I have uploaded 20 advanced chapters on my Patreon for the readers. Go check them out and read them, and please don't forget to give this story a Powerstone and show your support.
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Here's my Patreon: "patreon.com/Hussain678" — 20 advanced chapters have been uploaded there.
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Although most of the human experiments involving the Mind Scepter ended in failure, List firmly believed that one day the experiments would succeed.
Today marked the 78th human experiment conducted in their laboratory. The test subjects were a pair of twin siblings. Even now, Dr. List still remembered them clearly.
They were idealistic brother and sister, always at the front lines of every anti-government protest. They longed for peace, and when Dr. List promised them superpowers like those of Superman or Thor from the Avengers, they were deeply moved and "voluntarily" agreed to participate in the experiment.
Of course, this "voluntary" participation also relied on the influence of the Mind Scepter. After all, from the very beginning, List and his team had been using the scepter to manipulate people's minds—wasn't this simply another application of that power?
"Are you ready? If you are, we'll begin."
Because List and the others were currently presenting themselves as a peace organization helping the twins, they spoke gently. List deliberately used a calm tone.
After all, no one knew what the siblings would become after the experiment. The failure rate was extremely high—and if it truly failed, then so be it. Since they were playing the role of good people, they might as well continue the act.
Although HYDRA was making use of the Mind Scepter, it wasn't Loki. The scepter couldn't directly change a person's will. At most, it could influence parts of someone's thoughts and emotions—making them trust you, believe in you, and be more willing to listen.
Control as absolute as Loki's—where people willingly betrayed their organizations or even all of humanity—was something HYDRA simply couldn't achieve. Their power was limited to turning enemies into allies. This was also one of the main reasons they eventually abandoned the idea of using the Mind Scepter against Clark.
If they deceived people and immediately imprisoned them with a hostile attitude, even with the scepter's influence, hatred would still arise.
Hatred itself didn't matter much. After all, once people were brought in, they weren't leaving—this was a HYDRA base.
What mattered was that these deceived individuals were used for experiments. Although the rare successful subjects ultimately died, they still provided valuable data for HYDRA's researchers.
This led to an important discovery: the abilities granted by the Mind Scepter were not fixed. Among the nine people who had successfully awakened powers so far, none had identical abilities.
List suspected this had something to do with personality and personal preferences, though there was no concrete evidence—just speculation.
Despite the wide variety of abilities, one thing was certain: every awakened ability was extremely powerful. One ability could even be used to counter superhuman strength directly—glass shattered under the impact of a ten-ton blow.
Because of this, List and the others treated the test subjects with great caution. They feared that if the subjects truly gained superpowers, they might retaliate. Although the lab's security had been upgraded several times, avoiding unnecessary trouble was always preferable.
"Pietro…"
After hearing List speak, Wanda couldn't help but look at her brother Pietro Maximoff lying beside her. She felt that something wasn't right.
"It's okay, sister. Be strong," Pietro said with a smile, looking at Wanda. "Soon I'll recover my strength, and then we can liberate Sokovia."
"Alright, let's begin."
With that, Dr. List pressed the switch to activate the machine, then turned off the microphone and said to his assistant, "Record all data carefully."
At the exact moment the switch was pressed, eight circular apertures representing different realms appeared in the sky above Greenwich, London.
As the apertures appeared, Clark immediately felt the gravitational field of the entire area begin to shift. However, since the apertures were still spread apart, the impact was not yet severe.
But Clark knew that if these portals merged during the full convergence of the Nine Realms, Earth—the most fragile of the realms—might not be able to withstand the pressure. If that happened, Greenwich would likely cease to exist.
Fortunately, under Dr. Erik Selvig's command, all stabilizing devices had already been deployed in advance. When Erik pressed the activation button, expanding ripples appeared across the devices.
As the ripples spread, all abnormal phenomena within their range vanished. Hidden spatial passages disappeared, and gravity returned to normal.
"Is this the effect of your device?" Natasha asked, looking at the eight glowing rings still gathering in the sky, then turning to Erik.
"That should be it," Erik replied hesitantly. He had never encountered a nine-realm convergence of this scale before. Honestly, he was already satisfied that the stabilizers worked based on previously collected data.
As for the actual effectiveness of the system, Erik himself wasn't completely sure. After all, this kind of event couldn't be tested—it happened only once every five thousand years.
"So… that's it? There shouldn't be any other effects, right?" Natasha asked skeptically, still watching the sky.
"That should be enough. The convergence itself destabilizes space due to gravitational interference. That's why gravitational anomalies appear across Earth, and those chaotic forces cause spatial fluctuations, creating numerous portals."
"My device works by integrating reverse gravitational frequencies to stabilize Earth. So unless something unexpected happens, we can simply wait for the convergence to end."
As Erik finished speaking, Tony—standing beside Natasha—pulled off his mask, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and stuffed it into his mouth.