The thick, crisscrossing steel framework stretched across the factory, reinforcing and supporting the entire space like a steel cage.
All kinds of machinery, equipment, and massive iron components filled the enormous workshop, making it look like a world made entirely of metal.
Many of the machines stood over ten meters high. Even Steve, who had once worked in a factory, couldn't tell what any of them were used for.
Even at night, there were still hundreds of workers moving busily about, yet Steve couldn't spot a single prisoner among them.
The workers were all dressed in identical uniforms, neat and energetic — clearly Hydra personnel. But the captured Allied soldiers were nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, Chen Mo and Steve were standing on a platform more than ten meters above the ground along one side of the factory — an exit connected to the fourth floor. A Hydra guard had originally been stationed there, but he'd been swiftly eliminated when Chen Mo and Steve appeared.
"These are…?"
Steve looked puzzledly toward a special section of the factory, where rows upon rows of massive, cigar-shaped objects — five to six meters tall — were neatly arranged. There were at least a hundred of them.
And it seemed the entire factory was dedicated to producing these monsters.
"Those are Hydra's newly developed super bombs. Looks like this place is their bomb factory," Chen Mo replied calmly.
His words made Steve's heart tighten. Such enormous bombs, and Hydra's top-tier technology behind them — their destructive power had to be terrifying. Just one might be enough to wipe out the entire base… and there were hundreds of them here.
Steve's guess wasn't wrong — though he still underestimated them.
According to Chen Mo's intel, each of these super bombs was filled with Hydra's self-developed high-intensity explosive — five times more powerful than TNT.
Each bomb contained thirty tons of it — the equivalent of one hundred and fifty tons of TNT. The blast radius exceeded five hundred meters. Its power far surpassed any so-called "Father of All Bombs."
Even in Chen Mo's original era, it would have been a true weapon of mass destruction, second only to humanity's ultimate weapon — the nuclear bomb.
And in this time, before nuclear weapons even existed, it was without question the most devastating killing machine in existence.
"What the hell are they planning?" Steve muttered, his voice heavy. He couldn't imagine what would happen if Hydra ever dropped these on Allied positions.
"Don't worry about that for now. Let's find where they're keeping the prisoners first," Chen Mo said.
He already knew very well — Hydra didn't just intend to use these bombs on the battlefield.
Reminded by Chen Mo, Steve quickly focused again. His mission tonight was to rescue the captured soldiers — and to find Bucky.
"This place is huge. Where do we even start looking?"
Pushing aside his unease about the bombs, Steve refocused on the rescue. As Chen Mo said, the first priority was to get the prisoners out; everything else could wait.
"A large number of prisoners wouldn't be kept too high up," Chen Mo said confidently. "For easier control, they'd be on the first floor or underground."
He knew the layout of the base by heart. The hundreds of captured Allied soldiers were currently locked up in the underground cells beneath the factory.
"We'll split up. Once you find them, get everyone out — as far away as possible. If those bombs go off, this entire base will be leveled. Everything within a kilometer will be obliterated."
Worried for Bucky's safety, Steve didn't hesitate. He nodded, turned, and ran downstairs to search for the prisoners.
Chen Mo, however, didn't go down. Instead, he slowly made his way upward, toward the top of the base.
At the very top, inside the control room, Baron Strucker stood before the console. Before him stretched a curved wall of observation windows like those of an airport control tower, giving him a perfect view of the entire factory below.
Under his command, the captured Allied soldiers had been working nonstop since before dawn, only just being escorted back to their underground cells moments ago.
The Apocalypse Plan was about to begin — and as its key component, the supply of super bombs had to be guaranteed.
If not for the need to squeeze every last ounce of labor from his prisoners, Baron Strucker would've made them work twenty-four hours a day. Their lives, to him, were worth less than insects. As long as Hydra could rule the world, how many died didn't matter.
Just as he was planning another raid on Allied positions to capture more laborers and boost bomb production, a sudden burst of gunfire and explosions erupted from the perimeter of the base.
Strucker's expression darkened. He turned sharply toward the monitor on his console — the screens showed the outer defenses of the Hydra base under attack. Guards were exchanging fire with a group of Allied prisoners who had suddenly surged out from one of the main factory buildings.
This Hydra base was located far behind the German front lines — over thirty kilometers away. As long as the front didn't collapse, the base was supposed to be completely safe.
And the German lines had been solid for months; no matter how fiercely the Allies attacked, they couldn't advance an inch.
So the base's defenses had become dangerously lax.
Following Chen Mo's directions, Steve quickly found the underground holding cells and successfully freed the captured soldiers.
To his shock and joy, among them was Bucky — the friend he thought long dead.
Bucky was equally stunned to see Steve, whose physique had changed drastically since the serum enhancement. But there was no time for reunion — they'd already killed several Hydra guards during the breakout.
Fearing reinforcements, Steve obeyed Chen Mo's earlier instructions and led the men to withdraw immediately.
He wasn't worried about Chen Mo; with that advanced armor matching his own gear — and far greater power — there was little in this base that could threaten him.
Steve was sure Chen Mo would soon hear the gunfire and catch up.
Pulling his shield from his back, Steve strapped it to his left arm, drew the long sword from behind him, and led the charge toward the exit.
With superhuman strength and speed, fully armed and impervious to bullets, Steve smashed through the first squad of Hydra soldiers before they even had time to react. The captured soldiers seized the fallen weapons, and by the time they stormed out of the factory building, nearly half of them were armed.
Deep behind enemy lines, the Hydra base had been far too complacent. No one could've imagined that the Allied prisoners they'd reduced to slave labor would suddenly break free — and all from a building that was supposed to be the most secure in the entire compound.