I'm having a blast in Marvel!

Page 50

And at this moment, Chu Hang's story will turn a new page.

He turned around, looked at the sturdy lock in front of him, and slowly extended his right hand.

A faint, almost invisible golden light flashed across his palm.

The lock cylinder, made of a special alloy, was instantly twisted and destroyed by an invisible force, emitting a crisp cracking sound.

Chu Hang opened the iron gate without the slightest hesitation and slipped into that deep darkness that led to freedom.

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Chapter 60 Regaining Freedom

The iron gate slammed shut behind him with a dull thud, the echo rolling several times in the dark passage before finally dissipating.

The sound was like a pause, abruptly interrupting the frenzied symphony behind them, filled with explosions, beams of light, and monstrous tentacles. The world was split in two: on one side, a hellish cacophony; on the other, the deep, deathly dark tunnel before them.

Chu Hang did not turn back.

He slumped against the cold iron door, his chest heaving as he gulped down the stale air. His adrenaline receded rapidly, leaving behind a deep, bone-chilling exhaustion that threatened to crush him. His legs felt like lead, so heavy they almost didn't belong to him; every muscle in his body screamed in pain, protesting the near-total exhaustion. His mind was a jumbled mess, buzzing like bees, making him dizzy and disoriented.

The forceful twisting of the lock cylinder just now, though seemingly simple and brutal, almost drained the last bit of energy from his body. He felt like an old battery that had been completely drained of power; the outer shell was still intact, but the inside was utterly empty.

He slid uncontrollably down the cold wall, finally landing hard on the cold concrete floor.

The tunnel was pitch black, a pure, unadulterated darkness, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. A complex, indescribable odor filled the air: the metallic smell of rust, the greasiness of engine oil, and the musty stench of damp, year-old dust, all mingling together and nauseating. From the pipes overhead, the occasional gurgling sound of some liquid flowing added an eerie vitality to the deathly silence. And further away, the monotonous, persistent beeping of the base's alarm, like the faint yet persistent heartbeat of a dying man, reminded him that the danger was not far off.

He is safe, but only temporarily.

Chu Hang closed his eyes, focusing all his attention on his body, trying to sense its condition. The newly generated, immense power he had forcibly integrated with was now like a giant serpent entering hibernation, quietly and heavily coiled in every corner of his body, from muscle fibers to the depths of his bones. He could clearly feel its presence; that vast, boundless presence itself carried a sense of oppression, but he could no longer manipulate it at will as he had in the hangar. It had become sluggish and lethargic, as if filled with wariness and alienation towards its new master.

The system panel in his consciousness remained a lifeless gray, and no matter how he called out, he received no response. It seemed that the "cheat code" that had always been his greatest reliance had truly exhausted its energy and fallen into a deep sleep, and when it would wake up was completely unknown.

Without the system's assistance and guidance, he felt like a farmer who had never been exposed to modern technology, suddenly thrown into the cockpit of a state-of-the-art fighter jet. He knew that the machine beneath him possessed earth-shattering power, but he couldn't even understand the symbols on the instrument panel, let alone how to start the engine or pull the control stick.

Everything can only be figured out by oneself.

"Energy perception..." he silently murmured the name of his newly acquired ability.

Fortunately, this ability seemed to have become integrated with his senses, a passive instinct that required no conscious activation. With a slight thought, a whole new world unfolded in his mind. He could "see" the coolant, carrying a faint energy reaction, slowly flowing through the thick pipes above his head; he could "see" the dense network of cables deep within the walls, radiating stable and regular energy fluctuations, like the veins of this steel behemoth. The entire vast underground base gradually took shape in his mind as a rudimentary three-dimensional map woven from countless energy veins.

This was a stroke of luck amidst misfortune. At least he wouldn't be completely lost in this underground labyrinth like a headless fly.

He sat there, resting for about five minutes, or longer. Time lost its meaning here. He forced himself to pull out the last bit of food from his pocket—an energy bar he'd smuggled from the S.H.I.E.L.D. cell, hard and tasteless. He chewed and swallowed mechanically, and a faint warmth rose in his stomach, spreading to his limbs, finally restoring a tiny bit of strength.

I can't stay here any longer. This thought clearly surfaced in my mind.

He knew Nick Fury better than anyone else what kind of person he was. That one-eyed man's controlling nature and paranoia bordered on obsessive. He, the "missing prisoner," would undoubtedly become the biggest suspect in Fury's eyes. Once S.H.I.E.L.D. realized what was happening and completely sealed off the base, he would truly be trapped, unable to escape.

He leaned against the rough wall, his legs trembling, and stood up unsteadily.

Guided by the constantly updated energy map in his mind, he carefully avoided all areas with strong energy reactions—those places were brightly lit, energy was concentrated, and they were likely heavily guarded outposts or important functional areas like command centers. He chose the route with the weakest and most inconspicuous energy fluctuations, like a ghost, blending into the darkness, and resolutely walking in a direction he had chosen.

He remembered clearly that all large military bases, especially those built by the sea, inevitably had a massive sewage system leading to the outside world. It was an engineering necessity, and his only way to survive at that moment.

Meanwhile, in hangar B7.

The piercing alarms had been silenced, but the aftershocks of the chaos continued to spread. Medics pushed stretchers through the wreckage, racing against time to treat the wounded. Phil Coulson directed the surviving agents in clearing the wreckage and assessing the damage. The entire hangar resembled a ruin ravaged by a monstrous beast; the air was thick with the pungent smell of burning protein and molten metal, enough to make anyone want to vomit.

Nick Fury sat expressionless on a relatively intact equipment box, as a young female medic carefully treated the wound on his left eye with tweezers and a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant.

"Sir, the wound is very deep, it went through the eyeball... The tissue inside the eye is completely necrotic, I'm afraid..." The medic's voice was trembling with reluctance, and she dared not finish her sentence.

"Report the results." Fury's voice was unusually calm, so calm it sent chills down your spine, revealing no emotional fluctuation whatsoever.

The female medic took a deep breath, as if she had made a huge decision: "...Your left eye cannot be saved."

Fury fell silent. There was no expected anger, no agonizing groan; he simply raised his hand slowly and gently touched the fresh scar on his face, running from his forehead to his cheek, with his fingertips. The skin there still burned, as if a branding iron had been repeatedly grinding against it, constantly reminding him how real and absurd everything that had just happened was.

Aliens, energy weapons, and an orange cat that can extend countless disgusting tentacles.

His worldview, built up over the past few decades based on logic and reality, was shattered tonight by these absurd things.

Coulson strode over, his face as pale as the lights in the hangar, his expression grave. "Sir, headcount complete. We've lost seventeen agents and thirty-four wounded. As for the Kree… they left no bodies, as if they vanished into thin air."

Fury nodded; this was within his expectations. "Anything else?" He knew Coulson's report went far beyond that.

Coulson hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice so that only the two of them could hear: "There's one more thing. The prisoner we brought back from the glacier... Chu Hang, he's gone."

Fury's remaining right eye suddenly narrowed, his gaze like a sharp blade drawn from its sheath, so sharp it could pierce the air.

"Gone?"

“Yes.” Coulson immediately handed over a tablet. “His cell was empty, and the lock had been forcibly broken from the inside. Surveillance footage shows that after the chaos at the base, he entered the B7 hangar area, and then… there was no further video footage. Our men searched the entire hangar but found no body or any blood.”

Fury took the tablet, which displayed Chu Hang's file photo. A black-haired, black-eyed Eastern man, his gaze as calm as a deep pool, revealing nothing special. The file was pitifully simple: a World War II soldier, an unofficial member of the Howling Commandos, who fell into a glacier with Captain America during their last mission, his physical functions miraculously remaining at peak condition for unknown reasons.

A veteran who has been asleep for more than fifty years.

Fury's mind was racing, with countless clues colliding and connecting within it.

The light-speed engine exploded, and a pilot named Carol Danvers disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, this mysterious prisoner, who also appeared near the explosion site and was also under the control of S.H.I.E.L.D., vanished into thin air amidst the chaos.

Was all of this just a coincidence?

Nick Fury never believed in coincidences; he only believed in meticulously planned conspiracies and uncontrollable variables.

He recalled the man's condition when he was found in the ice, his World War II uniform that seemed out of place in this era, and his warm, lifelike body that defied all scientific logic.

"Raise his security level to the highest." Fury handed the tablet back to Coulson, his voice as cold as the Siberian wind. "Immediately seal off all exits and conduct a thorough search of the entire base. Find him alive or dead."

“Yes, sir,” Coulson replied, standing at attention.

“Wait,” Fury called to Coulson, who was about to turn and leave. “The search must be conducted in secrecy. I don’t want anyone other than you and me to know that we’ve lost a ‘prisoner.’”

Coulson was taken aback at first, but immediately understood Fury's meaning and nodded heavily: "Understood."

Watching Coulson's hurried departure, Fury slowly stood up, dragging his tired body, and walked to the orange cat.

"Gugu" seemed exhausted, lying lazily on the ground, carefully licking its paws, as if the recent devouring spectacle had nothing to do with it. Seeing Fury approach, it simply raised its head, meowed innocently, its emerald eyes full of pure joy.

Fury stared at it for a very long time, his eyes filled with an extremely complex mix of fear, curiosity, and even a hint of...desire.

“I’d better keep an eye on you,” he said softly, as if talking to himself, or as if giving a notice to this unfathomable creature.

This world has become increasingly dangerous and increasingly unfamiliar. He needs more weapons, more trump cards, to deal with the threats lurking in the shadows and even from beyond the stars.

A man who emerged from the ice, whose origins are shrouded in mystery, and who mysteriously disappeared.

There's also a cat... capable of swallowing an entire elite alien squad.

His gaze finally passed through the huge hole that had been smashed in the hangar and landed on the deep, boundless night sky studded with brilliant stars.

“Avengers…” he murmured a word buried deep in his heart, a word he had never spoken to anyone before.

Perhaps, it's time.

Chu Hang had no idea how long he had been walking through the intricate underground pipes.

An hour, or two hours. In this confined space, the sense of time becomes blurred and dulled.

The surrounding passageways widened, and the stench in the air grew stronger, transforming from an initial musty smell into a foul stench of fermenting chemical waste and household garbage. He knew he was close to his goal.

Finally, at a fork in the road, he turned into a huge circular pipe with a diameter of over two meters. A strong, pungent stench, a mixture of various filth, hit him. The smell was so overpowering and penetrating that it made his stomach churn, and he almost vomited on the spot.

But he doesn't care.

Because he heard it.

At the end of the pipe, through layers of stench, came the most beautiful sound he had ever heard in his life—the rhythmic crashing of waves against the rocks.

That is the symphony of freedom.

He forced back his nausea and trudged through knee-deep, viscous sewage. His body was exhausted to the limit. Although his self-healing agents were slowly repairing his damaged muscles, the depletion of energy could not be compensated for. Every step felt like walking on a knife's edge, draining his last bit of willpower.

He finally reached the end of the pipe.

A circular exit blocked by a thick, rusty iron fence.

Through the gaps in the fence, he could see the shimmering, dark sea outside, smell the salty sea breeze, and feel the free, icy air.

Only this last step remains.

He used all the strength he had left to grip the cold, slippery iron bars tightly with both hands.

"Open it...for me!"

He gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his neck, and let out a low, beast-like growl from deep within his throat. The muscles in his arms bulged, like gnarled old tree roots. The immense power granted to him by the Super Soldier Serum was being pushed to its limit at this moment; every cell was burning.

Crack—Squeak—

The iron fence emitted a sickening groan of unbearable strain. Spiderweb-like cracks began to appear on its welded concrete base, and stone chips and dust fell in a flurry, mixing with the sewage below.

Chu Hang felt as if his arm was about to be torn apart. But he didn't let go; instead, he put all his weight on it and strained even more frantically.

A crisp, loud bang echoed exceptionally clearly in the empty pipe.

He ripped the entire heavy iron fence off the wall!

The immense recoil made it impossible for him to hold on any longer, and he fell backward along with the twisted iron fence, crashing heavily into the sea outside.

The icy seawater instantly engulfed him, its biting chill like a sharp blade piercing his brain, instantly clearing his muddled consciousness. He struggled to surface, like a dying fish, greedily and deeply inhaling the salty, fresh air.

He glanced back at the dark, foul-smelling sewage outlet, then looked up at the bright moon and countless stars in the sky.

Exhausted, Chu Hang drifted on the cold sea, giving up all struggle and letting the gentle waves slowly push him towards the beach not far away. He was washed ashore, lay on the soft, damp sand, and stared at the vast starry sky, his mind blank.

He survived.

He escaped.

He possessed unimaginable power that even he could not fully control.

A very real problem surfaced in his empty mind.

He looked down at his tattered white prison uniform, soaked in sewage, with nothing in his pockets except for damp sand.

Penniless, without identification, and knowing almost nothing about this world they had been away from for over fifty years.

Alright, Chu Hang.

Now how to do?

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