Chapter 83 The Nations Are Horrified—Blackwatch Corrupted by Flesh

Tony and Coulson had just eliminated the flesh fused with the mass-produced Iron Man armor and were preparing to transport its remains to a nearby research facility.

At that moment, the previously calm JTF radio channels erupted into chaos.

Tony watched Coulson receive a transmission and then freeze in stunned silence.

Growing impatient, Tony approached him.

“What happened? Is something wrong?”

Coulson mechanically lowered his radio, seemingly unable to process the horrifying report he had just received.

“There’s a problem with Blackwatch,” he said bitterly.

“What exactly happened?”

“A large portion of Blackwatch’s forces suddenly defected. They destroyed the walls surrounding the infected zones, and enormous numbers of zombies and mutated creatures are pouring out.”

Tony immediately understood what that meant.

Blackwatch had always been responsible for managing and containing infected zones.

Their earlier performance might have been terrible, but they had at least restricted the biochemical outbreak to relatively small areas.

Now, Blackwatch units were deliberately destroying the quarantine walls and allowing the infection to spread indiscriminately.

All the effort invested in containing the outbreak might soon be rendered meaningless.

Tony cursed furiously.

“Shit! What the hell are you people doing?”

“Don’t those Blackwatch bastards understand the consequences of their actions?”

Coulson’s expression grew even more bitter.

“Blackwatch is also fighting itself. Nobody knows what the hell is happening.”

At that moment, an urgent transmission came from Sector Thirteen.

“This is Defense Sector Thirteen! We’re under attack by a massive force of mutated creatures!”

“Damn it! Blackwatch units are supporting the mutants! We’re taking severe casualties!”

“Repeat, requesting support from every friendly unit in the vicinity!”

“We are suffering catastrophic losses! Blackwatch is coordinating with those biochemical monsters to attack us!”

Tony, Agent May, and Coulson stared at one another in disbelief.

They immediately made their decision and rushed to reinforce the endangered defensive line.

The antigravity systems in the Mark IV’s hands and feet activated, launching Tony into the air.

When he reached the battlefield, he witnessed a horrifying scene.

Countless zombies and mutated creatures were charging toward Sector Thirteen.

Under ordinary circumstances, a human army’s overwhelming firepower would have stopped and eliminated them.

The terrifying part was what stood behind the endless horde.

Blackwatch.

Blackwatch forces were bombarding the JTF defenses with everything they had.

Under the combined assault of Blackwatch’s heavy weapons and an apparently endless wave of biochemical monsters, Sector Thirteen was already on the verge of collapse.

Tony immediately entered the battle.

Iron Man descended from the sky and tore into the Blackwatch formation, leaving them facing the same dilemma they had inflicted upon the JTF.

They had no effective means of dealing with the fast, maneuverable, and heavily armed Mark IV.

Tony destroyed the company’s only M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, followed by three infantry fighting vehicles and its mortar position.

Despite those devastating losses, the Blackwatch soldiers showed no sign of retreating.

They continued attacking him without the slightest fear.

Bewildered by their suicidal behavior, Tony had no choice but to keep dismantling the entire Blackwatch company.

Coulson and the others soon arrived, accelerating the force’s destruction.

It was only then that Tony, Coulson, Agent May, and the surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives discovered something horrifying.

The faces hidden beneath the Blackwatch soldiers’ gas masks were no longer human.

When Coulson riddled one Blackwatch soldier with his assault rifle, the wounded soldier’s head suddenly burst apart.

A hideously deformed parasite emerged from the shattered skull.

Its crimson flesh was covered in twisted, chitinous blades.

The creature had replaced the soldier’s original head and continued controlling the human body as it charged toward Coulson.

Coulson fired another full burst into the parasite.

Only after the grotesque head was destroyed did the infected Blackwatch soldier finally collapse and remain dead.

By the time they eliminated the remaining abnormal Blackwatch troops, Tony, Coulson, Agent May, and the surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives all felt their blood run cold.

Goosebumps covered their bodies.

Coulson recovered a helmet camera from one of the dead Blackwatch soldiers and extracted its recorded footage.

Several minutes later, he contacted Nick Fury with trembling hands.

“Director Fury, we’ve encountered an extremely serious problem.”

“I’m transmitting the recovered footage to you now.”

Ten minutes later, Nick Fury and Alexander Pierce watched the horrifying recording on a large screen.

Several Blackwatch soldiers were desperately fleeing while firing at their former comrades.

They were eventually surrounded and captured.

One of the deranged Blackwatch soldiers approached a struggling prisoner and appeared to pull something from his own mouth.

Under the captive’s terrified gaze, a twisted mass of crimson flesh crawled out from between the infected soldier’s jaws.

The writhing parasite was then forcibly shoved into the young soldier’s mouth.

His eyes widened until they seemed ready to split apart.

His pupils immediately turned bloodred, and bloody tears streamed down his face.

Veins bulged across his neck.

The young soldier weakly stretched out one hand.

A moment later, he released an inhuman roar.

He then became as deranged as the others and joined them in hunting down his former comrades.

Nick Fury and Pierce exchanged horrified, speechless looks.

Their palms were covered in cold sweat.

Even ordinary zombies were not as terrifying as parasitic creatures capable of invading human bodies and stripping away everything that had made their victims human.

Within thirty minutes, the leaders of every major nation had seen the footage.

America’s allies—including France, the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth nations, Japan, South Korea, and Germany—were horrified.

Even Russia and China, both of which frequently opposed the United States, were stunned by what they saw.

When America first descended into chaos, most countries had treated it as a spectacle.

Only Washington’s allies and client states had been genuinely anxious.

Now that this monstrosity had appeared, no one could remain calm.

Even the emergence of unscientific creatures like zombies had not seriously frightened the world’s great powers.

Against the overwhelming firepower of a modern military, ordinary zombies were useless regardless of their numbers.

Unless the virus caused widespread airborne contamination, zombies alone could never destroy human civilization.

But these parasites were different.

They could infest human soldiers, operate human weapons, and coordinate with zombie hordes and mutated creatures.

Even more terrifyingly, the grotesque flesh could apparently infest armored vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and other military equipment, turning humanity’s own weapons against it.

Now every nation was frightened.

If such a horrifying organism spread throughout the world, would it mark the end of the human race?

While governments across the globe studied the footage, another video broadcast to the entire world attracted everyone’s attention.

Obadiah Stane, who had escaped Task Force 141’s pursuit, appeared before humanity.

And he brought with him a declaration of war.