Web of the Multiverse - 190 (Patreon)

Chapter 190: The Emergence of the Sentinel Robot

The air in the conference room seemed to freeze at that very moment.

Everyone in the room was waiting for the man seated on the crystal throne to make his final decision.

It was no exaggeration to say that this would be a critical decision, one capable of altering the course of events across the entire planet.

After a long silence, Poison Doctor Doom finally moved.

He lowered the hand supporting his chin and issued a new order to everyone present.

“Effective immediately, all branches in North America are to abandon their current operational plans and concentrate every available resource on preparing for the assault on Krakoa.”

“Within one month, I will stand on Krakoa and turn everyone there into members of our race.”

Poison Doctor Doom’s deep, hoarse voice echoed throughout the conference room.

The hall was so quiet that a pin dropping could have been heard.

Everyone stared at the steel figure seated on the crystal throne, concealed beneath a green cloak.

Then Poison Nick Fury and Poison Red Skull simultaneously dropped to one knee.

Behind them, the agents belonging to their respective factions knelt in perfect unison.

Not a single person dared to question Poison Doctor Doom’s order.

The hive structure of the Poison race meant that commands from those higher in the hierarchy took absolute priority. Even if they were ordered to kill themselves on the spot, everyone present would have no choice but to obey.

Just as the last echoes of Poison Doctor Doom’s voice faded from the conference room, a dazzling green light suddenly flashed through the air.

When everyone looked up, Poison Doctor Doom had vanished along with his magnificent crystal throne.

Poison Doctor Doom was a supergenius equally proficient in magic and technology. No one knew whether he had left through technological means or magical ones.

That was also what made Poison Doctor Doom so terrifying.

He simply had too many cards up his sleeve.

Only after confirming that Poison Doctor Doom was truly gone did everyone dare to rise from the floor.

Poison Nick Fury and Poison Red Skull exchanged a glance. Without saying a word, they both left the conference room.

Outside was a corridor lined with portraits of every member of the Avengers.

Poison Red Skull strolled leisurely down that corridor, creating an oddly striking contrast with his surroundings.

The two walked side by side, their footsteps echoing through the silent corridor as though they were secretly competing through the rhythm of their strides.

At last, Poison Red Skull was the first to break the strange silence.

He turned his head and flashed Poison Nick Fury an unfriendly smile with that grotesque face of his, devoid of skin, with flesh and bone exposed directly to the air.

“Our leader doesn’t trust you anymore. Ever since the incident at the Triskelion, his opinion of you has fallen considerably.”

Poison Red Skull made no attempt to hide the delight he took in Nick Fury’s misfortune.

“You let two nobodies steal classified data right from under your nose, and they even escaped in a Quinjet. No one would keep entrusting you with important missions the way they used to after something like that.”

Poison Red Skull and Poison Nick Fury had always occupied competing positions within their faction.

Now that Poison Nick Fury had fallen from favor, Poison Red Skull naturally had no intention of passing up the opportunity to kick him while he was down.

Yet despite the mockery thrown directly in his face, Poison Nick Fury’s brow merely twitched. His expression otherwise remained unchanged.

He continued forward at the same steady pace, treating Poison Red Skull’s taunts as though they were nothing but air.

Only when Poison Red Skull’s patience was nearly exhausted did Poison Nick Fury finally respond.

“And what about you?”

“What exactly have you accomplished since this war began that’s worth praising? Your HYDRA agents were patrolling the Triskelion alongside my operatives, and both groups were made fools of by those two kids. Do you really think the Leader thinks any more highly of you than he does of me?”

Poison Nick Fury’s words mercilessly exposed the very truth Poison Red Skull had been trying to ignore.

“If you still can’t produce any worthwhile results once the full scale war begins, I doubt you’ll even be able to keep your place standing beside me.”

Even after Poison Nick Fury bluntly laid out the truth, the smile on Poison Red Skull’s face did not disappear. Instead, it grew even wider.

Poison Nick Fury immediately realized that the smile was not forced. It was genuine.

It was the brazen grin of a cheater who already knew the answers before the exam had even begun.

Then Poison Red Skull spoke in a casual tone.

“Well then, we’ll see whose performance leaves everyone’s jaws on the floor!”

“I hope you can still sound that confident when the time comes. I can hardly wait for the day this war begins.”

Poison Red Skull quickened his pace, putting some distance between himself and Poison Nick Fury before leaving the corridor ahead of him.

Soon, Poison Red Skull disappeared around the corner. His footsteps gradually faded into the distance until they could no longer be heard.

Poison Nick Fury stopped where he was instead of continuing forward.

His single eye remained fixed on the direction in which Poison Red Skull had disappeared. His gaze flickered as countless thoughts seemed to churn through his mind.

Poison Red Skull had been far too composed during that exchange.

It was obvious that he had not been bluffing. He really did have some powerful card hidden up his sleeve.

Moreover, Poison Red Skull’s behavior today had clearly been deliberate.

It was like two gamblers facing each other across a table, with one deliberately revealing half his hand just to throw his opponent’s emotions and plans into disarray.

“Johann Schmidt, just what kind of card did you get your hands on? I have to admit, you’ve made me curious.”

Poison Nick Fury muttered to himself.

He thought back over Poison Red Skull’s movements during the past few days.

Even though they were allies within the same faction, Poison Nick Fury had no way of keeping precise track of everything Poison Red Skull did.

But he did know that Poison Red Skull had left New York City alone two days earlier.

More importantly, he had never reported that departure. It had looked far more like a covert operation.

At the time, Poison Nick Fury had assumed that Poison Red Skull had simply gone off to handle some insignificant task.

Now, however, it seemed increasingly likely that the solo operation had been the key.

During that mission, Poison Red Skull must have found something, or perhaps made contact with someone.

Whatever had happened, it had given him enough confidence to say what he had just said.

“Then I’ll wait and see just how powerful that trump card of yours really is.”

Poison Nick Fury withdrew his gaze and strode away.

Since there was no way to know what methods or hidden cards his opponent possessed, all he could do was wait for time to reveal the answer.

...

By the time Poison Red Skull left Avengers Tower, it was already the early hours of the morning.

His figure slipped through several streets like a ghost before silently entering a black SUV that had been waiting by the roadside.

Under the cover of darkness, the SUV deliberately spent several dozen minutes taking a circuitous route.

Eventually, it arrived at a secluded private airfield.

A small private jet was already prepared and waiting.

Poison Red Skull boarded the aircraft. A few minutes later, it rose into the night sky and flew southwest.

The sole purpose of this journey was to meet one person.

A man who would soon make a striking impact in the coming full scale war against Krakoa.

His name was Bolivar Trask.

Bolivar Trask was an anthropologist and robotics expert who had founded Trask Industries because of his fear of Mutants.

Within a remarkably short period, Trask Industries had grown into a massive multinational industrial conglomerate.

It still lacked the prestige of an established giant like Stark Industries, but its growth had been astonishingly rapid.

Countless investors around the world firmly believed that Trask Industries would soon surpass Stark Industries and become the most powerful industrial conglomerate on the planet.

Unfortunately, the arrival of the Poisons on Earth had destroyed all of that.

Both Trask Industries and Stark Industries had been forced to cease operations. Factory assembly lines gathered dust, while countless raw materials and finished industrial goods rusted away in warehouses until they became nothing more than scrap.

But none of that had broken Bolivar Trask.

He was only an ordinary human with no superpowers, possessing nothing extraordinary except a brilliant mind.

Yet his willpower far exceeded that of most people. Even with the world seemingly on the verge of apocalypse, he continued obsessively pursuing his robotics project.

Then, one day, Poison Red Skull came looking for him.

From that day onward, Bolivar Trask gained access to virtually unlimited resources.

His final robotics project resumed, and it was now on the verge of completion.

After a three hour flight, the private jet carrying Poison Red Skull finally landed on an unnamed island.

As Poison Red Skull descended the aircraft stairs, Trask, who had been waiting for some time, immediately stepped forward to greet him.

The man approaching Poison Red Skull stood no more than 1.2 meters tall.

Although exceptionally short, he wore a distinctive mustache that, combined with his stern, mature features, gave him an unmistakably adult appearance.

Anyone looking at him could immediately tell that he had a congenital condition known as dwarfism.

This was Trask.

“Mr. Schmidt, welcome.”

Trask smiled and extended his hand to Poison Red Skull, showing not the slightest trace of fear.

Poison Red Skull, for his part, showed no contempt toward the diminutive man before him. Instead, he treated Trask with considerable respect, taking his hand with both of his own.

Poison Red Skull knew that although the man before him was small in stature, within that small frame lay a terrifying intellect capable of changing the entire world.

That was precisely why Poison Red Skull had chosen to work with him.

Neither of them wasted time on meaningless pleasantries. They immediately turned and headed toward the factory nearby.

The facility was protected by extraordinarily stringent security. Reaching the interior required passing through five separate gates, each of which verified a different piece of Trask’s biometric information: fingerprints, voice, iris, blood, and brainwaves.

Only after reaching the deepest part of the factory did the two finally stop.

A vast open chamber lay before them.

There was nothing in the enormous space except a single object positioned at the center and covered by a black waterproof tarp, making the chamber appear almost completely empty.

“So the final product has already been fully assembled?”

Poison Red Skull turned toward Trask.

Trask gave a slight nod, his expression filled with pride.

He did not answer. Instead, he walked over to the object beneath the tarp and abruptly tore the covering away.

A massive silver gray robot appeared before Poison Red Skull.

The robot stood roughly three meters tall. Its entire body had a titanium gray sheen, giving it a texture somewhat reminiscent of Colossus.

Compared with Colossus, however, its frame was far more slender and agile, with none of the bulky heaviness normally associated with robots.

The robot’s outer surface was covered in scales resembling Mystique’s skin.

Those scales were not fixed in place. They formed a living structure capable of freely rearranging and reconstructing itself.

The silver gray robot’s face also lacked most recognizable human features. It possessed only two round eyes that glowed with golden light.

A square opening was embedded in its chest as well, with a dazzling golden light shining from within.

Poison Red Skull narrowed his eyes slightly as he examined the robot’s distinctly futuristic appearance, then gave a faint nod.

“It certainly looks impressive, but what I care about is whether this so-called Sentinel robot can really be as effective against Mutants as you claimed.”

Indeed, the machine standing before Poison Red Skull was none other than the infamous nemesis of Mutants, the Sentinel robot!

Trask’s children had become Mutants as a result of genetic mutations.

Because of this, Trask developed an overwhelming fear of Mutants. From that day onward, he swore that he would eradicate every Mutant in the world.

Driven by this deeply twisted conviction, Trask devoted his extraordinary intellect entirely to the development of the Sentinel robot project.

The project had originally been forced to halt temporarily because of the Poison invasion.

However, with Poison Red Skull’s full support, the Sentinel robot project was not only restarted but also achieved astonishing progress within an extremely short period.

The silver gray robot standing before them was the prototype Sentinel robot.

If the prototype passed its tests without any problems, mass production would begin soon.