Chapter 123: The Soviet Red House

The next morning.

A collection of intelligence regarding the Soviet Red Room, gathered by Fury and Joseph through state and military channels, was forwarded to Howard. Howard processed the data through a supercomputer to simplify and organize it, then transmitted the results via telegram to the manor.

There were nearly two dozen suspected locations for the Red Room, many of which were likely disinformation intentionally leaked by the Soviets, interspersed with legitimate military base coordinates. The probability of accuracy for the most likely location was less than ten percent.

This was to be expected. As the cradle of a spy network backed by the full might of the Soviet military empire, no one outside of high-ranking Soviet officials and internal personnel knew the exact location of the Red Room. It was said that while Red Room super-agents had successfully infiltrated other nations as deep-cover spies, no one had ever managed to track or locate the facility in reverse.

Fortunately, Kyle had prepared a contingency plan long before. The shock collar he had placed on Natasha’s neck while she was imprisoned on the battleship was the key.

That piece of black technology, personally crafted by Howard, was no ordinary item. Beyond its ability to deliver instantaneous high-voltage shocks and its near-impossible-to-disable locking mechanism, the collar contained a miniature tracking device. Kyle was certain that because the Red Room valued Natasha so highly—to the point of dispatching other agents to forcibly retrieve her at any cost—they would return directly to the Red Room base before having professional technicians remove the collar.

Before the collar lost its signal, Howard had naturally taken the precaution of capturing and storing that data.

That same day, driven by the desire for a swift resolution, Kyle ordered Logan and Yutong to accompany him and had Howard arrange the fastest transport jet to fly from New York to the Soviet Union.

At that moment, the Soviet Red Room was unaware that a nuclear-level catastrophe was on its way.

***

Novaya Zemlya, extending from the northern Ural Mountains of Russia.

The desolate plains were vast and empty, the earth a spread of frozen soil caked with ice shards and gravel, under a sky heavy with gray, overcast clouds. When Kyle, Logan, and Yutong arrived, the temperature at dusk had already plummeted below minus twenty degrees Celsius, cold enough to freeze water instantly.

"Boss, are you sure the Red Room base would choose a hellhole like this?" Logan exhaled, a puff of hot air turning into white mist.

"The tracking signal cut out in this area. There must be an artificial signal jammer nearby." Kyle mused. He lifted his gaze, scanning the horizon, but saw only remote, uninhabited wilderness.

Since the battle in Japan, the Blue Eagle had vanished; it seemed to have been buried alongside those pursuit fighters in some unknown corner of Tokyo. Otherwise, it would have been most useful right now.

Just as Kyle was considering splitting up to search, a faint, pale light erupted in the distance, followed by a dull, small mushroom cloud rising into the air.

"This sensation?!"

Kyle and Yutong’s pupils contracted, their nerves tensing instinctively. For the two of them, who had barely survived a nuclear blast, this scene was all too familiar.

"Is that a nuclear weapon?" Logan was also stunned, staring intently at the distant explosion. Yet, within moments, the three of them relaxed their guard. The mushroom cloud had covered less than a hundred meters, making it somewhat 'disappointing' if it were meant to be a true nuclear bomb; it was simply too weak.

"I see. This must be a Soviet nuclear weapons research and testing site." Kyle shrugged. If he ran into a full-scale nuclear explosion everywhere he went, he would be truly unlucky.

"Does that mean we came to the wrong place?" Logan asked, puzzled.

Yutong lifted her head, speaking via telepathic projection, "Not necessarily. The most dangerous place is sometimes the safest. If the Red Room is in this vicinity, the personnel conducting these nuclear tests here must know something."

"Agreed," Kyle nodded, accepting her reasoning. At the very least, the Soviet military would intentionally avoid the area where the Red Room was located when conducting nuclear test detonations.

"Wait here for a moment. I'll be right back," Kyle instructed, accelerating toward the small-scale nuclear testing zone.

The wind picked up. White, icy snowflakes mingled with black, scorched ash and soot, drifting through the air and settling on the leather cloak transformed by Venom. Both the earth and the air carried a faint trace of radiation, but compared to the massive, body-penetrating fallout they had encountered in Tokyo, this was merely child's play.

As he neared the testing zone, Kyle spotted a cluster of military tents and figures in white protective suits moving in and out. He entered stealth mode and crept forward.

Approaching one of the researchers, Kyle delivered a clean, swift hand strike, knocking the man unconscious and dragging him behind a tent. Without needing a prompt, Venom extended a black, tentacled thread, piercing the base of the man's skull to forcibly extract his memories. This collaboration had become quite seamless.

A moment later, Kyle shook his head, having gained nothing, and muttered coldly, "Just a fresh rookie assistant. Not even worth the effort of killing."

He did not lose heart, however. Seeing another researcher walking toward the tent, he hid again and repeated his stealthy tactics. If he weren't worried about drawing the attention of the Soviet military, he wouldn't have minded wiping out the entire testing squad directly.

Fortunately, Venom extracted the desired information from the second man’s mind: this vast stretch of wilderness was designated as a Soviet nuclear testing ground, where experiments could be conducted without regard for civilian casualties. However, the high command had issued repeated, strict warnings never to interfere with a mysterious zone nearby.

In that area, groups of young girls dressed in simple white shifts were frequently dropped at the border between the radiation zone and the mysterious zone. Provided with only meager rations, they were forced to fight to the death to survive the brutal, freezing conditions. The surviving girl, her white dress stained crimson with blood and her humanity numbed and frozen, would then be taken away by personnel from the mysterious zone.

"That certainly sounds like the Red Room's style," Kyle sneered. He withdrew from the radiation zone, called for Logan and Yutong, and the three of them headed rapidly toward the mysterious zone.

In the wilderness beyond the edge of the radiation zone, more than a dozen corpses of girls in white clothing lay scattered across the dark brown frozen earth. Some had their eyes wide open, their bodies covered in scars and frozen stiff like stone.

On the brutal, corpse-strewn ground, only two girls remained. Their beautiful faces were twisted in ferocity, their white dresses stained with patches of blood. They fought like beasts driven by nothing but instinct, and when they lacked the strength to strike, they used their teeth as weapons, gnawing at each other's throats.