The initial, mind-blowing rush of power—the feeling of liquid sunlight flooding his veins—lasted for all of three glorious seconds.
Then the \[Sensory Overload Debuff\] kicked in.
It was like someone had cranked the volume of the universe to eleven and then smashed the knob. The awe was violently evicted by a sledgehammer of pure, undiluted input.
SkREEEEE— An alien glider screeched overhead. —BOOM!A building facade exploded two blocks away. —whump-whump-whump—The ground-shaking footfalls of a Leviathan. —click-hiss—The sound of a Chitauri rifle charging up… right behind him.
But that was just the obvious stuff. His new \[Heaven's Senses\] dug deeper, unearthing a layer of hell he never knew existed.
He could hear the frantic, whispered prayers of a man hiding in a basement three buildings over. The frantic, triple-time heartbeat of the Chitauri soldier raising its weapon. The scuttle of a cockroach fleeing under a pile of rubble ten meters away. He could see the individual grains of dust motes dancing in the smoke-filled air, the microscopic cracks spreading across a window pane as a Leviathan brushed against it.
It was a tsunami of data. His vision swam, colors and details bleeding into a nauseating kaleidoscope. A migraine, the mother of all migraines, began hammering against the inside of his skull, each alien screech a new nail. He clutched his head, groaning, wanting to vomit.
A faint, blue system notification flickered helpfully at the edge of his vision, almost obscured by the pain.
[Sensory Filtering Skill: LOCKED. Suggested Training: Meditation in a Warzone. Good luck, Host!]
"Screw… you…" Leo gasped through gritted teeth.
FZZZT!
That was the specific sound. The sound of charged plasma. His head, moving on a reflex that wasn't entirely his own, snapped up. The Chitauri soldier he'd vaguely heard had him dead to rights. A ball of sizzling blue energy was already expanding from the barrel of its rifle, heading straight for his face.
Time didn't slow. But his perception did. Thanks to [Lightning Reflexes], he saw it coming in perfect, horrifying slow-motion. He could see the energy coruscating within the blast, the heat haze shimmering around it.
Move! his brain screamed at his body.
His body, however, was not on speaking terms with his brain. It was a newborn fawn with the power of a main battle tank.
He tried to leap to the side. What he actually did was a violent, uncontrolled lurch. His super-powered legs launched him with far more force than he intended. His feet got tangled, and the world tilted.
SMACK.
He ate pavement. Face-first. The taste of concrete, blood, and cosmic alien dirt filled his mouth.
The energy bolt sizzled through the air exactly where his head had been a split second earlier and vaporized a mailbox behind him with a satisfying POP.
A new notification, utterly unbothered by his humiliation, pinged in his mind.
[Dexterity: -5. Face-plant successfully absorbed. Unbreakable Vessel Proficiency +0.01%. Congratulations on not dying!]
Rage, hot and bright, burned through the sensory migraine. Embarrassment was a powerful motivator. This ugly alien had almost blown his head off! And made him look like a complete idiot in the process!
"You villain!" he roared, spitting out a tooth that immediately began to itch with the tell-tale tingle of his [Sun-Drenched Immortality] already starting to regrow it.
He scrambled to his feet. No strategy. No finesse. Just pure, unfocused anger. He charged.
His [Super Speed] activated. The world became a blur. Unfortunately, his [Control Rating: Pathetic] meant it was a blur he had no hope of navigating. His "charge" was a chaotic, super-fast stumble. He slipped on a piece of debris, wobbled violently, and his shoulder clipped the door of a wrecked sedan.
SCRUNCH-CLANG!
The car door wasn't just knocked off its hinges; it was torn clean off and sent spinning like a giant, metallic shuriken into the side of a building with a deafening crash.
Leo didn't even break stride. He was a cannonball with no aiming system.
The Chitauri soldier, to its credit, actually looked surprised. It started to bring its rifle back up.
It was far too late.
Leo's out-of-control charge ended with him crashing shoulder-first into the alien. It wasn't a heroic tackle. It was a brutal, messy collision of two bodies moving at vastly different speeds.
There was a sickening, wet CRUNCH of chitinous exoskeleton and something internal giving way. The alien didn't go flying; it folded around Leo's shoulder like a cheap lawn chair, its weapon clattering to the ground. They both went down in a tangle of limbs, skidding across the rubble-strewn street.
Leo lay there for a second, panting, the alien's limp body pinned beneath him. The system pinged again.
[Combat concluded. Experience gained. Divine Strength Proficiency +1.5%. Remember, Host, technique is also a stat!]
He pushed himself up, staring at the broken alien. He hadn't thrown a punch. He'd just… crashed. And it had worked.
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled in his throat. This power thing was a complete mess.
The hysterical laugh died in Leo's throat, choked off by a new sound that cut through the ringing in his ears and the distant booms of the battle.
It wasn't a scream. It was worse. A tiny, hitching, utterly terrified whimper.
His \[Heaven's Senses\], still a raging torrent of unwanted data, instantly zeroed in on it. It was coming from a city bus that had been tipped onto its side, its windows shattered. Inside, huddled in the dark, he could hear the frantic drumbeat of multiple heartbeats. A group of civilians. Trapped.
And then came the other sound. A deep, grinding, earth-shaking rumble that was growing rapidly closer.
Leo's head snapped up. His enhanced vision, still struggling with focus, took a second to process the sheer scale of the threat. A Chitauri Leviathan, a living skyscraper of screeching metal and alien flesh, was plowing down the street directly toward the bus. Its massive, armored tail, the size of a subway car, swung in a wide, careless arc.
It wasn't aiming for the bus. The bus was just in the way. A minor obstacle it would crush without even noticing.
The meta-knowledge in his head, the fanboy who had seen this movie a dozen times, screamed at him. This isn't your job! This is Captain America's rallying point! This is where Hawkeye gives the all-clear! The Avengers handle this! You're just some guy! A clumsy, overpowered guy who trips over his own feet!
The instinct to survive, to find a hole and hide until the superheroes saved the day, was overwhelming. He wasn't a hero. He was a victim of Truck-kun with a system glitch.
But that tiny whimper echoed in his skull, louder than the Leviathan's roar.
As if sensing his internal conflict, the cold, synthetic voice of the system cut through his panic, not with a suggestion, but with a stark, numerical reality.
[Primary Directive: Assimilation and Growth.]
[Analysis: Host facing critical narrative branch.]
[Option A: Survival through Inaction. Estimated Outcome: Civilians deceased. Host remains undetected. Proficiency Gain: Minimal. System Points: +5.]
[Option B: Heroic Intervention. Estimated Outcome: High risk of host injury/detection. High probability of civilian survival. Proficiency Gain: Significant. System Points: +150. Potential Favor with Local Faction: 'Avengers'.]
The message was clear. Hiding was safe. But it was the path of a NPC. A coward.
Saving them? That was the path of a main character. That was how you power-leveled.
The choice was no longer about morality. It was about gacha logic. The system had dangled the ultimate loot box in front of him: +150 System Points! He could almost taste the potential upgrades.
"Screw it," he snarled, his fear burned away by a sudden, greedy resolve. "I didn't get isekai'd to be a background extra!"
The Leviathan's tail was already mid-swing, a colossal wrecking ball of biological metal descending toward the bus. He was too far to run. There was only one way.
Flight.
He had no idea how to do it. He just knew he had to. He pictured himself lifting into the air, a heroic silhouette against the sky.
The reality was anything but.
He bent his knees and pushed.
It wasn't a graceful ascent. It was a violent, uncontrolled launch. He kicked off the ground like a human rocket, but with zero guidance systems. He didn't soar; he lurched into the air, his body wobbling violently like a top about to fall over. He pinwheeled his arms, legs kicking uselessly as the street dropped away beneath him.
[Sky-Soaring Ascension activated!] [Proficiency +1%... +1.5%...] [Warning: Control Rating: Pathetic. High probability of catastrophic impact.]
"WhoawhoaWHOAAAA—!" he yelled, the world becoming a spinning blur of sky, fire, and alien metal. He was going to miss the bus entirely! He was going to slam into the Leviathan's face! Or just keep spinning into the stratosphere!
He focused every ounce of his will, not on flying, but on falling in the right direction. He twisted his body, a desperate, clumsy maneuver that felt like trying to steer a shopping cart down a mountain.
It was enough.
He careened through the air, a shrieking, unguided missile, and slammed into the space between the bus and the Leviathan's tail. He didn't land on his feet. He crashed into a hover, his body trembling with the strain of channeling power he couldn't control, his feet dangling mere inches above the ruined asphalt.
He was a mess. A wobbling, terrified, human shield.
But he was in position.
The Leviathan's tail, moving with the force of a geological event, finished its swing.
CRUUUNNCH!
It didn't hit the bus. It hit him.
The impact was beyond anything he could have imagined. It was the force of a mountain falling on him. The sound was a deafening, metallic SHRIEK of alien biology meeting \[Unbreakable Vessel\].
White-hot pain flared through every nerve ending. He didn't fly back; he held his ground, his body the immovable object to the Leviathan's irresistible force. His boots dug twin trenches in the street as he was pushed back, grinding toward the vulnerable bus behind him. The strain was immense. He felt his bones creak, his muscles scream in protest. His vision spotted at the edges.
[Unbreakable Vessel Stress Test: Extreme!] [Proficiency +5%... +7%!] [Solar Energy reserves draining rapidly!] [Sun-Drenched Immortality actively regenerating cellular damage!]
He had stopped the tail's momentum. But he couldn't hold it forever.
Grunting, every muscle fiber screaming, he did the only thing he could think of. He didn't punch. He pushed back.
With a raw, primal yell that was half-terror, half-triumph, he shoved with all his clumsy, world-breaking \[Divine Strength\].
The Leviathan's head, caught off guard by the sudden resistance from a tiny, insignificant speck, was shunted sideways. Its trajectory altered, it ground its face into the side of a skyscraper with a sound of shearing metal and crumbling concrete.
The bus, and the people inside, were safe.
Leo dropped to his knees, gasping, his entire body humming with pain and exhilaration. He'd just shoulder-checked a space whale.
The system pinged, its tone almost cheerful.
[Ding! Major Threat Diverted. Civilian Lives Saved: 12.] [+150 System Points Acquired!] [Reputation with 'Avengers' has increased! Current: Noticed.]