"Hulk, you're finally here."
Abomination roared and charged at Hulk, who didn't care. When Abomination got close, Hulk swung his hammer with a thunderous crash, sending Abomination flying hundreds of meters, his head severely deformed by the blow.
"Hulk, impressive."
Doctor Banner and Barton both breathed a sigh of relief. With Hulk here, Abomination wouldn't amount to much. Barton remembered the last lesson and didn't join the attack. He jumped to Doctor Banner's side, ready to watch the show.
"Doesn't know how to use weapons, savage."
Hulk looked at Doctor Banner with disdain. He thought of something and added, "Weak savage."
"Savage?"
Doctor Banner instantly became enraged. He, a genius with seven doctorates, was actually being called a savage by a brute who only knew how to use brute force?
Doctor Banner angrily said, "Barton, don't hold me back, I'm going to beat that guy up."
Barton looked at the green hand gripping his arm and retorted, "Aren't you the one holding me back?"
Doctor Banner huffily said, "You're right, now isn't the time to conflict with Hulk. I'll let him off for now."
Barton was speechless. Is it fun to put on a one-man show?
Meanwhile, Abomination shakily got up from the ground, clearly badly injured. He shook his still-deformed head, picked up a nearby concrete pillar, and roared as he charged at Hulk again.
Hulk scoffed and rumbled to meet Abomination. Then, the hammer and the concrete pillar collided violently in mid-air. The concrete pillar exploded on impact, sending concrete flying everywhere.
Hulk swung his hammer backward, hitting Abomination's side face. Abomination flew backward, crashing through a shop. Then, Hulk took a huge leap onto Abomination, and with a crash, a large crater appeared in the ground.
Even Abomination coughed up a mouthful of blood from the stomp. Hulk snorted, raised his hammer high, and then the hammer rapidly heated up, turning fiery red, like molten lava.
This was the Lava War Hammer Trask forged for Hulk, not only durable but also capable of reaching high temperatures.
Then, Hulk brought the hammer down heavily. A fiery red hole was smashed into Abomination's head, and then his entire head burst into flames.
Barton and Doctor Banner were dumbfounded. Abomination was dealt with so easily?
Hulk jumped off Abomination's corpse. He pointed at the hammer and said, "High-tech, savage, understand?"
Doctor Banner nearly went berserk. Hulk snorted triumphantly, slung the hammer, which had returned to its original state, over his shoulder, and vanished. A mere Abomination was no match for him.
Doctor Banner cursed, "That guy is getting more and more like a jerk."
Barton stepped back and said, "I support you in beating him up."
"He runs fast, I can't catch him."
Doctor Banner said. Facing Barton's disdainful gaze, he gave an awkward smile and said, "Actually, Hulk is right. My previous actions were truly no different from a savage.
I am a super genius with seven doctorates. I should fight with my brain, not rely on my body like a wild beast. In fact, I'm not good at close combat. When I played video games as a kid, others could clear it on one coin, but I couldn't even get past the first level."
Barton asked, "What do you mean? You want to become the second Iron Man?"
"No, I won't become the second Iron Man. My conditions are different from his. He's a mortal, I'm Hulk."
Doctor Banner said, "I'm going to design a weapon specifically for me. Next time we meet, I'll let that jerk Hulk know who the real savage is."
"You seem to have had a breakthrough. That's good news."
Barton smiled, "Come on, let's go deal with the remaining thugs and put an end to this."
"Okay."
Doctor Banner nodded and went with Barton to deal with the remaining prisoners.
With everyone's efforts, Brooklyn gradually returned to calm. Nick Fury breathed a sigh of relief. Just then, his phone rang. It was Pierce: "The World Council demands you attend a meeting. They are preparing to challenge you."
"As expected."
Nick Fury snorted and said to Maria Hill, "I'm going to the meeting. You handle the rest. Also, use our channels to release the news that Captain America has been found."
Hill was surprised, "Didn't you say it was supposed to be a secret?"
"The public will find out about Captain America sooner or later. There's no difference between one day earlier or later."
Nick Fury said, "Next, public opinion will heavily criticize S.H.I.E.L.D. Captain America's news can divert the media and public attention, which will greatly reduce our pressure."
Captain America was a superhero idol in this world. A certain cola company spent hundreds of millions of dollars just to print Captain America's face on their cola.
Hill nodded, "Understood."
Then, Nick Fury went to the meeting. Before the council members, who were using holographic projections, could challenge him, Nick Fury said, "S.H.I.E.L.D. has successfully developed energy weapons."
The council members were stunned, "Huh? Energy weapons?"
"Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. has developed a method to extract energy from the Tesseract to create energy weapons."
Nick Fury nodded, "Soon, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s weapons will be upgraded. By then, S.H.I.E.L.D. will no longer be as weak as before and can better protect the world."
Gideon snorted, "Do you mean that S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't prevent disasters before because its weapons weren't good enough?"
"I didn't say that, but undoubtedly, weapons are an important factor."
Nick Fury said, "With energy weapons, everything will be different. For example, during the Space Station disaster, if we had energy weapons, solving the Space Station problem wouldn't have been difficult at all."
"We need to discuss this."
The council members exchanged glances, interrupted the holographic projection, and went to another 'room' for an internal meeting.
Before Gideon disappeared, Pierce gave him a wink. Gideon indicated he understood and would do his best to protect Nick Fury.
Once all the holographic projections disappeared, Pierce unhappily questioned Nick Fury, "Fury, you didn't tell me about the energy weapons."
"Actually, it's only half successful."
Nick Fury smiled. In fact, the energy weapons hadn't succeeded at all. Nick Fury had only asked his Skrull friend to help with the research, and there were no results yet.
However, the Skrulls have a complete energy weapon system, so extracting energy from the Tesseract shouldn't be a problem.
By the way, this technology was researched during World War II, and then it was lost for decades.
"You!"
Pierce was speechless. He said, "Fury, the world is becoming more dangerous. You need to work harder. Things like tonight cannot happen again."
Nick Fury gratefully said to Pierce, "My promise has never changed. I will do everything to protect our world."
"That's good."
Pierce nodded. With Nick Fury around, HYDRA could develop rapidly. Arc Reactor, battle suits, Hulk's blood—as S.H.I.E.L.D. grew stronger, HYDRA also grew stronger.
Soon, the five council members reappeared. Gideon, with a dark expression, said, "Nick Fury, we can give you another chance, but you must remember that you no longer have the luxury of making mistakes. Also, someone must be held responsible for this island incident."
Nick Fury breathed a sigh of relief. He knew he had passed this hurdle. He said, "No problem. Oh, and gentlemen, upgrading our weapons requires a lot of funding…"
"Damn it."
The council members secretly rolled their eyes. That one-eyed man was asking for money again.