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

Splash!

Jessica excitedly leaped into the pool with a huge splash, sending water flying everywhere.

Seeing how wildly she had jumped in, Skye sighed helplessly. She raised a hand and released a gentle vibration that pushed the incoming water away.

"What is it?" Skye asked while quietly lamenting how increasingly carefree and reckless her best friend had become.

She had recently gotten her turn to fight Blackheart one-on-one and had gone through a full battle with him.

Afterward, she had been focused on absorbing what she gained from the fight and had not paid much attention to anything else, so she had no idea what Jessica was talking about.

Jessica moved her arms and legs, swimming gracefully over to Skye. She rested both elbows against the edge of the pool and tilted her head in surprise.

"You haven't noticed?"

"The atmosphere has been really tense lately."

"We might be preparing for a Great Crusade."

Skye looked even more surprised than Jessica. Her lazy posture vanished as she immediately became alert.

"A Great Crusade? Have there been any official orders? Who are we fighting?"

"Nothing official yet, but logistics and the Grey Knights have been unusually busy. Didn't they collect the Astartes' power armor and our combat suits to upgrade and optimize them?" Jessica grinned.

Skye rolled her eyes at her. "Isn't it completely normal for power armor and combat suits to be optimized?"

With Terra growing exponentially with each passing day—whether from the materials provided by the Munch-Munch Fruit, the refining of magical expertise among the Grey Knights, or technological breakthroughs in the Science Department—it was only natural to apply those advancements to power armor and combat suits.

Skye didn't see anything strange about it at all. How on earth did Jessica jump to the conclusion that a Great Crusade was coming?

"Come on. Haven't you noticed that our training schedule was changed recently?"

"Now that you mention it, yes. I thought it was strange at first." Skye admitted, a wave of realization washing over her.

The training of the three warbands had always been pushed close to the absolute limit.

Aside from eating and resting, every part of their schedule was tightly controlled.

The main goal was to keep increasing the intensity, forcing both body and will to their limits.

Then they would repeatedly break through those limits and grow stronger.

That was why the soldiers of the three warbands had improved so quickly.

Of course, training at that level also placed tremendous pressure on the mind and could easily cause someone to break down.

Because of that, after repeatedly pushing past their limits, the soldiers would be given several days to recover.

Whether through entertainment or other methods, those breaks allowed them to restore their mental balance.

Overall, the training was built around extreme pressure, but it also took psychological strain into full consideration.

Yet over the past few days, the training schedule had been adjusted.

The intensity had become lower and more gradual than before.

Nothing like this had ever happened.

It was highly unusual.

Skye had already found the recent changes strange, and Jessica's words no longer sounded like baseless speculation.

She immediately became excited. "Are we really going on a Great Crusade?"

As a qualified soldier, Skye felt no fear toward war or battle. Instead, her fighting spirit began to burn.

The soldiers of the three warbands rarely took part in large-scale combat. Aside from occasionally assisting Kamar-Taj in driving back or killing outside threats, most of their battles were limited to sparring and training within the warbands.

Those fights might match the required intensity, but they were not true battles to the death.

Day after day of relentless training had turned every soldier into a volcano steadily building pressure, waiting for the chance to erupt.

Even the battle during the Manhattan incident had felt like little more than a warm-up to the Astartes and Raven soldiers.

They had been holding back for far too long.

"Most likely. We just don't know who we'll be fighting." Jessica said, a look of anticipation crossing her refined features as well.

It wasn't just the two of them; other soldiers soaking in the bathhouse were discussing the exact same topic. They relaxed in the warm water, eating fruits prepared by Logistics and sipping cold drinks while chatting away.

An hour later, refreshed and dressed in clean clothes, Skye and Jessica had just returned to their quarters when Skye's wristwatch sounded.

Looking at the message displayed on the screen, Skye froze. She bit her lower lip, and a complicated look appeared in her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"My... my father has been found."

"What?" Jessica gasped, staring at Skye's conflicted expression, momentarily at a loss for words.

...

A small town in the Austrian Alps.

By June, the cold had faded from the mountains, and the town rested beneath clear sunlight.

Soft green pastures covered the slopes, dotted with wildflowers, while pine forests rose in layers along the mountainsides.

Wooden houses were scattered throughout the valley, each with dark shingles and white-painted window frames. Small copper bells hung from the corners of the roofs.

The air was cool and dry, carrying the faint scent of grass, wood, and pine resin. Snow still covered the distant peaks, untouched through every season, while the mountain wind brought only a gentle chill through the valley.

The streets were quiet. From time to time, the low calls of cattle and sheep could be heard, and the few people outside moved at an easy pace.

Cradled by the surrounding mountains, the entire town felt secluded and peaceful.

That afternoon, inside a somewhat isolated wooden house...

A lean, middle-aged man around six feet tall stood near the entrance, gathering clothes that had been left out to dry. He wore glasses and an old dark suit.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Winslow."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Marlene."

"Good afternoon, Dr. Winslow. Theresia made Tyrolean smoked bacon today. Would you like to join us for dinner?"

"Good afternoon, Hans. Thank you, but I need to leave tonight to purchase some medical supplies."

"That's a shame. Next time, then."

As he collected the laundry, several townspeople passed by and greeted him warmly.

In such a remote mountain town, having a highly skilled doctor nearby was a great blessing.

Although Dr. Winslow was American, he was gentle, courteous, and refined. The residents of the town all liked him.

After returning their greetings, Dr. Winslow carried the dry clothes back into the house.

The living room was rather bare, furnished with only a few simple pieces.

Yet hidden within this ordinary-looking home was Dr. Winslow's secret, something no one else could ever be allowed to discover.

He sat on the sofa and began folding the clothes.

At some point, the warmth disappeared from his face, leaving it expressionless.

Behind his glasses, a dark and sinister look occasionally flickered through his eyes.

Just as he finished folding the clothes and prepared to place them in the wardrobe, someone knocked on the closed door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound was soft and measured.

Dr. Winslow paused. His gentle expression immediately returned. He placed the clothes on the sofa and walked to the door.

Speaking in fluent German, he asked as he opened it, "Can I help you?"

The moment the door opened, Dr. Winslow froze.

Standing before him was a girl he had never seen before, a strikingly beautiful young Asian woman.

Her smooth blonde hair faded gradually in tone. She wore a white T-shirt beneath a brown leather jacket, along with jeans and white shoes.

She was tall, and there was a maturity and resilience in her presence that girls her age rarely possessed.

Her appearance and bearing did not belong in this quiet town.

She was not from here.

But that was not why Dr. Winslow stood frozen. What truly stunned him was her face.

A memory buried deep within him suddenly resurfaced.

His lips trembled. His nose stung, and before he realized it, the eyes behind his glasses had grown wet.

He could hardly believe what he was seeing.

For reasons he could not explain, he knew from the very first glance that the girl standing before him was the child he had spent more than a decade searching for.

"Are you... Daisy? My Daisy?"

Dr. Winslow spoke in English rather than German, asking the question with extreme care. His voice caught in his throat as he stared at the girl's face, unwilling even to blink.

He was afraid she might be nothing more than an illusion born from years of longing.

The girl stared back at the weathered middle-aged doctor without looking away. Her expression was complicated, but under his hopeful gaze, she nodded.

"I suppose my name should be Daisy Johnson."

"Yes! Yes, that's right! You're a Johnson! That's the name I gave you! I am Calvin Johnson!"

Dr. Winslow—or rather, Calvin Johnson—burst into tears of joy. With trembling hands, he reached out and touched Skye's face.

Skye did not pull away. She simply looked at the father she had also spent so many years searching for.

"It's you. It really is you. I searched for you for twenty years. Twenty whole years, my Daisy."

Unable to contain his emotions any longer, Calvin pulled Skye into his arms.

A faint smell of chemicals clung to him. It was barely noticeable to an ordinary person, but Skye's senses were many times sharper than normal, and the odor was harsh enough for her to detect clearly.

Even so, she did not recoil.

He was her biological father.

There had been a time when Skye resented the parents she had never met. She hated them for bringing her into the world if they had never wanted her, and for abandoning her.

But after accessing Terra's database, Skye had finally learned part of the truth.

Her parents had not wanted to abandon her. They had been forced apart after encountering danger.

The father before her had searched for her for so long that his mind seemed to have become unstable, almost deranged.

Their first meeting after twenty years apart left both Calvin and Daisy overwhelmed by complicated emotions.

Half an hour later, Skye sat on the sofa while Calvin busied himself bringing her food and drinks.

She felt a little helpless, but also warm.

She understood that this was Calvin's awkward way of expressing his love as a father.

Skye allowed herself to enjoy it for a while, but eventually she could not take any more and forced him to sit down beside her.

She wanted to know the whole truth.

"That is a part of the past I do not want to remember, Daisy."

Calvin's expression darkened. But when he saw the determination on his daughter's face, he sighed, took her hand, and stood up.

He opened the door to the storage room and led her inside.

The room only appeared to be used for storage. In truth, it concealed something more.

Calvin lifted a section of the floor, revealing a staircase that led down into a basement he had excavated himself.

The sharp smell of chemicals drifted up from below.

Father and daughter descended the stairs together.

When the lights came on, the darkness receded and revealed the room's true appearance.

It was a sealed basement, more than one hundred and thirty square meters in size. Several long tables filled the space, covered with glass bottles and various chemical solutions.

The walls were covered with diagrams.

Many of them showed relationship charts drawn with red marker.

Calvin then explained how he had been separated from his wife and Skye all those years ago.

More than twenty years earlier, Calvin had still been working as a doctor. He opened a foreign-funded clinic in the East, where he met Skye's mother, Jiaying.

The two fell in love and married.

Their life in the village was peaceful and happy, and in 1988, they had Skye.

But the nightmare began soon afterward.

That year, an old man named Werner Reinhardt found the couple and abducted Jiaying.

After settling the newborn Skye somewhere safe, Calvin followed the trail and eventually found Jiaying barely alive, her body cut open and dismembered.

Overcome by rage and despair, he could do nothing but gather every piece of her body. Using all of his medical skill, he stitched her back together, only to discover that his wife was somehow still alive.

He brought Jiaying back to the village where they had lived and cared for her while she recovered. During that time, he learned her secret: Jiaying was not an ordinary person, but an Inhuman with special abilities.

Eventually, she recovered and returned to life.

At this point in the story, however, Calvin became vague, glossing over certain details.

Skye's eyes flickered. Through her Observation Haki, she sensed complicated emotions from Calvin—helplessness mixed with resignation.

Why?

Skye did not know, but she chose not to press him.

Calvin glanced at her calm expression and continued.

At the time, he wanted revenge against the people who had harmed his wife. He began abusing a physical enhancement drug of his own creation, which caused him to lose control of his emotions and fall into violent rages.

During that period, another group appeared for reasons he did not understand. They took Skye away and kept moving her from place to place.

Calvin went completely mad and hunted the people who had taken his daughter with everything he had. After years of fruitless searching, he finally returned to Jiaying, only to find that she, devastated by the loss of their daughter, had insisted on a divorce and left him.

Having lost both his wife and daughter, Calvin was consumed by anger, yet he never gave up. He continued tracking down the people who had vanished with Skye, pursuing them to this day.

From his story, Skye could clearly feel the weight of a father's love and helplessness.

She stepped forward, bit her lower lip, and embraced him.

"You've suffered so much, Dad."

"No... it's my fault. I'm sorry... I was too useless!"

That simple sentence made Calvin break down again. He pulled Skye tightly into his arms, and the trembling grief in his voice struck deep into her heart.

A long time passed before Calvin finally calmed down enough to let her go.

The two returned to the living room.

Then Skye looked at him with a serious expression and asked, "Dad, have you ever hurt innocent people?"

"What?"

The unexpected question left Calvin confused.

What did she mean by hurting innocent people?

But when he saw the red glow in Skye's eyes, he suddenly felt as though those beautiful eyes could see straight into his heart.

He did not understand it, but he was not afraid.

He was her father.

"This is important to me, Dad. Look me in the eyes and tell me. Have you ever hurt innocent people?"

Skye remained completely calm.

She was happy to have found Calvin.

But she had never forgotten who she was.

She came from Terra. She was a soldier of Terra and a follower of the Emperor's order and ideals.

Justice and order had been carved into her very being.

From Calvin's story, Skye could clearly tell that he had hidden something from her.

She needed to know whether that hidden part of the past was what she suspected.

Calvin looked directly into her glowing red eyes. Although he did not understand why she was being so serious, he hesitated only briefly before shaking his head openly.

"No. The chemicals often made me furious, but I was able to control myself. I never deliberately harmed innocent people. Everyone I killed was either a criminal or one of the people who took you away."

Hearing this, Skye finally relaxed. Through her Observation Haki, she could sense the honesty in his emotions.

"Why did you ask me that?" Calvin asked in confusion.

Skye exhaled softly. "Do you know about Terra?"

"Terra?"

Calvin's eyes widened the moment he heard that name.

Although he lived in a remote town in the Alps, he still traveled into the city from time to time to purchase daily necessities, medical supplies, and chemical materials.

Naturally, he had heard of Terra.

On more than one lonely night, he had even prayed to Terra's living god, begging for the chance to find his daughter.

Now, hearing Skye mention Terra so suddenly, Calvin immediately wondered whether the great Emperor had guided his daughter back to him.

Before that gratitude could fully take hold, however, Skye delivered another shock.

"I'm the Deputy Minister of Terra's central intelligence network, the Astronomican."

Calvin had no idea what the Astronomican was, but he understood that his daughter had joined Terra and now held an important position. The revelation left him struggling to process everything.

"The central intelligence network... the Astronomican? Deputy Minister?"

"Yeah. Deputy Minister." Skye nodded.

The department known as the Astronomical was responsible for coordinating and collecting all intelligence, headed by Neagley.

Originally, she and Neagley had been nothing more than online friends. But when the New York crisis erupted and she and Jessica were hunted by the Purple Man—resulting in Jessica's capture—she sent Neagley an emergency distress call.

She hadn't expected much, but Neagley arrived with Natasha, now the Empire's Supreme Deputy Commander. Together, they carved a bloody path through New York, stormed the vampires' lair beneath the Temple of Eternal Night, and rescued both her and Jessica.

Afterward, Neagley recognized her talent and brought her into the Astronomican.

Although Skye later trained alongside Jessica and the three warbands, she was not technically a soldier of any of them.

She belonged to the Astronomican.

In terms of rank alone, her position was far higher than Jessica's. When Skye first learned that, she had bragged about it endlessly—until an irritated Jessica pinned her down and put an end to it.

"Oh... okay. Wow, that's... that's really surprising," Calvin was so stunned that he began to stammer.

It took him a while to fully process the news.

Then he seemed to realize something, and excitement surged across his face.

"Does that mean you can call on Terra's resources? Can we finally find the bastard who hurt your mother?"

"Yeah, of course. I already had Veronica upload all the information you gathered in the basement to headquarters. The Astronomican will mobilize its resources and investigate—I'm sure we'll have results soon."

"But there's something else I want to know first. Where is Mom now?"

"Her?"

Calvin's excitement vanished the moment Skye asked about his wife.

He fell silent, and after a long pause, he spoke bitterly.

"She may not be the person you imagine anymore, Daisy. And right now... I can't find her either."

Skye's expression darkened. "Alright. Then let's find the bastard who destroyed our family first."

...

That afternoon, several Humvees traveled along a secluded mountain road as sunlight filtered through the dense canopy on both sides.

Before long, the bright weather suddenly turned gloomy—as though the sky itself had begun reflecting the mood of the middle-aged man sitting in the back seat of one of the vehicles.

He wore a suit and gold-rimmed glasses, and his refined appearance made him seem calm and cultured.

But as he read through the information on the tablet in his hands, his expression grew darker by the second.

The convoy soon entered an inconspicuous tunnel carved into the mountainside.

They drove deep inside until a metal gate opened before them.

The vehicles entered a spacious parking area, and the doors swung open.

Several fully armed squads surrounded the man as he stepped out and escorted him through the facility.

The moment he entered his office, he finally lost control and slammed the tablet onto the desk.

BANG!

The two other people in the room flinched in shock.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

"Who the hell is doing this? In only a few days, every one of our operations has come under attack. All our assets in Central Europe were hit, and every security force we had disappeared without a trace."

"We don't even know who the enemy is!"

Whitehall was furious.

His real name was Werner Reinhardt. During World War II, a chance encounter led him to join Hydra and become one of the Red Skull's direct disciples.

He later discovered a technological obelisk that appeared to come from an alien civilization and began researching it. Unfortunately, he was captured in 1945 and imprisoned for forty years. After being released in 1988, he resumed his work for Hydra.

By then, however, he was already so old that he had only a few years left to live.

Four years later, he discovered a very unusual woman—someone with an extraordinarily long lifespan.

He spent an enormous amount of time and resources tracking her down and capturing her. By transplanting her genes into himself, he successfully restored his youth and gained eternal life.

Over the years, he continued his research while quietly expanding the Hydra faction under his command.

He remained hidden, keeping an even lower profile than before.

The establishment of the Terra Empire, and the appearance of its so-called Emperor, made Whitehall even more cautious.

He had no desire to attract the attention of that mysterious and powerful empire.

Yet the more careful he became, the more problems seemed to arise.

"Doctor, we've already pulled back our personnel and resources, but our losses are too severe. What should we do next?" one of the officers in the room looked at the furious Whitehall and asked in a careful, subdued voice.

Hearing him, Whitehall took a deep breath. A cold light flickered behind his glasses as his mind raced.

He was trying to understand what had happened.

Why had a mysterious force suddenly begun attacking him?

More importantly, how had they managed to strike every one of his operations in Central Europe with such precision?

This was clearly a targeted assault—one aimed directly at him.

Could it be another Hydra leader?

Alexander Pierce had already disappeared, and the Hydra faction under him had been completely purged. It could not be him, and Baron Strucker was even less likely.

Strucker's territory in Sokovia had been taken over entirely and renamed Terra.

The man himself had vanished long ago.

He was probably already dead.

It was precisely because Strucker and Sokovia had become Terra that Whitehall had been so cautious lately.

If it was neither of them, then could it be another Hydra faction?

Viper, perhaps? Or the Malick family?

That made no sense either. Everyone knew what had happened to Strucker, and every remaining Hydra leader had become more cautious than the last, terrified that Terra's justice might descend upon them and wipe them out.

None of them would suddenly decide to target Whitehall unless they had completely lost their minds.

If it wasn't them... was it S.H.I.E.L.D.?

After eliminating every other suspect, Whitehall immediately focused on the most likely one.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

They had been the ones to capture and imprison him in the first place, before Alexander Pierce later arranged for his release. There had always been a connection between them.

After purging Pierce and Hydra from its own ranks, S.H.I.E.L.D. could have uncovered Whitehall's existence through the intelligence they recovered.

From there, it would have been only natural to investigate him—and eventually decide to launch an attack.

With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vast reach, they certainly had the capability.

The more Whitehall thought about it, the more convinced he became.

"Nick Fury..." Whitehall gritted his teeth, wishing he could tear the man apart.

Yet he knew he couldn't. Although S.H.I.E.L.D. had been severely weakened by its internal purge, it was still far beyond anything he could challenge head-on.

Suppressing his anger, he forced himself to calm down and consider his next move.

After a moment's thought, Whitehall was about to issue new orders when a deafening roar and violent tremor cut him off.

BOOM!!

The blast thundered through the facility, and the entire base hidden deep within the mountain began shaking violently.

The impact was so powerful that the whole structure buckled. Cracks spread across the concrete walls and floors, while gas lines, water pipes, and other systems burst apart one after another.

Electrical cables tore apart as arcs of electricity burst through the base.

Screams and cries of agony reached Whitehall's ears, but he had no time to care about anyone else. The office shook so violently that he was thrown around like clothing inside a washing machine, spinning and slamming into everything around him without any chance of staying on his feet.

He watched the same thing happen to his two unfortunate officers—they were hurled into the walls again and again until their skulls split open and they died.

Whitehall suffered the same punishment, but his life force was extraordinarily strong. Even injuries this severe were not enough to kill him.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions erupted throughout the facility as its munitions began detonating one after another, and Whitehall fell into despair.

Whatever had caused the earthquake no longer mattered. This base was the last of everything he had built. If it was destroyed, all his work over the years would be reduced to nothing.

In the end, Whitehall could only watch as the ceiling split apart and massive chunks of stone came crashing down, burying him completely.

The terrifying tremors did not last long.

Several hundred meters above the mountain range, Calvin stared in disbelief through the window of a fighter jet equipped with anti-gravity engines. Below him, the mountain had collapsed in on itself.

He turned toward the open rear deck, where his daughter stood.

He had never imagined that the person capable of triggering a natural disaster of this magnitude was his own daughter. It was utterly mind-blowing.

"You... you're the one from Manhattan?!" Calvin finally remembered.

He recalled seeing a video online back then—a figure whose face wasn't quite clear, throwing a single punch toward the sky over Manhattan.

That single blow had shattered the sky itself, covering it in countless white cracks and wiping out hordes of terrifying monsters.

Although Skye hadn't displayed the power to shatter space just now, her ability to cause earthquakes was almost certainly the same power used in Manhattan.

"Surprised?" Skye turned back with a brilliant smile, her brown windbreaker fluttering violently in the mountain wind.

Showing off her strength—especially in front of the father she hadn't seen in so many years—delivered a thrill that was second to none.

"Ma'am, the seismic activity has ended. The sensors detect only one life sign beneath the mountain. Should we descend?" the pilot called out loudly from the cockpit.

"Take us down."

Skye turned back toward the collapsed mountain, and her expression went cold.

"He's been living all these years on the life force he stole from my mother—I've been waiting to settle the score with that bastard."

"That's right, Daisy. Find him. I want to tear the skin from his body piece by piece with my own hands."

Calvin had no intention of correcting his daughter's language. His mind was filled only with the thrill of revenge.

The fighter jet soon dropped and hovered seventy or eighty meters above the ground.

Under Calvin's astonished gaze, Skye took a step forward into thin air, dropping straight toward the earth.

"No! Skye!"

"Don't worry, sir. That's the World Breaker—a fall from this height is nothing to her," the pilot chuckled loudly.

"World Breaker?" Calvin gasped again, utterly stunned.

Skye continued falling toward the ground, but when she was only a dozen meters above it, she stopped in midair. A red light flashed through her eyes as her powerful Observation Haki swept across the entire mountain.

In an instant, she precisely located Daniel Whitehall, buried beneath the rubble but still alive.

Skye spread her hands and slightly curled her fingers before drawing them downward through the air.

SWOOSH!

Ten long white arcs of shock force flowed from her fingertips, slicing through the air. In an instant, a terrifying wave of shockwave energy exploded downward.

RUMBLE!!

Under Calvin's stunned gaze aboard the fighter jet—and the pilot's fanatical stare—the collapsed mountain appeared as though it were being forcibly pried open by a pair of colossal, invisible hands!

A massive canyon over seventy to eighty meters deep ripped open before their eyes.

At the bottom of the freshly carved ravine lay crushed corpses, flattened vehicles, and mangled wreckage of every description. Electrical cables sparked amidst the debris, while subterranean water soaked the muddy ground below.

Skye paid no mind to the destruction. Her gaze locked onto the man trapped beneath several massive rocks at the bottom of the canyon.

Whitehall was still alive.

He had been extraordinarily lucky. Although the rocks had pinned him in place, they had formed a rare survival pocket around his body. He could not move, but he had not been crushed.

Whitehall still had no idea what had happened.

He could only stare ahead at the newly opened space before him, the dense forest in the distance, and the enormous walls of the mountain that had been forcibly torn apart on both sides.

His mind was in complete chaos.

What on earth just happened?!

A massive earthquake had suddenly buried the entire base. Whitehall had believed he would remain trapped beneath the mountain forever—until it shook again and was torn open by sheer force.

The sheer absurdity of everything that had happened over the past few minutes completely overwhelmed him.

Before long, however, he got his answer.

Lying on the ground, he watched a figure descend smoothly from above before coming to a stop right in front of him. His gaze first fell on a pair of black combat boots, then traveled up long, toned, exceptionally athletic legs.

As he forced himself to look higher, his eyes passed over a white T-shirt before settling on a sharp, elegant jawline.

"Who... who are you?" Whitehall asked nervously.

Skye looked down at him as he struggled beneath the rocks and tried to raise his head enough to see her clearly. A red glow shone in her eyes, while a sharp and terrifying force gathered around her.

The crushing pressure descended again, making it difficult for Whitehall to breathe.

The silent killing intent and deathly stillness only deepened his fear of the unknown.

He didn't know who she was, nor what she intended to do. He could only feel the bone-chilling hostility in her gaze.

After a long moment, Skye reached out and lightly placed her hand against one of the massive rocks pinning him down. An invisible vibration erupted.

BANG!

The rocks were instantly reduced to dust, then swept aside by an unseen force before they could bury Whitehall.

This was not an act of mercy. Skye wanted the man responsible for destroying her family to see exactly who she was.

She wanted him to remember the face of the person who had come for revenge—even after he reached Hell.

The pressure on Whitehall suddenly vanished. Confused but desperate, he pushed himself up from the muddy ground and ignored the filth covering his body as he looked toward Skye.

The moment he saw her face, his entire body went rigid.

Then he began to tremble uncontrollably.

It was not only because of the Conqueror's Haki gathering in her eyes.

It was also because of her face.

"You... you... you're..."

Whitehall pointed at Skye with a shaking hand and stumbled backward several steps. His lips trembled so badly that he could not finish the sentence.

"This... this is impossible."

Her face reminded him of a woman.

A woman who had changed his life completely—the woman whose body had given him youth and immortality.

"Recognize me now, Whitehall? Perhaps there's someone else you ought to meet as well."

Skye uttered the cold words before swiping her hand through the air in front of her.

SPARK!

A portal taller than a man opened beside her, its edges crackling with sparks.

On the other side was the fighter jet's cabin, where Calvin had been craning his neck, trying to see what was happening below.

He noticed the portal immediately.

Then he saw Skye—and Whitehall standing directly across from her.

The moment Calvin's eyes fell on Whitehall, they turned bloodshot, and his expression twisted with absolute fury.

His entire body trembled as he spat out the name through clenched teeth.

"Werner Reinhardt."

Calvin would never forget that face—or that name.

Back then, Reinhardt had been an old man, his hair completely white and his body on the verge of death. After parting ways with Jiaying once she had recovered, Calvin spent years tracking him down and eventually found him—but only once, and Reinhardt escaped.

This was the man who had stolen Jiaying's life force and changed her forever.

He was also the reason Calvin had lost his daughter for twenty years.

Even if he were cast into Hell, Calvin would never forget that hatred.

"Werner Reinhardt!"

He finally lost control and roared in fury. His lean body suddenly swelled, tearing apart the suit he wore as he grew from six feet to well over six-foot-three, his frame expanding with bulging muscle.

Like a maddened beast, he charged through the portal and hurled himself at the equally stunned Whitehall.

BANG!

"Werner Reinhardt, I'm going to kill you!"

Calvin seized Whitehall by the collar and drove a brutal punch into his face.

SPURT!

Whitehall spat a mouthful of blood as several teeth were knocked loose, staggering backward before collapsing to the ground.

Calvin had no intention of letting him go. He lunged forward again, pinned Whitehall to the ground, and abandoned all technique, raining down punch after punch with the most savage, primitive violence imaginable.

His arms moved so quickly that they blurred.

Whitehall could only endure the beating like a helpless doll, completely unable to fight back.

Skye watched her father's furious back without interfering.

She hated Whitehall too, but she did not need to vent her anger this way—she knew far crueler ways to make him pay.

Before long, Calvin's relentless assault had reduced Whitehall's face and head to a bloody ruin.

The agony drove Whitehall from screaming at first to barely breathing by the end.

When Calvin finally stopped, he remained over him, panting as he watched Whitehall's body slowly begin to heal.

He gave a cold laugh.

"Reinhardt, you vile bastard. You stole my wife's life force and used it to keep yourself alive all these years. You wanted a healthy body and your youth back, didn't you?"

"Your filthy body doesn't deserve to hold my wife's organs!"

"No! Calvin, you can't do this! I was wrong!" Whitehall gasped through a face covered in blood, his eyes wide with sheer terror.

Calvin had struck at the deepest fear hidden within Whitehall's soul—losing his youth and eternal life.

...

Read Advanced Chapters on : /cw/OblivionTL

~ Every 100 PS = Bonus Chapter!

~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]