Zodhis was not doing all of this just for fun. He was simply shifting the focus of the conflict.
After all, he knew very well that every country was unhappy about him controlling the superhero resource and was even secretly plotting ways to replace him.
Zodhis naturally did not care about their underhanded tactics, but he also understood that this kind of internal friction and infighting brought no benefits at all.
So why not shift the contradiction elsewhere?
When an enemy was right in front of them, one that was imminent and extremely difficult to deal with, would the conflict not naturally transfer onto that enemy?
Look at how good things were now. Every country had temporarily set aside any improper thoughts about the Divine Sword Bureau. Before the Monster Association was dealt with, after experiencing the "clear realization" of the entire world getting thoroughly beaten by the Monster Association, the importance of the Divine Sword Bureau was self-evident.
This also had to do with Zodhis wanting to stop politicians and capitalists from courting death. As everyone knew, the politicians and capitalists in the Marvel, DC, and Black Horse worlds were the absolute best at courting death. They always tried to slap reins on superheroes who could slaughter gods and destroy heaven and earth, completely unaware that once those superheroes lost control, they had zero means to rein them back in.
Then a group of superheroes who wanted to resist that control would rise up, only to be treated as mortal enemies by another group defending the old order and the free will of the majority. This low-class and childish political trick always worked. The superheroes became like beasts trapped in a coliseum, slaughtering each other under the eyes of all humanity.
Placing all hope on the moral integrity of a portion of superheroes and luring them into internal conflict and mutual destruction, that was the highest political strategy of the human power-holders in the Marvel universe. And the superheroes just kept falling for it, fighting to the death again and again, both sides suffering heavy losses.
In the original plot of the Infinity War when Thanos invaded, when Thanos led his army to conquer Earth, what did the governments of Earth's countries do?
They did nothing. They could do nothing.
They could only kneel and pray, begging the gods to show their power, meaning Earth's superheroes would defeat the powerful enemy.
Once the crisis passed, the governments woke up like snakes from hibernation and started showing their presence again, demanding that superheroes obey laws and order.
As time passed, this trick played out again and again. By the later stages of the Avengers world line, the superheroes finally woke up. They broke free from their roles as champions of the people and protectors of mortals, gradually losing their humanity and positioning themselves as guardians of cosmic order.
Millions of ordinary people dying in front of them no longer stirred any sympathy. Whatever demands government officials made were ignored.
In the future timeline, Earth's behind-the-scenes rulers, the Illuminati, were established, and the Avengers also transformed into the behind-the-scenes leaders of Earth's people.
Once the Avengers realized how vast the universe was and that beyond the universe there was the multiverse, the lives and deaths of ordinary Earth people were no longer something they valued much. These superheroes began to grow cold.
The Lord of the Void and the Abyss arrived on Mars, turning Earth into their testing ground, destroying several cities and killing millions.
The Avengers team went to Mars to fight the Lord of the Void. After both sides fought to a draw and exchanged some verbal jabs, the Lord of the Void joined the Avengers, and the crime of slaughtering millions of Earth people was swept under the rug.
By that time, the Avengers no longer saw themselves as spokespeople for mortals. They stood from the perspective of the universe and multiverse. The lives of mere one or two people, or even one or two million people, were just statistics, not worth as much as a single cosmic super-lifeform.
Since Zodhis was here, he would not let such things happen. Politicians and capitalists should just honestly do their own jobs. Superheroes only needed to carry out justice and save people.
He himself could not claim to be the benchmark for humanity and superheroes, so he would use other methods to achieve the goal.
As for who was suitable to become the benchmark for humanity and superheroes, Zodhis thought it was Tony Stark.
He had humanity, very real humanity. The arrogance of a genius, the unrestrained wildness of a playboy, the foul-mouthed personality that easily offended people. As the saying went, there were thousands of Marvel movie villains, and Tony Stark had offended more than half of them. Yet this seemingly unreliable guy could always come through in critical moments without dropping the ball.
Unlike a certain guy with a blue star-spangled flag. If Steve could remain consistent, Zodhis would have chosen him. But he could not. He was also human and had his own selfish motives, and those selfish motives had led to the Civil War.
That kind of selfishness was very real, but it also made Steve unreliable.
Of course, Zodhis was not without benefits. Besides the Divine Sword Bureau's forces and strength becoming even stronger, there were also orders pouring in like snowflakes.
Orders for War Machines and Iron Overlords.
After all, Zodhis had let his company's products do a huge advertisement during this major Monster Association invasion event. Many people had seen the power and practicality of the War Machines and Iron Overlords. As a result, after the war, Blade Technology Industries received countless orders from capitalists on Wall Street, national governments, and even the financial magnates who controlled the world economy. The quantities were unprecedentedly large, almost as if they wanted to build an army. It was completely on another level compared to the small-scale stuff before.
"Are these guys crazy?"
Zodhis frowned. It felt good to have people sending money, but if they were bulk-buying War Machines, he felt it was very likely for some conflict.
Although the threat of the Monster Association was huge, it was not so huge that these guys would lose their minds and buy tens of thousands of War Machines at once.
It was no exaggeration to say that this was already enough to start a global war.
And they were urging it urgently, but Zodhis had refused on the grounds that Blade Technology Industries' production lines did not have that high of a capacity.
Besides that, there was another piece of news: America had rebuilt S.H.I.E.L.D.
Previously, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been disbanded because the Divine Sword Bureau had appeared out of nowhere and most of its authority overlapped with it. Nick Fury had been assigned to the Divine Sword Bureau as deputy director of operations. But after the Monster Association event, even Nick Fury himself felt that the Divine Sword Bureau should not undergo any changes. That would be too unsafe for all of humanity.
Even though he had always been wary of Zodhis losing control or all the superheroes suddenly blackening overnight, right now the Monster Association was lurking in the shadows with covetous eyes. Humanity needed the Divine Sword Bureau.
And America rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. was just to better protect itself. S.H.I.E.L.D. was no longer a worldwide organization but one dedicated to serving America. It possessed all the powers of the CIA and FBI, standing above America's three major intelligence organizations. The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was, without exception, the former director Alexander Pierce.
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