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Of course, Darian's gains weren't limited to that.
After BT completely closed the portal, the system's voice rang out simultaneously.
Main Quest "Close the Portal" Settlement Complete
Rewards Gained: 20,000 EXP, Skill 'The Cowardly Warrior Never Takes Off His Mask', Equipment 'magic Mask', Item 'Random Teleportation Scroll', Item 'Sentry Ward'
Skill: The Cowardly Warrior Never Takes Off His Mask (When wearing any mask, gain a significant increase in physical strength)
Equipment: magic Mask (Increases Spirit attribute, grants the ability to perceive surrounding magic energy and mental fluctuations)
Item: Random Teleportation Scroll (Immediately teleports to a random location, usable even in combat)
Item: Sentry Ward (Automatically becomes invisible after being placed on the ground, providing you with vision of the nearby area, disappears after a certain period)
Good heavens, this skill and equipment actually complement each other.
Darian felt as if he was embarking on a path of dual cultivation of magic and martial arts, although this dual cultivation was a bit lopsided, with his current strength being several times his spiritual attribute.
But it wasn't a big problem.
Once he leveled up skills like Dual Wielding, Charge, and Whirlwind, his magic power would naturally increase.
As for the Random Teleportation Scroll, that was a good item; he wouldn't have to worry about not being able to teleport using the map while in combat.
Just now, when Darian passed through the portal to reach the Universe, he was actually a bit worried, afraid that some reckless Chitauri soldier would put him in combat, preventing him from using the map to teleport back to Earth and directly taking a nuclear blast.
Although he still had an Impeccable, such a god-tier item should naturally be saved whenever possible.
Sentry Ward, this thing was an anti-GANK artifact; he wouldn't have to worry about several muscular men suddenly jumping out of the bushes and making things awkward for him.
As the smoke of the New York battlefield gradually dispersed, the system's voice rang out in Darian's mind once again.
Major Event "Battle of New York" has officially ended
Congratulations to the player for achieving first place in this event
Beginning to settle ranking rewards.
Rewards are as follows: 30,000 EXP, Free Attribute Points × 10, Item 'Revival Coin * 1'
Item: Revival Coin (Players can use this item to revive immediately after dying, and restore a portion of health. Revive, player!)
!!!
Darian's pupils suddenly constricted, and his breathing hitched.
Although the rewards for this large-scale event didn't seem like much in terms of quantity, apart from EXP and free attribute points, there was only one item.
But the problem was, this item was actually a Revival Coin!?
This meant he had an extra life, a chance for error, and no longer had to consider a one-life clear!
Such value was incomparable to ordinary equipment or items!
"Invincible!"
Darian's back instantly straightened.
With this Revival Coin, he could adopt a more aggressive playstyle; at worst, it would be a direct one-for-one trade!
Of course, if he encountered someone he couldn't even trade one-for-one with, then it would still be a tactical retreat.
Congratulations, player, you have successfully leveled up!
Hearing the system's prompt, Darian opened his personal panel.
Player: Darian
Level: 22 (0 / 57330)
Attributes: Strength 77, Agility 37, Constitution 51, Spirit 23
Assignable Free Attribute Points: 15
Titles: It's Impossible to Work, Harbinger of Nuclear Peace
"Hmm, my mage account is finally getting somewhere."
Darian nodded with satisfaction and quickly allocated the newly acquired 15 free attribute points.
The attribute panel before him refreshed accordingly.
Attributes: Strength 80, Agility 40, Constitution 53, Spirit 30
This time, Darian didn't follow any allocation method; it was purely an OCD attack, and he couldn't help but round several attributes to neat integers.
It was a pity that he was still short of free attribute points and couldn't make Constitution an integer as well, which made him a little uncomfortable.
However, Darian was also well aware that these were just basic attributes; in actual combat, it still depended on skills, equipment, and items.
With the end of the Battle of New York, the city was left in ruins, with Chitauri soldiers and metal leviathan corpses everywhere, as well as various alien technologies salvaged from them.
Many people, seeing this, activated automatic looting and began picking up trash on the streets, with one guy named Toomes being the most active.
But none of this had much to do with the Alliance team members; they were only responsible for fighting, not for cleanup and aftermath.
Darian returned to the top of Stark Tower and immediately saw Tony and his group gathered in a circle, pointing and gesturing at an unknown creature on the ground; upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Loki.
Loki was currently wrapped up like a zongzi and thrown on the ground, with only his head barely able to move, and many residual electrocution marks on his body, obviously done by Thor.
Upon discovering Loki's desire to escape after waking up, Thor unhesitatingly delivered a series of electric shocks.
This time, nothing Loki said worked; the more he spoke, the more Thor shocked him.
The superheroes who arrived later thought Thor was Loki's enemy, given how ruthless he was, and all went forward to persuade him, only to find out that he was Loki's big brother, and immediately applauded and cheered.
Naturally, no one had a good impression of this culprit who had disrupted Earth, and after Thor's electrocution, they discussed how to deal with Loki, whether to stew him or boil him, or give him to Hulk for dinner.
Hulk grunted a few times in disgust, indicating that he also had standards for food and wouldn't eat junk food.
In the end, it was only after Thor repeatedly guaranteed that everyone decided to send Loki back to Asgard to continue serving his sentence; after all, Loki was Thor's brother, and even if they didn't give face to the God of Thunder, they had to give face to his father.
Even the locals of America had no objections, so Darian naturally had even fewer.
Soon after, a S.H.I.E.L.D. assault team arrived at the scene, led by Darian's old acquaintance, Sitwell; they were there to retrieve Loki's Scepter and the Tesseract.
As expected, every member of this S.H.I.E.L.D. assault team was a HYDRA spy.
Darian was used to this.
If one day a team truly composed entirely of legitimate S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents arrived, he would actually be shocked.
Darian glanced at the Tesseract's information.
The Tesseract
Description: Its core is the Space Stone, one of the Universe's Infinity Stones.
Note: The more Infinity Stones you possess, the higher the chance of summoning Thanos. It is said that collecting all six Infinity Stones can summon a purple titan who snaps his fingers.
Another Infinity Stone.
Besides the Mind Stone in Loki's Scepter and the Space Stone in the Tesseract, there were clearly several other Infinity Stones.
However, this item seemed to be a hot commodity; both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA were after it.
Even the true mastermind who sent Loki to invade Earth was eyeing it from some dark corner, ready to unleash evil at any moment, like a big BOSS summoning device.
Facing the S.H.I.E.L.D. assault team's request to retrieve the Tesseract, Thor was the first to object.
He insisted on taking the Tesseract back to Asgard, as Odin had only given him a one-way ticket, and he still needed the Tesseract's power to return to the God Realm and use it to repair the destroyed Bifrost Bridge.
Steve also cast a dissenting vote.
He believed that the Tesseract remaining on Earth was a disaster; his archenemy Red Skull had used the Tesseract's power to develop a large number of advanced weapons, almost changing the U.S. flag to an octopus image.
After some debate, Sitwell was persuaded by Thor and gave up on retrieving the Tesseract.
Seeing this, Thor also put down Mjolnir in his hand with satisfaction.
Sitwell looked at Darian: "Agent Darian, please hand over Loki's Scepter."
Darian innocently said: "Loki's Scepter is not with me; it might have been stolen. I think Loki is highly suspicious; I suggest you take him for severe interrogation."
Loki:???
If his mouth wasn't gagged, he would have started cursing.
Sitwell naturally didn't believe these words; he had seen Loki's Scepter in Darian's robot's hand, and quickly gave Darian frantic winks, indicating that this was the organization's arrangement.
If there weren't so many people around, he would have shouted out HYDRA's secret phrase.
Seeing Sitwell's eyebrows almost flying off, Darian thought for a moment and still handed over Loki's Scepter.
He had repeatedly studied this Scepter; to modify other people's wills at will like Loki, or to fire energy rays, clearly required specific operating methods or deeper control.
It was a pity that with his current level of understanding, at most, he could only make someone fall unconscious when the Scepter touched them, which his Sleep spell could also do, so the effect was not significant.
Anyway, HYDRA was his own, so he could always go and get it back whenever he wanted.
Afterward, Clint, who was buried in the rubble, was also dug out.
He had dodged Darian's RPG in time, so his injuries were not severe, just a bump on the head, but Loki's control over him was still ongoing, unlike Steve and Nick Fury who had completely broken free.
Darian reasonably judged that the impact might not have been enough, so he stepped forward and decisively landed several more punches.
Sure enough, after these few punches, Clint's eyes instantly became clear.
"Do you have some personal grudge against me? Was there really a need to hit so hard?"
Clint covered his swollen face, looking at Darian with resentment.
Darian shrugged: "What's this? Steve took over a dozen of my punches before he woke up."
Steve: "..."
Clint felt much more balanced after hearing this, even thinking that Darian's relationship with him was quite good.
But Steve wasn't too comfortable.
However, when he thought of Nick Fury, who had taken dozens of punches, he instantly felt that his own treatment was actually quite good.
Indeed, the source of human happiness is always built upon the unhappiness of others.
The few of them brought the newly awakened Clint, plus Thor, who actively joined upon hearing about dinner, to the Arabian kebab restaurant Tony recommended, where Peter, wearing his Spider-Man suit, had been waiting for a long time.
"Hello everyone, I'm Spider... Uh, you can just call me Peter."
Peter looked at the big shots in front of him who weren't hiding their identities at all, and immediately felt embarrassed to continue using his codename.
Among a room full of real-name, exposed heroes, he, fully armed and carefully hiding his identity, stood out even more.
Darian patted Peter's shoulder: "Don't be nervous, everyone here is a team member. These two are the new additions, Clint and Thor; they're your juniors. You can call them Little Hawkeye and Little Thor."
Clint: "."
Thor: "."
When the restaurant owner saw this group of strangely dressed customers push open the door, he was so startled that he almost dropped the broom in his hand, thinking that the Battle of New York was about to have its second round in his small shop.
However, it must be admitted that this owner did have some skill.
All members were full of Praise for his Shawarma, Tony even wanted hire him as his exclusive Shawarma Chef.
Seeing so many Super Heroes present, Darian felt that it would be a waste not to do something with such a luxurious lineup.
"Friends, I have an idea. How about we maintain this small team, never disbanding? We'll each be busy with our own things, and only when we encounter evil enemies like Loki today, we'll initiate a righteous group beating. What do you all think?"
Everyone had no objection to Darian's proposal.
After all, this was essentially similar to Fury's Avengers Initiative, except that two more people were added to the team.
So, Darian seized the opportunity to propose that he would serve as the Captain of the "Kick Fury Alliance," but this suggestion was unanimously rejected by everyone, and all votes went to Steve, even Tony was no exception.
Refusing the restaurant owner's enthusiastic offer of a complimentary specialty roast as everyone was already full, everyone went back to their own homes and their own mothers.
Well, the latter sentence referred to Thor, after all, he was the only one present who had this prerequisite.
The aftershocks of the Battle of New York were still spreading, or rather, the impact of this event was just beginning.
As on-site footage from different angles was successively released, people clearly saw the Super Heroes active on the New York battlefield.
Only then did the public truly realize that there were so many Super Heroes in this World.
Many people became fans of these Super Heroes, and the next day, Super Hero merchandise and peripheral products were quickly launched online, selling out instantly, making the producers one of the biggest winners of the Battle of New York.
Of course, there were also voices of doubt; some people believed that Super Heroes themselves were potential threats and put forward various conspiracy theories.
But in the current wave of hero worship, the 'haters' who expressed such opinions were quickly overwhelmed by fans, and some extreme critics even faced doxxing by fans.
Darian also gained quite a few fans; someone had captured his figure gliding through the air, stepping on Iron Man.
So someone gave him a very fitting nickname: the Iron Glider.
But Darian didn't pay too much attention to this; compared to that, he was more concerned about the internal changes within S.H.I.E.L.D.
Due to the significant losses Fury caused to S.H.I.E.L.D. while under Loki's control, although he was manipulated, he still couldn't escape accountability. Ultimately, the World Security Council decided to temporarily suspend him from his duties, with Deputy Director Hill temporarily acting as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
On the surface, this looked like a punishment, but in reality, the impact was limited. Hill was already Fury's trusted confidante, so the so-called change in personnel was merely putting one of their own in charge.
And all of this, to some extent, had to be attributed to HYDRA's covert pushing behind the scenes.
Although Fury was their sworn enemy, they couldn't bear to let him truly fall from power, as Fury's ability to secure funding was truly outstanding.
For many years, behind every budget request from S.H.I.E.L.D., there was an unwritten rule of allocation: three-tenths of the money Fury obtained was withheld by him under various pretexts, four-tenths quietly flowed into HYDRA's secret accounts, and only the remaining three-tenths was actually used for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operations.
It could be said that a large portion of HYDRA's current ample operating funds was largely thanks to Fury.
If he were to truly step down, this lucrative funding chain would likely be cut off.
Fury was unaware of all this, believing that his years of dedicated service had moved the World Council, so he followed the arrangements, transforming into the Shadow of S.H.I.E.L.D., completely hidden behind the scenes, but still occasionally offering valuable advice to Hill, the current Director.
It's just that sometimes his suggestions were too outlandish and were rejected by Hill.
"Hill, you'll regret this."
"Fury, I'm the Director!"
Bang!
Seeing Hill unmoved, Fury slammed the door and stormed out, only to run into Darian, who had just returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
Darian cheerfully greeted him: "Officer, what a coincidence, are you here to hand in a mission too?"
Fury: (灬●)
As soon as he saw Darian, he felt a faint ache on his face.
Darian had been too heavy-handed before, and the swelling on his face hadn't completely subsided even now.
Fury quickly regained his serious demeanor and said in a low voice: "You've come at a good time, Agent Darian, I have something I need to talk to you about."
"What is it?"
"It's not convenient to discuss it here. Come find me at this location tonight. Remember, knock with Alpha."
Fury covertly slipped a note into Darian's hand, said nothing more, and turned to leave.
Darian was a bit confused but didn't rush to follow him.
He walked into the Director's office and handed the mission item he had just acquired to Hill.
It must be said, Hill sitting in the Director's office was indeed much more aesthetically pleasing than Fury.
One was a meticulously crafted model, the other looked like a randomly generated one; they weren't even in the same league.
Taking the mission item, Hill smiled at Darian: "Well done, Agent Darian, your mission is complete. You can take a good rest for a while now."
Darian immediately became displeased: "Rest for what? S.H.I.E.L.D. still has so many missions waiting to be handled. How can I sleep? Quickly give me a new mission, or else I'll lead the charge to support Coulson as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.!"
Hill: "."
She suddenly remembered one of Fury's suggestions to her: never treat Darian as an ordinary Agent; just keep giving him missions, the more missions he had, the happier he would be.
At first, she thought Fury was going too far. How was that any different from a slave owner exploiting laborers?
Agents were people too, and they needed rest!
But now, she suddenly felt that Fury was absolutely right!
Late at night, following the address on the note, Darian found an inconspicuous safe house.
He walked to the door and knocked.
However, after waiting for a long time, there was no response from inside the house.
"No one home?"
Darian knocked a few more times with more force, but the door remained silent.
He was too lazy to wait any longer, so he simply pulled out a master key and opened the door directly. As soon as he pushed it open, he saw Fury sitting inside, eating fried chicken.
Darian was displeased: "Isn't there someone in this house? Why didn't you open the door when you heard knocking?"
Fury's mouth twitched: "Didn't I tell you to knock with Alpha?"
"What is knocking with Alpha?"
"It's knocking with a specific light and heavy rhythm! Damn it, isn't that the most basic introductory content at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy? How on Earth did you graduate?"
Who would learn this stuff while playing games?
Darian pouted and decisively skipped the topic. He looked around and asked: "Officer, is this your home?"
"No, this is my safe house number 157. Don't worry, it's absolutely safe here."
Darian: "."
So, you've established at least a hundred safe houses?
Darian was a bit speechless and then inquired: "So, Officer, why did you specifically ask me to come here? What is it about?"
Fury's expression was solemn, and he said in a deep voice: "I suspect... there's a problem within S.H.I.E.L.D.!"
Darian: "."
Wow, that's truly shocking news.
Seeing Darian silent for a moment, Fury thought he was awestruck by his words, so he continued: "That day when I was controlled by Loki and broke into S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, I noticed an anomaly: an Agent appeared in the bureau without any registered information."
No, that was your own idea; don't pin the blame on Loki.
Fury's tone grew even more serious: "Afterward, I retrieved surveillance footage to investigate, but found that all related records had been completely deleted. Clearly, someone is deliberately erasing this person's existence."
Darian understood in his heart that Fury was referring to the Winter Soldier.
And the mastermind behind erasing all these traces, there was no need to guess, it must be his HYDRA superior, Pierce.
But Darian still had to pretend to be very shocked and said: "So you mean..."
Fury nodded heavily: "That's right, we have an mole within S.H.I.E.L.D.!"
Darian: "."
Can you tell me something I don't already know?
He feigned confusion: "Then who do you think the mole might be?"
Fury shook his head: "No leads yet, or maybe the other party is lurking right beside us."
It's not hidden beside us, but standing right in front of you.
"And I suspect there's more than one mole. Currently, I can only fully trust a few people, and that includes you."
Fury had complete trust in Darian.
After all, the other party was an Agent who had undergone a full-service test; his loyalty was absolutely beyond question.
Darian nodded: "Officer, although you're not much to look at, your judgment is indeed good. Tell me, what do you want me to do?"
Fury said seriously: "I need you to help me investigate the mole within S.H.I.E.L.D."
Darian: "."
Me investigate myself?
Darian was almost unable to maintain his composure and curiously asked: "Officer, why aren't you giving this mission to others, or doing it yourself?"
Fury explained: "I've been temporarily suspended, so many of my authorities are unavailable. Moreover, too many eyes are on me right now; any move I make will be immediately noticed."
"As for others, I'm not entirely confident in their abilities, so this mission can only be entrusted to you. However, you don't need to rush the investigation; this is a long-term mission. If you find any clues, report them to me at any time."
The NPC Fury has issued a new mission to you.
Mission: Find the Mole
Objective: Find the mole hidden within S.H.I.E.L.D. and report to Fury.
Reward: Depends on mission completion and intelligence value.
Darian's expression suddenly became extremely complex.
He remembered he still had a long-term mission, issued by Pierce, which required him to monitor Fury's every move and report it promptly.
And now, Fury had given him another long-term mission: to find the mole within S.H.I.E.L.D., which was HYDRA led by Pierce.
So now he was essentially a double Agent for two people?