The argument between Lorna and Solomon didn't even last twenty seconds.
No matter how much resentment the girl might have held toward her brother's ruthless methods, she had to admit that if Athena endorsed his actions, there must be a reason. She was used to listening to the wisdom of others—an instinct honed from living among far-sighted sages. Her dissatisfaction stemmed more from believing Solomon's methods could be softer, not from any oppressive environment that had stifled her spirit or stripped away her capacity for rebellion.
There were two main reasons for this.
First, Solomon's logic was airtight.
By stripping the Inhumans of their value as slaves while simultaneously elevating their status as individuals deserving of dignity, then taking hostile measures afterward—this was far better than those who demanded sacrifices from the Inhumans while continuing to discriminate against them. With Coulson's team operating under the S.H.I.E.L.D. name again, issues surrounding the treatment and societal status of superpowered individuals were bound to surface soon. Whether a group possessed dignity or not was a fundamentally different state, and during her studies, Lorna had found corresponding examples within human society. She had even written an extracurricular report on "racial discrimination" based on these ideas—much of it drawn from concepts Solomon routinely taught the children of the orphanage.
That was also why Solomon had come to pick her up from school that day.
Her report, though factual, clashed with the mainstream expectations of political correctness in the West—both left-wing and right-wing perspectives found it unpalatable. Solomon had stepped in as her guardian to confront the private school's teachers. While the exact nature of the argument wasn't widely known, Lorna had walked out of the school with her chin raised high, while behind the office door the sound of hysterical sobbing could still be heard. The teacher who had rejected her report had ended up mentally broken and resigned. From that day on, no teacher ever dared reject Lorna's extracurricular essays again—at least, that's what she believed. The truth was that Solomon had quietly donated a substantial sum to the school's board afterward; without that bribe, his rhetorical gymnastics and speech alone wouldn't have held up under the school's rigid PC culture. After all, Lorna still needed to get into college one day, and in the U.S., a marked political inclination could easily get her blacklisted by any university with opposing leanings.
Thanks to Solomon's ideological grooming, it was virtually impossible for Lorna to be accepted into any Ivy League school in America.
The second reason was Athena's remarkably liberal approach to education.
She would lay out all the possible outcomes of a decision, offer her own advice, and then step back to let the child choose freely. If they rejected her advice and failed as a result, she wouldn't mock or scold them afterward—instead, she would step in again to help mitigate the consequences. It wasn't that the environment stifled rebellion—rather, Athena's method made even teenagers too rational to bother rebelling. After all, they had known all along what could happen. If things went badly, it was their own choice—no one else to blame. For example, when Lorna said she wanted a tattoo, Athena told her that with her current allowance, she couldn't afford a good artist. And as her body grew, the tattoo would stretch and warp. If she was fine with walking around in the future with a distorted blotch of color, then she could go ahead and do what she wanted.
"I want a rose. Right on my ankle," Lorna said to Solomon, still clearly not letting go of the idea. "I want you to design it—Baroque style. I remember you're really good at that."
"As long as it's not sickly sweet Rococo, I'm fine. I'll draw up a sketch later—you'll love it." Solomon patted her on the head with a smile. "Now go back inside—you still have a workbook to finish!"
"Are you staying for dinner this time? Or do you have someone to kill?" Lorna wrinkled her cute little nose and sniffed at him like she could smell lies. "I have this feeling the last two mass killings in New York were your doing. I knew it. Don't even try to lie. So, what's your reason this time?"
Solomon's educational philosophy was identical to Athena's. He didn't mind explaining himself to the people he'd instilled with his beliefs. After all, any theory or action needed to be challenged if it were to stand—it had to survive debate. He firmly believed his logic could withstand scrutiny. The ideology drilled into him by Kamar-Taj—survival as the highest principle, racial continuity as the foundation, human free will as the ultimate goal—stripped away all sentimental components of human society. It revealed raw truths, harsh lessons, and uncompromising rationality. Like an obsidian dagger honed to a razor edge, that logical framework was cold, sharp, and flawless. Once Solomon engaged that mode of thinking, one would never see much sympathy or humanity in him again—because beasts that fight to survive have no humanity. That was a truth he had long since accepted.
Even so, he still hoped his sacrifices would allow others to retain theirs.
Aside from that, he was actually very easy to get along with—any ordinary person unaware of his real identity could vouch for that.
"Just some out-of-control magic black marketeers and drug cartels squatting in extradimensional territory," Solomon said with a shrug. He had fully internalized the core of Kamar-Taj's teachings and worked tirelessly to instill them in his potential followers. "If you ever ran into them, you'd have to kill too. That's our mission."
As he spoke, the killings executed in his name were still ongoing.
While Sophia and Tita steadily pushed forward with recruitment efforts, they had each led their teams out of the Immortal City for extended combat training. These were long-term field exercises meant to prepare for the next war. Solomon had already warned everyone that the coming conflict would be even more brutal than the Battle of Fimbulwinter—so much so that its casualties would make Fimbulwinter look like a footnote. Under this pressure, training became harsh and merciless. Solomon had already prepared their enemies, so in war-torn regions of the Middle East, heavily armed strike teams began appearing out of nowhere—sweeping through the battlefield with no regard for faction or flag, their mission simple: annihilate every combatant.
Armed with state-of-the-art anti-air weaponry and highly mobile assault transport craft, they had effectively erased the Western coalition's air superiority. The war had been dragged back to the ground—where soldier quality mattered most.
Fortunately, the Immortal City never stayed in one place for long, so they had not yet been surrounded or hunted down.
After each victory, the internal affairs division's armed clerks would descend upon the shattered region to collect eligible children. These children would be brought to the hidden sky-carrier above for initial processing. Once enough were gathered, the carrier would return to the Immortal City, where hospitals and schools previously set up by the internal affairs department would treat and educate them. The educational methods—borrowed from Hydra—first erased religious beliefs from the children's minds and then implanted Solomon's core values: "Mankind's destiny is to rule the galaxy," "Science is truth," "Loyalty." As the backbone of the Immortal City's future, this program had been placed entirely under Stephanie Malik's authority.
The Wakandans had no idea how to judge such practices. Even Princess Shuri could only begrudgingly acknowledge their legitimacy, although she continued to protest—insisting that Solomon soften his methods and allow the children some path to realizing their dreams.
Solomon ignored her protests completely.
Because those children's dreams were simple: safety and food. And he had already given them everything they could ever dare to want—and more.
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