The Nest

Silence.

In the underground passage, only the three men's uneven footsteps echoed. Water dripped from the pipes with soft pitter-patters.

The air was thick with rust, gunpowder, and a faint scent of blood. Like a somber prelude to death, it played soundlessly.

Logan, walking at the front, suddenly stopped.

His signature cigar hung unlit at his lips. His nostrils flared like a beast that had caught the scent of danger.

His low voice echoed through the narrow corridor. "The smell's wrong."

Steve Rogers immediately went on alert. His hand was already on the shield strapped to his back.

"Besides the blood..." Logan's voice was rough, as though sandpaper had scraped across it.

"There's... ozone. And burnt wiring."

He paused before adding, "It's faint, but it's getting stronger."

At that moment, Chu Hang, who had remained silent, also stopped.

He did not sniff the air. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes.

His body, having just achieved a hundred-percent fusion with the Super-Soldier Serum, was feeding him the world's other side with unprecedented clarity.

Countless imperceptibly faint sound waves flooded into his ears. His brain filtered, analyzed, and modeled them with unmatched efficiency.

It was not a single sound, but an ocean of noise formed by countless independent sources.

They were moving, scraping against the layers within the walls and producing a teeth-grating rustle.

As though billions of insects were awakening.

"They're powered up." Chu Hang abruptly opened his eyes.

His expression was strange. It was not fear, but the excitement and curiosity of someone discovering a new continent.

"There are... a lot of them."

He murmured, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings. "Under our feet, inside the walls, on the ceiling."

"A massive mechanical swarm."

Electrified.

Enormous in number.

Still moving inside the walls.

Those keywords combined made Steve immediately think of a horrifying type of collective weapon.

His face, as sculpted as a Greek statue, tightened completely. His eyes were sharp as an eagle's.

"The Final Purification Protocol..." Chu Hang conveniently spoke the name he had overheard from a Hydra officer.

A look of sudden realization appeared on his face. "That Hydra officer I overheard before—this is what he was going to activate!"

"They weren't planning to blow themselves up. They were going to release these monsters!"

"They're going to purify the entire underground facility, along with our brothers!"

Those words were like a bucket of ice water dumped over Steve's heart.

This was no longer a rescue mission. This was pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth at the instant a volcano was about to erupt!

His expression instantly became incomparably grave. A resolute fire burned in his azure eyes.

"Move!"

Without another moment of hesitation, Steve let out a low roar and charged down the pitch-black underground stairs first.

Logan gave a savage roar and followed close behind. His instinctive love of battle had been completely awakened.

Chu Hang brought up the rear, but the corners of his mouth rose uncontrollably.

Final Purification Protocol? Sounds intimidating.

Put plainly, wasn't it just a grand stress test?

Perfect. He could find out exactly where the limits of this hardware-upgraded body lay.

"Damn, Mechanical Spiders? They even come with self-destruct and electric shock effects?"

When Chu Hang saw the monsters pouring like a tide from holes in the walls, he did not hide his admiration at all.

"Those Hydra tech nerds really knew how to have fun."

These palm-sized metal spiders crackling with electrical arcs were, in his eyes, the ideal sparring partners.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

With the Vibranium Shield raised, Steve perfectly demonstrated what it meant to stand unmoving like a mountain.

Countless Mechanical Spiders slammed into his shield.

They exploded into brilliant bursts of electrical sparks.

The dense explosions melded into a continuous roar, yet they could not force him back even a fraction.

Like an unbreakable reef, he held the line for his comrades behind him.

"Roar!"

Logan, that berserk beast, chose the most direct approach.

Rather than retreat, he charged forward. Like a tiger rushing into a flock of sheep, he plunged headfirst into the spider tide.

His pale Bone Claws danced through the electric light. Every swing produced an ear-piercing shriek of torn metal and a chain of explosions.

The efficiency was astonishing.

With a thought, Chu Hang chose a third path.

"Let me test the limits of this new body."

His legs explosively propelled him upward. His entire body shot up like a weightless feather.

The tips of his feet lightly tapped the rough wall, and his body drew an unbelievable arc through the air.

He landed steadily on all fours, hanging upside down from the ceiling.

Perfect balance!

Coordination that nearly ignored gravity!

The agility and strength granted by the Super-Soldier Serum were taken to dazzling new heights in his hands!

"The view from the ceiling really is different."

He grinned and raced across the ceiling like a true predator.

Every movement placed him precisely above the densest cluster of spiders.

Then he stomped down hard!

Boom!

The terrifying strength enhanced by the serum poured through the soles of his feet without restraint.

A large swath of Mechanical Spiders, along with the concrete ceiling beneath them, was instantly crushed into dust.

The sheer destructive thrill of raw physical force was thousands of times more satisfying than crushing a cockroach.

The three of them formed an unbreakable defensive core, an incomparably ferocious close-range attacker, and a highly mobile, uncanny assassin.

This classic warrior-mage-assassin iron triangle fought back and forth amid the endless spider tide.

However, just as Chu Hang was getting into the rhythm of the slaughter and gradually immersing himself in the thrill of controlling such power...

His sonar-like super hearing caught a troubling piece of information.

Heh, these metal lumps are pretty smart, Chu Hang muttered inwardly.

He heard that the true main force of the spider tide, that vast mechanical army like an endless ocean, had completely ignored the battle here.

They had silently bypassed the three of them through countless backup pipes and air vents.

From every direction, they were carrying out a three-dimensional encirclement of the Sector B cells.

A small force was holding back the three elite monsters while the main force went to complete the "purification" mission.

"Not good!" Chu Hang immediately switched back into anxious teammate mode.

He shouted down at them:

"Captain! We've been played!"

"Their main force went around us! The cells are still the target!"

Steve and Logan froze mid-motion.

"Fall back! Break through!"

Steve made the decision immediately and stopped fighting.

He drove forward with his shield, smashing open a path.

The three of them forcibly broke out, carving a route to survival through the metal tide of sparks and explosions.

But when they rushed out of the corridor and reached the main passage leading to Sector B...

All three of them stopped as if they had slammed on the brakes.

Their pupils suddenly contracted.

The only passage ahead of them was completely blocked.

Two machine-gun emplacements hastily built from sandbags and steel plates stood across the way.

The dark muzzles of two MG42 machine guns, known as Hitler's buzzsaws, were already coldly aimed at them.

Behind them, the Mechanical Spider tide they had shaken off was producing a scalp-crawling rustle.

It was gathering again, preparing to launch another charge.

Heavy firepower blocked the way ahead.

An endless swarm of self-destructing spiders waited behind them.

Chu Hang licked his slightly dry lips. The excitement in his eyes only grew stronger.

Now this was interesting, he thought.

A pincer attack, and a time-limited rescue...

Now this was a true proving ground.