After less than a few minutes of struggling through the chaos, Joey finally managed to drag the battle-crazed Thor away from the Chitauri homeworld by force.
Behind them stretched an endless tide of living Chitauri warships and flying skiffs.
"Taste the might of my lightning!"
Even while being dragged backward by his cape, Thor still found time to summon bolts of lightning every now and then, wiping out a sizable portion of the pursuing Chitauri forces.
But just as Thor had said, the Chitauri were a highly militarized hive-minded species.
Kill one...
Ten more would immediately take its place.
If they kept wasting time like this, then by the time they'd finally finished cleaning up the Chitauri, they might as well leisurely fly all the way back across the universe—
Just in time to hold Earth's funeral seven days after its death.
"Someone invaded Midgard?!"
"You should've told me sooner!"
The moment he heard Joey urgently needed to return to Earth to face a powerful enemy, Thor raised Mjolnir and roared into the void.
"Heimdall!"
Heimdall, guardian of Asgard and keeper of the Bifrost, stood watch over the Rainbow Bridge at all times, ever ready to answer Thor's call.
A beam of seven-colored light swept across space.
Using Asgard as a relay point, the two of them were instantly transported back to the edge of the Solar System.
"I'm glad to see you're still alive."
The Silver Surfer, who hadn't traveled very far after following the direction of Galactus's energy beam, sensed the spatial disturbance and immediately turned back.
After expressing his concern, he couldn't resist scolding Joey.
"Next time, don't be so reckless."
"The three of us—and every living being on Earth combined—cannot stand against Galactus."
He glanced at Thor as well.
After half a second of consideration, he reached his conclusion.
"Even with this Asgardian added to the equation."
Holding Mjolnir, Thor finally processed what he'd just heard.
"Galactus?"
"You mean... that Galactus?"
"Precisely."
The Silver Surfer answered without hesitation.
Even Thor—who normally lived by the philosophy of 'if there's a fight, enjoy it'—felt his scalp go numb.
He had only come here to search for his brother Loki.
Helping Superman resolve Midgard's crisis had merely been a bonus.
He certainly hadn't expected that crisis to be Galactus himself.
"We're... fighting Galactus?"
"Isn't that happening a little too early?"
Thor had already heard stories of Galactus from Joey—thousands of years in the future.
Back then, whenever Joey spoke of that battle, he had sounded completely relaxed.
Nothing like now.
Thor might act carefree most of the time.
But he wasn't blind.
Nor was he stupid.
He could plainly see that even if the three of them combined forces, they still wouldn't be enough for Galactus to crush with a single slap.
As much as he hated to admit it...
There were differences even among gods.
And Galactus was less a god than he was a fundamental force of the multiverse itself.
He embodied both destruction and rebirth.
He occupied the cosmic role of both apex predator and ultimate recycler.
Driven by endless hunger, he consumed planets so the universe itself wouldn't collapse beneath an excess of matter and energy.
From the perspective of the cosmos as a whole, Galactus was necessary.
Without him, the multiverse itself might eventually collapse in a chain reaction.
Joey had no interest whatsoever in debating whether Galactus's existence served some greater cosmic purpose.
All he knew was that if they didn't find a solution immediately...
The third Earth he'd visited was about to be wiped out.
"But from Earth's point of view..."
"This is the end of the world."
[Perhaps... we should speak with him.]
Ultraman, who had remained silent for so long, finally spoke again.
Whether it was merely Joey's imagination or not, he felt the giant somehow sounded even weaker than before.
Joey wasn't an ordinary human.
Ultraman didn't have to continuously share his own energy just to keep Joey alive.
So why was he growing weaker the longer he rested?
[But before you speak with him...]
[You should look at your chest.]
Joey lowered his head toward his now-bare torso.
He certainly looked rough enough.
Galactus's single gesture had vaporized nearly ninety-nine percent of the metal composing his Kryptonian armor.
At this point, he looked almost exactly like the Hulk after transforming—
Except he still had a pair of shorts.
That didn't seem like such a big deal—
[Look inside.]
Prompted by the Original Ultraman's reminder, Joey suddenly realized he had forgotten something.
Ever since his days at Vought, he had developed a terrible habit of stuffing important items inside the front of his suit, right over his chest.
So...
Where had the fragment of the Helmet of Fate and the Tarot card he had tucked there gone?
Activating his super vision, Joey finally found them lodged inside his chest cavity, just outside his heart.
To be more precise...
One item.
It turned out that placing hard objects against your chest was about as smart as embedding diamonds into a car's steering wheel.
Next time, Joey swore he was getting himself a utility belt like Batman's.
Galactus's cosmic energy beam had punched straight through both his bio-field and his Kryptonian armor, striking the two magical artifacts resting against his chest.
The fragment of the Helmet of Fate—which not even Hephaestus's divine forge had been capable of melting or reforging—had been completely liquefied by that unimaginable energy.
It had fused together with the Tarot card left behind by Madame Xanadu.
Two magical objects whose origins and construction were complete mysteries had finally demonstrated that they could, in fact, be reshaped.
Under most circumstances, Joey would have considered that a blessing in disguise.
Unfortunately...
Not like this.
The golden Tarot of Fate, now forged from Nth Metal, had become wedged between two ribs—
Halfway inside his heart.
With every heartbeat, the razor-sharp card sliced through his heart tissue.
Then his bio-field regenerated the damage.
Then it sliced him again.
Over and over.
To be fair, Ultraman was probably helping as well.
Otherwise, considering how deeply the card had lodged itself, Joey doubted he'd even be able to breathe.
"Ugh..."
Only after seeing the injury with his own eyes did the pain finally hit him.
The agony arrived so perfectly synchronized with the moment he recognized the wound that he couldn't tell whether the pain was physical...
Or purely psychological.
"This is killing me..."
The Silver Surfer was the first to notice something was wrong.
The Power Cosmic granted him senses beyond ordinary perception, allowing him to instantly understand what was causing Joey such unbearable pain.
"Very few beings could survive an injury like yours."
A normal person would have lost consciousness and entered the realm of death long ago.
At least they wouldn't have to endure this kind of suffering.
Unfortunately, Kryptonians simply weren't built to die so easily.
"Don't move."
"I can remove it."
After helping Joey hold still, the Silver Surfer phased his hand intangible and reached directly into Joey's chest, intending to simply pull the metal card free.
Like those who wielded the Speed Force, the Silver Surfer could freely pass through solid matter.
This time, however...
It didn't work.
"...?"
An invisible repulsive force surrounded the card.
His hand simply couldn't grasp it.
"Maybe because it's Nth Metal."
Nth Metal naturally interfered with magic and many forms of energy that existed beyond the physical universe.
Perhaps the Power Cosmic, sharing its origin with Galactus himself, fell into that category as well.
With Plan A a complete failure, Joey immediately thought of Plan B.
"Your board!"
The Silver Surfer's surfboard possessed a perfectly reflective surface.
Using it as a mirror, Joey looked at his own chest.
Then he fired his heat vision into the board, reflecting the beam back toward himself.
He intended to perform laser surgery on his own heart.
The full-powered heat vision swept across his chest.
It barely managed to scorch the skin.
It couldn't cut through the muscle beneath.
"Damn it!"
After so many battles over the years, Joey had encountered far too many Kryptonians.
At this point, he'd become partially resistant to Kryptonian attack methods—even his own heat vision.
"Even the Vikings I met a thousand years ago weren't this reckless."
Watching the two of them fumble through increasingly ridiculous treatment methods, Thor finally pieced together the situation.
Something resembling a piece of shrapnel was lodged next to Joey's heart.
It had to come out.
"Surgery?"
Thor lifted Mjolnir confidently.
"Here. Let me give it a try!"
"The hell you will!"
Seeing Thor eagerly raise his hammer, Joey suddenly felt like breathing wasn't quite as difficult anymore.
"I need open-heart surgery!"
"Not open-chest demolition!"