Protect them? Resist?
In the face of this kind of… incomprehensible power, all the courage and conviction mankind prided itself on suddenly felt small and laughable to Steve.
He looked up at the sky, at the massive portal still slowly turning overhead. It was still open, still connecting New York to the cold dark beyond the stars, but now—without an enemy flagship pushing through—it turned aimlessly, looking almost… lost.
Then he looked back at the bald man's calm, terrifying silhouette, and a deep helplessness clamped down on his chest.
The battlefield had fallen into a deeper stillness than at any point before.
The wind swept through the ruins, carrying smoke and the stench of blood, tugging at Saitama's cheap red cape and making it flap faintly.
In the dead silence, even that tiny sound seemed jarringly loud.
Saitama slowly drew back his fist. He raised his hand to eye level and turned it over a few times, then casually blew at the knuckles as if there were dust there.
His brows knitted together. On that familiar, vaguely vacant face of his, disappointment was suddenly written loud and clear.
"Man…"
A sharp little click of his tongue cut straight through the silence.
Everyone's heart jumped with that sound alone.
"That's it?"
Saitama lifted his head to glance up at the huge portal in the sky, then looked down again at the hand he'd just punched with. His voice was full of genuine, unfiltered disappointment.
"For something that big, he looked pretty intimidating… and then he just went poof from one punch? That doesn't even count as a warm-up."
As if to prove his point, he rolled his shoulder a bit, joints popping softly, then let out a long sigh. His whole posture seemed to sag.
"Total letdown. I thought I might actually have to get a little serious this time."
His gaze drifted lazily across the surroundings.
Across the Chitauri soldiers locked in total system crash.
Across the Mind Scepter stuck point-first in the rubble, still glowing faintly blue.
Across Loki on the balcony, who looked like a puppet with its strings cut.
Across Tony hovering in midair, face blank.
Across Steve, still on one knee, staring at nothing.
Finally, Saitama's eyes settled again on that crooked, smoke-stained signboard in the distance.
"Forget it, forget it," he said, as if the entire battle had become a boring sideshow. He waved his hand casually, like swatting away an annoying fly. "Finding the hotpot place is more important. I'm starving."
He started walking again, feet carrying him with absolute determination toward the direction of "Fragrant Hotpot" in the next block. His pace even picked up into a light jog, a little spring in his step.
As if erasing Thanos and his flagship with one punch had been nothing but a small, slightly disappointing detour on his quest for half-off dinner.
"W–wait a second!"
Tony finally managed to drag his voice back out of the pit of shock. He all but screamed as he sent his armor diving down, a streak of red and gold slamming into Saitama's path.
The faceplate snapped open. His expression was twisted by too many emotions at once—fear, awe, disbelief… and a raw sense of having been completely, utterly ignored.
"You… what the hell are you?!" Tony rasped. "That was Thanos! The conqueror of worlds! You… you just… you just punched him—and that giant ship—out of existence? With one hit?!"
He was rambling, hands waving as he tried to draw the sheer size of the flagship in the air, as if that would help make any of this make sense.
Saitama stopped, mildly annoyed at having his path blocked—again. He tilted his head, looking at the agitated man in the metal suit, dead-fish eyes full of confusion.
"Conqueror of worlds? Oh, you mean the big purple guy."
He seemed to finally remember that little incident and nodded absently.
"Yeah. I erased him. Is that a problem? He was in the way. And he didn't look like a good person."
His tone was as flat and casual as if he were commenting on the nice weather.
"In the way? Didn't look like a good person?!"
Tony felt like he was about to lose it. He jabbed a finger at the giant portal in the sky, then at the shattered ruins around them.
"Look at this! Look at all of it! Alien invasion! A city in ruins! Who knows how many people are dead! He brought this war here! He's the ultimate threat! And you… you…"
He pointed at Saitama, his hand actually shaking.
"Because he was 'in your way'?"
"War, huh?"
Saitama followed Tony's finger with his eyes, took in the burning streets and destroyed buildings, and his frown deepened. His face took on a "this is such a hassle" look.
"Oh. That."
He seemed to understand why Tony was so worked up, but at the same time, his tone made it clear he didn't think it was worth the fuss.
"Stuff gets broken when you fight, right? That's normal. Back home, monsters show up wrecking the city all the time. Buildings fall faster than this."
He gave a slight, dissatisfied kick to a twisted chunk of metal at his feet.
"But yeah, it is pretty noisy. And messy."
He brushed at some dust on his yellow suit sleeve, making a face.
Tony was completely speechless.
Monsters attacking every day? Buildings going down faster than this?
What kind of hellscape did this guy come from?
The billionaire genius, his airtight logic, his armored suit—all the things he took pride in—felt like a bad joke standing in front of this bald lunatic.
"Sir!"
Steve forced himself back to his feet, scooped up his shield, and stepped up beside Tony.
He took a deep breath. The shock rolling around inside him didn't go away, but he shoved it down and did his best to sound steady and respectful. His face was still pale.
"Mr. Saitama, right? I'm Steve Rogers. We are very grateful for your… help just now."
He had to work for the right word.
"But the war isn't over yet. The portal is still open. The Chitauri are still attacking. Loki is still up there. And most importantly—the Tesseract is still on top of Stark Tower, keeping that portal open. If we don't close it, more enemies could pour onto Earth at any time."
He pointed toward the top of the tower, where the cube floated in the middle of a frame of intricate machinery, pouring out that eerie blue glow. The Tesseract—Space Stone—was still there, prying a jagged wound in the sky and forcing Earth and the far reaches of space together.
"We need your help," Steve said. His voice carried a plea, but also the heavy responsibility that came with the shield on his arm. "Help us close the portal. Help us end this disaster. Protect this city. Protect the innocent people."
His words rang with conviction and duty, the kind of speech that would have stirred men on a battlefield.
The answer he got was Saitama's same flat gaze, still calm, still faintly bored.
"End the disaster? Protect people?"
Saitama scratched the back of his shiny head, the faint rasp of skin on skin whispering in the silence. His eyes drifted toward the ruins not far away.
"Sounds like a lot of work."
He paused, eyes flicking back and forth between Steve and Tony, then said, almost like he was trying to negotiate:
"How about this—you guys go close that whatever-it-is up there. You seem pretty strong. And the tin-can guy," he pointed at Tony, "can fly. That big green guy…"
He pointed at Hulk in the distance, who was still standing there in a daze.
"He's pretty strong too. If you all team up, it should be fine, right?"
Then Saitama seemed to hit on what he considered a brilliant idea. His eyes brightened, and he pointed off toward the crooked "Fragrant Hotpot" sign.
"I'll go check if that place is still standing. I can ask the owner if, after the fight's over, we can get a hero discount. I heard saving the world is supposed to come with special offers."
His expression was dead serious, shining with unwavering devotion—to discounted hotpot.
"…"
Steve felt hot blood rush to his head, his vision going dark around the edges.
A hero discount? At a time like this, when the fate of New York was hanging by a thread, this guy was discussing hotpot coupons?
Tony was shaking with rage. He very nearly had JARVIS charge his repulsors just so he could blast this bald idiot on principle—
Even though he knew perfectly well it wouldn't do a thing. And might end very, very badly.
Right then—
"ROOOOAR!!!"
A roar ripped through the air from Stark Tower's balcony, full of endless humiliation, fury, and hysteria—like a wounded beast screaming its lungs out.
Loki.
The so-called God of Mischief of Asgard, who had just watched his "ultimate backer" get erased like chalk off a board.
He had seen Thanos—his supposed patron, the cornerstone of his grand revenge, the ultimate power he leaned on to get even with Odin and prove himself—
Simply disappear.
Erased by a punch.
By this random bald man, with all the effort and emotion of squashing a bug on the sidewalk.
After terror came complete, snapping madness.
Loki's eyes were veined with scarlet, anger and humiliation burning in them like wildfire. His once-handsome features twisted into something demonic.
He flung both hands upward. Green godly power exploded out of him like an erupting volcano.
He didn't care about control anymore. No schemes, no tricks.
He poured everything he had left into this. The power of the Casket's frost. His remaining divine energy. Even the faint psychic influence left hanging in the air from the Mind Stone, still resonating from the scepter.
All of it, every scrap, hurled out in a suicidal, all-or-nothing outburst—
At one target.
The bald man.
"Die, insect! You worm who dares defy a god! I'll freeze you and your damned hotpot into dust and scatter you in the void!" Loki's scream was so sharp it almost tore eardrums.
Rumble…
The sky changed color in an instant.
Starting from Loki's position, a tide of bone-chilling blue frost erupted outward like a sudden Ice Age, sweeping over Stark Tower and a huge chunk of the surrounding city.
The air itself groaned and cracked as it froze.
Countless enormous icicles materialized out of nowhere, hanging from the air like inverted spears of death, glinting with ghostly blue light. In the span of a breath, the sky, the ruins, the burning wrecks of cars—all of it was covered in jagged ice.
Anything the blue frost touched was sealed in a thick, iron-hard shell of Azure ice.
This wasn't an attack anymore.
It was divine punishment, the kind meant to bury everything in its range. Loki wanted to freeze this entire zone solid—Saitama and all—and shatter it into nothing.
"Loki, you're insane!"
Tony's face went white. He pushed his thrusters to maximum to try and shoot out of the frost's reach.
"Move!" Steve raised his shield and shouted toward Natasha and Clint, who were closest to the balcony.
But the wave of frost moved too fast.
The net of icicles dropped like a killing web.
The first to be swallowed was the man standing in the very center of the street, who still looked like he was pondering whether "hero discount" was feasible.
Saitama.
The deep-blue blizzard slammed into him all at once.
The cold was hundreds of times more intense than anything Loki had summoned with the scepter. It was the kind of absolute zero that could freeze molecules in place, turning matter into brittle, crystalline dust.
"No!"
Steve squeezed his eyes shut in despair.
Tony's armor was instantly coated in frost, his thrusters screaming under the strain.
Everyone braced themselves for the sight of the bald hero being frozen solid and shattered.
And then—
"You're noisy."
A voice cut through the storm, full of irritation, like someone who'd just been rudely woken from a nap.
In the next instant, the roaring blue frost… stopped spreading.
The killing cold slammed into an invisible barrier centered on Saitama and went no farther.
Within a radius of about five meters around him, the blizzard simply couldn't enter.
It was as if there were an invisible, perfect sphere around him. Every shard of ice, every gust of frozen wind hit its boundary and had its edges and fury smoothed away by an unseen hand, forced to flow harmlessly around the bubble instead.
The deep-blue storm still howled past outside, freezing everything it touched.
But inside that bubble—
Not even a thin skin of frost formed on the ground. The air wasn't cold at all.
Saitama stood in the absolute calm at the eye of the storm.
He dug a finger into his ear, frowning so hard his brows could have trapped a fly.
Then he looked up at Loki, who was still on the balcony, eyes wild, pouring power into the blizzard like a madman.
This time, Saitama's gaze finally held something real—
Genuine annoyance.
"Seriously, what is wrong with you?" he called up. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly, cutting right through the storm. "Are you brain-damaged or something?"
As he spoke, he casually lifted his right foot.
And then, as if stepping on a particularly annoying cockroach, he brought it down toward the ground beneath him in a light, almost lazy stomp.
(End of Chapter)
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