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Here's my Patreon: "patreon.com/Hussain678" — 20 advanced chapters have been uploaded there.
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However, as the convergence of the Nine Realms began, Greenwich also slowly started to be affected by other worlds. Strange phenomena appeared… but this gravitational influence was not particularly strong for Earth. At most, objects within the affected area became lighter. After all, everything within that range began to be pulled by gravity from both above and below.
For Clark, this level of gravitational disturbance was almost negligible and had virtually no effect on him. That said, he could still sense that although the change was subtle, the gravitational influence acting on Earth was gradually increasing.
Fortunately, Greenwich was the only city directly affected by the convergence of the Nine Realms. Other cities experienced, at most, a few spatial passages. Moreover, these passages were not necessarily located above ground, so their impact on humanity was even smaller.
However, if the issue could not be resolved quickly, Clark believed that the scenario Erik feared was very likely to occur. At present, only two worlds had appeared above Greenwich. Once all nine realms fully manifested and overlapped with the city, Clark estimated that Greenwich might be completely destroyed.
Because of this, the residents of Greenwich below had already begun an orderly evacuation under the command of the London police. After all, this was humanity's first direct encounter with the phenomenon of the Nine Realms overlapping. Although Erik had developed a device capable of controlling the convergence using his knowledge, no one could be sure whether the device would actually work before it was put into use.
Therefore, regardless of the circumstances, evacuating civilians was still necessary.
After all, no one could guarantee that the equipment produced by Erik's team would be effective—especially since the devices looked extremely crude, and their method of fixation was still… duct tape.
"Clark, you're here."
Seeing Clark, Thor rose into the air with Mjolnir in hand. He had been staying in London with Jane and the others these past few days, so there was no way he could miss such a large-scale evacuation. Combined with the appearance of two reflected worlds in the sky, Thor knew the convergence of the Nine Realms was about to begin.
This time, however, there were no Dark Elves interfering, so Thor didn't pay much attention to it. To Asgard, the convergence of the Nine Realms was merely a spectacular phenomenon. Even if Asgardians were lost during the convergence, the Bifrost could retrieve them within minutes.
After learning that Clark had eliminated the Dark Elves, Thor became even less concerned. Before this, he had never considered that the convergence might destroy an entire city on Earth.
Once he realized this, Thor joined the installation team.
That said, "joining" mostly meant standing nearby as a symbolic presence. The actual installation of Erik's device could only be handled by Tony, Jane, and her assistant Daisy.
Even without Dark Elf interference, everyone wanted the installation to be as precise as possible. No one knew whether even a slight positional error might cause the device to fail.
Under these circumstances, whether Clark and Steve were present didn't really matter. However, aside from Clark himself, no one knew whether other unexpected incidents might occur during the convergence.
After all, even the Dark Elves—believed to have been wiped out by Asgard—had reappeared. No one could be certain that the Dark Elves Clark destroyed were truly the last of their kind.
While Clark and the others were installing devices in Greenwich, London, and Sokovia in Eastern Europe to control the effects of the Nine Realms' convergence, Dr. List was preparing to carry out his superhuman experiment on a group of twin siblings.
At first, Strucker and List conducted weapons experiments. But as the experiments progressed, Dr. List discovered that the energy of the Mind Scepter was far more effective on the human body than on weapons.
Weapons created using the Mind Scepter could only reach the level of those produced by Red Skull during World War II. While powerful, they were still insufficient against Superman Clark.
During an experimental accident, Dr. List discovered that the scepter's energy could act directly on the human body, allowing a person to gain abilities far beyond normal humans.
Although the experimental subject they obtained by chance soon died due to genetic mutation, the appearance of this subject made List and Strucker realize that there were other possible research directions.
Moreover, this case reminded Strucker of a piece of special information once held by S.H.I.E.L.D. decades ago. Although the record no longer existed within S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA had backed it up when it first appeared.
After all, although Nick Fury deleted the information internally after becoming director of S.H.I.E.L.D., his predecessor was Alexander Pierce—one of HYDRA's top leaders.
Thus, when this information first emerged, Alexander Pierce had already copied it into HYDRA's database.
The file was titled "Captain Marvel." It was a report about an alien invasion Earth suffered in the 1990s. The report mentioned that the one who helped Earth repel the invaders was a powerful woman who had survived exposure to the Tesseract.
Therefore, when Strucker and List learned that the Mind Scepter could grant humans superpowers, they immediately thought of this file. They realized that if they wanted to defeat Superman Clark, they might need to use the Mind Scepter—whose energy rivaled that of the Tesseract—to create a powerful human with supernatural abilities.
Unfortunately, despite now having Sokovia's support and countless experimental volunteers, very few people were able to withstand the Mind Scepter's energy transformation. And even those survivors died within days due to genetic mutation.