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Those red-glowing eyes stared coldly at everyone.
The heavy, invisible pressure was almost suffocating.
At that moment, everyone felt like they were under the gaze of a god.
"Looks like we have no choice but to accept that we've been kidnapped."
Everyone present glanced around the narrow, cold, damp ice cave and forced themselves to accept the harsh truth.
After all, who was kidnapping them? A superhuman who could fly freely and shoot lasers from his eyes.
"Mr. Superman, we're willing to meet your demands to save our lives."
Facing Peter's piercing gaze, Tony spoke slowly.
"But you're not going to expect us to complete those crazy hard demands in a place this rundown, without even basic lab equipment, right?"
To Tony, since they had no choice but to face reality, they might as well try to negotiate some conditions.
Like making their future living quarters a little more comfortable.
"Hm… you have a point. Looks like it's time to upgrade this place."
Looking around the cramped ice cave, Peter agreed that this wasn't a suitable place for scientists to do experiments.
The next moment, he suddenly appeared by the rock wall, clenched his right fist, and smashed it hard against the rock.
Boom!
A terrifying force exploded instantly.
The huge impact made the entire ice peak tremble.
Feeling the mountain shake beneath their feet, everyone lost their calm.
"Do you think this place might collapse?"
"Shouldn't… but who knows."
Even Tony was worried about whether the mountain was solid enough.
Boom... crackle...
Under everyone's fearful watch,
In just a few minutes, Peter used his fists, alternating between heat vision and freezing breath, to quickly carve out a much larger space nearby.
"This guy is seriously violent."
Tony could feel that each punch packed a force exceeding thousands of tons.
A punch like that would silence him completely if it landed on his body…
"Hm, if he ever came mining in Wakanda, he'd be unstoppable,"
Suddenly, the youngest person there, Su Rui, blurted out a sentence that caught everyone's attention.
"Yeah, living in a poor, backward African tribe, no wonder."
Looking at the somewhat naive little girl, everyone's eyes were filled with pity.
That restless night soon passed.
When the sun rose and a new day began,
At the Washington S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, inside the director's office,
"So, besides Tony Stark, just one night and over a dozen scientists around the world vanished?"
"And they disappeared without a trace—no footage, no clues, not even their wives who slept next to them noticed when they vanished?"
With a sharp "slam," Nick Fury threw down the file he'd just finished reading, his voice low and serious.
"Although it sounds unbelievable, according to our agents' reports, it's exactly what happened."
Though Fury's face showed no emotion, Hill could sense that inside, he was far from calm.
"First, a guy claiming to be Superman appeared in New York."
In just one night, more than a dozen of the world's top scientists—including Tony Stark—had mysteriously vanished.
"What the hell is going on with this world?"
After a string of major incidents, Nick Fury was starting to wonder if he'd somehow crossed into an alternate reality.
"As for that Superman guy… we can put him aside for now."
"But what kind of powerful organization could pull off something this crazy?"
Deep in thought, Nick Fury couldn't help but suspect there was a massive force operating behind the scenes.
"Could it be… no, impossible. That organization was wiped out completely last century."
To Fury, there was only one group that had ever been capable of pulling off something this covert and outrageous—Hydra. But as far as he knew, Hydra had been destroyed long ago.
"Director, there's actually a piece of intel that wasn't included in the report just now."
As Fury continued to mull things over, Agent Hill suddenly broke his train of thought.
"What intel?" Fury asked, lifting his head with curiosity.
"One of our plants inside the CIA said that while they were combing through Tony Stark's mansion, they overheard his secretary mention a theory."
"What kind of theory?" Fury was definitely interested now.
"She said… it might've been that Superman guy who kidnapped Tony Stark."
"Superman kidnapped Tony Stark? For what—money?"
Fury frowned, thinking hard about whether that possibility actually made sense.
"From what I've found out, the military signed two agreements with Stark Industries yesterday," Hill continued.
"One of them was about that lab accident the military had a while back. The other—was about Superman."
"The military again," Fury growled, clearly annoyed. "They still haven't cleaned up their last mess, and now they're poking their noses into the Superman situation too!"
Even someone as composed as Nick Fury couldn't help but show frustration when it came to dealing with the military.
"If that's true, then maybe it is possible that Superman kidnapped Tony Stark."
Now that they had this new lead, Fury estimated the odds of Superman being involved had jumped to at least one in three.
After all, it didn't take a genius to guess what kind of deal the military had made with Stark Industries. Most likely, they wanted Stark to create a special weapon—something that could threaten, or even eliminate, Superman.
If Superman caught wind of that deal, then kidnapping Tony Stark would make a whole lot of sense.
"In that case, let's shift our focus to figuring out who this Superman really is. But don't stop looking for the missing scientists—we need to find them at all costs."
"Because if they've fallen into the hands of some insane criminals… who knows what kind of disaster they'll cause."
Nick Fury had never underestimated the value of a single scientist.
Who knew? One of them might just end up inventing something as dangerous as the Super Soldier Serum from the last century.
"But Director, if it is Superman… we might not be able to find anything on him—"
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Just as Hill was about to voice her concern, her phone started vibrating.
"Take the call here," Fury said. "I want to hear if the sky's falling again."
Hill nodded and picked up. "This is Hill… what? Say that again!"
"…Alright. Got it. I'll report to the Director right away."
"What now?" Fury muttered, tempted to smack himself for jinxing it. Every time he thought something, it happened.
"Director, one of our secret labs… was just robbed."
"....."