If one were to judge solely by these displays, the Hulk's melee advantage appeared all but invincible. But what was Li Yunlong's trade? He was an occult researcher! He spent his life swimming in occultism; how could he blindly accept whatever others claimed? Powerful though the Hulk was, he could not truly be invincible-a reality dictated by the simple fact that he existed within the mortal realm.
According to occult theory, even a true god descending to the mortal world could exert, at most, the power of a demigod-unless they chose to destroy the mortal realm entirely. The laws of the mortal realm established this hard ceiling, locking down the upper limits beforehand. With everyone's maximum potential bound by the same absolute ceiling, no one could truly claim invincibility. If even a true god was bound by this law, the Hulk was certainly no exception. It was a principle that provided Li Yunlong with a solid, theoretical foundation for absolute confidence.
With confidence secured, all that remained was execution. Held firmly in Li Yunlong's grasp, the Hulk was nothing more than a frog on a dissecting table, entirely incapable of resisting and left completely at his mercy. To Li Yunlong, for the Hulk to exhibit such terrifying strength, the cause had to lie either in a alteration of his soul, a transformation of his physical body, or perhaps a combination of both. Now that the creature had fallen into his hands, what possible variables could remain? Did anyone truly think his skill tree was just for show? Put into practice, it took only a few trial runs to uncover the Hulk's weakness. As formidable as he was, the fundamental basis of his physical body remained organic cells. The moment Li Yunlong used his own energy to suppress the Hulk's strength and applied molecular disintegration technology, he could easily dismantle the giant's body.
— Aim the laser cannon inside the giant's mouth and open fire! — Black Widow commanded.
A blinding flash of laser fire shot from the flank straight into Li Yunlong's gaping mouth, disrupting the energy balance and sparking a violent explosion. The massive, indistinct face stretching across the ground-its jaws open as it spewed flaming light-was blown to pieces from the inside out.
The theoretical foundation for laser weaponry had been established long ago, with military field tests dating back to the eighties and nineties. Those trials had proven that Earth's atmosphere was exceptionally hostile to laser systems. Aside from their massive energy consumption, their range and firepower were severely constrained; the beam scattered and dissipated so rapidly within the atmosphere that practical applications seemed perpetually out of reach. It was quite a surprise to see S.H.I.E.L.D. Deploying such technology against Li Yunlong now.
— All members of Strike Team One, prepare to execute Action Plan Two on my mark. Fire! — Black Widow took the lead, raising her weapon and opening a wild barrage of fire directly at Li Yunlong's massive arm.
Although the giant face on the ground had been blown away, such damage meant little to Li Yunlong. The concentrated fire from Black Widow and her squad-even with their specialized ammunition-felt like nothing more than an itch. The colossal arm made a throwing motion, hurling the severely battered Hulk like a stone straight into the laser cannon. The weapon instantly collapsed into a heap of scrap metal, though fortunately, the operators had scrambled clear just in time to avoid injury. With the laser weapon destroyed, Li Yunlong paid no mind to the storm of bullets Black Widow and her team were creating. The giant arm disintegrated of its own accord, its countless fragments floating up to suspended positions in the air. Then, as if the vision before them was blurring and adjusting its focus, the picture cleared-revealing Li Yunlong's cabin restored to absolute perfection, brightly lit from within.
Black Widow and her operatives did not cease firing, but the damage their bullets inflicted on the cabin could not linger for even a second before being automatically repaired. Their efforts appeared entirely futile. Even with prior preparation, the ammunition the team carried was inherently limited. Though they coordinated their fire to maintain a continuous suppression, the relentless barrage quickly exhausted their supply, forcing the gunfire to a sudden halt. The door of Li Yunlong's cabin swung open from the inside, and seventeen identical Li Yunlongs stepped out in single file. Facing the strike team that had just opened fire on the giant arm-including Black Widow herself-the duplicates matched them one-on-one, leaving no one any chance to escape. Then, they instantly initiated nonsense mode:
— What lovely weather we're having today. Sunshine in the morning, a northwestern gale at noon, hail in the afternoon, bread for breakfast… blah, blah, blah…
Black Widow had long prepared herself for this exact response from Li Yunlong. She immediately transmitted a silent command:
[Execute Plan B immediately!]
Simultaneously, she adjusted her mind and focused her mental energy, preparing to endure the agonizing five minutes ahead. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operational plan had gone through three complete redrafts, incorporating intelligence supplied by the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD had once spent an entire week pooling their resources to match wits with Li Yunlong, confident they had mapped out his secrets-including his precise behavioral patterns.
Should anyone enter Li Yunlong's cabin, or if an attack interfered with Li Yunlong himself, his immediate reaction was to come and strike up a conversation with them. This response was completely unaffected by the number of people involved. The LAPD had once attempted to send two hundred and thirty-two personnel to interfere with Li Yunlong simultaneously; in response, Li Yunlong had casually manifested two hundred and thirty-two duplicates at the exact same second, matching them one-on-one for a forced chat. Not a single officer had managed to slip away. Within the ranks of the LAPD, a conversation with Li Yunlong had become a terrifying taboo, feared by all without exception. The reason behind this dreadful reputation lay in three specific characteristics of these encounters.
The first characteristic: as long as you were within the city limits of Los Angeles, Li Yunlong would track you down the moment night fell. Once targeted, you had nowhere to hide and no way to run. The LAPD had tried every conceivable method, yet to this day, not a single person had ever managed to escape after being found by Li Yunlong. To avoid being located in the first place, the officers had devised all manner of schemes-some took off into the sky in helicopters, others donned scuba gear to submerge underwater, and some even locked themselves inside fully sealed, airtight bunkers, relying entirely on portable oxygen tanks just to breathe. Without exception, Li Yunlong found every last one of them. Whether up in an aircraft, deep underwater, or inside a sealed vault, he simply drifted through the walls like a phantom. Eventually, one officer had a sudden stroke of genius and climbed to the middle of a tall ladder, hanging between the sky and the ground-what can you do now? he thought. In response, Li Yunlong simply stood on thin air and chatted with him for a full five minutes!
The second characteristic: there was absolutely nothing you could do to the Li Yunlong who came to chat with you. When he approached, he appeared in every respect-his face, his clothing, his movements-like an ordinary human being. You could hear his breathing, his heartbeat, and every single word he uttered; if you stood close enough, you could even catch his scent. Yet in reality, the Li Yunlong standing before you was a mere illusion. Reaching out to grab him yielded nothing but empty air, and firing a gun at him accomplished nothing at all. The police had tried countless alternative methods-splashing holy water, tossing blessed salt, pelting him with the Holy Bible, employing various magical items and talismans from other religions, and chanting exorcism spells-yet not a single technique could banish Li Yunlong.
The third characteristic: while Li Yunlong's chatter inflicted no direct physical harm, it wreaked catastrophic havoc on a person's psychological state. It drove the mind toward irritability, confusion, and outright madness! The longer the conversation dragged on, the more severe the psychological trauma became. According to the LAPD's assessments, Li Yunlong's chatter proceeded in five-minute intervals. During any given interval, no matter what you said or did, Li Yunlong would offer no response whatsoever. The first time you provoked Li Yunlong and he came to talk, a brief pause of a few seconds would occur at the end of the five minutes. If you failed to seize that fleeting moment, he would seamlessly launch into the next cycle. But if you caught that window to offer an apology or a similar gesture, Li Yunlong would simply say, – Accepted, – before turning and walking away. However, if you provoked him a second time, the interval stretched to ten minutes; a third offense pushed it to fifteen minutes, increasing incrementally with every subsequent infraction. A particularly stubborn detective from the LAPD's Major Crimes Division had managed to cross Li Yunlong five separate times. Ultimately unable to endure the relentless stream of chatter, he spiraled into total madness, pulling out his service weapon and opening fire at random inside the police station. His colleagues were forced to commit him to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Whether he would ever recover-or how long it might take-remained entirely unknown, and even if he were eventually discharged, retaining his job was out of the question. With such an unfortunate example staring them in the face, not a single officer in the entire LAPD dared to claim they were unafraid of Li Yunlong!
Now, Black Widow had to face the very ordeal that terrified the entire Los Angeles Police Department. At first, she felt nothing out of the ordinary. But as time wore on, despite her rigorous mental conditioning, Black Widow gradually realized that her mental state was slipping into an abnormal condition. Subjectively, her subconscious insisted she was entirely fine, yet when she actively tried to control her body, she discovered a drastic decline in motor coordination. Even after undergoing genetic modification surgery-which left her fighting style centered on agility, boasting physical control and reaction speeds far surpassing ordinary humans-she was now losing those capabilities without even realizing it. Her combat effectiveness had dropped by at least half. And this was merely the beginning; as the minutes ticked away, an uncontrollable flood of random thoughts began crashing through her mind. Right at that moment, a massive, enraged roar shattered the air:
— HULK!
Jolted by the deafening roar, Black Widow's mind snapped back to sharp focus. She watched as the Hulk-refusing to stay down like an unkillable cockroach-scrambled up from the ground and launched himself into the air. He wasn't leaping to attack any of the Li Yunlong duplicates; instead, he was charging headlong toward Li Yunlong's cabin, which still stood silently, brightly illuminated!
Fool! Black Widow cursed bitterly in her heart. Not a single one of the seventeen Li Yunlongs made a move against the Hulk; they simply continued their chatter with their assigned targets as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, a doorway opened of its own accord on the cabin wall directly facing the Hulk. Thirty-six paper talismans of various shapes swept out, instantly assembling into a heavy-duty metallic restraint suit that locked down every single one of the Hulk's joints, binding even his neck and jaw. Bound like a trapped rat, the Hulk could neither move nor scream. Following the momentum of his leap, he plunged right through the sudden opening in the wall and into Li Yunlong's cabin. The wall then seamlessly restored itself, and all trace of the Hulk vanished.
Having been beaten so brutally by Li Yunlong just moments ago, the creature still hadn't learned his lesson. The moment he was rescued by allies, he had relied on his extraordinary regenerative powers to recover his fighting strength, only to charge straight back into disaster. He hadn't bothered to think: when Li Yunlong knew nothing about his biology earlier, he had still devised a countermeasure in mere minutes. Now that his secrets had been laid bare, how could he possibly expect to cause any trouble?
By using his own power to forcibly suppress the Hulk's strength, and employing paper talismans as a medium to construct a specialized, joint-locking restraint suit through yin-yang alchemy, Li Yunlong had captured the Hulk without the creature offering a shred of resistance-throwing him straight into the cabin to serve as his next experimental subject.