Shadow of the Beautiful World

When the night is dark, in the busiest neighborhoods of Manhattan, there are still many people staying up late to work.

An enterprise has its own office building in this place where the land is very expensive, which means that it has sufficient financial resources and can always attract many people to serve it. In this city, ideals are not important, at least for money, ideals are chips that can be discarded at any time.

If you say you stick to your ideals, it only proves that the price that reality offers you is still too low.

And on Wall Street, a world-famous financial sanctuary, on the top floor of an office building not far from Dimon's Black Light Investment Company, Ms. Karen, who had been busy all day, was walking in her office a little tired.

This lady over sixty has maintained herself very well, except for that white hair, she looks like a 40-year-old woman.

While rubbing her shoulders, she walked towards the large sofa, planning to sleep there for a while.

In New York's high society, she is a well-known workaholic. The process of her and her husband who passed away a few years ago from starting from scratch to becoming a famous businessman is almost the most famous legend on Wall Street, constantly inspiring a group of people. A group of young people worked selflessly, trying to replicate this miracle.

However, few people know that Ms. Kallen's achievements today are not only due to her own efforts, but also due to the support of those friends behind her.

She is a hydra.

This inheritance originated from her husband, the man she remembered had been a loyal member of Hydra since her father's generation, and after marriage, she also joined that rich and united organization under her husband's persuasion.

The banker who died of a sudden cardiovascular disease last year was one of her best friends in business.

And her code name in Hydra is Barononess. She has this title because her husband's family had the title of baron in the former ***.Germany system.

Oh, by the way, her husband, surnamed Zemo.

The Zemo family inherited in New York is just a branch of this ancient big family. It is said that there are more orthodox Zemo family members living in Eastern Europe, but it seems that the main family there has completely separated from Hydra. , lived the life of ordinary people.

Ma'am, I have a few questions I want to ask you.

Just when the baroness was lying down, a faint voice came from behind her. The old lady sat up suddenly from the sofa in shock, only to see the intruder who was sitting on her office chair with his back to her, as if admiring the Manhattan night.

It was a man in a black trench coat and a battered cowboy hat.

He wore black gloves and had a blue-gray walking stick by his side.

It was someone the baroness had never seen before.

Who are you!

The old lady stood up vigilantly, and she shouted sharply:

Get out of my office!

Well, you want to call the guard outside the door, don't you?

Merlin was sitting on the office chair, he turned around, put his hands on the table, his face was covered by a half-covered visor, and his eyes, like the afterglow of ashes, stared at the baroness, he chuckled With a loud voice, he said:

Stop wasting your efforts.

You are the only living person left in this building that smells like snakes

Hearing this, a trace of fear flashed in the Baroness's eyes.

After the sudden death of the banker last year, rumors about assassins began to spread within the organization. It was reported that a vicious killer was chasing and killing members of the Hydra organization. This news even caused quite a commotion.

There are not only fighters and conspirators in the Hydra organization, but also businessmen like the Baroness, who are responsible for running businesses to provide funds for Hydra, and they rarely participate in Hydra's machinations.

But that doesn't mean they are innocent.

Don't expect someone to save you anymore, I mean, you can calmly tell yourself that you are dead.

Merlin shook his hand, and a half-burned green mask was thrown at the Baroness's feet, which was the last trace left by Lady Hydra.

When she saw the burnt mask, the fear in the Baroness's heart could no longer be suppressed. She rushed to the bookshelf, pulled out a pistol, held it with both hands nervously, and shot at Merlin frantically.

But those bullets penetrated Merlin's head and body, and hit the glass behind him, and the bulletproof glass was immediately covered with shattered cobwebs.

click

The sound of bullets being emptied echoed in the office. Merlin looked at the baroness in front of him whose will had been crushed by fear. He shook his head. Amidst the soundless smoke billowing, he crossed the desk and the office like an incorporeal ghost. In the blink of an eye, the left hand with the dementor's kiss was clasped around the baroness's neck, pinning her against the wall behind her.

Hope, happiness, satisfaction, these comfortable emotions are absorbed crazily. As an ordinary person, it is difficult for her to have the strength to resist when facing a magic item like Dementor's Kiss.

As cold despair was poured into her heart, her will flickered like a candle in the wind.

I have a lot of respect for women and the elderly, but unfortunately, you are not the innocent ones.

Merlin looked into those dazed eyes, and with a tap of his wand, a spell of insanity was cast on the body of the baroness in front of him.

The next moment, Merlin's will entered the old lady's mind without hindrance, and those shining memories opened the door to him.

Lady Hydra is dead, and the curse left in the baroness's soul has not been activated, which means that Merlin can read her memory at will until her soul collapses.

A picture quickly appeared in front of Merlin's eyes. The baroness should be dealing with her company's affairs, and then a phone call came.

Judging from the calendar time on the table, it should have happened a few days ago.

The deadlock problem has been solved.

A man's voice rang on the phone:

Those warriors are being sent to the base in the Caribbean, and you will take over the rest, Baroness.

No problem, Clairvoyance.

The baroness said with a normal expression:

According to the instructions of Your Disciple, those warriors will be taken care of 'properly'. You can put them at the logistics point in Arizona, and there will be special personnel to deal with them.

By the way, have you talked to 'The Doctor' lately?

The man known as Clairvoyance asked again:

About the Death Warrior Project

I don't care about here, clairvoyance, you should know, I'm just a businessman.

The Baroness replied decisively:

If you have any doubts, you should ask the 'disciple' or 'doctor' directly. One of them is in the base and the other is in New York. You should know better than me.

swish

This memory ends here.

Merlin caught several key names from it.

Clairvoyance, Disciple and Doctor.

Using these three names as key information, he quickly searched for memories related to these three people in the baroness's remaining memory.

Soon, he made a discovery.

First of all, Clairvoyance is a very mysterious guy who almost never attends Hydra's internal meetings. In the perception of the Baroness, he is one of the commanders of Hydra, just like Lady Hydra's command of magic power, clairvoyance Responsible for commanding Hydra's military forces.

As for the disciple, this is also a relatively mysterious guy. As far as the baroness knows, he seems to be a researcher, and he has a very high status in the Hydra organization.

He is one of the leaders of the three major factions. It is said that he is one of the students of Red Skull, the leader of Hydra in Germany. After Germany's defeat in 1945, he hid until the 1990s before reappearing.

The only thing that is certain is that the disciples are in New York and have their own forces. He once commissioned the baroness to help him find something called a black obelisk.

As for the last doctor, there is quite a lot of information about him.

He and the baroness are good friends in private, and the two had a very presumptuous and passionate relationship when they were young, of course, it was developed without the knowledge of the baroness's husband.

Merlin even found out the doctor's real name.

His name is Liszt. He is the North American spokesperson of the bigwig in Hydra's European branch. He is also a researcher who mainly studies genetic science. Dr. Liszt is in charge of the base destroyed by Merlin.

But the baroness doesn't know where Dr. Lister is at the moment. She just knows that the doctor was urgently summoned back to Eastern Europe before Merlin destroyed the base.

It is likely that something important happened, which also allowed the doctor to escape.

The Baroness, who was held by Merlin, was already in a dying state, and Merlin showed no mercy. That kind of memory search, which was almost a search style, brought the soul of an ordinary person, the Baroness, to the brink of collapse.

But Merlin didn't stop. On the contrary, at the moment before this evil soul was about to collapse, he stepped up his search again.

He wants to dig out more secrets about Hydra!

boom

There was a soft hum in Merlin's consciousness, like the sound of soap bubbles breaking.

Merlin's consciousness returned to his body at this moment. Before his eyes, the baroness whose soul was broken had completely lost her vitality. Her expression was painful, showing that her death was not so peaceful.

But Merlin also got the news he needed.

At that last moment, he saw a rather strange picture.

The Baroness stood with other Hydra executives. They were in a very strange place, which looked like an empty warehouse or a base.

In front of them, there was a black rock with several holes on it, and several people wearing full space suits and carrying heavy equipment were standing in front of the black rock, as if they were waiting for something.

In the flash of the picture, the solid black rock turned into a strange liquid in an instant, involving the few astronauts and those materials who were caught off guard.

The tumbling black liquid returned to its solid state in the next moment, and turned into the rock with holes again.

It's like a ritual.

A sacrificial ceremony.

Merlin had no idea what the Hydras were doing, but in the memory of the baroness, he saw a sign on the wall of the warehouse.

Far Star Project.

Merlin rubbed his somewhat swollen forehead, and he read out the name of the symbol in his memory, and next to that symbol, there was the symbol of the space agency NASA.

This finally gave Merlin a clue.

What is that stone? Why did those sent out wear space suits? And, what is this ceremony doing?

The more you know, the more doubts you have. Really, bad.

—

On the other side, under the icy night in the Caribbean Sea, among the ruins of the destroyed island base, a seagull folded its wings and landed on the ruins. It seemed that it was too tired from flying and planned to rest.

And at the moment it fell, a scorched hand suddenly protruded from the ruins and grabbed the caught off guard seagull. The next moment, the creepy chewing sound came from the ruins. sounded.

Like a voracious ghoul hunting.

A few minutes later, a figure staggered out of the ruins. He was hunched over and moving on the beach. After running for more than ten seconds, he plunged headlong into the icy sea water.

He's hungry, he's thirsty, he's miserable, he's weak.

He had no idea what was going on, but he knew that if he didn't eat any more, he would die.

Not the kind of silent suspended animation, but real death.

But he still kept his sanity. He knew that the seawater was not drinkable. He held his breath and dived into the seawater. Under the washing of the water, the scorched marks on the surface of his skin were quickly peeled off, revealing the smoothness under the scars. The skin, and on the new skin, there are some fine, almost invisible scales.

A few minutes later, he grabbed the sea fish with both hands and still had a fish in his mouth, and walked out of the water naked.

On his right eye, there is still a horrible scar left by the explosion, but other parts of his body have been completely reborn in that strange new life.

His spirit was still a little dazed, but this did not prevent him from skillfully finding some usable materials in the ruins, and began to grill the fish he caught in the cold night.

This big bald head who had lost all his hair in the explosion and flames was sitting by the campfire, sitting cross-legged quietly, rubbing his forehead with chaotic memories, recalling the things that were still remembered in his chaotic mind.

What's my name?

Wade? No, that's my cousin's name. My name, Slade? Yes! Slade.

I was caught as an experiment and they tortured me, Hydra! Must kill them all!

I have some friends, Baptiste, Emily, who else? Ash, McCree, etc., no! I forgot some things, no, and some things I didn't remember!

The man held his head, and he tried his best to recall the past, but the brutal experiment and the destructive explosion obviously took away part of his memory, and it was very difficult for him to recall.

After a while, in the aroma of the grilled fish, the hungry man gave up thinking. He picked up the grilled fish, and while eating, he muttered to himself endlessly:

Forget it, forget it, let it be if you don't remember it. It must be a bad thing that will be forgotten. I am very happy now.

Well, talk to my cousin first, he may tell me something about the past, and then go to Hydra to save my friend it gets a new name

He raised his hand and looked at the remaining layer of black cuticle on his arm. He tore off the cuticle from the skin and threw it into the fire. He looked at his shaking arm in the dark. After a while, he whispered explain:

Just call it Blackhand! No, Blackhand doesn't sound good, um, Blackpaw, yes! Blackpaw is good!

It doesn't matter what I used to do, anyway

He took a hard bite of the grilled fish. Under the darkness, he stretched his shoulders and said in a low tone:

Talon, will rebuild Deathstroke's empire!