Mockery

As Gideon Malick's secret meeting room, this room was heavily soundproofed. Aside from Rumlow, who was in the know, all the bodyguards and other personnel had been sent out. Even trusted aides could only stand guard outside the door.

"Since you're both here, I'll get straight to the point. I came back from the future to advance Hydra's interests." The moment Wei Xiuming saw the two old men, his entire demeanor changed. He released the power of Magnetic Field Rotation to awe them. "The path you've insisted on taking is wrong. Hydra has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, wasting enormous amounts of time and resources."

"To correct your mistakes—like Project Insight and Project Far Star, which are destined to cost more than they're worth—Hydra in my time invented a time-modification device and sent me to this era, when Hydra has the greatest potential. We can save the manpower and resources those projects would require and put them toward the right goals. That's far more effective than trying to rule the world or bring back Hydra's god."

"Project Far Star?" Pierce turned to look at Malick. The old bastard had been keeping something from him? Pierce had briefed Hydra's entire leadership on Project Insight.

Besides, Wei Xiuming wasn't following the script. Weren't secret organizations supposed to speak in riddles when they met, deliberately burying their meaning in vague words and forcing the other person to guess and fill in the blanks? He'd even prepared a few questions to test whether Wei Xiuming's identity was genuine. He hadn't expected him to reveal everything as soon as he opened his mouth.

Malick's lips moved a few times. After a long pause, he finally said, "Project Far Star is still being designed. Fewer than five people in the entire world know about it. I haven't even told my daughter."

Project Far Star was a plan to use modern technology to bring the Hive back from a distant planet.

The two sides of a doorway connected to each other, and the same went for a portal. If they could send sacrifices through for the Hive to consume, then they could bring it back as well. The problem was that the environment there was extremely harsh. Humans, who needed highly specific conditions to survive, would die shortly after entering. The sacrifices would probably be dead before they even found the Hive.

But what if they put someone in a spacesuit with a life-support system that could keep them alive for a long time? Could that extend the time they had and improve their chances?

The details of the plan were still being worked out. For now, it was only a rough framework. The fact that Wei Xiuming knew about it was enough to further confirm that he came from the future.

"And you." Wei Xiuming pointed at Pierce. "Rule the world? Your Project Insight did succeed, but do you know what it would cost to rule the world?"

"Alien invasions, Secret Invasion, Fear Itself, Age of Ultron, Infinite Crisis, and other major disasters—those calamities that affected all of humanity were all shouldered by Hydra, which ruled the Earth at the time. Hydra sacrificed several generations to deal with them. In the end, it could no longer ensure the planet's safety. Its last leader announced its dissolution and restored the nations that had existed before, while the branch leaders carved up its legacy and ruled their own territories—just like the USSR did back then."

Talk about selling off the family estate without a care! The prospect of ruling the world was still a long way off, but Alexander Pierce could already picture his successors handing over the empire he'd built. Each generation really was worse than the last!

Pierce resolved to focus on educating the younger generation from then on. He couldn't let them be dazzled by the glittering world and lose the resilience needed to face hardship and adversity.

Wei Xiuming pointed at Gideon Malick next. "You want to rescue some ancient figure who called himself a 'god' from exile, hoping it can lead us and take Hydra to glory. You're still clinging to that? Aren't you afraid people will laugh you out of the room? That was thousands of years ago. Toss an ordinary flashlight into that era, and they'd call it a miracle."

"And do you know what this so-called Hydra god really is? A slave. A high-ranking slave who manages the other slaves, like the head ram in a flock. It's also just a mass of parasites, able to survive only by stealing other people's bodies and memories. If you're so devoted to worshipping something alien, you might as well worship Cthulhu. The Hive wasn't elevated by any kind of god, either. It was just a group of aliens with more advanced technology. In the future, we even repelled their invasion—no, their fleet was driven back outside Earth's atmosphere over a decade ago."

At last, Wei Xiuming straightened his white coat and said calmly, "I came here not only to correct your mistakes, but also as the weapon that will defeat God. You can call me by my codename: Doctor Death."

"Defeat God? Is that something humans can do? In Hydra's records..." Malick began.

Wei Xiuming put a hand to his forehead. "We can travel through time and space, and you still think God is anything special? You're supposed to be among humanity's elite. You can't think like those idiots who mistake myths for historical records. If the time tunnel could carry more matter and energy, I wouldn't have had to regress to this state. Otherwise, even if it were a god, I'd kill it for you!"

"Because our basic industry and advanced manufacturing technology are limited, it'll take me a long time to recover my strength. In about five years, I'll be back at the Star-Breaking Realm—strong enough to completely destroy an Earth-sized planet with a single full-force strike."

Wei Xiuming had been playing a little trick with his words. In five years, he really could reach the point where he could destroy a planet, but he'd do it by measuring the planet's magnetic-field frequency and using Magnetic Field Rotation to resonate with it, destroying its core and breaking the planet apart.

But Malick and the others understood him to mean that Wei Xiuming could casually fire a ki blast at Earth, and two or three seconds later, the planet would go "boom" and explode.

Wei Xiuming pointed back at Alexander Pierce. "I don't know where Nick Fury got his information, but he's already begun to suspect Hydra's existence. Given his personality, you don't need me to tell you what he'll do next, do you?"

Pierce nodded. "I was the one who promoted Nick Fury. Of all the people who could hold that position, he was the best fit. I need to strike first and deal with him before he gets definitive proof."

"That's why you ancient people have no vision. Ever heard of going legit?" Wei Xiuming said. "If Nick Fury wants to uncover Hydra, then give him a Hydra to uncover. We can also use his influence to get rid of our enemies."

Alexander Pierce instantly understood what Wei Xiuming meant. He quickly began listing the Hydra branches that opposed him, along with the internal factions that paid lip service and took the money without doing any work.