Next Stop

"Why?"

Looking at the corpse of Nick Fury, whose face still held an expression of disbelief, his eyes wide open in death, Pietro couldn't help but ask. "He was also someone who opposed President X; he should have been able to help us."

Zhang Ye didn't answer immediately, instead taking a few deep breaths. Although he had seen countless corpses since arriving in this world, this was the first time he had killed someone himself.

After a pause, Zhang Ye engaged the safety on his pistol and spoke. "Just like those streetwalkers who have fallen into becoming bar girls, he is no longer the hero from my memories. The Nick Fury in my mind was a tenacious warrior, a Wallfacer with the resolve to protect humanity."

As he spoke, Zhang Ye looked back down at Nick Fury's body on the ground. "But this guy was nothing more than a stray dog terrified by President X. Every time I mentioned President X, his eyes were filled with deep fear. Do you think someone like that could provide us with any real help?"

"Are you worried that this guy would betray us because he's afraid of President X?" Pietro quickly grasped the crux of the matter.

"Maybe, but I don't dare to gamble, and I can't afford to. This is for our own safety." Zhang Ye fished the key to the safe house from the corpse and turned to look Pietro straight in the eye. "My goal has always been the same: to survive at any cost."

Hearing this, Pietro looked at Zhang Ye's serious, resolute face and couldn't help but recall the pain he had experienced in this world ever since he awakened his mutant abilities.

Perhaps, in this environment, freedom and life were luxuries for everyone in this world; even just staying alive felt like such a struggle.

Thinking of this, Pietro took a deep breath and nodded slowly.

"Understood. I understand!"

In the suburbs of Washington D.C., Zhang Ye arrived at the safe house Nick Fury had mentioned without any obstruction.

Fury was right; this place truly possessed everything Zhang Ye needed. It wasn't just various supplies; the weapons and equipment were also plentiful, which greatly boosted Zhang Ye's confidence.

Through long-term intelligence gathering and this personal conversation with Nick Fury, Zhang Ye was now certain that this world was one of the Marvel Multiverse, and specifically, a cataclysmic multiverse—strictly speaking, it belonged to the category of discarded universes on the verge of destruction.

The "superhumans" here had all died due to various accidents. Not only them, but the combat power of the entire universe had been severely diminished; this was evident from the corpse of the "invincible Galactus" floating in the Solar System.

Iron Man's Mark Armor hadn't undergone dozens of iterations, and the research by Hank Pym and his wife into the Quantum Realm and Pym Particles wasn't comprehensive. Heroes who originally possessed immense combat power could be taken down here with just a pistol or a missile.

However, this was undoubtedly good news for Zhang Ye. After all, Zhang Ye was just an ordinary person. If the President X of this world truly possessed abilities comparable to those in the Prime Universe or the film universe, the difficulty of resisting him would skyrocket.

Although Zhang Ye had watched many Marvel movies and read comics in his past life, he hadn't seen everything. It was worth noting that in the late 20th century, Marvel released many short-run comics and discontinued certain universe publications for various reasons, so Zhang Ye didn't know the origin of this specific universe.

It only took the two of them five minutes to collect the supplies in the safe house, thanks to the help of Quicksilver, a speedster, which greatly shortened the time required for moving things.

There were many items in the safe house, but Zhang Ye couldn't take them all at once and had to pick what was useful. The vast majority were high-calorie foods, necessary to satisfy Quicksilver's metabolism so the kid wouldn't be too hungry to move before they even started their operation.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang Ye discovered a suit of Iron Man armor here. However, it wasn't the high-tech suit from his memories, but a very primitive-looking Iron Suit that didn't even have an artificial intelligence inside.

Zhang Ye found it hard to imagine fighting in this bulky thing; he reckoned that if he wore it, he would definitely be a living target.

However, it wasn't a total loss. Zhang Ye dismantled the left arm of the armor. The left hand of the suit had the ability to fire beam energy—a simplified version of a Repulsor Ray—and the energy plate on the forearm could collect various types of energy to recharge. With this, he would at least have some ability to protect himself.

After getting everything ready, Zhang Ye pulled his notebook out of his bag. It was an old, tattered book with many newspaper clippings and sticky notes tucked inside; the information within was all of Zhang Ye's findings.

Opening the notebook, Zhang Ye skillfully flipped to the page he needed. It was densely packed with various records and featured a clipped newspaper snippet.

Headline: Emma Frost's Benevolent Act, the Largest Orphanage in the State of Benn Opens!

The accompanying photo showed a woman with white hair, dressed in snow-white ceremonial robes. Her charming face was filled with a warm, sunny smile, and in the photo, she was standing at the gate of the orphanage, waving gently at the reporters below.

Judging solely from this report and the photo, anyone would feel goodwill toward this woman named Emma Frost.

After all, being willing to spend money to build an orphanage in such chaotic times—this couldn't just be called a good person; this was likely a Bodhisattva reincarnated!

However, Zhang Ye didn't believe it. The dignified "White Queen," one of the founders of the Hellfire Club, being so untainted in this world? There must be some unknown secret behind it.

And this was exactly the next destination for Zhang Ye's journey.

One had to know that a bizarre ability like telepathy was not without its counters. In Zhang Ye's memory, Professor X's old rival, Magneto, had a helmet capable of blocking all telepathy. Although the Magneto of this world was already dead, that didn't mean the helmet didn't exist.

After arriving in this world, Zhang Ye had read many newspapers to better understand his surroundings. In one of the newspaper photos, Zhang Ye had seen a man wearing a helmet; his name was Sebastian Shaw.

In other universes, Sebastian was the founder of the Hellfire Club, a villain who gave countless X-Men headaches.

But here, he was a congressman in the American Congress and one of the people who had participated in the presidential election back then. However, he had gone missing after President X took power, and the last place he appeared was right near the orphanage Emma had established. This made it hard not to draw some specific conclusions.

If it were anyone else wearing a helmet in a newspaper, Zhang Ye might have hesitated, but Sebastian was different. Furthermore, since he had once prepared to run for president against Charles, it was a very normal behavior to find himself some protective gear capable of resisting telepathy.

Therefore, to increase his odds of defeating President X, Zhang Ye was determined to get that helmet. Most people in this world were not normal, and Zhang Ye didn't dare to gamble on whether he would end up like Deadpool.

In the comic where Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe, Deadpool discovers that the world is just a comic book after Charles probes his memory, and he ends up brain-dead from the shock. But that was a normal Charles; the Charles of this world was a genuine lunatic!

"This woman is so beautiful. It looks like this is our next stop," Pietro chimed in.

"Yes, there's no time to rest. We need to leave as soon as possible," Zhang Ye closed his notebook.