Chapter 158: The Identity of the Invaders

"We encountered extraterrestrial beings. They possess more advanced weapons, stronger physiques..."

Nick Fury walked over to Orion Cross with a grim expression.

"And even more ruthless methods."

"Cut the crap. Do you have a recording?"

Orion Cross glanced at the people who were still performing surgery and asked directly without saying anything else.

Just listening to Nick Fury’s account was not enough. Who knew whether he had added or altered anything?

"Come with me."

Nick Fury turned and walked to the side, pulling out a chair. "Have a seat."

After Orion Cross sat down, Nick Fury lightly tapped the table twice. A virtual screen appeared.

"Watch it yourself."

Nick Fury said nothing more. He dragged out a video and double-clicked it for Orion Cross, then closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair.

Orion Cross ignored Nick Fury and focused on the footage.

At the beginning, everything was exactly as Orion Cross had expected. Nick Fury and the others were conducting research on the Tesseract inside a large laboratory.

Dr. Selvig and Jane Foster’s team were there as collaborating and hired scientists as well.

In the footage, the Tesseract suddenly activated. Dr. Selvig said something to Nick Fury, but before he could finish, three humanoid beings clad in silver-gray armor suddenly appeared in front of the Tesseract.

"Three?"

Orion Cross frowned when he saw this scene and dragged the progress bar back to watch it again.

It really was three.

And there was no Loki.

There were three Chitauri!

Could the dream he had given Loki really have changed him?

But even if Loki had changed, it should have only altered his attitude toward Asgard and the gods. It should have had nothing to do with this matter.

Orion Cross continued watching.

In the footage, the Chitauri captain in the lead held the Mind Scepter and took the Tesseract.

At the same time, Nick Fury and the agents in the room raised their guns and opened fire.

A chaotic struggle for the Tesseract immediately erupted.

Originally, Orion Cross had thought that given the abilities of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s agents, even if they could not defeat the Chitauri captain, they should at least have been able to exchange a few blows with the ordinary soldiers.

But what Orion Cross had not expected was that the two Chitauri soldiers dealt with several agents with ease, moving like battle-hardened warriors.

Of course, it seemed that most of those agents were Hydra infiltrators whom Orion Cross recognized.

After the agents were mercilessly crushed, Nick Fury issued an order.

Hill and Coulson took out their agent IDs and swiped them over a box in the corner of the laboratory.

The two opened the box and took out the energy weapons inside. The weapons had already been successfully developed, but had never been tested.

The two agents raised the weapons and aimed them at the Chitauri soldiers, ordering them to stop attacking.

Just when they thought the battle was about to end, a figure suddenly appeared behind them. A sharp dagger flashed, slicing off both of their weapon-holding hands in an instant.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s counterattack failed. The footage descended into chaos once again, and the agents gradually began to collapse completely.

"This illusion looks somewhat familiar."

Orion Cross played the footage in reverse and quickly noticed something wrong.

First, the Chitauri captain in the lead had used the Mind Scepter to fire an energy attack.

The Mind Scepter itself did not possess the ability to directly fire energy attacks. Otherwise, when Captain America traveled back in time during Avengers: Endgame, he could have simply gone "pew" and blasted himself.

To fire an energy attack, the user had to possess magical abilities of their own.

Second, there was the illusion and the dagger from earlier.

Orion Cross did not know whether the Chitauri actually possessed magic or illusion techniques.

But he at least knew that the vast majority of the Chitauri were a half-biological, half-mechanical species.

Their advanced technology was largely due to their ability to come into contact with other civilizations throughout the universe. In reality, their civilization level and combat strength could hardly be considered impressive on a universal scale.

Even Rocket Raccoon had said that the Chitauri army was one of the worst in the universe. Destroy their mothership and the entire army would be finished.

At most, they could serve as cannon fodder or bully low-level civilizations.

Under these circumstances, Orion Cross had ample reason to suspect that this "Chitauri" carrying the Mind Scepter, using magic and illusions, and attacking with a dagger was actually Loki in disguise.

As for the other two Chitauri soldiers, Loki probably knew that Orion Cross existed on Earth and had brought two additional people along just in case.

After all, in the original timeline, Loki had single-handedly destroyed this facility and stolen the Tesseract. Now that he had two additional companions, crushing the agents was even easier.

Orion Cross even suspected that if the cost of reverse-activating the Tesseract had not been so high, Loki would have wanted to bring an entire squad with him.

"You didn’t lose unfairly. They aren’t ordinary extraterrestrial beings in the first place."

After watching most of the recording, Orion Cross finally spoke.

"You recognize this species?"

Nick Fury opened his eyes and stared intently at Orion Cross.

He desperately wanted information about the enemy.

Desperately.

"No. What I mean is that one of them deliberately disguised himself as one of these cannon-fodder soldiers..."

Orion Cross began explaining, but his gaze suddenly fell upon the still-playing footage, and he stopped speaking.

"What is it?"

Nick Fury noticed that something was wrong with Orion Cross’s expression and asked cautiously.

"Perhaps it isn’t just one person."

Orion Cross stared at the second dagger that had appeared in the footage.

It was a double-edged dagger embedded with a red gemstone.

This dagger was called the Godslayer. It was famous throughout the universe for being capable of killing an Asgardian with a single strike, and it was even powerful enough to cut Thanos’s throat.

However, if there was not a second dagger, then the original one should have already been given by Thanos to his adopted daughter, Gamora.

That meant the identity of the "Chitauri soldier" currently holding this dagger became obvious in an instant.

"No wonder. I was wondering why these two cannon fodder soldiers seemed so powerful."

Orion Cross ignored Nick Fury’s confusion and continued watching the footage.

Since the "Chitauri" holding the dagger was Gamora, then who was the other person who was equally formidable?

One of the members of the Black Order?

Or perhaps Gamora’s sister, Nebula?

Under Loki’s illusion, unless they revealed an object that represented their true identities, there was no way to tell who they really were.

"I have to say, you were actually very lucky."

After roughly determining the identities of the three people, Orion Cross looked at the people on the operating tables again. He actually felt that simply surviving was already an incredible stroke of luck for them.

"We were lucky?"

Nick Fury gave a bitter laugh. "Are you kidding me?"

"I’m completely serious."

Orion Cross replied.

They had only lost an arm.

Orion Cross had mechanical prosthetic limbs designed by the scientific genius Dr. Emmett Heimerdinger. And once Dr. Helen Zhao’s Regeneration Cradle was developed a year from now, regrowing a severed limb would not even be a problem.

How could that not count as good luck?