Chapter 1648 - Send Him to Heaven

A moment ago, Luke's eyes were still closed.

One of the two attackers who had just charged in lunged forward, ready to rescue Pierce. At the same time, he aimed a punch at Luke in the head.

While this surprise attack might be effective on Natasha, it was a pity it didn't work with Luke.

Even though he was currently focused on using Elementary Hypnosis and Illusion on Pierce, he was already used to triple-mode operation, and had plenty of room left to consider other things.

With only the two clones operating, he was far faster than his attacker.

Almost instantly, he punched out with his right hand.

The punch was very fast, but didn't contain a lot of force – it could be considered a backhand jab.

Only a master of physical techniques like Luke could perform such a strange yet smooth punch.

The assailant's fist met Luke's, and then his vision turned dark.

Luke's punch made contact first.

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He even slowed down the timing a little so that the other party couldn't change his momentum.

So, a punch didn't require a lot of strength – all Luke needed to do was wait for the assailant to deliver himself up.

Indeed, the man's face smashed into Luke's fist. His lower body was still moving forward, and was propelled horizontally into the air.

Crack!

It was a very light sound, but Luke clearly heard the crack from the man's neck.

Bang!

The assailant dropped to the floor, and Luke slowly lowered his fist.

He couldn't be bothered to waste time on this dead man, and focused on Pierce again.

Two seconds later, Natasha turned around, only to see the dead assailant.

Now that the data transfer was underway, she could move around.

A moment later, she examined the assailant who was still twitching.

The gear the man was wearing looked a little like the Iron Man suit, but on closer look, it was quite different.

At the very least, it didn't completely cover him. Various joints and areas which needed to be mobile were exposed – it clearly had yet to resolve the issue of flexibility for a full suit.

In this regard, it was one level lower than the Iron Man suit and the Bat suit.

Secondly, this gear was ugly. Clearly, it was still at a level where function was prioritized over form.

This proved that there was a difference of more than two generations between this gear and Iron Man's suit technology.

It had to be pointed out that even though the Bat suit's main consideration was functionality, it still looked pretty decent; it was just that it couldn't compare with the tycoon's aesthetics.

While she was still examining the armor, a figure charged over.

Before she could react, a big foot kicked the assailant in front of her in the head.

Crack!

The assailant's neck became twisted at an odd angle, and all that was left in Natasha's ear were the words, "It's just a trash product. Hurry up and read the information I sent you. There are three Helicarriers."

Natasha suddenly raised her head. "What?"

But at that moment, she was the only living person left in the office. Pierce, who had been in a "staredown" with John Doe, was also dead.

But she no longer cared about Pierce's death.

She opened the file that she had just received via her dark brown sunglasses. After a few glances, her expression changed, and she hurriedly notified Hill in the communications center, "There are three Helicarriers…"

Hill's voice came through the earpiece. "I see them."

"What?"

Hill said, "They're taking off. There are two more launch facilities in D.C., but they don't belong to SHIELD. We didn't know about them at all."

Natasha was lost for words.

In recent months, they had been focused on Hydra inside SHIELD and hadn't paid attention to the other American organizations at all.

Also, on top of the increasing number of Hydra deaths in SHIELD, the World Security Council and the American government inexplicably came looking for trouble.

It was now obvious that Hydra wasn't an idiot.

They mobilized various things to distract Nick Fury so that SHIELD wouldn't have time to bother with them, and at the same time, they secretly "cloned" two Helicarriers.

How was one different from three?

During the Battle of New York, if the Chitauri had only had one mothership, Luke would've long sent them packing.

Even in an ordinary battle, more strategies could be performed with two formations compared with one, though there was also more room for error.

But even if they didn't use any battle tactics, they could crush their opponents with overwhelming force.

According to Tony's projections for the third-generation Helicarriers, these three carriers could pulverize major American cities on the east and west coasts.

If this plan succeeded, the number of deaths may not be much more than from the Battle of New York — but it definitely wouldn't be fewer.

Once the American targets were destroyed, the three Helicarriers would cross the Atlantic and sweep through Europe before finally breaking out in Asia.

The scary thing about this plan wasn't who or how many people were killed, but how many "key people" could be killed.

For example, according to Dr. Zola's algorithm, Michelle Geber wasn't a key person in the White House, and only a small portion of the staff were on the list.

The biggest targets were the bigwigs of certain capital groups.

Many corporations needed a strong leader.

Tony Stark, for example, was no longer responsible for the management of Stark Industries, but if he died, Pepper would soon lose her CEO position, and internal conflict would inevitably cause the company to collapse.

In other words, Project Insight existed to eliminate all sorts of "spiritual" figures.

Without these people, who had charisma, capabilities, and resources, the world would inevitably fall apart.

Only by destroying the order of a peaceful society could Hydra rise up in the chaos.

More importantly, the demands of Project Insight weren't high.

As long as it achieved 10% of its target, the world would fall into chaos, and Hydra's ultimate goal would have been achieved.

20% was good, and 50% would be perfect.

It was a simple "avalanche" effect.

With less snow in the beginning, the reaction was slower, and it might not even last.

If 50% of key figures could be eliminated, that would break past a threshold, and the world would instantly fall into uncontainable chaos for a long time.

Luke had used Hypnosis and Illusion to quickly read Pierce's mind.

Reality proved that Pierce wasn't stupid.

Apart from these two Death Soldiers, his biggest trump card was actually himself.

It was a life detection activation program. Of course the director would use it.

If he really was killed, the main Helicarrier in SHIELD would go on a rampage and blow both SHIELD HQ and D.C. to kingdom come.

Unfortunately, the cunning Pierce had run into Luke, who directly plucked the information out of his head.

There was no time to change the program.

Two of the Helicarriers had already taken off. If they weren't taken down, something big would happen.