The woman was so powerful that the thick smoke and fire generated by the explosion avoided her entirely. She shone like a god, as dazzling as the sun.
Nick Fury stretched out his hand to block the blinding light. The one-eyed man's vision was poor to begin with, and after being struck by the sudden glare, it became even blurrier. He could only see a dark shadow, like sesame paste boiled into a pot of strange liquid. Suddenly, something like an arm rose from that pot of darkness and pointed at Fury.
"Motherfucker!" Nick Fury cursed that timeless saying. He did not know where the strength came from, but he scrambled forward on both hands and feet like a lizard fleeing across the desert, burned by hot sand beneath the blazing sun, leaving two long trails behind.
The high-temperature beam instantly pierced through the deck, almost grazing the one-eyed man's crotch. The molten metal melted into red and black, scorching and dangerous.
At that moment, Fury was extremely glad he was a white man. If he were a black man, he would already be finished. He did not practice any vicious kung fu, nor was he as feminine as Dongfang Bubai, nor did he want to become anything like him—or her.
He was a real man.
Nick Fury quickly stood up, ignoring the scratches left on his palm by broken glass. Black-red blood gurgled from his hand, as dark as his heart. Pale skin, black heart. Even severe pain could not calm his fear of Maria.
Nick Fury was cunning. That was recognized by the whole world. No one wanted to stay with him. Even Hill could not hide her exhaustion around him. He was hateful, like an insidious fox. But even foxes feared things, and all their confidence came from the tiger standing behind them.
But what if the tiger instead regarded the fox as food?
Then the fox could no longer borrow the tiger's power.
The tigress in front of him approached step by step. Fury was so frightened that cold sweat broke out across his body. Beneath his large black windbreaker, his sweat-soaked back was sticky and foul. The complex smell of sweat mixed with blood filled the air. Nick Fury wished he had a pair of wings, so he might escape from Maria's hands.
"Can I ask you a question?" the one-eyed man took a deep breath and tried to calm his agitated heart.
"Are you Maria now? Or Wanda?"
He did not really want to know who the person in front of him was. No matter who it was, there was no way he could survive. He was like a rabbit trapped on a narrow bridge. In front of him stood a huge lion, and behind him was a ferocious tiger baring its teeth, staring fiercely at nearby prey. Whether he went forward or backward, there was only one word waiting for him.
Death.
He always prepared the worst and most ruthless plans for everything in the world. He used the darkest thoughts to speculate on everyone's motives and arranged countless traps. His mind had long since turned completely black.
"Is that important? Do you know what daily life is like in Hell's Kitchen? Every day, several heads explode like watermelons. White, Black, yellow, old, young, fat. Perhaps only at the moment of death are the gaps between people completely erased, leaving no room for discrimination!"
Maria became more and more excited as she spoke, her voice trembling. "You people will never understand the pain of being Black. Why? Why? Why, when we are born with different skin, must we be discriminated against? Aren't Black people human too?"
Maria was in pain, and sad memories from the past gradually surfaced.
From the moment she was born, her whole life had revolved around two words—tragedy.
In America in the 1970s, Black people and white people were treated like two completely different creatures. One side received preferential treatment everywhere, while the other wandered through misery, forced to laugh while being mocked.
Although they were all human, they were divided into different grades: teachers, high-end scientific and technological talents, politicians, soldiers, homeless people... Maria still remembered being laughed at and teased by a group of white children when she was young. Even the teacher favored them, attributing all the blame to the Black child.
When Maria grew a little older, people disliked her simply for walking down the street, especially white girls of the same age. Every time they saw her, they looked as if they had seen a piece of filth. They frowned, pinched their noses, and wished they could stay far away from her.
Later, when she grew up and dropped out of school, passing police officers would stop her while she walked down the street and interrogate her carefully. The suspicion and sarcasm in their eyes were like sharp knives piercing her heart. Even when she had done nothing wrong, the white policeman still placed his hand on his gun. Without even a word of apology, he laughed a few times with the people in the car and drove away, leaving her alone.
It had been a sunny day. The breeze was blowing, yet it was bitingly cold.
She had longed to change the status of Black people, just as Martin Luther King Jr. had done back then. He had delivered speeches with passion, every word falling like thunder into the hearts of his oppressed companions. The crowd's anger had surged like the drums beaten by soldiers, stirring the momentum of thousands of troops.
She resolutely joined the army and became an Air Force fighter pilot, becoming one of the only two female pilots of that era alongside Carol.
Only when that day came did she realize that discrimination within the military camp was even worse.
They discriminated against women. They discriminated against Black people. They even discriminated against women joining the army.
As a Black female soldier who carried every burden at once, the discrimination and distrust Maria suffered were beyond words.
But fortunately... she survived and replaced Carol as the Guardian of the Universe. She did not want her original life trajectory to end with her lying on a bed, dying of cancer in despair.
But some things from the past could not be forgotten. They had to be remembered. They were like mud hidden deep underground, providing rich nutrition and a place for saplings to grow. The sapling grew into a towering tree, dense branches and leaves covering the sky, blocking the blazing sun, resisting cold malice, and isolating hostile gazes, standing in the warm mud like a natural barrier.
But while the trunk was exposed to the sun and thrived, the roots burrowed deep underground. Countless roots extended downward angrily and stubbornly, growing deeper and deeper, supporting the towering tree and gripping the mud beneath it tightly, even if that meant joining with the mud itself.
Everything seemed normal. Heavy rain, scorching sun, hurricanes, hail... countless disasters could not affect this giant tree. Her roots had already become one with the mud.
But one day, a great red hand uprooted the entire tree, and there were no more trees in her world. Everything became mud again, dark and foul, filling her entire world.
She had returned to being the person everyone despised.
The dark side of Maria's heart had been drawn out completely by Wanda. Her eyes, when she looked at Nick Fury, were filled with resentment and unwillingness. His pale skin felt like the greatest insult to her.
"I'm only releasing the pain I've carried all this time, like a balloon floating into the sky, a puppy running away, a small fish released into the sea, a magpie soaring through the clouds. This feeling is like... like... freedom?"
Maria grabbed Nick Fury's neck with one hand. An indescribable heat nearly tore his throat apart, as if a piece of hot charcoal fresh from the stove had been stuffed inside. Thick smoke left him unable to speak.
With only a little force, Maria could break the neck of the man before her without even blinking.
Fury laughed painfully. "Your inferiority runs too deep, Maria, like a driven stray dog. Even if the whip marks heal, they still remain in your heart. The submission in your body may be gone, but the servility in your mind is still imprinted deep in your soul, like... a disease."
She was sick, terribly sick. And once she believed she was sick, she truly was. No one could cure her except herself.
Nick Fury's smile was infuriating. Maria could no longer control the strength in her wrist. His words were too sharp, more unforgettable than Wolverine's claws. Even when he was about to die, he still wore that cunning smile, the corners of his mouth slightly curved like a weasel's.
...
After nearly half a day of flight, Renzo and the others finally arrived in Mississippi. The X-Men's spirits had recovered as well, and they looked full of vitality.
Do not ask how that was judged.
"I'm going to find Professor—"
Scott's hands and feet were frozen by Bobby. He sat restlessly in his seat, shaking violently and shouting that he wanted to go back to find Charles and the children at the school. He was worried about leaving those children there. He had clearly seen the tragedy of the Inhumans. A powerful and angry country had been conquered by a group of infected people in just a few hours.
All the leaders had died, making their fate even more tragic than the X-Men's.
Scott sympathized with what had happened to the Inhumans, but he did not want it to happen again. Now, the only leader of the mutants was Charles. If Charles died, the backbone of the mutants would be broken.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Scott was still yelling, and Bobby had no choice but to freeze his mouth.
Renzo had turned off his hearing long ago. This man's chattering was truly annoying. Why had he never realized Scott's mouth was so eloquent when watching the movies before? He had seemed like a strong warrior, emotional but generally stable. Now he kept swaying around like a sparrow.
"The last signal sent by S.H.I.E.L.D. is right ahead. But the strange thing is, the radar isn't responding. There isn't even a bird in the nearby sky!"
"This is five thousand meters up. What kind of bird can fly at an altitude of five thousand meters? Maybe it would react if we went higher."
Rogue had finally recovered. Although she was still afraid of Renzo, his face looked exactly like the Black Death Emperor from her nightmare, and she always unconsciously associated him with that ferocious and evil face.
"Look!"
Rogue suddenly shouted, and her voice drew the attention of the listless mutants. They all stepped forward. Through the thick glass and layers of cloud, they finally saw the scene ahead.
"That is...?!"
Everyone's eyes nearly popped out in shock.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarrier has crashed. The people onboard have probably met with something unexpected." Renzo could feel the strong cosmic energy lingering in the air, like a sauna burning his senses.
He could not mistake the energy that came from the same source as the gem in his chest. The energy from the Space Stone was like waves, like ribbons, almost wrapping around his body.
The fighter plane slowly came to a stop and hovered at an altitude of five thousand meters. Renzo handed control of the bridge to Bishop, opened the hatch, and jumped down, leaving all the X-Men staring with wide eyes.
Renzo was doing it for their sake. If it truly was Captain Marvel, this group alone would not be enough for her.
The man's figure moved as fast as lightning, falling straight down like a thunderbolt piercing the sky. With a tremendous roar and explosion, he smashed a huge crater into the ground full of dust and stone, landing beside the aerospace helicarrier like a meteor falling to the world.
Thick smoke and fire burned around him, but they could not shake his body in the slightest.
Renzo slowly raised his eyes. Golden light flashed in his pupils, so fierce that it seemed capable of piercing the soul.
The power of the three Stones erupted fully, pouring outward without restraint. The enormous pressure nearly shattered the surrounding space. The earth cracked and broke apart, spreading in every direction with him at the center, like an archipelago surrounding one vast central island.
He was the lonely island, a fellow member abandoned by the archipelago.
Excitement flashed in Renzo's eyes. He could feel the violent energy reaction within the ruins of the aerospace helicarrier. Among all the enemies he had encountered in the past—excluding the two bug-level existences, Chthon and Wanda—this was the strongest of them all.
His soul trembled, trembling with extreme excitement. He could finally face an enemy as strong as himself.
Every duel before this had been fought under unequal conditions. A truly close battle was rare, and his fighting spirit almost swallowed him whole.
Boom!
A path was blasted through the ruins, and Maria finally appeared. The strongest Avenger in the universe was holding the head of a middle-aged white man in her hand. His chin was unnaturally twisted, dried blood clung to it, and half his face stared blankly forward with empty eye sockets. No one knew where the eyeballs had gone. His skull had been violently smashed open, exposing cold white bone fragments inside.
Anyone else probably would not have recognized him with his head shattered like this.
But Renzo recognized him. Nick Fury's eyepatch was the same across the multiverse. No matter how he died, no matter what state his disgusting and cunning face had been reduced to, anyone familiar with him could recognize his identity at a glance.
Renzo was slightly surprised, but only slightly. If Nick Fury died so easily, he would not be Nick Fury.
He waved his hand in a provocative gesture.
"Come on, Captain Marvel!"
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