Loki Appears

"So, you found an endlessly regenerating Alien Blood, and you’re planning to use it as food for our Blood Clan?"

Wang Bert finally understood completely. Frowning, he asked, "Could there be any danger? That’s Alien Blood! And can our Blood Clan even drink it? The Blood Clan can’t drink animal blood, only human blood!"

"Rest assured, Mr. Wang. There’s absolutely no problem with this blood."

Dr. Sterns said confidently, "The Blood Clan won’t be drinking the original blood, but heavily diluted Alien Blood. The original blood contains too much energy and isn’t suitable as food.

"The diluted solution I prepared will erase the Alien Blood’s abilities and greatly reduce its activity. With the Blood Clan’s digestive abilities, there won’t be any danger.

"In fact, I already had Blood Clan members drink this Alien Blood and confirmed that it’s drinkable. If the concentration is high enough, it can even increase their strength, just like drinking fresh human blood!"

Wang Bert rubbed his chin and asked, "So aside from human blood, the Blood Clan can drink Alien Blood too?"

"Yes. Actually, I have a theory about that!"

Dr. Sterns said, "The Blood Clan isn’t limited to human blood. It can only drink the blood of intelligent life forms. Animals lack intelligence, so their blood is useless to the Blood Clan!"

"Your theory makes sense, but why is there such a restriction?"

"Science can’t explain it!"

Dr. Sterns said, "Mr. Wang, it may be a curse—a curse that forces the Blood Clan to drink only the blood of intelligent life forms!"

"A curse? If that’s the case, then are the Blood Clan’s fear of sunlight, garlic, and silver also curses?"

Wang Bert frowned. If that were true, it would be troublesome.

"Maybe, maybe not. We’ll need to study Vampire genes to determine that. Also, I don’t think magic and science are incompatible. Even if it’s a curse, as long as we find the right method, science can break it!"

Dr. Sterns said, "Magic is merely science that hasn’t been understood yet!"

"I feel like I’ve heard someone say that before!"

Wang Bert smiled and said, "Give me the Alien Blood you have. I’ll try it. If it really works, the Blood Clan will never need to drink human blood again!"

"Alright!"

Dr. Sterns handed the test tube to Wang Bert and said, "Rest assured, Mr. Wang. This Alien Blood can definitely be used. My technology is far superior to that of the person who made that drug. That drug still had activity left in it. If someone drank too much, they might turn into an alien life form!"

"Is that so?"

Wang Bert’s eyes flickered. It sounded like Mandarin had been tricked by an alien. Without dwelling on it, Wang Bert took the drug and drank it, then closed his eyes to sense it. A moment later, he opened his eyes and nodded excitedly. "That’s right. The Blood Clan can drink this blood. Dr. Sterns, you did well!"

"Thank you for the praise, Mr. Wang!"

Dr. Sterns was delighted. Creating a new food source for the Blood Clan meant the Blood God certainly wouldn’t be stingy with rewards. The Blood God was very generous!

Wang Bert said, "To be safe, recruit a hundred Blood Clan members and experiment for three months. If there are no problems, begin mass production and use it as food for the Blood Clan!"

"Rest assured, Mr. Wang. I’ll conduct the experiments cautiously."

Dr. Sterns said. Wang Bert nodded in satisfaction, then patted Dr. Sterns on the shoulder. "Dr. Sterns, you solved a major problem for the Blood Clan. I’ll give you Osborn Corporation shares worth fifty million US dollars, plus fifty million in cash."

"Thank you, Mr. Wang!"

Dr. Sterns was overjoyed. He knew the Blood God was generous, but he hadn’t expected this much generosity! That was a hundred million dollars. If he had remained working at the academy, he would never have earned that in his entire life!

"You deserve it!"

Wang Bert smiled, then turned to Lilith. "Transfer Xue Ren back and have him protect this laboratory. No mistakes are allowed!"

"I understand!"

Lilith, who had silently listened to everything, nodded. Every Vampire understood just how important this Alien Blood was to the Blood Clan! "Also, allocate a large sum of money to acquire livestock farms. We’ll need massive amounts of animal blood in the future. Money isn’t an issue!"

After thinking for a moment, Wang Bert added. Dr. Sterns’ method, put simply, was to turn animal blood into Alien Blood!

"I’ll acquire as many as possible," Lilith said.

"Mr. Wang, if you can obtain the original source of the Alien Blood, I may be able to research even more things!"

Dr. Sterns said from the side, "The original source of the Alien Blood is probably no weaker than Hulk."

"If I get the chance, I’ll capture it and bring it back!"

Wang Bert smiled. "I’d also like to know what that alien life form actually looks like."

At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Nick Fury and a group of people were watching the screen tensely. On it, a fighter jet had malfunctioned and was swaying as it crashed toward a mountain covered in trees!

With a boom, the fighter jet slammed into the mountain and exploded. Shockwaves rolled outward, flames burned, and shattered wood and rocks flew everywhere.

Everything seemed normal, but everyone present frowned! The fighter jet explosion was real, but the flying rocks and splintered wood were fake. Even the surrounding trees were fake—despite such strong winds, some of the leaves didn’t move at all. Did they take them for fools?

Those special effects might fool ordinary people, but in the eyes of agents like them, they were full of flaws!

"An energy shield, holographic projection technology realistic enough to pass for the real thing."

Director Fury said with an ugly expression, "It’s real. Wakanda’s technology truly is more advanced than America’s."

Former smuggler Ulysses burst out laughing. "Someone finally believes me. I told plenty of people about this, but not one of them believed me!"

"Now we do."

After thinking for a moment, Director Fury asked, "If America went to war with Wakanda, who do you think would win?"

"Wakanda is ahead technologically, but Wakanda has never fought a war. Hard to say."

Ulysses said eagerly, "I suggest you tell America this news. With America’s arrogance, they’ll definitely go to war with Wakanda. Then we’ll find out who’s stronger!"

"We can’t tell America about this!"

Director Fury shook his head. "Take him away for now. I’ll reduce your sentence!"

"I don’t care about a reduced sentence!"

Ulysses said with hatred all over his face, "Nick Fury, you promised to avenge me and kill those traitors!"

"All your men have disappeared."

Director Fury said regretfully, "If I’m not mistaken, they were robbed by someone else in the underworld!"

"Robbed by criminals? Hahaha, serves them right! Blood God, you really are ruthless. I admire you!"

Ulysses laughed gleefully. Director Fury shook his head and motioned for Hawkeye to take him away! After the two left, Deputy Director Maria Hill asked Director Fury, "What should we do about Wakanda?"

"We can’t act rashly!"

After thinking for a moment, Director Fury said, "Wakanda’s prince is studying in America. Send a female agent to approach him. Uh, a Black female agent. Wakanda seems to dislike white people!"

Hill nodded. "Alright!"

Director Fury said, "Also, this must be kept strictly confidential. If America finds out, it’ll be a disaster. America will never allow another country to be stronger than them! Not to mention Wakanda has enormous interests at stake!"

"I’ll assign someone to keep a close watch on Ulysses," Hill said.

After dealing with this matter, Director Fury rubbed his brow. Time waited for no one. They had to speed up research on the Tesseract. Humanity and S.H.I.E.L.D. needed weapons to protect themselves!

In the blink of an eye, two months passed. The uproar over the Lizardmen incident gradually faded, and the hottest topic now was the long-awaited release of the movie "Thor"!

"Asgard, Odin, Thor—they really exist? Earth is actually their vassal state?"

"Who is Master Ancient One? She actually reclaimed autonomy from Odin, so why did they only show her from behind?"

"Were we really invaded by Frost Giants? Is this movie real or fake?"

"It’s real. That town really exists, and it really was sealed off. Besides, Iron Man, War Abomination, War Machine… so many armored suits appeared at once. How could it be fake?"

"It has to be fake. How could Thor be Asian? Though he really is pretty imposing!"

"I think it’s fake too. Aliens can’t possibly be that primitive. They don’t even have weapons!"

"We need to know the truth. The government should reveal everything!"

"Besides the truth, I also want to know the ending. What happened after Thor went back? Why wasn’t it included?"

"War Abomination is so strong! Iron Man got completely crushed!"

"Loki is so handsome. I really want him to be with Thor!"

In real life and online, people everywhere were discussing the movie. The most debated issue was undoubtedly whether it was real or fake. Quite a few reporters asked the military and government about it, but as usual, both played dead. They neither admitted nor denied anything! The military did add one statement, however: "The military is absolutely capable of protecting America and protecting Earth!"

Many people scoffed at the military’s statement, but many also agreed. War Abomination’s performance had been too stunning, and Osborn Corporation’s stock price had risen considerably because of it!

No matter what, the release of "Thor" made the world realize one thing: they were not safe. This would make humanity more proactive, because survival was humanity’s strongest instinct!

In a private theater, Wang Bert was watching the uncut version of "Thor" with Councilor Malik’s daughter, Stephanie Malik—don’t misunderstand, it only included additional scenes of the Blood God taking on an army alone.

"Defeating an entire army by himself… that’s far too powerful, isn’t it?"

Stephanie stared at the screen with her mouth open, her face filled with shock. Wang Bert’s strength had deeply shaken her heart and even gave her a blasphemous thought: Is My God as powerful as he is?

Stephanie hurriedly shook her head. She did not even dare look at Wang Bert now. After a while, she asked, "Bert, I heard this movie doesn’t have an ending. Is that true?"

"Yes. We don’t know what happened after Thor returned to Asgard, so we didn’t film it!"

Wang Bert smiled. "That’s no big deal. Once we find out what happened in the future, we can reshoot the ending. We can sell DVDs while we’re at it!"

"You really know how to do business!"

Stephanie smiled. After hesitating for a moment, she could not help asking, "Bert, was that person really Thor?"

"Yes, he was Thor."

Wang Bert nodded. Pointing at Sif on the screen, he said, "She is the goddess of land and harvest. In truth, so-called gods are merely more powerful life forms. Ancient people didn’t understand, so they regarded them as gods!"

"More powerful life forms?"

Stephanie could not help wavering. Was her god like that too?

Just as Stephanie’s thoughts were in turmoil, Wang Bert suddenly lifted her chin with his hand and turned her toward him. Then he said, "If you need a god, then I am your god."

Under the gaze of Wang Bert’s bewitching red eyes, Stephanie became utterly intoxicated. She collapsed into Wang Bert’s arms and murmured, "My God!"

Time came to July 2009. One night, a joint S.H.I.E.L.D. and NASA base suddenly encountered an incident! Nick Fury rushed over and asked Coulson and Hill, who were directing the evacuation, "How bad is it?"

"The worst part is that we have no idea how bad it is right now!"

Coulson said with a bitter smile, "The Tesseract activated on its own, and its energy keeps rising. It won’t be long before this place collapses!"

"Are you sure it activated on its own, rather than Dr. Selvig activating it?"

Director Fury asked. After the Thor incident, Dr. Selvig had been recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to study the Tesseract! Coulson said, "He wasn’t even here at the time!"

"Hill, go direct the evacuation. Coulson, take me to see the Tesseract!"

Director Fury said. Coulson nodded, and soon the two arrived at the Tesseract laboratory. Through the instruments, they could see the Tesseract continuously releasing energy! Director Fury frowned and asked, "Dr. Selvig, can’t you shut the cube down?"

"It is an energy source itself. How do you shut it down?"

Dr. Selvig shrugged. "It’s been releasing energy and gamma rays the whole time. Director, I told you from the beginning that we weren’t ready. It’s too early to study this now!"

"The enemy won’t give us time to prepare."

Director Fury glanced around and asked, "Where is Agent Barton?"

"In his nest!"

Dr. Selvig pointed toward the stairs above and snorted. Hawkeye Barton jumped down the stairs and said to Director Fury, "The cube activated on its own! Nothing’s wrong on our end!"

Director Fury asked in astonishment, "Nothing’s wrong on our end?"

"That’s right. The cube is a door to the other end of the universe!"

Hawkeye nodded. "A door can be opened from both sides!"

"You mean more aliens are coming?"

Director Fury froze. Just as he was about to say something, the base suddenly shook violently. Dr. Selvig shouted, "The Tesseract’s energy has increased dramatically!"

As soon as Dr. Selvig finished speaking, the Tesseract fired out an energy wave, forming a gradually expanding Space Vortex ahead.

A moment later, the Space Vortex exploded, turning into energy that swept across the surroundings. It did not cause much harm, merely feeling like a powerful gust of wind. However, the energy did not disappear. It gradually gathered overhead, accumulating more and more!

Ignoring the energy wind, everyone looked toward where the Space Vortex had been. At some point, a figure had appeared there, kneeling on one knee. He wore green clothing, held a blue-glowing scepter, had an evil charm about him, and a slightly high hairline! The man slowly rose. Facing the guards closing in on him, he was just about to give an ‘evil’ smile when Coulson suddenly shouted, "Loki?"

Loki turned to look at Coulson and asked, "You know me?"

"It really is Loki!"

Coulson was stunned. He had only thought the other man looked very much like Loki from "Thor," but he had not expected it to actually be him.