"Come in."
A moment later, Deathstroke returned to the cave entrance in the rock wall. His voice was still as hoarse and low as ever, and his armor remained spotless.
Yet the screams, gunfire, and all those sounds that should never have existed underground had now vanished completely, like some past hallucination, leaving behind only silence.
The two trembling S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, clinging to each other, got to their feet under Little Wong's prisoner-like scrutiny and passed through the opening into the vast space next door. But it was different from what they had expected.
They had thought they would see severed limbs flying everywhere, blood and organs splattered all over the place. But when they opened their eyes, they found that every corpse within sight looked... peaceful.
Yes, that was the only word Fitz and Simmons could think of. These Leviathan soldiers wore yellow uniforms, usually with a fatal sword or blade wound in their chests or foreheads, yet almost every one of them wore a mysterious smile.
In the darkness, they could only observe by Wong's Illumination Spell. But seeing those smiles on every visible corpse was genuinely eerie.
Fitz nudged Simmons with his elbow. She immediately understood and went to examine the corpses. Su Ming did not stop her, letting her turn the bodies over and inspect them however she liked, while he merely folded his arms and waited quietly.
A few minutes later, Simmons took off her gloves. Her pale little face was full of bewilderment as she scratched her hair, clearly unable to make sense of it.
"Well? Did you find anything?"
Su Ming asked blandly.
"I don't know. Are they really still human?" Simmons returned to Fitz's side. As a biologist, it was the first time she had seen humans who seemed so inhuman. "By