Aside from Wakanda's king, the Black Panther, everyone else here was only human.
They had neither the right to consume the Heart-Shaped Herb nor the ability to form a spiritual link with the Panther God. Perhaps they were more skilled than ordinary people at wielding vibranium weapons, but against Senju Haruto's mental sorcery, they had no defense.
When Haruto pried the location of the vibranium mines from the mind of a Wakandan woman, her brain simply couldn't withstand his power. She died instantly.
Thud!
Her body pitched forward, collapsing stiffly onto the ground, eyes closed, limbs slowly hardening under the sun.
Haruto spared the fallen women only a passing glance before striding off toward the vibranium mine.
He could have used a portal to appear directly at its gates. But that, to him, would have robbed the journey of its fun.
"Wiped out already?"
Extending his spiritual perception outward, Haruto sensed Ross's soldiers collapsing by the dozens.
With the exception of the unit led by Soldier One, the others had all been annihilated.
And the Wakandan warriors who had culled them showed no intention of stopping. They were all converging on a single point—where Soldier One and his men had taken position.
"With his strength, Soldier One might hold out a little longer," Haruto murmured to himself.
Simply injecting super-serum wasn't enough to contend with Wakandan fighters. Vibranium technology had given them both overwhelming strength and defense.
On an ordinary battlefield, deploying them would be nothing less than dimensional reduction warfare.
If Soldier One hadn't ingested the Heart-Shaped Herb extract to elevate his body even further, he would have already been dead.
That thought sparked a new idea in Haruto's mind.
If he brought the Heart-Shaped Herb extract back to the Land of Fire… and gave it to civilians incapable of refining chakra… then combined it with Hulk serum…
Wouldn't their combat strength skyrocket?
"Hm. Not a bad idea," Haruto nodded slightly, thinking it was worth experimenting.
After all, the Heart-Shaped Herb in his possession had been given by his system's sign-in reward. It wasn't exactly the same as the mystical plants native to Wakanda.
And Soldier One hadn't shown any side effects. That alone was proof of its potential.
While these thoughts turned over in his mind, Haruto arrived at the vibranium mine.
All he needed was Ross's military position and the convenience it afforded.
As for Ross's black-tech soldiers, whether super-soldiers or regular troops, Haruto had no interest.
From the moment Ross had sent them to Wakanda, their fates were already sealed.
The only things Haruto truly valued here were his sign-in rewards—and the vibranium.
"If I remember right, vibranium isn't even native to Earth," he mused.
"It came from a meteorite impact, splitting as it struck. One fragment fell in East Africa, birthing the nation of Wakanda. And the other…"
A deep, resonant voice suddenly cut him off.
Haruto turned.
It was none other than Wakanda's king—T'Chaka.
T'Chaka, father of T'Challa, the previous Black Panther. In Captain America: Civil War, he had died in a bombing orchestrated by Baron Zemo.
In that film, T'Chaka had appeared overweight, almost piggish, nothing like the ferocious Black Panther.
But the man before Haruto was nothing of the sort.
Wrapped in white cloth, his muscular limbs bare, he looked carved from stone. His physique radiated raw power. If someone had said he could kill a bull with his fists, Haruto wouldn't have doubted it.
With the king's appearance, more and more Wakandan warriors emerged, armed with spears and bows. Their attire mirrored the king's, simple yet ceremonial.
To the unknowing eye, they could be mistaken for primitive tribesmen. But Haruto knew better—he understood the power of vibranium, the hidden truth of Wakanda.
"It seems you know quite a bit about vibranium's origins," T'Chaka said coldly, not rushing to attack. His gaze was sharp, his tone lofty.
"So that's your goal. You sent those soldiers as a distraction, while you slipped in here to find the vibranium yourself."
"But I'm curious. What then? Once you find it, what do you intend to do?"
"Will you orchestrate a grander scheme—like your people have done with oil?"
"Or perhaps…"
He paused deliberately, his lips curling into a sardonic smile. His voice carried mockery.
"…do you plan to move it all yourself?"
Laughter rippled among the warriors.
They didn't know why Haruto understood so much about vibranium, but they knew one thing for certain: he would never leave this place alive.
His ravenous ambition would consume him, just as it had consumed countless intruders before. His soul would never walk the ancestral plains.
Yet Haruto's expression bore none of the panic they expected.
If anything, the opposite.
He swept his gaze around, counting their numbers, weighing their weapons.
Among them he spotted the royal guard's leader, Okoye. But notably absent was T'Challa, the heir to the Black Panther mantle.
By the timeline, T'Challa should be in England now, studying at Oxford. Marvel's lore even claimed that before inheriting the mantle, he was a brilliant student there—later joining the Avengers not only as a warrior king but also as a scientist, designing advanced weapons, including his own vibranium suit.
But Haruto found that laughable.
Marvel's canon painted Wakanda as a nation with technology a thousand years beyond Earth… and yet their prince needed to attend university abroad?
And here was a kingdom still clinging to a monarchy—selecting its ruler by ritual combat, no less.
If not for his protagonist's plot armor, T'Challa would have died for real when he fell from that waterfall. Then the throne would have gone to Erik?
And no one bothered to investigate this stranger who appeared out of nowhere, claimed royal blood, and demanded the crown?
Pure bloodline worship.
Haruto couldn't help but laugh to himself at the thought.