse said to Hulk, "Hulk, this ends here. Go. Come find me when you turn back into Banner."

Hulk growled a few times. "I Hulk... no turn Banner."

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

Hulk looked toward the helicopter, hesitated for a moment, then let out a low roar. After several 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 afterward, and he disappeared without a trace.

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

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

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

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

Apocalypse found Dr. Sterns.

He discovered that Dr. Sterns had actually endured the intense pain without drinking the Recovery Potion. As a result, the back of his head had swollen high up, making him look like an alien.

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

Apocalypse took out five Recovery Potions. "You saw what happened tonight. You can't go back to the university. Why not follow me? You'll have all the potions you need, until you figure out how to make them."

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 personally witnessed the miraculous effects of the Recovery Potion. Compared to it, his previous research was practically kindergarten homework.

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

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

The Marvel Universe included countless parallel universes and tangled timelines.

The most terrifying and frightening was the comic universe, where worlds were destroyed at the drop of a hat, timelines were altered, and universe walls were shattered. There was no logic to it at all.

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

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

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

If Thor had not come to Sakaar and taken him away, he would likely have remained enslaved until an even stronger opponent defeated and killed him.

His own power came from Hulk's blood. Against such monstrous powerhouses, he probably would not be able to resist either.

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

The movie universe was more logical, within the realm that normal people could understand.

Hulk had survived until the end as well. As long as Apocalypse remained cautious, his odds of survival were still quite high.

But Apocalypse did not dare let his guard down.

In the movie universe, Iron Man, the most popular superhero and central figure among them, had died in the end.

If he encountered a cosmic-level powerhouse, Apocalypse still trusted the fists in his hands more.

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

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

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

There was also Dormammu, the lord of the Dark Dimension, whom Doctor Strange had forced back with a time loop. He could not be underestimated either.

There was also a place visited in Guardians of the Galaxy: the skull of a Celestial. A single skull had kept the Tivan Group extracting resources for centuries without exhausting it.

One could only imagine how powerful that Celestial had 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 had been forged from six singularities left behind by the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

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

Then what had happened during those more than ten billion years? How had the six stones scattered throughout the universe, and why had they somehow gathered on Earth, a remote planet in the Milky Way?

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

Judging from the movie plots, the Avengers were nowhere near a match for these powerhouses in terms of strength alone, yet they won again and again.

Was all of this truly coincidence? The luck of protagonists? Or was there an invisible hand behind it all, manipulating everything?