Bab 66: Chapter 66: Harlem Incident
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In the days following his return to Earth, Edward made an appearance as Serenity to take care of a Super who had appeared in New York, he wasn't much of a threat, but he took the opportunity to officially accept the invitation to the General Assembly at the UN. It also showed he was back on his feet and survived the fight.
After that, for the next week or so, Edward lived by a rather tight schedule: Wake up Donna, make her breakfast, send her to school, teleport to Asgard for magical study, come back to Earth with a book to pick up Donna from school, finish the book at home, make dinner, search for an answer to his Chakra problem, and finally meditate for the rest of the night.
And from time to time, especially on weekends, he would also practice with runes.
But as always, peace avoided him like the plague, and chaos came knocking. Well, it didn't even bother knocking this time.
While Edward was calmly reading a book in Astral Form, he heard an alert from his phone, and saw Peter was calling. With a sigh he came back to his body, and answered the call.
"I need help in Harlem right now!"
Peter's hurried voice came from the phone, and loud sounds could be heard behind his voice. Edward was about to ask what was the matter when he heard a loud, bestial roar from behind.
"I'll be here in a moment."
He hung up the phone and his clothes turned into his Serenity costume as he opened a portal to a random roof on Harlem.
He didn't even have to search for the source of the trouble as he heard explosions and bestial roars not far from where he was, and dark smoke was going up to the sky.
Jumping across the roofs, he quickly arrived at the chaotic scene of two monsters fighting each other. Both of them were bigger than any Kronan Edward had fought, one was green and looked somewhat like a human, while the other had scales all over his body, and at some places bones stuck out, which it used as weapons.
They were fighting in the middle of the street, civilians fleeing from the scene as the two beasts destroyed cars and ruined buildings with their battle. It was a purely physical battle, but both held such great power they destroyed everything around them.
Edward also saw Peter, who was limping and was helping militaries out of a fallen helicopter. It seemed he had taken part in the fight, but had been injured.
Out of the two monsters, the scaly one was trying to attack the chopper while the green one was trying to protect it, and was slightly less damaging to his surroundings than the other, so Edward quickly made his choice as to who was the good one and who was the bad one.
But he was feeling troubled by the battle, as both participants were way too strong. Much stronger than him at least. After a couple of seconds Edward came up with a plan, and jumped down from the roof he was on.
While in the air, he took out the Ebony Sword and kicked it with power toward the scaly monster. It saw it coming and tried to punch it, but as its fist came in contact with the sword one of its fingers was cut off by the sword before the sword lost it's power.
The monster roared in pain, and the green one took the opportunity to pound his face a few times. The scaly monster roared, "HULK!!" as it grabbed both of his fists, stopping him from pounding it anymore.
However, at that moment Edward arrived above him, and using the Dragon Stance, kicked down with a Chi covered foot.
It was a move he had used may times now, and he used his entire power for that one. Even though the monster was powerful, Edward had grown quite a lot himself, and as his foot connected with it's head a crack was heard as it was forced to it's knees.
The Hulk easily gained the advantage with this, and ruthlessly tore one of the monster's bones that poked out of it's body and stabbed it in the shoulder with it, incapacitating one arm.
But the monster seemed to ignore the pain as it rammed it's shoulder into the hulk and swiped one of his feet at Edward, forcing him to dodge.
The… Abomination, that was the best way to call that monster. Anyway, the Abomination roared as it grabbed the bone planted into it's shoulder and pulled it out, and after a few seconds it's shoulder healed enough to allow it to move it's arm again.
Edward gulped at the Abomination's crazy regeneration, but quickly jumped out of the way as the Abomination had thrown it's bone at him like a spear.
He narrowly dodged the bone, and saw it go through a whole building before disappearing.
Edward grabbed the Ebony Sword from the ground and rushed toward the Abomination at the same time as the Hulk, attacking from two sides at once.
The Abomination wasn't phased though as he grabbed a nearby pole and swung it like a Bo Staff at the two. Edward slide to the ground, passing beneath it, but the Hulk got smashed by it and was sent flying.
Using the small margin of time he had, Edward slashed upward, intending to slice off the Abomination's arm, but the latter dodged and punched Edward. As the fist reached him, Edward saw the knuckles of the Abomination were sharpened like spears, and had no doubt that getting punched by him was game over.
Thankfully, even though the Abomination was fast, Edward predicted the blow ahead of time, and jumped above the fist. He pierced his sword into the Abomination's chest, and used it as support to jump even higher and kneed the Abomination into the face, with his knee covered in Chi.
The Abomination's head shot backwards because of the strength of the blow, but directly used it's head to headbutt Edward.
Edward grabbed his sword with one hand, and with the other produced an Eldritch Shield.
The Abomination's head smashed into it, and destroyed it in a single strike, but it gave Edward enough time to jump back.
The Abomination roared, "You damn ant!"
It charged at Edward, but before it could reach him, the Hulk tackled it down and punched it's head rapidly on the ground.
The Abomination struggled out, but as it did several ropes of Eldritch Magic restrained it's limbs. Edward, who had launched the spell, took a sharp breath as he felt the brunt of the magic, he had only used a few ropes but the strain nearly reached his limit.
However, the result was impressive as the ropes actually managed to hold down the Abomination for a moment. Had it been a Sorcerer's Eldritch Magic, even a hundred ropes wouldn't have managed to hold the Abomination down, while he did it with only ten ropes.
In the last week, Edward had consulted the Ancient One, and after the latter agreed to Frigga's words, Edward decisively stepped off the Sorcerer's Path, and started his own.
Losing all of his spells was a bit tough, but thankfully he had always made sure to sign contracts that wouldn't affect him if he were to dissolve them.
Then, he had formed a contract with reality itself, gaining control over the fragments of creation to create his own spells. For now, the only one he had managed to recreate was Eldritch Magic because it was the closest one to true magic Sorcerers could learn.
Eldritch Magic was the manipulation of Eldritch Energy, which comes from the Eldritch Dimension. The Eldritch Dimension is filled with only Eldritch Energy, and from time to time beings would be born from this energy, but they were not really intelligent.
Sorcerers would create contracts with them to use their own Eldritch Energy, and it was one of the Sorcerers favourite spells because the lack of intelligence means the contracts are extremely fair, and the Eldritch Entities are actually often making a loss on those contracts.
But following those contracts, Sorcerers would be able to use watered down Eldritch Energy for a meagre cost that even the weakest human body could support.
Now that Edward had made a contract with Reality, he did not have to conjure the watered down energy of an Eldritch Entity, but was able to directly use real Eldritch Energy.
Since this was the only change made in the realization of the spell, he retained all of his mastery over this, which came in handy.
Thanks to this new contract, although using Eldritch Energy had become much more taxing, the power had increased by a lot. Another change was that the fiery orange sparkles that made Eldritch Magic had now turned into deep red lines.
If he didn't know better, Edward would have believed he was using Chaos Magic…
Anyway, the power boost of directly using Eldritch Energy was quite important, the Abomination was a beast of power, he believed that even Diana was around this level of power, meaning even she wouldn't be able to get out of his bounds immediately.
Obviously, with her speed catching her with his Eldritch Ropes would be another matter entirely, but he didn't have to use them in battle…
All of his naughty thoughts were washed off his mind though as he saw the Hulk rush at the Abomination and hammer both of his fists down on it's head as it roared, "HULK SMASH!"
Unable to dodge or put up any resistance, the Abomination was hit by the blow, and it's neck produced a chilling breaking sound as it stopped resisting.
Edward stopped his magic, and the Abomination fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut. However, it still grunted silently as it fell to the ground, it's face moving slightly.
Edward looked at the spectacle dumbfounded. First, the Hulk's Smash had been so powerful that the Abomination's neck had been broken, crushing it's nape, vertebrae and vocal cords, but the impact had also been so powerful that a shockwave had been created and pushed back everything in the surroundings, and put out the many fires started around the street by the fight.
But perhaps even more shocking was that despite getting it's neck crushed by the Hulk's powerful blow, it was still alive, and it's body was twitching, as if it was already recovering from it's injuries. The same went for the sword it got in the chest, Edward was certain he had pierced through it's heart, but it had just shrugged off the injury.
Well, of course he was dealing with a monster so maybe it's heart was placed in a different place, but even if he didn't hit the hurt he at least hit the lungs. And yet the Abomination was simply regenerating, not dying.
For a moment, Edward wondered whether cutting his head off would work, but he had another problem to take care of before worrying about the Abomination.
The Hulk may have been doing less damage, whether it was a friend or not was not a certainty yet.
The Jade Giant and Serenity stared at one another, one towering over the other, but after a few seconds, Edward extended his fist. The Hulk snorted and fist bumped with him before turning around.
His gaze locked with the only non military person who was saved from the burning helicopter by Peter, a scientist woman, but before he could get any closer several choppers and trucks appeared around them.
All the vehicles were painted in black, and had the same logo on them, a circle with an eagle in the center, and six words around it. Strategic; Homeland; Intervention; Enforcement; Logistics; Division.
SHIELD.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone