In a vast desert arena, Black Widow—Natasha Romanoff—was gunning her motorcycle full throttle, desperately fleeing.
Behind her, the Hulk thundered forward with relentless strides.
Since 2008, S.H.I.E.L.D. had already made contact with Bruce Banner, the man who could transform into the Hulk. Natasha was among the first agents sent to approach him.
Under normal circumstances, Natasha wouldn't mind using this as a chance to build some rapport with the green guy.
After all, whether it was Dr. Banner's intellect or the Hulk's brute strength, both were invaluable assets to S.H.I.E.L.D.
But today? Today, she had only one goal in mind—win the final prize.
Unlike Captain Steve Rogers, who was treating this trial like a high-octane fitness test for a new generation of soldiers—eager to vent some pent-up frustration—Natasha had no interest in indulging emotions.
That fire in her blood, that refusal to accept mediocrity, was burning brighter than ever.
With the Avengers Initiative underway, she'd come to recognize something:
Even though she'd undergone limited physical enhancement—pushing her human body to its peak—that still left her a step behind the freaks.
Rogers had the Super Soldier Serum. Banner could turn into a gamma-radiated beast. Stark was literally walking around in a billion-dollar tech marvel.
And now, even those mysterious sorcerers had shown up on the playing field.
But she was Black Widow.
Natasha Romanoff—the woman who stood at the pinnacle of the espionage world.
No way was she stopping here.
This reward, handed down by a Dimensional Demon God and the Sorcerer Supreme himself, might just be the thing to take her from top-tier agent to bona fide superhero.
It had to be.
Her eyes locked onto a small town several kilometers away where a battle was raging fiercely.
Glancing down at the motorcycle's fuel gauge, Natasha expertly adjusted her speed—leading Hulk on a high-stakes chase straight toward the town.
Using one's enemy to deal with another—classic spycraft 101.
...
"Ho~"
Watching Natasha being hounded by the Hulk, Yamanaka Shinno let out a low chuckle.
Somehow, an old meme from his past life popped into his head.
Were those two a thing? He couldn't say for sure.
But what he could say was that once Banner transformed into the child-minded Hulk, he absolutely adored Natasha.
Too bad for him—today's Natasha wasn't in the mood to flirt.
All she wanted was to win.
Hulk was destined for heartbreak.
...
Across the desert battlefield, chaos reigned.
Gunfire, magic, even RPGs and mortars—all kinds of modern and mystical weaponry tore through the arena.
In solo mode, there were no allies. No factions.
Some had tried to secretly team up, but after Shinno's firm warning, they quickly dropped the idea.
Besides, aside from the few he had personally designated, the rest of the randomly selected eighty-plus participants weren't just global sorcerers—there were also plenty of Hydra agents, Ten Rings operatives, and more.
People who had never heard of a Dimensional Demon God or Sorcerer Supreme.
Still unsure whether this "deathless trial" was legit, these folks went all-in—fighting tooth and nail with every trick they had just to survive.
Some of the sorcerers brought into the trial were still daydreaming about winning a reward from the Sorcerer Supreme when they got shot in the back by one of these more...pragmatic participants.
...
"Mark V armor, Black Panther's Vibranium suit, Ant-Man armor, Vibranium shield, Hawkeye's compound bow, the Ebony Staff, Dragon Scale Armor, Dragon Scale Staff..."
Shinno surveyed the arsenal manifested under his [Primordial World Sovereign] ability, inwardly impressed.
His replication power originated from the trait [Boundless Weapon Realm].
But after countless upgrades, what had once been a projection spell had evolved into a rule-defying, reality-warping concept.
With the exception of certain rule-bound artifacts that required conceptual maintenance...
Everything else he copied was fully real.
Which meant—whether it was Tony Stark's Mark V armor or T'Challa's Vibranium suit—he could mass-produce them, break them down, reassemble them, and even hand them out like candy.
...
"Seventy thousand... Yeah, duplicating the Mark V is too expensive. The Vibranium suit is a better deal—only takes about one unit of planetary energy. Not bad."
Shinno ran the numbers for mass-producing both suits.
The Mark V's armor itself wasn't that costly to replicate.
The real drain was the Arc Reactor embedded in Tony's chest. Without that, the suit was just dead weight.
By contrast, the Black Panther suit didn't require an external power source.
It might be more limited in function—offering kinetic absorption, bulletproof protection, and basic stealth—but for ninja who already specialized in offense?
That was plenty.
He could even skip replicating the Vibranium frequency adjusters on the boots—the tech that let Panther scale walls or walk on water.
Ninjas already did that sort of thing as basic training.
...
Back in the Shinobi World, after unifying the nations, the Five-Element Ninja Army boasted over 100,000 active-duty shinobi.
Even if you excluded the old, the infirm, and the logistical staff, you still had over 70,000 combat-ready fighters.
Imagine all of them wearing Vibranium armor.
Now ask yourself—would Thanos not freak out at the sight?
"Note to self: Have Tony Stark and Orochimaru collaborate on this. A few more tweaks could go a long way."
...
Shinno rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
The Panther suit lacked adaptive fitting tech—it couldn't automatically mold to every body type.
That was going to be a problem for outfitting the entire Five-Element Army.
Only once it had that capability could his wild new idea become reality.
...
When the first poison zone began to shrink, the players on the outskirts were forced to move.
Fresh skirmishes erupted across the map.
An hour later, when the safe zone had shrunk to the size of two soccer fields—now centered over New Mountain City—only three contestants remained.
Natasha Romanoff, draped in an invisibility cloak scavenged from a dead wizard, was lying prone on a three-story rooftop. She had a backpack full of C4, a few RPG rounds, and an AWM sniper rifle in her grip.
The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes—still under Hydra's control—marched down the street with a looted assault rifle, eyes scanning for targets.
Dr. Hank Pym—the original Ant-Man—had shrunk down and perched atop a utility pole, silently scanning both Bucky and the rest of the battlefield for signs of the final player.
...
"Black Widow, Winter Soldier, and Ant-Man..."
Shinno looked over the final three, genuinely surprised it came down to them.
In the elimination space—where previously defeated players now watched from an omniscient viewpoint—sorcerers like Wong, Mordo, Kaecilius, Bruce Banner, and Wanda Maximoff also stared in amazement.
Shinno could only shake his head.
Every last one of them... freakin' legends.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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