Hill crawled out of the ruins with difficulty. Foul-smelling flesh and blood swayed in front of her eyes, and red-and-white muscle tissue clung to her short hair.
Hill frowned and reached up in disgust to wipe the fragments of human tissue from her face. A strong, fishy stench rushed into her nose, a hundred times more disgusting than sewage.
"How did that old lizard live in the sewer for so many years?" Hill carefully leaned out. Outside, everything was silent. Aside from a few clouds of black smoke drifting through the air, Wanda and Renzo sat quietly on the altar. A mysterious red aura floated above the flesh pillars.
Nineteen flesh pillars stood around them, continuously conveying resentment and hatred toward the altar.
Black magic was the aggregation of all evil. It materialized conceptual consciousness and demanded greater payment in exchange for greater rewards. But those costs were one's own lifespan, soul...
Demons always liked to collect payment from the bodies of those who made exchanges. Human souls were the nourishment of black magic and the source of pleasure for demons. They tried every possible means to confuse and deceive mortals, using money, strength, and power to blind them, pretending to be fair and impartial while inwardly stinking and thinking only of how to skin and debone them.
"Is he being controlled too?" Hill stared closely at the two of them, her hand slowly moving toward the pistol at her waist. It still had an adamantium bullet in it.
She had originally planned to use that bullet to kill herself, to die as a human before she was completely corrupted.
But the scene before her was truly strange.
The two of them sat face-to-face, heads lowered, quiet as if they were enemies in meditation. They had clearly been locked in a life-and-death confrontation before, yet now they were like old monks sitting in silence inside a beautiful temple beneath a majestic ancient Buddha, lowering their heads and gaining enlightenment, as if they had the potential to become Buddhas.
This place was no different from a temple. Both were places where gods were worshiped, and people became followers of gods here... exactly the same.
Hill stood in a daze, not knowing whether to stay or run. Staying here would not be much help, and she might even become a hindrance, but there was nowhere to run. The entire city of New York had fallen. If this continued, America would become a paradise for lunatics and monsters.
The woman was deeply conflicted, but she would not have to be conflicted for much longer.
Renzo suddenly opened his eyes, and his body abruptly retreated dozens of meters. The next moment, Wanda, sitting cross-legged on the altar, also opened her eyes. Scarlet smoke surged violently from her body like a blazing flame, spreading across the entire altar in the blink of an eye.
The moment Renzo's feet left the ground, the altar seemed to come alive. Several ferocious tentacles embedded with white bones stretched out from beneath the ground, like a terrifying giant beast hiding in the deep sea, finally awakening after centuries of silence.
The first thing it wanted to do was crush all the buzzing insects around it.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" Renzo looked in shock at the huge tentacles beneath him. Each one was larger than the Beholder's clone. Even when they merely waved through the air, they produced sharp, explosive sounds.
Before Hill could figure out what was happening, Renzo picked her up and rushed outside at terrifying speed, breaking out of the crimson barrier.
"What happened?" Hill buried her head in Renzo's arms. A rapid rush of wind rang beside her ears, striking her face again and again.
The two of them had just been sitting face-to-face for a while, quiet and peaceful. Why had they suddenly turned against each other with blades drawn? Had lovers eventually become siblings?
Under Renzo's extreme speed, he left the range of the red mist in only ten minutes.
Chaos magic isolated all space-moving equipment, and even magic and the Space Stone's abilities were restricted.
Renzo had no choice but to fly out of this inescapable trap.
...
"How many people are still stranded outside, inside the red mist?"
"Satellites can't detect the scene inside the red fog. The people of New York City have been evacuated. San Francisco, Texas, and Chicago are willing to accept fleeing New Yorkers. The remaining states..."
Boom!
Captain Carter smashed the table in front of her with one punch, her face full of anger. "A bunch of useless bastards, abandoning their own people?"
New York City had a population of more than eight million. Even if part of the population had already been reduced by the invasion of the red mist, more than half the residents were still homeless. If only a few states were willing to accept refugees, it would become an extremely difficult matter.
"They're just a bunch of vampires, taking taxpayers' money while doing nothing human. Don't put your hope in them."
Nick Fury wore a long black leather trench coat and swaggered up to Captain Carter.
He had gray hair, a black eye patch covering his left eye, and his white face was gradually covered in wrinkles, almost the same as his old superior Alexander's.
Yes, this universe's Nick Fury followed the comic-book setting and was an authentic white man.
"Fury." Captain Carter looked at the man who had broken in and asked, "How many people can your helicarrier carry at once?"
"Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands or millions is impossible anyway." Nick Fury opened the light screen in front of him. Information about the red mist bombarded them continuously, with new reports flooding the screen every moment.
"What a disaster..." Nick Fury complained. "Have you found the source of the problem?"
"There are some theories." Captain Carter opened a column of files, and more than a dozen photos appeared from it. "This is the information collected by Mordo and Wong, along with some testimony from Sam. Based on the coordinates..."
Captain Carter directly pulled up the final photo.
In the photo, Wanda was walking down the street with her two children. The twins carried small schoolbags on their backs. They must have just finished school.
"It basically matches Wanda's abilities. Her home is on the street that was first destroyed. According to Sam, the ability that caused people to go mad is also basically consistent with the mind control Wanda used during missions before..."
"This is going to be difficult." Nick Fury touched the thick stubble on his chin, and a trace of worry flashed in his eyes. "First, move the residents in the shelters away from the area around New York. The farther, the better. There's no need to ask those politicians for permission. They only care about whether their own dogs eat meat."
"Call Reed and Professor X. Also, contact S.H.I.E.L.D.'s backup branches and activate all war-relief resources."
Captain Carter immediately followed Nick Fury's advice. At a moment when everyone was in danger, they needed someone with an overall view to step forward.
Reed was rigid. Professor X was old. As for Carter herself... sorry, she was better suited to being a soldier.
"Contact Wakanda and ask for support."
"They don't accept outside visitors. Reed suffered a loss last time." Captain Carter shrugged. Reed, that man of science and technology, had actually wanted to go to Wakanda a few years ago to obtain vibranium for research, and he had even brought the Fantastic Four with him.
After they spent more than ten days at Wakanda's border, T'Challa finally could not stand it anymore. He put on the Black Panther suit and fought the Fantastic Four.
Of course, the Fantastic Four were completely defeated by the Wakandan army.
Wakanda had been excluded from the superhero roster for several years after that.
"Reed..." Nick Fury was speechless. That rigid man could always offend a group of potential comrades. No wonder no one liked seeing him.
"Follow my method first. I'll contact Wakanda personally..." Before Nick Fury could finish speaking, the walkie-talkie on his body suddenly rang.
Nick Fury's expression changed. This was the ringtone he had set specially for Hill.
As early as a day ago, Hill had personally led a S.H.I.E.L.D. team into the red mist, and all contact had been lost within minutes.
A few hours earlier, Sam and Wong's successful escape had given him a glimmer of hope.
But according to what the two of them said, they had been rescued by a strange and mysterious warrior. According to Frank's testimony, all three of them had met that mysterious warrior, and he had sent them out and saved their lives.
But Hill...
"She was last. I barely managed to fly out with my wings. She... don't keep your hopes too high."
That was what Sam had told him before being taken away on a stretcher for isolation.
Nick Fury no longer held any illusions. He tried his best to arrange the aftermath of the red mist's spread and the population transfer. He used S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hidden underground branches as shelters and took in large numbers of homeless residents.
There were also some superheroes and super criminals, but as long as they did not meet each other and fight, they still had some intelligence left in their heads.
Nick Fury received Hill's message at this time. No one could describe how excited he was. He suppressed the waves in his heart and picked up the call.
"Hill?"
Nick Fury asked tentatively. His longtime partner had made him familiar with everything about this deputy. Even if she only spoke a single syllable, Fury could instantly identify whether it was Hill on the other side of the line.
"Fury... it's me!"
The familiar voice echoed in his ears again, and the one-eyed director's pupil suddenly widened. This voice... there was no mistake.
"Report your location immediately!"
"Superpower Response Department, Maria Hill, currently located in Chicago."
"Chicago?" Nick Fury frowned. The distance between New York and Chicago was not short. How had Hill gotten there when all planes, ships, and trains were out of service?
"I've sent you the information I collected, and..."
Nick Fury listened attentively, afraid of missing any key signal.
"My phone is out of battery. Follow the location to find me."
After saying that, she hung up, leaving Nick Fury standing there in stunned silence.
...
"How dare you hang up on Nick Fury?"
Renzo transformed into his human form and sat face-to-face with Hill.
After coming out of the red mist, the Space Stone's ability was no longer restricted. Accepting Hill's proposal, the two of them had gone directly to Chicago through a portal.
"Why not make peace with Nick Fury first?" Renzo asked doubtfully.
Hill's reason was that she did not want to face an old man with a white beard who would keep nagging. She would definitely be sent into isolation for at least a week, which would delay her next plan.
"What plan could you possibly have?" Renzo said silently in his mind. The two came to a pizza shop. There was also a burrito place nearby, and it seemed to have far more customers. He was not sure why Hill insisted on eating pizza.
The two found seats and sat down. Perhaps because it was not mealtime, there were only a few customers in the shop. Aside from the two of them, there was only a fat man drinking at the bar and a homeless man huddled in the corner, swallowing pizza leftovers that had not been eaten by the lunch customers.
In the eyes of ordinary people, ordinary food was more precious than diamonds and gold to him. The hard crust was difficult to bite, but he enjoyed it wholeheartedly, as if tasting some supreme treasure.
"What would you like to order?" The old pizza shop owner stooped over, holding a handwritten menu... if three or four sparse lines written on a piece of white paper could be considered a menu.
"Vino Prairie-style pizza. Authentic Georgia cooking." Hill said it without looking up.
Renzo stared at the woman in surprise, but Hill rolled her eyes.
"I just like the flavor."
A trace of nostalgia hid in Hill's eyes. Her home was in Chicago. She had been born on a cold winter night in Chicago. On the day she was born, the temperature in Chicago reached its lowest point in decades, and her mother died because of it.
Although this was her hometown, in truth, she had left not long after she was born and served in Madripoor. It was also from that time that she entered Nick Fury's sight, then joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and became the one-eyed man's right hand.
Renzo nodded helplessly and signaled to the shop owner that he could leave.
"So according to what you said, the Illuminati is the most powerful heroic organization on Earth. In addition, there are the Inhumans, X-Men, and Fantastic Four."
"To be precise, there are more than just those." Hill counted on her fingers. "There are also vampire hunters, the West Coast Avengers, K'un-Lun in the East..."
Hill introduced Earth's heroic structure to Renzo one by one. Although the man in front of her was very powerful and suspicious, this information could be found online. Hiding it would not benefit her, so she might as well offer it as a favor. After all, she owed him her life.
Renzo listened blankly, but not entirely. This place had not been invaded by the red mist, so the satellite network was still usable. Renzo himself connected to this world's network. In only a few seconds, he browsed through recent events from the past few years and information about these superheroes.
Most of them could be traced. For the few that were more strictly protected, Renzo hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal network and easily obtained all the information about the superheroes.
"Universe 838?" Renzo murmured to himself. He had not been sure at first, but after seeing Reed's photo and the news of Strange's death a few days ago, he decisively confirmed it.
This universe. This was Universe 838, where Wanda had destroyed the Illuminati.
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