It is all Joss's fault; the others have all become rather abnormal.

"Charge! Charge with everything you've got! Hit them hard!" Loki's arms swung up and down. While his words held little sway over the Frost Giants, the Chitauri obeyed his every command.

At Loki's order, countless Chitauri soldiers descended upon every corner of New York City aboard their single-man flight platforms.

Simultaneously, massive, mountain-sized, whale-like biological warships soared out from the spatial gateway. Their eyes—two eyes... four eyes... in short, a multitude of eyes—glowed with a crimson light.

"Is this Earth...? A strange place. The temperature is far too high, not a speck of ice to be found. Quite unpleasant."

Once the entire Chitauri army had deployed, a Frost Giant much taller than Loki approached him... well, compared to Loki, they were all quite tall.

"Then hurry up and turn this place into your frost domain. While they haven't reacted yet, now is the absolute best chance," Loki said, glancing sideways at him.

Despite their formidable individual strength, these Frost Giants were far too arrogant to be considered good partners.

Yet, just as the Frost Giants believed they were the ones using Loki to open the portal, Loki secretly mocked these fools who had been duped by a few mere words of his.

It was nothing more than a relationship of mutual exploitation.

Loki thought about it indifferently. He had originally harbored further plans while lurking within Hydra, but the Avengers had ruined them, delaying his acquisition of the Tesseract for a long time.

However, it was also during this period that Loki realized the Avengers' power far exceeded his imagination. Relying solely on the Chitauri army wouldn't be enough, so he simply set his sights on his homeland, the Frost Giants.

Just as an old Eastern saying goes, "Beware of a compatriot in a foreign land—he's the one who shoots you in the back." Loki held little affection for his homeland. Compared to that freezing, impoverished wasteland, his goal was to usurp Odin and become the King of Asgard—claiming the true throne of the All-Father, rather than remaining a mere clan chieftain among the Frost Giants.

And the very first step... naturally, was to destroy the city right before his eyes.

"Heh, heh, heh... You foolish Avengers, I wonder what kind of expressions you'll make when you discover all of this? And my pathetic brother, what kind of pitiful look will you wear? Too bad you'll never know of my existence."

Because the previous displays by the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been far too eye-catching, Loki knew that showing his face would mean immediate targeting. Thus, he had remained entirely hidden from the Avengers' sight from start to finish, and the thought now filled him with immense smugness.

During this time, he had disguised himself daily as internal S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, living among them like a fish in water. Yet not a single one of these pathetic mortals had discovered his existence. It was utterly ridiculous.

"The wisdom of mortals... Truly, to toy with you using the stratagems of the God of Mischief is a terrible waste."

...

"Yo, Yo, check it out! Loki, Loki, on the tower peak..."

"Director Fury, please finish your sentence in the most ordinary way possible. I'm busy farming materials." The moment Nick Fury raised the microphone, Bruce Banner mercilessly interrupted his rap.

"Tch... As expected, only Joss is my soulmate..."

Nick Fury curled his lip, then reached out and tapped the screen displaying Loki's image. "Anyway, as you can see, Loki is jumping around right over here. Let me assign everyone's tasks."

"I'll take S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel to deal with as many Chitauri as possible, so you don't need to worry about these small fries." Nick Fury pointed at the Chitauri on the screen, then shifted his gaze to the massive whale warships.

"Banner, you go handle those whale warships. Don't look at me like that; I've already seen your stamina bar. Even if you fought until nightfall, your stamina wouldn't fully recover anyway. It won't delay your material farming."

Before he could even get a word out, Nick Fury cut off his escape route, leaving Bruce Banner to put away his phone with a disgruntled expression.

"And Gambit, these Frost Giants are yours. Judging by the intel Joss provided, they're much stronger than ordinary Chitauri and aren't something standard soldiers can handle."

"Understood. Also, I'm Gambit, not the Master of Cards. Stop listening to that jokester Joss talking nonsense," Gambit replied with a pained expression, already holding three decks of cards in red, yellow, and blue between his fingers.

For some reason, ever since Joss handed him these three decks of cards, he had insisted on calling him the Master of Cards.

Although the name was indeed not bad, Gambit, firmly believing he could never defeat Joss in a battle of wits, stubbornly refused to accept such a title.

"Still, this is a good chance to test if the different effects Joss claimed these three decks possess are actually true."

Watching Gambit leave, Nick Fury fixed his gaze on the mastermind behind the crisis and said in a deep voice, "As for Loki, leave him to you, right, Thor?"

"Leave it to me!" Thor let out a fierce roar, his right hand abruptly clenching as he gripped his two-liter cola. Trembling through five layers of chin fat, he nodded solemnly.

"As for Joss..." Nick Fury nodded in satisfaction, then placed his hands behind his back and looked at Joss. "Do whatever you want... Wait, I didn't say go home to sleep. Anyway, you have no special mission, just act freely... I'll say it again, I didn't tell you to go home to sleep."

Seeing Joss wear an expression that clearly said "you know what I mean," and then completely vanishing from the Avengers' hall without any intention of listening further, Nick Fury could only wave a hand and say, "Anyway, that's it. Dismissed, everyone dismissed. Get to the battlefield right now."

After everyone had left, Nick Fury let out a long, melancholic sigh and muttered to himself, "Why do I always feel like this organization has turned inexplicably bizarre...? This is definitely Joss's fault, right?"

Though he had once envisioned recruiting as many superheroes as possible to form the world's strongest alliance of heroes, he had never imagined what it would be like if a complete clown managed to mix in among them.

"Never mind, I should deal with the immediate crisis first."

With a deep breath, Nick Fury's gaze regained its composure. He swung a thick gold chain around his neck, casually turned his baseball cap backward, grasped a dark gold microphone in his left hand, and drew his service weapon with his right.

"Yo! All S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, stand up, stand up! Grab your weapons and charge into battle with me right now!"