18: Chapter 18 Fear Implantation, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Warning

Squelch.

An extremely faint sound of a puncture echoed within the quiet presidential suite.

Dark red bio-metallic filaments mercilessly pierced Natasha's fair neck, accurately plunging into her veins.

"Ugh—!"

Natasha's eyes snapped wide open, her body arching violently as if struck by lightning.

She felt the blood in her body being forcibly drained, while a cold, violent alien aura surged back through her veins, as if it wanted to tear her soul to pieces.

But Lynn did not instantly drain her into a dried corpse as he had done to Bullseye.

Like a precision surgical machine, he accurately controlled the Bloodtrix's consumption threshold. He didn't need Natasha's life; he only needed the specific medicinal components in her blood developed by the Soviet Union's "Red Room."

[Target locked.]

[Trace amounts of Mutant Serum residue and Anti-aging Gene Fragments detected.]

[Parsing genetic sequence...]

[Extraction successful. Stored in Backup Gene Bank.]

Hearing the system prompt in his mind, the red light on Lynn's left wrist quickly receded.

The dark red metallic filaments withdrew from Natasha's neck and quickly retracted back inside the Bloodtrix.

“Whew... whew...”

The moment the oppressive pressure vanished, Natasha slumped onto the Simmons bed like a pile of mud. She gasped for air, her body drenched in cold sweat, her once rosy cheeks now as pale as paper.

Covering the tiny needle mark on her neck, she looked at Lynn standing by the bed, an unconcealable fear emerging from the depths of her eyes for the first time.

Before this man, she felt she wasn't a person at all, but a vessel that could be drained of blood at any moment.

“The medicinal effect is decent. Pity the purity is too low.”

Lynn straightened his slightly messy black shirt collar and looked down at Natasha, “Get out.”

Natasha was stunned.

She thought she was dead. As an Agent who failed an infiltration, having her throat crushed by the enemy was the most normal outcome.

“You... aren't killing me?” Natasha's voice was dry.

“Keep your life and take a message to Nick Fury.”

Lynn walked to the bar and poured another glass of whiskey, not even looking back, “Tell that One-eyed Braised Egg that Hells Kitchen is mine now. If S.H.I.E.L.D. dares to reach their hand in...”

Lynn raised his glass, a flash of violent cold light in his dark eyes.

“I will personally board that scrap heap of a ship of yours, drag it down from the sky, and smash it onto the roof of the Capitol Building in Washington.”

Natasha's pupils shrank violently.

Without a word of nonsense, she forced her weakened body off the bed, picked up the High-voltage Taser and her disguised handbag from the floor.

As she reached the door, Natasha looked back at Lynn. The man was quietly sipping his drink, as if everything that had just happened was merely an insignificant game.

Bang.

The door closed, and Natasha stumbled toward the elevator, fleeing the demonic den that had made her feel suffocated.

...

Two hours later. Washington, S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion Headquarters.

The Director's office was dead silent.

Nick Fury's remaining eye stared intently at the medical report just sent over by the medical department.

“Jugular vein puncture wound. Instant blood loss reached four hundred milliliters, and the specific antibody components of the 'Red Room' serum in the blood show a bizarre decay.”

Fury put down the report and looked at Natasha, who was still sitting on the sofa with a pale face, “He's not only physically immune, but he can also steal others' genetic abilities?”

“Yes, Officer.”

Natasha took a deep breath; even back in the most heavily guarded fortress on this Planet, she still felt a chill on her neck, “It’s some kind of bio-mechanism growing on his wrist. He only took a portion of my blood, specifically so I would come back to deliver the message.”

Fury's hands clenched under the desk.

Drag the Helicarrier down and smash it into Washington?

If anyone else had said that, Fury would have shot them. But if it was that monster who had survived a nuclear blast in Siberia and melted through a hundred-thousand-ton blast door with one punch... he had no doubt the man could do it.

“Withdraw all field Agents targeting Hells Kitchen.”

Fury gritted his teeth as he issued the order that felt like a humiliation, “Lock his threat level at 'Omega'. Until the scientific research department finds his weakness, no one is allowed to provoke him.”

Fear was successfully implanted into the highest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D.

...

Two in the morning. New York, Manhattan InterContinental Hotel.

Inside the penthouse suite.

Lynn finished the last sip of whiskey in his glass.

After merging Bullseye's [Absolute Precision and Dynamic Vision], his hearing and perception had also been greatly enhanced.

He stood before the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the lightning-streaked night sky.

Click.

The lights in the suite suddenly went out without warning.

The entire room plunged into a dead, dark silence.

Something's wrong.

Lynn narrowed his eyes slightly. In this high-end hotel in the heart of Manhattan, backup power should have kicked in within a tenth of a second. But now, the entire floor was without power.

Even weirder was the sound.

It was too quiet. The sound of the ventilation fans in the hallway, the roar of cars on the street below—it was as if they were isolated by some invisible barrier.

Lynn stood by the window, his eyes locked on the glass outside.

Rain washed over the glass curtain wall.

But through those chaotic rain streaks, Lynn clearly saw dozens of figures in black skin-tight night-suits. Like geckos, they were ignoring gravity, crawling rapidly up the glass outer wall of the hotel dozens of stories high.

No heartbeats.

Lynn's hearing could not capture any human heartbeats or breathing. These climbing shadows were like cold corpses.

“Kingpin moves quite fast.”

Lynn recognized the origin of these things at a glance. In the Marvel Universe, they were the old-school underworld magical force that possessed the secret art of resurrection—The Hand.

Crack!

Crash!

The next second, several massive floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the penthouse suite shattered simultaneously!

Gales mixed with torrential rain instantly flooded into the room.

Hundreds of "Undead Ninjas" wielding katanas and shuriken, their faces masked in black cloth, poured in from the windows like a black tide.

There was no pre-battle shouting, not even the sound of breathing.

These corpse assassins resurrected by magic turned into hundreds of lethal afterimages the moment they landed, swinging poison-coated blades as they swarmed from all directions to slaughter Lynn in the center of the room!

Blade light formed a net, sealing off all paths of retreat.

“Corpses that can't be killed physically?”

In the darkness.

Instead of dodging, Lynn let out a cold laugh filled with a violent aura.

“Then burn to ash.”

He raised his right hand and slapped down hard on the inverted triangle symbol on his left wrist!

Clack!