"Bazel, answer me now!!"
"Damn it, Bazel, are you trying to betray me too?!"
"I order you to release the 「Original Body」 immediately!"
Red Skull's pupils shrank to pinpoints, several veins bulging on his forehead.
Even he himself did not notice that his voice carried a trace of trembling, filled with fear of death.
No matter how he called out, or threatened and cursed, there was no response from the other side of the communicator. It was as silent as death. Bazel seemed to have disappeared into thin air, even making people suspect whether he was already dead.
Bazel... what exactly happened?
Damn it, could Bazel have died because of the tremor just now?
It did not matter if that guy died, but the key problem was that the key to awakening the 「Original Body」 was still in that bastard's hands.
Beads of cold sweat seeped from his skin, gathering along that terrifying skull-like face before dripping from his jaw.
Facing that strand of gaze lowered from midair, Red Skull experienced for the first time in ages the feeling of his life and death being held in someone else's hands.
Just like those animals whose fur stood on end when facing danger.
Right now, every pore across his entire body had opened, every hair standing upright, and from inside to outside he emitted that trembling aura named 'fear.'
The vast aura, deep as an abyss and broad as the sea, pressed upon everyone's hearts like a mountain.
At this moment, they were like weak chicks held in a butcher's hand, about to stretch their necks and wait for slaughter. A cold chill crawled up from the soles of their feet, as if tens of millions of ants were writhing beneath their skin before gradually occupying their entire brains.
Trembling...
The normally arrogant Red Skull was now shaking in both legs.
Under that terrifying pressure as vast as heavenly might, his mind constantly endured enormous pressure like a tsunami crashing down. Every bone and muscle in his body was wailing, and he even wanted to kneel down and beg for mercy.
But unfortunately... he could not do it.
Forget kneeling down and begging for mercy; even simple actions like blinking or raising an eyebrow were impossible luxuries to him.
The man half-lowered his eyelids, his gaze deep like a cold pond, making it impossible to see joy or anger.
He turned his eyes and looked at Steve.
A spiritual impact exploded through Steve's mind like thunder. His eyes rolled white on the spot, and he fainted.
The man lowered his eyes, neither sorrowful nor joyful, gazing at Red Skull.
The howling blizzard outside suddenly froze, then an icy voice without the slightest emotion covered all sounds like heavenly music.
"Do you still remember... Tønsberg Town?"
The tone was clearly calm, but beneath that calmness, there seemed to be a certain emotion hidden like a blizzard, icy and surging without rest.
"Tønsberg?!"
Red Skull's pupils trembled slightly as memories surged up, recalling that town he had ordered to be massacred.
It was precisely because of the discovery in Tønsberg that HYDRA could rapidly rise within a short time, with dazzling black technologies emerging one after another, transforming into a colossus within the Third Reich, until even the Führer could no longer interfere.
And all of these changes came from the two treasures of Tønsberg.
The first treasure was Odin's gem, the Tesseract. Possessing it was equivalent to possessing infinite energy!
The second treasure was a gift granted to him by heaven, the key to humanity's evolutionary treasure vault——'Prototype One' Yvette!
He had praised Tønsberg countless times, calling it simply a gift bestowed upon him by God.
The appearance of Yvette and the Tesseract made him firmly believe that he was an apostle chosen by God, the 'Noah' who would lead humanity toward a brand-new future, while the thousands of residents in that town were nothing more than a small sacrifice to open a new era.
But now... he discovered that this did not seem to be the case.
He was neither an apostle chosen by God, nor Noah leading humanity toward the future.
The screams buried beneath artillery fire, and pairs of resentful, hateful eyes, reappeared before his eyes like illusions, finally freezing on an aged face.
The flames of vengeance ignited from Tønsberg had wandered across the Siberian ice plains and burned away all of HYDRA's tentacles.
And he, Johann Schmidt, HYDRA leader Red Skull.
Was about to become the next target burned away by the flames of vengeance.
"No... don't... kill me..."
Red Skull's pupils trembled violently, veins bulging across his face. Only after exhausting all his strength did he barely squeeze out a sentence from between his teeth.
"When you ordered the massacre of Tønsberg, did you ever think about their feelings?"
The man stepped down from the sky along invisible stairs, one step after another. A section of golden chain hung down from his sleeve, releasing crisp clinking sounds.
"No... I can't die! I can't die! I can't die!"
Fear overwhelmed Red Skull at this moment. The will to survive that erupted drove him to break free from the pressure's restraint. Like a pathetic stray dog, he crawled and scrambled across the ground with all four limbs.
"All mortals must die, so why can you not die?"
The man walked unhurriedly like a cat toying with a mouse. The golden chain dragged across the ground, producing clinking sounds as it scraped against the cold metal floor and scattered a string of dazzling sparks.
"I am Red Skull, I shouldn't die here!"
Listening to the sound of the iron chain scraping against the ground, Red Skull was frightened until his liver and gall trembled.
At this moment, he had completely abandoned his dignity. HYDRA leader, the evolution of New Humanity—what did any of those matter compared to his life? His mind was filled only with thoughts of escaping that demon, escaping that life-claiming sound of chains.
Shuala la——
The man raised his arm and swung, and the golden chain tore through the air.
Red Skull, who was frantically fleeing, suddenly had his neck tightly wrapped by the flying chain. A feeling of suffocation immediately surged into his brain, followed by searing pain as though burned by flames, soon sweeping through his entire body.
"Ahhhhhh——"
An extremely miserable scream came from Red Skull's mouth.
It was as though millions of ants and insects were gnawing at his flesh, and as though he had been thrown into a dense sulfuric acid pool. Every inch of skin was melting, every bone was wailing, and every cell was screaming.
Any words at this moment were pale, insufficient to describe even one ten-thousandth of this pain.
The chain dragged the screaming Red Skull, sliding bit by bit across the ground. At the end of this golden chain, after the earth split open, he saw rolling black qi rising from below as a terrifying gate made from broken bones slowly rose.
Two gigantic skeletons wrapped in bandages slowly pulled open that terrifying gate.
The screams of countless vengeful spirits and fierce ghosts were like red-hot branding irons, wildly stirring inside his mind. One ferocious face after another, filled with torture, emitted immense terror, deeply stimulating Red Skull's heart.
That was... the Gate of Hell!
Even if he had never seen it before with his own eyes, how could Red Skull, who was obsessed with myths, fail to guess?
Those who fell into Hell would suffer eternal torment without end.
He did not want to become one of those vengeful spirits and fierce ghosts, much less be tortured in Hell. This extremely shocking scene directly shattered the final layer of resistance in Red Skull's heart.
"No no no..... I was wrong... I was wrong!!!"
Red Skull sprayed tears and snot wildly. Amid the intense pain, he desperately begged the man to spare his life.
"Didn't you want immortality?"
The man tightened his grip on the chain, his gaze indifferent and icy: "I'll give you this opportunity. Stay in Hell and enjoy the immortality you dreamed of."
"No——!!!"
A miserable hoarse roar tore through the pitch-black night.
A gigantic blade suddenly extended from within the Gate of Hell, ignoring obstacles and terrain as it directly pierced through the screaming Red Skull.
The scream stopped abruptly. Red Skull's eyes widened, his flesh peeling away inch by inch until he completely became a skeleton.
The gigantic blade carried Red Skull as it slowly withdrew into the Gate of Hell, and countless vengeful spirits and fierce ghosts pounced forward, gnawing at the new member.
Under the man's indifferent gaze, the Gate of Hell slowly closed.
Red Skull obtained the immortality he wished for.
Only, the price of this immortality was to forever suffer the torture of Hell's jailers.