The mutated Abomination

The next day, Potts stayed away from Stark Industries for once, while Luke also left the Long Island Mansion.

After wandering around outside all day, Luke took out his phone in a plaza.

"JARVIS, are you sure you can't see inside the Long Island Mansion anymore?"

"Sorry, Mr. Luke. Mr. Stark has an important date today and doesn't want anyone disturbing him. Apparently, I count as someone too."

"That joke really wasn't very good." Luke shook his head.

He hoped everything went smoothly. He had spent ages planning with Tony yesterday, putting all his experience watching romance anime to use.

After glancing at the stars overhead, Luke stared absently at the pedestrians on the street.

Tony should be able to pull it off. He had succeeded in the original storyline, after all. Luke just wondered whether he would go straight to home base. Before leaving early that morning, Luke had even made a point of clearing the toxins from Tony's body.

He gave a wicked grin, only for his phone to ring.

Luke glanced at it and saw that Coulson was calling.

The moment he answered, Coulson spoke urgently. "Consultant Luke, a yellow monster has appeared on Broadway!"

Luke froze. Hadn't he sent Shadow Ninjas to watch Samuel? Why had Abomination still appeared?

"Can you come help? I'll call Iron Man over too."

Luke hurriedly said, "He has something urgent today. I can handle it alone!"

Coulson definitely wouldn't be able to get through to Tony, but Luke was worried he might go over and interrupt Tony's big night in person.

Luke hung up and headed into an alley, where he drew a portal to the construction site to retrieve the Shadow Legion before teleporting near Broadway.

Watching the chaotic crowd nearby, Luke frowned. Those ninjas should have been perfectly capable of dealing with Abomination before he absorbed Hulk's blood. Why had they still let Abomination appear?

Luke judged the distance and headed over in stealth, lest he run too fast and overshoot before he could react. His speed was anything but ordinary now.

Arriving on Broadway, Luke saw a yellow figure wantonly destroying everything around him in the distance.

The Shadow Ninjas Luke had dispatched were keeping Abomination occupied, preventing him from killing civilians. Even so, some civilians had still been caught in his attacks.

Luke frowned at the people lying on the ground. A moment later, he summoned the Shadow Legion.

A group of ninjas suddenly appeared before the astonished crowd, then nimbly leaped past the chaotic mass of people and ran toward the giant.

Luke appeared on high ground near the battlefield. Watching the enormous number of Ninja Soldiers carry away the surrounding civilians, he sighed in relief before turning to Abomination.

"What's going on here?" Looking at Abomination before him, Luke didn't know what to say. Why did he look different from the movie?

This Abomination looked completely different from the one in the movie, who had at least been recognizably humanoid!

Although this creature was still shit-yellow, he no longer looked humanoid at all. He stood on all fours, his head swaying around on a length of spine, with spikes covering his body like an alien monster.

Luke found it strange, but he still deployed the entire Shadow Legion.

In an instant, figures filled the previously emptied street.

A group of Troll Soldiers surrounded Abomination, while the other troop types took positions in every corner and atop the buildings, encircling him completely.

Abomination seemed less intelligent than he had originally been. Faced with so many enemies, he simply roared like a wild animal and charged at the most conspicuous Troll Soldiers.

The Troll Soldiers met him head-on, charging forward in ranks with momentum no less imposing than his.

The two sides collided without the slightest attempt to dodge. The resulting shock wave shattered every window in the surrounding buildings, sending glass raining down.

The spikes on Abomination's body slammed deep into a Troll Soldier, reducing him straight to shadow.

Luke frowned slightly, surprised that this form of Abomination was so strong. Still, it didn't matter. Five seconds after returning, the Troll Soldier would be back in fighting shape. He refused to believe Abomination could wipe out the endlessly respawning Shadow Legion.

Abomination had killed a Troll Soldier with that charge, but he had also stopped moving. The surrounding Troll Soldiers immediately rushed in and encircled him.

Without caring whether they would be injured, the huge soldiers lunged forward, seized Abomination's limbs, and hauled him into the air.

Then they slammed him into the ground.

The concrete shattered, and Abomination sank into the ground, but the Troll Soldiers' attack wasn't over.

They became merciless pile drivers, clenching their enormous hands into fists and hammering Abomination again and again. The tremendous force made him scream.

Seeing the situation below under control, Luke breathed a sigh of relief. Although Abomination had grown stronger, his own forces were nothing to scoff at.

Through sheer numbers, the Troll Soldiers pinned Abomination down and pummeled him, while another ring of Troll Soldiers couldn't even squeeze into the fight.

Luke casually resummoned the Troll Soldier who had been killed instantly and watched him take a running start across the rooftop before plunging toward Abomination like a meteor.

Boom!

The tremendous crash drowned out all the noise outside. The civilians had still been panicking, but at this sight, they even felt a little sorry for the yellow monster.

Even Luke, standing on the rooftop, was knocked a short distance into the air by the impact. That alone told him how powerful the blow had been.

Abomination stopped moving below, and Luke sighed in relief. Still, he couldn't be sure whether that blow had killed him outright, so he simply had the Troll Soldiers try pulling out his spikes.

With enough force behind them, those things could even pierce Hulk. Luke figured they were harder than diamonds and might even stab Abomination to death.

As the Troll Soldiers below got to work, Luke called over the Ninja Soldiers who had been watching Samuel.

Communicating through darkness waves, Luke learned that after discovering Banner had come there, they had followed his orders and held off, lest Banner keep obsessing over getting rid of Hulk. Then, when Abomination entered and forced Samuel to inject him with Hulk's blood, the ninjas had split into two groups and attacked both men.

Samuel had been chopped into several pieces on the spot, but something unexpected had happened with Abomination.

His spine was so hard that they hadn't managed to sever it. Instead, the blow had sent him flying into the cabinet holding the blood. The blood had poured straight into his wounds, making him thrash wildly in pain, but he never died. His body had only grown bigger, and his skin had become increasingly yellow.

They had rushed up to slash him, but they couldn't cut off his arms or anything else. All they could do was leave wounds, from which spikes then emerged.

After that, Abomination had started chasing them and attacking. They had tried leading him somewhere deserted.

But horns and screams had attracted Abomination, and he had run here along the way.

"What kind of converging timeline nonsense is this..." Luke shook his head helplessly. At least they had still beaten Abomination down.

Just as he thought that, Abomination suddenly roared below. Luke hurriedly looked down.

The creature was actually growing, more than doubling in size.

The Troll Soldiers, who had originally stood half a body taller than Abomination, were now considerably shorter than him!

One Troll Soldier had kept hold of one of Abomination's bone spikes, only to be lifted by his swelling body and left hanging from him.

Abomination's head rotated a full 180 degrees to look at the Troll Soldier. The soldier tried punching his head, but Abomination shook him off and stepped on him, reducing him to shadow.

"Seriously?" Watching Abomination kill a Troll Soldier in two moves, Luke could hardly believe it. Troll Soldiers ranked among his strongest troops, yet Abomination had just transformed and started killing them instantly. What was that supposed to mean?

Sudden power-ups weren't supposed to be a villain's skill, unless you were that big guy with the spaceship.

Seeing the transformed Abomination slaughtering his way through the ninjas below, Luke hurriedly ordered every Ninja Soldier to attack him.

He watched wave after wave of ninjas charge forward, only to be knocked flying by Abomination and turn into shadow in midair as they returned.

Luke frowned, gritted his teeth, and crouched down. Streams of dark energy spread around his body.

Instead of continuing to supply energy to the Shadow World, Luke was releasing it directly. The various energies of the Material World wore away more than half of that dark energy outright, but it still continued accumulating.

He hoped the Shadow Legion could hold Abomination back long enough for him to finish charging. As Luke released dark energy, he also tried communicating directly with the Shadow World to draw energy over, but he kept feeling something obstructing him.

Strange. I could clearly do this at Kamar-Taj. Damn! The magic arrays set up by Kamar-Taj!

Having figured it out, Luke focused on releasing dark energy and stopped trying to communicate with the Shadow World. What a joke. Even Dormammu couldn't break through those magic arrays with dark energy. What made him think he could?

Meanwhile, aboard a helicopter, Banner frowned as he watched the Shadow Legion being massacred below.

"They can't kill this thing. Once he loses interest in them, he'll go somewhere else. Only I can stop him!"

Sensing the energy inside Abomination, Banner felt a consciousness within his own body raging in anger that a thief had stolen his power.

"So you really haven't disappeared," Banner murmured.

Betty didn't hear Banner's last remark and rushed forward to hug him.

"Bruce, don't go! You've already been cured!"

Banner turned to look at Betty, gazing at the woman he had longed for, and finally kissed her.

Behind them, General Ross watched and silently reached for the pistol at his waist.

But Banner quickly pushed Betty away, gave her a determined smile, and fell backward toward the ground.

"Bruce!" Betty lunged toward the edge of the helicopter in anguish, and Ross hurried forward to grab her.

Boom!

The sound of a heavy object striking the ground rang out, but nothing emerged for a long while.

"No, Bruce... Bruce!"

Just as Ross was about to comfort his daughter, he heard her delighted cry and leaned out to look below. A green giant climbed out of the crater and ran toward Abomination.

"Damn it, the bad ones really do live forever!"

Hulk glanced at the helicopter overhead, then ran toward the thief in the distance.

He could sense the power inside his opponent that had come from him, but that drug was currently suppressing his own strength, preventing him from unleashing it.

But what complicated thoughts could Hulk have? He just wanted to smash that thief!

As though sensing something, Abomination, who had been slaughtering his way through the ninjas, raised his head on his spine and looked toward the green figure charging from afar.

An inexplicable emotion welled up within him, making him ignore those annoying, unkillable creatures and run toward Hulk.

The two figures collided head-on. The tremendous sound waves could kill a person outright, and at the same time, a green figure went flying.

This wasn't the original Abomination. As an enhanced Abomination PLUS, he was fully three times Hulk's size and far stronger.

But Hulk got up and took a moment to recover. Feeling how severely his strength was restricted, he grew angrier and angrier. The power within him increased slightly, wiping his already limited intelligence straight down to zero.

Just smash him!

"So annoying!" Watching Abomination break out of the encirclement and fight Hulk, Luke felt a headache coming on. He had finally managed to keep Abomination occupied. Couldn't Hulk stop making things worse?

Ordering the Shadow Legion to quickly rescue the people nearby, Luke continued charging.

Abomination now felt no weaker than the Dimension Lord he had fought last time. He needed to store more energy and finish him in one strike.

The two enormous figures collided repeatedly, producing deafening crashes and even visible shock waves.

Hulk fought with increasing ferocity, charging back after every defeat and getting knocked away over and over, while their battlefield kept shifting.

Abomination attacked the little green runt before him with all his might. Although he had lost his intelligence, that green figure still left a profound impression on him.

Luke directed the Ninja Soldiers and Blade Soldiers to carry away the civilians caught in the battlefield. Otherwise, every civilian nearby would die.

The battle remained deadlocked for a long time. Finally, Abomination lost interest in this opponent, feeling that he couldn't take as much punishment as those ninjas.

When Hulk charged again, Abomination lifted a foot and pinned him straight to the ground. Hulk struggled with all his might, but to Abomination now, his resistance was as feeble as a child's.

Abomination's spine slowly lowered his head to take a closer look at Hulk, but he came too close and received a powerful punch.

"Roar!" An enormous bellow erupted from his chest. He no longer had a neck and could only make these meaningless roars.

Hulk seized the chance to break free, then lunged forward and clung to Abomination, grabbing his spine and pulling outward with all his might.

Perhaps this was Abomination's weak point. Feeling intense pain, he roared deafeningly and crashed into building after building, trying to knock Hulk off, only to bring one building after another down.

Dust filled the sky. Countless people were trapped beneath the collapsing buildings, and cries rang out everywhere...

Inside a secret room, Fury watched the battle and assessed the situation. Ordinary weapons probably wouldn't do anything to Abomination. That left the question: should he use the nukes, or this? Fury silently considered the pager in his hand. Suddenly, an intense energy fluctuation was detected and appeared on the screen.

"That's enough!" Finally, Luke finished charging. Hundreds of thousands, nearly a million units of energy gathered around him, forming his dimensional demon god form.

Dark energy surged all over him, carrying him into the air. Looking toward the churning dust in the distance, Luke flew straight after it.

He extended a hand, and dark energy gathered in his palm, forming a spear. With a shout, Luke surged forward amid billowing dark energy toward Abomination, who was rampaging in the distance.

"Stop!" Just as Abomination was wreaking destruction everywhere with Hulk clinging to him, a voice carrying a peculiar energy fluctuation rang out, stunning him for a moment. An instant later, a figure appeared right before him, and a black spear ignored his defenses and plunged straight into his body!

Without the slightest hesitation, Luke dispersed the dark energy that formed the spear. In an instant, hundreds of thousands of units of dark energy erupted inside Abomination. Countless streams flowed through his body, suppressing his gamma energy outright.

The seemingly invincible Abomination collapsed, while Hulk fell to the ground.

Getting up furiously, Hulk looked toward Abomination, only to discover a tiny figure standing on his body, surrounded by countless surging streams of black energy that poured into Abomination.

Abomination let out a roar little different from before, yet it sounded so agonized.

"Get lost!" Luke kept pouring energy into Abomination through the hole and turned to glare at Hulk. Was this guy still trying to interfere?

The previously furious Hulk met Luke's gaze and inexplicably grew frightened. Looking at the energy surging around that man's body, he felt afraid for no apparent reason.

While he stood frozen, unsure what to do, the other guy he hated sent him a mental message telling him to leave. Hulk promptly ran off without looking back.

Luke watched Hulk leave in bewilderment. He had thought he would have to fight Hulk too and had been about to gather the Troll Soldiers, only for Hulk to leave outright.

Well, that settled that. Feeling Abomination suddenly shift beneath his feet, Luke immediately turned back and continued pouring in dark energy to destroy his body.

Sensing someone standing on him, Abomination struggled wildly to rise. But streams of dark energy ravaged his insides, corroding all his muscles and leaving him capable of nothing but futile roars.

Under the dark energy's assault, cells vanished into nothingness one after another, leaving only the gamma energy hidden deep within them.

The gamma energy within countless cells was stirred into rushing out, colliding with Luke's dark energy as the two annihilated each other.

Another battle unfolded inside Abomination, but with Luke supplying energy without end, the gamma energy eventually ran out of reinforcements and was slowly annihilated completely by the dark energy.

Once the last of the gamma energy inside Abomination was destroyed, Abomination himself vanished without a trace. After undergoing a series of genetic modifications, his genes had already been breaking down.

Only the gamma energy accidentally poured into him had kept him barely alive, sustaining him under its control. Once all that gamma energy was destroyed, his body no longer had the power sustaining its existence and simply disappeared.

How nice. Even the ashes were gone, so nobody could get any ideas.

Luke breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't expected gamma energy to have that use. It felt somewhat similar to dark energy.

Wait! There'd better not be a gamma dimension too. With the battle over, Luke sighed in relief and let his thoughts wander for a while.

Gamma energy was indeed tremendously powerful. It had created a monster like Hulk, and even Abomination, who had stolen Hulk's power, had become this strong.

Having received more blood than in the original storyline, Abomination had also been more terrifying than Luke had imagined. Fortunately, he had finally managed to gather energy from the Dark Dimension and defeat him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Luke stretched his aching body. He had poured all the dark energy around him into Abomination, leaving none to heal himself. Fortunately, his energy could recover, so there was nothing to fear.

Wait, I used up all the dark energy around me?

Luke suddenly remembered something. Weren't the cloak and mask he used to conceal his identity formed from dark energy...?

Luke turned around and saw countless reporters frantically taking photos of him.

"Damn it!"

The tiny amount of dark energy he had just recovered instantly covered his face. Luke walked over and threw every one of the reporters' cameras into the Dark Dimension.

"This one's pretty good, though. I look handsome. I'm keeping it!" Ignoring the miserable-looking reporters, Luke flew straight off. What he failed to notice was that his pursuit of Abomination had brought him to a street in Apple City with plenty of traffic cameras.

Inside the secret room, Fury put down the pager and sighed in relief. Recalling Luke's performance, he remained silent for a long time before taking out a file.

Had Luke been there, he would have recognized the Avengers emblem on it.