The mop-up operation against Hydra in the Budapest undercity continued. Despite the ten-minute death countdown, combat raged unabated in every sector. The Hulk was busy tearing apart massive Hydra robots with his bare hands, Captain America was locked in a duel with his old teammate, the original Human Torch, and Wolverine was dealing with his "daughter" gestated from his own stolen genetic material. Chaos seemed to reign everywhere.
However, the scales were tipping steadily toward the Avengers and the Wild Pack.
Clad in the Venom symbiote, Felicia relentlessly tore through Hydra soldiers. She did not know exactly who had murdered her father, but she was certain that given his skills, ordinary Hydra soldiers would have been no match for him even if he had been discovered.
The killer had to be a very specific, high-level combatant among this group. As long as she kept killing her way through, she was bound to find them!
"All of you! Get back!"
Countless symbiotic spikes erupted simultaneously, impaling the surrounding Hydra soldiers and flinging their corpses across the ground. The Avengers and Silver Sable watched this scene with profound shock. The Wasp, feeling a bit unnerved, flew over to Black Panther and whispered, "Was that thing that brutal when it was on Spider-Man?"
"The symbiote itself polarizes the host's emotions. Spider-Man relied on his own character to make it seem less threatening."
As Black Panther spoke, he used his claws to slice through a Hydra soldier's weapon. He watched Black Cat as she slaughtered her way into the distance and shook his head helplessly. "But it is true—not everyone is suited to wield a symbiote."
Perhaps she just has a lot on her mind, Silver Sable thought with a sigh. She handed battlefield command over to her adjutant and gave chase, armed and ready. She couldn't outrun Felicia, who was boosted by both the Super Soldier Serum and Venom, but there were plenty of Hydra vehicles lying around. She simply took a car.
Felicia essentially spent the entire trek hunting down Hydra soldiers, killing them one by one while demanding an answer to the same question.
"Where is the killer who took out Walter Hardy?!"
The Hydra soldiers barely had time to react before being skewered by the symbiote. Following in her hovercar, Silver Sable saw nothing but gruesome tableaus: bodies strewn across the floor or pinned to the wreckage of buildings. Ahead, the monster swinging like a spider was carving a bloody path forward.
It was a truly eerie sight.
As Felicia pressed on, she eventually arrived at the location where Captain America and Jim Hammond were fighting. Jim Hammond, thoroughly remodeled and stripped of his free will, was relentlessly attacking his old comrade-in-arms. Faced with the original Human Torch, Cap had no easy solution; the gap in their raw power was simply too great.
Consequently, Cap had chosen to fight Jim while hauling an unconscious Baron Strucker. Whenever the Human Torch attacked, he risked incinerating Strucker, which forced the Torch to hesitate and gave Cap an opening to strike.
However, Cap still had few ways to actually damage his opponent, limited mostly to throwing his shield or firing bullets.
It was at this moment that another interloper arrived.
A cloaked Hydra agent lunged at Cap from behind. Cap dodged instinctively. The agent's right arm, much like Strucker's, had been replaced with a prosthetic, but this one was fashioned into a razor-sharp scythe. He swung at Cap, clearly indifferent to whether Strucker lived or died.
"Hello, Captain America. You should know that ever since you woke up last year, all of Hydra has been waiting to kill you. I am honored to have the privilege."
The Grim Reaper smiled faintly and charged. Cap hurriedly raised Strucker to defend himself; the sharp scythe pierced directly through Strucker's aging body, narrowly missing Cap's head.
Cold sweat broke out on Cap's brow. Strucker, jolted awake by the searing pain, let out a tortured howl and immediately tried to use his prosthetic arm to drain Cap's life force. Cap had no choice but to kick Strucker away and dive into nearby cover to avoid the Human Torch's flames.
"My deepest apologies, my Lord. I had no choice at the time."
After pulling out a healing spray and applying it to Strucker's wounds, the Grim Reaper helped him to his feet. "We don't have much time. The self-destruct sequence will trigger soon. We need to evacuate immediately, my Lord."
"Retreat... retreat quickly! Blow up the whole base! I want the Avengers to die here!"
Before the two could finish speaking, a massive, chaotic mass of symbiote crashed into the battlefield, pouncing directly onto the Human Torch. After sinking its teeth into his shoulder, it was scorched by the Torch's flames and fell to the ground.
Venom, having only just recovered, felt like he had been doing nothing but getting hurt lately.
In reality, the symbiote couldn't fully override the host unless the host lacked any strong personal desires. Given Felicia's current obsession with revenge, Venom couldn't stop her, resulting in her reckless collision with the Human Torch.
The symbiote almost wondered if Peter had forgotten that he amplified emotions. I know your goal was to protect the girl, but could you please show a little respect for my biological settings?
[Can we sober up a little now?]
The pain fed back by the scorched symbiote allowed Felicia to regain a modicum of clarity. The expanding, pulsating mass began to slowly retract. She looked at the descending Human Torch with a slight daze, finally realizing what she had just done.
Right then, a rocket slammed into Jim Hammond. Perched on her hovercar, Silver Sable had fired a specialized projectile at the original Human Torch. She took in the sight of a slightly more rational Black Cat and Captain America, who was peeking out from behind his shield.
"I'll hold off the Torch! Ladies, don't let Strucker escape!"
Silver Sable and Black Cat simultaneously locked their sights on Strucker, who was being supported by the Grim Reaper. Seeing this, the Reaper let go of Strucker and turned to face the two women.
"Baron, I will hold them off."
The Grim Reaper bared his scythe, took a deep breath, and smirked. "Just a couple of little girls. Go on ahead; I'll bring you their heads along with Captain America's as a gift."
Chapter 437: Hydra is Destroyed, But Not Entirely
Peter had indeed chosen not to stop Felicia's revenge; he was merely preventing Felicia from hurting herself.
Thus, when Felicia's sanity returned, he told her how to deal with the Human Torch—whether it was the original Jim Hammond or the second-generation Johnny Storm, they both required oxygen to sustain their flames.
Johnny had been humiliated by Mysterio using this very trick, and it was the same for Felicia; she only needed to use Venom to suck all the air away from Jim Hammond's vicinity.
Once everything was over, the severely injured Venom acted as a living cage, possessing Jim Hammond's lifeless body.
Looking at the body that remained motionless even after being possessed by the symbiote, Peter turned to the silent Captain.
"Captain, he has been dead for a very long time. If it were a living being, the symbiote could host normally."
"I know… I know."
The Captain was not surprised by this outcome. From the moment the Allies, driven by the elusive goal of "capturing Berlin first," sent Jim to Berlin to kill Hitler, it meant that the true killers of Jim Hammond were the Western Allies—most likely the U.S. military itself.
The Captain didn't find this conclusion surprising; in fact, he was… somewhat numb to it.
"How are things elsewhere, Spider-Man?"
"Uh, we caught Taskmaster. Or rather, he surrendered voluntarily," Peter explained the situation. "Cindy is guarding him; I came ahead."
Accompanied by a rumble of thunder and Hulk's roar, the massive Hydra robot crashed to the ground. Then, a peculiar sound echoed through the sky, as if some background noise had paused for a moment.
This sound was the result of Tony and the others' work. A few minutes ago, with Thor carving a path of divine destruction, they had reached Hydra's central hub in one go and began cracking the self-destruct sequence.
"Regrettably, it is fundamentally impossible for you to crack my program, for it is a creation derived from the patterns of the human brain. The Zola Algorithm has surpassed your limits, Tony Stark."
Arnim Zola's giant head appeared on the screen, mocking Tony and Pym as they tried to halt the self-destruct. "I was the first to upload my consciousness to a computer. I have transcended ordinary programming; you cannot defeat a soul within the network."
"Actually, we're just pressing for time to crack and download Hydra's existing data," Tony smiled. "And your information is a bit outdated. We've already taken down a digital ghost before—called the Green Goblin, I believe."
"You dare compare that thing to me!"
"The point is, we weren't even the ones who took him down, were we?"
Tony looked at the data treasure trove with a satisfied smile. "Haven't you noticed that you are losing control over the system? Meet Ultron."
"What?"
Arnim Zola didn't react at first, but as Ultron entered the network, a war between a digital ghost and a super AI began.
As a digital ghost, Zola did have his advantages; normal AI could not comprehend human thought patterns. However, Ultron himself possessed human thinking models combined with the learning and evolution speed of an AI, and he quickly began to overwhelm Zola.
The self-destruct sequence for the entire base was rapidly deactivated, and the crisis in Budapest was essentially resolved.
Tony casually browsed through the files in the Hydra database when his expression suddenly turned solemn. He saw the record of Howard Stark's death and immediately clicked on it.
Winter Soldier: James Buchanan Barnes. Executed the mission to eliminate Howard Stark on December 16, 1991.
"Tony, what's wrong?"
Pym, who was surveying the battlefield and preparing to disarm Hydra, asked Tony, who seemed to be dazed. Tony forced a smile. "Nothing. Let's keep going."
[Control of the Budapest base has been seized.]
"Good job, Ultron." Pym looked gratified. "I'll have to give you a check-up when we get back to make sure you weren't contaminated by Hydra's crooked ways. By the way, what happened to Arnim Zola?"
"Escaped into a local area network; signal lost."
"Good news from the Captain's side: they've captured Taskmaster, a Reaper, and the modified original Little Torch. Oh, and Hydra's leader, Baron Strucker. It's quite a haul."
As Tony spoke, he checked the Hydra roster and found that almost every high-profile figure had been apprehended. It seemed nothing had been missed.
It was almost suspiciously smooth.
Of course, not every front went perfectly. For instance, with Wolverine, Logan failed to capture X-23; instead, after being pummeled by his own daughter, he watched her retreat. Whether Logan held back was hard to say.
But all in all, with Strucker captured, the giant Hydra robot downed, and the self-destruct sequence neutralized, the Avengers had successfully triumphed over the enemy.
Peter looked at Felicia. She was merely staring silently at Jim Hammond, who lay on the ground covered by Venom, without saying a word. Peter wasn't sure how Felicia was feeling right now.
The murderer of her father, whom she had searched for so long, was actually a corpse that had been dead for decades, puppeted by Hydra. Perhaps from another perspective, the entirety of Hydra was responsible for Walter Hardy's death, but the one who physically did the deed was the original Human Torch before her.
But he was already dead.
"How does it feel? Not great, right? It's like you've had your revenge, but you don't feel anything at all."
Silver Sable chose this inopportune moment to twist the knife. "You're lucky. At least you aren't a pathetic soul with nothing left but vengeance. I've seen many people whose lives were nothing but revenge; once they completed it, they simply became new demons."
"You say that as if you've actually been through it."
Felicia's words didn't sound like a simple retort; they were laced with anger.
Silver Sable arched an eyebrow, extinguishing Felicia's fury with a single sentence.
"Of course I've been through it. I killed the murderer of my mother years ago. So I know exactly how it feels after revenge is over—and that is, it feels like nothing."
The satisfaction, the rage, the release of suppression you expected—none of it happened.
"Revenge will ruin a person, child. When you have completed your revenge, you must ponder an even more critical question."
The Captain walked over and said to Felicia, "Besides revenge, what do you have left? Because the things you have left are the only things you truly possess."
"You have finished your revenge. Do not keep anger and hatred in your heart anymore."