New Mexico

"Judging by the creation time of this message, this happened less than two days ago. Thor should have arrived on Earth as well, so I need to try and absorb Thor's Power before he does."

If it were before this, Mercer definitely would not have been able to absorb Thor's Power from Thor's hammer.

But things were different now, for Thor's hammer had been cursed by Odin.

[Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess Thor's Power.]

However, Mercer did not plan to lift the hammer; he simply wanted to absorb some Thor's Power from it.

Just as Mercer made up his mind and was pondering when to set off, the voice of the Hero Card System suddenly rang in his mind.

"Card collection mission initiated! Before Thor lifts the hammer once more, infuse enough thunder power into the card to freely draw any thunder-type skill!"

After the system's voice sounded, light converged in front of Mercer, gradually transforming into a card.

Accustomed to his own system, Mercer reached out to catch it, and the card slowly landed in his hand.

The card obtained this time had "Thunder Collection Card" written on the title, while the pattern was a grey thunderbolt, which seemed to require him to absorb Thor's lightning to activate this card.

"Right on time, otherwise just absorbing thunder power on my own would still make me a bit apprehensive."

Absorbing the energy of the Kyber Crystal right now was already just absorbing a tiny fraction, and doing so was so difficult that he hadn't even absorbed one percent of it.

Going out to absorb thunder power was truly somewhat terrifying.

"And I can't just absorb Thor. Although he's a mortal right now, he'll be a pillar of the Avengers in the future, and I don't want to shoulder his responsibilities."

Besides, Thor had Asgard behind him. If he absorbed him, Odin would undoubtedly lead the Asgardian army to hunt him down.

Mercer could not afford to make an enemy of such a faction just yet; once he obtained this system reward, he would have the qualifications to stand on equal footing with Asgard.

"Alright, since it's decided, I should set off immediately."

Mercer first drove to the New York airport and booked the nearest flight to New Mexico.

With money now, Mercer casually decided on the price of a first-class ticket.

The comfortable feeling forced Mercer to inwardly praise how great it was to have money.

It would take a little while to fly to New Mexico, so Mercer took a brief nap, introspecting on the progress of the Blacklight Virus within his body.

He also pondered that on the upcoming Naruto Otherworld Journey, he had to find a foothold; he certainly didn't want to miss such a great opportunity to let the Blacklight Virus evolve wildly.

First class was very quiet with few passengers. Mercer sat in the very front row, and a few people sat all the way at the back.

Because it was too quiet, the murmurs of other people could still be heard clearly by Mercer's enhanced hearing.

Mercer naturally had no interest in other people's words, and when he first heard them, he meant to lower his hearing sensitivity a bit, but unexpectedly the content he heard made him somewhat surprised.

"You guys pull yourselves together. When we arrive at the place, we must coordinate well." A man wearing a duckbill cap in the back row by the window gently pressed the headset on his ear and said in a low voice.

"This is a critical moment for Hydra. Mr. Pierce said this hammer might allow Hydra to reach unprecedented heights."

Not far in front of him, another man glanced at him and then said in a low voice, "Yet S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to have detected our existence. Over the past few days, quite a few comrades have been transferred away from headquarters by them, and then we stopped receiving any news."

A skinny man sitting in yet another spot retorted, "Impossible. Our Hydra disguise is very good, and we haven't shown any cloven hooves for decades. Nick Fury couldn't possibly have noticed. If you must say there's a reason, it might be because of that person..."

The seats in first class were partitioned off individually, and they were not sitting in the same row, likely to avoid suspicion.

At this point, they all hesitated for a moment, and the man wearing the duckbill cap spoke again, "Are you talking about that young man who made Abomination disappear inexplicably? He truly is a ticking time bomb as well."

"Yesterday, Mr. Pierce sent the Winter Soldier to assassinate him, and now there's still no word of him!"

Hearing this, the other two were clearly stunned, and one of them said in astonishment, "The Winter Soldier? Isn't he already our trump-card assassin in Hydra? A guy even he couldn't solve is truly terrifying."

"He's someone who can unilaterally beat Abomination, after all. Actually, I'm not surprised by this result," the skinny man said.

"Anyway, let's be careful on this operation and try not to mess up."

"Yes!"

Their conversation was heard by Mercer down to the last word. He frowned, somewhat displeased that Hydra members could be encountered anywhere.

"You guys really have long reaches, wanting to meddle in everything. It's just a pity that you ran into me, so you can only wait for death."

With Mercer around, they wouldn't even be able to get off this plane.

En route, taking advantage of the three of them going to the restroom separately, Mercer quietly followed and silently absorbed all three of them.

Hydra lost three more members. Although Hydra found out afterward that Mercer was also on this plane, no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find the skeletons of these three Hydra members.

Just like Abomination, they inexplicably vanished from this world.

By the time they disembarked, Mercer was the single person stepping down from first class.

Seeing only a young Chinese male walk out of first class, the flight attendant felt somewhat strange and muttered.

"I remember there were four guests in first class, so why is only one coming down?"

She looked doubtfully toward first class, and there really was only Mercer inside, making her somewhat doubt her own memory just now.

New Mexico was still somewhat hot at the moment. Mercer walked out of the airport, got into a taxi, and according to the address information he had previously seen in the S.H.I.E.L.D. files, had the driver head to that place.

Upon arriving in the town, Mercer looked around. He casually grabbed a burly man and asked him, "Hello, may I ask where there's a hammer-shaped thing around here, the kind that nobody can pick up at all?"

Hearing this, the burly man wearing a vest laughed, "Brother, you sure asked the right person. We just came back from there."

With that, he pointed Mercer in a direction, a hint of pity in his tone.

"That thing was originally discovered by us, and no matter what, it couldn't be picked up. We even wanted to fence that area off and make it a tourist spot, but before we could even start, we were surrounded by a group of men in black."

The vest-wearing man shook his head, the regret in his words growing even heavier.

"They seemed to be people from a national agency, and they won't let anyone close now. We just wanted to go take a look, and as soon as we got there, we were blocked."

The people he mentioned should refer to S.H.I.E.L.D. members, and Mercer also knew who was in charge of this: Coulson.

When Mercer told Nick Fury the future information, the latter immediately dispatched Coulson to squat and watch near here.

Within a day of the hammer's appearance, it had been protected in layers by S.H.I.E.L.D. members.