Chapter 208: Paying Respect to the Emperor
With a single look, Strucker knew this was someone he could not afford to provoke.
Strucker was a very sensible HYDRA leader. After seeing this ability, he understood that he had no power to resist at all. The same was true even with the many HYDRA soldiers under him.
When the woman stretched out her hand and motioned for him to come over, Baron Strucker gritted his teeth. He looked back at the supervisor, the researchers, and the HYDRA soldiers behind him, sweeping his gaze across their eyes one by one. In the end, he made his decision.
When he turned back, a flattering smile had already appeared on his face. "Madam, is it just me?"
"You're wasting time," the woman replied, waving her hand with visible impatience.
The sparking portal automatically shifted sideways toward Strucker. Strucker instinctively raised both hands to block it, but nothing happened.
By the time he lowered his hands, he realized he had arrived somewhere familiar.
The fortress hall.
This fortress had originally been an inherited asset of his family, with several hundred years of history. The hall was broad and spacious, carrying an ancient, rustic sense of time. Valuable oil paintings still hung on the surrounding walls, and a red carpet covered the floor.
At the very front of the hall, on the wall between the twin staircases, hung a large full-body portrait of him.
But none of that was important.
What mattered was that many people were already standing in the hall.
On one side stood a group of soldiers in heavy deep-blue power armor, each nearly two meters tall. On the other side stood more than a dozen women in red windbreakers, each of them tall, graceful, and fiery.
The two sides formed neat lines, leaving a passage of a little more than a meter in the middle.
Through that passage, Strucker could clearly see that someone seemed to be standing at the very front of the group.
And beside that person were his twin experimental subjects.
Strucker's appearance drew the attention of everyone in the hall. The Astartes and Raven standing in orderly lines on both sides turned their heads, their gazes focusing on him.
The overwhelming pressure nearly buckled Strucker's knees.
Their eyes held only coldness and warning, as if they were staring at a corpse.
Strucker forced a smile, though it looked closer to tears. Trembling, he glanced over his shoulder—and nearly blacked out.
Behind him stood the fortress gate. Beyond it, wind and snow raged, and unfamiliar figures moved through the storm.
The only ones missing were his subordinates and the supervisor.
Baron Strucker turned back. Slowly, painfully, he lifted his feet and walked step by step down the passage left between the Astartes and the Raven.
With every step, he endured the soldiers' cold gazes from both sides. It felt as if steel blades were scraping across his frail body.
His fear deepened with every step.
The path was less than twenty meters long, yet Strucker felt as if he had walked through his entire life. Memories of the past flashed through his mind like a dying man's final vision.
Soon, he arrived at the front.
The twins seemed to sense his arrival and turned back curiously, seeing Baron Strucker.
By instinct, they almost lowered their heads.
But when they saw his pale face filled with terror, they nearly could not hold back their laughter.
The twins had never seen this high and mighty Lord Baron look like this before.
"Wolfgang von Strucker."
Reacher, standing nearby, called Strucker's name. The low voice made Strucker's body tremble. He raised his head, wanting to say something, but Reacher lifted a hand and cut him off.
"Wait."
Then he said nothing more.
Baron Strucker swallowed the words stuck in his throat. He felt stifled and humiliated, but fear drowned those feelings even faster. By now, he had already seen the situation clearly.
He was a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
Strucker recognized these people—the heavy deep-blue power armor, the iconic red windbreakers. They were one of the absolute main forces from the Manhattan incident, beings with superhuman strength and speed who had shaken the entire world in a very short time.
Even now, the heat around them had not faded. People across the internet and the media were still discussing them endlessly.
Although Baron Strucker had spent most of his years in Sokovia, he was not some caveman cut off from the modern world. Naturally, he knew exactly how terrifying this mysterious army was.
What he could not understand was why they had come for him.
Fear and confusion threw his mind into complete chaos.
Reacher, the Astartes, and the Raven stood solemnly, waiting for their Leader to arrive. Their overwhelming discipline carried a pressure of its own. Baron Strucker aside, even the twins began to feel faintly uneasy. They secretly exchanged glances, then sneaked looks at Reacher and the others.
Only the noise outside the fortress, along with the movement from the experimental base below, broke the silence.
Fortunately, the wait did not last long.
A sparking circular portal appeared, and Matthew, dressed in a black windbreaker, walked out from within. The moment his figure left the portal, it vanished behind him.
"Respectfully greeting the Emperor!"
The instant they saw Matthew, Reacher, along with the rest of the Astartes and Raven soldiers, dropped to one knee. Their right fists pressed against their chests as their voices rang out in unison.
Humble, yet fanatical.
The sudden movement frightened the twins so much that they froze for a moment, unsure of what to do. Baron Strucker was even more terrified by the atmosphere, stumbling backward before collapsing weakly onto the floor.
"Reacher?"
Putting those three aside, even Matthew was surprised. Feeling rather helpless, he looked toward Reacher.
His expression clearly said, What the hell are you doing?
What was this supposed to be?
Were they going to suddenly call him His Majesty and say the weather had turned cold?
"The empire has already been established. You are the one true god, the shepherd of mankind, and the guardian of souls."
"The establishment of order requires a leader, and you are the supreme Emperor."
Reacher did not care what mood Matthew was in.
He only knew one thing.
They had all waited a very long time for this moment. The empire had already been forged, and if there was a throne, then an Emperor had to sit upon it.
All of them needed a rising banner. They needed to look up to that banner, and with every wave of it, they would draw their weapons and wage war in every direction their eyes could see.
This was not childish roleplay.
This was the inevitable result after the construction of order.
Matthew did not need Observation Haki to see the determination in the eyes of Reacher, the Astartes, and the Raven warriors.
He also understood that these people were not acting on sudden impulse.
They had clearly planned this for a long time.
As their gazes met, the atmosphere grew heavy.
The twins moved closer to each other, looking left and right with the sneaky yet excited expression of people watching gossip unfold.
It felt as though they had witnessed something incredible.
As for Baron Strucker, he had gone completely numb. Let them play, let them play. Even if it's just a game of house, it has nothing to do with me anymore anyway. I'm definitely doomed.
...
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