Strangers Even Face-to-Face

"Have you found out why the corpses can move?"

At a Hydra base, Malick watched the living corpse inside the completely transparent sealed chamber howl and pound on the hatch as he asked the scientist beside him.

"There’s an alien organism inside the corpse, something resembling a parasite." As the scientist spoke, he handed over the tablet in his hand and pointed out a particular CT scan.

The CT image clearly showed a long, grotesquely shaped worm curled up inside the living corpse’s head.

"That’s it?" Malick frowned, dissatisfied with how simple the result was.

"Shouldn’t it be something like black magic? Or perhaps some divine power from the God of Death keeping it alive?"

"Unfortunately, it’s exactly that scientific a method of control." The scientist shrugged, clearly uninterested.

Malick sighed, somewhat disappointed as well. He turned around and asked the assistant beside him, "Haven’t you found where the leader is sleeping yet?"

The assistant shook his head. "The planet is too large, and the leader’s sleeping place is bound to be extremely remote. This isn’t something that can be completed in a short time."

"Sigh, all right. I was being a little impatient."

He turned to leave, but just as he reached the laboratory door, a thought suddenly struck him. He looked back at the living corpse in the sealed chamber and asked pensively, "Can this parasite infect a Magnetic Field Warrior?"

"Uh…" The question stumped the scientist. "We haven’t conducted any experiments on that, so we don’t know."

"Then find a Magnetic Field Warrior’s corpse and test it!"

"That’s a little difficult. Magnetic Field Warriors are usually hard to kill in battle. As far as we know, nearly every Magnetic Field Warrior who has died was killed by Magneto and Zhan Liu. There wasn’t even a complete corpse left!"

"I see…" Malick thought carefully for a moment before saying, "I remember Magneto turned some Magnetic Field Warriors into ‘Dolls’ before. Where are they now?"

The assistant hurried off to investigate. After a while, he returned with a report. "Those people were initially placed in Osborn’s biological laboratory by the military. Later, when the Osborn family sided with the Mutants, they were transferred elsewhere. They’re all being kept at Vanguard Sciences now."

"Vanguard Sciences? How come I’ve never heard of that company?"

"It’s a newly rising company specializing in biotechnology. It developed so quickly because it swallowed up Osborn’s original market share. Its flagship product seems to be called the Extremis Virus. Apparently, it can regrow severed limbs. The Dolls’ strange life forms are perfect for their research."

"All right. Go ask them whether any Dolls have died during the experiments. We’ll buy one of the corpses."

After giving the order, Malick left. As a member of the Security Council, he was busy with work and had no time to waste here.

To those at the top of the world, everything was business, and everything had a price. As long as the price was right, anything could be bought or sold.

People could be bought and sold, so corpses naturally posed even less of a problem. Especially when the corpse had sacrificed itself as experimental material for science.

This particular corpse was not cheap.

That was because its body was not only a miracle of life formed from flesh and metal organically fused together, but also contained the Extremis Virus. Moreover, the metal was Strong Magnetic Armor. Although it had already been ruined, the armor still contained trace amounts of Vibranium.

After the corpse was transported back to the laboratory, it was placed inside a sealed chamber. Under the observation of various instruments, the scientists were astonished to see the parasite originally living inside the corpse crawl out of the desiccated body. It went straight to the Magnetic Field Warrior’s corpse and drilled in through its eye.

A moment later, the corpse of the ‘Doll’ moved.

But the corpse had been compressed by the Strong Magnetic Armor, locking all its joints in place. It could not walk at all. Still, compared to the old corpse it had used for who knew how many years, this new host had one advantage: it could speak.

When the Doll began speaking in a hoarse, unfamiliar voice, all the scientists cheered.

This proved that the parasite possessed intelligence. Any intelligent life-form could potentially be communicated with. That was far better than blindly fumbling around based entirely on experience as they had before.

Thus, a large team of experts—including entomologists, linguists, psychologists, and many others—was quickly assembled to communicate with this visitor from another planet.

At first, the parasite probably had not grown accustomed to the body, or perhaps it was unaccustomed to speaking. It could only growl a few simple words, such as flesh and energy.

After a Magnetic Field Warrior was sent into the sealed chamber to provide the Doll’s corpse with enough food, its speech finally became stable and clear.

Then they began communicating with each other.

From the parasite, the scientists learned a great deal of information about the alien planet. However, they learned very little about the parasite itself, as it refused to reveal its own secrets.

Likewise, the parasite refused to disclose the location where Hydra’s leader was "sleeping."

However, as payment for providing information about the alien planet, the parasite demanded a fresh corpse that could walk and move freely.

After careful discussion, the scientists unanimously agreed to give the parasite the corpse of an ordinary, unarmed person.

That was far too easy to obtain. They could simply find some unlucky person, kill him on the spot, and use the corpse immediately.

The parasite changed hosts once again.

As expected, a fresh corpse produced a completely different parasitic effect. The new corpse quickly stood up and moved its hands and feet, clearly very satisfied with its body.

"What should we call you?"

"What is this body called?"

"Edison."

"Then call me Edison."

After everyone had left, Edison moved around the room for a while before lying down on the bed. On the surveillance cameras, he seemed to be doing nothing at all. In reality, however, the power of Magnetic Field Rotation was slowly recovering inside Edison’s body.

Hive could obtain the memories of the corpses he had infected. Before this, he had already acquired the complete memories of Ultimate Limit Qigong from the Doll’s corpse. However, all the cells in that corpse had died, making it completely impossible to control the cells and produce bioelectricity again.

But when a newly dead corpse was placed within his "hands," he was astonished to discover that he could control the cells in this new body as well.

Because he possessed the memories and cultivation realm, it was as if he had already practiced Qigong once. Now he had merely changed bodies and needed to familiarize himself with it again. Thus, as soon as he got started, his power directly reached First Heaven Magnetic Field Rotation.

This power was extremely formidable, far surpassing every Inhuman Hive had ever encountered. Yet according to the memories he had obtained, there were simply too many people in this world who possessed such power.

He had originally planned to reveal his identity after returning to Earth and use the power of his followers to restore his strength as quickly as possible. But after witnessing the current power system of this world, he suddenly realized that even if he built an army of Inhumans, he would still lack the ability to protect himself.

Having already failed once, he had become extremely cautious. Until he possessed enough power to protect himself, he did not intend to reveal his identity. Even if everyone outside was his follower, it still would not do.