The cold wind from deep space stirred up by the portal had long since died down, but the sharp ozone stench left by higher-dimensional ionization, mingled with the smell of old muck churned up from the ground, still burned their throats dry.
Nick Fury knelt on one knee.
The hem of his usually immaculate black trench coat was caked with glassy slag fused by lightning plasma. His palm braced hard against the cold lead-plated floor, his whole body hunched over, as though the backbone had been ripped straight out of his once-upright frame.
It was the collapse that came after a lifetime's worth of understanding had been utterly leveled by an unstoppable natural disaster.
Backroom politics, secret genetic ledgers, planetary defense simulation models built at the cost of billions of dollars-what did any of it matter?
Chen Xiao had not even put on his armor. With his hands in his pockets, he had pulverized a dead planet across deep space, along with the Hydra idol that had stood there for thousands of years.
No maneuvering. No compromise. Just absolute domination from a higher dimension.
"Cough, cough..."
Nick Fury coughed violently. Bracing himself against the edge of the warped control console, he shifted his feet and struggled upright.
He turned, swept his single eye over the silent Steve, then looked at Chen Xiao, who stood a short distance away, leaning against a stone pillar and fiddling with his custom Titanium Alloy Phone.
Chen Xiao could not even be bothered to look at him. He was tapping through a delivery order for braised pork rice from a Chinese restaurant in Flushing.
That indifference was crueler than a direct bolt of lightning. In Chen Xiao's eyes, the schemes and manipulation Nick Fury took such pride in amounted to nothing more than a mangy