S.H.I.E.L.D... was HYDRA?
The shadow hidden inside S.H.I.E.L.D. all this time was actually HYDRA, which had already been destroyed seventy years ago?
Steve's mind buzzed until nothing but blankness remained. He simply could not believe his ears. The S.H.I.E.L.D. he had devoted everything to, the organization that claimed protecting humanity as its duty, was actually his greatest enemy, HYDRA.
"No... that's impossible!"
Steve's eyes were bloodshot, his canthus splitting as he roared furiously: "S.H.I.E.L.D. was established by Howard and Carter. How could they possibly allow HYDRA to infiltrate it?!"
"No... it is possible, Captain." Natasha's tone was complicated. She had already guessed the real reason: "After HYDRA was destroyed, America launched a secret project: Operation Paperclip."
"Operation Paperclip?" Steve turned his head and looked at Natasha in astonishment.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited many German scientists and talents with strategic value, promising them that as long as they helped S.H.I.E.L.D. achieve its goals, they would receive pardons and high-quality lives." Natasha sighed deeply and said: "I think... it was during that time that HYDRA's remaining forces took the opportunity to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D., correct?"
"Who else belongs to your side..."
Steve no longer had time to care about hatred. He quickly understood the core of this plan and the consequences it would bring.
"To be more accurate....."
Zola let out a sinister laugh and mockingly counter-questioned: "You should ask me who still belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D. That would be more correct, Captain America Steve Rogers."
The moment these words came out, the room fell silent.
Steve clearly had not expected such a result, and the twitching of his eyelids became increasingly severe.
After flipping over the enormous S.H.I.E.L.D., it turned out that the few of them were actually the 'undercover agents'?
This subtle feeling was extremely similar to Germany's intelligence organizations during World War II.
Look to the left, and there was a British spy. Look again, and there was a Soviet spy. Turn back once more, and he himself was actually an American spy.
Using one sentence to describe Germany's intelligence agencies, one could not say they were the lower limit of intelligence organizations, but at the very least, they could be considered as leaky as a sieve. And S.H.I.E.L.D. was currently in exactly this sort of situation.
Natasha was even more speechless: "So..... we've been working for HYDRA this entire time?"
"What the fuck!"
Even someone as civilized as Steve could not help blurting out profanity at this moment.
He truly wanted to grab Nick Fury by the collar right now and properly question him whether his eyes had been filled with dog shit all these years.
"I have a question."
Natasha deeply inhaled a breath and, after calming down from the shock, said: "Why are you telling us all this?"
"Then let me ask you two something instead."
The Zola face constructed from data streams inside the computer became somewhat hideous and terrifying: "When villains like us in the eyes of the world endlessly reveal all the truth, may I ask what reason you think there would be?"
Beep beep beep——!!!
A sharp buzzing alarm suddenly sounded.
Steve and Natasha's expressions changed in unison. They recognized that as the base's air raid alarm.
"The answer is... certainty that we will definitely win." Zola's sinister voice accompanied the buzzing air raid alarm: "Thirty seconds later, a short-range ballistic missile will land. I wish you a pleasant journey, though the destination..... is hell."
He had been stalling for time the entire time!
Thirty seconds passed in the blink of an eye, completely insufficient to escape this building.
The next moment, a short-range ballistic missile dragged blazing tail flames and tore through the pitch-black night sky outside.
Rumble rumble rumble!!!
The deafening roar tore apart the silent night sky.
Enormous flames accompanied by a mushroom cloud rose more than several dozen meters high. The terrifying shockwave lifted several inches of earth from the ground, while hundreds and thousands of tons of soil were blasted high into the sky. The reinforced concrete military base was flattened into ruins in a single instant.
Who knew how long passed before the outside vibrations gradually stopped.
Broken stones piled into mountains, the ruins burying everything. Dust filled the atmosphere with a faint choking heat, while the surroundings transformed into scorched earth, without the slightest trace of surviving life.
However, at this moment, a collapsed gigantic stone slab was forcibly pushed aside by a pair of arms.
A dirt-covered Steve and Natasha crawled out from below. Aside from a few scratches and their ears ringing somewhat, the two had not suffered major injuries.
It turned out that at the instant the missile struck, Steve had found a sewer tunnel.
The military base's sewer system was extremely sturdy. Coupled with the Vibranium shield blocking above them, the two barely survived the explosion.
"Cough cough... cough cough..."
Natasha coughed while dusting herself off. Looking at everything around her, she could not help but feel somewhat bitter as she asked: "Captain, what should we do now?"
"Go find a friend." Steve patted the dust off his body and solemnly said: "We need help. With just the two of us, it's impossible to stop HYDRA's conspiracy."
"Are you sure he can be trusted?" Natasha expressed doubt. Right now, everyone looked like HYDRA to her.
"He should be okay. He's an outer member of S.H.I.E.L.D., and you met him last time too." Steve thought for a moment before saying.
"That winged birdman?" Natasha recalled for a moment and said: "In that case, it's indeed worth trying."
The two did not plan to continue staying there and were preparing to leave when Steve's expression suddenly changed. He abruptly pulled Natasha beside him over and raised the Vibranium shield before them.
Clang clang clang...
A series of crisp sounds rang out as sparks exploded across the shield in the darkness.
Battle-hardened Natasha instantly realized that it was an attack from an enemy.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
In the darkness, a rocket shell dragged blazing flames as it flew over.
"Move!"
Steve roared and forcefully pushed Natasha away.
Boom!
The enormous impact of the rocket directly blasted him flying away.
Steve's entire body was viciously slammed by the airwaves into a wall. Letting out a muffled grunt, he felt as though all his internal organs had shifted.
While hiding behind cover, Natasha drew her pistol and fired.
But that black shadow moved extremely fast, like a ghostly phantom in the darkness. Not a single bullet hit him, all landing on empty ground instead, while he even closed the distance considerably.
Natasha decisively drew out a dagger and accurately and fiercely stabbed toward the person's face.
The person merely tilted his head slightly before punching directly into her abdomen.
The sensation was like being hit by a car. Seven or eight ribs broke instantly. Natasha's face twisted in agony as her entire body flew backward, smashing through a reinforced concrete wall fragment.
The person was just about to continue pursuing when the sound of violent wind exploded beside him.
A shield whistled through the air at him, its speed and power so immense that it actually plowed a transparent trench through the atmosphere.
Clang——!
That person's eyes were ice-cold as he directly raised a hand and caught the incoming shield, producing a giant metallic collision sound.
Steve was stunned for several full seconds. That had been a shield throw using his full strength, yet it had actually been caught just like that?
Using the faint moonlight, Steve finally clearly saw the enemy's full appearance.
He had long black hair and wore a mechanical mask that concealed everything except his eyes. But what was truly shocking was that this person's left arm gleamed with silver light. Upon closer inspection, it was astonishingly a metallic arm.
The two only looked at each other for half a second before simultaneously charging toward one another.
The next moment, their fists collided.
One side possessed an arm forged from unknown metal, while the other side had an arm with white skin, red markings, and sharp horns growing from the shoulder.
At the instant their fists collided, the roar that erupted far surpassed the explosion of a ballistic missile, as though Mars had crashed into Earth. The terrifying shockwave visible to the naked eye transformed into raging tides that swept across the entire ruins.
"Demon's Strike!"
Steve roared like thunder, Reiatsu condensing within his left arm as he unleashed an ultra-powerful heavy punch.
That person naturally could not withstand such a terrifying strike. The metal of his entire arm was blasted apart, and his whole body flew backward at several times the speed of sound, smashing through several half-meter-thick reinforced walls along the way before ultimately being buried beneath falling rubble.
Steve panted like a bull. Without caring to check the results of the battle, he turned back, pulled up the heavily injured Natasha, and hurriedly ran into the distance.
Roughly several minutes later.
The falling rubble was blasted apart by violent airflow as that person walked back out from inside.
The mask on his face shattered from the impact and gradually peeled away. Coincidentally, a beam of moonlight fell at that moment, illuminating his face.
If Steve were still there, he would certainly cry out in shock.
Because this man astonishingly possessed the exact same face as his close friend, Bucky Barnes.