For an ordinary person, saying 'I'll slap you to death' is just an expression or an exaggeration.
For Thor at this moment...
It was a literal description.
Galactus' universe-level backhand carried unimaginable force.
The single slap left the God of Thunder with a splitting headache, every bone in his body screaming in pain as he found himself completely unable to move.
Thor desperately pulled on Mjolnir until he finally managed to stop himself from being hurled endlessly through space.
Raising his hammer, he shouted,
"Heimdall!"
There was no response.
Apparently, Galactus' slap was even more efficient than the Rainbow Bridge.
One hit had sent Thor completely beyond the Nine Realms, far outside the Rainbow Bridge's reach.
"This is going to be troublesome."
After being launched so far away, Thor was little different from a headless fly drifting through unfamiliar space.
Just as he prepared to head back in what he guessed was the general direction of the Nine Realms...
A silver streak arrived before him.
It was the Silver Surfer, who had likewise been swatted out of the battlefield.
"Come with me, Son of Odin."
As Galactus' former Herald, the Silver Surfer knew the cosmos like the back of his hand.
Returning to Earth would have taken him less than a minute.
Finding Thor, however, had taken considerably longer.
But the direction he pointed this time...
Wasn't toward Earth.
It was the exact opposite.
"Where are we going?"
Even Thor, confused as he was, could tell they were flying farther and farther away from the Nine Realms.
"The situation on Earth is desperate."
"Are you trying to run away?"
The Silver Surfer had no intention of fleeing.
He had simply received a message from an old acquaintance.
He was searching for something...
Something capable of truly driving Galactus away.
Thor didn't believe a word of it.
He gripped Mjolnir and prepared to fly back toward the Nine Realms.
"I think you're just trying to run."
"I won't!"
"Follow him!"
Against the pitch-black backdrop of space...
A face as enormous as an entire galaxy suddenly appeared.
It belonged to Uatu the Watcher.
The sight startled Thor badly enough that he shouted,
"Holy—what the fuck is that?!"
"Even if you return, you are no match for Galactus."
"You would do better to accompany the Silver Surfer and retrieve that weapon."
As an observer from beyond reality, the Watcher had finally decided to interfere for once.
There was no way he was going to let an Asgardian ruin everything through sheer stubbornness.
Time was running out.
He didn't bother trying to persuade Thor gently.
"If you refuse..."
"I'll throw you into the Dark Dimension."
Faced with the threat from this cosmic entity, even the decorative wings on Thor's helmet seemed to droop.
Without another word, he quietly stepped onto the Silver Surfer's board.
"...Fine."
"I'll go."
"But at least tell me where we're headed."
"And what exactly we're looking for."
"We're going to my former master's ship."
"There lies the only weapon truly capable of threatening him."
Carrying Thor upon his board, the Silver Surfer sped toward the edge of the universe...
Beyond all known boundaries.
"We usually call it..."
"The Ultimate Nullifier."
After watching Thor and the Silver Surfer depart for Galactus' worldship...
The Watcher turned his attention back toward Earth.
The reason was simple.
Compared to breaking into someone's home...
The entertainment here was far greater.
Leopardon had been defeated.
Not by Galactus...
But by an attack from behind.
A razor-sharp white bone spike erupted through the giant robot's back.
It narrowly missed Takuya Yamashiro's cockpit before bursting out through Leopardon's chest.
Had Spider-Sense not warned him in advance...
That single strike would have killed Takuya instantly.
The arm attached to the end of the bone spike flexed slightly.
With effortless strength, it hurled the entire giant robot clear across the battlefield.
Leopardon smashed into a skyscraper, reducing the entire building to rubble.
Having been completely drained of energy by Galactus...
The Ultraman body that had turned into a lifeless stone statue...
Began moving once more.
But...
The once silver giant of light had become something entirely different.
Its formerly elegant, divine silhouette had been grotesquely warped by crimson mutations.
Its long limbs were now encased in rapidly growing bone armor.
The giant hunched forward like a savage beast.
Jagged, saw-like exoskeletal spikes erupted from every vertebra along its spine.
Its eyes...
Once glowing with soft white light...
Had twisted into sharp, dark crimson slits.
After effortlessly eliminating the first creature it considered a threat...
The completely berserk giant slowly raised its head.
Its blood-red eyes locked onto only one remaining target.
Galactus.
The silver-white lower half of its faceplate fused together with the crimson veins of flesh spreading wildly across its body, splitting apart into a gaping maw lined with countless serrated fangs.
"ROAR!"
The Giant of Light had gone berserk.
[This is exactly what I was worried about.]
As his body regenerated, Ultraman finally reestablished the connection, allowing his consciousness to project into three-dimensional reality once more.
The moment he did, he realized the situation had become even more difficult than before.
Normally, even after entrusting his body to a human host, it was still fundamentally Ultraman's own body. In a contest of wills for control over it, Ultraman would naturally win without question.
The problem was that this Kryptonian was no ordinary person.
And neither was the thing lurking deep within his consciousness.
Unable to wrest back control immediately, Ultraman could only watch helplessly as his own body bared its horrifying fangs and charged at Galactus on all fours.
The instant their consciousnesses came into contact, Ultraman understood the monster's true nature.
Survival.
Everything about it—its body, its instincts, and every action it took—existed for one purpose alone:
To survive at any cost.
He had no idea why such a terrifying beast existed within Joey's body and mind, but right now that mystery didn't matter.
What mattered was preventing this monster from becoming even stronger.
To do that, Ultraman had to speak to Galactus again.
[Dodge it! Don't attack!]
[Galactus! Can you hear me? Don't attack!]
Of course Galactus could hear him.
But after their first negotiation had ended—and after his dinner table had been kicked over—he had no desire to speak with a higher lifeform so easily swayed by mortal emotions.
Faced with the charging flesh giant, Galactus simply repeated the same tactic.
An even more powerful beam of cosmic energy erupted from him, piercing through the universe itself. It vaporized everything in its path before completely erasing the berserk giant's upper body.
To Galactus, this giant's energy signature was far weaker than the previous Giant of Light.
It was even significantly weaker than the sword-wielding mechanical giant.
Destroying it was effortless.
The headless, upper-body-less giant froze in place.
But it did not fall.
After a brief moment of stillness, bathed in sunlight, countless twisted, writhing masses of flesh began growing from its lower body.
Within seconds, the newly formed flesh evolved once again, completely reconstructing the missing portions of its body.
This time, thick purple exoskeletal armor had grown over its shoulders and chest.
Its faceplate and teeth transformed into pure blue energy, radiating the exact same cosmic energy as Galactus' own attacks.
Galactus, who had been focused on operating the Matter Conversion Tower to speed up his meal, finally changed expression.
Both Ultraman and Galactus could now clearly see what had happened.
Nearly all of Galactus' abilities relied upon the manipulation of cosmic energy.
And now...
The berserk giant had already evolved resistance against it.
That was the meaning of survival.
Absolute adaptation against every attack.
Anything that failed to kill it would only make it stronger.
Anything capable of killing it... could only do so the first time.
This was the ultimate lifeform known as Doomsday.
A creature whose adaptability had evolved to its absolute limit, existing solely for the continuation of its own existence.
"ROAR!"
The flesh giant dropped onto all fours once again like a wild beast.
The force of its explosive charge shook the entire coastline.
Within the mental realm, Ultraman was still locked in a desperate tug-of-war with the berserk giant, trying to restrain the runaway beast charging at Galactus with jaws wide open.
But it accomplished almost nothing.
Galactus' attacks had only produced the opposite effect.
They had made it stronger.
The berserk giant moved even faster than the Giant of Light had during its Gigantic Spacium Beam.
The Kryptonian bio-field spread throughout both its body and the mental realm, preventing Ultraman from breaking through during their battle of consciousness.
"You..."
Even Galactus failed to react in time.
The berserk Doomsday Giant slammed into him, knocking the cosmic god to the ground.
The giant's fingertips glowed with an eerie blue light.
Its bone spikes rapidly regressed, while its hands instantly evolved matching cosmic-energy claws.
The claws pierced straight through the Celestial Armor, tearing open a massive, blood-soaked hole in Galactus' chest.
Pouring out from the wound was not merely flesh and blood.
It was Galactus' seemingly limitless cosmic energy itself.
[This is... very bad.]
Within the mental struggle, Ultraman finally sensed the surface-level desire driving Doomsday.
It wanted to tear apart and devour the greatest threat before.
Destroy every living thing except itself.