Inhumans Appear

Distant thunder rumbled across the sky. It was the sonic boom caused by Ward breaking the sound barrier, which had only just reached the prison.

Ward hovered high in the air like a god, looking down at Skye below.

"Skye, if you raise your hands and surrender now, I can guarantee you a fair trial. But if you remain stubborn and resist to the bitter end, I can’t guarantee your father’s life once the fighting starts. He’s so fragile that if he gets caught in the crossfire, death will be his only outcome."

Skye glared, and a gravity field pressed down on Ward. But with an explosive burst of protective qi, Ward shattered the gravity field.

"Not a bad gravity attack, but that’s all it amounts to. Skye, you’re a Magnetic Field Warrior too. Your attacks can’t break through my defenses. You should know what that means."

Skye released her father and pointed both hands at Ward. With a roar, she focused her attention and mobilized all the Gravitonium within her, forcing the gravity field down upon Ward.

Ward stood high in the sky with his arms crossed, looking down coldly and contemptuously. He didn’t move an inch, yet even with the gravity field fully unleashed, Skye still couldn’t break through his protective qi.

Already gravely wounded, Carl had vomited until he was completely drained of strength and lay limp on the ground. He softly urged her, "Daisy, I’m already satisfied that I got to see you. The dream I’ve had all my life has finally come true. Even if I die, I have no regrets. Escape on your own. Don’t worry about me."

"No, Dad! I’ll never abandon you!" Skye’s eyes were bloodshot, and she clenched her teeth. "I’ve been an orphan for twenty years. Now that I’ve finally found my family, I’ll never let anyone take it away from me again!"

Skye pushed her Magnetic Field Force to its limit, then layered the gravity field over both palms and leaped straight toward Ward in the sky.

Since the gravity field alone couldn’t pierce his protective qi, she would try breaking through a single point. As long as she shattered his qi, she could use the gravity field to destroy his magnetic armor. Without the armor’s amplification, the enemy would be at her mercy.

"Take this! Ultimate Endless Palm!"

Facing Skye’s attack, Ward gave a contemptuous smile. With a casual swing of his leg, he blasted the air apart and struck first despite moving second, slamming his heel into Skye’s waist.

Skye felt tremendous force crash into her. Her body flew away like a baseball struck by a bat, swept aside by a single kick. Blood sprayed from her mouth, drawing a red line across the sky. After flying several miles, she finally hit the ground, then bounced repeatedly across it like a stone skipping over water, smashing everything she encountered into pieces.

If Ward hadn’t deliberately held back, that kick would have broken her in half. Even so, Skye felt that more than a dozen of her ribs had been broken, while blood poured from her mouth without end.

Skye struggled on the ground a few times, then stirred up her Magnetic Field Force again, planning to risk her life and fight her way out. But when Ward appeared before her once more, Carl was dangling from his hand by the neck. The sight immediately stopped her from acting rashly.

"Run… Daisy, don’t worry about me. Run…" Though his life was in the enemy’s hands, Carl struggled desperately and shouted as he hammered Ward with his utterly harmless fists and feet.

Ward casually tossed Carl beside Skye and said coldly, "You can choose to fight back and let the shock waves kill this old man, or you can obediently surrender and let yourself be captured. That way, this old man might live a few more days."

Seeing Skye hesitate, Carl realized that he was holding his daughter back, and his heart filled with regret. He looked around, spotted a sharp piece of rebar jutting out from a ruined building nearby, and suddenly charged headfirst toward it.

"No!" Skye cried out and hurriedly reached for her father, but she was already seriously injured and unable to move properly. The moment she moved, she began vomiting blood uncontrollably. Her control over gravity was still imperfect. She could use it to attack, but she still couldn’t perform the fine manipulation needed to pull someone toward her.

Ward cared even less about Carl’s life or death. He simply stood motionless in midair and watched as Carl tried to kill himself.

Just as Carl was about to die on the spot, the Magnetic Field Force within Skye began spinning madly, advancing straight toward the Tenth Heaven. But then a figure flashed, and a man in a trench coat suddenly appeared beside Carl. The area around his eyes was nothing but completely flat skin. He reached out and grabbed Carl, stopping him.

Skye, still shaken, collapsed onto the ground. The bottleneck that had begun to loosen once again stabilized.

The trench-coat man grabbed Carl, and in an instant, the two vanished before Ward and Skye. Both Ward and Skye were superhuman warriors whose reactions far surpassed those of ordinary humans, but the other man hadn’t moved quickly. It was as though he had simply vanished into thin air.

A second later, the trench-coat man appeared beside Skye again, empty-handed. Carl was gone. He reached out to grab Skye. The movement wasn’t fast, and either of them could have stopped him. But Skye was thinking about her father and didn’t attack. Ward, meanwhile, was thinking about holding back, so he deliberately reacted a second too late.

The moment the trench-coat man’s hand touched Skye, he activated his ability. He vanished from before Ward in an instant, taking Skye away with him.

Ward scanned the area within a thousand miles but found no sign of Skye or the others. He snorted coldly and turned back to deal with the other escaped prisoners. His mission of teaching Skye a lesson was complete. Presumably, in her pursuit of power, Skye would return to Hydra’s embrace once more.

Gordon carried Skye away, and she found that the world before her went dark and bright again. She appeared in a Chinese-style garden. Standing in the middle of it was her father, Carl, with an Asian woman beside him who wore an intensely excited expression.

"Dad, are you all right?" Skye struggled toward Carl while casting a wary look at the other two strangers before her.

"Skye, this is your mother, Jiaying."

"Mom? But my mother isn’t…" Skye hesitantly looked at the woman.

Jiaying’s eyes brimmed with tears. She stepped forward, spread her arms, and pulled Skye into her embrace, while Gordon smiled and left the room.

The instinctive bond of blood between mother and daughter kept Skye from pushing away the warm embrace. Instead, she turned a confused gaze toward her father.

Carl looked at his wife and daughter before him, overcome with emotion. He immediately recounted everything that had happened back then in detail, including many details that even Raina hadn’t known.

Only then did Skye learn that her mother, whose organs had been removed and whose blood had been drained, had been saved by the lives of an entire village that her father had slaughtered. She also learned that the mastermind who had hunted the two of them under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s name was Daniel Whitehall.

In other words, S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra. They were both on the same side.

After learning that Whitehall had toyed with her as he pleased, Skye was filled with murderous intent and swore that she would make that bastard pay a sufficient price.

But those were matters for the future. Right now, the most important thing was to stay beside her parents and enjoy the long-lost warmth and happiness of family life.