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Chapter 588: Suppressing the Entire Field
The grassy plains of Wakanda had been trampled into a massive swamp of mud and gore. The energy shield was swarming with frenzied Outriders. These monsters knew nothing of retreat; as soon as the front ranks were severed by the shield's searing heat, the rear ranks immediately stepped on their comrades' severed limbs to throw themselves at the barrier.
T'Challa stood on the front lines, the surface of his Vibranium suit heavily marred by pale, jagged claw marks. The shield's overload alarms were blaring incessantly. The King of Wakanda knew that the moment this curtain of light shattered, the city behind them would become a slaughterhouse.
Okoye gripped her spear tightly, the Dora Milaje holding the defensive line at the shield's failing sectors. Steve Rogers shattered an Outrider's jaw with his dual Wakandan shields, his heavy breathing echoing over the comms. This wasn't a minor incursion like New York; the sheer volume of monsters flooding over the hills had rendered all tactical planning useless.
Bruce Banner was secured inside the Hulkbuster armor, screaming at the top of his lungs while laying down suppressive fire. Falcon skimmed low across the battlefield, his machine guns mowing down a row of Outriders, but for every one that fell, more poured over the ridge. War Machine dropped a payload of rockets from above, sending scorched earth and severed limbs flying in all directions.
Finally, the shield overloaded, tearing open a massive, gaping hole. Dozens of four-armed Outriders shrieked as they charged the nearest Wakandan soldiers. Steve and T'Challa moved instantly to plug the gap, desperately trying to stem the bloody tide. On the horizon, the dark, suffocating horde of the Outrider army accelerated toward them.
Just then, the air in the center of the breach violently twisted and shattered. A blinding white light smashed into the grass, forcefully carving out a scorched crater. Two men draped in white coats appeared out of thin air in the middle of the battlefield. The towering, older man wore round glasses, the large kanji for "Justice" emblazoned across his broad back. The man beside him wore a yellow-striped suit, his hands casually shoved into his pockets with a relaxed, slouching posture.
Steve raised his shield and took a half-step back, staring warily at the two strangers who had dropped in without warning. Even more bizarrely, the frenzied Outriders didn't immediately attack them. The monsters' primal instincts forced them into a brief, terrified hesitation in front of these two men.
Kizaru glanced up at the horde of monsters swarming the hills, dragging out his words in a lazy drawl. "My, my What a terrifying number of them. How completely troublesome"
Sengoku surveyed the battlefield, his brow furrowing as he took in the broken shields and the wounded soldiers. "Borsalino, don't slack off."
Kizaru pursed his lips. In an instant, his body dissolved into a blinding spray of golden light, shooting high into the sky. "Sengoku-san, I just landed and you're already making me work overtime~"
Steve and T'Challa looked up, watching the golden light spread across the Wakandan sky, weaving into a blinding web of light that blotted out the sun.
"Yasakani no Magatama."
An uncountable barrage of light projectiles rained down. These weren't pure photons; the edge of every single projectile was ringed with the pitch-black dust of Truth-Seeking Orbs. The rain of light smashed into the Outrider army.
There were no explosions. No fiery blasts. There was only pure, unadulterated material annihilation.
The Outriders in the front row maintained their sprinting postures even as their entire upper torsos evaporated into nothingness. The monsters in the back rank barely had time to open their fanged maws before the black-and-gold beams pierced their skulls, erasing even their blood on an atomic level. Massive, empty patches of pristine grass suddenly appeared amidst the congested battlefield.
Staring at the red dots vanishing instantly from his HUD, Rhodey's voice caught in his throat. "Cap, are you sure these guys are our reinforcements?"
Steve's grip on his shield tightened. He didn't have an answer. Falcon violently pulled his flight stick, banking hard to avoid the devastating area of effect. Staring at his armor's monitors, which were failing to process the energy readings entirely, Banner sat in stunned silence.
Hovering in the sky, Kizaru stroked his chin, quite satisfied with the destructive results.
From the rear of the Outrider army, Proxima Midnight stepped forward. She glared up at Kizaru. Her spear flared with a harsh blue-white light as she hurled it with all her might. The spear tore through the air, curving in a trajectory that defied physics, bypassing Kizaru completely and aiming straight for the center of Sengoku's chest below.
"Look out!" Steve shouted in warning.
Sengoku stood completely still, merely raising his right hand. A brilliant, golden Buddhist aura surged from his palm. The spear violently crashed into the golden light, only to be caught dead in its tracks by a massive, thick hand. A tracking weapon capable of piercing advanced alien armor couldn't move a single inch further in Sengoku's grip.
Sengoku closed his fingers. Crack. The spear was effortlessly crushed into a pile of metallic dust.
Proxima Midnight froze, her mind blanking for a fraction of a second.
Up in the sky, Kizaru added smoothly, "How scary But you know, when Sengoku-san gets serious, he's quite terrifying too"
Sengoku brought his hands together in prayer, and an overwhelming surge of Wood Release chakra erupted from the ground beneath him. "I don't have time to waste with you."
The Wakandan plains split open violently. Massive wooden pillars burst from the earth one after another, weaving, stacking, and rising infinitely higher behind Sengoku. Steve grabbed a nearby Wakandan soldier and hauled him back from the edge of the expanding chasm. "Everyone, fall back!"
The golden light radiating from Sengoku merged perfectly with his Sage Art: Wood Release chakra. A colossal, dark-gold Buddha, hundreds of meters tall, manifested upon the earth in a seated position. Behind the great Buddha, an uncountable number of massive wooden arms unfurled, completely eclipsing the blazing sun. Every single wooden hand was coated in the slick, pitch-black sheen of Armament Haki.
Okoye stared upward, her spear clattering uselessly to the ground. T'Challa swallowed hard; this completely surpassed anything Wakandan science could comprehend.
Kizaru landed casually on one of the wooden arms, hands still in his pockets. "Sengoku-san, you're going to rack up quite the landscaping bill doing this, you know~"
Sengoku ignored him completely. "Sage Art: Wood Release: Great Buddha True Several Thousand Hands."
The sky-filling array of Buddha hands slammed downward. The massive palms brought with them sonic booms, chaining together to form an apocalyptic shadow. The first row of Outriders was instantly pulverized into paste. The second row was hammered deep into the earth, taking the topsoil down with them. A massive, subterranean meat-grinder machine had just begun to spin its blades when three giant hands pinned it down simultaneously; its steel hull collapsed instantly, and its internal energy core was crushed into a spectacular detonation.
Realizing the battle was lost, Proxima Midnight turned to flee. Kizaru simply raised a finger, and a beam of extreme light instantly pierced the ground right next to her foot. "Now, now Don't run off so soon"
The next second, a giant Buddha hand descended from the heavens, stopping just inches above Proxima Midnight's head. The sheer, overwhelming wind pressure pinned her flat against the dirt, entirely unable to move.
The plains were filled with nothing but deafening rumbles. Every time the Buddha's palms crashed down, massive swathes of the Outrider army were wiped from existence. A few minutes later, the Wakandan frontlines were dead silent. The endless black tide of monsters had vanished, leaving behind only scattered remains and completely flattened trenches.
Sengoku released the technique. The colossal Buddha dissolved into a flurry of wood shavings and dissipating golden light. He walked over to T'Challa. "I am Sengoku. Marine."
Steve walked up, his eyes filled with complex emotions as he looked at the two men. Sengoku didn't bother with further pleasantries; his Observation Haki had locked onto the laboratory in the rear of the Wakandan city. A highly unusual energy fluctuation was spiking there.
"The Mind Stone is over there?" Sengoku asked.
Steve and T'Challa immediately snapped their heads toward the lab. A shrill internal alarm began blaring across all of Wakanda. Inside the laboratory, the yellow gem embedded in Vision's forehead was vibrating violently on the surgical table. Wanda was desperately trying to stabilize the stone with her scarlet magic, but it was proving useless.
Vision strained to speak. "Something is in here."
Shuri rapidly pulled up the security feeds. There was no visible intruder, no spatial disturbance. There was only a single, infinitesimally thin transparent thread—so thin it was nearly invisible to the naked eye—wrapped tightly around Vision's neck. The thread was pulled taut, extending upward into the dark shadows of the laboratory ceiling.
A bizarre, rhythmic chuckle suddenly cut into the Wakandan comms channel.
"Fuffuffuffuffu."
"A delicate little trinket like the Mind Stone. You didn't honestly think the only way to steal something is to smash your way in like those muscle-brained idiots, did you?"
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