"Another hassle, huh."
Saitama looked down at the hellish scene below.
His usually blank face didn't show much emotion, but a hint of seriousness flickered deep in his eyes.
"These aliens… their shells look pretty tough this time."
He muttered this under his breath, then shifted his angle of descent. With a sonic-boom crack echoing behind him, he dove straight toward the fiercest part of the New York battlefield without the slightest hesitation.
Once again, the peace of Earth would have to be defended by his fists.
The instant Saitama landed, the shockwave blasted several alien behemoths away—creatures that had been about to pounce on nearby civilians.
He swept his gaze around.
A few core members of the Avengers were fighting in their own sectors.
Iron Man Tony relied on his superb mobility to circle in the air. Repulsor blasts from his palms and clusters of micro-missiles from his shoulders rained down in a steady stream, precisely targeting the beasts' heads and joint connections as he tried to find some kind of weak point.
However, the results were disappointing.
Most of those energy attacks were either absorbed or deflected by the creatures' armor, and even when they did manage to inflict damage, that eerie energy flowing across the monsters' bodies quickly repaired it.
"Stark! Their armor can absorb energy! Physical attacks might work better!"
The voice of Captain America, Steve, came through the helmet comms. He was bracing himself with his vibranium shield, forcing back the cleaving strike of a giant beast.
When shield met bone blade, a spray of blinding sparks exploded outward, and the sheer impact made the ground beneath his feet crack apart inch by inch.
"Physical attacks? Easy for you to say. These things' shells are tougher than my armor!"
Tony grumbled as he barely dodged a blast of high-energy breath that erupted from the monster's maw.
Right then, Saitama moved.
There was no flashy technique, no dazzling special effects—
Just a simple step forward, a twist of his waist, and then a plain, straightforward punch toward the nearest beast, which was in the middle of flipping an armored vehicle as if it were a toy.
"BANG————!!!"
A heavy, bone-deep thud rang out, like the very heart of the earth had been struck.
The air compressed in an instant, forming a visible shockwave that rippled outward in concentric rings.
The massive beast that took the hit froze for a heartbeat. At the point where Saitama's fist had landed on its armored chest, spiderweb cracks spread out in an instant, accompanied by a teeth-grinding series of crunches.
The beast let out a roar that was half pain, half rage, staggering back several steps.
Its compound eyes locked onto that tiny human.
It did not fall.
That one punch—strong enough to shatter a mountain—had only fractured its carapace instead of destroying it outright.
The outcome made Tony in the air and Steve on the ground both narrow their eyes.
They knew better than anyone what kind of terrifying force was contained in what looked like an ordinary punch from Saitama.
The defense of these monsters was far beyond their expectations.
Enraged, the giant beast abandoned all other targets.
Together with several nearby brethren, it turned all of its killing intent toward Saitama.
High-energy beams, razor-sharp bone blades, and crushing hammer-like blows came crashing down on him like a raging storm.
Saitama's figure darted through the dense attacks, every movement leaving afterimages in the air.
It all looked incredibly dangerous, but every time, he slipped past the lethal strikes with hair's-breadth precision.
He tilted his head slightly, glanced at the tiny fragments of carapace clinging to his fist, and spoke with a hint of surprise in his tone.
"Oh? A bit tougher than I expected."
Facing the frenzied encirclement of several giant beasts, Saitama could still dodge with ease—
But taking down these thick-skinned, heavily armored monsters quickly had become a lot more troublesome.
(End of Chapter)
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