Chapter 692

Even now, Shi Ler firmly believed that Death had struck first.

Shi Ler had always felt that Death could cooperate with Asgard and the Egyptian pantheon, yet deliberately excluded him—was that not Death's fault, and whose else's could it be?

Of course, cooperation required mutual consent, but while Shi Ler was more than willing, Death was not—and Shi Ler felt he had a duty to raise her level of willingness.

He had followed the proper protocol: he had called Death countless times, proposed countless terms, revised the contract dozens of times—such treatment was befitting a multiversal entity.

But Death had vanished like a tornado—not only did she disappear in a flash, but before leaving, she had smashed the scale Shi Ler had worked so hard to obtain.

Since that method had failed, Shi Ler naturally had to try another: reasoning and negotiation had moved nothing, so deception and ambush were all that remained.

Right after the negotiation with Death ended, Shi Ler had devised this plan, but he still had no clear idea how to secure Death's fully voluntary second-phase cooperation—until he saw Zhang Pak's figure among the Spider Legion.

He had not forgotten that in Zhang Pak's backstory, the dying Doctor Octopus, by swapping bodies with Spider-Man, had tricked Death and successfully survived.

That meant Death's rules had loopholes—and with Zhang Pak's successful case, Shi Ler now had the clear theme for this friendly cooperation: resurrection.

As everyone knew, Death craved only death; whether allowing Asgard to resurrect heroes, permitting the Egyptian pantheon to resurrect believers, or constantly hinting at Thanos until he was obsessed—all of it was merely to make them work for her and generate more death.

And if someone who was nearly dead was suddenly resurrected, that meant one fewer death for Death to claim.

Shi Ler was, in fact, upholding justice: normally, Death should claim every death, yet she deliberately refused some to manufacture more—this was vote-rigging.

In simple terms, it was like using her authority to erase her own $2 salary, then issuing herself a $500 bonus under another pretext, netting $498.

As a moral paragon of the finance industry, Shi Ler despised such abuse of power, so he planned to use his own method to erase Death's illicit $498 gain.

If he could develop a resurrection serum to reduce deaths, he could offset the extra deaths Death had fraudulently acquired.

This was absolutely not Shi Ler seeking revenge—he was preventing Death from descending into criminality, for if her boss discovered her vote-rigging, no Nick Fury would come to pull her out of prison and rehire her.

Whoever dares say Thanos is Death's greatest friend in this universe, Shi Ler will loudly protest: Thanos is enabling Death's descent into ruin; only Shi Ler truly cares for Death's well-being.

Of course, the resurrection serum—the GH series—was inspired by the plot of the TV show S. . . . . ., in which Nick, fearing the loss of elite agents, devised a project called Tahiti.

The raw material for the GH serum in the Tahiti project was the Kree—and coincidentally, Earth currently held one Kree prisoner: the chairman seized by the mutants during the Andromeda Galaxy War.

Before his capture, the chairman claimed to be a Skrull, but Charles later discovered he was a descendant of Kree spies.

After thanking nature's gift, Shi Ler promptly proposed a plan to handle the Kree prisoner during a meeting of the Luminous Alliance.

But regardless of how the prisoner was to be dealt with, he first needed a full physical examination—humanity had never collected Kree biological data, so he had to be checked inside and out to determine how he differed from humans.

Shi Ler then instructed Connors to note during the exam that some component in the Kree's genes could serve as a serum ingredient; at the time, Connors was uncertain, but due to Shi Ler's persistent demands, he mentioned it.

Later, scientists discovered the Kree indeed possessed this trait: their regenerative and shapeshifting abilities stemmed from a unique gene sequence, one that could be extracted and formulated into a serum.

The serum's testing began—and the best test subjects were S. . . . . . agents, or rather, the Hydra agents embedded within S. . . . . .

S. . . . . . still carried many dangerous missions, and most Hydra agents avoided them—but since all agents were Hydra, some inevitably suffered heavy casualties.

In certain missions deliberately arranged by Nick, recently deceased Hydra agents were injected with GH-series serum and resurrected from death.

But as in the TV plot, the resurrected agents developed mental instability—they endlessly drew strange symbols, outlining mysterious patterns.

Because these symptoms resembled certain psychiatric disorders, Nick directly sought out Shi Ler, S. . . . . .'s psychological consultant, hoping he could find a way to counteract the side effects.

Shi Ler knew that in the TV series, these patterns were actually maps—pointing to a crucial prop: the obelisk.

Shi Ler wanted that prop, not because of any powerful ability—the obelisk was, in fact, the Inhumans' Terrigen Crystals, and not even pure ones, used only to awaken Inhuman abilities.

But Shi Ler was not an Inhuman and had no need to awaken powers; he wanted the obelisk because Red Skull had once said it held the power to "explain death itself."

That statement was bizarre—it sounded like a philosophical explanation from Kamar-Taj meditation lessons, and had nothing to do with the object's actual function—so how had Red Skull reached that conclusion?

For this reason, Shi Ler wanted to obtain the obelisk and see what made it special.

When Shi Ler returned to his S. . . . . . office, he immediately called in Ward, a longtime S. . . . . . employee.

Ward was the former Hydra mole embedded in S. . . . . ., who later worked for Shi Ler and absorbed the yellow light energy brought by Pikachu; under Shi Ler's orders, he lured Captain America to discover the Winter Soldier in the underground base.

When Ward arrived at Shi Ler's office, all his words condensed into one: "How has S. . . . . . become like this??"

Ward vaguely remembered that before, he had been an oddity in S. . . . . . a Hydra mole, living in constant fear, careful to avoid exposure—yet after returning from leave, he found every agent wandering the office was an old acquaintance… an old snake.

Since then, he had come to understand the vital role of S. . . . . .'s psychologists, for he often wondered: was the world insane?

Shi Ler gently tapped the desk, signaling him to sit; once Ward sat down, he heard Shi Ler say:

"I want you to retrieve an object called Obelisk 084. It should be stored in one of Hydra's warehouses. Since its surface is corrosive and cannot be touched directly, use your special ability to bring it back."

"You're not the only one after it—during the operation, you may encounter opponents with special abilities; you can use your previous yellow light energy against them."

Shi Ler looked Ward in the eyes: "I want no accidents. By tomorrow morning, I expect that object on my desk."

In S. . . . . .'s operations prep room, Coulson loaded the final bullet into his pistol and addressed the agents before him: "The search for Object 084 has entered its final phase. We've locked onto the target warehouse. We're moving in to retrieve it."

"Recovering lost special items is S. . . . . .'s inescapable duty. I want no incidents. Prepare for departure."

With that, Coulson holstered his pistol and turned, striding swiftly from the room.

A rapid series of footsteps echoed down the corridor—Coulson led, the other agents silent behind him, marching quickly through S. . . . . .'s main hall.

"Ding-dong." The elevator doors opened; everyone stepped in. As the doors slowly closed, a trace of weariness crossed Coulson's brow.

After opening the car door and climbing in, the driver turned to Coulson: "Boss, you look tired lately. Don't you need a rest?"

Coulson leaned back against the headrest, shook his head without speaking—he knew his condition was poor.

S. . . . . . was currently short-staffed; many agents were assigned to the Solar System Construction Project, so the burden of local defense fell entirely on Coulson.

He had to manage internal affairs, coordinate personnel, and monitor every project.

Meanwhile, the Tahiti Project weighed heavily on his conscience—he didn't know the agents were Hydra; Coulson still believed the suffering agents were fellow heroes who had once served S. . . . . . with distinction.

This psychological torment drained him most of all; Coulson hadn't even noticed his fingers trembled constantly—only when gripping his gun did the shaking lessen slightly.

Upon reaching the mission site, Coulson pushed open the door first, as if to clear his mind—he quickened his pace and entered the warehouse.

The moment he spotted a crate marked "084," he heard a rush of wind toward him.

Coulson drew his gun and spun around, instantly aiming at the sudden figure: a bald, powerfully built man.

Startled in the silent environment, Coulson instinctively pulled the trigger—two shots rang out, striking the bald man's arm and thigh.

But to Coulson's shock, the man did not cry out or fall—he stood unmoved.

Coulson saw every bullet embedded in the man's body had been absorbed into him.