Lucas forced himself to calm down and resist the urge to rush toward Manhattan.
The Leviathans emerging from the portal were enormous—living war machines wrapped in thick metallic armor. Their bodies stretched across entire city blocks.
Even if Lucas could hurt one, the difference in size alone made the idea unrealistic.
Not yet.
If he had a Saint Cloth, maybe he would consider joining the main battlefield.
For now, Queens would do.
The Chitauri swarms were spreading everywhere anyway. There was no shortage of enemies.
Besides, Manhattan belonged to the Avengers.
That wasn't his battlefield.
Lucas had grown stronger, but Cosmo Awakening was only the beginning.
A starting line—not the finish.
So instead of charging into the chaos, Lucas stayed close to home.
He waited.
Perched quietly in the shadows of a ruined alley, he watched the wreckage of the collapsed apartment building.
The corpses of the Chitauri soldiers he had already killed were arranged clearly on the rubble.
A signal.
Bait.
If their allies detected the deaths, they would come looking.
That was far easier than chasing flying enemies across the sky.
After all—
They could fly.
He couldn't.
Another advantage of his location was the neighborhood itself.
Jackson Heights wasn't exactly a wealthy district.
If an ambulance was called here, response time could easily reach thirty minutes.
In Manhattan's luxury neighborhoods, it might take three.
Surveillance cameras told the same story.
In wealthy districts, even alley dumpsters had cameras pointed at them.
Here?
The main street barely had any.
And if someone installed one, it would probably disappear overnight.
Lucas remained motionless in the darkness.
Soon enough, the sound of engines approached.
Two Chitauri riders swept over the nearby rooftops, responding to the signal of their fallen comrades.
Lucas's eyes lit up.
Two minutes later—
Thud.
Thud.
Two more alien bodies hit the rubble beside the first pair.
The four corpses now lay neatly arranged across the broken rooftop.
Meanwhile, the abandoned Chitauri aircraft—now without pilots—automatically turned and flew away toward their command point.
Lucas silently stepped back into the shadows.
One minute later, the Chitauri command ship hovering beyond the portal detected something unusual.
The number of fallen soldiers in Queens had increased sharply.
A signal was transmitted.
Across the district, Chitauri troops suddenly changed course.
The alien soldiers—who had been gleefully tearing through buildings, cars, and civilians—received new orders.
They roared in response and gathered around a leader.
The commander was larger than the others.
Stronger.
Even his aircraft looked more heavily armored than the standard models.
With six soldiers following him, the Chitauri captain led the squad toward the coordinates where the deaths had occurred.
They arrived moments later.
Below them lay the ruined street.
And the bodies.
Four Chitauri corpses rested atop the rubble.
The squad froze.
A chorus of harsh alien clicks and hisses broke the silence.
Then, as if receiving confirmation from their command network, they moved again.
The squad spread outward in a wide circle over the neighborhood.
Without hesitation—
They opened fire.
Energy blasts rained down like a storm.
Explosions tore across the street.
Buildings shattered.
Pavement cracked apart.
Cars erupted into flames.
From above, the Chitauri bombarded the entire area without emotion or hesitation.
They fired continuously until their weapons drained completely.
Only when the captain stopped firing did the others release their triggers.
The neighborhood had been reduced to rubble.
Shattered apartments.
Burning vehicles.
Smoke rising from every direction.
It resembled a battlefield more than a residential block.
The Chitauri captain hovered in place, scanning the destruction with his larger green eyes.
The street appeared empty.
Silent.
Satisfied, he received the next command from the fleet above Manhattan.
Withdraw.
The squad began turning their aircraft around.
Under the kind of firepower they had just unleashed, nothing should have survived.
Certainly not the primitive inhabitants of this planet.
One by one, the soldiers pivoted their vehicles.
Then—
Something happened.
One of the Chitauri suddenly jerked forward.
His body bent sharply like a shrimp curling under heat.
Crunch.
The armor on his chest burst open.
Green blood sprayed into the air.
Before the others could react—
Another.
Then another.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Each soldier's chest exploded outward, leaving a fist-sized hole punched straight through the armor and body beneath.
The wounds tore from back to front.
As if something had struck them from behind with overwhelming force.
Only after the bodies began falling did the sound arrive.
Six thunderous impacts echoed through the sky.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The Chitauri captain spun around instantly.
The moment he heard the explosions, he leapt from his aircraft without hesitation.
A second later—
His personal vehicle detonated midair.
BOOM.
Something had struck it.
Hard.
Very hard.