Urgency (Part Sixteen)

To Baron Strucker, Carl Mala controlled more than money and a few Titans. He likely possessed technologies and powers far beyond humanity's current understanding.

It was precisely because he feared Carl Mala and the unfathomable might of the Warp Group that Baron Strucker had kept his subordinates on a tight leash for over two years. He had lain low like the wariest of vipers, not daring to make any major moves in the outside world.

He had even cut contact with many peripheral Hydra branches, keeping only the most trusted and loyal members in this base.

Because he was afraid.

Afraid that Carl Mala would remember their old grudge before the New God Clan warriors he had painstakingly cultivated were ready.

Or that Mala would simply decide to eliminate a potential threat and use those uncanny abilities to find this secret base.

Countless times, he had dreamed of Godzilla's Atomic Breath tearing effortlessly through the earth, reducing the base—and all his hopes of restoring Hydra—to ash.

That fear hung over his head like a sword of Damocles. It tormented him far more than hiding ever could.

"The slow progress of the experiments is holding us back. It's infuriating—"

Dr. Fritz noticed none of the turmoil in Baron Strucker's heart. Still absorbed in his own world, he gazed at the glass cultivation tanks and went on at length, his rapture giving way to complaint. "My techniques for editing and splicing gene sequences are, without question, the most advanced and boldest in the world! Bar none!"

Having praised himself, he changed tack, indignation spreading across his face. "But the fools under me—those so-called first-rate biologists and genetic engineers—wasted far too many precious samples during the early cell-cultivation and gene-insertion experiments. Operator error, equipment fluctuations, or just plain rotten luck!"

He pounded his