Zod casually converted the energy in his body into ultraviolet light and released it. The Reaper mutants that charged him screamed as they turned to ash on the spot.
"What did you do?" Chad Noema retreated several steps warily.
"Relax, Prince Noema. I just want the RR virus in your body so I can take samples. After that, you're free," Zod said.
Zod tried releasing his psychic power, giving Chad Noema no chance to answer. He controlled Chad Noema and the Reapers behind him at the same time.
"Easier than I thought. Looks like controlling vampires isn't any different from controlling humans," Zod murmured.
Making Chad Noema and the Reapers roll around like dogs one moment and squirm like worms the next, Zod found it oddly entertaining. He even wondered whether Professor X played around like this too.
Zod felt that compared to invisibility, the ability countless men dreamed of, psychic power suited his needs far better. It was effortless control, and then you could toy with them however you wanted. It was more fun and more practical than hypnosis, and you could casually spin it into millions of words.
"So for now, I can only use it to control enemies. Sigh." Zod let out a regretful sigh.
He brought Chad Noema back to Blade Technology Industries' base for sampling and other work. After it was done, Zod had Chad Noema and his Reaper variants line up and crawl into the sewer, and he implanted a powerful mental suggestion into Chad Noema. From now on, Chad Noema and his Reaper underlings could only attack vampires and human scum.
By then, an entire night had passed since Chad Noema's attack, leaving behind clear surveillance footage. The recordings were reported upward layer by layer until they reached the head of New York's vampire ruling faction, the Vampire Duke, Elihdra Makinos.
The Vampire Duke watched the footage, then gathered the most elite vampire warriors under his command and began brewing a plan that was anything but small.
Elihdra Makinos was the oldest known vampire in the Americas, holding the prestigious title of Vampire Duke, the one who ruled the vampire clans. Yet that honor did not make him the handsome, melancholic figure from popular fiction, a noble radiating cold aristocratic charm. In truth, his appearance could only be called ugly.
His body had rotted and mutated into a strange pale blue. Not a single hair could grow on it, and thick veins were visible like trenches. The fluid seeping from his skin was nauseating, like a corpse that had already decayed yet still struggled to live, stirring instinctive disgust in anyone who looked at him. That ugliness stood out even more beside his daughter, Nyssa Makinos.
As a vampire, Makinos should not have looked like this. Other pureblood vampires his age, even older, were still handsome and elegant. Makinos had become so hideous for one reason: he refused to enter hibernation, clinging to power at all times, even if it meant his strength would wane and his body would rot, so long as he could remain on his throne and watch every movement within his empire.
To ensure his authority was absolute, he formed a Blood Clan Guard and recruited elite warriors to slaughter any clansmen who opposed him. To cement it further, he even cooperated with human rulers, mutually propping up each other's power. To do anything for power was the perfect description of Elihdra Makinos.
But no matter what, he was still the master of the vampire empire, the ruler of all vampires in New York. Chad Noema's appearance made Makinos realize his son had come back for revenge, and Makinos knew exactly how terrifying Reaper variants were. That meant he needed helpers now, and he could also use the chance to handle the final part of his plan.
Zod had no interest in dealing with any of that. The newly obtained vampire virus variant, the RR virus, was far more capable of stirring a researcher's excitement.
During his research, Zod discovered the RR virus was not actually immune to silver. Its metabolism was simply too fast, burning energy to resist the damage silver caused. Even anticoagulants that were deadly poison to vampires could be neutralized and expelled the same way.
But the Extremis virus was different. Even a tiny amount of Extremis easily wiped out the RR virus completely. Zod was disappointed, because his expectations had been higher.
Still, the RR virus had its own terrifying strengths. Its infectivity was a hundred times stronger than the standard vampire virus. It only needed a single cell to complete full infection and transformation.
"What a dangerous world…" Zod muttered.
In Zod's view, Marvel's people were simply too dangerous. The RR virus was basically an upgraded TT virus. Thankfully, it couldn't survive in the air. If it could spread through the air, then all it would take was Chad Noema and his Reapers getting injured once, with bodily fluids spraying and drifting on air currents, and it would become the Marvel version of Biohazard.
After finishing his research, Zod headed to New York's underworld fighting tournament. After selecting a batch of Beast Soldiers, he didn't end his sponsorship of the competition. He simply swapped the prizes from War Machines to cash.
Those one hundred War Machines promised as champion rewards had been brought back to HYDRA by Bucky. That had already exposed quite a few HYDRA strongholds to Zod, and now Zod was preparing to launch the "Serpent Swallowing" plan. Meanwhile, the underworld fighting tournament continued all the way to the present, and Kingpin ran it with real dedication.
The KOF tournament was probably the hottest underworld fighting event in the world right now. People still didn't know Blade Technology Industries was the power behind it, but everyone did know the tournament was backed by absurd wealth. That drew in countless desperadoes, because Zod believed something. If the King of Fighters world could produce so many freaks, then the early stage of the Marvel world had no reason to have only a handful of superheroes and supervillains.
Sure enough, KOF produced plenty of abnormal powerhouses. They cut through opponents with ease, sweeping the bracket like a hot knife through butter. The Black Queen saved the footage and analyzed combat data, and the pre-match physicals did the heavy lifting, letting Zod obtain samples from these people with ridiculous ease.
Whenever they encountered a strong fighter, World Serpent would extend an invitation. Only after the person refused would they play dirty and take them away. Using that method, World Serpent gained quite a few capable individuals.
There were disappointments too. Most weren't mutants at all, they were simply people who had trained themselves to this level. Zod's subordinates even captured the future low-tier villain, Taskmaster. The few who were mutated were only a few times stronger than ordinary humans.
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