Chapter 1851

After Schiller called to inform Obadiah that Tony Stark had learned of his assassination attempt, the kidnappers commissioned by Obadiah were bound to take action again. However, this had a slight advantage: they would pour out of their nearby base in full force, leaving them with no remaining manpower to monitor the movements of local terrorists.

Simply put, Schiller used the "lure the tiger away from the mountain" tactic. The Ten Rings had few personnel stationed in Afghanistan to begin with. After the first operation failed, they would certainly increase their numbers to ensure the second attempt was foolproof, which meant they definitely wouldn't have time to cause trouble for the local anti-government forces.

With the pressure on the anti-government forces reduced, they could spare more men to kidnap Tony Stark. The locals certainly understood the terrain and routes better than the cult members who had parachuted in. Just like that, the anti-government forces quickly caught up to Stark and Erik's car.

Schiller's target was never Erik to begin with, so it was naturally left to Wakanda to handle. As long as Tony Stark could be kidnapped to the cave, the plan would be considered a success.

Yet, what still exceeded Schiller's expectations was that Erik actually chose to abandon Stark and flee. This caused him to further lower his expectations for Erik's professional level; clearly, the other party hadn't noticed Stark's hero complex at all.

Based on this, Schiller lowered the intensity of his plans for dealing with Erik as much as possible to prevent him from dying too quickly, which would make it impossible to provide an explanation to T'Challa.

After Stark was kidnapped into the cave, the naturally enclosed environment allowed Schiller to use a series of psychological tactics to deceive this ignorant Iron Man, to the point where he couldn't stop thinking about it. From both the perspective of interests and emotions, he regarded Schiller as his most steadfast ally.

But the plan had one most critical link: they had to create a sufficiently powerful common enemy for them. If not for this, Tony Stark would not have enough pressure to complete his transformation.

The playboy Stark and Iron Man were two completely different people. Before awakening, Tony Stark was still immersed in the fantasies of his childhood and adolescence, pinning his superhero complex on others, whereas the latter had long since recognized reality and chose to become a superhero himself to save others.

Without enough pressure, Stark would not have such an epiphany. Therefore, this person had to be sufficiently powerful and occupy a sufficiently important position in American politics. Thus, Alexander Pierce became the only candidate.

This could not be called deception, because Pierce himself was a Hydra agent and was bound to be incompatible with a hero like Stark who harbored justice.

Out of trust in Nick, Schiller believed that even within a short few days, Nick must have put enough pressure on Pierce, so he chose a rather clever location.

During his career, Pierce had of course known about many military violations and experiments and had mastered the contact methods for certain bases, and a certain abandoned base in Afghanistan was once one of the clues Pierce had mastered.

If it were just to attract a rescue, Schiller would have had no need to lead Stark to such a distant place. The purpose was for Pierce, while monitoring the situation in Afghanistan due to pressure, to keenly detect some unusual signals coming from an abandoned base.

In other words, Pierce finding the coordinates was not an accident, nor did he actively monitor Schiller's communication channel; rather, Schiller had found a secret military experimental base whose contact method Pierce had already mastered, thereby actively handing the information to him.

Pierce indeed took the bait. He felt that as long as he could arrive before Nick and shift the blame onto Schiller, he could prove his innocence. But he didn't expect that, in fact, this was all a trap set by Nick and Schiller long ago.

Pierce rushed to Afghanistan to bring Stark back to New York, but Schiller, through a series of words and actions, hinted to Stark that Pierce was the biggest Hydra agent.

This didn't just bring pressure to Stark; it also brought enough pressure to Pierce through Stark's actions against him. For example, in order to protect Schiller and also to take down Pierce, Stark would demand that Schiller be brought to court.

It looked like a relatively mild method, but in reality, having Schiller go to court meant that agents couldn't use certain special interrogation methods on him. However, Pierce had already fallen into the dilemma mentioned earlier; he had to pry some information out of Schiller's mouth to obtain results in striking Hydra and save his own career.

Pierce and Stark formed a natural opposition, which was of course also the result of Schiller and Nick's design. Nick pressured Pierce within S. H. I. E. L. D., while Schiller used his lingering influence to pressure Stark. They couldn't help but become opponents.

Becoming opponents was not the end but the beginning. Schiller hadn't intended for Tony Stark to rush directly into S. H. I. E. L. D. to shoot Pierce; on one hand, this might land Iron Man in prison, which wasn't what Schiller wanted to see, and on the other hand, it would be letting Pierce off too easily.

Schiller had always disliked Pierce, not because he was a Hydra agent, but because Pierce, as a Hydra agent in a high position, did nothing. He was the conservative among conservatives. If it weren't for his extreme conservative measures, Schiller and the Nick from their universe wouldn't have had to worry about Hydra's manpower later on.

If the Hydra agent Pierce, who had been in power for thirty years, had done a little more, would Schiller and Nick have been that tired? This, my friends, is settling a personal score under the guise of public duty.

After successfully establishing the oppositional relationship between Stark and Pierce, the entire plan had only just begun.

This plan, named "Domino" by Schiller, Nick, and T'Challa, was clearly as its name suggested: one link connected to another; once one link fell, the next would inevitably be triggered.

The oppositional relationship between Pierce and Stark allowed Coulson to gain Stark's trust with a very simple method: pointing out, when Stark felt isolated and helpless, that Nick had actually long since noticed something wrong with Pierce.

This was another layer of psychological suggestion. Simply put, when a person feels isolated and helpless, revealing to them that someone might be their ally will immediately make them develop a favorable impression of that person and partially accept the other party's arrangements.

Sure enough, Stark accepted the trade Nick proposed. In order to get Schiller out as soon as possible and let Nick take power, he was willing to go to Eastern Europe to wipe out that group of Hydra agents.

At this point, the entire arrangement for Stark in the plan was complete; it could be said to be interlinked. Generally speaking, no one could escape such a meticulously designed plan, even if he were the smartest scientist in the world. But in terms of power struggles and game theory, he was still far behind.

If one were to straighten out Stark's storyline, it could be simply summarized as: Schiller goes to PUA Stark, Nick goes to coerce Pierce, and then through a series of arrangements by both sides, the two form an opposition, each falling into an isolated and helpless situation, thereby taking an extremely risky step.

Then next is Erik's storyline, which is much simpler than Stark's. Schiller doesn't even need to get involved personally; he only needs to create some opportunities, and Erik will ruin everything himself.

For example, the first condition for Schiller's cooperation with the local anti-government forces was that Schiller would help them reorganize their troops and arrange patrol routes. Since even the patrol routes were arranged by Schiller, Schiller naturally let whoever he wanted in and kept whoever he didn't want out.

But Schiller didn't choose to keep Erik out; instead, he did the opposite and let Erik in twice.

Just as Schiller expected, Erik ruined everything himself.

Just as T'Challa judged, Erik clearly needed an opportunity to rise, but he was too concerned about his reputation. He always wanted Stark to beg him and actively give him benefits, which led to a strong sense of incongruity in all his actions.

He clearly said he was only there to save Stark, valuing friendship and not caring about fame or fortune, yet he demanded it again and again when Stark clearly refused.

One plan failing, another was born. When playing the savior hero image didn't work, he reversed his persona to play the victim to gain sympathy, and then wanted to seek common interests. In short, he used the exhaustive method to test repeatedly.

But Stark wasn't a character in a game; he was the smartest scientist in the world. Even if he wasn't good at human relationships, Erik's exhaustive method of choosing the correct option like a game protagonist would certainly arouse his vigilance.

The two of them were destined to drift further and further apart, but Erik wouldn't be willing to give up.

Schiller learned from T'Challa that Erik's situation in Wakanda was very bad. It wasn't that Wakanda was oppressing him, but that Erik wanted too much without the ability to match his ambition; being exiled was just the result of his own self-destruction.

But precisely because his heart was higher than the sky while his life was thinner than paper, Erik would definitely hold on tight to any opportunity he found to turn things around. Still, the same saying goes: a pig in a strong wind doesn't think it was blown up by the wind; it only thinks it's its own ability, and that it should have received more.

But the pressure Schiller and Nick jointly applied to Stark earlier worked. Stark chose to cooperate with Obadiah instead of exiling him. Then Obadiah became the stepping stone for Erik to use the Stark Group, an insurmountable obstacle. The two of them were also destined to be in opposition.

It was impossible for Erik to overcome the obstacle of Obadiah using ordinary methods. He possessed too few talents and wanted too much. Then he could only choose one path: to take out Obadiah using the simplest and crudest method. He would act sooner or later.

And at this time, Schiller's gaze returned to Pierce. Pierce, forced into a corner, had only one choice: to use all the cards in his hand to solve the Hydra problem in Eastern Europe to get his path to promotion back on track.

But the cards he could use were few. Nick was destined to be his opponent, not a pawn in his hand. Then he would naturally think of Tony Stark, whom he had previously saved.

Pierce knew what kind of person Stark was. He rushed to Afghanistan precisely to earn the favor of saving Stark. In a situation that had become extremely critical, if this card wasn't used now, when would it be?

Schiller also knew that Pierce wouldn't use legitimate means to drive Stark to Eastern Europe because Nick had already taken that path, and Pierce didn't have a big enough banner to drive Stark.

Then he could only use slightly despicable means, and Stark only recognized one relative: Obadiah.

Erik and Pierce's subordinates were destined to gather at Obadiah's place. One saw Obadiah as an opponent on his path to promotion and had to take him out, while the other wanted to kidnap Obadiah to Eastern Europe to blackmail Stark into coming to the rescue, thereby solving the Hydra problem.

And just as Schiller expected, the two sides met at Obadiah's villa.

Schiller knew very well that Erik wasn't a pushover either. Wakandan technology combined with his own desperate mindset meant he would inevitably eliminate the target in front of him, so Obadiah died.

But after killing Obadiah, Erik couldn't resist the agents' attack either. Thus, Pierce's goal was also accomplished. Although he couldn't kidnap Obadiah, he could kidnap Stark's savior.

Therefore, upon learning of Obadiah's death, Pierce didn't give up on his plan and instead changed the kidnapping target to Erik.

Thus, Obadiah was killed by Erik in his own villa, and Erik was kidnapped to Eastern Europe by Pierce's Hydra agents.