Chapter 614

There was no delay.

The moment the five hundred Hydra recruits had been settled in the following morning, Peggy Carter began their training.

It was exactly what she wanted.

Peggy had never had the slightest affection for Hydra, so long as she stopped short of killing anyone, she was perfectly willing to make the training as brutal as necessary.

Her methods were also brutally simple.

There were no lectures. No drills on technique. Not even conventional physical conditioning.

Her first order was to strap heavy weights to all four limbs.

Then she handed each recruit two wooden swords, made them put on protective gear, and paired them off.

"Everything else is unnecessary," she told them. "Spend a few hours trying to beat each other with sticks. Your endurance and coordination will take care of themselves."

As for technique?

"If you get hit often enough, you’ll figure out what works for you."

Human nature being what it was, not everyone gave the exercise their best effort.

Some pairs very quickly discovered the joys of mutually assured laziness.

They’d circle each other with exaggerated caution, exchanging soft little taps that looked less like combat and more like two elderly people doing morning tai chi in the park.

Unfortunately for them, Peggy Carter had exceptionally sharp eyes.

There was no cheating under her watch.

She divided the recruits into groups of ten. Whenever she caught even one person slacking off, or decided a pair wasn’t fighting hard enough, the entire ten-person group had to spar against her.

That arrangement taught them a valuable lesson.

Protective gear did absolutely nothing to make Peggy’s blows pleasant.

Being hit by her hurt like hell.

Worse, they soon discovered that the armor did its job too well.

Peggy could beat them until they were doubled over, gasping, spitting, and seeing stars, yet they would emerge without a single serious injury.

Then she sent them straight back into training.

Again.

And again.

"You miserable worms should consider yourselves fortunate," Peggy said as she stalked among them.

"Fortunate that the people you’re fighting are still human."

That sentence became a weapon all on its own.

Whenever the recruits heard Peggy’s voice, they instinctively shuddered and immediately began convincing themselves that the person standing across from them wasn’t a fellow Hydra operative.

No.

They were their mortal enemy.

Someone who had burned down their house, killed their parents, stolen their money, and run off with their spouse.

Something like that.

The more convincing the fantasy became, the harder they swung.

"Raaagh!"

Wooden blades crashed together as five hundred recruits threw themselves into the most vicious non-lethal training session imaginable.

From the sidelines, Evenson watched the recruits moving with considerably more vigor than they’d shown on their first day.

He nodded repeatedly.

"Not bad. If they can endure this, they’re definitely capable of becoming powerful warriors."

He glanced across the training ground.

"Malick really did pick his best people."

"Naturally."

Stephanie had come to inspect the training herself.

She looked quite pleased.

"This matter is far too important for my father to take chances. He selected these people personally. There are no mediocre candidates here, and certainly no pampered heirs looking for an easy way to gain experience."

Watching her people get worked to the bone seemed to satisfy her immensely.

To Stephanie, severe discipline was simply proof that Peggy was taking the assignment seriously.

Lives had to be placed under strict control before an organization could maintain order, and harsh commands were how military discipline was forged.

Besides, this was only the beginning.

She knew the later stages would be even more demanding.

That hardly bothered her.

She wasn’t the one undergoing the training.

The people who survived this ordeal, however, would be the ones capable of carrying out the responsibilities waiting for them.

"The Spartans valued martial strength and endurance," Stephanie said thoughtfully. "Their men were forged through brutal training, and that was how they produced the warriors who stood at Thermopylae."

Then something occurred to her.

"Though, as far as I know, Peggy Carter never went through that kind of Spartan training, did she?"

Peggy was famous, and her connection to the coming transformation meant the Hydra recruits naturally used her as a benchmark.

Everyone wanted to know how they compared with her.

"Of course she didn’t."

Evenson glanced toward Peggy’s armored figure as she patrolled the training ground.

"By the time I worked on her, she was pushing ninety. She was already halfway to the grave."

He paused.

"She wouldn’t have survived this kind of abuse."

Stephanie’s eyes flicked toward him.

"So..."

Evenson lifted his chin toward the armored woman.

"She may be my work, but Caterina is the First of the Ascendant Chain."

"I see."

The corner of Stephanie’s mouth lifted.

"Then it seems this training really is producing results."

Judging from the recruits before her, she believed they might eventually surpass Peggy Carter herself.

Then Stephanie turned toward Evenson.

"There is something else I’d like to ask."

Her expression became serious.

"How is your research into the portal going?"

She still remembered the day Evenson had left her family’s home. He had taken a sample of that enormous black stone with him, claiming he needed to study it in detail.

"Don’t worry about that."

Evenson answered with complete confidence.

"I’m a professional. I’ve already figured the thing out."

And, technically, he had.

The moment he’d brought the stone home, he’d cut it into tiny pieces and embedded them into his pants.

Problem solved.

"Excellent."

Stephanie nodded firmly.

"I want these people sent to the alien world immediately after the transformation and your graduation trials are complete."

Her voice carried absolute conviction.

"They will retrieve our true leader and bring Hive back to us."

"No problem."

Evenson answered casually.

Then his brow furrowed.

"Though I’ll admit something. Even now, I don’t completely understand Hydra’s obsession."

Stephanie looked at him.

"Oh?"

"I have no idea how much time and resources Hydra has poured into finding an Inhuman called Hive. But I do understand the value of the force standing here."

He gestured toward the recruits.

"Once these people complete their transformations, they could become an incredibly valuable military force."

"And the first thing you intend to do with them is send them to another planet to search for one Inhuman."

Evenson rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"That planet is enormous. It may not be any smaller than Earth. You could spend years searching and never find him."

He spread his hands.

"That’s a tremendous waste of a force like this."

"Recovering Hive is a thousand-year aspiration of Hydra."

Stephanie sounded almost as though she were reciting something she’d memorized long ago.

"The significance of that is difficult for an outsider to understand."

"Not entirely."

Evenson thought for a moment.

"You bring Hive back, he displays unimaginable power, and Hydra gets to share the world with him."

He covered his face with one hand.

"That’s all?"

Stephanie stared.

"You put in all this effort just to earn the right to share the world."

He lowered his hand.

"And that’s assuming Hive is actually capable of conquering the entire world and handing half of it to you."

Stephanie’s hidden expression didn’t change, but there was a trace of displeasure in her voice.

"Are you questioning the power of our leader?"

"I don’t mean to offend you."

Evenson shrugged.

"But yes. I absolutely am."

Stephanie’s smile returned.

"Which is precisely why I said an outsider would have difficulty understanding."

She looked toward the recruits.

"The truth about Hive has been passed down through the oldest families of Hydra for generations. It is a closely guarded secret."

Her voice became more solemn.

"But I can tell you this with complete certainty. Those accounts are not myths."

"Our ancestors were not recording legends or supernatural fairy tales."

"They recorded history."

"Everything they wrote happened exactly as described. There is no exaggeration and no imagination added to it."

Evenson didn’t look particularly impressed.

"Even if that’s true, it’s a truth from more than three thousand years ago."

He tilted his head.

"You have to understand that information has a shelf life."

"Three thousand years ago, during the ancient Egyptian kingdoms..."

He smiled faintly.

"I don’t mean to insult your ancestors, but they were still products of their time."

Stephanie’s smile deepened.

Evenson continued.

"Back then, someone two meters tall who weighed seventy-five kilos and happened to be exceptionally muscular might have been mistaken for some kind of giant descended from the gods."

"And if that man showed up wearing full iron armor and carrying weapons, people might very well assume they’d witnessed the personal armament of a god’s chosen son."

His expression grew amused.

"So if someone possessed enough power to rule the world three thousand years ago, does that automatically mean they’d have enough power to rule it today?"

A person’s judgment was limited by what they understood, and what they understood was inevitably shaped by the era in which they lived.

History was full of examples.

Imagine someone traveling back to the Warring States period and becoming Zhao Kuo.

Determined to prove that he wasn’t merely a man who understood war from books, the time traveler would exploit his future knowledge to revolutionize metallurgy, forge a modern army, recruit legendary commanders, and build a military force unmatched by anything else in the ancient world.

Then, on the eve of Changping, he would proudly march onto the battlefield...

Only to look up and see an enemy formation armed with modern assault rifles.

The tragedy writes itself.

A legendary sword is still a sword.

It doesn’t matter how magnificent it is when the other side has an AK-47.

Give a man in ancient Egypt a lighter, and they might decide he’d personally inherited the flame of a god.

That was the point.

Evenson couldn’t help but suspect that the stories told by Hydra’s founders had accumulated a little historical inflation over the past three millennia.

"They may be exaggerated," Stephanie admitted.

The answer surprised him.

"But we’re not blind people worshiping history from a thousand years ago."

Stephanie’s gaze remained calm.

"Human civilization changes constantly. We see those changes just as clearly as anyone else."

"Which means we’ve also recognized that Hive may not be enough to help us rule the modern world. Relying on him alone would be... questionable."

That explained why Hydra itself had splintered.

"There are disagreements within our organization."

She glanced away.

"The Red Skull’s faction, for example, eventually broke away and established its own path."

"We’re not nearly so reckless."

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed.

"We considered the matter carefully."

"And we realized that even if Hive cannot simply hand us the world, he still has tremendous value to Hydra."

"What value?"

Evenson was genuinely curious now.

Stephanie looked directly at him.

"Hydra has survived for a thousand years. With everything we’ve accumulated over that time, we have every confidence that we can conquer the world through our own strength."

She paused.

"But one question remains."

"If Hydra rules the world, who rules Hydra?"

Her voice dropped slightly.

"Hive solves that problem."

Evenson’s expression changed.

Now he understood.

It wasn’t really about Hive personally choosing who would command Hydra.

It was about symbolism.

Hive was Hydra’s equivalent of a sacred imperial seal.

The seal itself wasn’t a magical weapon. It couldn’t conquer anything. It certainly couldn’t crack someone’s skull open.

But if everyone agreed that possessing it represented the will of heaven, then whoever held it became the legitimate ruler.

That was what Hive meant to Hydra.

Their internal struggle for power could ultimately be settled by a single question:

Who found Hive first?

Whoever brought him home would have legitimacy.

Whoever claimed Hive would claim the right to speak for Hydra.

The victor would become the rightful heir of the organization.

"Honestly..."

Stephanie gave a small shrug.

"If you’d asked me this before you came to our home, I wouldn’t have spoken this way."

"I used to worship Hive almost like a god."

"But after you came to our family, my father and I finally had an open discussion about it."

She smiled faintly.

"We managed to break ourselves out of that blind faith."

"Tradition and history matter, but in the end, they’re still history. Reality has to take priority over them."

"Break the blind faith?"

Evenson suddenly smiled.

"Have you really?"

Stephanie frowned slightly.

"Hive is Hydra’s god. Finding him means receiving heaven’s mandate, becoming his chosen messenger, and helping him govern the world."

He looked at her.

"That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?"

"Yes."

Stephanie nodded.

Evenson’s smile grew stranger.

"Then there’s something I’d like you to consider. You don’t have to take this personally. It’s just a thought."

She waited.

"Being the chosen one, the person favored by destiny..."

He turned toward her.

"It sounds sacred."

Then he leaned closer.

"But there’s another title."

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed.

"What title?"

Evenson turned away and casually patted her shoulder.

"A king above kings."

His voice dropped to a murmur beside her ear.

"A god who slays gods."

He smiled.

"If you have the power to become God, why settle for being an angel?"