Corin was enveloped in light, emerald-green energy surging into his body through every limb and bone.
A warm, soothing feeling wrapped around him, and all the fatigue on Corin's body was swept away.
As the system notification sounded in his ears, Corin realized that the energy shot at him from the spear in Odin's hand seemed to have upgraded one of his talents.
Without showing it on his face, he opened the attribute panel:
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— Name: Corin
— Age: 29
— Physical Strength: 22255
— Current Balance: 150 million USD
— Existing Talents: Deadpool-level Regeneration, Dynamic Vision Lv.2, Jeet Kune Do Mastery, Demi-God Body, Formless Mask, Danger Sense Lv.2, Precision Throwing Lv.2, Sketch Mastery, Steel Body Lv.5, Magnetic Control Lv.5, Heat Vision Lv.3, Ring Portal Lv.1, Freezing Breath Lv.4
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After giving his existing talents a quick glance, Corin was shocked to find that his original level-5 physique enhancement had now clearly become Demi-God Body.
At this moment, Odin nodded slightly in satisfaction, then turned and disappeared into golden radiance.
A sentence drifted faintly from afar, "I'll be waiting for you in Asgard… Corin…"
And the energy swirling around Corin lingered for a long time before completely sinking into his body.
The scene before his eyes rapidly returned to the Helicarrier's bridge. No one noticed what had just happened, as if only a few short seconds had passed.
Suddenly, a wave of stench drilled straight into Corin's nose, nearly knocking him over.
That smell was like sweaty feet stewed for three days inside cotton shoes in summer, then doused with a layer of fermented herring juice. A smell with layers, and all of them lethal.
"Why does it smell like something rotting?"
Tony Stark was snapped out of his thoughts by the foul odor. He twitched his nose and frowned as he spoke.
Before his words even fell, Nick Fury, Colonel Rogers, and Agent Hill all caught the smell as well.
Nick Fury had been seizing the moment to brainwash everyone, but the sudden stench cut his train of thought short:
"Oh! Damn it, is the Helicarrier's sewage system broken? Check it immediately!"
"Reporting, sir! There is no malfunction in the Helicarrier's restroom sewage system."
A few seconds later, a staff member loudly reported the verified result.
Corin came back to himself and realized that a sticky layer had appeared on the surface of his body. It was black and foul-smelling, and the odor was coming straight from him.
In a flash, he vanished from everyone's sight. He needed to rinse himself off properly, immediately.
Tony only felt a gust of wind carrying a wave of stench sweep past him. He glanced at the still-spinning chair, the one Corin had just been sitting on.
Realizing who that gust of wind belonged to, "Holy crap… that smell! Did Mr. Destiny eat something bad?"
The heroic, tragic atmosphere Nick Fury had just built instantly turned bizarre.
———
Corin spent nearly an hour repeatedly rinsing himself in his room before finally washing all the filth off his body.
He had always thought that the bone-marrow cleansing described in cultivation novels was just an idealized concept. He never expected to experience it personally.
The social death factor was way too high.
"What exactly was that green energy? It actually forced so many impurities and toxins out of a body that already had level-5 physique enhancement and even the Steel Body trait?"
Looking at his smooth, glossy skin in the mirror, Corin felt, for the first time, what it was like to have fully unblocked meridians.
Along with that came another boost to the sharpness of his senses.
Corin suddenly realized that the talent that had been upgraded wasn't just physical enhancement. His danger sense had upgraded too.
Right now, as long as he calmed his mind, not even the tiniest sound anywhere on the entire Helicarrier could escape his ears.
Even if the roar of the engines exceeded 150 decibels, his enhanced body would intelligently filter the noise down to an acceptable level.
That meant there would be no situation where an overly loud sound masked other subtle noises.
In other words, even if Corin were standing right next to the engine, he could still catch the faintest sound from the farthest corner of the ship.
For example, right now he could sense that below the bridge control console, on the second lower level, on the right-hand side, at the fifth computer, a staff member was quietly playing a game.
Judging from the game sound effects coming through the guy's headset, it was probably that very classic single-player game, Galaga. [T/N: Reference to Tong Stark's line in The Avenger(2012).]
'Good grief. How much does this guy love games, to enjoy even such an ancient cartridge game like this?'
Corin remembered that before the conflict broke out, Tony had publicly called him out for playing games, but the guy had switched screens with lightning-fast hands.
Everyone thought Tony was just teasing a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Now that Corin had heard it himself, it was solid proof.
"With tech this advanced on the Helicarrier, couldn't they install a few decent games?"
———
On the ground, at an abandoned factory—
"You fell down from the sky."
An elderly security guard was startled by the loud crash of something heavy landing. When he walked over, he discovered a curly-haired man wearing absolutely nothing.
"Did I hurt anyone?"
There was still dizziness lingering in Banner's head. He felt like he was waking up from a brutal hangover, his head aching.
He knew he had transformed again, but what happened afterward was like blacking out from drinking too much, total memory loss.
The first thing the kind-hearted Banner did upon waking was to check whether he had caused any casualties.
He never wanted to see a loved one hurt by mistake again.
"There's no one here for you to hurt… but you did scare quite a few pigeons…"
"That's good."
Relieved, Banner wondered whether this old security guard had seen him transform. That might have scared him badly.
He asked tentatively, "You… saw everything?"
Worthy of being an old guard. Whether or not he was worldly, his calm alone made Banner look at him with new respect, "You smashed through the ceiling, a big green guy with his butt out."
"I figure once you're back to normal size, you should be able to fit into this."
As he spoke, the old guard tossed over a set of clothes.
"Are you an alien?"
———
"Hu… hu…"
If Banner just waking up was like being hungover, then Hawkeye Barton right now was still right in the middle of the buzz.
He panted heavily, his limbs strapped to a restraint bed, trying to drive out the thing in his head that kept giving him orders.
"It felt like the real you got squeezed out, then something else was stuffed in."
Barton shared his current feelings with Agent Romanoff in front of him.
"How did you get it out?"
Clint was curious how Natasha had managed to restore his original consciousness.
"Recalibrating consciousness. I hit your head really hard."
Natasha had experienced that feeling of her mind being crushed before, so she could empathize with Clint, who had just regained awareness.
"Natasha… how many people did I…"
She had expected Barton to think this way.
Being controlled by the enemy, becoming their accomplice, slaughtering your own comrades, it was a painful process.
"Don't think like that. The one at fault is Loki. They're monsters. We were never trained for this kind of thing."
Natasha's words made Barton feel a little better, but they only deepened his hatred for Loki.
"If I could put an arrow through Loki's eyes, I'd sleep a lot better."
Tony and Colonel Rogers arrived at the spot where Coulson had been attacked. The bloodstains on the wall hadn't been cleaned yet.
Looking at the gate that had ejected the prison cell, Tony and Rogers disagreed about Coulson's actions.
Tony believed Coulson shouldn't have faced Loki alone. Rogers felt that sometimes the body made its own choices.
When the topic turned to Loki, Tony started profiling him by putting himself in Loki's shoes, "He wants an audience. He showed that in Stuttgart. Right. That was just the trailer. Today was the main event."
The more Tony thought about it, the more it made sense, "Loki's a classic narcissist. He wants flowers, craves applause, wants an iconic building so his name can stand above everything else."
His confident analysis came to an abrupt stop as Tony's gaze froze on something, "Isn't that basically me?'
'And what place is more fitting than my Stark Tower?'
"Son of a bitch…"
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