"That's right. Earth is certainly lively now."
Thor nodded in agreement. In his many years on Asgard, he usually spent his days either singing and dancing, or drinking and chasing women.
Over the course of fifteen hundred years, he, the Warriors Three, and Sif had only fought a handful of peacekeeping wars within the Nine Realms.
One day they would go to Vanaheim to suppress minor rebellions, and the next they would head to Nidavellir to wipe out a group of reckless alien raiders.
They couldn't go to Jotunheim. Helheim was forbidden territory. Muspelheim was off-limits as well.
The realm of the Dark Elves had long since become a desolate ruin.
The realm of the Light Elves was peaceful, just as it had been for thousands of years.
As for Midgard, Odin had strictly forbidden them from descending upon Midgard casually.
Though nominally the rulers of the Nine Realms, they actually governed only five.
At least in Thor's lifetime, he had never seen so many alien forces gathered at the same time.
Midgard was simply too much fun.
He was reluctant to leave this place.
Midgard was the place where he could truly show off his abilities.
Luke glanced at the inexplicably excited Thor, wondering whether he should make a trip to the Antarctic continent.
Not long after, Ada Wong sent over a video.
Luke casually tapped it open.
The footage showed a dog locked inside an iron cage.
At first, Luke didn't pay it much attention, until a person entered the cage to observe it.
The very next second—The seemingly harmless dog suddenly changed.
No, it wasn't quite an explosion. Several grotesque, flexible tentacles burst out from its mouth, and its body collapsed inward, turning into something like a puddle of living mud.
Amid the terrified screams in the video, the mud-like creature lunged straight at the person's face. Faint wails and the sickening sound of writhing flesh could be heard.
Soon after, the person in the video went completely still.
After some time passed, the person stood up again, turned around, and calmly walked out of the cage, as if nothing had happened.
As for the original dog, it had already reverted to the appearance of an ordinary, harmless dog.
Its pitiful, helpless appearance made one want to reach out and pet it.
"What the hell is that thing?"
Thor looked thoroughly disgusted. "That's the most revolting thing I've ever seen. Why does Midgard have every kind of monster imaginable?"
"Why wouldn't it?" Luke replied matter-of-factly. "Haven't you heard the saying? Earth is a grand stage. If you've got the skills, come on down."
"Anyone who can make it to Earth has something special going for them. Haven't they all had their moment of glory?"
"This is just the beginning. The truly exciting stuff is still to come."
In the short few days since awakening the memories of his past life, Luke had experienced far too much and had already grown numb to it.
It was just The Thing. What was the big deal?
Even if some alien beast popped out the next second, he wouldn't be surprised.
Luke called Ada Wong to ask about the video.
After learning more details, it turned out the incident was related to the "meteor" seen that morning.
It wasn't a meteor at all, but a malfunctioning alien spacecraft that had crashed in Antarctica.
The nearest group, a Norwegian Antarctic research team, vanished without a trace.
Another United States research team noticed something was wrong. When they went to investigate, they found only the dog.
They brought the dog back, only to be tragically parasitized by The Thing.
In their final moments, one of the survivors uploaded this video online, but it was quickly taken down before it could gain any real traction.
Afterward, Ada Wong used her connections to learn that many forces had contacted the nearest military units in Antarctica to gather intelligence related to the incident.
Among them was the Umbrella Corporation.
As a global giant in medicine and biotechnology, Umbrella had surpassed the declining Osborn Group in recent years, becoming a true international capital behemoth.
They had not only established secret experimental bases around the world, but also constructed a sub-base on the Antarctic continent.
Almost immediately after the video surfaced, they dispatched a special operations team to carry out a capture mission.
As for Umbrella's latest developments, Ada Wong did not yet have concrete information.
"The Antarctic continent…"
Luke thought of The Thing, then of the Predators, and then of the Xenomorphs.
"Damn… If these three run into each other, won't that trigger some kind of special chemical reaction?"
"Oh, and there's also the T-virus and G-virus being researched by Umbrella Corporation joining the chaos…"
Even Luke couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
Each of these things was more monstrous than the last, and more overpowered than the next.
They might as well just sit down and play mahjong together.
Winner takes all, merging and mutating into a super biochemical abomination.
It wasn't surprising that Luke thought this way.
In his view, in terms of threat level, both the Xenomorphs and The Thing surpassed the Martians to a certain extent. After all, the Martians were ultimately doomed to die off naturally.
The Thing was a special cellular organism driven purely by the instinct to survive and reproduce. Every single cell could survive independently, functioning as an individual lifeform.
It possessed terrifying imitation abilities, along with assimilation and absorption capabilities.
The Thing devoured any organism it came into contact with, acquiring the target's biomass and genetic information. It could perfectly replicate the target's behavior and retain all of its memories.
As long as an outsider had any contact with a host of The Thing—even a single exchange of cells—there was an extremely high chance of being infected.
When faced with danger, it could automatically deform and recombine into various offensive forms, like living putty.
Therefore, when dealing with The Thing, it had to be completely eradicated.
Allowing even a single cell to escape could potentially trigger a catastrophic outbreak.
If it were ever allowed to enter human society, the consequences would be unimaginable.
It could silently replace the entire human race without anyone ever realizing it.
As for the Alien… that thing was simply too iconic.
It could parasitize any flesh-and-blood organism, and more importantly, it could steal the host's genes, continuously optimizing itself and evolving into stronger, more specialized Alien forms.
Thor noticed Luke's unusual expression. This was the first time he had seen Luke look so serious.
Even when facing the Destroyer Armor, Luke had remained calm and composed.
"Luke, is this little thing really that terrifying?"
Luke shook his head. "If we were facing this creature alone, it wouldn't be a problem."
"What I'm most worried about is what happens if these things encounter each other."
The Thing was extremely vulnerable to fire, lacked true intelligence, and even possessed methods to identify whether something was infected.
The Alien, on the other hand, had high intelligence but relatively weak durability. With sufficient firepower, it could be killed quickly.
But if these two creatures were to parasitize and merge with each other, and then add the t-virus and the G-virus into the mix…
Luke didn't dare to imagine what kind of immortal, indestructible super monster might be born.
Perhaps, after such a fusion, a true ultimate biological product would emerge, combining all their strengths, possessing extreme propagation, extreme adaptation, extreme assimilation, and gene-theft capabilities.
It was even possible that the zombie virus, which was originally not especially threatening, could evolve into a plague comparable to, or even surpassing, the Marvel Zombies universe.
After all, this was the Marvel Fusion World, where anything could happen, and even the most absurd possibilities could become reality in the hands of black-hearted scientists.
"No, I have to make a trip to Antarctica."
Luke had originally planned to notify S.H.I.E.L.D., but the problem was that S.H.I.E.L.D. was essentially HYDRA's shell. Given HYDRA's nature, they wouldn't stop this at all. On the contrary, they would only accelerate the process of self-destruction.
Moreover, Luke was not at ease leaving this matter in anyone else's hands.
"I hope there's still time. If it really comes to the worst…"
Luke's gaze sharpened, and a terrifying aura spread out from his body, making even Thor feel a trace of fear.
"If it really comes to the worst, we'll have no choice but to wipe the Antarctic continent off the map!"
"Buddy, you're being way too extreme! Why take things that far?"
Thor jumped in shock. He had some understanding of Midgard as well.
Antarctica was one of Midgard's seven continents. Its importance was beyond question.
If Antarctica were erased, the consequences would be unimaginable.
"Wait a second!"
Thor suddenly realized something. Why was he, an Asgardian, getting so agitated about this?
Shouldn't the real focus be on the fact that Luke possessed the power to destroy an entire continent?!
"Things haven't reached that stage yet. That's only the worst-case scenario. If possible, I don't want to go that far either."
Luke naturally had no desire to destroy the Antarctic continent.
Given the nature of this world, who knew what other strange things might still be frozen beneath Antarctica?
He might wipe out the continent, only for some ancient, terrifying demon to crawl out immediately afterward.
While the two were talking..
S.H.I.E.L.D. had already obtained the first batch of bacterial and viral bombs.
These combined nearly all known human microbial strains, essentially creating a microbiological version of a Gu-breeding ground.
S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately dispatched one of their ace pilots in a Quinjet.
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