The girl's delicate features still carried traces of immaturity, appearing to be only around ten years old.
She wore a thin white experimental gown, her entire body curled tightly together like a fetus in the womb, hugging her knees.
A head of smooth golden hair scattered down like a waterfall. Her slightly furrowed brows and pale complexion, paired with that delicate and pitiful young face, radiated a fragile aura that naturally stirred sympathy.
The tiny tubes connected above the container continuously injected some kind of gas into it.
After mixing with the green liquid, the gas seemed to trigger some sort of chemical reaction, forcibly keeping a person in a sleeping state.
The girl's hands and feet were restrained by silver-white metal shackles.
On those pale arms were countless glaring red marks, all needle scars left behind from forcibly extracting blood.
There were also twelve metal spikes, each half a meter long and radiating chilling cold light, embedded deeply along the girl's spinal column into that tiny body. Just looking at them made one's back turn cold.
This was... human experimentation?
And the subject of the experiment was actually a young child!
HYDRA's utterly bottomless behavior completely enraged the righteous Steve. Flames of fury danced within his eyes. From his neck to his entire face, dozens of dark veins bulged violently.
His fists clenched tightly, producing crisp cracking sounds from his bones.
Because he was exerting too much force, all ten knuckles turned pale white, veins protruding across his skin, while a pattern resembling a devil's grin faintly appeared on his left arm.
Under intense emotional stimulation, Steve once again unconsciously activated that left arm.
"Damn Red Skull! Damn HYDRA!" Looking at the girl's pale skin inside the container, Steve simply could not imagine what kind of torture she had suffered. His blood-red eyes resembled an enraged lion.
If Red Skull were still alive right now, Steve would probably tear him apart and devour him alive.
Unfortunately, Red Skull had already gone to hell. If nothing unexpected happened, they would never meet again in this lifetime.
But even amidst his fury, Steve did not lose his rationality. Instead, a question surfaced in his mind: "What's so special about this girl that Red Skull specifically built a secret room for her?"
His gaze swept across the room and landed on the scattered documents.
Picking up a few pages and roughly scanning them, Steve's entire body suddenly trembled as though struck by lightning. His expression changed drastically as he exclaimed in horror:
"Th-This... These are conceptual blueprints for time weapons?!"
Within these scattered documents were HYDRA's concepts regarding "time weapons."
Several terrifying research directions were mentioned, including large-scale spacetime stasis fields, localized time acceleration devices, localized time delay devices, localized time loop devices, and more.
Steve swallowed hard and instinctively glanced at the container.
His intuition told him... HYDRA's research into time weapons was built upon this girl.
To verify his guess, Steve gathered all the scattered documents, reordered them according to their numbering, and carefully read through them line by line. The further he read, the uglier his expression became.
Most of the documents were records of experiments.
The near-insane actions described within were simply inhuman, challenging the very bottom line of human morality.
Calling it horrifying barely sufficed. Their crimes were countless and monstrous beyond measure.
"Experiment Record, No. 012."
"Extracted 200 milliliters of bone marrow from Subject 'Zero-One,' attempted transplantation into another test subject."
"Experiment failed... Subject 'Zero-One's bone marrow possesses no special effects, but displays extremely powerful corrosive properties. Test Subject No. 187 deceased."
...
"Experiment Record, No. 31."
"Connected neural stimulation apparatus. Through stimulating cerebral cortex nerves, attempted activation of Subject 'Zero-One's special abilities."
"Experiment highly successful. Subject 'Zero-One' demonstrated extremely excellent characteristics, capable of slowing spacetime within a fifty-meter radius by fifty times relative to normal flow. This is excellent news."
...
"Experiment Record, No. 52."
"Excised tissue from Subject 'Zero-One' for whole-body transplantation, hoping to cultivate new experimental subjects."
"Experiment failed... all seventy-two experimental subjects deceased."
"We cannot replicate that power. This is not a domain humanity can control. It is... a forbidden realm that only gods may step into."
...
"Experiment Record, No. 69."
"Forcibly stimulated Subject 'Zero-One's brain nerves, recorded peak activity values, and excised biological tissue in preparation for cloning."
"The experiment... succeeded, yet also failed. The clones die extremely quickly."
...
"Experiment Record, No. 82."
"Extracted samples of Subject 'Zero-One's bone marrow, blood, cells, etc., utilizing an artificial womb for incubation and gestation."
"It... has been born. We have stepped into the realm of gods. From this day onward, humanity shall become its own god!"
...
Suppressing the surging rage in his heart, Steve decided to rescue the girl.
His righteous nature made it impossible for him to stand by and watch such a fragile girl be imprisoned as an experimental subject inside a container, suffering inhuman torture day and night. Moreover, he did not intend to tell anyone about this.
He was straightforward, but not stupid.
The girl's importance was obvious from the documents.
If she were handed over to the American government, it probably would not take long before she became an experimental subject once more.
Having grown up on the streets while suffering violence and abuse, he had never held his country in especially high regard. Nor did he believe those idiots would willingly give up a superweapon that had fallen into their hands.
This matter..... ends here.
Steve took out an exquisite metal lighter from the inner pocket of his coat.
His thumb lightly flicked it.
The lighter produced a crisp sound. As the lid snapped open, a cluster of orange flames rose up, their flickering glow reflecting across his face. Deep within his eyes was nothing but indifference.
"No one will find you..."
Steve murmured softly, seemingly talking to himself, before tossing the lighter toward the pile of documents.
The highly flammable paper ignited instantly upon contact with the fire, bursting upward like a bonfire half a meter tall. Rolling heat waves rushed outward, accompanied by the smell of burning.
Only after confirming that all the documents had been destroyed did Steve finally let out a sigh of relief.
Then he walked toward the container imprisoning the girl. Just as he was about to raise his fist and smash it apart, a ghostlike voice suddenly drifted into his ears, cold and elusive.
"Who's there?!"
A warning alarm instantly surged within Steve's heart as he abruptly turned around to inspect his surroundings.
But strangely, the entire room was empty. There was only unsettling darkness and shadow.
"You may call me... Hive."
The cold voice sounded again. The supposedly dead researchers slowly stood up, their gray-white eyes resembling zombies as they stared at him expressionlessly. Their lips moved as they said:
"Captain America Steve Rogers, what exactly are you planning to do to my 'mother'?"