Sound is the art of destruction!

"Sound is the art of destruction!"

Ulysses Klaue hadn't spoken loudly, but amplified by that bizarre weapon, his arrogant declaration seemed to explode directly inside Zhao Fan's brain.

This wasn't the shockwave of an ordinary explosion, the kind accompanied by heat and flames that gave people something to track. What hurtled toward Zhao Fan was a transparent ripple almost invisible to the naked eye. The air compressed to its limit in an instant, like cellophane furiously crumpled by an invisible hand. Light warped, producing a nauseating refraction.

Enhanced by the Extremis Virus, Zhao Fan's dynamic vision had already surpassed human limits. He clearly saw the dust suspended in the air, tiny iron filings, and even a passing moth disintegrate into the smallest particles wherever the ripple passed.

It was resonance-induced disintegration at the molecular level.

Without hesitation, Zhao Fan abruptly arched backward, abandoning his plan to harden his carapace and tank the attack. His instincts screamed wildly-he couldn't block it! Absolutely not!

[Warning! Extremely high-frequency directional sound waves detected!]

[Warning! Sonic waves will cause a chain disintegration of hardened defenses!]

The system's red warnings flooded Zhao Fan's retinas like a waterfall.

"Damn it!"

Zhao Fan reacted incredibly fast. In that critical instant, he forcibly interrupted the biological keratin layer forming inside his body. His skin, already taking on a metallic sheen, instantly lost its color and regained the softness of flesh. It was like a tank shedding its armor to become a race car at full speed. The violent physiological backlash sent agony through his chest, and he tasted blood in his throat.

But he couldn't worry about that.

"Move!"

Zhao Fan slammed both palms against the ground.

[Kinetic Repulsion: Directional Recoil]!

Boom!

The concrete instantly cracked, blasting out a crater half a meter deep. Propelled by the tremendous reaction force, Zhao Fan shot diagonally backward like a violently kicked ball, moving with astonishing speed despite his utterly ungainly posture.

Hum-crack!

Barely a tenth of a second after his feet left the ground, the sonic projectile struck his previous position.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a sharp crack like a massive pane of glass smashed by a heavy hammer. The half-meter-thick concrete reinforced with steel instantly lost all structural strength. Hard cement became fine powder, and the thick reinforcing bars seemed to lose their souls, snapping brittlely into a heap of red iron powder.

"What the hell is that thing?!"

Zhao Fan tumbled several times through the air. Even after landing, his chest felt tight, his eardrums buzzed, and his sense of balance was nearly gone. He staggered two steps and barely steadied himself against an abandoned marine engine.

Looking at the huge crater that had been "erased," he instantly soaked his tactical vest with cold sweat.

In the original movie, Klaue had only a crude sonic cannon fitted to his severed arm. Though powerful, it had never possessed this oppressive, destructive force. But the physicist before him had both hands intact, and the weapon he held-a gigantic tuning fork studded with countless transistors and Vibranium circuits-was practically a scythe-wielding grim reaper.

"Oh? You actually dodged?"

Standing on the steps several dozen meters away, Klaue raised an eyebrow with interest. Rather than immediately pursuing, he looked down at the weapon's readings and then at the disheveled Zhao Fan, like a child testing a new toy.

"Looks like you're no ordinary guest." Klaue spoke with a sickly elegance, running his tongue over his lips. "That instantaneous burst of energy... are you a stray fish that escaped that Hydra outfit? Or another scientific freak manufactured by S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

As he spoke, he casually adjusted the weapon's knobs. Their sharp clicks sounded especially grating across the silent battlefield.

Zhao Fan drew a deep breath. The Extremis Virus worked furiously inside him, repairing the internal trauma caused by forcibly interrupting his skill at an astonishing rate. He straightened, wiped the blood from his mouth, and his gaze grew as hard and sharp as a blade.

Klaue watched Zhao Fan stare straight at the sonic cannon in his hands.

"Ha! Want my baby?"

Klaue burst into exaggerated laughter, its neurotic echoes reverberating among the scrap metal.

"Do you know what this is, young man?" Klaue raised the sonic cannon, fanaticism flashing in his eyes. "This is the Sonic Crusher, developed by combining Wakandan sonic technology with my own lifetime of acoustic research! It can turn tank armor into flour and human bones into crumbled tofu. It's a miracle of physics!"

Zhao Fan didn't want to give him another chance to charge up or deliver a speech.

While Klaue spoke, Zhao Fan's mind raced. A frontal clash was out of the question. With [Hard Carapace] countered, a single hit-even somewhere nonvital-would produce a full-body resonance that instantly rendered him helpless.

Only speed was unbeatable.

"Ben, analyze his weapon's frequency! I need his firing interval!" Zhao Fan roared into his earpiece as he sprang into motion.

He stopped moving in straight lines. Using the mountains of abandoned shipping containers, broken anchors, and enormous gears around him as cover, he closed in on Klaue in a zigzag, like an antelope bounding across a rocky shore.

"Analyzing... damn it, this data is a mess!" Benjamin's voice broke up amid electrical interference. Clearly, Klaue's sonic weapon also severely disrupted communications. "Boss, those are high-frequency sound waves. The frequency keeps jumping between 18 Hz and 20,000 Hz with no pattern. It's very hard to defend against completely! But... after every high-energy beam, those transistors need to cool. There's roughly a one-second gap!"

"One second... that's enough!"

Seizing his moment, Zhao Fan pushed off. [Kinetic Repulsion] erupted beneath his shoes, carrying him more than ten meters in a single stride as he darted from behind a container.

"Useless, rat!"

Klaue sneered. Without even aiming, he simply pointed roughly toward Zhao Fan and pulled the trigger again.

Hummm-!!!

This time, instead of a precision sonic projectile, a fan-shaped wave spread outward, covering the entire 180-degree area before Zhao Fan.

It was an area attack, with nowhere to dodge!

Visible ripples of air surged forward like a tsunami. The container before Zhao Fan twisted with a teeth-grating screech in the sound waves. Its heavy sheet metal tore and crumpled like paper, its paint instantly peeling away into dust.

Facing the all-encompassing attack, Zhao Fan showed no fear, only a trace of desperate ruthlessness.

If resonance would disintegrate physical defenses, then he would counter energy with energy!

Sound waves were mechanical waves that required a medium to travel, while the heat generated by high-energy current could instantly alter that medium's density and state!

He abruptly stopped, planting his feet like nails in the ground and cupping his hands around an imaginary ball before his chest.

Golden currents frantically converged between his palms, a mixture of the heat generated by the Extremis Virus and his body's bioelectricity. His arms instantly turned crimson, as though liquid gold flowed through his veins. The surrounding air rapidly expanded from the heat.

With a furious roar, Zhao Fan thrust the highly unstable ball of lightning from his hands.

Crackle-boom!!!

The raging lightning ball slammed into the transparent wall of sound in midair.

On one side were sound waves capable of shattering material structures; on the other, searing currents capable of burning everything and ionizing air. The collision between these two utterly different energies instantly produced a miniature storm.

The surrounding air instantly heated, ionized, and expanded, producing violent detonations. The explosion's shockwave swept outward, carrying electrical currents and infrasound.

"Cough, cough..."

Smoke and dust billowed everywhere.

The blast forced Klaue back two steps. Several holes had burned through his expensive suit, and his previously immaculate hair was disheveled.

The smile finally vanished from his face, replaced by offended anger.

"Interesting," he said through gritted teeth. "You actually thought to disrupt air density with heat to weaken sonic transmission... a brute like you understands physics?"

But before he could raise his gun again, a ghostly figure suddenly pierced the lingering smoke.

It was Zhao Fan!

Using the chaos and obscured visibility created by that last strike, he activated the ability upgraded by Hydra's phase-transition weapon.

[Phase Blink]! (After the upgrade, Phase Blink not only lasted a full second but also greatly increased his resistance to space, allowing him to move faster while phased.)

An almost imperceptible distortion appeared in the air. Zhao Fan's running figure seemed to "drop a frame" in reality, instantly crossing twenty meters of deadly ground and appearing right beside Klaue.

Less than a meter separated them.

At this distance, Zhao Fan could smell Klaue's expensive cologne and the faint scent of machine oil. He could also see his own ferocious face reflected in Klaue's pupils.

"Nice toy. Shame about you."

Zhao Fan's voice was as cold as if it came from the deepest hell.

His right hand remained soft instead of hardening, but tremendous repulsive force gathered in his palm. He didn't attack Klaue's body, knowing that a warlord of this caliber would certainly have advanced armor or some other means of survival.

He struck the sonic cannon in Klaue's hands with his palm.

[Kinetic Repulsion: Internal Shock]!

He had developed this move specifically to deal with precision machinery. Since acquiring the Master Access Key and Benjamin's technical support, he had gained a deeper understanding of weaknesses in mechanical structures.

If he couldn't meet it head-on, he would destroy it from within.

Hum-crack!

An exquisitely controlled yet immensely destructive shockwave traveled down the barrel and into the weapon.

A series of sharp, popping cracks erupted inside Klaue's sonic cannon as its precision Vibranium transistors and resonance chambers collided and shattered under the repulsive interference.

Then black smoke poured from the cooling vents, and the core crystal on the barrel instantly burst into powder.

"No! My masterpiece!" Klaue cried in anguish, sounding more distressed than if he were being killed.

But he was still a veteran warlord who had spent years in Africa, with incredibly quick and ruthless reactions. The instant his weapon was destroyed, he released it, letting the priceless scrap fall. At the same time, he drew a large-caliber revolver from his waist with his right hand and fired at Zhao Fan at point-blank range.

Bang!

At this distance, dodging was impossible-and unnecessary.

The bullet struck Zhao Fan's shoulder.

But this time, with no sonic interference, [Hard Carapace] instantly activated across his body. Black keratin covered the impact point within a thousandth of a second, stopping a bullet powerful enough to snap an elephant's leg. It left only a faint white mark and a deformed lump of lead.

Zhao Fan didn't even sway.

His left hand curled into a claw. Furious at being shot, he seized Klaue's throat and lifted the burly man like a chick. Klaue instantly pressed a button on his body, unleashing a powerful burst of sound that formed a shockwave and struck Zhao Fan directly. Zhao Fan swung his arm and hurled Klaue hard into a nearby scrap heap.

Boom!

The scrap heap collapsed, throwing up a cloud of dust.

"Cough... cough, cough..."

Dazed by the impact, Klaue lay amid the scrap, his spine groaning in protest. He gasped for breath, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

But he was still laughing.

His laughter was hoarse and ugly, tinged with hysterical madness.

"Freak, you think... you've won?" Laughing, Klaue stared at Zhao Fan as though looking at a dead man. "Where do you think you are? This is my shipbreaking yard... every blade of grass, every tree, every piece of scrap here is my soldier!"

"Even without a weapon, this is my kingdom!"

Zhao Fan's heart tightened as an ominous premonition surged through him.

As Klaue finished speaking, he slammed his left hand onto an unremarkable-looking metal plate beside him. A red button lay hidden beneath it.

"Welcome to-hell!"

"Zzzzt-hummm-"

Everything changed abruptly.

The mountains of scrap, the rusted ship hulls, and even the metal ground beneath Zhao Fan's feet suddenly began to vibrate violently.

Countless powerful loudspeakers and sonic generators hidden in gaps in the ruins, disguised as scrap, activated simultaneously.

It turned out Klaue didn't merely carry a weapon. He had converted the entire core of the shipbreaking yard-a circular area two hundred meters in radius-into an enormous, omnidirectional sonic resonance field!

It was a gigantic trap, a lethal sonic emplacement specifically designed to deal with superhumans or heavily armored troops.

"Aaaah!!!"

An all-pervasive wave of infrasound instantly enveloped the area.

This time, it wasn't an attack, but torture.

Zhao Fan felt as if a red-hot iron rod were violently stirring his brain. The world before him instantly fragmented into countless overlapping images. Intense nausea churned his stomach, nearly making him vomit bile.

His body was even worse.

Under this omnidirectional sonic suppression, his bones ground together, his blood boiled, and every cell seemed to howl. [Hard Carapace] failed completely. Even the healing speed of the [Extremis Virus] was overwhelmed by the continuous damage.

He wasn't the only one.

Far away, Old Dog, who had been suppressing the enemy with his Gatling gun, suddenly screamed. The heavy machine gun fell from his hands, and he rolled on the ground in agony, clutching his ears as blood seeped between his fingers.

Yelena, lurking in the shadows, also swayed and fell from her elevated hiding place. The balance she took such pride in had utterly vanished.

"This is the Sonic Maze!"

Klaue struggled out of the scrap heap. Zhao Fan's fingerprints still marked his neck, but now he looked like the king of this domain. Clearly, he had long since undergone some specialized adaptation training or was wearing some kind of shielding device. Though he experienced some discomfort, it wasn't lethal as it was for Zhao Fan and the others.

"Here, every sound is endlessly amplified, echoed, and layered!" Klaue picked up a solid ribbed steel rod and hefted it, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "Your organs will slowly turn to paste, and your brains will crumble like silken tofu! And I'll watch you bleed from every orifice until you die!"

He staggered toward Zhao Fan, raising the iron rod high.

"This is what happens when you steal from me!"

Zhao Fan knelt on one knee, both hands braced desperately against the ground, his nails digging into the dirt. Sweat poured off him, instantly soaking his clothes.

The system blared frantic warnings, red exclamation marks filling his vision, but he could no longer hear them clearly. His head held nothing but that maddening hum.

Death felt so close.

The iron rod whistled down, heading straight for the back of Zhao Fan's skull.

Yet in that moment of despair, Zhao Fan's keen [Weak Energy Perception]-a passive skill that stubbornly continued working even under these extreme conditions-detected something unusual.

This supposedly "omnidirectional" sonic field wasn't perfect.

To the south, the suffocating sonic pressure seemed... much weaker? There was even an enormous "gap," introducing a faintly discordant note into the entire field's resonance frequency.

Though Zhao Fan's mind was muddled, his combat instincts remained.

The south... what happened there?

Fire!

The thermobaric bombs Old Dog detonated earlier!

That earth-shattering explosion had not only destroyed the fuel depot. Its heat and shockwave had also melted the metal structures in that area, burning out the sonic generator circuits buried beneath them!

Damage to the terrain had left a corner missing from Klaue's Sonic Maze!

"If there's a gap... then it's no maze... just a busted cage with holes in it!"

Zhao Fan jerked his head up. Golden-red flames reignited in his unfocused eyes.

"Get lost!"

The instant before the rod smashed his skull, Zhao Fan didn't dodge. Instead, he poured every last bit of strength into his left arm.

Even if he couldn't use repulsion, he still had his enhanced body!

He raised his left arm and took the blow head-on.

Clang!

A dull impact rang out. Zhao Fan's forearm bone cracked, and the agony sharpened his awareness.

Using that pain, he thrust out his right hand and once again seized Klaue's ankle in an iron grip.

"What?!" Klaue blanched. He couldn't understand how this man could still move under sound waves of this intensity.

"Ben! Attack the control node in the southern sector! There's a break there!" Zhao Fan roared into his nearly useless earpiece, his voice as rough as sandpaper.

Inside the armored vehicle in the distance, Benjamin was suffering badly from the interference too, but he heard Zhao Fan's shout.

"South... break point... got it! That damned short-circuit signal!" Benjamin's hands blurred across the keyboard. "Shut... up!"

He concentrated all his computing power on attacking the system vulnerability exposed by the physical damage.

Zzzzt-pop!

It was like some kind of chain reaction.

Starting in the south, a succession of electrical sparks burst through the ruins. The roaring loudspeakers overloaded one after another, smoking and exploding.

The suffocating weight pressing down on their hearts rapidly receded like an ebbing tide.

"No!!!" Klaue roared in despair.

The world fell silent in an instant.

Only heavy breathing and the crackle of distant flames remained.

Zhao Fan gasped for breath. The feeling of having narrowly escaped death left his entire body drained, but he did not collapse.

He slowly rose to his feet and looked at Klaue, who stood before him in terror, still holding the iron rod.

"Looks like your concert ended early due to equipment failure."

Zhao Fan's face was smeared with blood, his smile savage.

"This... this is impossible..." Klaue backed away step by step. His greatest trump card had failed. Before Zhao Fan, he was now nothing more than a lamb awaiting slaughter.

"Nothing's impossible."

Just then, a cold silver gleam flew out of the shadows to the side.

Whoosh!

A rapidly vibrating throwing knife plunged precisely into Klaue's thigh, severing his tendon.

"Aah!" Klaue screamed and fell to the ground, the iron rod dropping from his hand beside him.

Yelena emerged from behind a pile of scrap steel. Her face was pale too, and blood stained the corner of her mouth. She had clearly suffered considerable injuries as well, but her gaze remained as sharp as an eagle's.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time." Yelena walked over and pulled the knife from Klaue's leg, drawing a spray of blood.

"Don't... don't kill me..." Klaue finally felt fear. He looked at Zhao Fan's golden-red eyes, then at the bloody knife in Yelena's hand. "I have money! I have Vibranium! I'll give you all of it! I still have a billion dollars in bonds in a Swiss bank!"

"Of course I'm taking the Vibranium." Zhao Fan spoke coldly, stepping on Klaue's right hand and grinding down hard. "As for your money... that's ransom, but right now, you're not worth that much to me."

"Aaaaargh!" Klaue squealed like a pig being slaughtered.

Zhao Fan glanced at Yelena beside him.

Yelena nodded, turned the blade in her hand, and pressed it against Klaue's throat.

Klaue trembled all over, a wet patch spreading across his crotch.

But Yelena hesitated. In the end, instead of slitting his throat, she slammed the knife's hilt into his temple.

Thud.

Klaue's eyes rolled back, and he passed out.

"Keep him alive." Yelena put away her knife and told Zhao Fan, "What's in this lunatic's head is worth more than his life. Besides, handing him over to the military or certain buyers could get us more benefits. We need a scapegoat, and we need a bargaining chip."

Zhao Fan gave her an approving look. That was exactly what he had been thinking. Alive, Klaue was a walking intelligence archive, an important pawn for keeping Black Panther and Wakanda in check in the future, and a "culprit" they could throw to the outside world to explain everything that had happened here tonight.

"Tie him up and hand him over to Old Dog. He'll be more than happy to take out some anger on him."

Zhao Fan paid no further attention to Klaue, who lay there like a dead dog. He turned and looked toward the deepest part of the "palace."

There stood a heavy lead door that the sonic weapon had not shattered, marked with intricate Wakandan totems in a primitive tribal style.

Behind it lay the ultimate goal of their trip.

Zhao Fan walked up to the door without looking for any switches.

He took a deep breath and pressed his hand against it.

[Hard Carapace] and [Extremis Virus] activated together. Red-and-black claws sprang out like Wolverine's and plunged straight into the gap in the door.

"Open!"

Amid the teeth-grating sounds of metal melting and tearing, and the explosive cracks of hydraulic mechanisms breaking, he used brute strength aided by intense heat to rip a large opening in the special-alloy door that even explosives would have struggled to breach.

An eerie purple glow seeped through the gap.

Zhao Fan pushed aside the warped door panel and walked in.

The sight beyond the door made even Zhao Fan, who was accustomed to alien technology, hold his breath.

It was not a vault, but a glowing cavern.

Dozens of specially made transparent, high-strength polymer containers stood in neat rows, each holding an irregular chunk of metallic ore that gave off an enchanting purple glow. In the very center of the room lay several refined Vibranium tubes, their surfaces covered in mysterious patterns.

Their glow illuminated the dim room and Zhao Fan's dust- and blood-covered face, reflecting a sheen called "greed" and "hope" in his pupils.

"My God..."

Having finished teaching Klaue a lesson, Old Dog stumbled over, covered in mud and still bleeding from his ears. At the sight before him, even the shotgun in his hands fell to the ground.

"This... this is Vibranium? How much must this be worth? I feel like I can already see my private island, my yacht, and a whole crowd of bikini babes waving at me!"

"This is more than just money, Old Dog."

Zhao Fan walked inside and picked up a Vibranium tube.

The metal was unbelievably light, as though he held nothing more than a plastic tube, yet it felt cold and hard against his fingertips. He could sense a unique inertness within the metal, that miraculous property capable of absorbing all kinetic energy, sound waves, and heat.

With this, his Nightmare armor would no longer be scrap metal liable to melt at any moment, but a truly formidable weapon.

System, scan, he said silently.

[Ding!]

[High-purity raw Vibranium detected.]

[Prerequisites for S-rank equipment crafting met.]

[Special technology blueprint detected: Sonic Solidification Generator (incomplete).]

The system notifications rang out in his mind. They were simply the most beautiful music in the world.

"We're going to get rich, and we're going to get stronger."

Zhao Fan turned and looked at his teammates behind him, who were battered and disheveled but had fervent eyes.

Benjamin cheered over the earpiece, Yelena leaned against the doorframe and wiped the blood from her knife, and Old Dog hugged a chunk of Vibranium ore, grinning foolishly.

"Old Dog, call in the transport. I want every gram of raw ore here taken with us." Zhao Fan gave his orders. "Pack all this Vibranium into crates and secure them with lead seals."

"Keep an eye on Klaue while you're at it. Don't let him die, and don't let him escape. He's our bargaining chip with the government."

"Yelena, search Klaue's palace again. There should be research materials on his sonic technology."

"Ben, erase every trace. I don't want anyone knowing tomorrow morning that we did this. Make it all look like... an ammunition depot explosion caused by infighting among mercenaries."

"Yes, boss!"

Their responses echoed through the empty warehouse, filled with the joy of victory.

Half an hour later.

An unmarked, pitch-black Quinjet slowly landed in the clearing outside the abandoned shipyard.

Zhao Fan stood at the cabin entrance, looking at the still-burning ruins below. The faint sound of vehicles could already be heard in the distance, either belated reinforcements from the local government forces or other vultures drawn by the explosions.

But he no longer cared.

This place held no more value. They had plundered everything of worth.

Though this battle had been perilous and had nearly wiped them out, it had also tempered their team, named S.C.U., in blood and fire, giving them the fangs to establish a foothold in the cruel jungle of the Marvel Universe.

"Let's go."

Zhao Fan took one last look at Africa's deep, wild night sky.

"There are still people waiting for us in New York."

The jet rose vertically, blue exhaust flames streaming from its engines as it cut through the darkness and flew toward the far side of the ocean.

Inside the cabin, Zhao Fan closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the gray haze of System Space.

There, beside the Next-Generation Repulsor Engine Core with its eerie blue glow, lay several new Vibranium tubes emitting a mysterious purple light.

The blue and purple light intertwined, as though foreshadowing something.