The Silent Waterway and the Roaring Inferno

The night over the Gulf of Guinea was as thick as ink that would not dissolve.

The air was filled with the briny tang of seawater, the iron smell of rusting metal, and the scent of rotting vegetation unique to tropical rainforests. In the distance, the scrapyard known as Salvage Coast lay silently along the shoreline like the carcass of a steel behemoth. Countless searchlight beams swept across one another in the night sky, cutting this lawless place into fragments.

This was a graveyard for abandoned ships, and the kingdom of Ulysses Klaue.

Two kilometers offshore, a battered fishing boat in disguise rose and fell with the waves. Inside its cabin, however, was a high-tech scene entirely at odds with its exterior.

"All units, synchronize watches." Zhao Fan's voice reached everyone clearly through their bone-conduction earpieces. He was checking his equipment. Beneath his black tactical trench coat hung high-energy batteries and emergency injectors, just in case.

"It's now 00:30 local time. Fifteen minutes until Klaue's private guards change shifts."

"Copy." Yelena's voice was ice-cold, with the faint sound of flowing water in the background. "I've reached the designated position."

Old Dog chuckled over the comms, a sign of his excitement. "I'm in position too. Gotta say, this place is perfect for fireworks. Rusty oil drums and flammables everywhere."

"Ben, cut off their eyes," Zhao Fan gave his final order.

"Executing... signal jammer online, looping footage being inserted... done. You have a three-minute window before their patrol discovers the surveillance feed is footage from five minutes ago."

"Move."

On the north side of the ship scrapyard lay a hidden waterway screened by dense mangroves.

This was the only blind spot in the entire base's defenses. With sharp metal wreckage littering the bottom and highly corrosive water, Klaue's men believed no one could infiltrate through here-unless he was not human, or had Stark-level technology.

A nearly imperceptible ripple stirred the surface.

Like a black water snake, Yelena Belova silently raised her head from the oil-fouled water. A faint red light flickered across her tactical mask as its thermal imaging mode scanned for heat signatures onshore.

Three targets ahead. Two stationary sentries, one roving sentry, she recited silently.

She raised her left hand. The modified Widow's Bite bracer on her wrist gave a faint hum. It was no longer merely an electric shock weapon. After Zhao Fan and Benjamin's modifications, it now incorporated a miniature sonic vibration generator.

Yelena took a deep breath and shot out of the water.

She made no sound. Her nanofiber stealth suit perfectly contained the moisture and noise as she traced an elegant arc through the air and landed behind the roving sentry.

Before the mercenary could react, the two short blades in Yelena's hands were already drawn.

Rather than gleaming solid blades, they appeared translucent and blurred under high-frequency vibration. Evelyn had reforged these weapons from the mothership wreckage's alloy, specifically to cut through this kind of high-strength armor.

Hiss-

A faint sound, like silk being torn.

The mercenary did not even have time to feel pain before his neck and tactical collar were sliced clean through. Before blood could gush out, the blades' high-frequency heat instantly cauterized and sealed the wound.

Yelena caught the body and gently lowered it.

Then she raised her wrist and aimed at the two stationary sentries still chatting ten meters away.

Two coin-sized discs shot out, attaching themselves precisely to their helmets.

Bzzzt-

High-voltage current discharged instantly, and the two men crumpled as though their bones had been pulled out.

"Clear," Yelena whispered into her earpiece. "Heading for the command center. This place is bigger than I expected. It's all maze-like shipping containers. Ben, I need directions."

"Easy, I'll guide you," Benjamin's cheerful voice replied. "Turn left. There's a ventilation shaft that leads straight to their backup generator room. Blow that up, and half their command systems will go down."

Yelena sheathed her blades and vanished into the tangled mountains of scrap metal.

She did not possess Zhao Fan's brute strength, nor did she enjoy making noise like Old Dog. She was a ghost, an assassin in the night. She slipped through the shadows, avoiding one mercenary patrol after another. Whenever she encountered a hidden sentry she could not avoid, she killed him with a single strike, never wasting a movement.

Ten minutes later.

Yelena lay on the boom of an enormous crane. Below her was the so-called command center-a concrete fortress converted from an old warship's bridge.

Four heavy guards in exoskeleton armor stood at the entrance, clearly the elite of Klaue's elite.

"I see the target." Yelena steadied her breathing. "But there's too much firepower at the entrance. I can't get in silently."

"No need for silence anymore," Zhao Fan's voice came right on cue. "Old Dog, light it up."

The fuel storage area on the south side of the scrapyard.

Old Dog Jose sat atop a pile of oil drums, an unlit cigar between his lips. His enormous tactical backpack lay at his feet, and he held a remote detonator.

"Heh, coming right up."

Old Dog slammed his thumb onto the red button.

BOOM-!!!

An earth-shattering blast instantly tore through the silent night sky.

An enormous orange-red mushroom cloud erupted into the sky on the south side. The shock wave even overturned every makeshift shed within several hundred meters.

It was a "man-portable thermobaric bomb" S.C.U. had hauled out of storage. Originally intended to clear out living organisms over a wide area, it proved astonishingly effective at blowing up an ammunition depot.

The thermobaric bomb's characteristic secondary explosion instantly consumed the surrounding oxygen, followed by an all-devouring inferno. Mountains of waste fuel and chemicals detonated in a chain reaction, instantly turning the entire southern area into hell.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

"Fire in the south sector! It's out of control!"

"We're under attack! Reinforce the south sector!"

The entire scrapyard erupted into chaos. Shrill alarms pierced the sky as countless mercenaries rushed from their barracks and ran toward the south in panic.

The four heavy guards at the command center entrance grew restless too. Two immediately turned and raced toward the explosion to provide support.

Now!

Yelena leaped from the crane.

She spread her arms in midair, deploying the gliding wings beneath her stealth suit's armpits and diving like a real kestrel.

The remaining two guards heard the rush of air. They had barely looked up when two lethal flashes greeted them.

Using the momentum of her fall, Yelena drove both blades into gaps between their armor joints, directly destroying their spinal nerves.

Thud.

Two heavy bodies hit the ground.

Yelena rolled on landing to absorb the impact, tossing several jamming grenades through the command center doors that had just opened.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Electromagnetic pulses and smoke instantly filled the room.

Before the technicians and commanders inside could draw their guns, Yelena rushed in and took them down one by one. She did not kill them, instead using the backs of her blades to shatter their kneecaps or wrists with extreme precision, incapacitating them.

She approached the central console and inserted a black USB drive into a port.

"Ben, connected to the interface. It's yours."

"Copy! Taking over the system... done. Defensive systems offline, gate access unlocked. Boss, you're clear to enter."

Meanwhile, at the scrapyard's main entrance.

A heavy truck roared through the gates, which had been blasted crooked.

Zhao Fan sat in the cab, his gaze as calm as though he were doing his morning exercises. He had brought no one with him. The truck carried no cargo either, but was packed full of-empty crates.

They were for the vibranium.

"Who's there? Stop!"

A squad of mercenaries who had not yet left to reinforce the south blocked the road, their assault rifles spitting furious streams of fire.

Bullets struck the modified bulletproof glass in dense showers of sparks, but the truck showed no sign of slowing.

"I'm in a hurry," Zhao Fan muttered, flooring the accelerator.

Crash!

The truck plowed through the barricade like a bulldozer, even sending a jeep that tried to intercept it flying.

Zhao Fan wrenched the steering wheel, drifting the truck sideways into an open area.

He pushed the door open and jumped down.

By now, dozens of fully armed mercenaries had surrounded him.

"Kill him!" roared a man who looked like a minor leader.

Countless bullets came from every direction.

Zhao Fan did not dodge.

He simply stood there, head slightly lowered, arms hanging naturally at his sides.

[Hard Carapace: Full Coverage]!

A black, metallic layer of keratin instantly covered his entire body, becoming as hard as iron.

Clang, clang, clang-

Bullets struck him like raindrops hitting stone, all bouncing away.

"Is that all you've got?" Zhao Fan raised his head, golden-red light burning in his eyes.

The Extremis Virus cells inside his body began to boil. He could feel the heat in the surrounding air gathering toward him.

"Since you like playing with fire so much..."

Zhao Fan abruptly raised his right foot and slammed it into the ground.

[Kinetic Repulsion: Shockwave]!

A visible blue ripple spread furiously outward from him.

The ground cracked, and shattered stones flew like bullets.

The mercenaries surrounding him felt the ground shake violently beneath their feet. Then an irresistible force struck, hurling them and their guns into the air.

"I'll play along."

Zhao Fan vanished from where he stood.

The next second, he was already in front of the minor leader.

"A ghost... a ghost!" The man pulled the trigger in terror, only to discover that a scorching hand had already seized the barrel.

Zhao Fan's palm reached over a thousand degrees. The fine-steel gun barrel instantly softened in his grip, bent, and finally became a lump of scrap.

"Tell me, where's the vibranium?" Zhao Fan's voice was low and oppressive.

[Mental Pressure] activated.

A terrifying aura originating from an ancient beast enveloped the minor leader. His psychological defenses collapsed instantly. Warmth spread through his crotch as he tremblingly pointed toward the enormous building deep inside the scrapyard, converted from an old aircraft carrier's bridge.

"In... in there... that's the boss's 'palace'..."

"Thank you."

Zhao Fan casually tossed him aside and turned toward the massive building.

In his [Weak Energy Perception] vision, a dazzling mass of purple light radiated there-the energy fluctuations unique to vibranium.

But beside that purple light was an even more violent, chaotic mass of white energy.

"Found you, Ulysses Klaue."

A cold smile curled Zhao Fan's lips. Once more, his body became a blur as he charged toward the final battlefield.

Behind him, Old Dog carried a six-barreled Gatling gun, laughing wildly as he sprayed any enemies who dared show themselves. "Hahaha! That's more like it! This is what men should be doing! Let's make this fire burn even hotter!"

The entire scrapyard had descended into utter chaos.

The infiltration from the north had crippled command, the explosion in the south had drawn away the main force, and the frontal assault had completely shattered their morale.

This was not an evenly matched battle at all.

Yet just as Zhao Fan was about to reach the "palace," an extremely sharp, piercing sound suddenly came from ahead.

BZZZZ-!!!

It was not a sound heard through the ears. It acted directly on the bones and internal organs.

Zhao Fan's running body abruptly stiffened. It felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer and struck his internal organs hard.

Under the impact of these high-frequency sound waves, fine cracks actually began appearing across the [Hard Carapace] covering his body, as though it might disintegrate at any moment.

"Warning! High-frequency sonic attack detected! Defensive barrier unstable!" The system's cold notification sounded in his mind.

Zhao Fan dropped to one knee, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

The smoke and dust ahead cleared.

A middle-aged man in a fine suit walked out, an African-style necklace of bones hanging around his neck. A crazed, triumphant smile spread across his face. Both his hands were intact, but he held an enormous, oddly shaped weapon resembling a tuning fork.

Ulysses Klaue.

"I have to say, your fireworks display was splendid." Klaue toyed with the sonic cannon in his hands, staring greedily at Zhao Fan. "But you've interrupted a physicist's research. Someone like you-do you know what sound is, boy?"

He abruptly pulled the trigger.

A transparent sonic projectile, almost solid in appearance, blasted toward Zhao Fan.