Powerful Titanium Alloy Equipment

Crawling through sewers was a difficult thing. The hardest part was the disgusting stench.

For a Pandaren who regarded fine food as life itself, a disgusting smell was simply "a stench life could not bear," especially for a Pandaren gourmet like Old Wang, who had completed the "Azeroth’s Culinary Delights" achievement.

He regretted not asking S.H.I.E.L.D. for a gas mask. Now he could only hold his breath. With the endurance he had gained from roaming the Great Sea back then, lasting a few hours would not be a problem.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had long since scanned the entire building and created a three-dimensional model. Skye stayed at Egghead’s Feuerstein Base, using the server-grade computer Egghead had provided. By receiving signals from the controller to pinpoint his real-time location, she guided him along.

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

His exceptionally sharp hearing allowed him to catch the faint sounds of gunfire above. The fighting had clearly already begun.

The other members of the special operations team continually reported their situations. Black Widow was making smooth progress, while Stick and the others had not encountered much trouble either. Matt’s powerful senses allowed him to detect any danger and any enemy in advance.

This operation was far too dangerous. The Hand had gathered nearly all of its elite forces, including every weapon it could buy and transport to New York, such as large quantities of firearms and bombs produced by Hammer Industries.

The battle was not confined to the ground. It had even spread into the sky. The Hand was a powerful organization with wealth and influence, and it had mobilized more than one helicopter, each equipped with machine guns and bombs!

The police could not be trusted.

Wilson Fisk, the future Kingpin, had nearly completely taken control of the entire New York Police Department. It would already be good enough if they did not cause trouble.

The Hand’s power and influence were nowhere near as weak as they appeared in television dramas with limited budgets. No one knew how many business tycoons, government officials, and senior police and military officers this thousand-year-old organization had secretly controlled.

No one knew how many of those disciplined S.H.I.E.L.D. elite agents would die. Not even Black Widow could guarantee absolute safety, so Old Wang had not allowed Gabe to participate. Officially, Robbie had not been allowed to participate either—

Though in reality, Robbie had already arrived nearby and was ready to join the battle at any time under Skye’s command.

As for the underground area?

The secrets hidden there could not be known by anyone else for the time being.

Including S.H.I.E.L.D.

Especially S.H.I.E.L.D.!

The matter of the Dragon Bone Fossil was an absolute secret even within the Hand. Only the Five Fingers and a few trusted subordinates knew what that wall truly was and what lay behind it.

S.H.I.E.L.D. could not possibly know. Neither could Hydra.

Suddenly, Old Wang’s heart stirred as he heard faint footsteps approaching from afar.

Old Wang had once been the Seventh Legion’s finest scout, the only assassin at Ravenholdt Manor with a one-hundred-percent success rate. He moved with agility. Though he was somewhat overweight, his footsteps were lighter than a cat’s, making no sound audible to human ears. Leaving no trace in snow and landing without a sound, he silently closed in and struck without warning.

Claws sliced through throats.

Blood sprayed forth.

Two men died.

The Hand had deployed its largest and most elite force in the underground area, including four of the Fingers.

This was an open scheme.

Too much explosive had been planted in this building. There were too many gangsters and too many weapons. The Hand intended to use the lives of everyone in the entire building, along with the tens of thousands of people in the surrounding area, as bait to lure out the Immortal Iron Fist. Their purpose was twofold:

First, to lure or force the Immortal Iron Fist into opening the seal left by a previous Iron Fist, thereby obtaining the complete Dragon Bone Fossil.

If Iron Fist did not know the seal existed, he could easily be tricked into breaking it;

If he did know, he would be constrained at every turn, making him easier to deal with, capture, and kill.

As traitors of K’un-Lun, the Five Fingers might even possess a way to strip someone of the power of the Iron Fist. Alexandra and the other three likely all harbored thoughts of becoming Iron Fist. Their ultimate goal was not survival, nor was it endless crime.

It was to go home.

Only the Iron Fist could open the Kunlun Gate. Only the Iron Fist could take them home.

Second, through endless slaughter, to let the Beast, which fed on primal desires and original sins, grow ever stronger, gaining the ability to oppose Iron Fist, oppose S.H.I.E.L.D., and oppose the government.

The plot from his memories had long since become blurry, but Old Wang remembered one sentence Alexandra had once spoken with perfect clarity:

"It’s only a city. You’ll get used to watching it fall."

Destroying a city and causing tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, to die was nothing to the Hand’s Five Fingers. How many cities had the Hand destroyed throughout history? How many millions had died because of them?

Ordinary Hand members and even elites could be sacrificed at any time. As long as those few did not die, they could simply assume new identities and lie low for a few decades.

As long as they obtained the Dragon Bone Fossil, they had all the time in the world to wait.

But what Old Wang intended to do now was ensure they would never have to wait again.

Never!

More Hand members charged toward him.

This seemed like an unsolvable problem:

If he did not kill them, he would have to endure their fiercer attacks. The Hand’s elites had long been brainwashed and did not fear death at all;

If he killed them, the Beast would continue growing stronger. That creature was surely hiding somewhere, constantly devouring desire and sin. Killing was the greatest sin of all.

But Old Wang had a solution.

There were no absolutes in this world. Common sense was not necessarily reliable.

Pandas possessed biting strength utterly beyond anything humans could match, yet they survived by acting cute.

Pandaren were huge and no weaker in combat than orcs. They had once defeated the arrogant Mogu Empire, but because of the Seven Sha, they avoided fighting whenever possible, and wanton slaughter was even less tolerated.

When it came to making opponents lose their fighting ability without killing them, Pandaren Monks were masters among masters.

And when it came to subduing one female creature after another, along with the male creatures behind them, Old Wang had developed his own set of methods. They were more reliable than those of any bondage master.

Enlightenment Heart,

Swift Reflexes,

Throat Cutting Hand,

Vajra Tremor,

Muscle and Bone Dislocation!

Old Wang quickly identified the direction ahead and used True Qi Burst to travel, avoiding the Hand’s assassins whenever possible.

When they truly could not be avoided, he used every possible method to cripple them.

Matt could dislocate their arms and legs,

Stick could physically hypnotize them,

Elektra could leave them unable to rise while writhing in unbearable pain;

As a Grandmaster Monk hundreds or thousands of times stronger than them, Old Wang could break a mammoth’s legs, tear open a clefthoof rhino’s hide, and make stallions and stags go limp. What did he have to fear from these "ordinary human-level" assassins?

Fitz and Simmons had designed the gauntlets and staff to release adjustable levels of electric current, knocking out enemies they touched rather than killing them.

The capillaries at the tips of the hollow claws injected cobra venom and dendrotoxin the instant they touched skin. Their dosage could likewise be adjusted, leaving people unable to move without killing them.

There were more than a dozen such designs.

The defining trait of high technology was that the larger and smaller it became, the more expensive it was.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Sky Carrier was certainly far more expensive than a Quinjet, but the dozens of lethal and nonlethal weapons integrated into such a tiny space also made this Titanium Alloy Staff and pair of Titanium Alloy Gauntlets so valuable that Egghead’s heart ached.

Amid muffled groans and cries of pain, Old Wang broke through the encirclement and followed a vertical elevator down into the depths, forty meters underground.

He continued onward until he arrived before a door.