Final Boss

The infiltration progress of The Hive base was nearly complete. After reaching the Red Queen's motherboard, the little girl's stubborn act of forcibly disconnecting the network was finally brought to a halt.

"Uncle Tony is teaching a disobedient little girl a lesson!"

Natasha rolled her eyes at the childish Tony and silently reloaded the pistol magazine she had emptied earlier.

Steve glanced at the chaotic code flashing on the side computer before looking away; this wasn't something he could understand, and the messy characters were even more headache-inducing than Hydra.

Click!

Accompanied by the sound of heavy machinery in operation and a tremor beneath their feet, Tony snapped his fingers and said, "Done!"

Steve and Natasha steadied themselves. Directly below the platform lay the cryo-stasis zone hidden beneath The Hive base, where most of Umbrella Corporation's high-level employees and major shareholders were sleeping.

The machines here were still running, and bright lights illuminated the enormous cylindrical space. Each cryo-pod looked like a seat in an opera house, allowing every "audience member" inside to laugh at the clown performing selflessly on stage, while wantonly emitting filthy mockery from the depths of their souls.

Steve, Natasha, and Tony kept turning to look at those cryo-pods, feeling as if they weren't looking at people, but at demons currently in slumber.

They had also completely come to believe everything Duncan had said. The credibility of a man who could travel through time and space had not been very high in their minds at the start.

However, they were all professionally trained: Steve had a knack for performance, Natasha was meticulous and had spent years executing infiltration and espionage missions, and Tony had at least spent time honing his skills in the world of capital.

All their interactions with Duncan were essentially built on mutual exploitation.

At the beginning, Natasha, exhausted from dealing with Hydra, did not want to delve into Duncan's origins. After finishing with Hydra, there was still a mountain of messes to clean up, and she was physically and mentally drained, so she gave the mysterious stranger Duncan the cold shoulder.

Steve had similar thoughts, but he was simpler; he just hoped Duncan would help them deal with Hydra, and then he would help Duncan in return.

Finally, there was Tony, whose thoughts were more utilitarian. He wanted to study Duncan's ability to traverse worlds and was also interested in the serum based on the T-virus.

As for Duncan's claim that the upper echelons of Umbrella Corporation were going to destroy the world and his hope that the Avengers would help him regain control of Umbrella Corporation in exchange for a great reward later, Tony only believed half of it.

He knew exactly what capitalists were like. Duncan's slightly excited expression made him misinterpret that using the Avengers' power to help him seize control of Umbrella Corporation was Duncan's primary goal.

In this way, Tony's attitude toward Duncan was limited to that of a partner on equal footing in a contract.

However, after fighting their way down from The Hive and seeing the cold cryo-pods all around, Tony's thoughts underwent a slight change.

His originally utilitarian attitude shifted into that of someone grabbing a life-saving straw, eager to save his own world.

The promised cooperation was now about making them more proactive in saving the world, which felt somewhat noble.

Tony took a deep breath and focused his attention on his armor's scan results to prevent any ambushes.

The platform finally descended to the bottom. Control of the Red Queen had completely fallen into Tony's hands, so the internal structure of the sanctuary was naturally crystal clear.

After reaching the lowest level, the trio headed straight for a heavy metal door. As they approached, the door automatically rose to reveal a massive underground lake.

Crossing the hidden bridge over the lake and passing through another iron door ahead would lead them to the deepest part of The Hive.

Dr. Isaac sat behind his desk, his black suit jacket discarded carelessly on the floor, with two metal syringes stacked on the desktop.

Seeing the three uninvited guests enter as the iron door rose, he chuckled and said, "I calculated many things, I calculated everything, but I never expected that a stray little mouse would bring me such big trouble."

"Oh, have we reached the final boss?" Tony stepped forward, not in a hurry to attack; he even wanted to say some nonsense, "Hey, how did you come up with the stupid plan to destroy the world with a virus?"

Natasha raised her pistol to aim at Isaac, who was over ten meters away, confident that her marksmanship could land every bullet in his head within two seconds, and she herself felt little tension.

Moreover, Steve, standing in front of her, was a reliable support as long as he held his shield, allowing her to output damage with peace of mind.

Isaac stood up lazily from his chair and slowly raised his right hand to examine it. Looking at the bulging green veins under the light, he spoke in a voice that seemed to be suppressing something: "You can think I'm doing this for ambition, or you can treat me as a madman. It doesn't matter, because you can no longer stop me. The virus will mutate in the environment, spreading through bodily fluids and then through the air. Three months is enough to infect eighty percent of the people in the world, and I will return to the surface to become the god of the new world."

He said this as casually as if he were deciding what to eat for lunch, without the slightest regard for the weight of human life.

The cold numbers he spoke finally made Steve unable to bear it any longer.

"Grab him!"

Steve twisted his waist sharply and, like a frisbee athlete, flung his Vibranium shield with anger.

He was a soldier from World War II, and the numbers representing lives were bloody scenes in his mind. No matter how massive the number, someone who hasn't seen a large number of lives fall can never understand what it feels like to see their own kind die tragically.

Isaac's disregard for life made Steve very angry.

The spinning shield smashed straight toward Isaac's chest. The scene of Isaac being sent flying, as imagined, did not occur. Isaac merely extended his left hand and caught the incoming shield with a dull thud.

As he lifted his slightly lowered head, Isaac's left eye turned pure white. The muscles in his right hand twitched irregularly, his knuckles protruded, and massive claws tore through the sleeves of his white shirt. Even his height suddenly increased by a head.

His voice became deep, hoarse, and very unpleasant.

"You cannot stop the destruction of this world! I only... hmm?"

After injecting two special virus serums, Isaac's physical strength skyrocketed, and along with it, his confidence. He squeezed his left hand, which was holding the shield, intending to crush it, but as he exerted force, he realized that this thin shield was terrifyingly hard!

"Interesting, a shield made of special material!"

After discovering how hard Steve's Vibranium shield was, the clever Isaac strapped the shield onto his left arm, a hideous grin spreading across his face as he gradually transformed into something non-human.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound of continuous gunfire broke the silence once again. Natasha emptied her magazine in two seconds, but she widened her eyes, looking at the front in disbelief.

Isaac's figure flashed like a ghost, easily dodging the incoming bullets with a few movements, the cat-and-mouse smile on his face never disappearing.

Tony, who had been watching the show for a long time, also controlled his armor to fly out, joining forces with Steve, who was charging toward Isaac, to deal with this final boss.