Deafening shouts, chaotic footsteps, and blinding flashes of gunfire erupted from muzzles...
"Where is this place?" Sean opened his eyes groggily, his consciousness resurfacing as if awakening from a dream.
He saw dense bullets striking his body, their high-velocity metal shells colliding with what seemed like an impenetrable wall. The bullets crumpled as if crushed by an immense force.
His vision swayed slightly, perhaps stimulated by the external environment, as his muddled mind gradually cleared. He tilted his head slightly, surveying his surroundings.
The air was thick with dust. Harsh white bulbs illuminated the dim space, while complex cables and pipes lined the walls. It appeared to be an underground fortress or secret base.
"What happened?" A second question surfaced in Sean's mind.
He had never experienced this before. His mind was foggy, and his consciousness in disarray, like a hungover drunk waking up the next morning with a splitting headache and fragmented memories, as if everything that had happened before had been completely forgotten.
Since arriving in this world, Sean had never let his guard down. His physical constitution made him completely immune to alcohol's effects. There was no way he could have gotten so drunk that he blacked out.
Even if he drank an entire cellar's worth of vodka, he wouldn't feel drunk, let alone forget what had transpired.
He looked down and saw himself encased in golden armor, "Sentinel..."
The torrent of bullets meant to shred everything apart couldn't harm him in the slightest.
Even without activating his energy field, the razor-sharp bullets that could pierce flesh and tear through bodies only gave him a faint itch.
Sean spotted squads of soldiers clad in black uniforms, the Hydra insignia emblazoned on their chests, "HYDRA..."
A memory seemed to resurface as he raised his right hand, which was holding a briefcase.
Through the armor's visor, a massive blue glow radiated from within.
'Is this... the Tesseract?'
His consciousness kept rewinding, the haze in his mind receding like the tide. Finally, Sean's thoughts sharpened as swift as lightning, instantly piercing through the fog in his mind.
Loki had led a HYDRA squad to raid Umbrella for reactor materials, only for the Umbrella security team to wipe them out. Then, he had changed his mind... he wanted to secure the Infinity Stones first, to accelerate Thanos' arrival.
'So, this is a HYDRA secret base?'
Using Skynet's surveillance, he had tracked down HYDRA's hidden stronghold, stormed inside, and took the Tesseract from Dr. Selvig?
Before Sean could answer this chain of questions, he heard the faint whirring of gun barrels spinning up.
Squads of HYDRA agents wielding heavy firepower poured in from underground passages in all directions.
With thunderous roars, dazzling tongues of flame erupted like a dragon's breath, engulfing the motionless golden figure in a torrent of molten lead.
The gun barrels spun like clockwork flywheels, unleashing a relentless barrage of bullets at unimaginable speeds. The deafening gunfire pounded against eardrums, as if they were trapped in a violent thunderstorm.
Even steel plating two fingers thick would be pulverized under such devastating firepower!
....
~Command Center No. 1, Underground Base~
The HYDRA commander stationed here was John Garrett, a high-level mole embedded within S.H.I.E.L.D...
His mission was to assist Loki in executing his plans, stirring chaos while gathering intelligence on Asgardian and alien technology.
HYDRA knew more about the Tesseract than S.H.I.E.L.D. did...
During World War II, their leader, the Red Skull, had harnessed its infinite energy to create advanced weapons, nearly winning the global war in one fell swoop.
Thus, Garrett had kept his focus on Dr. Selvig. The moment the intruder appeared, he had dispatched elite soldiers to protect the scientist, only for them to be reduced to lifeless corpses in less than ten seconds.
"The Sentinel?" Garrett asked grimly.
Dozens of surveillance personnel worked frantically. Tiny cameras throughout the underground base fed clear images to hundreds of screens lining the walls.
This system wasn't just for detecting intruders or monitoring movements, it could also track Loki's every action and even directly control the base's weapon systems for precision strikes at any moment.
"Confirmed. It's the same Sentinel that appeared in New York," a HYDRA operative reported.
Garrett's heart sank, "Activate the active defense system! Mobilize all forces to seal the passages! Evacuate personnel from all other sectors immediately! If necessary, prepare for carpet bombing with cruise missiles!"
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on the Sentinel were highly classified, listing' him'as an extreme threat on par with the newly added Hulk. Facing such a terrifying entity, he could only do everything possible to hinder its advance.
But after enduring that metal storm head-on, surely even the hardiest creature would be severely wounded, right?
"He's still alive! He's moving–" The voice cut off abruptly.
The command center fell dead silent, as if everyone's throats had been clenched shut...
...
If time slowed to a frame-by-frame crawl, Garrett would have seen it clearly...
The searing stream of bullets erupted from spinning barrels, scorching the air in their wake with a burnt odor. The crimson-gold light formed a razor-sharp blade, annihilating anything in its path!
Yet, the motionless golden figure simply took a single step forward, and the underground passage trembled as if struck by a tidal wave of thunder. The earth itself quaked.
Countless dust particles scattered as the unstoppable torrent of molten lead suddenly froze mid-air. Space itself seemed to solidify.
Then...
*BOOM!*
An overwhelming force erupted like a volcano.
The sheer momentum shattered the reinforced passage. In a deafening roar, tens of thousands of bullets, wreathed in flames, surged backward like a tidal wave!
The corridor ahead instantly collapsed into rubble. The HYDRA agents were pulverized into unrecognizable sludge.
The Sentinel took another step...
Tiny particles of dust rippled outward in waves. The ground split open with massive fissures as violent energy erupted. Compressed air detonated like artillery shells!
This fortress which was buried forty meters underground was said to withstand 125 tons of ordnance. Its walls were reinforced with hundreds of meters of granite, specialized concrete, and steel plating.
It was capable of absorbing shockwaves from missile strikes. Even a high-yield hydrogen bomb wouldn't breach its defenses...
Yet under the Sentinel's energy shockwave, the air itself seemed to ignite like countless powder kegs. The entire underground base shook violently.
Even Garrett who was far away in the command center could feel it... the hundreds of screens on the walls flickered and died, replaced by static snow.
"Retreat! Abandon the base!" Garrett barked urgently.
He didn't know why the Sentinel wanted the Tesseract, but given the current situation, HYDRA stood no chance of stopping 'him'. Rather than wasting resources, it was better to withdraw immediately.
"Activate the self-destruct system!"
Before leaving, the grizzled cowboy-like veteran hadn't given up on killing the Sentinel.
Once the base was destroyed from within, its stored missile launch systems would automatically detonate, burying everything under hundreds of tons of earth.
Even a monster like the Hulk would have almost no chance of survival...