Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Are All Professionals! (Please Invest!)

After finding Salomon's address, Coulson planned to visit alone. But no matter how kind he was, he was still an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.—a professional.

Faced with a target who could lose control at any moment, he had already notified the tactical team to stand by. Coulson took another deep breath, filling his lungs with the icy air to raise the oxygen in his blood and sharpen his nerves. For this operation, he had to be prepared for the other party to lose control. If necessary, he would have to draw his gun and kill the target as quickly as possible, even if it was a child.

"It's a small museum. There's no need to be so serious," Agent Sitwell said through the earpiece. "Maybe the target wanted to put that ring in the museum and make up a nice story to draw in tourists, maybe save its miserable visitor numbers. Do you know what I saw? This museum's foot traffic is practically zero! Even during distant surveillance, we barely saw anyone coming or going. Coulson, there are countless private museums like this in London. Some are even set up in attics. Maybe the moment you push open the door, you'll find an old lady lying in an armchair. Are you sure you don't need me to come with you?"

"Sitwell, this is the first time I've known you to like jokes so much. Don't worry. I've handled plenty of missions like this. You know that—we both have Level Six clearance," Coulson replied with a smile. He knew his colleague was trying to help him relax, because this target's abilities were dangerous and carried a risk of losing control.

But Coulson still intended to make the visit alone. "I know how poorly this museum is run. That's why I didn't conduct advance reconnaissance. I'm worried the target's emotions may be unstable. Several strangers arriving together could trigger a stress reaction. If this can be resolved peacefully, I still don't want to resort to violence."

"All right, if you insist." Sitwell gave up trying to persuade him. "But remember, watch out for old ladies. In horror games, the old woman is always the final boss."

"I'll remember that." With that, Coulson put on the smile of a dependable nice guy. Even his dark sunglasses could not hide his natural warmth. But an agent could not possibly be completely unprepared. He gave a signal behind him, indicating that the tactical team should get ready, then carefully pushed open the door to the old museum.

The museum was not large. It was completely empty inside—no display cases, no exhibits, not even a person in sight, much less any trace of daily life. The only suspicious thing was the brown wooden floor, which was exceptionally smooth, as though it had just been waxed not long ago. Coulson could now confirm that this building had some age to it. No matter how well the flooring was maintained, some signs of aging would be unavoidable. He moved lightly across the floor, the sound of his leather shoes striking the boards swallowed by specially made heels. The entire building was filled with a terrifying silence.

Coulson looked around and slipped one hand inside his suit jacket, quietly wrapping it around his pistol.

He was certain that his target, Salomon Damonet, lived here. According to the records of London's adoption agency, Salomon had been adopted here. But the current situation gave him an even worse suspicion—that an organization was deliberately collecting mutant children and raising them as tools to make money! They might even possess the technology to identify mutants before their powers awakened. This museum might only be a temporary meeting place for them!

That possibility gave Coulson quite a fright, because according to information from the United Kingdom government, Salomon Damonet had already been adopted, yet the adopter's information was blank.

What did that mean? It meant this organization had influence within the United Kingdom government as well!

Hmph! The decaying Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets reeks of the old landlord class everywhere! Coulson felt that he needed to investigate whether the United Kingdom's child welfare agencies were cooperating with shady organizations to persecute even more innocent children!

In that instant, Coulson's heart filled with a sense of mission. He resolved to track this organization over the long term. For the mutant children who had already been persecuted and those who had yet to be persecuted, he had to keep pursuing this case!

He thought of someone.

Perhaps saving mutant children would give Melinda a sense of redemption and help her recover from the Bahrain incident. In that brief moment, Coulson thought of many things. He relaxed his guard slightly. Though he still did not loosen his grip on the gun, he pressed his other hand to his earpiece.

"Send in the tactical team to search. There isn't a single person here."

Of course Coulson could not find Salomon. Salomon was currently wandering the streets of Hong Kong, completely unaware that someone had mistaken Kamar-Taj for a den of thieves because of him.

The street near the Hong Kong Sanctum was one of the most lively places he could find, and the food suited his tastes perfectly. That made it obvious why he had not gone to London or New York—there was nothing good to eat there! Where in London or New York could one find bamboo-pressed noodles, shrimp dumplings, siu mai, and all sorts of dim sum? What would foreigners know about such things? Of course, the more important reason was that Wu Guiyue, Guardian of the Hong Kong Sanctum, had heard that Salomon had been attacked by a Black Warlock. Although the Sorcerer Supreme had saved Salomon, injuries took a hundred days to heal, so he definitely needed some chicken soup to nourish himself.

"How could foreigners know how to stew chicken soup? They use pressure cookers!" Wu Guiyue became extremely agitated whenever this came up. "To make soup, to simmer soup, you have to use a clay pot! Oh, Auntie wasn't talking about you. You don't need to know what 'foreigner' means."

"..."

For a moment, Salomon did not know where to begin criticizing him. He could only gently pinch the little cheek of Wu Guiyue's daughter, Alice Gulliver. Alice looked back at him with equal helplessness. As an Otaku, he knew this was the pinnacle of his life.

Back to Coulson: the museum he had discovered was actually Kamar-Taj's London Sanctum.

The reason he could not see anyone was simple. The moment he pushed open the door, he had already entered a Mirror Dimension. Kamar-Taj's spatial control magic was unparalleled in the universe. Whenever someone who was not a member of Kamar-Taj opened that door, they would automatically enter a pre-created Mirror Dimension. That Mirror Dimension could be dismissed or created at any time. Its purpose was to prevent unrelated people from entering the London Sanctum.

It was as if the London Sanctum had two doors, and Coulson had simply opened the wrong one.

As for why the child welfare agency's records listed Salomon's status as "adopted," that was even simpler. A simple Enchantment Magic spell could make the agency staff fill out the information on the form. Even if it was false, as long as they did not go back and inspect it carefully, they would never notice anything suspicious on the form.

So Coulson's attempt to investigate the organization he imagined was collecting mutant children was doomed to fail, because such an organization did not exist at all. Most of the people leaving the museum were Kamar-Taj apprentices. Whenever they left the Sanctum, they were accompanied by full-fledged sorcerers, and returning to Kamar-Taj only required opening a portal.

S.H.I.E.L.D. would never be able to catch Kamar-Taj's tail.

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