Chapter 4280

After the public enemy and the troublemaker exited, the duel scene entered a white-hot stage. Because the remaining few had some mutually restraining relationships, they were able to fight to a stalemate.

First, Bucky's high-frequency artillery suppression countered Greed's channeling skills. This all-encompassing bombardment made it impossible for Greed to stand still and channel. Likewise, for Pikachu, it would cause him to lose a good output position and force him to run for his life.

However, Steve also called in the mech, the one Stark had tinkered with earlier. Stark wasn't very good at controlling the cyborg body, but he could control the mech, and the mech could help him filter out excessive information, returning him to a field he was good at.

And Steve knew Bucky far too well. As soon as Bucky raised his hand, Steve knew where he was going to shoot. By constantly throwing his shield to interfere, Bucky had no room for output.

And because Steve's physical defense was strong but he lacked mental defense, while Gray Mist could directly deduct mana bars after activating his ultimate, they were subjected to indiscriminate mental strikes. They were also wary of collateral damage and needed to stop to use supplies.

In short, the few formed a perfect cycle; no one could kill anyone, but anyone could kill anyone at any time. So the final situation became a battle of consumables. Whoever had more consumables could stand the longest.

The first to fail was Pikachu. They had no escape skills, hadn't searched enough places, and because they hadn't entered the spaceship, they hadn't obtained the large amount of supplies inside, so consumables like bandages were quickly exhausted.

"No, I'm almost out of health," Pikachu said, taking a deep breath. "I can still use Thunderbolt one more time; I have to take someone down with me."

"Steve is definitely out; he has a shield, you can't one-shot him. Dr. Schiller is easier to hit, but he still has quite a bit of health, and he has many items. Once you fail to kill him, his health will recover quickly. It looks like it's better to use it on the Winter Soldier."

"Fine, I'll try." Pikachu took a deep breath. He first curled up his body, minimizing his presence as much as possible. Being small had its advantages; Pikachu wasn't even as tall as anyone's knees, and the place was full of spaceship wreckage, so he scurried over to Bucky's side in a few moves.

Bucky was busy dealing with Steve and didn't notice his presence. Pikachu jumped out from behind cover, rushed toward that side, and shouted, "Thunderbolt!!!"

A bolt of extremely thick lightning struck Bucky right in the face. Bucky sighed helplessly. Actually, he had noticed Pikachu, but he had no way to deal with him. If he went to attack Pikachu, Steve would definitely attack him. It was death either way, so he might as well choose to take one down.

Because many of Bucky's attack methods were area-of-effect, they weren't that easy to dodge. Every contestant on the field now had some poison on them. Bucky hugged Pikachu, completely taking away his remaining health. Both turned into white light and entered the Rap Battle segment.

Of course, when they were having a verbal battle, Pikachu and Seeing Natasha were the ones outputting, while the other two tried to mediate on the side. Pikachu's rapping skills were as good as ever; Seeing Natasha couldn't out-curse him in English, so she could only use her Russian, but Pikachu couldn't understand it, so Bucky had to stand between them and translate. The result was that he pleased neither side and was sprayed with spit by both.

And now, only Greed and Steve remained on the field. Stark pressed the button on the mech and shouted, "I'm going to win this time!!!"

The huge mech soared into the air and smashed toward Greed. He immediately dispersed into gray mist; it looked like he had dodged the attack, but in reality, he still lost health. Then it was the mech chasing all the way, and Greed running all the way.

"You have to admit, putting yourself in an iron shell really gives you a sense of security," Steve said. "I even dare to fight Schiller now."

Stark rolled his eyes and said, "Don't you think there's something wrong with throwing a shield while driving a mech?"

"What's wrong with it? I think you should also get a shield and use it as a long-range weapon when wearing the mech; it's much more useful than artillery."

"Hmph." Stark snorted coldly. It wasn't that he didn't want to use it; it was that he didn't know how! Although he could control the mech as if it were his own arm, even without the mech, he wouldn't know how to throw a shield. Throwing that thing required extremely high professional skills; it wasn't just about having strength.

If everyone could easily throw a shield far and accurately, then everyone would be an Olympic discus champion. This thing looked simple, but it actually involved very complex fields. That Steve could use this thing as a weapon only showed he was gifted. People without special talents should honestly stick to using guns.

"What should we do? It seems like the two of us can't catch him," Steve said. "This can't go on."

"What's the big deal? It's not like we can't afford to wait."

"I suspect they have a lot of supplies," Steve said. "They entered the spaceship and should have scavenged quite a few things. And you know Dr. Schiller's luck; he can't find good items, but he can find a pile of junk. I guess he's full of bandages and hot soup or something..."

"How did I forget about that?" Stark couldn't help but want to slap his forehead. "I didn't expect that in the final showdown, this pile of junk would actually come in handy."

It wasn't that they hadn't scavenged any supplies, but they didn't have that many, and later, when they had more parts, they threw away some items that took up space, leading to their current lack of sustainability.

And Greed was retreating while fighting, mainly to stall for skill cooldowns. Gray Mist's ultimate skill deducted mana from the entire map as soon as it was activated, but such a powerful skill definitely had a cooldown. Even if the cooldowns were reduced now, he still had to wait for a while before he could use it again. So even if he took damage and lost health, he had to run. Anyway, he had plenty of supplies, and he could drag others to death by attrition.

As he ran, the skill became available again. Gray Mist released another ultimate, and Steve's mana bar was deducted by another 60%, leaving only a sliver now.

He had to stop to use supplies, but as soon as he stopped, Greed was there chanting. Although he couldn't stack many layers in such a short time, every layer counted, and one more layer meant one more chance for a mistake.

Sure enough, after being afflicted with abnormal status, Steve's attack accuracy dropped significantly. When he chased Greed, the opponent basically didn't lose health. And the opponent could activate an ultimate every once in a while, leaving him with no health. He stopped to replenish health, only to be afflicted with more abnormal status, making Stark scream in anger.

"Schiller!! You damn bastard!!! Can't you have a fair duel?!!"

"Watch your language," Steve said helplessly. "Besides, you keep repeating the same few words, and you can't out-curse him anyway, so why bother?"

"I am having a fair duel with you!" Greed said while running, looking back. "If I wanted to play dirty, I would record your gameplay footage and send it to little Morgan!"

Stark was directly choked, and the profanity about to burst out was forcibly swallowed back into his stomach. Steve even comforted him, saying, "It's okay, even if we lose, we're still the runners-up, it's not shameful."

Stark was even angrier.

"Can you have some ambition?!" Stark said. "No one remembers the runner-up! Little Morgan must have a champion father!"

"Fine, then let's..."

Just at this moment, the mental abnormal status above their heads had been converted into a distress state, and Greed directly settled the score. While draining the health bar to the bottom, he unleashed his long-accumulated ultimate move. Steve didn't even have time to use his consumables; both his red and blue bars hit bottom, and he turned into a beam of white light and left the battlefield.

"Phew, finally won." Greed and Gray Mist cheered.

They thought they would also be teleported away soon, but they didn't expect that no victory prompt would sound, and they could only see a pile of soul forms floating in mid-air.

"Congratulations on winning the 'New Earth - Snowy Plains' Hero Strike Duel Mode. Next, you will head to the final duel arena to engage in the final showdown with the duel winners from the 'Rainforest,' 'Forest,' 'Deep Sea,' 'Desert,' and 'Moon'! Please prepare, teleportation is about to begin..."

"What the hell?!!" Greed shouted. "Shouldn't we have won? Why is there more?!"

Smiles don't disappear; they only transfer. Now it was the turn of the souls floating in mid-air to laugh out loud.

"Hahahaha, I knew it wouldn't be that simple!" Stark laughed the loudest and said, "No wonder this competition is held on New Earth; it turns out there are so many people competing with us."

"This event just started, and many people will participate in matchmaking. And the winner who can defeat everyone in that region must be very strong," Bucky said. "I wonder if the Doctor can beat them."

"I don't think so. His skill set has major flaws, and he didn't get any good exclusive equipment. Oh, wait, didn't he have a Thornmail before? Why didn't he have it later?" Seeing Natasha was a bit puzzled.

Then everyone's eyes focused on Selina. By now, everyone basically knew what skills everyone had, and they all knew where those missing items had gone.

Selina stuck out her tongue and said, "I didn't know there was a final duel either. Besides, if I hadn't stolen that thing, maybe our entire region would have been wiped out."

One had to admit that what she said made some sense; that Thornmail was simply too tricky. Once the Thornmail was out, everyone lost health equally, and no one could run away; the final outcome might have been everyone dying together.

"Can I give this thing back to him?" Selina asked while pondering. "It's definitely not because I want to see the fun; it's mainly because I also think Schiller's skill set is a bit weak and still needs this equipment."

But unfortunately, Greed had already disappeared into the light of teleportation, and all the souls were simultaneously teleported to the seats of the duel arena. They regained their physical forms, but they couldn't leave their seats.

The duel arena was similar to an ancient Roman colosseum, only more sci-fi. The circular seats were suspended in mid-air and were full of people; many didn't look like contestants and might have just bought spectator tickets. Among them, one could see a few familiar faces, such as Batman, and some who were very unfamiliar but looked like S. H. I. E. L. D. agents.

And directly above the duel arena, a small floating island drifted. The Beyonder was standing on the floating island, with a beam of light shining from above onto his head. He held up the microphone and shouted:

"Welcome to Hero Strike — Final Duel!!!"