Lucas Kane had no idea how other Saints trained.
Everything he knew about them came from an anime in his previous life.
That was fiction.
This was reality.
And reality didn't always follow neat storytelling rules.
Still, one thing was certain.
After throwing ten thousand punches every day for a thousand consecutive days, Lucas had pushed that single basic strike to its absolute limit.
There was an old saying—if someone practiced drawing and swinging a sword a hundred thousand times, they could create a legendary technique.
Lucas had thrown far more punches than that.
Now that his Cosmo had awakened, the technique he had practiced endlessly had undergone a transformation.
The Sonic Punch.
A strike fast enough to reach the speed of sound.
And when fueled by Cosmo, it could surpass it.
What did that mean?
Simple.
When Lucas punched someone, they would feel the impact before they heard the sound of the strike.
That was the Sonic Punch.
Above the shattered street, the Chitauri captain landed heavily after leaping from his destroyed aircraft.
The explosion of the vehicle still echoed through the air.
The alien drew a weapon from his back—a long spear-like energy weapon glowing with eerie green light.
Across from him stood Lucas.
Bare-chested.
The bombing had shredded his old T-shirt into useless scraps, leaving him in nothing but gray pants and worn sneakers.
Oddly enough, Lucas felt stronger without it.
Maybe it wasn't just his imagination.
He flexed his fingers once.
"Human."
The Chitauri captain's larger green eyes locked onto Lucas through the metal mask.
High above the battlefield, the alien command ship also registered the human figure through the soldiers' visual feeds.
Lucas tilted his head slightly.
Then he raised his right hand and curled his fingers in a casual beckoning gesture.
No speeches.
No threats.
"Come on."
The Chitauri captain reacted instantly.
With a powerful step that cracked the pavement beneath him, the alien lunged forward.
Energy flared at the tip of the spear as it fired rapid green projectiles toward Lucas.
Lucas moved at the same moment.
His foot pushed off the ground.
Concrete fractured under the force.
His body surged forward like a streak of golden light.
In the legends Lucas remembered, once a Bronze Saint awakened their Cosmo and wore their constellation's Cloth, their physical abilities reached terrifying levels.
Their defenses became extraordinary.
Their movements reached the speed of sound.
Their lifespans far exceeded those of ordinary humans.
Lucas hadn't reached that stage yet.
He had no constellation.
No Saint Cloth.
But awakening his Cosmo had already pushed him beyond the limits of an ordinary human.
And that was enough.
The Chitauri captain suddenly jerked in mid-charge.
Green blood burst from his mouth.
The impact was so violent that the force ripped his metal mask away from his face, revealing the insect-like features beneath.
Only then—
BOOM.
The sound arrived.
The captain looked down slowly.
Lucas's arm had pierced straight through his armored chest.
The alien tried to raise his head, perhaps to look at the human who had killed him in a single strike.
He never finished the motion.
Lucas withdrew his arm.
Darkness claimed the alien immediately.
The Chitauri captain collapsed onto the broken street like a dead insect.
Lucas bent down and picked up the fallen spear.
The weapon hummed faintly, green energy flowing through its core.
He turned it in his hand thoughtfully.
Then another thought occurred to him.
If he sold this thing…
Along with the four alien rifles he had collected earlier…
How much money could he get?
Alien weapons had to be worth something.
Probably a lot.
Lucas glanced toward a nearby crater in the rubble where he had tossed the other weapons earlier.
Then a sudden flash of blue light caught the corner of his eye.
He looked toward Manhattan.
The massive beam of energy that had been connecting the portal to the sky was gone.
The tear in the atmosphere was closing rapidly.
Within seconds, the gateway shrank until nothing remained.
Lucas blinked.
"That's it?"
"The invasion's over already?"
For a moment, he almost laughed.
Earlier he had been terrified of the Chitauri invasion.
But now…
He looked down at the street around him.
Burning wreckage.
Collapsed buildings.
Pieces of broken pavement and twisted metal.
And scattered among them—
Human remains.
Lucas quietly swallowed the thought he had almost spoken.
The Chitauri hadn't been weak.
He had simply become stronger.
If his Cosmo had awakened even a little later…
Some of the bloodstains on the ground might have belonged to him.
Lucas stared at the ruined street for a long moment.
Then he clenched his fist.
He needed to grow stronger.
Much stronger.
Not for glory.
Not for fame.
Just so one day he could say a single sentence with absolute certainty.
My fate is mine.
Not the universe's.
For now, though, Lucas had a far more practical problem to solve.
He still had five alien weapons lying in the rubble.
And he needed to find a place to stash them.
After all—
Selling them might finally let him upgrade his living situation.