Let's rewind to a dozen or so hours ago.
Just as Qin Xiao had guessed, Hawkeye carefully considered the comparison of their strengths.
The decisive decision was to take Dr. Selvig and the device to activate the Tesseract straight to Africa. Loki was right; the best course of action was to summon the Chitauri Army first, and then rescue them while they were vulnerable.
So Hawkeye took Dr. Selvig straight to Africa.
Wakanda in East Africa was undoubtedly the best choice, as it was poor and underdeveloped, lacked large urban clusters, and facilitated the rapid mobilization of troops.
Furthermore, there are one or two small countries nearby that can be conquered at any time to serve as temporary bases, and the area is not far from the coastline.
The timeline has moved back to three hours ago.
It's 2:10 AM New York time, which is 9:10 AM Wakanda time. (This is based on the time difference between Ethiopia, which is also located in East Africa, and New York! Wakanda is a fictional country, but in the Marvel Universe it is indeed located in East Africa.)
Hawkeye drove an off-road pickup truck into the Wakanda plains.
Dr. Selvig sat beside him, while the Tesseract was placed in a box made of special materials.
On the way, Dr. Selvig also asked Hawkeye why he chose Africa.
Hawkeye's answer was that powerful weapons can destroy a planet in an instant, but if you want to conquer it, it is definitely a long-term battle.
Africa is poor and underdeveloped, yet its resources are abundant. Is there a more suitable option than to occupy it first?
Dr. Selvig nodded repeatedly at what he said.
In fact, the two of them were inevitably discovered when they entered Wakanda.
Although Wakanda appears underdeveloped, it is an open country. While it doesn't have many famous tourist attractions, it occasionally attracts self-driving tourists or backpackers who come to the grasslands to watch the sunrise and sunset.
Furthermore, the Tesseract was shielded by a box made of special materials.
So the two of them arrived unimpeded deep into the grasslands of Wakanda.
And here, we're less than two kilometers from the real Wakanda.
While the two were assembling the equipment, members of the King's Guard, who were secretly monitoring the area, even thought they were going to set up a telescope to look at the stars at night.
The Tesseract was finally removed an hour later.
Alarms were blaring wildly in the King's Guard's duty room.
The Tesseract contains seemingly limitless energy, which, to Wakanda's probes, appears to be an energy source comparable to the sun.
The automated security system immediately assessed the situation as a crisis of the highest level.
The equipment buried beneath the grassland began to operate automatically.
Blue energy surges between the Vibranium devices underground.
Soon, an energy shield covering a radius of two kilometers, isolating both the outside world and the grasslands and the royal city, soared into the sky.
After a flash of blue light, the fully formed energy shield began to appear and disappear, and it was almost transparent to the naked eye unless you attacked it.
From tens of meters underground to thousands of meters in the air, this entire area was enveloped in Wakanda's energy shield.
"What is this? What happened? Is this a high-density energy shield? Are you sure you brought me to Africa? Is this some kind of remnant left by an alien civilization?"
Dr. Selvig looked at the energy shield that had suddenly risen around him and said in disbelief.
Hawkeye's eyes also revealed a strong sense of disbelief, but compared to Dr. Selvig, he was much calmer.
He paused for a moment, then immediately spoke.
"Whatever this is, we'd better speed things up!"
Inside the royal palace of Wakanda, the old King T'Chaka is speaking with his son, the new Black Panther.
" T'Challa, I'm so happy that you've become Wakanda's most powerful warrior and inherited the title of Black Panther!"
"But if you want to be a good king, the title of Black Panther alone is far from enough..."
The old king is getting older, and he is now preparing to gradually delegate power, allowing his son to hone his skills under his supervision for a few more years before completely relinquishing control.
So every morning, the old king would ask Black Panther to have breakfast with him, and then they would discuss various matters concerning Wakanda.
Today was no exception. After discussing official business for a while, the old king decided to talk more about the conversation between father and son.
Unfortunately, it was interrupted by the Captain of the guard team who rushed in.
"Your Majesty, Prince!"
Captain Okoye of the guard bowed slightly in greeting to the two men.
" Okoye, it's rare to see you so agitated. What happened outside?"
The old king asked with a smile.
"Two outsiders just entered the Wakanda grasslands. We initially thought they were ordinary tourists, but they set up a device and brought out an extraordinary energy source. Our detection equipment couldn't even detect the energy limit of this source!"
After Okoye finished speaking, he pressed a few times on a string of Vibranium in his hand, and the surveillance footage from a hidden camera appeared.
The image shows Hawkeye and Dr. Selvig installing the Tesseract.
"The system automatically identified it as a top-level security incident and activated the energy shield over the grassland, isolating that area!"
"Although I don't know what they're trying to do, I think we should stop them immediately, or kill them on the spot!"
Okoye said expressionlessly.
T'Chaka had been king his whole life and had seen all sorts of storms. Okoye's words didn't make him nervous at all; instead, he used the incident to test his son.
" T'Challa, what do you think we should do in the face of this unknown danger?"
"The energy shield has already been exposed, so there's no need to hide it anymore. However, we don't know what the other side is planning. How about I take some men over, capture them first, and then decide what to do after we've found out?"
Black Panther looked at his father with a questioning tone.
The old king nodded and said with satisfaction.
"Very good, child. As a king, you must never take someone's life lightly. But remember, a king cannot do everything personally. The safety of all Wakanda rests on your shoulders. You must learn to delegate tasks appropriately to the right people. No matter what happens, remember that!"
Seeing the Black Panther nod, the old king turned to look at Okoye again.
"Bring everyone and everything back first, and we'll find out what's going on..."
Before the words were even finished, the Tesseract in the picture began to emit blue energy, and then a blue beam of light shot into the sky.
A huge wormhole opened up hundreds of meters in the air.
Okoye wisely switched to another camera, which, under her control, looked vertically at the wormhole in the sky.
On the other side of the wormhole lies the void of space and a group of soldiers eager to take control of single-person spacecraft!
Alien invasion?
The old king was no longer as composed as before. " Okoye," he commanded, "Gather all the soldiers immediately and send them out to see what's going on."
" T'Challa, you get to the scene right now and wait outside the protective shield to meet up with Okoye. Never mind, I'll go with you myself!"
The old king stood up in a panic.