The temperature and radiation readings on the display instantly soared to jaw-dropping levels. The tiny drone that had painstakingly crawled to the gap in the ventilation duct was now being baptized by extreme heat. Because its body was so small, and because its main function was to enter cramped places within disaster sites that people could not access for reconnaissance, it had to carry sufficient detection equipment. As a result, its camera system was not particularly powerful. Fitz and Mike only saw the arm of the Golden Armored Giant suddenly move. Nothing but a blurred golden afterimage remained on the screen. Then flames erupted out of thin air above the witch's head, sweeping across the laboratory ceiling in the blink of an eye like a volcanic eruption. Before the two ordinary men could react to what they had seen, the already fragile drone hidden in the ventilation duct was instantly incinerated by the raging flames. The display was left with only the words: "No Signal."
Mike immediately poked his head out from behind the cover and peered down the research facility corridor they had only barely escaped from earlier. The pitch-black passage was terrifyingly quiet. Apart from the rubble in the walls and the bullet holes left behind by the battle between Ghost Rider and the Praetorian Guard, there was nothing. The windowless facility concealed every trace of movement. Mike heard no explosions and saw neither firelight nor electric lights, as though the corridor led not to an energy research institute, but to a silent cemetery at midnight.
"Did you hear anything?" Fitz asked nervously.
"Nothing." Mike wiped the sweat from his forehead and ducked back behind the trash can.
Although they always encountered things beyond human imagination at S.H.I.E.L.D., what had happened today was the most harrowing event Mike