Chapter 78: Brutal Battle

Zzzzzzz—

Peter didn't just stand there idly.

Around his wound, countless beams of light began to radiate. Soon after, webs emerged, wrapping tightly around the gash, sealing flesh, and binding his suit together.

The bleeding stopped quickly.

Apart from the blood-soaked half of his body and the large puddle beneath his feet, the severity of his injury wasn't immediately apparent.

Just as he finished patching himself up, Ebony Maw's enraged voice reached his ears.

Peter responded with a cold smirk.

Although Ebony Maw had narrowly avoided death, the loss of one-third of his head made it evident how dire his situation was.

The psychic abilities he once wielded effortlessly now required a noticeable delay to charge, far from the instant-cast prowess he had before.

"I've gotta ask, Mr. Noseless Alien," Peter taunted as he dodged another psychic slash. The movement tugged at his wound, causing him to gasp, but his mouth refused to relent. "Are you by any chance a distant cousin of Krillin?"

Ebony Maw said nothing, casting another psychic slash.

Peter dodged again, continuing his verbal assault.

"Oh, wait. Not only are you noseless—you're bald too!"

"No hair and no brains? That's a combo."

"And you're angry now, aren't you? I can see it on your long face. All puffed up and seething, huh?"

"Tell me, little Ebony Maw, why are you so upset? Did someone take your candy?"

Peter's endless barrage of trash talk clashed silently with Ebony Maw's psychic slashes in the air.

The slashes failed to land a single hit on Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter's verbal jabs seemed to cut deep into Ebony Maw's already fragile psyche.

Still reeling from losing part of his head, Ebony Maw suddenly coughed up blood in sheer frustration.

Yet, true to his reputation as Thanos's strategist, even with a mangled head and a boiling temper, Ebony Maw retained a shred of rationality.

Glancing toward Black Dwarf's battle, he noticed the brute locked in a chaotic clash with two opponents. Clearly, he couldn't rely on that muscle-bound idiot for support.

Even in his current state, Ebony Maw's fragmented intellect far outpaced Black Dwarf's lack of one.

His mind quickly turned toward retreat.

With a lift of his hand, the psychic slashes vanished completely.

Peter halted as well, watching Ebony Maw closely, eager to strike.

The reason Peter had held back earlier was twofold: first, he was analyzing Ebony Maw's condition, and second, he was giving his body time to recover.

To his surprise, he discovered that his quantum energy—originally his own innate power—was aiding his recovery. When he had used the energy to weave a web over his wound, he noticed the areas infused with quantum energy were healing at an accelerated rate.

Quantum energy wasn't just his weapon—it was also a miraculous cure for him!

Though he didn't fully understand why this was the case, Peter saw no reason to question good fortune.

The regenerative ability granted by his spider genes was already impressive, but with active quantum energy consumption, his recovery speed became astonishing.

In just a few minutes, his body had healed significantly—enough that he no longer worried about his wound reopening during intense movement.

Moreover, his continuous verbal jabs had confirmed his suspicions: Ebony Maw was genuinely weakened.

Strike while the iron's hot. Finish him off!

Peter lunged at Ebony Maw without a moment's hesitation.

Ebony Maw, however, was clearly prepared.

With a flick of his wrist and a downward motion of his hand—

Boom!

A powerful wave of psychic energy erupted instantly.

The ground beneath them sank deeply, forming a crater nearly half a meter deep and five meters in diameter.

Such a wide-range attack was impossible for Peter's Spider-Sense to evade.

He was caught mid-air and slammed hard into the ground.

Clenching his teeth to endure the searing pain in his waist, Peter pushed against the ground with both hands and forced himself to rise.

Just then, a few ships appeared in the sky.

These weren't as massive as the earlier one but seemed to be small transport vessels for deploying smaller groups of soldiers.

Yet they were more than capable of whisking Ebony Maw away.

One of the ships had already descended to hover about ten meters above the ground, and Ebony Maw, standing on a chunk of soil suspended by his psychic powers, began to ascend toward it.

"You're not going anywhere!" Peter growled, shooting two webs from his hands and attaching them to the small ship. With a powerful yank, he pulled.

The ship wobbled violently.

These smaller ships, made from a lightweight aerospace alloy, were relatively light, weighing only a few tons—about the same as a car.

Even in his injured state, Peter's immense strength was undeniable.

Under his pull, the ship began to descend, inch by inch.

In response, its engines flared to life, shooting out bright flames from the thrusters in an effort to counteract Peter's strength.

As Ebony Maw was on the verge of boarding the ship, a bright yellow light suddenly appeared in the air nearby.

The light formed a glowing circle in midair, and out stepped Doctor Strange, leading a team of reinforcements.

"Apologies. We ran into some trouble back there and got delayed," Doctor Strange said as he approached Peter, offering an apology.

Peter wasn't sure if the apology was genuine.

After all, Doctor Strange had likely foreseen this event. Shouldn't he have known? Yet here he was, feigning innocence.

Regardless, the arrival of Strange and his team sealed Ebony Maw's fate.

Even at full strength, Ebony Maw would have struggled against Doctor Strange.

In his current injured state, he didn't stand a chance.

Within moments, Doctor Strange subdued Ebony Maw.

As for the remaining small ships overhead, all but the one tethered by Peter's webs fled upon realizing the hopelessness of the situation.

When the ship Peter had anchored finally erupted into a fiery explosion, he let out a faint sigh of relief before collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.

A figure appeared beside him just in time to catch his falling body.

Meanwhile, some distance away—

For several minutes now, the escalating battle had forced Black Dwarf, Iron Man, and Captain America to move their clash from the Avengers headquarters into the nearby forest.

Every tree they passed was either snapped in two or set ablaze.

Faced with an opponent as strong and durable as Black Dwarf, both Iron Man and Captain America were finding the battle extremely frustrating.

Captain America's attacks were almost negligible. Even when he used vibranium to absorb kinetic energy and retaliated, he could do little more than leave faint marks on Black Dwarf's skin—marks that didn't seem to bother the brute at all.

As for Iron Man, he was already preparing to deploy his Hulkbuster armor.

After all, Black Dwarf was similar enough to the Hulk. If the armor worked against the Hulk, it should work here too, right?

(End of Chapter)

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