City

In many places, certain ancient families might have passed down similar legends, things like "blue angels fell from heaven" or "they brought blessings to humanity."

Including the descendants of those families, many people merely regarded them as the absurd ramblings of the older generation—just another tale like "Prometheus brought fire to mankind." Most who heard them never took them seriously.

But the most interesting thing about stories and legends was that sometimes, they were true.

This was a story that had truly happened. In an age unimaginably distant from the present, a group of visitors from beyond the stars had indeed come to Earth. But they were no angels. They were the Kree, a cold, warlike race with an exceptionally advanced civilization. They possessed cutting-edge spacefaring and mechanical technology, and their weapons technology was renowned across the stars. The empire established by the Kree spanned a full ten Milky Ways, making it a force not to be underestimated even in the entire universe.

The Kree had fought wars throughout the cosmos for a long time, and their own warriors had suffered grievous casualties. To replenish their forces and obtain more powerful soldiers to fight for them, they sent teams to planets in various galaxies to conduct biological modification experiments, attempting to create superpowered killers through genetic manipulation and recruit them into their ranks.

Earth was one of the Kree's ancient testing grounds.

Those experiments had been forced to end due to internal Kree conflicts. They withdrew from Earth, but the altered mutant genes they had created remained behind, passed down through countless generations over the ages and surviving to this day. However, those genes were recessive. Before activation, their carriers were no different from ordinary people. The only thing capable of activating them was the Terrigen Crystal—a Kree specialty, a crystal containing tremendous energy. It could awaken a carrier's mutant genes and grant them extraordinary abilities. Those who gained powers through this mutation were known as Inhumans.

And the Obelisk happened to contain these crystals.

Daniel Whitehall had spent his entire life exploring the secrets of the Obelisk, yet he had never learned its true purpose. He believed the Obelisk was a weapon, a switch for destruction, when in truth it was merely a container holding the key to awakening the Inhumans' special abilities.

But no matter what, Whitehall was now closer than ever to the secret hidden inside the Obelisk. This ancient alien city buried beneath San Juan would soon reveal everything to them. Annoyingly, at this crucial moment, Coulson and his S.H.I.E.L.D., who simply would not stop hounding them, had appeared once again.

Director Coulson personally led a team of elite S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to pin Hydra down inside the abandoned Ponce de Leon Theater. The two sides were trapped on opposite ends of the lobby, pouring fire at each other from behind cover. The dense gunfire crackled endlessly like a string of firecrackers. Sparks and shell casings flew wildly through the empty lobby, and no one could step out from cover even half a pace.

Coulson fired two shots, then promptly ducked back behind the pillar he was using as cover before drawing a barrage of suppressing fire. Gritting his teeth, he turned toward Melinda May, who was sheltering behind the pillar opposite his, and shouted at the top of his lungs over the deafening gunfire, "This can't go on! Cover me! I'm forcing my way through!"

"What? Are you insane?" Agent May looked at him in disbelief. "The second you show your head, they'll turn you into a beehive!"

"We have to try." Coulson smoothly swapped magazines. "Skye is down in that damned alien city with that whatever-it-is, the 'Obelisk.' If Whitehall's guess is right, that alien piece of junk might trigger a weapon of mass destruction. I have to get her out, then we can use explosives to level the city below and make sure no one can ever enter it again."

Skye was a young agent Coulson had personally recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., a Chinese-American girl. At first, she had been a hacker in an organization called Rising Tide, but after joining Coulson's team, she had proved herself mission after mission and eventually earned the badge of a full S.H.I.E.L.D. agent—though S.H.I.E.L.D. had collapsed before she could even warm it in her hands.

To Coulson, Skye was more than just his most capable subordinate. She was more like the daughter he had never had.

Agent May tipped her head back and let out a long breath. "I'm definitely going to regret letting you do this."

The gunfire outside became somewhat less frequent, and the barrage seemed to weaken slightly. Agent May looked at Coulson. "Ready?"

"...Want the truth? Not even close. But what choice do I have?" Crouching low, Coulson prepared to sprint. "On my mark. Three, two—"

Boom!

Firelight burst down into the lobby from above. The ceiling split into countless chunks of heavy rubble that crashed thunderously to the floor. Amid the dust and debris, a figure in black armor dropped straight down, landing in a textbook "superhero" pose that kicked up a broad wave of choking dust.

Coulson and Agent May both froze.

From the instant he landed, Michael drew at least half the firepower in the room. The Hydra agents behind cover desperately poured bullets into him. Countless rounds pinged and ricocheted off his black armor, but he seemed completely oblivious.

Without even turning his head, Michael casually fired his Pulse Cannon, blasting through the cover and instantly killing several Hydra agents. At the same time, he said to Sherry, "Scan the building's structure."

"Already doing it."

The artificial intelligence was astonishingly efficient. In the blink of an eye, a detailed structural model of the abandoned theater appeared as a hologram in Michael's vision. Sherry even intelligently marked an office ahead of him and explained, "Daniel Whitehall should be here. I assume you may wish to pay him a visit."

"Good girl."

Michael strode forward through the hail of bullets. His Pulse Cannon blasted several people away in succession, while the armor-piercing rounds fired by the Vulcan cannon's system-assisted auto-aim cut down another dozen or so agents on the spot. The sudden shift in numbers instantly reversed the situation. S.H.I.E.L.D. quickly took control, while Michael had already headed deeper into the theater without looking back.

Michael kicked the door open and entered Whitehall's office. Before two close-protection bodyguards in black suits could raise their guns, the Vulcan cannon blew their heads apart.

Daniel Whitehall sat expressionlessly behind his desk, his fingers interlaced and resting naturally on its surface. He wore a light gray suit, a neatly tied tie, and a pair of refined round glasses. His expression was calm and composed, giving him the air of an unflappable mastermind—the very image of a final boss.

Whitehall spoke unhurriedly. "At last, we meet, Dr. Norton."

Michael raised his palm cannon and cut him off without ceremony. "No time for small talk, Whitehall. The entrance to the alien city. Tell me how to get in."

"Structural scans show an Ion Drill operating in the basement, sir," Sherry reminded him. "I believe Mr. Whitehall's plan was to drill through several hundred feet of volcanic rock and create an entrance."

"Excellent. Then we don't need him."

Before the words had even faded, a pulse beam shrieked out and blasted Whitehall, chair and all, onto the floor, leaving a scorched hole in his chest.

Poor Whitehall was, after all, one of Hydra's Leaders, once a powerful figure who could summon the wind and rain. Yet now, before he could even finish a single line, he had gone to meet the King of Hell.

"Give me a partial holographic map of the alien city, Sherry." Michael left the office. "We're going down to explore."

(Thanks to reader Tianyan Yan for the 1,000 Qidian coins, reader Baibai Zhan Tang for the 500 Qidian coins, and reader Que Gen Jin for the 100 Qidian coins!)