Hulk, Hate, Guns

The events that followed were rather uninteresting.

Gwen possessed no detective talents, nor did she know how to piece together answers from subtle clues.

The only method available to her was the clunkiest one—running.

Leveraging her exceptional mobility within the urban environment, Gwen continuously leaped between the city's buildings, checking off almost all the suspicious locations mentioned by the man known as Officer Crane.

Even so.

Until today, Gwen still had several alternative locations left that she couldn't rule out.

Yet seeing the well-trained combatants and massive heavy machinery continuously pouring out of this base today, Gwen understood immediately:

She had found the right place!

According to the intelligence, this was highly likely the place where her father was being held... Gwen thought to herself.

Police records had long indicated that the Rhino was working with a heavily armed faction of terrorists. Now that Gwen had laid eyes on these terrorists' headquarters, could finding the Rhino be far behind?

Even if the Rhino was not present here, at the very least, she could gather more clues, right?

Yet no matter how urgent Gwen felt inside.

She forced herself to calm down.

Although Gwen lacked real-world combat experience, she maintained a realistic self-awareness of her own strength.

While mutation had elevated her physical capabilities far beyond those of an ordinary person, she was still made of flesh and blood. If she were truly struck by a bullet, she would still bleed; if she bled too much, she would still go into shock and ultimately die.

Therefore, facing the hair-raising metallic storm and the vast number of combatants before her,

Gwen would have to be out of her mind to charge in at this moment.

Anyway, these people are leaving too... So I'll just wait until most of them have cleared out before infiltrating the base.

Gwen planned.

At the same time, she flipped over and pressed her back against the rooftop wall, completely concealing her figure.

————

Meanwhile, Zhong Shenxiu, waiting outside the "police versus criminals" battlefield, felt increasingly that something was amiss.

Why did it feel like... both sides were merely punching in for a shift and slacking off?

The sound of gunfire had not ceased, but neither side had actually hit anyone at all!

Basically, the police would go "bang, bang" twice, then retreat behind their riot shields; immediately after, the terrorists would fire twice, "bang, bang," and hastily scramble back into their cover.

And so it went, repeating endlessly...

For heaven's sake, this is practically a turn-based strategy game!

If they kept fighting like this, the scenario Zhong Shenxiu was waiting for—both sides going all-out, fighting to the death, and mutually destroying each other so he could swoop in as the ultimate fisherman—was probably never going to materialize...

Realizing the situation was developing strangely, Zhong Shenxiu put away his spectator mindset and began to think seriously.

Under what circumstances would both sides engage in such a tacit agreement to slack off?

Zhong Shenxiu pondered this question briefly and soon concluded that the most likely reason for this phenomenon was:

Both sides were stalling for time!

Having arrived at this conclusion, Zhong Shenxiu suddenly felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.

He could now understand the bizarre standoff unfolding before him.

Without wasting another word, Zhong Shenxiu began to cast his True Sight over a wide area, centered entirely on himself.

This time, he lowered the fluctuation frequency of his magical waves and reduced the magical density, causing the detection precision of True Sight to plummet drastically. He could no longer distinguish genders, nor could he even reliably determine whether something was human, rendering his ability to discern individuals fuzzy at best. At the same time, the most overpowered detection attributes of True Sight vanished due to these modifications.

However, under the same amount of magic power, the detection range after such modifications expanded dramatically.

It was nearly three to five times its original radius!

Because its precision was so severely degraded, this technique was hardly practical during the day in densely populated areas where distinguishing identities was impossible, which explained why Zhong Shenxiu had rarely used it.

Yet it was currently the early hours of the morning, and almost none of the surrounding streets had anyone on them.

Theoretically speaking, this was the optimal way to deploy the technique under the present circumstances.

Because Zhong Shenxiu had no need to identify individuals, nor distinguish genders or capabilities; he merely needed to know whether another armed force was currently advancing toward this location.

And the answer was...

Indeed, there was!

At a straight-line distance of about ten to fifteen kilometers, a dense crowd of no less than three hundred people was marching rapidly toward this location, maintaining a swift pace that suggested they were utilizing vehicles.

Combining this troop observed by Zhong Shenxiu with his previous deduction that both factions were stalling for time,

Everything fell neatly into place.

The reason these two sides were slacking off and showing no urgency was simply because they were awaiting their respective reinforcements.

Both sides undoubtedly had reinforcements on the way; otherwise, they would not have maintained such a synchronized tacit understanding. However, it remained unclear which faction this vanguard group belonged to.

Presumably, whether it was the police or the terrorists, once their reinforcements arrived, the balance of power would instantly flip, plunging the situation into a one-sided rout until the opposing side's reinforcements arrived.

By then, Zhong Shenxiu's plan to abduct Bruce Banner would be severely disrupted.

Whether it resulted in an outright victory where Bruce Banner was carted away, or a renewed stalemate with even greater numbers once both sides received backup, either outcome would undeniably increase the difficulty for Zhong Shenxiu.

Consequently, Zhong Shenxiu needed to make the situation much more chaotic before that happened.

Only then could he break free from this predetermined trajectory both sides had tacitly accepted.

Yet... how should he go about it?

Zhong Shenxiu fell into deep contemplation.

Surely he couldn't just run over there and shout, "Mwahahaha, I am the Crimson Baron!!"

-_-||

In that case, he wouldn't need to be called the Crimson Baron; he could just be called the Crimson Lunatic......

Thus, he required an alternative method—a method that would allow him to maintain his stealth while successfully muddying the waters of the current situation.....

Suddenly!

Zhong Shenxiu recalled the second half of the combat recommendation generated after he had used True Sight on Bruce Banner earlier.

[......However, it seems that when angered, the subject's intellect drops significantly. At this point, might certain mind-controlling abilities come in handy?]

In the Marvel universe of his past life, didn't Wanda use chaos magic to rouse the Hulk and send him on a rampage for quite a while?

Ultimately, he was only brought back to his senses by Iron Man's Hulkbuster punches.

Of course, Zhong Shenxiu's own chaos magic lacked the capacity for mind control.

But... Wanda's magic possessed it!

Zhong Shenxiu reached behind his back and retrieved a small silver container.

This was originally a compact blood storage device specially invented by Ivan to facilitate his Skrull shapeshifting spells, which Zhong Shenxiu always carried with him for emergencies.

However, remembering how he carried it daily, Zhong Shenxiu had once thought that carrying mere blood was a bit too sparse?

So he had also stored a portion of Wanda's chaos magic inside it.

Naturally, the blood compartment and the magic compartment were not interconnected; Ivan had modified this based on the large magic storage container left behind by Hyde previously.

In the end, the ingenious Ivan successfully condensed it down to the size of a capsule, no larger than a fingertip.

One had to admit, with Ivan around, Zhong Shenxiu's equipment upgrade cycle was becoming progressively faster.

Zhong Shenxiu took out the small container, upon which an inconspicuous character representing "Magic" was engraved. Opening it, a wisp of vibrant, blood-red chaos magic slowly drifted out.

Immediately afterward, he summoned the chaos magic within his own body and enveloped it around this wisp of Wanda's chaos magic.

Almost instantaneously, Zhong Shenxiu seized control of this wisp of chaos magic.

This was precisely where he differed fundamentally from Wanda.

If Wanda wished to use his magic, she even required a specialized machine to convert it first, followed by a headband controller to manipulate Zhong Shenxiu's chaos magic.

Yet Zhong Shenxiu's control over hers was entirely different; he merely needed to use his own magic to act as a supervisor.

Much like...... a border collie herding sheep.

As long as his own chaos magic played the leading role of the border collie, Wanda's chaos magic would docilely submit to his bidding.

Utterly obedient.

Rather, this felt more like a suppression stemming from bloodlines, akin to how a border collie inherently knows how to herd sheep.

Zhong Shenxiu's chaos magic seemed naturally equipped to govern Wanda's chaos magic.

One had to admit, this Chaos Physique synthesized from Master of Magic and Chaos Magic certainly carried some prestige... Zhong Shenxiu mused inwardly.

Without further hesitation, he ceased dawdling.

Controlling that wisp of magic—which now encapsulated Wanda's chaos magic—he directed it to strike toward Bruce Banner.

Because Zhong Shenxiu's chaos magic was gray in hue, it appeared thoroughly inconspicuous amidst the dark night. Coupled with its blistering velocity, it slipped into Bruce Banner's body without drawing the slightest notice from anyone.

Much like a tiny pebble sinking into the ocean, it caused no visible anomaly whatsoever.

It merely made Bruce Banner feel a sudden itch on the back of his neck, as though he had been bitten by a mosquito.

Bruce Banner instinctively wanted to swat at his neck with his palm, but the menacing black muzzle looming right before his face abruptly halted this instinctual movement.

Not far away, after observing through True Sight that the chaos magic had successfully entered Bruce Banner's body,

Zhong Shenxiu initiated his remote operation.

The operation process was exceedingly simple: he merely used that wisp of chaos magic to stir up Bruce Banner's anger toward the terrorists standing beside him.

Yet how this was actually accomplished remained somewhat abstract, even to Zhong Shenxiu.

It was akin to when Zhong Shenxiu manipulated that wisp of magic; the magic itself seemed to convey a message to him: *Just give the command, and I shall alter his mood.*

It was as simple as that, and as miraculous as that.

This made Zhong Shenxiu think: wasn't this essentially the power of the Mind Stone?

Come to think of it, it was rather coincidental: when Wanda used Zhong Shenxiu's chaos magic, she gained access to the powers of the Reality Stone, whereas when Zhong Shenxiu utilized Wanda's magic, he found himself capable of wielding the powers of the Mind Stone.

This, too, was an unexplained phenomenon for the time being.

......

On the other side.

Once Zhong Shenxiu issued his command to the chaos magic lurking within Bruce Banner, the latter instantly felt a boundless wave of fury surge from deep within his body.

The speed of its onset was unprecedented.

Immediately, Bruce Banner fixed his gaze upon the menacing black gun muzzle pointed directly between his eyes.

The longer he stared at the submachine gun aimed at him, the angrier he grew; the angrier he grew, the more infuriated he became.

*What the hell gives you the right to point a gun at me?!*

As his rage continued to mount, upon catching sight of the black combat uniforms worn by the surrounding operatives, his anger escalated even further.

*Why wear black in the middle of the night?*

*The more I look at your black clothes, the madder I get.*

*And those helmets of yours—for God's sake, looking at them just makes me want to smash them right off your heads!*

Bruce Banner's rationality was instantly swallowed whole by the overwhelming tide of fury. He could pick out an endless number of flaws in the operatives before him, finding countless reasons to justify his anger.

In short, the more he looked, the more enraged he felt.

Consequently, Bruce Banner began to "expand."

Yes, expansion in the physical sense.

The muscles across his entire body bulged violently, and the laboratory white coat, previously somewhat loose, gradually tightened like a second skin.

The two operatives holding submachine guns, who had kept their eyes fixed on him the entire time, naturally noticed his abnormality.

The pair immediately pressed the barrels of their submachine guns tighter against Bruce Banner's forehead, barking, "Hands behind your head, and don't try any little tricks!"

Yet Bruce Banner remained entirely unresponsive, his entire body continuing to swell. A greenish hue gradually surfaced across his skin, and the already taut white coat seemed incapable of bearing the pressure much longer, emitting a miserable groaning sound as a series of tears began to rip open across its fabric.

Worth noting was that..... his pants remained completely intact.

Despite the countless tears already peppering them, the "pants" faced such circumstances with absolute composure, seemingly standing by to coldly mock the groaning white coat with an air of derision:

*"Little brother, you're pathetic; you can't even handle this size."*

Returning to the matter at hand.

When the submachine gunner shouted his warning, the entire Alpha Squad shifted their attention to Bruce Banner. Observing him transform rapidly into a massive ball of muscle, a chill gripped everyone's hearts.

They raised their firearms in unison, aiming squarely at Bruce Banner.

The other of the two submachine gunners standing closest to him issued another warning: "This is your last chance, or I'm opening fire!"

By this point, Bruce Banner's heart had been utterly consumed by rage, robbing him of normal consciousness; how could he possibly heed any warnings?

His body's musculature had now surpassed even the most exaggerated physiques of legendary professional wrestlers, and even in the somewhat dim environment, that deeply ingrained shade of green grew glaringly conspicuous.

*This thing is a monster...* Observing the transformation of the previously frail and decadent middle-aged man into a green-skinned muscular sphere at such close range, the submachine gunner felt a tremor ripple through his heart.

Yet he was, after all, a seasoned veteran of many years of training; clutching the dark submachine gun in his hands instantly flooded him with an infinite sense of security.

He exchanged a glance with the other submachine gunner.

The two shared a silent, tacit nod.

Then, disengaging their safeties, they squeezed their triggers with virtually zero hesitation!

Though capturing the target was the primary directive, in the face of one's own mortality, missions could go straight to hell!!

The ferocious tongues of flame were primed to erupt from the barrels, propelling bullets destined to shred a man into a sieve lined up tightly within the chambers.

Yet!

Bruce Banner—no, the Hulk—was faster!

Two fists, each the size of a sandbag, drove upward from beneath the Hulk, wielding absolute speed and raw power to smash the two closest submachine gunners into pulp, as easily as swatting a fly.

The Hulk straightened his torso, revealing his shockingly well-toned muscles and his still remarkably resilient pants.

He cast a sidelong glance at the two crimson puddles of flesh, curling his lip in utter disdain:

*"Hulk, hate, guns!"*

*Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—*

The remaining four members of Alpha Squad, their eyes bloodshot, instantly unleashed a hail of bullets directly at the Hulk!