Opportunity!

The dark red beam appeared without warning, and vanished just as abruptly.

Chu Hang felt a scorching wave of air hit him head-on, as though he were standing before the open door of a gigantic oven.

He instinctively raised an arm to shield his face, only to feel waves of stinging pain across his exposed skin.

The air around them had been heated to a terrifying temperature. Every breath felt like swallowing a ball of blazing charcoal, scorching his throat and lungs.

He struggled to lift his head and looked toward the mountaintop where they had been standing moments ago.

Then his entire body froze. It was as if an invisible hand had seized his brain in a crushing grip, leaving his mind completely blank.

It was gone.

That mountaintop, made of ancient rock and thick layers of ice, had simply lost a huge chunk as if it had never existed. In its place was an almost perfectly circular hole more than ten meters in diameter.

At the center of the opening, the rock had been completely melted into a dark red pool of magma that was still bubbling away. Billowing heat rose from it, warping the air around it.

Chu Hang's mind completely crashed. In his previous life, he had been a modern office drone raised on science-fiction films and video games, and he had seen every kind of world-destroying special effect.

Death Star cannons, positron cannons, Kamehamehas—he had always thought they were nothing more than code typed out by programmers and light effects drawn by artists.

But now, with that irrationally devastating power from fantasy displayed before him in the flesh, he finally understood what it meant to be small, and what it meant to despair.

"Fuck..."

A sigh that represented the very essence of human language when words failed slipped unconsciously from Chu Hang's cracked lips.

He felt as though his worldview, along with his pitiful scrap of courage, had been blasted to pieces by that map-wide attack, leaving not even a trace behind.

It was over. This time, it was really over. They might as well get ready for the funeral feast.

How the hell were they supposed to fight that? One ultimate move from the thing could rewrite the map itself.

An icy sense of helplessness shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head, nearly freezing the blood throughout his body.

He stiffly turned his neck like a rusted robot, wanting to see whether Logan, that fearless brute, still intended to rush forward and fight the monster to the death.

And sure enough.

Wolverine, who usually seemed pumped full of adrenaline and wanted to claw anyone he saw, had completely wilted as well.

He knelt on one knee in the snow, one hand braced against the ground while the other clenched into a fist with a crackling sound. His knuckles had gone white from the force.

Clearly, that map-wide attack, which exceeded the limits of his understanding, had burned out even his beastlike fighting instincts.

Chu Hang cast his final hope toward Steve on the other side.

Well.

Captain America's face was as white as though he had just been pulled from a sack of flour. His lips were pressed tightly together, and his chest rose and fell so rapidly it was nearly keeping pace with an old sewing machine. Clearly, even this battle-hardened Super-Soldier had been deeply shaken by the godlike scene before them.

His body, the peak of human physical ability that he took such pride in, probably would not leave behind even a single molecule if it took a hit like that. His beloved Vibranium Shield? Maybe a tiny corner of it would remain as a keepsake.

The three of them, the strongest fighters of their respective teams, fell into deathly silence at the same time.

The atmosphere had sunk to freezing point.

Yet just as Chu Hang thought they might as well lie down and compare who looked more peaceful, Steve Rogers—the man who radiated righteous light from head to toe—suddenly gritted his teeth!

In his blue eyes, which had gone somewhat unfocused from shock, two tiny flames suddenly flared back to life!

Seriously, sir?

You still weren't surrendering after this? Things were already this hopeless, and you could still get fired up? Did you come with a built-in lighter, or was there a nuclear reactor in your heart?

Chu Hang had to admit that Steve's damnably ill-timed heroism had broken through his defenses. Yeah, it was still too early to give up. What if? What if that giant thing was out of energy? What if its next shot jammed? What if...

Just as he let his imagination run wild, trying to encourage himself with all sorts of unrealistic fantasies, his ears—enhanced by the Super-Soldier Serum—suddenly caught an extremely subtle change.

That devastating beam attack had been so powerful that it had temporarily "cleared out" every sound around them, leaving his hearing briefly deafened. Now, as the ringing in his ears faded, the sounds of the world were returning.

The wind, the rustle of snow grains scraping across the ground, the crack of distant glaciers splitting apart...

And...

"Bzzzzzz—"

The terrifying noise from the foot of the mountain, which had just sounded like ten thousand industrial drills working beside his ears at once, had suddenly grown quieter!

Chu Hang's heart gave a violent leap!

He immediately closed his eyes and focused every bit of his attention on his hearing. Like an ultra-precise sonic radar, he carefully distinguished every detail of the sounds coming from the monster.

That was it! The turbine fan on the monster's head had clearly slowed down. Its sound had changed from that ear-piercing shriek into a somewhat weak, strained chugging noise, like an old engine being forcibly cooled after running beyond its limits.

Holy shit!

An opportunity!

"Yaoyao... no, Captain!" In his excitement, Chu Hang nearly shouted out a gaming catchphrase from his previous life. He scrambled over to Steve's side. "That thing over there sounds completely drained! Now's the time!"

Steve's eyes lit up in an instant, shining like two two-thousand-watt searchlights and immediately sweeping away every trace of gloom!

"Good! Good! Good!" He roared "good" three times in a row, and the dejected air around him vanished completely.

"Listen up. This is our only chance, so keep your ears open! Next, I'll draw its fire!"

What the hell?

Chu Hang and Logan both stared blankly. He was going to draw its fire? With what? That handsome face of his? That thing sure as hell could not block a beam cannon!

"I'll draw its attention." Steve spoke as fast as a Gatling gun, yet every word was terrifyingly clear. "I'll use my speed and shield to harass it from the front. That thing is huge and clumsy. It has to turn as slowly as a stupid mule. What I need are the few seconds when it turns around to chase me!"

His gaze was like two blazing branding irons as it landed precisely on Logan and Chu Hang.

"The moment it turns, the weak point on its back will be completely exposed! Logan, those claws of yours are hard enough, but with your strength alone, you probably can't punch through that thick metal hide in one strike. So you need Chu's help!"

He abruptly turned to Chu Hang, his eyes filled with trust and expectation. "Chu, your strength is absurd now. I figure you're not much weaker than I am anymore. When the time comes, you'll go with Logan. Logan will use his claws to find the right spot on that core, and then you'll use every ounce of strength you have to smash Logan's claws in like nails!"

Use Logan's claws... as nails?

Chu Hang's jaw nearly dropped out of its socket.

Captain, wasn't this tactic a little too damn bizarre? What was he treating Logan as? A humanoid armor-piercing shell? Or some disposable tool he could throw away after using once?

"I get it!" Before Chu Hang could complain, beastlike light had already burst back into Logan's eyes. He stuck out his tongue and licked his cracked lips, and an almost deranged—no, intensely excited—smile appeared on his face. "That sounds thrilling! I fucking love it!"

"Captain, isn't this too reckless?" Chu Hang finally could not help protesting. "You'll be out there alone, waving around in front of it. What if it doesn't play fair, suddenly finishes cooling down, and fires another shot at you? We won't even get the chance to collect your body!"

"There are no what-ifs!" Steve cut him off decisively, his unquestionable presence surging forth. "This is an order! And it's our only hope of surviving! Remember, we only have one chance, maybe only a few seconds! If we fail, all three of us are going home in boxes!"

After saying that, he did not give Chu Hang any chance to keep arguing.

He suddenly stood up and stepped out from behind the cover of the rocks.

The gale atop the mountain made his blue, white, and red uniform flap loudly, outlining his perfect physique like a Greek sculpture. He stood there alone at the edge of the cliff, facing the mountain-sized steel monster at the foot below.

He raised the pot lid in his hand high overhead... no, the Vibranium Shield.

"Hey! You big, ugly tin can!"

Amplified by the Super-Soldier Serum, Steve's voice boomed like a loudspeaker through the entire valley, dripping with provocation.

"Your grandpa's right here!"

At the foot of the mountain, the colossal creature slowly turned its enormous single eye. Its scarlet glow instantly locked onto the tiny figure on the mountaintop who had no regard for his own life.

A roar filled with fury at being provoked by an ant exploded through the air, making the entire mountain hum and tremble!

"Come on!"

Steve roared. The muscles in his legs bulged violently, and he shot forward like a cannonball breaking free of its restraints, leaping directly off the ridge dozens of meters above!

Holy crap!

Chu Hang's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

He actually... he had actually charged at it on his own!

In midair, Steve curled his body up and held the round shield tightly before him. He became a blue meteor tearing across the sky, carrying an unyielding resolve and fearless courage as he relentlessly smashed toward that steel forest of death and destruction!