New York, northern suburbs.
This place was once a beautiful private estate.
The underground stronghold is " Black Beacon," a core location operated by the Hand for three hundred years.
But now, it looks more like a sand table that was trampled and destroyed by a bratty kid venting his anger.
The main hall was neatly cracked open from the middle by some terrifyingly high-temperature force.
The granite at the cut was still radiating a dark red residual heat, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of sulfur and the burnt smell of vaporized human tissue.
"Is this... the power of God?"
A red-clad ninja who had miraculously survived knelt on the ground, his katana now only bearing half a hilt.
Before him lay countless corpses of his comrades.
Their prized stealth techniques and their poisoned blades, capable of killing silently in the Shadow, were utterly ineffective against sheer numerical superiority.
Fragile, and ridiculous.
Hundreds of kilometers away, in a safe house deep underground in Brooklyn.
Five thick, tallow candles flickered in the darkness, their dim light illuminating five faces with different expressions.
The Hand, meaning " Five Fingers ".
Each of them has lived for centuries. They have witnessed the rise and fall of dynasties, orchestrated famous political assassinations, and in some corners of history books, they are the nameless shadow players.
But just a few hours earlier, the chessboard had been overturned.
The person who overturned the chessboard didn't even bother to glance at the game, delivering a resounding slap to this group of self-important chess players.
"We have lost the ' Black Sky '."
It was Alexandra who spoke.
This woman, who usually wears bespoke suits and controls a portion of the financial world, is slumped in her chair without any regard for her image.
"Millions of dollars worth of culture chambers, decades of genetic screening, and... Elektra's perfect body. All gone."
Alexandra's voice trembled, a mixture of anger at her hard work going to waste and fear of that power.
That's not human.
Sitting opposite her, Madame Gao leaned on her dragon-headed cane. Her old eyes, which were usually narrowed and revealed shrewd calculation, were now cloudy like a stagnant pool, with a rare fear buried deep within them.
"I've seen Eastern qigong masters who can split stone tablets, I've seen superhumans who can control Flame, and I've even seen aliens who claim to be gods."
Madame Gao paused for a moment; even just recalling that scene was painful.
"But that man... that man in the Stars and Stripes Cloak..."
"Our elite League of Shadows legion is no different from a bunch of babies holding plastic toys in front of him. He didn't even touch the ground! He just hovered there, arms crossed, with that look in his eyes..."
Madame Gao swallowed hard, her withered fingers gripping the dragon head of her cane tightly.
Madame Gao gave a bitter smile.
"No technique, no opening. Just one glance, and our thirty best Jonin were cut in half at the waist."
A deathly silence fell over the round table.
This silence is so oppressive and unbearable.
Bakuto, his face grim, slammed a newly printed intelligence report onto the table.
The paper slid across the table and came to a stop in the middle of the group.
In the photo, the blond, blue-eyed man flashes his signature, slightly shy, perfect smile at the camera, with the blue sky and white clouds of America behind him, and he's holding a rescued kitten in his arms.
Homelander.
The Vought International's flagship, the pinnacle of superheroes.
But every one of these ancient monsters, who had lived for hundreds of years, knew perfectly well what kind of tyranny and arrogance lay hidden beneath that glamorous facade.
" Vought International... we've always kept to ourselves."
Murakami gritted his teeth; he had lost an arm in the raid.
Although the wound had healed, the phantom pain still caused his facial muscles to twitch from time to time.
"Why are they trying to steal Elektra? She's our vessel! The key to the resurrection ritual!"
"Did Elektra offend Vought before?"
"Why?"
Sowande sneered, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. "They took it because they wanted it. Just like you don't need a reason to step on a cockroach."
That hurts.
Fifty years ago, if anyone had dared to touch their stuff, the Hand already launched a global assassination network, killing all of their top leaders overnight.
But now, facing Vought, this behemoth, facing Homelander who can fly at supersonic speeds, ignore conventional firearms, and even fire laser eyes...
Assassination?
Try assassinating a monster that can hear your heartbeat from kilometers away?
As the tide of time swept in, these ancient schemers sadly discovered that the methods they were so proud of were outdated.
We cannot confront them head-on.
Madame Gao broke the silence; she was a pragmatist, or rather, an opportunist.
"We have no chance of winning under the nose of that caped monster. If we continue operating in New York's wealthy neighborhoods, we'll only be uprooted by Vought."
"What should we do then? cower like turtles? Go back to Japan?"
Murakami asked unwillingly, his rationality somewhat clouded by the hatred of losing his arm.
"No."
Alexandra forced herself to calm down; she had to come up with a solution.
Her fingers traced the map of New York on the table, her perfectly manicured nails avoiding the towering Vought Tower in Manhattan.
Finally, her finger stopped in a corner shrouded in Shadow.
We need to go here.
She pointed heavily at the map.
Hell's Kitchen.
"Here?"
Bakuto frowned; as a villain who valued style, he had a physical aversion to that place.
"That's a slum, a sewer. It's full of filthy rats, drug addicts, and low-level gangsters in cheap leather jackets."
"That's exactly why."
A glint rekindled in Alexandra's eyes, the look of a hunter spotting his prey.
" Vought's superheroes are peacocks; they only display their plumage under the spotlight. They need ratings, flowers, and applause. They look down on Hell's Kitchen. For that Homelander, it's too dirty; it'll just get his boots dirty."
"And..."
Madame Gao picked up the conversation, her wrinkles smoothing out as she revealed a knowing smile.
"Our intelligence network indicates that Hell's Kitchen's original owner—that big guy named Kingpin —is in big trouble recently."
"I heard a madman named Joker turned the place upside down, even sparking a Riot. Now Hell's Kitchen is a no-man's land. Chaos, disorder, and the law has collapsed."
At this point, a greedy glint flashed in Madame Gao's eyes.
"This is the soil the 'beasts' love most. Chaos is our ladder."
"Aren't there any superheroes there?"
Sowande was still somewhat uneasy.
"Only a few Joker."
Alexandra chuckled dismissively, not even bothering to look up the details about " The Joker " and " Daredevil ".
In her view, whether it was the Joker who dressed up as a playing card or Daredevil, they were just playing house.
"That Joker? At best, he's a terrorist with a bomb. As for those gangsters... they wouldn't even have a chance to pull the bolt in front of the Hand's ninja army."
This is a perfect plan.
At least that's how they see it.
This is a typical "trading base" tactic.
Since I can't beat the Homelander in high-level games, I'll just go and smurf in low-level games.
Avoid the sharp edge of Vought, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and delve into the chaotic quagmire of Hell's Kitchen.
They could use the corpses and despair there to rebuild their strength, search for new " Black Sky " containers, and even use some ancient secret technique to refine the entire Hell's Kitchen into a source of soldiers.
This is the survival wisdom summarized by this group of immortal beings who have lived for centuries:
Bullying the weak and fearing the strong, the path of the cowardly is supreme.
As long as I don't fight monsters with high stats, I'm invincible.
"Pack your things." Alexandra stood up, straightened her collar, and regained her dignified and elegant queenly aura.
"In Hell's Kitchen, the law is just a piece of paper, and the police are just for show."
"Since Vought took our ' Black Sky,' we'll take the entire Hell's Kitchen as compensation."
"We want to show the mortals there what fear truly is, and what the Hand."
The Five Fingers came together again.
The flickering candlelight cast long shadows of them, making them look like a group of menacing demons.
With an arrogance that suggested they were about to "destroy" the newbie village, they began planning their grand ambitions for future domination.