Chapter 92: Saving the President

Unfortunately, their plan was not yet ready when this band of madmen struck first. The president and his people were now trapped inside the White House.

“Hahahaha! You pathetic ants actually dare oppose the messengers of the True God?” A wealthy man who had been promised immortality had come in person to fan the Divine Envoy. As a “devout member of the Holy Church,” he had once kissed the envoy’s boots simply to secure a place among the first chosen for eternal life.

“Bah! You lapdogs of an evil god, traitors to humanity! Your names will be carved onto history’s pillar of shame and cursed by everyone who comes after us.” A believer stepped out from behind President Tang Chuan. He was a member of the church whom the president had summoned. To deal with the evil god behind these traitors, Tang Chuan had followed the instructions of the powerful figures backing him and sought out a church that possessed supernatural abilities.

“You? Or perhaps these cloves of garlic? Maybe this salt? What an utter joke. Our names will be written in the history books as pioneers of a new age.” Seeing that the first man had stolen the spotlight, another tycoon hurried forward to sneer. In his eyes, the power of human society was laughably weak compared with that of the True God. How could they be called traitors? They were pioneers.

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Tang Chuan sat in the presidential chair, staring fixedly at the Divine Envoy before him. Just moments ago, an entire reinforced platoon of American soldiers had been unable to stop this one man. Tang Chuan had already contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. in secret, and he assumed reinforcements would arrive soon.

“You’re waiting for the people from S.H.I.E.L.D., aren’t you?”

The envoy was dressed much like the cult leader Steve had encountered before: a black hood concealed his entire body, while his face was hidden behind a mask resembling an octopus.

Tang Chuan’s expression stiffened. Could this envoy read minds? The moment the man had appeared, Tang Chuan had sent out a distress signal. By all rights, no one should have known about it.

“Heh heh. Aren’t you curious why the people from S.H.I.E.L.D. still haven’t arrived after all this time?”

The mask concealed the envoy’s expression, yet Tang Chuan could still sense the slow, creeping malice radiating from him.

Then the envoy clapped his hands, and two agents whom Tang Chuan knew all too well appeared. They were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who frequently came and went from the White House.

“Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. already belongs to us. Your reinforcements will never arrive.”

The envoy turned toward the two agents. As expected, they performed the cult’s ritual salute. The two tycoons who had joined the Holy Church exchanged uneasy glances. Even they had not known about this.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you at a time like this, but I’m afraid your conspiracy ends here.”

Tony’s voice descended from above with a beam of laser light. Iron Man had arrived at the White House. At the same moment, air-raid sirens began to wail over the building, and the general responsible for Washington’s security and defense broke through the White House’s security cordon, surrounding the cult members.

“Tony Stark, you will pay for your insolence.”

The laser blast hurled the Divine Envoy against the wall, reducing his black robes to tatters. Seeing that the situation had turned against them, the two tycoons supporting the envoy prepared to flee. As long as they remained alive, American law could do little to them.

Clearly, however, neither the envoy nor Iron Man intended to let them escape. After delivering his threat, the envoy’s arms transformed into two tentacles, which drained the flesh and blood from the two men nearest to him. Watching a living person become a desiccated corpse in an instant, even the two tycoons controlled by the evil power trembled violently and dared not approach the envoy again.

“Why run from fate? Become one with me!”

The envoy had evidently noticed their attempt to flee, and his tentacles surged toward them.

Tony could never stand by while a cultist slaughtered people in front of him. After ordering the president and the others to leave at once, he launched an attack on the Divine Envoy.

Why had Tony suddenly appeared here?

The answer, naturally, was Nick Fury.

After Tony brought Steve back to New York, Fury tried every possible method to contact the White House, only to have all communications rejected. He immediately realized that something had definitely happened there.

At that moment, JARVIS pushed a news report before them announcing that the Shield of the Americas had failed. Tony also returned to Avengers Tower at nearly the same time.

When Fury saw Tony arrive with Steve, inspiration struck. He ordered the most mobile member of the team to head for the White House immediately. He had already contacted several senior military officials who had not been compromised and intended to rescue the president first. After all, only the president knew how the energy core was supposed to be constructed.

Thus, Tony had barely returned home before he had to leave again. He flew straight toward the White House, ignoring every air-defense warning along the way. The current Iron Man was faster than a missile, and none of those weapons could hit him anyway.

Meanwhile, Fury and the others prepared to counterattack S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Fury had contacted the personnel who were out in the field and informed them of the disaster that had overtaken the organization, ordering them to remain vigilant around anyone who had been contaminated.

As for Fury’s own operation, once JARVIS breached S.H.I.E.L.D.’s firewall, Steve would lead a team inside the headquarters, while Qu Yizhi would suppress the mental contamination.

Suppressing the contamination required certain conditions: the victim’s mind could not be fully conscious. Unconsciousness or sleep would both suffice. Fury knew the structure of S.H.I.E.L.D. well, so he planned to introduce a sedative into the air-circulation system.

Fortunately, Doctor Helen was currently at Avengers Tower, making it easy to obtain the necessary drug. Now was the time to strike back at S.H.I.E.L.D.

While the Avengers busied themselves with rescuing the president and counterattacking S.H.I.E.L.D., several other major powers learned through their own channels what had happened in the United States.

It was difficult to believe that a band of cultists could reduce the world’s foremost superpower to such a state. But the disaster had already occurred, and no matter how absurd it seemed, it had to be faced.

After failing dozens of times to contact the American president, ASEAN, Russia, and the European Union each dispatched a delegation to the United States. There were still countless international students and tourists within American territory, after all, making the reconstruction of the energy core inevitable.

Nor could anyone overlook the fact that the United States possessed the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal. If the cultists obtained those weapons—or spread them elsewhere—the threat would be impossible to ignore.

Whether these nations also intended to weaken the United States or cultivate their own influence was impossible to say. America possessed more scientists than any other country in the world, and surely many of them would be eager to seek refuge in a safer nation.

As for the barrier regulations, which allowed people to leave but not enter, many countries had yet to activate their own barriers. After all, the United States was the disaster’s front line.