Hulk lay in the ruins, soaked to the bone; he struggled to stand up, but Abomination had already walked up to him.
He raised his foot and stomped heavily onto Hulk's chest.
Bang.
The street cracked.
Hulk's body sank into the concrete road, and he grabbed Abomination's ankle in an attempt to push him away, but that foot was as heavy as a mountain and remained unmoved.
Abomination leaned down, looking at Hulk's face at close range.
"Is that all you've got?" he said, his voice filled with the disappointment that follows satisfaction.
He straightened up and looked around.
On the street, the military was still trying to organize a defensive line, police cars had blocked off several blocks, and reporters were trembling as they reported on this nightmarish scene from a safe distance.
Civilians had not yet fully evacuated.
That little girl in the pink hoodie was still standing in the middle of the road, as if she had been scared silly, or perhaps as if she were waiting for a mother who would never return.
Abomination saw her and just reached out casually, like an adult reaching to pluck fruit from a branch.
Then Mavuika moved.
Golden-red flames exploded on the early morning street.
His figure leaped down from the Flamestrider, the speed so fast that even his afterimage blurred into a streak of light.
He landed in front of the little girl, beneath that descending giant hand capable of crushing steel.
With one palm, he braced against Abomination's palm.
That hand, which could throw cars hundreds of meters, punch through concrete walls, and pin Hulk down so he couldn't move...
Stopped.
It was like hitting an invisible, immovable wall.
Abomination was stunned; he lowered his head, looking at this... human?...who was not even as tall as his knee.
Golden-red long hair, amber eyes, and unextinguished sparks still lingering around his body.
His fingers pressed against his palm, the force so light it was as if he were petting an irritable Beast.
Abomination looked at him, and he didn't understand.
He had been modified into a weapon that surpassed human limits; he felt that with one punch he could kill ten legendary Captain Americas, and he had just stepped on Hulk like an ant...
Yet this person, not even as tall as his knee, had braced against his full downward pressure with one hand.
"What are you?" he asked.
Mavuika did not answer; he tilted his head slightly and said softly to the little girl behind him:
"Close your eyes, child."
The little girl stared blankly at him.
Mavuika smiled at her; that smile was light and warm, like a mother's expression when turning off the lights before bed.
The little girl obediently closed her eyes.
Mavuika turned his head back to face Abomination.
His fingers, which were pressing against his palm, gave a gentle push.
Abomination's entire body flew backward, as if hit head-on by a train traveling at full speed.
He tumbled and fell in the air, smashed through an abandoned school bus, snapped a street lamp pole, and finally crashed heavily into the ground-floor exterior wall of an office building, causing the wall to collapse and burying half his body in the brick and rubble.
There was dead silence on the street.
The army soldiers stopped firing.
The reporters forgot to report.
Civilians hiding behind cars poked their heads out from their hiding spots.
Even Hulk propped his body up from the depression in the ground, looking at Mavuika with those complex eyes mixed with wariness and confusion.
He stood in the center of the chaotic street, his long, golden-red hair fluttering gently in the early morning wind.
Abomination stood up from the ruins.
He looked down at the palm of his right hand; his expression changed from shock to anger, and from anger to a more dangerous, completely out-of-control rage after being provoked.
"You—"
"This is impossible."
Abomination heard his own voice, hoarse and deep, with the rough texture of sandpaper rubbing against steel.
He took a step forward, and the concrete of the street shattered under his feet, leaving deep footprints.
"This is impossible!"
His roar shattered the few remaining panes of glass in the street-side shops, and the fragments fell like rain, refracting blinding light in the morning sun.
"I have obtained Hulk's power—I have surpassed him! I am now the strongest creature in the World! The strongest in the World—!!"
He roared, his muscles expanding again, and his earthy-yellow skin flushing with an abnormal flush.
He wanted to prove to this person who the strongest existence on this street was.
He pounced on Mavuika again.
This time, the speed was even faster than before, and the ground under his feet collapsed with a boom when he exerted force, leaving a deep pit with a diameter of three meters.
Like a cannonball fired from its chamber, he rushed toward that slender person with enough kinetic energy to crash through a building.
Bang—!!!
That was not the dull thud of a fist hitting flesh, but the roar of two mountains colliding.
The air was compressed into a visible Impact, which swirled outward with the two of them as the center.
The already shattered shop windows on both sides of the street were completely reduced to powder in this Impact, and a military Humvee parked twenty meters away was overturned, tumbling three times like a toy car.
Abomination's fist stopped in front of Mavuika's palm.
He used all his strength; every muscle was Burning, every tendon was stretched to its limit, and he could even hear the faint groaning of his own bones under the immense pressure, but that fist could not advance a single millimeter further.
That hand—that hand which looked slender and didn't even have calluses—was like an insurmountable city wall.
"Impossible..."
Abomination muttered.
He withdrew his fist and struck down again.
Left fist, right fist, a double-fist strike.
Elbow strike, shoulder bash, headbutt.
Every attack used full strength, every attack was enough to smash a tank into an iron pancake, every attack...
Was gently blocked by that hand.
Mavuika had not even moved his position.
He just stood in place, easily taking all of Abomination's attacks.
"Impossible... Impossible... Impossible!!"
Abomination's voice turned from anger into madness, and from madness into a kind of roar that was on the verge of collapse.
He didn't understand.
He could not understand.
He had already obtained the power he dreamed of; he could kill dozens of the former Bronski with one punch and smash Hulk's face with one foot.
He could tear open armored vehicles with his bare hands, leap hundreds of meters into the air, and experience an unprecedented, near-godlike pleasure in this disaster he had caused himself.
But now, this person not even as tall as his knee was telling him with one hand—
"You are still a weakling."
"What... exactly are you?!"
Abomination stepped back, his chest heaving violently, and large beads of sweat oozed from his earthy-yellow skin, glistening with an oily sheen in the morning light.
In his eyes, for the first time, something that shouldn't have belonged to him appeared.
Fear.
Mavuika finally spoke.
"Just someone passing by, that's all." His voice was not loud, but the whole street could hear it clearly.
Unwillingness and rage gnawed at his remaining sanity; Abomination roared as he squeezed out the limit of every muscle in his body, his fists carrying earth-shattering force as he smashed toward Mavuika, wishing to completely crush this tiny person.