Chapter 237: The Base on the Isolated Island
Baron Strat did not concern himself with immortality, as after his resurrection he had essentially stopped aging. What he cared about was the "Afterlife" behind Jiaying—a place filled with many Inhumans.
Under the threat of her husband Calvin and her daughter Daisy's lives, Jiaying finally compromised and revealed the location of the "Afterlife."
Baron Strat personally took action, leading his Hydra soldiers in a surprise assault on the "Afterlife," and after a fierce battle, successfully captured all the Inhumans within it.
Inhumans are similar to mutants; apart from a few, most Inhumans, though possessing superpowers, did not have abilities suited for combat.
Moreover, many of the families of Inhumans from various generations also lived there, and those people were equally non-combative.
So when Hydra's army descended upon the "Afterlife," holding Jiaying—their leader—hostage, nearly all the Inhumans surrendered without much resistance.
However, Baron Strat was greatly disappointed after conducting experiments on the Inhumans and discovering that their powers could not be replicated at all, and realizing the intricate relationship between the Inhuman genes and the crystals.
Because this meant he couldn't mass-produce soldiers with specific superpowers.
In the end, Baron Strat took away every family member of each Inhuman from the "Afterlife," scattering them across various unknown places as hostages, to force Jiaying and the Inhumans of the "Afterlife" to serve him.
"Gordon, take me back to the Afterlife."
She picked up the specially-made phone in the room to call the Afterlife, and a man without eyes instantly appeared in her room.
The eyeless man was named Gordon, and he had the powers of sensing Inhumans and teleportation.
Gordon grabbed Jiaying's hand and instantly took her back to the "Afterlife," where the Inhumans had lived for generations.
Jiaying gathered a few Inhumans with combat capabilities and conveyed Baron Strat's mission to them. She concluded with a solemn reminder:
"Remember, whether the mission succeeds or fails doesn't matter. What matters most is preserving your lives.
Gordon, if things go south, just take them and flee immediately. I'll handle Baron Strat.
And Daisy, although your power is strong, you still can't control it perfectly. Be careful when the time comes."
After she finished her instructions, Gordon teleported Jiaying back to Hydra's base in Sokovia, and then one by one brought the Inhuman ability-users, including Daisy, to the Triskelion building in Washington.
Meanwhile, after Coulson, Captain America, and others left on the X-Jet, George spoke a few words to Professor X and then vanished from the school via Apparition.
Naturally, he was going to take this opportunity to raid Hydra's base and retrieve the Tesseract.
The base where Hydra was manufacturing energy weapons and hiding the Tesseract was located on a sea-bound isolated island not far from Washington.
George first Apparated to the seashore, then unfolded his wings and flew toward the island.
Since the speed of flight with the "Wings" spell was limited, he also used magnetism to accelerate his flight—there were many ways to do so.
For example, exerting ten tons of force on the iron soles of his shoes, gliding along the Earth's magnetic field lines, generating anti-ground thrust, manipulating gravity particles, and so on.
In short, with all the enhancements, his flying speed had already reached supersonic levels.
Fortunately, his body had long surpassed the limits of ordinary humans; otherwise, at that speed, his flesh would've been torn apart.
Unless he cast the Iron Armor spell on himself—but that would surely increase resistance and affect his flight speed.
"When it comes to flying speed, Tony's suit is still faster!"
At this moment, George couldn't help but think of Iron Man's suit.
According to what Tony told him the last time he commissioned a metal model, after acquiring some technologies from Asgard, his Iron Man suit's flight speed had been upgraded to Mach 4.
"When I get the time, I'm going to make myself some sort of magical battle suit."
Recently, he had already started learning from Erza about the Requip magic of the Knight-type—essentially the ability to instantly wear armor stored in a Requip space.
So if he could craft magical armor, he could instantly wear it on his body—very convenient.
With supersonic flight and having the exact coordinates, he soon found the island and saw various buildings bearing Hydra's symbol on it.
At the dock of the island, a large ship was anchored, and Hydra soldiers were loading newly-made energy weapons, box by box, onto the ship—probably to transport them to Hydra bases around the world.
"Invisibility!"
Instead of launching a direct attack, George first cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself to become invisible, and then boldly infiltrated the base by following the Hydra soldiers.
"Huh, strange... Why haven't I seen any Hydra robot guards?"
He remembered from Sitwell's memory that Pierce, after acquiring some technology from S.H.I.E.L.D., had Dr. Zola manufacture a number of Hydra robot soldiers.
These Hydra robot soldiers were supposed to guard the Tesseract on this very island.
However, he hadn't seen a single one along the way.
Still, he didn't mind. With his powers, robots were basically hard-countered.
Given his current level of magnetic power, capable of controlling ten tons of metal, any robot in front of him would be instantly dismembered—completely powerless to resist.
"Alohomora!"
He walked into the deepest part of the base and used the unlocking spell repeatedly to open several steel doors until he finally saw the Tesseract, which was being continuously drained of its energy.
Woo! Woo! Woo!
However, at that moment, the entire base suddenly sounded an ear-piercing alarm—George had been discovered.
"They even installed thermal sensors—what a tight security setup."
He dispelled the Disillusionment Charm, yet didn't panic because of the alarm. Instead, he calmly walked toward the machine extracting energy from the Tesseract.
This machine was constantly drawing energy from the Tesseract, converting it into stable blue energy, and sealing it into glass canisters, which were then sent via conveyor belt into a room behind.
He picked up one of the canisters from the belt, opened it, and closed his eyes to meditate and attempt absorbing the energy.
Moments later, he opened his eyes with a smile.
"As expected, it works!"
The blue energy inside the canisters could be absorbed through meditation, just like magic crystals, to enhance his own magic power.
"Who's there?!"
Just then, a small squad of Hydra soldiers rushed into the room with energy guns, raising them at George and about to fire.
But before they could even press the trigger, their energy guns were forcefully pulled from their hands and turned against them—firing mercilessly at their own heads.
Although the guns fired energy blasts, their bodies were made of metal, and where there was metal, there was George's control.
Ignoring the now-dead Hydra squad, George shut down the machine, pulled out a small box from his Requip space, and began storing the entire machine and the Tesseract into the box.
(End of this chapter)