Thick-Skinned

"At least there were no Chinese people."

Thor breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at Loki, and continued, "But if there had been Chinese people there, you’d be the one getting hammered."

"??"

Loki’s face was full of question marks. What did that mean?

But thinking back, he had indeed had a rather bad premonition when facing those Chinese people. If they had really fought, he might not have been able to beat them.

"Anyway, as long as there were no Chinese people, it didn’t matter if everyone else died."

Having gotten his answer from Loki, Thor looked at Nick Fury again and spoke without a care.

Midgard, Earth, had always been a terribly backward world. The only exception now was China. In Thor’s eyes, aside from China, it did not matter if people from other countries died. He simply did not care!

A few hundred deaths?

So what?

"…"

Nick Fury took a deep breath, fury boiling in his heart!

So only Chinese people counted as people, while everyone else did not?

Why should they be treated differently?

He refused to accept it!

Back then, Americans had been the superior race! Why was it that now, even an ordinary Chinese person could stand over his head?

"Besides, your skill at slinging mud is only so-so. You think a little scheme like this is enough to show off before me, Loki, the God of Mischief?"

Loki looked disdainful. He did not care about a few hundred deaths, but since he had not done it, why should he take the blame?

In any case, Loki would never admit to it!

"Wait, can someone tell me what happened after I passed out?"

At that moment, Captain America Rogers stepped forward and asked weakly.

All he had heard was that a few hundred people had died. He knew nothing else!

After Loki had knocked him out, he had lost consciousness and had no idea what had happened afterward. By the time he woke up, Tony and Black Widow had already captured Loki, while he himself had been carried onto the Quinjet. Seeing this, Captain America had kept silent the whole time, not daring to say or ask anything.

Now that he had heard Nick Fury say Loki had killed several hundred people, he naturally wanted to know what had happened.

"…"

Upon hearing Captain America’s question, Nick Fury’s expression darkened again. He did not want Captain America to know what had happened earlier.

"This? I can tell you."

Chen Mu smiled and took out his phone, tossing it to Captain America. It was playing footage recorded earlier in the surveillance room.

"…"

Captain America watched the video on the phone, and his face became exceptionally grim. It showed him being taken down by Loki in just a few moves, then Loki preparing to kill him. In the next instant, the Quinjet directly attacked Loki. As Loki dodged, dozens of innocent people were gunned down by the stray fire. Seeing this, Rogers’s face turned as dark as liver.

The video continued. The Quinjet killing several dozen people was nothing compared to what came next. At that point, the robot army arrived, and what made Captain America feel even worse was that Loki casually used an illusory magic cube to make the robots slaughter the crowd wantonly, then turn on and kill one another. Hardly anyone remained. Finally, Tony and Black Widow appeared and subdued Loki.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s operation this time could be called an utter failure. Several hundred ordinary people had died because of it!

Seeing this, Captain America felt stifled inside.

It was not because so many people had died, but because he had seen his own weakness and helplessness.

Against an enemy like Loki, he had no means of dealing with him at all.

Loki was a mage. Did he expect Loki to come at him in hand-to-hand combat?

If he could not win, he could not win. Rogers disdained making excuses.

What left him utterly helpless was that every one of those innocent victims had died to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gunfire, without a single exception!

Was this the S.H.I.E.L.D. that publicly claimed to stand for justice?

And under these circumstances, Nick Fury still kept saying that Loki had slaughtered those people?

Where was his shame?

Rogers had truly witnessed Nick Fury’s shamelessness.

"If Loki hadn’t invaded Earth, none of this would have happened!"

Even now, Nick Fury stubbornly insisted that it was all Loki’s fault!

"If Loki hadn’t stolen the Tesseract, if he hadn’t launched a terrorist attack in Germany, none of this would have happened!"

Someone like Nick Fury would never admit his own mistakes. Whenever there was a problem, he simply pushed it onto someone else!

"Heh, that’s exactly what I wanted to say."

Thor had also seen the video playing on the phone. He looked at Nick Fury with contempt and continued, "Earth is incapable of safeguarding the Tesseract. When I return to Asgard this time, I will take the Tesseract back with me. Or China can keep it. But it will absolutely not be left with you! The moment you used the cube’s power to make weapons, you declared to the universe that you were preparing for war!"

"Making weapons?"

Captain America had taken the Tesseract from the Nazis, and he deeply hated how they had used it to make weapons. Now that he heard S.H.I.E.L.D. had done the same, his face filled with anger.

"No, I didn’t. We were only researching how to use the cube’s energy so humanity could access cleaner energy! Everything was for humanity!"

Nick Fury put on a righteous expression and spoke without hesitation.

To be honest, as a veteran agent, Nick Fury was exceptionally skilled at lying. He had even "deceived" himself. He had always believed that whatever he did was right!

Even when he caused countless irreparable mistakes, he would never admit that he had been wrong.

"Unfortunately, I happened to find evidence that S.H.I.E.L.D. was making weapons."

Tony shrugged, took out his phone, and displayed a pile of documents. They were records of S.H.I.E.L.D. using the cube’s energy to manufacture all sorts of weapons.

"There are plenty of these weapons on this ship."

Tony had secretly used Jarvis to hack into the ship’s computers earlier and copied some files. Now that he heard Nick Fury lie without even blushing, he could not hold back any longer and directly exposed Nick Fury’s lies.

Now that both witnesses and physical evidence were present, Captain America stared at Nick Fury with fury.

Even at this point, the man was still lying?

"All of this was because of them!"

Seeing his lie exposed, Nick Fury was displeased with Tony, but he still refused to admit his own mistakes. Looking at Thor and Loki, he said, "We researched weapons to deal with aliens like them. Think about it: if they hadn’t existed, how could the several thousand people in the New Mexico town have suffered such a disaster? And several hundred people would not have died in Germany today!"

Nick Fury continued to argue, "If we had enough power, aliens would not invade us. Everything S.H.I.E.L.D. does is for justice!"

For justice—what a sanctimonious excuse!

But no one present was an idiot. They all looked at Nick Fury with contempt. Even Black Widow, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, was filled with dissatisfaction toward Nick Fury at that moment.

This guy was truly thick-skinned!

Seeing this, Captain America, who was already in a foul mood, flicked his sleeve and left, heading into the carrier. He needed some quiet and did not want to see Nick Fury’s face again.

When Coulson saw his idol leave, he gave Nick Fury a look and followed after him. He needed to calm Captain America down and could not let him develop a grudge.