One of the Dragon-level monsters roared and lunged at Drex Valen.
Clearly, it thought the whole "sealed power" speech was just bluffing.
The creature swung a gigantic alloy battle axe straight at Drex's neck with enough force to split a skyscraper in half.
Drex didn't move.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't even blink.
The axe shattered on impact.
Not bent.
Not cracked.
Shattered completely, like a cheap plastic toy smashing against reinforced steel.
Then Drex slowly clenched one fist.
He casually raised his other arm and punched the monster in the stomach with what looked less like an attack and more like a playful shove between friends.
The result was catastrophic.
The Dragon-level monster transformed into a black streak and disappeared into the distance.
One wall exploded.
Then another.
Then another.
The creature blasted through countless underground structures like a railgun projectile before punching straight through the atmosphere and vanishing into deep space.
Earth's gravity couldn't even hold it.
The punch had accelerated the monster beyond escape velocity.
Beyond the solar system, even.
Nobody knew how long it would continue flying before finally stopping.
Silence consumed the battlefield.
Every surviving monster stared at Drex in horror.
This wasn't special effects.
He was actually that powerful.
The superheroes weren't much better.
It felt like they were meeting Drex Valen for the first time all over again.
The genius inventor who constantly shattered their expectations had just stepped into an entirely different category of existence.
Floating in the air, Drex inhaled deeply.
His chest expanded slightly.
Then he exhaled.
The breath swept outward like a world-ending storm.
Violent wind pressure exploded through the underground city as though a bomb had detonated at the center of the battlefield.
The air itself became a weapon.
Demon-level monsters.
Dragon-level monsters.
Entire hordes of them were torn apart instantly.
The visible shockwave passed over them and their bodies simply disintegrated.
Flesh.
Bones.
Mechanical components.
Armor fragments.
Everything splattered across the walls in grotesque explosions of blood and metal.
The black steel tunnels were instantly painted with abstract murals of red, green, and purple gore.
Only Garou remained standing.
Barely.
The storm hadn't blown him away, but the black monster shell covering his body had vanished entirely.
Skin and muscle had been stripped off his skeleton by the force of the breath alone.
He looked like a blood-soaked corpse still refusing to fall.
One breath.
That was all it took.
The Monster Association was annihilated.
S.W.O.R.D. had won completely.
"Too weak."
Drex sighed quietly.
At this point, he felt like maybe only something on Doomsday's level could give him a satisfying fight anymore.
Of course...
He had absolutely no intention of creating something like that.
Especially now that he'd begun understanding part of the underlying mechanics behind the laws governing force itself.
After restructuring aspects of his body using those principles, kinetic attacks had effectively become meaningless against him.
Even if an opponent physically overpowered him, they still wouldn't be able to hurt him.
Tony Stark stared at him for several long seconds before finally speaking.
"Drex... are you even human anymore?"
Mostly because this entire thing felt like betrayal.
They were all supposed to be advancing along the technology tree together.
Then Drex suddenly turned into a cosmic disaster wearing a cape.
"From a biological perspective?" Drex said calmly. "Probably not anymore. I've evolved into something else."
"But mentally? I still consider myself human."
"I'm not interested in becoming some kind of god."
As he spoke, golden energy spread outward from his body on a molecular level, flowing gently into the injured heroes nearby.
Broken bones healed instantly.
Internal injuries vanished.
Even fatal wounds closed like they'd never existed.
Tony stared at his restored body.
"How did you even become this strong?"
"Super Soldier Serum," Drex answered.
Everyone froze.
"You actually perfected it?!"
The implications were horrifying.
If a serum like that existed, humanity was about to enter an age of superhumans.
Drex shook his head immediately.
"As nice as that sounds, it's impossible."
"There's only one successful serum."
"And I'm the only person capable of producing it."
The excitement died instantly.
"If everyone became Superman-level," Drex continued, "human civilization itself would collapse and restructure around that reality."
Tony nodded reluctantly.
Honestly, Drex had a point.
Then he paused.
"Still pissed you didn't save me a dose, though."
Because really.
Flying around punching monsters into outer space looked incredible.
Around the world, governments finally received confirmation that the battle was over.
Another hour without results and they'd been fully prepared to launch nuclear strikes across New York.
At that point, the city was already gone anyway.
Better to sacrifice ruined territory than let surviving monsters scatter across the globe.
If Dragon-level monsters escaped containment, the long-term cost of stopping them would multiply a thousandfold.
Then the full reports began arriving.
And the world learned several unbelievable truths.
First:
Drex Valen had successfully developed a complete Super Soldier Serum.
Second:
He had personally annihilated the Monster Association almost single-handedly.
Third:
The serum apparently existed in only a single completed form, and Drex had no intention of recreating it.
That last part drove governments insane.
Not that they could do anything about it.
Before today, nobody could really threaten Drex Valen.
Now?
Now he was simultaneously:
The genuine strongest man on Earth.
The world's wealthiest capitalist.
Director of S.W.O.R.D.
Humanity's greatest defender.
Trying to pressure him politically had become completely impossible.
Meanwhile, another issue surfaced during the post-battle cleanup.
Garou's body was missing.
Despite searching through countless monster corpses, nobody could find him.
And that terrified people even more.
After all, Garou had been a human who transformed himself into a monster.
Not only that, he had pushed Drex into an extended battle even while wearing what Drex himself described as "power-sealing armor."
Sure, Drex had also been protecting the heroes during the fight and burning through armor reserves constantly...
But the fact remained.
Garou had fought him.
Survived him.
And then disappeared.
The method behind human-to-monster transformation instantly became a global security concern.
Governments quickly concluded that Garou had probably escaped alive.
Which meant Earth's problems were far from over.
The Chitauri invasion had just ended.
The Saiyans still hadn't arrived yet.
And on top of that, Drex dropped another bombshell.
Monsters, according to him, were not a temporary phenomenon.
They were Earth's immune response.
Humanity itself was the "virus."
As long as humanity existed, monsters would continue appearing endlessly.
Tony Stark later confirmed Drex's theory through studies involving monster decomposition rates and environmental interactions.
With the two greatest scientific minds on Earth both supporting the conclusion, governments had no choice but to take it seriously.
At the same time, cracks were already appearing inside S.W.O.R.D. itself.
The organization had been created as an emergency global authority with unprecedented privileges.
And unsurprisingly, problems followed.
Abuse of power.
Corruption.
Budget explosions so absurd they made military spending look restrained.
Most agents weren't saints.
A lot of them wanted the James Bond lifestyle: save the world, sleep with beautiful women, and expense sports cars, jets, and yachts along the way.
Organizations like the CIA tolerated that kind of behavior as long as results kept coming.
But S.W.O.R.D. was becoming something far larger than any intelligence agency in history.
And the world was starting to realize that might become a problem of its own.