"You dare!"
Galactus caught the incoming fist with one hand, immediately realizing that the consciousness controlling the Ultraman's body had changed.
The reckless Kryptonian had taken over.
Needless to say, today had become yet another exceptionally infuriating day for him.
The Matter-Energy Conversion Tower was essentially Galactus' cooking utensil.
Even the most patient god would lose their temper if someone flipped over their table and bowl while they were starving and waiting for a meal.
Despite his blazing anger, Galactus remained remarkably composed.
Rather than unleashing a world-ending blast of cosmic power, he chose to manifest a fully physical form and settle the matter through the simplest possible method—
A straightforward exchange of fists.
BOOM!
Even Ultraman's body was incapable of withstanding Galactus' immeasurable strength.
Moments earlier, Joey had looked incredibly impressive as he kicked over Galactus' 'dinner table.'
Now he was sent flying by a single punch.
The collision between the two giants unleashed a shockwave that swept across the entirety of New York City.
The fleeing civilians immediately paid the price.
Those lucky enough merely stumbled and suffered minor injuries.
Anyone still too close to the battle was effectively hit point-blank by a gigantic concussion grenade.
Countless people collapsed unconscious as blood streamed from their noses and mouths.
"We're screwed!"
Hundreds of New York's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Men cried out almost simultaneously.
The battle between Ultraman and Galactus covered far too much ground.
There was simply no way they could evacuate civilians fast enough.
"If only I'd grown a few extra arms when I mutated like that guy did!"
"Yeah! Exactly!"
"You guys should count yourselves lucky. At least you've got hands."
"I've only got hooves!"
That complaint came from Spider-Ham.
"Roooar!"
This time the protest came from Spider-Rex, who didn't even have hands.
While joking with one another over the communicators to keep morale up, every Spider-Man simultaneously accelerated their rescue efforts.
Maybe they couldn't save everyone.
But Spider-Man never chose to give up.
"Brooklyn's U Avenue needs five more people!"
"Or five Spider-people!"
"Or honestly... any kind of hands!"
"Why the hell are people in Hell's Kitchen still shooting at us at a time like this?!"
"Why doesn't this Earth have the Avengers?"
"Or the Fantastic Four?"
"Or the X-Men?"
"It doesn't have anybody!"
"Hey, look on the bright side."
"At least it doesn't have the Sinister Six either!"
"I'm just saying..."
"Those idiots are way cuter than Galactus!"
The communications channel descended into complete chaos.
The rescue operation itself, however, remained astonishingly organized.
That was the flawless coordination made possible by hundreds of Spider-Senses overlapping one another.
Even so...
It still wasn't enough.
The Spider-Men simply weren't fast enough.
Was there another hero capable of helping?
The answer...
Was yes.
A silver streak flashed across every corner of New York in an instant.
Riding his surfboard, the Silver Surfer swept his cosmic awareness across every street surrounding the battlefield.
Within a single second, he evacuated every civilian still trapped inside the danger zone.
The Spider-Men could only stare in amazement.
"Whoa..."
"Some of them still need medical attention."
"I'll leave them to you."
After entrusting the civilians to the Spider-Army, the Silver Surfer accelerated at lightspeed toward the battlefield on the other side of the city.
At that moment, Joey—still in Ultraman's form—was being steadily overwhelmed by Galactus.
"You ill-mannered creature!"
Galactus continued throwing one heavy punch after another, relentlessly battering Ultraman's body until Joey could barely keep his footing.
A single backhand sent Joey flying again.
He smashed through countless reinforced concrete structures before embedding himself into the middle floors of a nearby skyscraper, leaving behind a perfectly Ultraman-shaped imprint.
The hardness of Galactus' purple celestial armor far exceeded anything Joey had imagined.
Moments earlier, Joey had secretly formed an Eight-Way Shuriken and slashed it across Galactus' body.
It hadn't even left a scratch.
Barely managing to block Galactus' relentless assault, Joey couldn't help wondering how Galactus had ever been defeated in the first place.
For example...
How had those four goofballs from the Fantastic Four managed to send Galactus packing?
They couldn't even deal with an ordinary Kryptonian like him.
So how in the world had they ever forced Galactus to go back home?
This was an enemy far more difficult to deal with than Barbatos, whom Joey had encountered once before.
To this day, Joey still hadn't figured out why that miraculous punch had somehow sent Barbatos straight back to his own realm.
Against Galactus...
The best Joey could hope for was not getting punched back to his own home first.
[My energy won't last much longer.]
Galactus' assault became increasingly relentless.
Under the continuous barrage, crimson lines began spreading across the Giant of Light's silver body before rapidly shifting to blue.
It was a sign that the energy sustaining Ultraman's physical existence was running out.
Joey couldn't help feeling that something about this was completely ridiculous.
A Kryptonian plus Ultraman should have produced a result far greater than one plus one.
Yet in actual combat against Galactus, it felt as though they were both holding each other back.
While in Ultraman form, both he and Ultraman had to devote part of their energy simply to maintaining their shared existence.
Neither of them could fight at full power.
Maybe switching back into his Kryptonian form would work better?
[I have one more option.]
[Let me borrow some of your life energy.]
"So you've been holding back this whole time?"
Joey suddenly understood why everything had felt so restrained.
"Go ahead."
"Take as much as you need."
"It's only life energy."
"Burn as much as you want."
He wasn't an ordinary human.
Forget the original Ultraman—even if it were Nexus, whose entire fighting style revolved around burning away the host's lifespan, Joey possessed enough life energy to fuel him until Noah himself, sitting at the opposite end of the Multiverse, wore out the substitute bench.
[Then let's begin.]
Ultraman's body transformed once again.
Red and blue markings resembling living blood vessels spread from the silver giant's chest throughout his entire body.
As waves of energy surged beneath the surface, the glowing patterns pulsed like blood flowing through veins.
Even separated by the Planck Membrane, Joey—now controlling this new Ultraman body—could clearly feel the familiar bio-field spreading across the entire Giant of Light beneath the sun's radiance.
Bathed in the power of the bio-field, Ultraman's energy output skyrocketed.
The power of light erupted within him by hundreds of millions of units.
Until...
The true Giant of Light finally stood upon the Earth.
"Interesting."
Galactus stood calmly to one side, observing Ultraman's transformation with remarkable sportsmanship.
Faced with the choice between eating immediately or watching the spectacle first before eating...
He chose the latter without hesitation.
"But don't think that means you can—"
"Boom!"
The bio-field didn't merely make Ultraman stronger.
It also made him unbelievably fast.
Without needing to push against Earth's fragile surface for propulsion, he accelerated to the same astonishing speed that had caught Galactus completely off guard during their first encounter.
Before Galactus could even finish his sentence, Joey had already appeared before him as though teleporting.
A punch flew straight toward Galactus' face.
It nearly knocked the horned helmet clean off his head.
"I'll assist you!"
A silver comet split the heavens in two.
Thunder, lightning, and roaring skies descended from the opening.
The Silver Surfer and Thor arrived simultaneously.
Galactus' own Power Cosmic transformed into freezing ice, momentarily locking his body in place.
From the opposite side of the sky, Thor hurled Mjolnir, summoning a storm of overwhelming lightning.
Then, within that sea of thunder, he raised Gungnir—
the Spear of Destiny that never missed its target.
Accelerated by the lightning itself, the spear flashed across the battlefield.
Its tip struck Galactus square in the chest.
For the first time, it embedded itself into the seemingly indestructible Celestial Armor that resembled a law of the universe itself.
[Now!]
"You don't have to tell me!"
"Let's see... what's it called again?"
"Oh, right!"
Without waiting for Ultraman's reminder, Joey spread his arms wide before crossing them.
Space itself folded.
Positive and negative zero-point energy rapidly converged around his forearms.
A torrent of ultra-high-energy particle streams—approaching a Bose-Einstein condensate state—erupted from his crossed arms.
The beam aimed directly at the tiny opening Gungnir had torn through Galactus' chest armor.
"Spacium Beam!"