After a huge sound of waves crashing, a huge black shadow disappeared into the sea.
More than half an hour later, in the engine room, a sailor tremblingly pushed open the door, leaned out, and carefully moved to the window.
Several sharks in the sea had their dorsal fins exposed above the water, competing for the remaining carcasses and flesh in the sea.
The sailor looked at the shark fins exposed on the sea, breathed a sigh of relief, and sat down on the ground.
Gone, that damned octopus is gone,
Otherwise, facing this top predator, these sharks would not dare to come close.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, the sailor stumbled back to the engine room and called out several companions who were hiding inside.
Ten minutes later, the survivors hiding in various places on the cruise ship came out one after another.
The first mate, along with some sailors, counted the number of survivors and tried to maintain order amid the wailing and crying.
On the deck, the first mate looked at the shabby cruise ship and the corpses scattered all over the ground with a grim expression.
He knew that the Costa cruise ship was doomed.
Even though the insurance company has a guarantee, with so many people dying on this ship, the best outcome would be for the company to go bankrupt and liquidate.
You have to know that many of the people on the ship were either rich or noble. If they died on the ship, the subsequent claims and settlements from their families would be an astronomical figure.
The first mate took off his glasses and blew on them.
He took out a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the foggy gold-rimmed glasses.
The first mate rubbed his handkerchief on the lens, his face pale as he thought about how to explain to his family.
The reason why he was able to sit in the position of first mate on the Costa was because his father was a mafia godfather.
Doing business in Italy is more or less inevitable to deal with Mafia families.
Many people feel that in modern society, with the improvement of physical conditions, old organizations like the Mafia have become outdated and eliminated by the times.
But as the illegitimate son of the Mafia godfather, the first mate knows that his family's influence is still spread throughout all walks of life in Italy.
However, the mafia's business today is no longer limited to kidnapping, extortion, alcohol smuggling, prostitution and other low-class businesses.
Now most of the family's businesses are legitimate businesses.
Just like this super cruise ship, there is family investment.
Although he is an illegitimate child, it can be seen that the job arranged for him by his cheap father is not bad.
It's a leisurely and comfortable job, with high salary, little work, and a fixed dividend every year.
Compared to his uncles and brothers who were hanging around in Mexico and Colombia and fighting with local drug lords for business at the risk of their lives, he was already lucky.
But now that the cruise ship has had an accident, due to the face of his cheap father, he may not be blamed too much for this natural disaster.
But forget about the lucrative and leisurely job like on the Costa.
If I had known this earlier, I would have listened to my old man's arrangement and went to Turin to work as a hotel manager at the Continental Hotel.
The first mate sighed and put on his glasses again after wiping them clean. He looked at the sea, suddenly took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put them back on.
He was not mistaken. In the distant sea, a warship was heading towards this side.
On the bridge of the warship, the black major general and William Stryker stood side by side, each holding a telescope and looking in the direction of the cruise ship.
"General, it seems your experiment has failed!"
William Stryker looked through the telescope and saw the densely packed people on the deck, and said to the black major general.
The military's so-called secret weapon can't even deal with a civilian cruise ship. It's a joke to expect it to deal with enemy warships.
The black major general looked extremely unhappy. "Major Mond, check where the locator of the wooden box is?"
Behind the black major general, a white officer in a naval lieutenant's uniform took out an instrument similar to a tablet.
After a few simple manipulations, a constantly moving red dot appeared on the tablet.
"General, the target is 200 nautical miles away from us and 700 meters below the sea. It is moving at high speed..."
"Always pay attention to its movements!" The black major general issued the order with a gloomy face.
"Yes, sir!"
After saluting, the major tactfully stepped aside.
William Stryker held a telescope and looked at the crowd on the deck who were waving their hands. After looking for a long time, he did not find the target.
Dead? Impossible!
William Stryker looked at the black major general beside him, and the two looked at each other tacitly.
Ten minutes later, a torpedo accurately hit the bottom of the Costa cruise ship.
Boom…
The survivors who were on the deck, eagerly waiting for the warship, suddenly felt the cruise ship under their feet shaking violently.
… …
"Bang!"
The door of the restaurant was violently pushed open, and a shirtless, blood-stained burly man walked in carrying a suitcase in one hand.
Under the panicked gazes of the diners in the restaurant, Sabretooth walked up to Magneto with a suitcase and placed it at his feet.
Sabretooth nodded at Magneto, turned and walked out of the restaurant. As he walked, Sabretooth shook his neck and stretched his muscles.
As he passed by Hill, he twitched his nose and looked at Hill suspiciously, but when he saw Hill's panic-stricken expression, the saber-toothed tiger shook his head and continued to walk out of the restaurant.
Magneto put down the knife and fork in his hand, looked at the suitcase at his feet, and stood up slowly.
"It looks like there are a few little mice hiding on this boat!"
Ding ding dong!
All the metal knives and forks near Magneto floated in the air under his control.
"Victor, find them!"
Sabertooth Tiger pushed the door open and went out...
At this time, the frightened diners also left the restaurant one after another.
Hill was mixed in the crowd, a trace of anxiety flashed across her face. She pressed the micro communicator on the side of her ear, eager to know Hawkeye's situation.
"I'm fine, just my arm was hurt a little,"
In an empty room on the sixth floor of the cruise ship, Hawkeye gritted his teeth and wrapped gauze around the wound on his arm.
"Mission failed, Hill. The tiger's healing ability is too abnormal. It is simply immortal! We need to call for support now!"
"I will contact the director immediately. Hawkeye, Sabretooth is coming to find you, you have to be careful!"
Hill left the restaurant and looked at the figure of the saber-toothed tiger in the distance. While talking to Hawkeye about the situation, he walked in the opposite direction of the saber-toothed tiger.
… …
Hiss!
The images on the computer were intermittent, apparently due to energy interference or perhaps the influence of water pressure. The last image sent back by the skeleton monster was the octopus tentacle it was parasitizing being swallowed by a huge mouth of the abyss.
The moment the skeleton monster was swallowed, it hid in the gap between the sharp teeth of the strange fish, transformed into two bony claws, and grabbed the inner wall of the strange fish's mouth.
A blue electric light flashed, and then the computer screen in front of Tang Song turned pitch black.
Tang Song closed his laptop and walked out of the box.
At this time, in the huge restaurant, because of the appearance of Sabretooth, there were only Magneto and Tang Song who were dining outside.
The restaurant is now empty, and even the chef is nowhere to be found.
Magneto looked at Tang Song who had just walked out of the box, and his eyes became a little strange.
"Hello, Mr. Eric, my last name is Tang, and I'm an arms dealer. I didn't expect to see the famous Magneto here!"
Tang Song walked up to Magneto and greeted him.
Magneto smiled and said, "Didn't we just meet at the auction?"
Tang Song was a little surprised: "Auction, I did get off that boat, I didn't expect Mr. Eric to remember a little guy like me, it's an honor!"
Magneto stared at Tang Song's eyes meaningfully: "Do you know why they call me Magneto? It's not because I can control metals, but because I can control magnetic fields!"
"Young man, my old friend once told me that everyone has their own magnetic field, just like a fingerprint, unique!"
"So?!" Tang Song touched his nose and laughed without blushing or beating his heart: "It seems that disguise, shapeshifting and the like don't work in front of you!"
Magneto just looked at him quietly.
… … …
A storm was brewing at the end of the horizon. The dark cumulus clouds pressed the sky down a few points. Fine raindrops like gauze slowly fell, wetting the pale wings of the seagull.
A scarlet helicopter came from a distance and hovered in the air, its propeller spinning rapidly, stirring up the fishy sea breeze.
The helicopter just hovered there quietly, motionless, as if waiting for something.
Suddenly, the sea below was parted.
Just like Moses holding the staff and parting the Red Sea in religious texts, tens of thousands of tons of sea water were pushed aside in a few breaths, and an enormous cylindrical steel platform slowly rose from the sea surface, like the Tower of Babel that reached from heaven to earth.
The searchlights distributed along the edge of the platform are so eye-catching in the dark, guiding the helicopters in the sky.
In the center of the steel platform without a trace of rust, there is a falcon shape painted with silver-white permanent paint. That is the logo of S.H.I.E.L.D., whose full name is the Strategic Homeland Defense Attack and Logistics Agency.
Obviously, this is a base of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Director!"
Seeing Nick Fury getting off the plane, Phil Coulson hurried to greet him.
Nick Fury walked hurriedly into the base.
"How many people can we mobilize at the moment?"
In the office in the base, Nick Fury looked at the coordinates of the freighter displayed on the big screen and asked in a deep voice.
"There are currently two special forces teams in the base, but," Phil Coulson paused for a moment, "I'm afraid they are not strong enough to deal with A-level extraordinary people!"
SHIELD has always been rooted between ordinary society and the extraordinary world, and has an extremely detailed database of so-called superheroes and super criminals.
Generally speaking, SHIELD divides those with extraordinary abilities into the following levels:
D-level transcendents have not yet broken away from the mortal body, and their destructive power is limited, as well as their defense against guns and artillery.
Under the threat of light weapons fire, they could face death at any time.
All you need to do is send out a fully armed special forces team with complete firepower and make plans in advance to suppress or even capture the D-class extraordinary people.
C-class has already possessed a certain level of threatening supernatural power, and can, to a certain extent, dodge the firepower threat of lightweight infantry weapons.
It takes the concerted efforts of several special operations teams, equipped with targeted weapons, to capture it.
As for the B-level extraordinary people, they can easily climb rooftops and walls, break monuments and rocks with a wave of their hands and feet, and can penetrate the armor of fourth-generation tanks head-on. Except for hard-shell artillery shells, they can easily avoid or even ignore the threat of small-caliber rifle bullets.
The last A-class extraordinary beings are no longer able to be checked by conventional force. With just a little effort, they can destroy landmark buildings such as high-rise buildings, giant statues, and bridges. They can even ignore large-caliber machine gun shell chains. Apart from ballistic missiles, the state apparatus cannot come up with many means of checks and balances.
This classification system for extraordinary people is not only circulated within S.H.I.E.L.D., but also in other national organizations. These numerical levels are divided according to the degree of danger.
Magneto's rating within S.H.I.E.L.D. is A.
Nick Fury had a gloomy face. He knew that Phil Coulson was right. Just based on the several special forces teams that SHIELD had urgently mobilized.
He is no match for Magneto at all.
But he had to save Hill and Hawkeye.
"Director, how about we contact Professor X?"
Phil Coulson noticed Nick Fury's expression and suggested quietly.
Professor X, whose real name is Charles Francis Xavier.
The founder of Xavier's School for the Gifted, the leader of the X-Men, and the polar opposite of the mutant race along with Magneto.
If Magneto is the tough hawk among mutants, then Professor X is the moderate dove.
However, compared to Magneto, Professor X is even less liked.
Because his abilities are telepathy and mind control, Professor X is also recognized as an S-level supernatural being.
No one likes someone who can hear their thoughts and control them at any time, even if this person behaves like a saint.
But as an agent, Nick Fury never minds using the most vicious thoughts to guess people's hearts.
After hearing Phil Coulson's suggestion, Nick Fury did not express his opinion immediately, but took out a piece of information and handed it to Coulson.
Asians, stowaways, gang leaders, arms tycoons, unknown superpowers...
Phil Coulson read a document of more than ten pages over and over for a long time.
"According to Agent Hill's report, Tang Song is also on the ship. Coulson, find a way to contact him and see if he can help Hawkeye and the others!
Contact the military to see if there are any warships or submarines nearby. If so, go and coordinate immediately!"
Unless necessary, Nick Fury really doesn't want to look for Professor X. First, he is indeed afraid of Professor X. Second, he doesn't want S.H.I.E.L.D. to get involved in the dispute between ordinary people and mutants.
But this feeling of powerlessness is really hard.
Mutants, super villains, and more and more crises, and we don't even know when those aliens will come back.
Nick Fury subconsciously touched the old-fashioned pager hidden inside his windbreaker.
It's time to put the Avengers project on the agenda!
… …
At this time, in the cruise ship restaurant, Magneto opened his mouth wide and looked at Tang Song as if he had eaten a fly.
Tang Song held a cigar in his hand and said to Magneto:
"Mr. Eric, you have to know that the development of a group has never relied on the strength of an individual. The current mutants are supported by you and Professor X. What if one day you are gone?"
"Forgive me for being so blunt. After all, you and Mr. Charles both came from the Cold War era. You should know that time is unforgiving!"
"If you and Professor X no longer protect the mutants, who do you think the mutants can rely on?"
"We in the East have an old saying that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Compared to the uneven mutant abilities, I think you and your brotherhood members need a batch of heavy weapons in addition to the batch of AK rifles just now!"
"What do you think of this heavy artillery? Five shells can destroy a coastal fortress. It costs four million US dollars per piece. I can help you transport it to the designated enemy."