Marvel: Sign-In System – Starting with the Glint-Glint Fruit

On the American side, the hijacking incident caused a complete shock.

Terra had clearly demanded the arrest and trial of the mastermind, William Stryker, yet America's response was anything but united.

As the world's most domineering power, America suddenly found itself experiencing what so many other countries had gone through before.

For the first time, it was on the receiving end, facing a far more formidable power demanding accountability.

This left many high-ranking Americans deeply dissatisfied. They believed the world had been turned upside down. Some called for reflection, while others argued that America had to change.

Others, however, insisted they could never allow anyone to stand above the great beacon of freedom. They believed America was the true master of the world, and so on.

The opposing camp could only respond with bitter smiles. "Fine," they seemed to say. "We need to reflect. We need to change. But for now, we have no choice but to accept reality."

Whether they would change—or how—could be discussed later. Right now, they had to face reality.

Terra had openly sent a Grey Knights battle-brother to America with the clear intention of arresting William Stryker. Did they dare stop him? And even if they did, could they?

The answer was obvious. After a brief meeting, America's top officials reached a consensus.

Full cooperation.

More importantly, the incident served as a stark warning to America's leadership.

During the Manhattan incident, they had convinced themselves that the Astartes and Ravens belonged to some mysterious organization secretly protecting Earth—one that would never interfere in human affairs.

Now, that illusion had been completely shattered.

Terra was advancing aggressively. Although its land area, population, and economy currently ranked near the bottom among the world's nations, anyone with keen eyes could see its potential.

Terra was not playing the same game as everyone else.

How the Astartes, Ravens, and Grey Knights were trained remained a mystery, but one fact was undeniable: Terra could produce these super soldiers in batches.

Back then, pistols and bombs had been virtually useless against those suspected demonic monsters. Yet each one fell to the Astartes with a casual swing of an axe.

Skye was even more terrifying. With a single punch, she shattered the sky and reduced more than a hundred thousand demons to dust.

Against power on that level, could humanity's current armies and weapons truly inflict any meaningful damage? Terra also possessed far more than brute force alone.

Conventional methods were no longer enough. They had to create super soldiers of their own—soldiers capable of standing against the Astartes, Ravens, and Grey Knights. They didn't need to defeat them, only hold them back.

As a result, the top-secret super-soldier research program was placed on the table once again.

By coincidence, the man behind the incident, William Stryker, learned of the decision.

Inside an office at the base, William Stryker held the phone to his ear as he listened to the voice on the other end, his expression gradually turning excited.

"Really?"

"That's wonderful. They finally know they need to change. They need me. I've studied mutants for decades. I have a large amount of experimental material and data here."

"I can build them a powerful army."

"We are the future."

William Stryker had waited for this day for a long time.

His experiments had never been allowed into the open. They could only be conducted in secret because those so-called anti-human experiments could never be shown to the public.

The people wouldn't support them, or so they claimed.

Stryker had always sneered at that, but there was nothing he could do. Later, the X-Men seized their chance and cast him into the abyss, forcing him to hide here.

The Boeing carrying the mutants was his doing. He wanted to use it to drive a wedge between America and Terra, provoking a conflict in which Terra would crush America with overwhelming force.

He wanted the people at the top to wake up.

Sir, times have changed. Stop clinging to those old ideas.

The title of the world's strongest had already changed hands.

Once the top officials needed change, and with the Astartes and Raven as examples, that change would inevitably point toward super soldiers.

Stryker could use that chance to regain support.

But just as Stryker was lost in his beautiful dream, the voice on the phone poured cold water over him.

"They don't need you, Stryker."

Those cold words froze the excitement on Stryker's face. He almost could not believe his ears.

He was so stunned that even his face began to twitch.

"W-Why?"

Stryker was not stupid. On the contrary, he was extremely clever, especially in certain ways of thinking. He was no different from a politician.

The moment the person on the other end said those words, he thought of the reason.

But he still refused to believe it.

"You should have thought of this when you did it. You lost the gamble. You slapped Terra in the face with this method, so you should prepare to face Terra's wrath."

"They won't bear Terra's anger for your sake. They are not ready to go to war with Terra."

"The price they are willing to pay is you. Throwing you away costs them nothing."

Every word stabbed into Stryker, tearing open the possibility he had been refusing to face.

When he set this plan in motion, he had been making one last desperate gamble. He couldn't accept living like a rat in the sewers, hiding in this damned place until the day he died. That was no different from a lifetime of exile.

It was a gamble because everything had two sides. If he won, those politicians would protect him. As long as they were willing, Stryker believed there were countless ways to fool Terra.

He could even fake his own death and assume a new identity. In Stryker's mind, Terra simply needed someone to make an example of. Whether that person was truly him didn't matter.

After all, smoothing things over was an art. At worst, America would simply have to pay a higher price.

But there was another possibility: he could be abandoned without mercy.

Clearly, Stryker had lost the bet. Those cold-blooded people had truly abandoned him, and a chill spread through his body.

"NO! They can't do this! They can't!"

"Reality is cruel, Stryker. Good luck."

The line went dead.

Stryker froze where he stood—not only because he had heard that despairing news, but also because someone had appeared before him.

An Eastern European man.

Black fitted armor edged with gold, and a fine hooded coat. He wore no helmet, but there was an emblem carved on his chest plate.

A silver-gray holy flame cross, with a six-pointed star set in the center, wrapped inside the outline of a shield.

Signature armor, signature emblem.

Grey Knight!

A deep chill ran through Stryker. He had never thought Terra would find him this quickly.

How?

This was his most secretive base, one that even the X-Men had never been able to find. So how had Terra tracked it down?

"Found you..."

An accented English voice sounded beside his ears.

Stryker watched in trembling despair as the Grey Knight raised a hand toward him, a faint golden light shimmering in the center of his palm.

In the next instant, his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

It was all over...

…

Stryker was brought back to Terra by Chevat. And it was not only Stryker—he also brought back Stryker's most capable controlled assistant, an Asian mutant woman.

She had abilities similar to Logan's, including powerful self-healing, and adamantium had been implanted into her body.

Aside from her, there was also Stryker's son, Jason.

Jason's mutant ability was illusion control. But after he awakened his powers and inadvertently caused his mother's death, Stryker came to hate his own son so much that he cut out Jason's frontal lobe, turning him into a puppet devoid of self-awareness or personality.

The captain of the Boeing passenger plane had been controlled by Jason's illusions in combination with a control drug developed from Jason's spinal fluid. Together, the two drove the unfortunate captain to commit such an act.

In the end, William Stryker was put to death following a trial by the Inquisition.

Magneto and the X-Men all came to witness the execution. William Stryker's crimes were too numerous to count, and whether it was Magneto, the X-Men, or even Professor X, they all hated him deeply.

Watching him finally brought to justice, every one of them smiled in relief.

In truth, Stryker's execution was far more than simple physical destruction. It was an unimaginably cruel punishment.

Through magic, his conscious thoughts were slowed countless times over, trapping his mind in a place where time itself seemed to have ceased to exist.

Maybe a hundred years. Maybe a thousand. Maybe ten thousand.

Throughout it all, Stryker endured loneliness, emptiness, and a fear of death unlike anything he had ever known. All his senses were sealed away. He could neither feel the wind nor perceive the world around him.

For an ordinary person awaiting death, it was a torment beyond imagination. By the time Stryker finally reached the end, his eyes had long since turned empty.

During those timeless years, his personality and consciousness had already dissolved. Even if he had somehow survived, he would have become just like his son Jason—a hollow shell devoid of self.

This was the punishment Terra reserved for criminals whose sins were too numerous to count. Death was merely a release. Physical suffering could never compare to the torment of the mind.

Those who committed crimes would pay an equal—or even greater—price.

Better treatment for the good. Harsher treatment for the wicked.

That was the standard Matthew had set.

That was Terra's order.

Fairness.

What Matthew hated most were those so-called human-rights-based sentences. Minor crimes that did not matter much could be dealt with through imprisonment and reform.

But bullying, forced torture of women, trafficking, and crimes like that had to be treated as serious felonies. In Terra, there was no such thing as turning a death sentence into life imprisonment.

There was no such thing as turning life imprisonment into a fixed sentence because of good behavior, then reducing it further.

To Matthew, that was pure bullshit.

People who wantonly hurt others and caused irreversible wounds to their bodies and minds—

The victims needed the attackers to pay an equal, or even greater, price.

Only that could truly soothe and heal the victims.

William Stryker became the first criminal in the history of the Terra Empire to be publicly judged and executed.

His crimes would also be made public, so everyone could condemn him.

...

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