Chapter 98: A Night of Sin in Hell's Kitchen

Outside the building.

A bolt of alloy flashed through the night and struck a Hand van far in the distance just as it was turning to flee.

"Three, two, one—blow."

Hawkeye counted under his breath.

Red lights along the shaft flickered three times in rapid succession. The miniature bomb hidden in the arrowhead detonated at once, and the entire vehicle erupted into a blazing fireball, lighting up half the street.

He scanned his surroundings and frowned. "Natasha, the Hand are running. We’re too few, with more than a third of our people wounded or dead. We can’t catch them, and we can’t contain this."

Black Widow’s voice came through the earpiece. "Stay safe. Prepare to withdraw. Leave the rest to the police."

Hawkeye answered with a low "Mm," about to ask whether Black Widow was hurt, when something suddenly felt wrong.

As a legendary S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he was trained to remain absolutely calm no matter how dangerous, or how alluring, the mission, no matter the environment. Yet now he realized his emotions were becoming unstable.

He clearly already had someone he liked, and yet hearing Natasha’s voice filled him with an involuntary rush of excitement. His body reacted in a way that was embarrassingly obvious: his heart pounded, and every part of him responded exactly as it should, both soft and hard in all the wrong places.

What was going on?

Clint Barton was not this kind of man.

Then a scream drew Hawkeye’s attention.

He turned sharply and, through a window five hundred meters away, saw a thin man being savagely beaten by a fat woman. Domestic violence, perhaps?

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Turning again, he saw a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent firing a machine gun. Even after the target was already dead, the agent kept shooting without pause, his face twisted into something beastlike.

Murder, robbery, theft, rape.

Crime was everywhere. Filth was everywhere.

Strange.

What had happened?

...

...

"It’s the Beast’s power."

At the top floor of the building, Stick said grimly, "Master Wang killed the Beast, but part of its power scattered outward and affected the people nearby, tempting and magnifying their sins and desires."

"What are we supposed to do? What is S.H.I.E.L.D. supposed to do? What is the government supposed to do?" Black Widow asked through the earpiece.

"Strengthen law enforcement."

Stick’s expression was grave. "For some time to come, New York’s crime rate will rise many times over."

Matt, who still did not know much about the Beast, asked suddenly, "Even though the Beast is dead, it can still affect so many people?"

"It devoured hundreds of souls. With its death, so many fallen souls should have been released, and they ought to have affected even more people, causing far more crimes."

A trace of confusion appeared on Stick’s face. "Strange. What exactly did Master Wang do? Could it be that the souls the Beast swallowed... vanished?"

"What is he doing now?"

...

...

Underground.

The dragon, dead for who knew how many years, had become a skeletal wyrm, reminding Old Wang of the dragon sanctuary in Dragonblight.

When a dragon’s life nears its end, it flies to the appropriate burial ground and dies there among its kin, at last finding eternal peace.

Dragonblight, in truth, is the graveyard of the dragonflights, though it was later desecrated.

The Deceiver, Kil'jaeden, created the Lich King, Ner'zhul, and with him the Scourge. The powers of death and frost corrupted these dragon remains, granting them the same terrible might and identity:

Frost wyrms.

The dragons of World of Warcraft are immense creatures. Even as frost wyrms, they are still awe-inspiring to behold. Dragons that have lived for thousands, even tens of thousands of years, often possess bodies over a hundred meters long and forty or fifty meters tall, with wingspans matching their length. Masters of frost and arcane magic, they are born legendary troops.

The skeleton before him was also over a hundred meters long, yet it looked far more slender and elegant, with a pair of vast wings.

Like the winged dragons of legend.

If he were to raise it as a frost wyrm...

Old Wang shook his head.

To resurrect a legendary creature of this size would require at least legendary power: a legendary lich, a legendary death knight, or magical artifacts of similar stature.

Such as Frostmourne.

Neither summoning a legendary class nor exchanging for a legendary item was something Old Wang could do now. He did not have enough blood.

Most importantly, frost wyrms could be summoned at any time, but an immortal dragon of such colossal size would remain priceless even in death. There might be only one on the entire Earth.

He could not waste it.

If used to revive the Hand’s Five Fingers, it could sustain their lives, perhaps even let them live for thousands upon thousands of years.

And if shipped off to Azeroth, it should fetch a great many good things, or even be traded directly for the Blood of Azeroth.

"I need to hurry."

Old Wang gripped the immortal dragon’s skull with both hands, his true energy surging wildly into it.

Then he suddenly exerted force.

The steel plate beneath his feet caved in, and the rock below shattered.

A continuous crackling filled the darkness.

Then came a sharp, clean snap.

The dragon’s head, as large as an entire classroom, was torn violently free from its body by Old Wang.

Then it vanished in an instant, appearing inside the Heart of Azeroth.

This dragon skeleton had existed for who knew how long and had long since fused with the earth below. Even if Hulk were called over, he could not have dragged it out whole, which meant there was no way to store it in the Heart of Azeroth. The Hulk of the film universe was not infinitely strong at this point, at least not yet.

So Old Wang could only dismantle it, piece by piece.

Though S.H.I.E.L.D. did not know what was odd about the underground chamber, they would certainly send people to investigate, if not tonight then tomorrow.

Such a fine thing could not be left to them.

Old Wang rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Time passed second by second, and the dragon bones disappeared piece by piece.

A sufficiently powerful body must have sufficiently sturdy bones to support it. These dragon bones were incredibly dense, even heavier than rock of the same volume. The entire skeleton weighed well over a thousand tons.

Old Wang was confident his strength could beat Captain America and the Winter Soldier hollow, but he was probably still a little short of Spider-Man, let alone the Hulk, who was famous for his strength.

It was no easy task to break these hard bones apart.

It took a full half hour before he finally finished.

Looking at the empty underground chamber, Old Wang let out a long breath, feeling the satisfying ease of a desire fulfilled.

A perfectly good building, hollowed out beneath the ground like this, was absolutely a collapse hazard. Still, that was fine.

Nick Fury might not bother with it himself, but he would certainly notify the relevant authorities to take over.

No need to worry about it.

"The Hand storyline is finally over."

With his soul and body divided, spirit shifting through flesh, Old Wang arrived at the highest floor of the building.

What he saw, and what he heard, was chaos everywhere and crime everywhere.

Though the Beast had been kicked back to where it came from, the influence it had left behind remained. It was much like Y'Shaarj: though Aman'Thul had long since crushed it to death with his own hands, its lingering power could still affect the entire continent of Pandaria, and even all living things across Azeroth.

But as always:

This had nothing to do with him.

"If S.H.I.E.L.D. or the authorities are willing to pay, letting Matt and the others use this as training would not be a bad idea..."

"And Robbie is too weak. He can’t even beat the Beast. The ones who are definitely dead should stay dead. Their filthy souls don’t need to go to hell!"

Hearing police sirens in the distance, Old Wang smiled. "Come on. Let’s go home and sleep!"