What was unbelievable was that Zodhis had been able to directly point out what was in her heart.
Had he seen through her?
Natasha did not know the answer, because Zodhis had simply told her to get back to work and dismissed her on the spot.
You're the one who called me here!
Natasha was indignant as she pulled up her zipper.
Now that he had a legal giant like the Divine Sword Bureau backing him, Zodhis officially began putting his plans into motion.
For example, going to Egypt to dig up Apocalypse.
And going to Antarctica to dig up the human popsicle.
In fact, those two things could be treated as one matter, except the Antarctica mission could not be handed over to Nick Fury.
Because Nick Fury was too unreliable.
He had not even mentioned the Tesseract to Zodhis. Of course, it was also possible that America simply did not want to hand the Tesseract over to him.
Who knew what kind of things a once-in-a-century genius like Zodhis might develop after getting his hands on it?
Even now, the energy weapons Hydra left behind were still ahead of the entire world, and even S.H.I.E.L.D. had no way to reproduce or fully crack them.
After thinking it over, Zodhis decided to hand the Antarctica mission of digging up the human popsicle to Tony Stark.
"Steve Rogers? Didn't he disappear? You found his location?"
Tony Stark was very confused when Zodhis tossed him a file and a mission.
"You want me to go dig up his ashes?"
Tony Stark was speechless.
A seventy-year-old relic, without any special preservation, would be lucky if there were even ashes left to find.
"That is Antarctica, which means what you should be finding is a perfectly preserved human popsicle."
Zodhis said.
"Popsicle. I like that word. But why bring him back?"
Tony teased him first, then asked in puzzlement.
"Because of symbolic value. After all, he was the first superhero."
Zodhis figured Captain Marvel had not appeared earlier than Captain America, so calling him the first superhero might not be entirely accurate, but as far as humanity currently knew, he was the earliest one on record.
"Alright, so what you're saying is, you want me to dig this popsicle out, bring him back, and let him lie on our Divine Sword Bureau warship where countless people can walk past him every day, stare at him, and poke him?"
Tony Stark asked with a strange expression.
Wasn't that a little too miserable?
Even if he had some prejudice against Captain America because his father had always gone on and on about him during Tony's childhood, the fact that Captain America was a hero who had saved America was still true.
"And besides, why make Mr. Stark do something this trivial? Couldn't you just send some superhero to handle it?"
That last question was the real point.
Tony felt that something so minor was not worth bothering him over. He was still thinking about how to strengthen the Divine Sword Bureau's power and control.
"Because you're the only one I trust, Tony. This Divine Sword Bureau was founded jointly by many countries. For them, stuffing people into it is as easy as breathing. I don't know who's clean and who's an intelligence agent or a spy. So you're the only one I can use. Bring him back, Tony."
As soon as Zodhis finished speaking, he cut the communication.
If Tony went to dig up the popsicle, then the moment that popsicle woke up, the first person he would see would be Tony.
As for what kind of sparks those two would produce, Zodhis had no idea.
With Tony's level of genius, there was no way he would be like Nick Fury, digging Steve up and only after some time realizing the man was still alive.
Tony Stark would probably notice it on the spot.
And just for fun, he would definitely thaw Steve out.
After that, Zodhis summoned Brock Rumlow, former captain of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Rapid Response Special Forces team, better known as Crossbones.
Crossbones had originally learned under the obscure villain Taskmaster, but because he had clashed with Captain America so many times, his popularity and fame far surpassed Taskmaster's by a wide margin. Taskmaster would probably be speechless over that.
Rumlow had no idea why the director of the Divine Sword Bureau wanted to see him.
He knew that he should be the only Hydra operative who had successfully slipped into the Divine Sword Bureau. Everyone else had been blocked by Zodhis.
Zodhis did not waste words with Rumlow.
If not for the fact that this villain had strong execution ability, high ideological commitment, and a decisive way of thinking, he would never have bothered calling him over.
Right now, what he lacked most was exactly this type of highly capable operative.
Blonsky counted as one.
Bucky counted as one.
Though Bucky still could not come out yet.
Rumlow naturally counted as one too.
Rumlow was directly brainwashed and became a glorious warrior of World Serpent.
At the same time, he was made to believe that he had actually been a World Serpent sleeper agent embedded inside Hydra all along, and that now he was carrying out a mission to infiltrate World Serpent through Hydra while helping even more Hydra agents slip into the Divine Sword Bureau.
Only, deep in his heart, Rumlow's true loyalty naturally belonged to World Serpent.
"Sir!"
Rumlow immediately slammed his right fist against his left chest in a World Serpent salute.
"Good. Rumlow, you've worked hard. Starting today, you are the captain of the Divine Sword Bureau's Symbiote Corps."
Zodhis nodded and said to him.
"Long live World Serpent!"
Rumlow was overwhelmed with excitement.
At last, he could return to the embrace of the great World Serpent family.
He knew the Divine Sword Bureau had already fallen under World Serpent's control. Zodhis had played a perfect empty-handed wolf trick, relying on just a few superheroes to complete World Serpent's transformation from darkness into the light.
Compared with Hydra's clumsy method of spending decades infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D., only for S.H.I.E.L.D. to end up disbanded anyway, this was an absolute blowout.
Following a leader with brains like this, wasn't that far more promising than following Alexander Pierce?
"The Symbiote Corps?"
But then Rumlow asked curiously.
It seemed to be the first time he had ever heard that term.
"I invented a biological combat suit. As long as someone wears this suit, even an ordinary person can instantly become a superhuman."
Zodhis said.
Compared with beast soldiers, symbiote suits were far more practical and convenient.
Once equipped, even if the wearer's head was blown apart by a high-powered sniper rifle, they still would not die, because the symbiote possessed a host-recovery ability somewhat similar to the Guyver bio-armor.
And it recovered much faster than Guyver cells, which needed twenty-four hours for full restoration.
On top of that, it did not have the same weak point as the Guyver's central metal.
Ordinary light firearms could not even break its defenses, and both the arms and the entire body could transform into cold weapons for combat.
For example, it could produce tentacles from the back like Doctor Octopus, or go straight down the Alex Mercer route and form claw mode, blade mode, whipblade mode, shield mode, and so on.
All of that was completely feasible, because Zodhis had already adjusted and refined it.
At this point, it was a mature biological combat suit.
Although beast soldiers were stronger than symbiote suits across the board, their appearance simply was not suitable for use on Earth.
They looked exactly like villains, down to the style and overall design, and would definitely scare a lot of children.
That was why it was better to use symbiote suits instead.
Zodhis had already modified them into the appearance of Guyver bio-armor, giving them a distinctly sci-fi look.
/-\
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