Exhausted, the Avengers Teetered on the Brink!

The meat grinder inside the Mirror Dimension churned relentlessly, taking more than half the pressure off the real world.

But on the streets of New York, the fighting was still brutal.

The military dared not use weapons of mass destruction in the city. All it could do was cram civilians into underground bunkers and subway stations.

The survival of the entire city rested on the shoulders of a handful of Avengers.

The Sorcerers had drawn away half the enemy, but the remaining alien army still filled the streets and skies.

Faced with an endless interstellar fleet, even the superheroes began to struggle.

High above, lightning blazed around Thor.

He raised Mjolnir. Savage bolts writhed like serpents, sealing off the Portal's entrance.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Chitauri foot soldiers were blown to pieces the moment they emerged. Their remains rained down, piling into a small hill at the base of Stark Tower.

But even Thor could not keep going forever.

The relentless wide-area attacks drained his Divine Power at a frightening rate.

Before long, Thor had no choice but to stop the lightning and turn to the thick-skinned Leviathans.

Hulk leaped up, tore several alien soldiers apart on a rooftop, then crashed down onto a Leviathan's back beside Thor.

Metal split with an ear-piercing shriek.

With a furious roar, Hulk ripped off a huge metal dorsal fin and drove it deep into the Leviathan's body.

Thor understood at once and smashed his hammer into the fin.

Lightning surged through the metal and flooded the Leviathan's innards.

With an earthshaking scream, the massive beast lost power and plunged into the church below, throwing up clouds of dust.

"They just keep coming!"

Thor gritted his teeth and cursed at the warships still swarming overhead.

Bang!

Hulk backhanded Thor away with one punch, then sprang up and clung to the glass exterior of a Skyscraper.

After battle upon battle, Hulk was visibly slowing down too.

Energy could not be spent without limit.

The aliens' pathetic guns could not pierce his green skin, but the endless leaping and killing had left even Hulk deeply exhausted.

He shook out his aching arms, roared again, and lunged at the next Leviathan.

Two streets away.

Black Widow fired a gun in each hand, muzzle flashes bursting from both barrels.

The alien foot soldiers felt no pain and feared no death, but their fighting skills were atrocious.

Natasha moved like a shadow. Once her magazines ran dry, she closed in and swiftly disabled several soldiers who had come too close.

When the fighting stopped, she leaned against an abandoned car and gasped for breath.

Wounds covered her body. Blood kept seeping from her mouth and nose, and her face was white as paper.

She forced herself upright, picked up a fallen alien energy gun, and pressed on.

In another part of the city.

Captain America ran at full speed, shielding a group of civilians.

Several Chitauri officers capable of independent thought had cornered the civilians and were about to set off a High-Explosive Charge to slaughter them.

At the last possible moment!

A Vibranium Shield came whistling through the air and knocked the detonator away with pinpoint precision.

Steve pounced like a cheetah. His fist smashed through an enemy's skull, and he destroyed its communications module in the same motion.

Then he twisted at the waist, yanked another soldier toward him, and locked both arms around its neck.

Crack!

The alien's bioengineered neck snapped instantly.

Steve had barely thrown the corpse aside when a hulking enemy lunged from behind and pinned his arms.

Directly ahead, another enemy raised its gun and fired.

Steve ducked sharply and drove a vicious elbow backward, using the enemy clinging to him to block the lethal beam.

Seeing that, the armed alien pulled out a bomb, ready to take Steve with it.

Boom!

Blue energy erupted.

Steve braced behind his shield, but the blast hurled him more than ten meters and slammed him into a car, crushing its roof.

He spat blood onto the ground, wiped his chin, and grabbed his shield again.

He was used to brushes with death by now.

Once he knew the civilians were safe, he rushed toward Natasha without looking back.

High above, the red-and-gold armor darted through the air.

Tony blasted a flyer apart with his repulsor.

"Sir, the armor's remaining power has dropped to fifty percent."

"I know, JARVIS."

Tony gritted his teeth, changed tactics at once, and shut down his energy-hungry weapons.

He wove through blind spots between the buildings.

The Chitauri flyers turned clumsily and could not brake in time. One after another, they smashed into the glass curtain walls.

But the tactic did not work for long.

The alien commander soon saw through the trap and ordered the flyers to stop pursuing him at close range.

Tony's rate of taking out enemies plummeted.

At a vantage point.

Hawkeye knelt at the edge of a rooftop, his bowstring thrumming.

His specialized explosive arrows picked targets out of the sky with deadly precision.

But swarms of alien infantry were already climbing the building's exterior.

Drawing his bow over and over had pushed the muscles in his arms to the verge of tearing. Pain bored deep into his bones.

He had nowhere to retreat. He gritted his teeth and pulled another arrow from his quiver.

Everyone was fighting with all they had, yet the enemy showed no sign of running out.

The Portal overhead gaped like the maw of the Abyss, spewing monsters onto Earth without end.

The Avengers' strength was almost spent.

With no other choice, Steve ordered everyone to pull back and regroup.

Close the Portal?

Impossible.

Under concentrated fire from that many enemies, no one could get near it.

Besides, the Tesseract's pure-energy shield could not be broken by force.

Despair began to spread across the battlefield.

Just as everyone was on the verge of collapse.

Sparks suddenly burst across the air.

Several dazzling golden Portals formed above the ruins of the real world!

Several figures strode out of the glowing rings. Ren's gaze flashed as he faced the alien army filling the sky.

Meanwhile, elsewhere.

New York, on a ruined street beside Stark Tower.

Several figures in sorcerers' robes stared at one another.

Carter and the Medical Team apprentices with him were hopelessly lost.

He had once fought on the front lines, retiring to teach only after being wounded. With fighters in short supply today, he had been assigned to lead a support team. But it had been too long since his last battle, and his positioning Spell had gone badly wrong.

Instead of entering the Mirror Dimension, the entire team had landed in the war-torn real world!

"Master, something's wrong out here!"

One apprentice's teeth chattered uncontrollably.

Carter looked at the Chitauri flyers swarming overhead, and his heart sank.

A veteran's instincts told him they were in trouble.

They were only three blocks from the New York Sanctum.

Normally, there was a safe passage inside, but he had opened a Portal to save time and botched it.

Now that the defensive formations were fully active, they would have to fight their way to the Sanctum's front door to get in.

"Everyone, stay alert! The New York Sanctum is our objective. Prepare to break through!"

Carter's command rang out.

The support apprentices behind him nearly collapsed.

They spent their days memorizing prescriptions in the rear. They had never seen streets strewn with severed limbs.

"Master, we've never been on the front lines!"

"Enough! If you don't want to end up in pieces, draw your weapons!"

The old Sorcerer roared.

On the empty street, their small group stood out like torches in the night.

Chitauri troops all around them immediately converged.

Humm!

Carter threw out both hands, forming two golden Magic Shields.

The apprentices shakily followed suit, their hands trembling so badly they could barely maintain their shields.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Energy beams swept toward them in a relentless barrage.

The old Sorcerer gritted his teeth and fought desperately to block them.

But his old injuries were still with him, and his strength drained fast.

Within minutes, he was breathing hard.

He glanced back at the apprentices, who could barely stand, and knew they would not all make it out.

"Listen! I'll hold the monsters off. Run toward the Sanctum and don't look back!"

"Master..." The apprentices' eyes reddened.

"Go!"

Carter roared and squared his shoulders, ready to burn through his life force and charge.

At that moment!

"Vishanti's Holy Sword!"

A shout exploded from above.

Golden light flared! Carter's vision blurred.

A huge sword of magical light, dozens of meters long, swept across the street. More than a dozen bioengineered alien soldiers in the front rank were cut in half before they could even scream!

Foul-smelling fluids splashed across the ground.

The apprentices behind Carter stared, their eyes nearly popping out.

"That power! Has a Master arrived?"

"Nonsense! No ordinary Master is that fierce! The Sorcerer Supreme must have come to save us!"

"Are you blind? The Sorcerer Supreme is a woman!"

Amid their cries, Ren dismissed the glowing sword and landed steadily in the middle of the street.

Carter recognized him and froze.

**Ding!**

The host made a spectacular entrance before an audience.

Proficiency with Vishanti's Holy Sword has increased dramatically!

Ren listened to the Electronic Voice in his head, his expression turning complicated.

I can show off in a fight and gain skill experience at the same time?

What a bargain!