"Whoa…"
Ethan Voss leaned back in the warden's luxurious leather chair and gave it a slow spin. The chair rolled smoothly across the polished floor as he faced the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that filled the third story office with sunlight. Beyond the glass stretched the massive prison complex, and just past its walls the Hudson River flowed steadily toward the harbor.
From this vantage point, the view was spectacular.
Behind him, Warden Robert stood stiffly near the wall with his hands folded in front of him. His posture remained perfectly straight, his head slightly bowed in deference.
Hosting both a state attorney general and a congressman in rapid succession had drained a fair amount of Ethan's energy. Sinking comfortably into the chair, he stretched his arms over the armrests and sighed in satisfaction.
"You certainly know how to live, Robert," Ethan said with a relaxed smile. "This leather chair is comfortable, and the scenery isn't bad either."
Robert lowered his head slightly.
"Boss, you're joking. Managing a prison with several thousand inmates isn't exactly easy work."
"In a few days it won't be several thousand," Ethan replied casually. "It'll be tens of thousands."
He tapped one finger on the desk.
"You'd better keep a close eye on things for me."
"Don't worry, boss. I have plenty of management experience."
"Good."
Ethan nodded once, then noticed that Robert seemed hesitant to say something. The warden's expression suggested he had a question but wasn't sure whether he should ask it.
Ethan waved a hand lazily.
"Go ahead. Ask whatever's on your mind. If I can answer it, I will."
Robert hesitated for another moment before finally speaking.
"Boss… is the underground prison really necessary?"
As the warden responsible for the entire facility, Robert naturally knew about the secret structure beneath the prison grounds. Even though the area was highly restricted, the basic layout wasn't hidden from him.
"I'm not questioning your decision," Robert added carefully. "But if we were talking about a classified research lab or some sort of government installation, putting it underground would make sense."
He paused before continuing.
"But for criminals… especially ordinary criminals… our reinforced prison cells should already be more than enough. I'm confident none of them could ever escape."
Ethan chuckled softly.
"Robert, the underground prison isn't meant for ordinary people."
He leaned back deeper into the chair.
"You'll understand eventually."
Robert frowned slightly.
Not ordinary people?
Was the facility intended for high-ranking political prisoners? Foreign spies? Intelligence agents?
The thought crossed his mind, but since Ethan clearly had no intention of explaining further, Robert wisely decided not to press the issue.
At that moment, Ethan's phone suddenly rang.
He glanced at the screen, then nodded toward the door. Robert immediately understood and walked out of the office, quietly closing the door behind him.
Ethan answered the call.
"Hey, Sitwell. What's going on?"
A voice spoke from the other end.
"Mr. Voss, S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to reassign another group of agents. Rumlow will still be leading the team. Are you ready on your side?"
"Of course," Ethan replied. "I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Faustus three days ago. He'll be arriving soon."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Actually, I also have some good news for you."
"The BF drug has been successfully developed."
After a slight adjustment to the formula, agents can now use it without experiencing any long-term side effects.
"Once administered, it temporarily boosts physical strength and speed to levels similar to Captain America's."
Ethan's tone remained calm as he explained.
"The only drawback is that users will feel weak for several hours afterward. However, if they take the proper recovery medication, there's no lasting damage to the body."
He smiled faintly.
"So… are you interested?"
There was a brief pause before Sitwell responded.
"Of course I'm interested. But… did the price go up again?"
Ethan laughed quietly.
"Is this line secure?"
"Hold on a moment… yes. This call is now classified."
"Good."
Ethan leaned back in the chair.
"The modification cost is one and a half million dollars per person. The current selling price is two and a half million."
He spoke calmly, as if discussing something completely routine.
"From the extra million dollars, Dr. Faustus and I each take five hundred thousand."
"As for the remaining half million, I'll give seventy percent to Pierce. The other thirty percent goes directly into your Swiss account."
"How does that sound?"
He added another detail.
"Also, one set of BF potions plus recovery serum costs three hundred thousand. That's the base production cost."
Silence filled the line for several seconds.
Finally Sitwell spoke again.
"I'll report it to the minister and submit a request to Director Fury."
"Perfect," Ethan replied pleasantly. "I'll wait for your good news."
He paused for a moment before adding one last sentence with unmistakable enthusiasm.
"And remember… Hail Hydra."
"…Hail Hydra."
The call ended.
Ethan set the phone down and smiled with clear satisfaction.
This particular deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. carried a profit margin of more than two hundred percent.
Ever since Ethan had transmigrated into this world and discovered that he belonged to Hydra, he had developed a strange habit. If he went an entire day without shouting that slogan at least once, he felt vaguely uncomfortable.
After truly integrating into Hydra's internal network, he had to admit that the organization's power was astonishing.
The connections were enormous.
The intelligence network was everywhere.
Every operation ran smoothly, and nearly every teammate possessed some sort of unique expertise.
Everyone supported each other. Everyone advanced together.
What was American-style freedom and democracy?
This—Ethan thought with amusement—was the real version of American freedom and democracy.
After leaving the warden's office, Ethan instructed his bodyguard Frank to bring the car around. Their destination was New Jersey, separated from New York by the Hudson River.
Frank was a retired soldier who had served in Afghanistan. His combat skills were exceptional, and after undergoing enhancement training, his physical capabilities had surpassed the peak of normal human limits.
Compared with ordinary soldiers, he was in a completely different class.
In fact, Ethan suspected that Frank might even be capable of holding his own against Captain America.
As the car crossed the bridge over the Hudson River, Ethan gazed out at the bustling skyline of New York City. The endless flow of traffic and towering skyscrapers didn't bore him in the slightest.
After all, his life had taken a bizarre turn.
Originally, he had been an ordinary man from another world.
Ten years earlier, however, he had suddenly transmigrated into this extremely dangerous universe—the Marvel universe.
The good news was that his new identity placed him in the lap of luxury.
He had been reborn as the heir to an incredibly wealthy family.
His father had been a billionaire who owned a massive publicly traded pharmaceutical company with global operations. The corporation specialized in vaccines and new drug development, generating annual revenue exceeding one billion dollars.
At first Ethan believed his future would be simple.
Spend money.
Enjoy life.
Watch superheroes battle villains.
Watch Thanos eventually clash with the Avengers.
Then gamble on that terrifying fifty percent survival rate.
If he lost the cosmic lottery and vanished during the snap, he could simply treat it as five years of forced isolation.
When everyone returned, he would still have wealth, power, and a carefree life waiting for him.
Unfortunately, reality had other plans.
Just when Ethan had nearly accepted that passive strategy, his cheat ability suddenly appeared.
And the thing he discovered completely stunned him.
An entire planet.
Or at least something very similar to one.
The system called it the Divine Realm.
What god?
Ethan had barely begun trying to understand the concept when an even more shocking revelation appeared.
His family was not made up of respectable businessmen at all.
They were members of Hydra—the infamous villainous organization that had infiltrated governments across the world.
His seemingly gentle and refined father had actually been the leader of one of Hydra's major branches.
In terms of internal status, his father had stood on equal footing with Alexander Pierce, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Strictly speaking, Hydra's leadership structure meant that each branch leader held roughly equal authority, even though some wielded more influence than others.
Unfortunately, several years ago Ethan's father died in a mysterious plane crash.
Afterward, Ethan inherited both the pharmaceutical corporation and his father's position within Hydra.
With the support of his father's most loyal subordinates—and with the assistance of the strange divine power he had gained—Ethan spent several years consolidating control.
Eventually, he secured his position completely.
Once the car crossed the bridge and entered New Jersey, they continued driving for about thirty minutes before arriving at a massive corporate complex.
This was the headquarters of the Typhon Group.
The Typhon Building stood in Manhattan, but the New Jersey site functioned as a large pharmaceutical manufacturing center and training facility. It also served as a key hub responsible for coordinating the reassignment of certain S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
Ever since the Super Soldier Serum successfully transformed Captain America, countless organizations around the world had attempted to replicate the formula.
Villain groups, government agencies, and private laboratories alike had all tried to mass-produce enhanced soldiers.
Their ultimate goal was obvious.
Build an army of super soldiers.
Then conquer the world.
As one branch of Hydra—and the owner of a massive pharmaceutical empire—Ethan's late father had secretly funded this research for decades.
The results had been… mixed.
The scientists never succeeded in reproducing the true Super Soldier Serum.
However, they hadn't completely failed either.
Instead, they developed a secondary enhancement drug.
While it couldn't elevate a person to Captain America's level, it allowed physically fit individuals to reach—or slightly exceed—the peak limits of human capability.
According to testing results, soldiers who underwent the enhancement experienced massive improvements in strength and speed.
Depending on individual physiology, they could lift between nine hundred and fifteen hundred kilograms.
Their hundred-meter sprint time ranged from five to eight seconds.
At the same time, their durability, endurance, explosive power, coordination, balance, and neural response speed were all dramatically improved.
In overall performance, they far surpassed ordinary humans.
In practical terms, they represented a flawed but functional version of a super soldier.
As far as Ethan knew, the newly reorganized S.H.I.E.L.D. special operations teams had already begun deploying these enhanced agents in several missions.
And according to intelligence reports, none of those missions had failed so far.
That success was one of the main reasons Sitwell felt confident he could convince Director Fury to approve Ethan's price increase.
What Director Fury—the so-called "F-bomb man"—didn't realize, however, was that many of the agents being reassigned within S.H.I.E.L.D. were secretly loyal to Hydra as well.
But in the end, they all ultimately belonged to Ethan Voss.