She was certain she was going to die—because she knew she was sinking into a lightless abyssal sea. Bioluminescent creatures drifted around her, and something in the bottomless depths was slowly dragging her down.
Icy seawater flooded her lungs, making her chest feel like it was weighed down by lead. She could still hear her heartbeat, but it sounded impossibly distant—like her heart was still beating at the surface. She wondered if she was already dead, and the sound was only an echo in her mind. Otherwise, shouldn't she be coughing, flailing, trying to force the water out?
But nothing happened.
She simply sank like a marble statue, limbs frozen and heavy. She couldn't even move a single finger. Though she saw nothing, her sixth sense extended outward, brushing against the slick bodies of the creatures circling her. Twisted fish with regressed eyes stared at her flesh with malice, waiting for her to die so they could rip into her skin and feast on her warm innards with crooked teeth.
This is going to hurt, she thought. She recalled books she'd once read—rare volumes locked away in the library, accessible only after her teacher appeared and granted her access to knowledge once reserved for nobility. She was sure: not a single poem in the world ever captured the other side of death—not sacrifice, not glory, not the poetry of martyrdom, but the grotesque end of someone gutted like a fish, blood and filth mixing into one foul stench.
She realized she must look terrible as she died.
Damn it! I'm not even wearing clothes! It only struck her then. Well, whatever. No one's watching. I'll be dead soon anyway, and the only witnesses are a bunch of ugly fish. Nothing to be ashamed of.
But what little optimism she clung to gradually dissolved with the passage of time. She couldn't measure how fast she was falling, nor how long it had been. Whenever she tried to count, the whispers from the ocean floor would muddle her focus and twist her thoughts into knots. She attempted incantations—nothing worked. She sank deeper, despair mounting. Even the grotesque creatures around her vanished one by one, and the glowing jellyfish and translucent mollusks faded from view.
She felt a black tentacle wrap around her limbs, squeezing her neck.
Only one thing remained untried.
Sunlight pierced the surface like molten gold. She realized she'd never even opened her eyes. Bright blotches lit up behind her eyelids. And then she remembered—she hadn't drowned at all.
"Huff—!" Wanda gasped as she jolted upright in the bathtub, soaked hair plastered to her back. Warm water droplets slid down her face, already turning cold. She blinked rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes, struggling to make out the fogged-up room around her. But she knew someone was nearby. She could feel the shape of their thoughts, their identity unmistakable.
She didn't try to cover herself—not even as a man saw her naked. "Teacher, I…"
Solomon removed his hand from the light switch.
"The circuit tripped just now. Then I heard you call my name," he said, leaning against the bathroom doorframe, holding a tray. Wanda could smell the food. He approached her calmly and crouched by the tub, showing her the tray's contents. She caught a faint scent from him—an ambiguous, intimate scent. When she'd woken up earlier in an unfamiliar bed, a maid had been waiting to explain everything: where she was, who brought her there, and what the day's arrangements were.
Her sixth sense had picked up someone else's breathless scream nearby—a wave of raw, emotional intensity—and in that moment, she had understood what had happened. Blushing furiously, she'd obediently followed the maid's advice: take a bath, change clothes, and greet the host of the house clean and proper.
"This is just a small part of your breakfast," he said, placing the tray on a shelf within her reach. "Here, breakfast is served in two parts. First, something sweet and savory—fruit and pan-fried sausages. If you still have an appetite, you can join us in the dining hall for meat."
"What… happened last night?" she asked.
"You were exhausted. I forgot how taxing that kind of work is for you. You took on too much negative energy and passed out." He smiled gently. "Don't make that face, Wanda. You did well. You just lack experience—you haven't yet learned how to filter out useless emotions. But here's something to cheer you up: you missed Kamar-Taj's morning martial arts training. So today, no kung fu lessons."
"That's… barely good news," Wanda muttered, sinking deeper into the warm water and popping a piece of sausage into her mouth. Solomon had already left, leaving her alone to try and piece together the fragmented memories of the night before.
"He came here last night?"
"Yes, sir," the agent nodded, coordinating excavation crews and directing researchers to examine the scattered bones nearby. Sam Wilson scratched his head. The moment he'd entered this forest, something had felt wrong—the icy chill clinging to the underbrush never stopped pricking at his skin.
"Maybe Solomon just brought Wanda Maximoff here for a walk. I don't know much about kids these days, but I do know some of them like creepy places. We can't prove those bones have anything to do with them, can we?"
"Don't be naïve, Sam," came Maria Hill's voice over his earpiece, crisp and annoyed. "You've seen the files—not all of them, sure, but enough to know Solomon's ties to Collins. He didn't come all this way just to stroll. If that's what it was, why not take her to the harbor restaurant instead? This is the last month to eat Maine lobster, after all!"
"Maybe it was just that, Hill. He ate too much and needed a walk."
"Why lie to yourself, Sam?" Hill snapped. "Didn't you see the bones?"
"I saw them," Sam said, teeth clenched. "All I know is that after Solomon arrived, thirty years of murders and disappearances in Collins stopped cold—and haven't happened since." He gave a humorless laugh. No one could see his expression. "I'll keep doing my job, but stop dumping anxiety on Pietro. He's just a kid. And I won't let the agents under me poke around in things they shouldn't. If you want answers, go ask Solomon yourself. Maybe he'll be merciful enough to tell you."
"You're angry."
"Yes. Very." Sam lowered his voice. He stepped toward a scattered pit and stared at the misshapen yellowed bones. "This isn't a normal human skeleton. I don't believe for one second that my agents could've handled this. And if you still think we're S.H.I.E.L.D., just throwing away lives like poker chips, then let me tell you now—no. Absolutely not."
"Don't you want to know Wanda Maximoff's condition? Don't you want to know what Solomon Damonet's real plan is?" Hill pressed.
"I'm not a spy. I'm a soldier." Sam rolled his eyes. "If he ever decides to take down a country or kill someone, I'll stop him. But until then, this is a free country. I don't like him—but as far as I can tell, he was just being a vigilante here once. Cleaning up man-eating monsters in a forgotten town—and maybe using it to impress a girl last night."
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Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 256)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 336)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 542)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 924)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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