Mississippi.
A massive aerospace helicarrier had crashed into the dry land like a beached whale, stranded in an endless blue sea, silent and unnoticed.
The helicarrier had carved a huge crater into the ground. Yellow sand and smoke billowed outward, shrouding the area around it. A large hole with a diameter of three meters pierced straight through the carrier, and a faint glow of fire still lingered inside.
"Nick, Nick, Nick! Do you like playing hide-and-seek? Do you remember the days when you were with the Skrulls? That game of hide-and-seek was much more sophisticated than this. It kept you spinning in circles!"
The Black woman walked slowly through the interior of the helicarrier, deliberately twisting her waist with every step, pretending to be coy. But her voice was cold and vicious, her golden-red pupils flashing as she swept her gaze indifferently across the messy corridor. The light fell across the woman's face, preventing her from merging completely with the darkness.
Red-gold energy gathered around Maria's arms, and a layer of dry-ice-like golden light appeared around her body, lightly wrapping her in its glow. Her powerful aura was unmistakable.
Boom!
A high-temperature laser instantly melted through a wall, turning the molten metal hot and red. Maria seemed not to feel it at all. The materials used to build the aerospace helicarrier, which had cost hundreds of billions, were all first-class and extremely hard. They were made with the same standards as rocket materials, designed to adapt to high-altitude pressure and falling gravity, to carry large numbers of people, supplies, weapons, and aircraft... Special materials allowed it to operate on land and sea while accommodating controllable nuclear fusion energy.
Captain Marvel Maria, Guardian of the Universe.
The woman toured the wrecked helicarrier in a grand manner. Its current state was her own achievement. Earth's technology was still hundreds of years behind the first-class level of the universe. Some colonial planets could already enjoy the benefits brought by advanced cosmic technology, while Earth had still been in a feudal society not long ago, before the Industrial Revolution had even begun.
Although technological explosions had rapidly improved the development level of the entire Earth, except for a few groups with black-technology breakthroughs, most of it looked like babbling infants in the eyes of cosmic empires—childish and ridiculous.
In the 616 comic universe, the Illuminati, led by Iron Man, had fought against the Skrulls, one of the three great empires of the universe.
After discovering that a large number of Skrull spies were hidden on Earth, the Illuminati decided to take the initiative and go into a strange and unfamiliar universe to face the Skrulls, who had already mastered space navigation technology long ago.
Making that decision was almost idiotic.
The same was true for the DC animation next door. A group of heroes had fought on an unfamiliar alien planet, only to be crushed by Darkseid, who was fully prepared. Only a few escaped alive. If the roles had been reversed, even if Darkseid could not win, he could still have used his excellent space-navigation technology to flee, instead of being trapped alone and waiting to die.
The Illuminati had made the same mistake. Large numbers of ordinary soldiers took advantage of their unfamiliarity with space combat methods and captured those famous superheroes alive.
Mr. Fantastic was stretched endlessly, Namor was roasted with fire, Doctor Strange's magic was studied, Black Bolt's vocal cords were examined, and Professor X was locked in a cage...
Only Tony Stark was looked down upon by the Skrulls. They believed his armor was low-end technology developed by a low-end planet and had no value.
If Tony's skills had not been good enough, the result of that battle would have been the total annihilation of the Illuminati.
The technology that people on Earth were proud of was worthless in the eyes of those beings.
Maria understood this deeply. During the years she was controlled by the Kree, she had also learned about the existence of the Supreme Intelligence, which could be called the highest level of technology in the universe. It was something Earth would not be able to reach for thousands of years. The difference was like that between a wild dog and an elephant, not only in size, but also in intelligence and thought.
"Nick Fury... come out quickly. Isn't it fun to hide here like a stray dog?" Maria stepped across the ground, making a tapping sound. Her cold voice was like that of a trafficker coaxing a child. She knew Nick Fury very well. There was no one on this planet who understood him better than she did.
Conspirator, politician, spy chief, soldier...
Insidious, cunning, suspicious, vicious, selfish, ruthless, indifferent to life, fickle, and hypocritical... Even the darkest and most vicious words in the world were not enough to describe this man. He was practically the inversion of everything positive, a mixture of negative emotions. The so-called Avengers, the Illuminati, the X-Men... they were all just tools he used to achieve his goal of protecting Earth.
Such a man had become the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. through vicious and ruthless methods. He had also done many dark things behind the scenes and killed countless innocent people. Why could Nick Fury sit firmly in the director's chair of S.H.I.E.L.D. without being condemned by everyone?
Maria's eyes became scarlet, and Wanda's hair flew behind her like blood. Why, why, why?! Why was he a hero after killing so many people, while she was a devil after killing so many people? Why did she have to be criticized by the world and stand against all humanity?!
Why?!
Because everything he did was hidden in the dark, quiet like a rat hiding in a sewer. He slowly grew stronger until he was big enough, trained a group of little turtles, and then let those little turtles go out to do good deeds on his behalf. He hid his name, still stealing rice, sniffing lamp oil, and staring at everyone who passed the manhole cover with cold red eyes.
Maria felt like one of those little turtles, a foolish bastard who had been tricked into counting money for him. She had been easily drawn into his camp by a cunning rat and had become an honored member of an army of fools who sold themselves and counted the money for him.
She had been so stupid that it took twenty years for her to see this man's true face.
Maria floated in infinite scarlet fire, blinded by hatred and suspicion, making it difficult for her to see the path she had taken. She was like a marionette, manipulated at will, like a foolish child who could be tricked with a lollipop.
She was still searching for traces of Nick Fury. She knew he was hiding here. She kicked away the cold body of an agent who had died in the crash and stared blankly ahead. They had not known what happened even at the moment of death. It had felt as if a comet had struck the helicarrier, and a fierce, majestic flame had swallowed them in an instant. They could not even feel pain before their bodies were torn apart by cosmic energy.
They had died without even seeing the culprit behind it all. Like lost lambs, they had followed whoever led them.
Falling from an altitude of tens of thousands of meters, the enormous size of the aerospace helicarrier had been a disaster for all of Mississippi. The impact was no less destructive than a nuclear explosion, though it left no lasting radiation and would not turn a radius of hundreds of meters into a barren land where nothing could grow for decades.
Two of the four huge rotor propellers had been damaged. Thanks to the pilot's excellent qualities, superb flying skills, and desperate maneuvers, the remaining two propellers had barely reduced the damage area to a controllable range.
Maria's current location was the soldiers' cabin. The body beside her feet was pinned beneath a steel bed frame. A protruding, broken steel plate had pierced the man's abdomen, pushing out his deformed and damaged stomach, kidneys, and other organs, which hung trembling from a dull steel rod stained with blood.
The floor beneath her feet was full of blackened marks. It looked as if it had been burned by fire and then extinguished by water, leaving irregular flame-like traces. They resembled an anime character whose hair had risen in anger, like Uzumaki Kushina from Naruto, an angry mother ready to discipline her disobedient children, her long flaming hair growing fiercely upward.
Maria was angry. Furious. Nick Fury, that white rat, really could hide—better than the old sewer rats who had survived there for years.
There was a reason she could be called the Guardian of the Universe. In terms of raw power, there was nothing to criticize. If Wanda's ability to change reality had not been so overwhelming, Maria would have been able to kill her alone.
She was very confident, a kind of full confidence in her own strength that came from the heart. Otherwise, she would not have taken the initiative to leave the team and face that mad witch alone, only to be easily turned into a toy.
She had not overestimated her own strength.
She had merely underestimated Wanda's.
Tap, tap, tap.
Footsteps sounded on the floor, gradually moving farther and farther away, echoing hollowly through the ruins...
The second level of the helicarrier.
Main cabin.
Nick Fury held his breath and quietly listened to the movement coming from below.
He wanted to run, but he could not.
The deck above had collapsed from the violent impact, and the Quinjet on the deck had fallen into the next level, blocking Nick Fury's escape route. Black fuel dripped down bit by bit, and Fury's nose could not help twitching. The unpleasant smell of tar almost rushed straight into his nasal cavity.
The one-eyed man was not worried about that. This level of damage was not enough to make their weapons explode. What truly worried him was the nuclear system operating beneath them.
Captain Marvel's strength could not be clearly described in just one or two sentences. Her power came from the Space Stone, a product of the Big Bang.
Unlimited power was not just talk.
The title of Superwoman was not undeserved.
Nick Fury did not even dare take a full breath. His chest only rose and fell at the lowest possible level. His gentle breathing was as faint as a thread, and he moved his feet with extreme care, afraid of stepping on debris and making a sound that would draw Maria's attention.
He was insidious and cunning. A cunning rabbit had three holes. Nick Fury was even more troublesome than a cunning rabbit, leaving at least five or six escape routes for himself.
His setup was very similar to DC's Batman next door. To restrain these superheroes, his files were filled with their weaknesses and pasts, constantly analyzing their personalities and habits before preparing targeted measures.
He was very good at such things—scheming from behind, hiding knives behind a smile, smiling like a tiger... All kinds of obscene and negative titles could be placed on his head behind his back.
Similarly, he was also very good at avoiding danger and hiding, especially inside such a huge and complex helicarrier. The falling debris blocked his sight, but it did not block his intuition. The one-eyed man was too familiar with this place. He had struggled with those shameless politicians for years to get the funding approved, then spent several more years building this aerospace helicarrier. No one knew it better than him.
This was his second home.
In fact, calling it a home was a little too much. How could someone like Nick Fury have a family? His entire life had been spent in suspicion and doubt. If he lacked skill, how would he dare have a family? If he had a family, how could he carry out these dangerous activities with peace of mind?
Nick Fury reluctantly pulled out the shard of glass lodged in his shoulder. Even hard tempered glass had shattered into pieces after falling from tens of thousands of meters, flying around like snowflakes. Some unlucky people had been pierced through the eye sockets by sharp glass, and before they could scream, they were smashed into meat paste by impact and gravity. Some had their necks cut open directly. Old white one-eyed Fury had been lucky; only his shoulder had been stabbed by the glass shards.
The blood-stained piece of glass fell to the ground, hitting Nick Fury's shoe and preventing it from making noise that would attract Maria's attention.
She kept clinging to his trail like an evil ghost. They had once been the closest comrades-in-arms, even closer than Hill and him. He had trusted her deeply.
As for Maria, Nick Fury had given her a trust level of eighty percent, an extremely high rating. Hill was also at that level. As for other superheroes... they were generally below sixty percent.
To put it bluntly, Nick Fury's tolerance and trust toward other superheroes had reached a freezing point, a point on the verge of melting and solidifying. Like the three states of water: liquid represented distrust, solid represented trust, and gas meant ignoring them altogether.
He liked to rate others in his mind, as if he himself were a level-ten agent, while Hill and Coulson were only level seven and six. Like a ruler measuring threat levels, Nick Fury also regarded himself as a level-ten agent.
The greatest threat was that he knew most of the world's secrets.
Most of them.
This was not neighborhood gossip. Project Insight was real.
Fury quietly leaned against the collapsed wall and gently placed his ear against it.
There was no movement. It was as quiet as a sleeping kitten, its soft paw pads making no sound as it stepped across the floor.
Nick Fury's single eye narrowed slightly.
Something was wrong.
It was impossible for her to find a path and pass through the ruins like he did. Her nature was that of a powerful, majestic lion. Every tree she passed would be scratched by her claws. She would never take a normal path. Any obstacle blocking her would be destroyed as she opened a new route that did not resemble a road at all.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Nick Fury felt an inexplicable sense of pressure and panic.
She was coming for him.
No.
She already knew where he was.
Boom!
The violent explosion knocked the one-eyed man away from the wall. The glass shard he had just pulled out was driven back into his body, and he could not help crying out in pain.
"Look, look! Where is our peaceful dictator and futurist?"
Fire shrouded the broken hole, and contact with the fuel triggered a violent explosion. The figure within the flames was faintly illuminated, its silhouette swaying, carrying an unmistakable sense of mockery.
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