Chapter 87: Powerful Titanium Alloy Equipment

Moving through a sewer shaft was a miserable task, and the worst part was the stench.

For panda-men who treated good food as the meaning of life, foul odors were nothing less than a stink too terrible for life to bear. That was especially true for Old Wang, a gourmet panda-man who had already earned the feat of finishing the culinary journey through Azeroth.

He regretted, a little, not having asked the agency for a gas mask. Now he could only hold his breath and rely on the stamina that had once carried him across the endless sea. A few hours would be no problem.

The agency had already scanned the entire building and created a three-dimensional model. Skye was at Nick Fury’s base, using the server-grade computer he had supplied. By receiving the controller’s location signal, she pinpointed her real-time position and guided him forward.

In less than ten minutes, Old Wang had crawled into the building’s underground parking garage.

His keen hearing caught the faint crack of gunfire from above. The fighting had clearly begun.

The rest of the special operations team kept reporting in. Black Widow was making smooth progress, and Stick and the others had encountered little trouble. Matt’s formidable sense allowed him to detect danger and enemies before they ever came close.

This operation was far too dangerous. The Hand had gathered nearly all of its elite forces, including every weapon that could be bought on the market and shipped to New York in time—large quantities of firearms and bombs made by Hammer Industries, for example.

The battle was not only on the ground, but in the sky as well. The Hand was a wealthy and powerful organization, and had even deployed more than one helicopter, each equipped with machine guns and explosives.

The police could not be trusted.

Wilson Fisk, the future Kingpin, had nearly gained complete control over the New York Police Department. If they did not make things worse, that would already be fortunate.

The Hand’s strength and influence were nothing like the weak portrayal seen in budget television dramas. This organization had existed for a thousand years. No one knew how many business titans, government officials, and high-ranking police and military figures it had manipulated from the shadows.

Many of the highly trained elite agents from the agency would surely die. Even Black Widow could not guarantee absolute safety, which was why Old Wang had not allowed Gabriel to take part. Officially, he had also kept Robbie out of it—

Of course, in reality, Robbie had already arrived nearby and, under Skye’s direction, was ready to join the battle at any moment.

As for the underground section?

The secrets hidden there could not yet be known by others.

Not even the agency.

Especially not the agency.

The matter of the dragon bone fossil was top-level secrecy even within the Hand. Only the five leaders and a few trusted subordinates knew what that wall truly was, and what lay beyond it.

The agency could not possibly know. Neither could Hydra.

Suddenly, Old Wang felt a stir in his heart. He heard faint footsteps approaching from far away.

Once, Old Wang had been the finest scout of the Seventh Legion, the only assassin in Ravenholdt Manor with a one-hundred-percent success rate. Agile in action, he was overweight, yes, but his steps were lighter than a cat’s, making no sound any human ear could catch—leaving no trace on snow, no echo upon the ground. He approached in silence and struck without hesitation.

Claws tore through a throat.

A spray of blood burst into the air.

Two men died on the spot.

The Hand had stationed its largest and most elite force in the underground area, including all four remaining leaders.

This was a move made in broad daylight.

The building was packed with explosives, gangsters, and weapons. The Hand intended to use the entire building, and the lives of tens of thousands in the surrounding area, as bait to draw in the Immortal Iron Fist. Their purpose was twofold:

First, to tempt or force the Immortal Iron Fist to open the seal of a certain past Iron Fist, and thus obtain the complete dragon bone fossil.

If the Iron Fist did not know the seal existed, he could be easily lured into breaking it; if he did know, then he would be constrained and far easier to deal with, to capture, to kill.

As traitors to Kunlun, the five leaders of the Hand likely even knew a method of stripping away the power of the Iron Fist. Alexandra and the other three probably all harbored ambitions of becoming the Iron Fist themselves. Their ultimate goal was not survival, nor endless crime.

It was to go home.

Only the Iron Fist could open the Gates of Kunlun. Only the Iron Fist could go home.

Second, by means of unending slaughter, to allow the Beast, which fed on primal desire and original sin, to grow ever stronger, until it possessed the power to stand against the Iron Fist, against the agency, against the government.

The details of the plot from memory had already grown hazy, but one sentence Alexandra had once spoken remained crystal clear in Old Wang’s mind:

It is only a city. You will grow used to seeing it fall.

To raze a city, to let tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands die unnatural deaths—this meant nothing at all to the five leaders of the Hand. Cities destroyed by the Hand throughout history numbered far more than one; the dead because of them numbered far more than a million.

Ordinary members of the Hand, even elite ones, could be sacrificed at any moment. So long as the five leaders survived, they could assume new identities and lie low for decades.

So long as they obtained the dragon bone fossil, they had all the time in the world to wait.

And now what Old Wang had to do was make sure they no longer had to wait.

Never again.

More members of the Hand rushed toward him.

It was a problem that seemed impossible to solve:

If he did not kill them, he would have to endure even fiercer attacks, for the Hand’s elites had long since been brainwashed and knew no fear of death.

If he did kill them, then the Beast would continue to grow. That creature must be hidden somewhere, endlessly devouring desire and sin. Yet slaughter itself was the greatest sin.

But for Old Wang, there was a solution.

There are no absolutes in this world. Common sense is not always reliable.

Pandas possess a bite force humans can never hope to match, yet they survive by being adorable.

Panda-men were tall and powerful, their combat ability no weaker than that of any orc. They had once defeated the arrogant Mogu Empire. But because of the Seven Calamities, they did their utmost to avoid violence, and indiscriminate killing was strictly forbidden.

When it came to rendering an opponent unable to fight without killing him, panda-man monks were masters among masters.

As for subduing one female creature after another, and the male creatures behind them, Old Wang had built his own set of methods, more dependable than any bondage expert’s.

Heart of Enlightenment.

Swift Reflexes.

Throat-Cutting Hand.

Diamond Shock.

Severing Tendons and Shattering Bones.

Old Wang quickly identified the direction ahead and used inner force bursts to travel, doing his best to avoid the Hand’s assassins.

When he could not avoid them, he simply crippled them by any means necessary.

Matt could dislocate an enemy’s arms and legs.

Stick could induce a physical kind of hypnosis.

Elektra could leave men unable to rise from the agony she inflicted.

As a grandmaster monk far stronger than any of them by a hundred or a thousand times, Old Wang could snap a mammoth’s leg, split the hide of a rhinoceros, and break the sinews of stallions and stags. What reason had he to fear these mere mortal assassins?

Fitz and Simmons had designed the gauntlets and staff so that they could release a controllable current, stunning those who touched them rather than killing them.

The capillary tubes at the tips of the hollow claws could instantly inject cobra toxin and dendrotoxin upon contact with skin, with the dosage likewise adjustable so that a target would be incapacitated without dying.

There were more than a dozen such designs.

The beauty of high technology was that the larger and the smaller it got, the more valuable it became.

The agency’s flying carrier was certainly far more expensive than a Quinjet, and the dozens of lethal and nonlethal weapons integrated into so small a space made this titanium staff and pair of titanium gauntlets so precious that even Fury would wince at the cost.

Amid muffled groans and cries of pain, Old Wang broke through the encirclement and came to a door.