The facts proved that when it comes to seeking medical treatment, you should never let the patient perform the procedure themselves.
Watching the two geniuses before him—whose intelligence and surgical technique rivaled that of medieval physicians—even the Silver Surfer found himself struggling to keep up with their train of thought.
The strange metallic card repelled his cosmic power, yes, but given enough time he was confident he could figure out a way to slowly extract it from Joey's chest.
Instead, these two had immediately settled on the idea of cutting open his chest with brute force and ripping it out manually.
Other than voluntarily choosing to suffer for no reason, the Silver Surfer couldn't imagine why anyone would hate themselves that much.
"Oh! I've got it!" Thor clapped his hands after the 'smash-the-chest-with-a-hammer' plan was rejected. "Remember what I told you before?"
"Which part?"
From Joey's perspective, Thor hadn't actually said that many things to him. Right now, the razor-sharp edge of the Nth Metal card was repeatedly slicing open the side of his heart as it regenerated over and over again.
The constant pain made his ears ring. There was no way he could calmly recall which one of Thor's countless useless remarks he was referring to.
"You've said way too much nonsense!"
Mjolnir, empowered by the power of Thor, might be able to pierce Joey's defenses, but waiting for a red sun wasn't an option—it would take far too long.
Then Thor remembered something he'd drunkenly bragged about just a few days earlier.
Back then, he'd claimed that if young Joey ever wanted it, he could even have Loki steal Odin's Gungnir from his father and lend it to him for a few days.
And wasn't that exactly what they needed now?
A surgical blade capable of piercing Kryptonian skin and flesh.
Gungnir was perfect.
"Heimdall!"
A flash of rainbow light appeared and vanished.
The Rainbow Bridge reached into the royal vaults of Asgard and returned with the spear that never missed its target. The Runes engraved along the spearhead shimmered with divine light.
Odin was deep in the Odinsleep.
Loki had been exiled.
Which meant Thor could practically do whatever he wanted in Asgard.
He didn't hesitate for a second before walking out of the realm with his father's personal weapon.
"It's just surgery!"
Gripping the legendary spear, Thor charged at Joey as though he had some deeply personal grudge.
"Now stand still!"
"This isn't surgery—it's attempted murder!"
Joey instantly dodged the completely brainless stab.
At this point, he honestly felt like maybe the operation wasn't absolutely necessary after all.
Compared to getting stabbed by Gungnir, the Spear of Eternity, having a piece of Nth Metal lodged inside his chest suddenly didn't seem all that life-threatening.
Thor continued waving the spear around Joey's chest, trying to line up the perfect angle.
"Relax. You won't die. Don't be nervous. Look how calm I am."
"Of course you're calm! You're not the one getting stabbed!"
"We're out of time!"
Thor waved a hand toward the Silver Surfer.
"Friend, give me a hand here!"
Then he grinned.
"Don't worry, Superman. It won't hurt that much."
"At least not as much as when you used your heat vision to stitch up that massive tear in me."
The tip of Gungnir effortlessly pierced Joey's bio-field, splitting open the flesh across his chest.
Drops of blood floated away through space like tiny crimson pearls.
Joey let out a muffled groan.
Only then did he finally realize why Thor had been so enthusiastic about performing the operation.
"So that's what this is about?"
"You've been waiting all this time to get revenge?!"
The moment those words left his mouth, Joey silently committed the incident to memory.
Thor had lived for thousands of years as an Asgardian god. How could someone that old still hold grudges like a little kid?
Damn it.
Just wait until I run into him again in the future.
When that day comes...
I'm going to make sure he suffers even more than this.
Meanwhile, while the trio's farce was still unfolding, Galactus had already reduced his size and descended upon New York City, following the signal left by his herald.
Even after shrinking himself, Galactus remained a colossal being by Earth's standards, still standing several meters taller than the Statue of Liberty overlooking New York Harbor.
Just like the countless other planets he had visited across countless universes before, this was a vibrant, thriving world—one that perfectly met the requirements for his next meal.
In the distance, fighter jets launched cutting-edge energy missiles developed from the decayed energy signature of the tesseract's energy.
Weapons that could theoretically erase half a city in an instant silently warped and disintegrated the moment they approached Galactus's body.
The shells fired by tanks and the bullets from the rapid-response ground forces fared even worse, vanishing in flashes of light before they could even reach him.
Galactus's physical form was merely an avatar projected into the material universe. Conventional matter could scarcely affect him at all.
To him, humanity's attacks were utterly insignificant.
His cosmic consciousness washed over the entire city.
Galactus effortlessly perceived the emotions of every living being present.
From humanity's perspective, they were resisting an evil invader, fighting desperately for their survival.
Devouring a planet might appear evil.
But viewed from the scale of the entire multiverse, it was nothing more than the natural order of existence.
To sustain himself, he had to continue feeding endlessly.
Just as wolves hunted sheep across the plains, and sheep grazed upon the grass, this too was simply another cycle of nature.
Long ago, Galactus had cared about such details.
But after enough time had passed, the lives upon a planet no longer troubled him when he ate.
Compared to Galactus, the life inhabiting any world was simply too insignificant.
The gap between them was so vast that it exceeded the limits of mortal comprehension.
It was no different from how a human never wondered what a single yeast cell on a slice of bread thought while eating breakfast.
With a simple gesture, three enormous golden rings emerged from the void.
They rotated around one another, interlocking into the shape of a towering semi-material energy structure.
Though it looked indistinguishable from magic, Galactus himself was, at his core, a scientist.
He was the last survivor of the previous universe.
The tower was a planetary-scale matter-energy converter—a machine he had personally designed to make consuming planets far more efficient.
The instant the tower touched the ground, everything around it began to dissolve.
The earth beneath it.
The surrounding seawater.
Buildings.
Roads.
Everything.
Matter was converted directly into pure energy and continuously funneled into the machine.
All of it unfolded before the eyes of Iron Man and the assembled Spider-People.
"You're overcomplicating it."
"That thing's basically just his rice cooker."
"No, I'd say it's more like a microwave."
"Nah, it's a blender."
"Has anyone considered calling it a air fryer?"
As countless Spider-Men chattered over one another with increasingly ridiculous comparisons, Tony lowered his head and covered his face.
He had intended to explain the machine's operating principles from a scientific perspective.
Instead, he found himself defeated by their absurdly down-to-earth analogies.
"...If you insist on understanding it that way, I suppose you're not technically wrong."
Superman had vanished after pursuing the silver invader who arrived from space.
Now the enemy standing before them was a literal cosmic god.
And the only allies Tony had to rely on were a crowd of overly talkative Spider-Men who specialized in swinging between buildings on webs.
"We know how to beat Galactus!"
"Throw a rock at him!"
"Send Squirrel Girl!"
"Build a giant laser cannon and blast him!"
"Destroy his microwave!"
Among those present were several Spider-Men who had encountered Galactus in other universes before.
They bombarded Tony with suggestion after suggestion.
Surprisingly...
Some of them weren't entirely unreasonable.
Out of all the chaotic advice, Tony managed to pick out one or two ideas that might actually work.
For example...
Destroying Galactus's "microwave"—
No.
His matter-energy converter.
Perhaps doing so could at least slow the rate at which he consumed Earth.
Or perhaps...
If Tony pushed himself to the limit...
He might be able to build a weapon powerful enough to threaten a cosmic god.
When it came to building weapons...
Tony Stark had always considered himself exceptionally good at it.