“Wake up, sir, we’ve arrived.”
Coulson woke up with a start in the car and abruptly opened his eyes.
He turned to look outside the window.
Beneath the dark night sky stood a tall and mysterious building.
It was a hospital.
Its exterior looked somewhat old, the walls covered in vines, emitting a strange and gloomy aura under the moonlight.
At the entrance of the hospital was a sign:
Queens General Psychiatric Hospital, New York
“This is the place.”
Coulson forced himself to wake up, adjusted his tie, then got out of the car and walked toward the asylum.
Although it was already the middle of the night, under normal circumstances outsiders were not allowed to visit the asylum.
However, with the privileges of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson proceeded without obstruction and followed a young nurse deeper into the asylum.
“Let me out!”
“Open the door, I’m not crazy!”
The deep corridor stretched endlessly into the distance.
The lights on the ceiling flickered constantly as if suffering from poor contact, and the dim light enveloped the surroundings as though it could go out at any moment.
The roars and wails of mental patients echoed through the air, and the cold atmosphere made one’s hair stand on end.
They continued all the way to a ward before the nurse finally stopped.
“Room 304, someone came to see you.”
The nurse unlocked the iron door to the ward, and Coulson immediately pushed open the door and walked inside.
The room was completely dark with no lights on.
Coulson frowned.
He reached out and found the switch on the wall.
With a click, the ceiling light weakly lit up, and dim yellow light filled the entire room.
This was a single-person ward, with only one bed inside.
A person wearing a patient gown was sitting on the hospital bed with his back facing Coulson, his body trembling inexplicably.
This was exactly the person he came to find, and also the culprit behind the bombing case—Jack Davison!
“Jack——”
Coulson had just taken a step forward when he could not help widening his eyes.
Under the dim yellow light, he discovered countless strange red symbols drawn across the wall.
Every symbol was different.
Looking around, the densely packed symbols layered over one another completely covered the entire wall!
What was this?
Coulson’s expression turned shocked.
He had never seen symbols like these before.
They resembled ancient pictographs, yet also looked like modern codes.
Subconsciously, he turned to glance at the nurse by the door, only to discover that she had already disappeared.
Coulson shook his head and slowly walked toward the man in the patient gown, softly calling out, “Jack, Mr.
Davison.”
The man’s body trembled even more violently, but he still did not turn around.
“Mr.
Davison!” Left with no choice, Coulson raised his voice.
He stretched out his hand, planning to pat Jack Davison’s shoulder.
But at the instant Coulson’s hand extended forward, the man suddenly turned his head around.
His complexion looked extremely gloomy, his eyes exhausted to the extreme, but the corners of his mouth revealed a crazy smile.
“Hehe, are you calling me?”
The tips of all ten fingers were mangled, as if bitten apart by himself, and fresh blood was still slowly seeping out.
Hiss…
Coulson could not help sucking in a cold breath.
Only now did he realize that the strange symbols on the wall were not painted with red pigment, but with… blood!
All of it had been drawn using this guy’s own blood!
And judging from his appearance, not only did he not seem to feel pain, he actually appeared to enjoy it.
He was simply a lunatic!
Fortunately, as an elite S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent, Coulson was someone who had weathered countless storms.
He had seen people even more twisted than this.
So he quickly calmed himself down, then said in a deep voice, “Mr.
Jack Davison, I have some questions I want to ask you.”He took out a photograph from his coat.
“Do you have any impression of the figure in this photo?”
Jack slowly raised his head.
His gaze landed on the lion-headed humanoid figure in the photograph.
He stared at it for a while, but soon shook his head blankly.
“What about this one?” Coulson took out another photo, showing the image of a green ogre-like monster.
Jack shook his head again.
Coulson’s brows furrowed slightly.
Just as he was about to ask something else, Jack suddenly began rocking his body back and forth excitedly, stuffing one finger into his mouth and chewing on it while lowering his voice neurotically:
“Shh… do you hear it?”
“Hear what?” Coulson looked puzzled.
“That voice, that terrifying voice.
It keeps lingering beside my ears, just like the whispers of a demon!”
Good lord, he was hearing hallucinations.
He remembered that there was another person inside this guy’s head.
Coulson recalled the doctor’s diagnosis about Jack’s schizophrenia and curiously asked, “What did that voice say to you?”
“It is the vanguard of darkness, the servant of demons.
Its mission is to open the ‘gate’ and welcome the descent of the Emperor!”
“The Emperor?”
“That is the Dark Emperor seated upon the throne of bones, the ruler of death…”
Jack’s tone became increasingly crazed, and his body shook more violently as his entire body twitched and trembled sickeningly.
“When its pitch-black wings begin to flap, our world will迎来 the end!”
“…”
Coulson fell silent for a moment, then could not help rolling his eyes.
Mental patients really did bring endless joy.
He helplessly rubbed his forehead.
He must have lost his mind too, actually running here in the middle of the night to seek clues from a mental patient.
Rather than wasting time here, he might as well get off work early and go back to sleep!
Seeing Jack become increasingly uncontrollable, Coulson sighed and turned to leave the ward.
But before leaving, he turned around once more to glance at the strange symbols on the wall.
For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this.
Out of professional instinct, Coulson took several photos with his phone, planning to bring them back for the experts at S.H.I.E.L.D.
Not long after Coulson left, the lights in the ward suddenly flickered between bright and dim.
Then, with a snap, the lights completely went out!
Within the darkness, the expression on Jack’s face suddenly changed from crazed excitement to endless fear.
He let out a shrill wail, then abruptly covered his face and fell to his knees with a thud, desperately kowtowing toward a certain direction within the darkness:
“Y-yes, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said so much…”
“Please… please spare me!”
“No!
Don’t…”
As Jack muttered deliriously, his body began convulsing nonstop.
Then he clutched his chest in pain and collapsed onto the floor.
In the blink of an eye, his vacant eyes stared at the ceiling as he stopped struggling.
At the same time, his shadow also began undergoing a bizarre change.
A black figure slowly crawled out from his shadow.
It looked like a little demon, with two golden eyes, red claws, an entirely black body, and two black bat wings growing behind it.
“Hehehe, they were right.
This world really does exist…”
That thing flapped its wings and circled around the ward.
When it saw the bloody symbols on the wall, it seemed very satisfied with “its” masterpiece, and only after a while did it land upon Jack’s corpse.
At this moment, its figure flickered once, becoming unstable like corrupted data.
“What a pity, time’s almost up…”
The little demon’s figure gradually disappeared, leaving only its cold laughter echoing throughout the silent ward.
“Hehe, next time it won’t be so easy anymore.”
After a while, the nurse finally arrived late.
When she saw Jack lying on the floor, she screamed in fright, “Someone come quickly, something happened to patient 304!”
…
Kamar-Taj
Inside the silent sanctum, a fat man dressed in red was quickly walking down the corridor.
His face was filled with worry.
He had finally found the person disrupting time, yet at the critical moment, the Ancient One summoned him back.
This left him extremely confused, and he wanted to ask her clearly why.
Soon, he arrived outside the Ancient One’s bedroom.
He originally intended to knock, but discovered that the door was slightly open.
Creak…
Wong gently pushed open the door, and a shocked expression appeared on his face.
He saw the Ancient One, dressed in white, sitting cross-legged in midair, her entire body enveloped in green light.
A necklace hung on her chest, and the pendant resembled an opened eye.
Inside it, a green gemstone radiated dazzling brilliance.
A moment later, the green gemstone’s light suddenly extinguished, and the Ancient One slowly descended onto the ground.
“Ancient One, what are you doing?” Wong asked in confusion.
“I saw our future within him…”
“Our future?”
The expression on the Ancient One’s face became grave.
“The prelude to the invasion has already begun.
Darkness and death are corroding our world.”
“That person’s future choice will determine the fate of all of us!”