Below, technicians were thrown into a frenzy, aggregating and editing the stream of data transmitting back through the network as experts tried to piece together the secrets hidden beneath the surface. Current Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury watched the surveillance monitors with a cold expression. As a Black man who spent his life missing an eye, Director Nick was forever energetic and fiercely ambitious. S.H.I.E.L.D. Had already expended immense time and effort on Li Yunlongs little house-Mr. Ghosts Haunted House! As intelligence gathered, the operational plan went through three complete redrafts, morphing from an initial insertion by an elite squad to a full-scale joint operation using raw military muscle alongside the U.S. Armed forces. Throughout this process, Director Nicks maneuvers showed off his consummate political skill. The corrupt brass in Los Angeles were as dense as pigs; had it not been for the restraint he had cultivated over decades, he would have drawn his sidearm and put a bullet through those fools to spare the world their incompetence. Having cleared every hurdle across a winding labyrinth of bureaucracy, he had finally brought this operation to fruition. S.H.I.E.L.D., as the professionals, naturally took center stage. The curtain had risen; there was no turning back now. «Commence operation!» he ordered.
Black Widow approached Li Yunlongs little house at an unhurried pace, her hips swaying with deliberate grace. Watching the live feed, more than a few men swallowed hard-she was an absolute stunner. Outwardly calm while hyper-vigilant within, Black Widow knocked on the door with fluid, natural ease. «Mr. Brook Lee, please open up. We need to come inside and have a word with you.»
What kind of absurd trick was this? It was only late 2000-how had Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D. Tracked him down so fast? Inside, Li Yunlong felt a surge of silent fury. All he wanted was to keep a low profile and build up his strength. Was it really necessary to bring a whole army and turn this into a cinematic blockbuster? He hadn't even started causing trouble yet!
He wasn't mistaken about the spectacle. The story fed to the local press by Los Angeles officials was that a major war movie was being shot on location. It was Hollywood, after all-the film factory of the world. Picking a nearby neighborhood to shoot a war scene made perfect sense to the public.
Li Yunlongs little house-Mr. Ghosts Haunted House-was a target he had erected himself, a trap in all but name. Naturally, he had planned for worst-case scenarios beforehand. Li Yunlongs true body was not here; this scene was merely fueled and sustained by an external core. He had prepped plenty of contingency measures, but his overall investment was limited. Even if it was completely wiped out, it wouldn't inflict any real damage on his core strength. A strategic, information-based ability like sensory control had not been deployed here, leaving him without an informational edge.
Seeing Black Widow show up outside his door backed by a massive S.H.I.E.L.D. Force left Li Yunlong momentarily dazed. What kind of circus was this? In his original plan, he had no intention of entangling himself with S.H.I.E.L.D. So early. But events rarely bowed to personal preference; they moved according to their own chaotic logic, and now that the storm was at his door, he had to adapt. By the time Black Widow knocked, Li Yunlong had made up his mind: no point overthinking a response. Meet motion with stillness! If she didn't step inside, he would pretend to be blind; if she dared to enter, he would treat her as just another test subject. S.H.I.E.L.D. Might be powerful, and Black Widow famous, but he refused to be intimidated. Hadn't he watched Drawing Sword? Even if he wasn't the protagonist of the show, they shared the name Li Yunlong. Without the courage to draw his sword, he would be unworthy of the name!
Black Widow knocked for a long time, but the interior remained deathly quiet. Unbothered, a playful smirk touched her lips. «Banner, looks like well need your help after all. Go in and say hello to our Mr. Brook Lee.»
A mild-mannered, middle-aged man with a slightly down-on-his-luck aura stepped out from an armored vehicle. Instinctively smoothing his clothes, he approached the house, took up an odd, rigid stance before the door, and appeared to hold his breath.
A intense sense of deja vu hit Li Yunlong. That face, that stance, the name Banner… it couldn't be…
«Hulk!» Black Widow ducked away with nimble agility. Clothes shredding with cinematic flair, the green behemoth expanded to nearly three meters tall. With a brutal shoulder charge, he shattered door and wall alike, smashing straight into the house. From the outside, Li Yunlongs little dwelling suddenly looked like a cage holding a wild beast. The structure shook violently, filled with the endless sound of splintering furnishings and the Hulk's thundering roars. Massive green limbs occasionally burst through the walls, but the moment they retracted, a strange visual ripple passed over the fractured masonry, rapidly restoring it to its original state. Yet the house's power to suppress the beast was waning. Beneath the Hulk's wrathful roars, the building swayed like grass in a gale, twisting and dancing in the wind. Several times, the structure was lifted entirely off the ground, its frame bulging outwards as though it were made of soft rubber rather than brick and mortar.
Black Widow had already retreated to the asphalt road. Though the houses shifting forms were bizarre, the tide was turning against it. The louder the chaos, the weaker its control over the monster became. A victor would be decided soon.
The timer in the corner of the surveillance monitor read five minutes and forty-eight seconds into the battle. With a deafening roar of «Hulk!», the structure finally gave way, unable to contain the beast's raw power. It exploded from the inside out, showering the area with debris, splintered wood, smashed glass, and broken furniture.
Before the onlookers could celebrate, everyone on scene heard a cold, masculine grunt echo through the air! The shattered remnants of the house suddenly coalesced, morphing into a giant arm that surged up from the earth. It lunged forward, snatching the Hulk out of midair before he could hit the ground. The sight resembled a child grabbing a Hulk action figure that was only slightly larger than its palm.
To understand the scale, one had to consider why he was called the Hulk. Dr. Bruce Banner stood at 1.75 meters in human form, but as the Hulk, he towered at nearly three meters. Even in a country like America, where the average height was 1.78 meters, calling him a giant was no exaggeration. Yet an arm had plucked him out of the air like a toy. Based on human proportions, laying a hand flat on a table and measuring from the tip of the middle finger to the base of the palm gave roughly one-tenth of a person's total height. By that logic, the child who owned this hand would stand over twenty-four meters tall. What did that mean? A single story in a residential building was roughly three meters high; a twenty-four-meter child would tower over an eight-story building! If a child that monstrous actually existed, he wouldn't be protected by child welfare laws-he would be hunted as a demon!
The Hulk thrashed wildly within the massive palm. Had the hand been a simple, crude assembly of stone and timber, his brute strength would have shattered it immediately. But while the material looked like mundane stone, it was actually an alchemical substance created through shadow alchemy. Li Yunlong could alter its structure at will, enhancing its elasticity and viscosity. Trapped within the palm, the Hulk was effectively sinking into a swamp of alchemical matter. Worse, the restraint wasn't just a simple enclosure; the hand clamped firmly onto his torso first, then extended outward, constantly binding and entangling his limbs. No matter how wildly the Hulk roared and thrashed, he had no leverage to apply his force, rendered a helpless plaything in the giant grip.
Black Widow kept her eyes locked on the struggle between the monster and the hand while barking orders into her comms. «Prepare Action Plan Three immediately! Stand by to fire on my mark!»
The above-ground portion of the house had been destroyed by the Hulk's strength, its fragments reassembled into the giant arm. Now, the foundation left in the earth flowed like liquid, reshaping itself into a massive, blurred face that opened a cavernous maw toward the sky. The giant arm moved in tandem, curling downward to position the trapped Hulk directly above the gaping mouth, preparing to drop him inside to be devoured.
Black Widow raised her communicator. «Target the laser cannons at the mouth of that giant on the ground.» She paused, withholding the final order to fire, seemingly waiting to see if the Hulk would actually be eaten.
Fortunately, the Hulk wasn't swallowed whole. Unfortunately, Li Yunlong had no intention of merely scaring him-he meant to use the Hulk as a live test subject! The giant hand displayed astounding flexibility, its fingers working together to pin the Hulks limbs while leaving his head, neck, chest, and abdomen exposed to the cavernous maw beneath. A moment later, a plume of eerie light and flame blasted out from the mouth, hitting the Hulk dead-on. The energy shifted properties rapidly-from searing heat to sub-zero cold, from extreme vibration to violent acid, from chaotic slicing to molecular disintegration. In less than a minute of rapid experimentation, the Hulks body began to show severe damage. All he had managed was half a roar before being struck. Exposing such a glaring weakness mid-battle was an open invitation for Li Yunlong to strike. The human facial orifices were naturally fragile vulnerabilities; opening one's mouth was equivalent to unlocking the front door to one's internal organs. If not for the Hulks unique, godlike constitution, any other creature would have died several times over!
Whether in Marvel comics or movies, the Hulk had always showcased terrifying combat power. But from Li Yunlongs perspective, Dr. Bruce Banner's mind had to be entirely broken. Years of hard work had made him a titan of science, only for a lab accident to turn him into a brainless, melee-bound brawler! Talk about a complete career mismatch!