In the pitch-black farm, Faust was sweating profusely, hiding in a dark corner with a few of his subordinates. The winter night's cold wind blew from an unknown direction, seeping into the back of everyone's neck, and they realized their backs were already drenched in sweat.
They were attacked by various monsters, hard to say what exactly they were, perhaps they were angry old farmers.
However, the opponents were all elusive, impervious to bullets, moved swiftly, occasionally accompanied by eerie and urgent piano music.
Here's how it went...
Originally, Faust was patiently sipping coffee in a small building, listening to classical music from the phonograph, waiting for good news. After all, Montgomery City had carried out a comprehensive cover-up plan, and no one here knew what was happening outside. He had all the time in the world.
But before anyone returned, all the lights in the farm suddenly went out. Only thin moonlight streamed in through the window seams, and out of nowhere drifted clouds that veiled the moon just at this moment, plunging the world into darkness.
Faust wasn't panicked; he stood up near the window and listened carefully.
All generators had stopped functioning; the sound of engines whirring was no longer present.
Although the reason why all generators went offline was unknown, repairing them to restore lighting was essential. If sight proved useless, even his elite subordinates might not be a match for a hunting grizzly.
"Send a few people to repair the generators."
His subordinates weren't ordinary soldiers, mostly elite spies from Hydra; fixing generators was something everyone could do.
Following the order, a squad immediately scattered across the farm to solve the problem. Because the lamps and various equipment brought were of high power, and the cables somewhat lacking, these generators were also scattered all around.
Yet this was the beginning of a nightmare.
A blond middle-aged special agent traversed a large sparse cornfield, contemplating Americans' wastefulness.
In Germany, straw wouldn't just stand there but would be harvested with corn, sorted and processed. Straw could synthesize ethanol or be used as livestock feed, all very useful things.
But in the current United States, straw stood in the field, waiting to be burned next spring and returned as fertilizer.
People knew straw was useful, but for farmers, it cost money to hire people to harvest it, transporting it also incurred expenses. The total of all these costs meant that by the time it reached feed processing plants or other industries, its cost price exceeded the purchase price—it was entirely uneconomical.
Like during the 1930s financial crisis, pouring milk directly into the river was more cost-effective than transporting it only to not sell. A farmer couldn't possibly tend to a herd of cows just because they couldn't dispose of corn stalks.
Knowing all this, the agent was simply reflecting. Even for continental countries, the United States had significant geographical advantages.
He arrived at the generator, crouched down to inspect the machine issue, finding traces of human sabotage, heightening his alertness. He jumped onto the generator, scanned the surroundings, but saw no suspicious people—only the sound of howling wind.
Yet, for some reason, he always felt someone was watching him from some unseen place, because aside from the wind, he could hear his heart thumping overwhelmingly.
But the leader's order was to repair the generator, so lingering here in paranoia was useless.
He jumped off the machine and began trying to fix it; without tools or spare parts, it would likely take some time.
Just then, he suddenly heard eerie piano music, unusually urgent, coming from not far behind him. He turned his head towards the sound.
He saw a Giant emerging from the cornfield, over two meters tall, wearing a deep blue jumpsuit and a white, expressionless mask. Holding a large kitchen knife, the figure was approaching him, nearly within reach.
Such an eerie outfit clearly indicated he wasn't one of them. The agent immediately pulled out his gun and fired, but the bullets had no effect.
The Giant, moving at incongruent speed, came over, grabbed him by the neck, lifted him, delivering a heavy stab with the knife, sending him skyward like a sack.
Before dying, the last phrase the agent heard was completely unintelligible.
"So alert he thought he was a human emperor, but turned out to be a piece of trash."
.........
To play this game, Su Ming also made some preparations. Using a phone brought from DC, he specifically recorded a few pieces of piano music as background music upon returning to Montgomery City.
Although Wade was insane, sometimes he was indeed right; having a built-in BGM effect works better, especially in horror films. Since Su Ming intended to play the part of various Human Demons with these Hydra members, a theme song was indispensable.
Actually, killing these people would be easy for him, but creating fear, breaking down the opponent's psychological defenses, and making Faust pay a hefty price for his actions was the key.
Lady Nine-Heads and Faust likely held no technology for robot gigantism nor anything preserving memory or soul—there were people behind them.
Su Ming's task was to kill the chicken to scare the monkey—even if he didn't find traces of the adversary's existence, he wanted to show unknown enemies the consequences of causing trouble.