After flying for roughly thirteen minutes, Lucas crossed more than ten thousand kilometers and arrived over the territory of Sokovia.
Without wasting a single word, he charged straight toward the two target coordinates.
They led to the Hydra research base hidden in the Sokovian snow mountains—the very facility shown in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The base was built into an ancient castle high in the mountains. Under normal circumstances, no one would ever suspect that such a place housed a Hydra research facility.
Because of Lucas's extreme flight speed, every defensive measure Hydra had deployed around the base—troops, hidden sentries, artillery emplacements—was rendered completely useless.
Even Hydra's radar detection system, one of their greatest prides, failed to capture his presence.
With Ki condensed at his fingertips, Lucas fired a laser-like energy beam.
The moment it struck the castle, a pale blue energy barrier appeared across the surface of the walls, blocking the attack.
Lucas did not react at all.
With energy surging through his arm, he released a powerful shockwave with a single hand.
When the shockwave hit, the pale blue barrier flickered violently, holding for barely two seconds before collapsing entirely.
The shockwave smashed through the outer walls of the castle, and Lucas rushed straight into the opening.
Before the personnel inside the base could even react, Lucas used his Ki to lock onto every individual within the facility.
Moments later, he smashed through another wall and seized Baron Strucker, who had been hiding inside.
Dragging him along, Lucas arrived at the base's central server room and plugged a USB receiver into the main console.
"Sir, connection to the server has been successfully established. Data retrieval and duplication have begun."
"Estimated time remaining: six minutes."
JARVIS's voice sounded calmly in Lucas's ear.
As for the Hydra personnel inside the base, they had already been casually knocked unconscious by Lucas during his entry.
"How did you find this place?" Baron Strucker asked bitterly.
He was well aware of Lucas's reputation, yet Lucas had never shown open hostility toward Hydra.
Despite possessing such overwhelming power, Lucas had still obeyed the rules of human society—standing trial, even going to prison.
At one point, Hydra had seriously considered whether they could exploit this fact and recruit Lucas as their ultimate weapon.
More importantly, this base was located in Sokovia, not America. According to Hydra intelligence, Lucas had never even left America before.
Watching the server data being rapidly copied by JARVIS, Strucker felt as though his world was collapsing.
If he had simply focused on his research, it would have been difficult for American intelligence agencies to track him down.
Unfortunately, Strucker had insisted on terrorizing nearby cities and forcibly abducting civilians for human experimentation.
That behavior inevitably drew attention—and once noticed, his trail was impossible to hide.
This was precisely why, in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers were able to directly lock onto this very base.
As time passed, the progress bar on the screen neared completion.
Suddenly, without warning, Lucas turned and struck out with his palm.
A violent surge of air exploded outward—and a white-haired young man appeared out of nowhere.
Confusion flashed through the young man's eyes. He could not tell whether Lucas had anticipated his arrival or had simply reacted on instinct.
In the next instant, Lucas's gaze locked onto him.
Pietro Maximoff—Quicksilver.
In a split second, Pietro judged that Lucas's speed was inferior to his own.
He immediately activated his super speed, intending to slam into Lucas and knock him away.
But the moment his ability activated, he realized—
Lucas's hand was already coming down toward his face.
"Oh, shit!"
Too late.
Smack!
Quicksilver was slapped straight into the ground.
When his head hit the floor, his mind was filled with question marks.
Since gaining his speed, no one had ever been able to react to him—so how could this man not only react, but move faster?
In the very next moment, Lucas felt his body being restrained by an unfamiliar force.
He instantly understood.
Scarlet Witch had arrived.
To Lucas, Quicksilver was insignificant. Only the isotope-enhanced Quicksilver from the comics would have been worth any real concern.
The true threat on this mission was Wanda Maximoff.
Her power required no explanation.
For example—she had somehow appeared directly behind Lucas.
Lucas had long been aware of the twins' existence and had kept his Ki spread throughout the area as constant surveillance.
Yet even so, Wanda bypassed it completely.
In the film, Tony had used full-spectrum scans with Mark 43 and still failed to detect her approach.
"So this is Chaos Magic…"
Lucas felt the condensed magical force binding his body.
With a single thought, his Ki erupted outward.
In an instant, he broke free from the restraint.
At the same time, both Quicksilver and Wanda vanished.
The USB device and Baron Strucker were also gone.
However, on Lucas's retinal display, two light markers—representing the USB and Strucker—were rapidly moving toward the outside of the base.
Flames of Ki surged over Lucas's palm as he slammed it into the ground.
Cracks spread outward from him at terrifying speed.
---
Outside.
Boom!
The entire research base began to shake violently.
Even the reinforced foundation fractured as snow cascaded down from above.
Quicksilver was forced to stop—the path ahead had split open into a massive chasm.
"Go!"
With a wave of her hands, Wanda wrapped both of them in Chaos Magic and attempted to leap across the fissure.
At that moment, two energy beams shot toward them mid-air.
With no choice, Wanda halted their movement and condensed most of her Chaos Magic in front of them.
The energy beams struck the shield directly.
The massive impact blasted both of them downward.
Below them lay a bottomless abyss.
Wanda tried to stabilize them using Chaos Magic, but Lucas's earlier strike had been too overwhelming.
She could not gather enough power in time to keep both of them suspended.
And abandoning her brother to escape alone—
That was never an option.
_____
T/N:
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