Chapter 146: The Battle of New York
On the training ground, Neagley stood in a tank top, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She panted heavily, her sweat-soaked body showing the clear results of intense training.
Not far away, the two warbands were training in full swing.
One after another, they skillfully used Armament coating and hardening, striking the specially made composite-metal punching targets built specifically for fist training. The noise was astonishing.
After hanging up the communication, Neagley frowned and fell into thought.
Pierce making a move was not a good sign for her.
It meant that the war between Pierce and Nick Fury had officially begun.
On the surface, there was a huge gap in power between Nick Fury and Pierce. If nothing unexpected happened, there was a high probability that Nick Fury would fail.
But after truly understanding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal structure, and after the Information Department sorted through the personnel and evaluated their personalities and abilities, they had reached a different conclusion.
Nick Fury still had a backup plan, and that backup plan meant his chances of winning this struggle were far from insignificant.
After a moment's thought, Neagley went to find Karla, who was also training.
Karla, the mature and beautiful Minister of Finance, was currently sweating under the sunlight, throwing punches with Haki wrapped around them.
When she saw Neagley come looking for her, the Haki on her hands faded.
Then she and Neagley went to the rest area of the training ground. From the storage rack, she picked up her own large water bottle and towel.
While wiping off sweat, she lifted the bottle and took a hard gulp.
Neagley did the same.
"What is it?"
"Pierce is getting ready to start a war with Nick Fury," Neagley said directly.
Karla froze for a moment, then quickly understood why Neagley had come to her.
After a brief moment of thought, she nodded. "We've already transferred most of the assets Pierce controlled in secret. What remains can't be touched."
Transferring and swallowing HYDRA's assets took time and effort. It was not as simple as signing some so-called transfer agreement.
They also had to make sure HYDRA was not alerted. The transfer had to happen silently.
This did not only require Karla's side to act. Neagley from the Information Department and Melina from the Technology Department also had to cooperate. They also had to stay in contact with Pierce at all times and coordinate with him, taking things slowly.
HYDRA's assets were far too vast. They were not limited to money. Technology, networks, and many other things were all assets. The transfer alone had taken nearly half a year.
And that was with Pierce, the leader of HYDRA, cooperating.
After the assets had been severely reduced, the remaining assets could no longer be touched. If they were, HYDRA would not even have operating funds left. At that point, no matter how stupid they were, someone would notice.
In Matthew's strategy, after they swallowed the assets, they only needed to hide beautifully.
Once the benefits were in hand, they had to withdraw quickly and avoid being noticed.
And now, once again, it was Nick Fury.
"Looks like you'll have to make a trip."
After saying that, Karla looked at Neagley and smiled.
Neagley shrugged. "No choice. I'm the only one who can handle this."
Since the asset transfer had to stop, the final procedure for hiding and withdrawing had to be handled by Neagley herself.
"I don't have time to go with you. Don't ask me."
After Karla said that, she quickly slipped away. She did not want to waste even a little training time.
Training really was easy to get addicted to.
Karla had originally loved accounting the most. She liked those numbers flowing through her hands and her mind, and seeing every account book calculated clearly by herself gave her a wonderful feeling.
But now, she loved growth in strength, and had almost quit accounting as a hobby.
Neagley wore a bitter expression.
After thinking it over, should she find someone to go with her?
She looked around again. Reacher, Natasha, Roscoe, and the others were all training in full swing.
Good grief. She probably could not call anyone away.
She could only go herself.
The final method of hiding was naturally to cut ties.
As the user of the Memo-Memo Fruit, and the one who had personally altered Pierce's memories back then, if she wanted to complete the separation, she naturally had to change those memories again.
So she truly had no choice but to handle this final step in person.
Neagley sighed helplessly. In the end, she could only get up and leave the training ground. She might as well settle it quickly and come back quickly.
...
Matthew did not know much about the lively drama unfolding between Nick Fury and HYDRA.
Because right now, he was leisurely watching a battle.
At this moment, he was in New York, standing on the rooftop of a high-rise building, looking down at the street below where two young, beautiful girls were fighting a monster.
Calling it a monster was not entirely accurate. It was actually a swarm.
The creature was enormous, a full twenty to thirty meters tall, with a very strange appearance. Its head was densely covered in sharp teeth and bore only a single large eyeball. It had no hair, but instead possessed dozens of short tentacles, each ending in an eyeball. Its skin had a distinct bronze texture.
This colossal monster could spit out more smaller monsters of the same shape from its mouth. They poured forth in a dense tide.
Every movement carried terrifying destructive power. Buildings and vehicles alike were devoured wherever they passed.
The greatest threat came from the countless eyeballs on its tentacles. They could fire strange energy beams with high-temperature and corrosive properties. Anything struck melted instantly, releasing green smoke. Clearly some kind of toxin was involved.
This was a lifeform from another dimension.
A rotten one.
In fact, among many external threats, some had only accidentally wandered onto Earth due to certain unforeseen reasons.
After arriving in an unfamiliar place, it was very easy for them to become stressed.
And once they were stressed, they would cause destruction.
Of course, there was another kind that was much simpler. Whether they arrived by accident or not, their purpose after coming to Earth was destruction.
This was clearly the latter kind.
Things like this happened quite a few times every month. However, with the sorcerer alliance in place, once these external threats arrived on Earth, they would immediately be detected. The sorcerers would then open portals, rush over, and either drive them away or kill them.
Matthew usually did not bother with these matters.
That was because he did not want to waste time he could spend growing. For most threats, the sorcerers could handle them once they took action.
For the slightly stronger ones, they could still be killed if the sorcerers brought magical tools.
When a few particularly powerful ones appeared, the Ancient One would step in and solve them with ease.
There was simply no need for Matthew.
Another reason was that these external threats rarely involved demons. Since he could not absorb demon souls from them, there was no benefit in killing them, so Matthew did not do it.
This time, however, he had made a rare appearance—for the purpose of training the newcomers.
Skye and Jessica had been injected with the third-generation super-soldier gene serum. Their growth was very fast, and their strength had increased greatly.
Especially Skye. Because of the nature of her ability, aside from ordinary physical training, the island base was not especially suitable for training her power.
What suited her ability's growth and training was battle.
So Matthew simply brought the two girls out to fight an external lifeform and develop some real combat experience.
Of course, aside from that, there was another reason.
...
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