"Where's Reed?"
In the corner of the room, a colossal figure, his body covered with countless hard, stone-like keratinous layers, questioned Nick Fury without even raising his head.
Just like Reed Richards, who had just escaped, Ben Grimm, after transforming into the Thing, also possessed extremely high resistance to anesthetics.
So ordinary anesthetic gas simply couldn't put him into an extremely weak or even comatose state.
However, because he was still unfamiliar with his abilities at this time, his movements were somewhat laborious.
"I know what you've been through, and I've seen many big guys like you..."
Nick Fury didn't answer his question directly.
Faced with this "big monster" that could erupt at any moment, the first thing he needed to do was not answer the question, but to seize control of the conversation.
Then he could use his best methods to gradually guide the other party into a pre-set conversational trap.
"Answer my question, Reed... where is he?!"
"I regret to inform you that Dr. Reed just escaped. I don't think your friend will be coming back."
Nick Fury said with a calm expression: "Listen, I know you must be very scared right now... but that's normal. I have a green giant under my command who is bigger and stronger than you. He almost peed his pants after his first transformation, but I successfully helped him through it..."
"That's right, I'm sure you've guessed who I'm talking about... he's the Hulk."
"Ben, you must really want to cure yourself now, right?"
"Then join .! We have the best medical experts and research teams in the world, who can help you analyze what's happening to you and find ways to solve them!"
It must be said that Nick Fury's rhetoric was very effective for those simple-minded guys, and the example of the Hulk was also very convincing!
Ben Grimm slowly stood up from the corner, his voice filled with some anger and resentment as he said, "I can join ., but you must help me find Reed."
Nick Fury grinned, revealing a row of white teeth, and nodded noncommittally, "That... no problem!"
............
......
One week later.
Doom Corporation.
Inside a conference room.
The board members, led by Ned Sicile, gathered again, quietly waiting for Victor Von Doom's arrival.
But unlike the previous palace coup.
This time, they were here to negotiate... or rather, to beg Victor Von Doom!
The reason was simple.
Just five days ago, after testing by a professional testing organization, the new type of green energy that Victor Von Doom and his team brought back from the "alien planet" not only had no energy loss at all, but also had an energy intensity at least ten times greater than that of the new type of energy created by Tony Stark.
As soon as this news came out, it instantly caused a stir in the energy industry.
Doom Corporation's stock price also stopped falling instantly, and rebounded strongly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This result overjoyed the members of the board of directors.
They called Victor Von Doom one after another, hoping that he would go all out to develop this new type of alien energy next.
However.
Victor Von Doom, who was now wholeheartedly focused on the Blessing of Tzeentch, hoping to use it to decipher the alien text on the "Mechanical Book", simply had no time to pay attention to other matters.
So he simply handed over the leadership of the Quantum Gate Project to the board of directors.
Anyway, as long as these guys didn't bother him anymore.
After the board of directors got the Quantum Gate Project, they first increased their external publicity.
They began to desperately tout the high efficiency and cleanliness of "alien energy", wanting to use this to push Doom Corporation's stock price to an unprecedented peak.
At the same time, they also hurriedly formed a professional geological exploration team, wanting to further explore how many energy reserves there were in total on that planet.
But just as the board members were excitedly preparing to make a big splash, strange things happened.
The Quantum Gate Project, which had already matured in technology, repeatedly encountered failures.
The dimension previously anchored using the quantum field effect seemed to have disappeared, and it was no longer possible to open a gap for fixed-point teleportation.
This worried the members of the board of directors.
Because if they couldn't obtain more green energy next, it was probably not just a question of whether the stock price would collapse.
But the entire Doom Corporation was likely to collapse as a result!
There was no way, who told them to hype it up too much before...
Although Ned Sicile and others were only major shareholders, who really wanted to watch a hen that could lay golden eggs die?
So... they turned to that man again!!
Before long, Victor Von Doom, wearing a suit, a black duckbill cap, and looking a little tired, pushed the door open and walked in from outside.
He didn't sit down, but went straight to the point and asked:
"Ned, didn't I hand over the Quantum Gate Project to you? What's the matter this time you're looking for me?"
"Victor, don't be so angry."
This time, Ned Sicile's attitude was completely different from before, and he said with a smile on his face:
"Our board of directors expresses its heartfelt gratitude for your contribution. You have fulfilled your promise and used that new type of green energy to reverse the stock price, and..."
Victor Von Doom interrupted with a cold face: "It's called Aetherium Energy!"
"Oh, so you've already named it... Aetherium Energy? That name sounds very good."
Ned Sicile said with a cunning smile: "Without a doubt, Aetherium Energy and that 'alien planet' are the most important development projects at this stage, and even directly affect the life and death of the entire group."
Victor Von Doom interrupted again with a blank expression: "That planet is called Holy Terra!!"
"Uh... okay, okay, Holy Terra?"
Ned Sicile's face showed some displeasure. As a major shareholder, few people dared to interrupt his speech like this.
But today, in order to achieve his goal, he would have to endure it for now.
"You've probably heard that there's been a bit of an accident with the Quantum Gate Project recently. The researchers have been unable to connect with that... Holy Terra, and the next exploration mission has had to be postponed again and again."
"So that's why we had to bring you here, to hear what suggestions you have."
"Suggestions? What suggestions can I have!"
Victor Von Doom's face showed a mocking sneer, and he said with an extremely perfunctory attitude:
"When I handed this project over to you, everything was operating normally. Now that there's a problem, I naturally can't do anything about it!"
All his energy was now focused on studying how to refine Aetherium Energy and cultivate Tzeentch Magic. Where did he have time to deal with these messy things?
Just two days ago, after experiencing a painful failure—permanently losing his dark and thick hair—he finally succeeded in mastering the alien text on the "Mechanical Book" through the Blessing of Tzeentch and understood its contents.
This book was called the Terra Journal, and it was written by Belisarius Cawl, the Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, before leaving the planet called Holy Terra, recording what he saw and heard.
And as Victor Von Doom had previously guessed, the last part of this book did record how to convert demons into Aetherium Energy... or rather, "Demon Alchemy" would be more appropriate.
...
The contents of the book are roughly as follows:
[Terra Year 31014], one day, the empire was suddenly invaded by a large group of demons with horns on their heads.
These creatures from the hell dimension swarmed in through a twisted spatial rift that appeared out of thin air within the empire.
Wherever the demons went, humans and animals died, corpses lay everywhere, and blood flowed like rivers!
Although the empire's warriors subsequently put up a brave and fearless resistance, and took the initiative to launch a counterattack against these interdimensional invaders using the advantages of the terrain... it was of little avail!
There were two main reasons:
First, the number of demons was too large. As long as the spatial rift could not be closed, there would be a continuous stream of demons pouring out of it.
Second, ordinary mortal soldiers found it difficult to effectively kill these demons, who were "high in attack, high in defense, and thick in blood". Only powerful and loyal Astartes could inflict fatal wounds on them.
But the number of Astartes was limited, so the empire's army suffered more defeats than victories from the beginning of the war.
However, as time went on, the great Omnissiah finally sent down a revelation, allowing the priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to find records related to these demons in some ancient books passed down.
The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ said ⊥ is ⊥ at ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥⊥ book ⊥⊥ bar ⊥⊥ premiere!
And gradually learned about the source of these demons' power from them.
It turned out that these evil hell creatures contained the essence of energy from the hell dimension within their bodies.
So even if their bodies were destroyed in the real world, they could still be restored in the hell dimension... but the restoration process would take some time!
Fortunately, the book also recorded how to deal with these demons.
That was to forcibly extract the hell energy essence from the bodies and souls of these demons through some special transformation method.
In this way, they would not be able to revive again!
And the extracted hell energy was called Aetherium Energy.
Aetherium Energy could not only be used to create powerful energy weapons that could destroy the flesh of demons, but also be used as an efficient energy source!
So in the following years, the imperial army quickly reversed the situation by relying on this method found by the Adeptus Mechanicus, successfully drove these demons out of the city, and forced them back into the spatial rift.
But the nightmare that truly led to the empire's downfall began...
This efficient and clean Aetherium Energy soon caught the attention of the Emperor.
This incompetent and昏庸君主 (Tzeentch: Jie Jie Jie, that's right, I wrote the script, false emperor, I've long disliked you) actually ordered the imperial army to go to the hell dimension to continue plundering more Aetherium Energy!
So hundreds of millions of loyal warriors, through that spatial rift, fearlessly went to the demons' lair.
Among them were a large number of Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as priests of the Ecclesiarchy accompanying the army.
They wanted to take the opportunity to better study this magical energy extracted from the demons.
In the following years, good news came frequently from the front lines.
Large amounts of Aetherium Energy were continuously transported back to Holy Terra from the hell dimension.
And the empire also underwent earth-shattering changes in just a few years because of the emergence of this cost-free and efficient energy.
Many related fields such as industry, technology, and medicine have all been vigorously developed as a result, and have officially entered a new era.
Some people even wanted to use Aetherium Energy to explore the possibility of "eternal life"!!
Just when everyone was going crazy for this new type of energy extracted from the demons.
Those who had secretly injected Aetherium Energy and its derivative medical products were quietly mutating and becoming slaves and servants loyal to the demons!
So they secretly dumped a large amount of Aetherium Energy directly into the empire's largest Aetherium Energy Tower, and used this strong energy explosion to successfully open a dimensional rift connecting to the hell dimension in the empire's hinterland.
Countless demon armies poured out!!
The imperial palace was the first to fall, and the昏庸 and incompetent emperor was nailed to his Golden Throne alive by the demons...
This epic disaster battle lasted for a full 55 solar days.
In the end, the imperial side successfully contained the demon army's advance and closed the dimensional rift at the painful cost of losing nearly 15 million mortal soldiers, seven full-strength Astartes chapters, three full Titan legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and countless civilians.
However.
The disaster did not end there!
The explosion of the Aetherium Energy Tower triggered a series of adverse consequences—atmospheric deterioration, land pollution, reversal of the planet's magnetic poles leading to large-scale land and sea shifts, etc.
People then realized that Holy Terra was no longer suitable for survival!
So the remaining people decided to abandon Aetherium Energy, abandon Holy Terra, and travel to other colony planets on interstellar spaceships...
...
It can be seen that this Belisarius Cawl, Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, wanted to leave this valuable history in written form, warning those who strayed into this planet and attempted to seize Aetherium Energy that this unclean energy would only bring endless suffering to mankind!!
But what is intriguing is.
In the end, he also specially attached the "Demon Alchemy" formula for using demons to create Aetherium Energy!!
What does this mean?
Is he using this to test human nature?
If he simply wanted to warn others, he shouldn't have done this, right?
Or perhaps... he was kindly trying to provide a solution to demon invasions for those who came after?
But regardless of the other party's true intentions, Victor von Doom, anxious to save his mother, was unwilling to waste time on such matters.
The appearance of the [Terra Log] undoubtedly helped him solve the biggest problem in 'clearing' Hell.
Next, as long as he skillfully mastered the method of refining demons, he would not only have the opportunity to successfully save his mother's soul, but he could even use [Ark Energy] to open up a whole new world in his career.
It could be said to kill two birds with one stone!
As for Belisarius Cawl's warnings in the book, he didn't take them to heart at all.
He even proudly believed that the reason why [Holy Terra] fell was entirely because that昏庸Emperor was too stupid!!
Even if [Ark Energy] was truly 'unclean energy', as long as it was used properly, the benefits would still outweigh the disadvantages.
Anyway, he, Doom, would never follow the same path to destruction!
Victor von Doom was so confident, partly because of his arrogant personality, and partly because he now believed that he was the 'Chosen One' favored by the [Master of Change]!
The reason for saying this is that the most crucial step in the 'Demon Alchemy' is to use a magic called [Invisible Holy Fire] to temper the bodies and souls of demons.
And the [Tzeentch Magic] he had learned happened to include [Invisible Fire of Tzeentch] – an invisible flame that only the most fanatical followers could see, burning far hotter than any mortal fire, and the whispers from the gods could help those devout followers control these invisible flames!!
Victor von Doom firmly believed that this was fate, this was destiny.
So, what was he waiting for but to work day and night to cultivate [Tzeentch Magic]?
However, the only thing that made Victor von Doom feel miserable was the permanent hair loss caused by using the [Tzeentch Blessing] earlier.
This made him, who paid great attention to his appearance, somewhat resistant to appearing in public, so he specially wore a hat to cover his shame today.
It also made him realize that the result of a failed blessing mentioned in the [Tzeentch Blessing] magic, 'causing a permanent mutation', was definitely not just talk.
"Hmph!"
Seeing Victor von Doom's lack of cooperation, Ned Sissel's good temper was finally exhausted, so he simply stopped pretending, his old face sank, and he narrowed his eyes and threatened:
"Victor, you should understand that if the problems encountered in the [Quantum Gate Project] are not resolved as soon as possible, [Doom Industries] will be plunged into an unprecedented public opinion storm, and the stock price will plummet."
"Given your previous abnormal behavior, the board of directors now has reason to suspect that you have done something on the [Quantum Gate Project] to hinder our development of new energy."
"So... if you don't help us solve this problem immediately, the board of directors will formally remove you from your position as chairman."
"At that time, my investment advisory group will take full control of [Doom Industries]!!"
