Listening to Thor's recount, Maria Hill's beautiful brows involuntarily knitted into a deep frown:
"Mr. Thor, could I trouble you to go into more detail? What exactly is the background of these Chitauri?"
Thor crossed his arms, leaning against the edge of the conference table, his expression rare in its absolute seriousness:
"I only learned of this group's existence from my father not too long ago. The Chitauri are one of the most heavily populated predatory races in the cosmos, and they don't even belong to the same galaxy as us.
According to my father, they claim to be the 'immune system' of the universe, striking down and annihilating civilizations wherever they go. Essentially, they are just a bunch of warmongering lunatics expanding blindly across the stars!"
"Their individual combat capability isn't top-tier, but their advantage lies in their staggering numbers, extreme discipline, and a technological level that far surpasses Earth's.
As for further intel, even I am in the dark. They exist entirely outside the sphere of influence of the Nine Realms!"
"My father previously never permitted me to leave the Nine Realms, so even I have no way of bringing you more detailed information. Furthermore..."
Reaching this point, a deeply apologetic look surfaced on Thor's valiant, handsome face:
"I am truly sorry, Peter. For this operation, my father has strictly forbidden me from intervening. So this time, I won't be able to help."
Hearing this, Hill, standing off to the side, couldn't help but roll her eyes heavily in her mind.
And here I thought he was some sort of legendary, grand figure. Turns out he's just a daddy's boy? Pfft, compared to Peter, he's absolutely nothing!
Unlike Hill, who was silently roasting Thor in her mind, Peter's focus was entirely locked onto the Chitauri Leviathan cruisers.
The Chitauri.Five cruisers.Flying all the way here manually.
This specific information allowed him to keenly realize the discrepancy between the current situation and the original timeline. In the original plot, Loki first used the Tesseract to open a wormhole, allowing the Chitauri army to stream endlessly out of the portal.
Furthermore, although the Battle of New York looked incredibly chaotic and widespread, only a single mothership had actually been deployed.
But now?
Who knew if it was because the Tesseract was resting securely in Peter's own hands, meaning Loki could not fundamentally steal it away. Thanos's forces had been forced to choose the most primitive method of interstellar travel.
And most likely, because that fellow Loki had already disclosed Peter's exact strength to Thanos, the Mad Titan had deployed a staggering five motherships right off the bat.
This was going to be a bit troublesome!
In the original timeline, Tony had barely managed to paralyze a single mothership by intercepting and delivering a nuclear missile. Now, five had arrived all at once.
However... it wasn't an impossible fight!
Although the deployment of just a single mothership in the original timeline had run the Avengers entirely ragged, the circumstances now were completely different.
Thanks to Peter's presence, the roster of superheroes in New York extended far beyond the original, meager handful of Avengers.
In particular, Gwen, Felicia, and Natasha—each heavily reinforced by Peter—possessed the individual capability to entirely solo the original Avengers lineup, excluding Thor.
Thinking up to this point, the corners of Peter's mouth curled up instinctively.
To be honest, he was actually starting to look forward to it. It just so happened that the underground fortifications had basically been completed, meaning that no matter how massive the scale of the warfare became, it wouldn't jeopardize the lives of ordinary citizens.
Under these conditions, fighting a drastically different Battle of New York would serve as an excellent grand training exercise for his forces.
As for whether completely annihilating this fleet would prematurely enrage Thanos... Peter ran the calculations in his mind and realized it wasn't a concern worth losing sleep over.
First of all, that old fossil Odin wasn't dead yet. As things stood now, Thanos likely wouldn't dare to personally lead his grand armada into the Solar System to clash head-on with the All-Father.
Furthermore, during this specific period in the cinematic timeline, Thanos only possessed a single Infinity Stone—the Mind Stone. Right now, the Space Stone was with Peter, and the Time Stone was in the hands of the Ancient One. The other stones were still scattered across the far reaches of the universe.
Even if Thanos personally flew over, so what? Without assembling all six Infinity Stones, he couldn't snap his fingers. And a Thanos who couldn't snap his fingers was an opponent that Peter, operating at full capacity, could absolutely handle.
Even if he couldn't outright execute the Titan, he could easily utilize his cheat-level recovery abilities to completely grind him down to death!
Therefore... the advantage was entirely ours!
With that thought, Peter pulled out his phone without a single shred of hesitation. He immediately opened the superhero communication network he had personally designed, pressed the global broadcast button, and delivered the simple yet utterly classic line:
"Avengers Assemble!"
Two hours later, the grand conference hall of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people.
The Avengers, the Shadow Order, the Twilight Eye, the Black Rose, and an elite gathering of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were entirely present on the scene.
Once everyone had taken their seats, Peter stepped up onto the podium and cut straight to the chase:
"A new storm... ah, scratch that, a new war has officially begun."
The conference hall plunged into a dead silence for two seconds before instantly erupting into a massive uproar.
"Again?!" Hawkeye found it somewhat impossible to accept this reality.
The previous invasion by the Inheritors had deeply forced him to confront his own absolute powerlessness. Now, less than a month later, another massive war was descending upon them. Who could possibly tolerate this constant cycle!
"It's not just a simple matter of it happening again. This time, the scale far surpasses our previous battle. Last time, our opponents were merely a handful of individuals from the Inheritor family. This time, we are facing an alien armada numbering in the tens of thousands."
"Fk!" Tony couldn't resist dropping a curse out loud. "With warfare of this scale, our fortifications might not necessarily hold up! Damn it, we should have contacted the United Nations earlier to construct an extra-terrestrial defense line first!"
"By the time the United Nations actually passed the bill, New York would have already been flipped completely upside down!" Peter dryly roasted, before continuing: "There's no time to complain. Because the situation is critical, this meeting will strictly focus on mapping out our operational blueprints."
"The plan is very simple, split into two primary tracks."
Track 1: Civilian Evacuation
Peter's gaze swept across Yelena, Harry, and the rest:
"Aside from William and Alexei, every single member of the Shadow Order will blend into the crowds, taking full responsibility for guiding citizens into the underground safe houses."
"Yelena, you will lead the Black Rose along with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to coordinate the evacuation. Freddy will dynamically manage the opening sequence of the channels in real-time; you only need to follow the AI's directives. Once wartime commences, you will serve as the field commanders for each strongpoint, directing the local forces to fiercely hold the entrances!"
Hearing this, Yelena and Harry exchanged a brief look before nodding in unison: "No problem."
Track 2: Active Combat
Reaching this point, Peter's gaze swept over Gwen and the others:
"The Avengers, supplemented by the full force of the Twilight Eye, will deploy for active combat. Captain America, William, Alexei, Hawkeye, Daisy, and Banner will take charge of the ground battlefield. Tony, Natasha, Gwen, Felicia, and Sif will handle aerial combat and mobile support."
"What about you?" Tony lifted his head to cast a glance at him.
"Me?" Peter offered them a gentle smile before casually opening his mouth to reply:
"I'll obviously be watching from the back~."
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