A single rogue toad immediately drew the attention of countless people.
Not just the military, but even the Chitauri began redirecting reinforcements toward the area. Dozens of Leviathan beasts and countless Chitauri soldiers charged, forming a black torrent.
Seeing this, the Toad Boss stopped leaping and stood firm amidst the torrent, like an unshakable rock, relentlessly swinging his massive embroidered spring blade.
Leviathan beasts were sliced in half with a single slash, while Chitauri soldiers faced the deadly combination of the long blade and the Toad Boss's tongue attacks, with occasional ninjutsu obliterating them to dust.
To put it bluntly, the Toad Boss alone was the most solid defensive line, contributing more than the entire Avengers team combined.
However, during the Toad Boss's battle, Su Ye noticed a problem.
Most of the time, the Toad Boss relied on physical attacks, wielding his massive, over-ten-meter-long spring blade with such grace that Leviathan beasts fell with a single strike.
In terms of ninjutsu, however, he used them sparingly, and when he did, it was mostly Water Style: Iron Cannonball. Not once did he use any Fire Style techniques.
He didn't even coordinate with Su Ye to unleash the powerful Fire Style: Toad Oil Flame Bullet.
This puzzled Su Ye, and he finally voiced his question.
"Toad Boss, why aren't you using Fire Style? Wouldn't that speed up killing the enemies?"
As he asked, Su Ye thought to himself, Maybe the Toad Boss is merciful and doesn't want to cause more suffering in this city. They've already been through enough and can't endure a massive fire on top of everything else.
But the Toad Boss gave an answer that Su Ye didn't expect.
"These guys may be trash, but their bodies and the tech on them are valuable assets, so..."
So what? Su Ye was still confused.
"Xiao Tian asked me to bring some back."
Xiao Tian, also known as Su Mutian—Old Su. He had already communicated with the Toad Boss in advance? And asked him to bring these things back?
Bring them where? To Mount Myoboku? Probably not. Mount Myoboku was only for toads, and bringing back these inedible items would just pollute the environment and waste space.
So, "bring them back" clearly meant bringing them to Old Su. What would he do with so much stuff? He wouldn't just sell it to a junkyard, would he? Of course, he'd submit it...
Su Ye sighed. For the first time, he felt outmatched by Old Su's foresight.
Although Old Su wasn't on the battlefield, and the Dragon Clan was thousands of miles away and couldn't intervene, he had managed to secure a significant haul of spoils for the Dragon Clan through this method.
Moreover, these spoils were obtained by the Toad Boss personally slaying enemies. If he took them, the Americans wouldn't have any grounds to complain.
Impressive, Dad!
Su Ye decided to keep quiet, say nothing, and just watch the show. Internally, he reminded himself once again to accept the reality: the system belonged to Old Su, not him.
The storm unleashed by the embroidered spring blade lasted a full thirty minutes.
During this half-hour, the corpses of Leviathan beasts and Chitauri soldiers piled up like a mountain beside the Toad Boss, towering over a hundred meters high, with countless bodies strewn within.
Among them were even the wreckages of downed fighter jets, such as F-22s and F-35s, some of which were mostly intact...
After thirty minutes of relentless combat, the Toad Boss's stamina had significantly decreased, and his chakra was nearly exhausted. His breathing grew heavy.
Fortunately, after realizing that their sacrifices were not yielding results, the Chitauri stopped blindly attacking and redirected their forces to other areas.
"Xiao Yezi, did you have fun today?"
The Toad Boss sat atop the towering pile of bones and spoke in a calm voice.
It felt like a grandpa taking his grandson to an amusement park for the day, and now it was time to persuade the child to go home for dinner.
Honestly, when Su Ye first got out here, he found it quite thrilling. Sitting atop the Toad Boss, watching him slice through monsters from a first-person view felt like piloting a giant mech. Seeing massive beasts cleaved in two was undeniably spectacular.
Unfortunately, since he wasn't the one controlling it, the experience felt rather average.
But if he said that outright, the Toad Boss, who had been fighting tirelessly, would definitely be upset.
"Toad Boss, can we keep going? There are still lots of monsters over there!" Su Ye asked with a smile.
"Haha, didn't get enough, huh?" Sure enough, the Toad Boss chuckled.
"If you haven't had enough, we'll do more next time. We've been out long enough today, and they'll start worrying at home. When there's a chance, I'll take you to Mount Myoboku."
As the Toad Boss spoke, he stowed away his embroidered spring blade, and Su Ye's eyes lit up.
Go to Mount Myoboku? To play with toads? Of course not!
If he went to Mount Myoboku, it would definitely be to learn Sage Mode.
When he returned, wouldn't he be able to activate Sage Mode?
At that point, it would be a qualitative leap in Su Ye's power, and he wouldn't have to keep relying on Spider-Man's abilities.
After finishing, the Toad Boss reached into his robe, fumbled around for a moment, and pulled out a massive scroll.
The scroll was over ten meters long, and Su Ye had no idea where the Toad Boss had been hiding it.
The enormous scroll was unfurled, revealing numerous texts and diagrams. The Toad Boss slapped it onto the ground beneath him.
With a loud bang, a massive cloud of smoke erupted, engulfing the mountain of Leviathan beast and Chitauri soldier corpses, along with the wreckage of their aircraft.
When the smoke cleared, both the Toad Boss and the mountain of debris had vanished, leaving only Su Ye and Hinata standing dumbfounded on the now-empty ground.
"So he really did take everything with him."
Su Ye scratched his head. The Toad Boss had taken nearly half of all the Leviathan beasts and Chitauri soldiers from the battlefield. Old Su's appetite was indeed massive.
Would the military cry if they saw this?
"Let's head out too. No need to stick around and risk being seen—it'll just cause unnecessary trouble."
Su Ye called out to Hinata, and the two quickly used transformation jutsu to change their appearances before quietly leaving the scene.
Meanwhile, across the battlefield, the influx of Chitauri soldiers and Leviathan beasts was finally slowing down. It seemed the war between humanity and the Chitauri was reaching a turning point.
At the same time, the Avengers received good news.
After some searching, they had finally tracked down Loki.
Contrary to what everyone expected, Loki wasn't hiding to plot some more sinister scheme.
Launching the alien invasion to destroy Earth's civilization was already his grandest plan.
The reason Loki had gone missing was that he had accidentally wandered into the New York Sanctum, the territory of the Sorcerers, where he encountered the Ancient One and was trapped in the Mirror Dimension.
God knows what Loki's unlucky mouth had said, but when the Avengers arrived, even the usually indifferent Ancient One, who seemed above worldly matters, was visibly displeased—almost angry.
Eventually, Thor invoked their father, Odin, and sincerely apologized before the Ancient One reluctantly handed over the Mind Scepter. However, both Thor and Loki remained trapped in the Mirror Dimension.
That's right—Thor had been locked in the Mirror Dimension too.
Without first getting hammered, zapped, and tested by the Ancient One, Thor wouldn't understand the meaning of respect.
Thus, being trapped was only natural.
With the Mind Scepter in hand, whether the Asgardian brothers got out or not didn't matter. The Avengers returned with the scepter, ready to close the portal. At this moment, Su Ye made a small suggestion.
"That nuke lying around isn't of much use here. Why not send it to them as a parting gift?"
This suggestion immediately received unanimous approval from the Avengers, who all agreed that Su Ye, as the Great Wall Guardian, had a great grasp of the concept of reciprocation.
Su Ye shrugged. It was no big deal to him.
If people don't offend me, I won't offend them. But if they do, I'll strike back.
The principle was simple yet thought-provoking.
On the rooftop of Stark Tower, a crate engraved with a bat insignia was opened. Su Ye single-handedly lifted out the nuclear bomb, weighing several hundred kilograms.
This effortless motion made the Avengers frown deeply in unison.
Such raw strength—probably only Captain America could match it on their side. This Great Wall Guardian was definitely something else.
Su Ye nonchalantly tossed the nuke to Max. "If someone sends you a gift, not returning the favor is impolite. Go be impolite to them!"
Max grinned, his large teeth gleaming. "Mission accepted!"
Half a minute later, the nuke's tail ignited, transforming into a streak of fire as it shot toward the portal in the sky.
Max turned into lightning, guarding the nuke as it flew, while Iron Man soared into the air alongside them.
Under their escort, the nuke smoothly entered the portal and, in their view, erupted into a ball of fire.
"Now's the time, close the portal!"
With a loud shout, the Mind Scepter pierced the energy shield around the Tesseract. The energy beam ceased, and the portal began closing as Max and Iron Man descended.
At the very moment the portal closed, the Leviathan beasts and Chitauri soldiers attacking in the skies above the city suddenly shut down, as if they'd been disconnected, losing all consciousness and movement.
Although the falling Leviathan beasts and Chitauri corpses caused some collateral damage to the military, it didn't dampen their victory cheers.
"Yeah! We won!"
"We held the line! We protected Earth!"
"We're the strongest!"
"Victory! Victory! Victory!"
It seemed the Battle of New York was finally ready to draw to a close.
While the crowd was celebrating, on the rooftop of a dilapidated, battle-worn building in the city, several figures appeared unnoticed.
They varied in height and build, but it was clear they belonged to the same organization, as they all wore identical uniforms.
Black high-collared robes adorned with red cloud patterns.