In Madison's stunned gaze,
the scene in front of her suddenly shifted,
and they arrived in a secluded alley.
Not far away, a man in black stared at them in terror.
"Damn monsters! Don't come any closer!"
He raised his gun toward them.
Damon suddenly shouted, "Hail Hydra!"
The man froze, suspicion flickering in his eyes, even lowering the gun slightly.
"Sure enough… it's related to Hydra."
Damon immediately understood.
After all, how many organizations in the Marvel world can casually field such an elite squad? And in the Marvel universe, nine times out of ten, whatever's happening is connected to Hydra.
Even if he guessed wrong, Hydra wouldn't care.
Madison looked puzzled. "What kind of code is that?"
Before Damon could answer, the man in black suddenly realized something. Seeing Damon's expression as if confirming his suspicion, he immediately understood — he was being tricked.
"Bastard! How dare you play me! Die!"
Angry and humiliated, he raised his gun and fired a full burst.
Damon calmly looked ahead. A stone slab materialized before him, completely blocking both attackers.
Unless the bullets could bend midair, that small pistol could never pierce the stone.
The gunfire ceased, and Damon "saw" the man in black pull out a circular object and throw it with all his strength.
"A bunch of cannon fodder who can't even provide anomaly points. Why can't they just surrender obediently?"
Damon shook his head and, as before, summoned a rocky ridge to shield himself.
At that moment, Madison thrust both hands forward. An invisible force swept her hair back.
"Wait…"
Before Damon could speak, the grenade, pushed back by telekinesis, exploded violently, sending the black-clad man flying in all directions.
The man lost his life in the process but also experienced freedom. Amen.
"Not bad, right? I'm not too shabby either!"
Madison lifted her head, exposing her smooth, swan-like neck — the kind of neck you'd want to plant strawberries on.
Damon paused for a moment. "I meant… leave a survivor."
"Ah? Sorry! Didn't mean to."
Madison shrank her neck slightly, then gave an awkward smile.
"Whatever. Even if you leave a survivor, he might not say anything anyway."
Damon waved his hand, and in it appeared a blood-stained communicator and a mobile phone. Perhaps because the black-clad man was dead, their items became ownerless, allowing Damon to pick them up and record them. He could even check the item properties.
Item Name: S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Communicator
Rating: A communicator with decent security performance.
Madison curiously leaned in. "Ah, I get it. You're going to use this to take calls and subtly figure out their identities. That's how they do it in the movies."
Damon casually tossed the items into a lake 500 meters away and shook his head. "No need for all that. I already know who they are."
"Who?"
"The Serpent Shield Bureau."
"Serpent Shield Bureau? Such a weird name… who'd name it that?"
Madison muttered, glancing around. She noticed that, at some point, the walls on both sides of the alley had vanished again. No guessing required — Damon had restored the original walls.
Even though this wasn't the first time she'd seen such a miraculous move, Madison still didn't understand.
How does this even work?
It's utterly mind-boggling.
Madison suddenly thought of something and spoke softly, testing the waters:
"If they're after me… that means my home isn't safe anymore!"
"So tonight… can I go to your place?"
"You don't mind if I stay over to hide for a bit, right?"
She looked at Damon with pleading eyes.
But how could Damon not know what she was really thinking?
Saying she wanted to "hide" was one thing—what she actually wanted was him!
When out in the world, a young man must learn to protect himself.
If you ever encounter such a situation—beware the honey trap! Stop immediately… and let me handle it.
So Damon nodded. "No problem. Just remember to bring your things."
Madison gave him a meaningful look. "Of course. I'll be sure to bring… protection."
Damon's eyebrow twitched. "I meant your luggage. Who said anything about that? I never use umbrellas!"
Even if it's only 0.01 millimeters thick, the feeling is worlds apart.
After they finished packing and left,
not long after,
a group of men in black arrived quietly to clean up the scene.
Coulson stared at the darkened ground, then at the five-meter-high rocky ridge beside it, his brows tightly furrowed.
He crouched near the corner wall, gesturing and kicking it a few times.
At that moment, an old lady carrying groceries spotted him and screeched,
"You damned bald man! Don't you dare pee on my wall!"
"Get lost! If I see you hanging around again, I swear I'll boot your ass with my shoe, I mean it!"
Coulson's face darkened. He instinctively touched his hairline — dangerously close to the front.
What? I'm not bald yet! I'll sue you for slander!
He watched as his agents flashed their badges and dismissed the old lady, then turned toward Tony Stark, who was descending from above.
"So," Coulson said, "how the hell did this thing just disappear?"
Under the lingering glare of the old lady, Coulson kicked the wall again. It fit seamlessly with the ground — as if it had never vanished.
If he hadn't seen it on surveillance footage himself, he would never have believed that something was off with this wall.
Tony Stark waited for Jarvis to complete his scan.
"Sir," Jarvis reported, "by every measurable parameter, there are no signs of separation between the wall and the ground."
"That's impossible!"
Tony's low exclamation carried disbelief — this made no sense!
Coulson knew right away that Jarvis had found nothing useful.
"Well, even if we don't know how he did it, at least the wall's back where it belongs," Coulson said optimistically.
But Tony frowned, staring at the eerie scene before him.
A wall perfectly restored, flames that flowed like water, the ability to precisely detect every enemy — and that strange sense of perception.
Compared to those, Damon's apparent "spatial magic" and "shield magic" almost seemed ordinary.
Though Tony didn't yet know of Kamar-Taj's existence, he was aware that mages existed in this world — he'd even met a few.
But those mages were still made of flesh and blood.
And his armor-piercing rounds didn't believe in carbon-based life forms.
Yet Damon's "magic" defied all known logic.
It was more magical than magic itself.
At that moment, one of the agents handed Coulson a file.
Coulson glanced at it casually and raised an eyebrow.
"Well, well. Madison's agent turned out to be a hidden cultist."
"Let's see where they were headed… Oh, motherf—!"
"I think we can stop investigating. They're as good as dead."
———
"Oh no! Slow down, you brute! I'm gonna die!"