The next second, the drunken middle-aged officer found himself grabbed.
A tal hand materialized from nowhere, fingers closing around his throat with crushing force. He had no ti to react, no chance to cry out. One mont he was walking, bottle in hand. The next, his feet left the ground.
Nolan lifted him into the air with a single arm, holding the man suspended like a child's toy. The officer's body jerked and thrashed, hands and feet struggling uselessly. He looked like a fish pulled from water, gasping and desperate.
In the blink of an eye, the officer's face changed color. Red flooded his cheeks, then deepened to purple as oxygen deprivation set in. His eyes rolled back, whites showing. Saliva he couldn't swallow flowed from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin in stringy trails.
Nolan waited. Watching. asuring the man's consciousness with clinical precision. When he judged the officer completely sober, terror having burned away all traces of alcohol, he slowly lowered him.
The trembling middle-aged officer's feet touched ground. Weight settled onto shaking legs that barely held. But Nolan's tal palm remained closed around his throat, an iron hoop that allowed just enough air for speech.
"You only have one chance to answer the question." Nolan's voice erged deep, processed through his helt's speakers into sothing inhuman. "Where are you keeping the leader of the resistance, Victor?"
He looked down at the officer. Saw endless fear reflecting in those bloodshot eyes. Heard the sound of liquid running down the man's lower body, urine soaking through uniform trousers. The acrid sll rose despite the cold.
"Ahem, that guy is locked in a special room on the second floor of the dungeon. You can find the entrance to the dungeon by walking along this corridor." The words tumbled out in a rush, terror overriding any thought of loyalty or resistance.
The officer's voice cracked, desperate to provide every detail. "However, the commander from the Fortunov family prohibits us from going there. I also don't have permission to enter or exit that place..."
He seed afraid that any hesitation, any perceived withholding of information, would cost him his life. Each word ca faster than the last.
Nolan stared at him through the helt's eyepiece. His enhanced hearing focused, isolating the beating of the middle-aged officer's heart. It hamred against ribs, almost jumping out of his chest. The rhythm was genuine. Pure terror produced honest answers.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
Nolan's words erged with false gratitude. The officer's eyes widened fractionally, hope flickering for one cruel instant.
Then the tal palm suddenly closed together completely.
The cervical vertebra crushed with a muted crunch. Bone fragnts severed the spinal cord. Death ca instantly, rcifully. Without significant pain.
Nolan casually tossed down the body, still warm, nerves still firing their final signals. It crumpled to the floor, a discarded thing.
He drove his power armor deeper into the corridor, leaving the corpse behind without a second glance.
Soon after, a spiral staircase revealed itself in Nolan's field of vision. The passage sloped downward, curving into darkness. Steps descended in a tight helix, designed for a ti when soldiers wore chainmail rather than power armor.
He carried the large Catachan Fang ready in both hands. The weapon's weight was reassuring, its edge eager for more blood.
Walking toward the lower depths where light grew dimr with each step, he descended carefully. The staircase was cramped, barely accommodating his armored bulk.
He soon reached the first floor of the dungeon.
A sentry guard stood at his post, bored and inattentive. The man's eyes glazed with the lethargy of routine duty in a place where nothing ever happened.
Until it did.
An unusually dull piercing sound marked the end of his life. The large, pitch-black Catachan Fang inserted itself deep into the sentry's back, punching through spine and vital organs. The blade erged from his chest, dark steel glistening.
The guard's mouth opened. No sound erged. Just a wet gurgle as blood filled his lungs.
Nolan quietly withdrew the blade. He caught the limp body before it could fall, preventing noise. Carrying the corpse to a hidden corner, he arranged it in shadow where casual observation wouldn't spot it.
Then he drove his power armor forward, continuing deeper into the dungeon's bowels.
A few minutes later, more sentries joined their colleague in permanent sleep. Throats cut. Skulls crushed. Each kill silent and professional. The dungeon's security, such as it was, dissolved like morning mist.
Nolan successfully reached the second floor.
He stood at the entrance, armor humming softly in the oppressive quiet. His hand moved, activating the life detection instrunt inside his helt.
The display resolved. At this mont, the entire second floor scanned within a range of tens of ters showed only a single weak life signal. One person. Barely alive.
"Are these guys too confident in their defense system, or do they think that no one can successfully reach here?" Nolan muttered, voice barely audible even to himself. "Yes, the local resistance has indeed failed countless tis."
Overconfidence bred by repeated victory. The Fortunov family had grown complacent. Fatal mistake.
He drove his power armor forward, boots clanking softly against stone floors. The corridor here was older, cruder. dieval construction showing its age.
He quickly arrived at the special room where Victor was imprisoned.
The door before him was heavy tal, modern construction incongruous with the ancient stonework. An access control device glowed beside it, electronic lock blinking green standby lights.
Nolan raised his tal fist. Then brought it down.
The access control device shattered. Circuitry sparked and died. The lock's integrity compromised completely.
He waited. Listening. Surely such violence would trigger alarms.
But the dungeon remained silent. Not even a basic alarm sounded.
Unbelievable. But convenient.
The heavy tal door yielded to pressure from his armored hands. He pushed it open slowly, minimizing sound. The hinges creaked slightly, protesting years of disuse.
The scene in the special room ca into his field of vision almost at a glance.
The chamber was small, barely thirty square ters. Dim lighting created more shadow than illumination, fixtures failing to fully penetrate the gloom.
But what light existed revealed horror.
Semicircular tal structures covered the surrounding walls, one after another in regular patterns. At this mont, those weird devices emitted a faint purple light. Extrely complex codes flashed across their surfaces, symbols that hurt to look at directly.
Containnt fields. Power dampeners. Technology designed to suppress and confine.
And right in the center of the room hung their prisoner.
A black-haired man, suspended in air by cruel ans. tal spikes had been driven through bone, piercing shoulders and hips. The implents held him like an insect pinned for display. His scarred head hung low, chin touching chest.
Every visible inch of his body bore traces of torture. Burns. Cuts. Contusions. The catalog of abuse was extensive and systematic.
Wounds in many places had festered and suppurated. Infection had set in, dical attention deliberately withheld. Slly pus dripped onto the ground beneath him, creating small pools that reeked of rot and decay.
The sight would have made a lesser person vomit. Nolan simply assessed, cataloging damage with clinical detachnt.
"Hey... are the bastards of the Fortunov family here to serve Uncle Doom again?"
A voice erged from beneath the hanging man's lowered head. Weak breath. But strong words. Defiance despite everything.
Nolan didn't answer loudly. Didn't announce himself. He just drove his power armor forward, armored boots carrying him closer to the suspended figure.
He stopped a few ters away. Close enough to speak quietly. Far enough to maintain tactical distance.
"These things on the surrounding walls look like so kind of confinent device, specifically to confine magic or energy? Do you have any personal research on this?"
His question was direct, practical. Assessing whether the prisoner had information worth extracting beyond his person.
"Did Zora go looking for foreign aid? She is still too naive..."
Doom's response ignored Nolan's question entirely. His head remained lowered, voice erging as little more than a murmur directed at the floor.
"If the resistance chooses to rely on outsiders to achieve the fruits of victory, then in the end, Latveria's future will be to beco a dirty zone where others can do whatever they want, and the people here will never be able to get rid of everything that is weighing on them..."
Philosophy. Even here. Even now. Hanging from hooks driven through his bones, this man lectured about revolutionary purity.
Nolan's patience thinned. His voice cut through Doom's soliloquy with hard edges.
"It is always a good thing to have ideals, but to ignore the influence of reality is a kind of arrogance and stupidity."
The words landed like hamr blows. "Since you have chosen the revolutionary path from bottom to top, you should not let yourself fall into the current situation. Even if you are not afraid of sacrifice and are ready, the people who continue to fight for your common ideals have already paid an extrely painful price for your failure."
He let that sink in. The guilt. The responsibility. Then continued, tone shifting to sothing approaching offer.
"You are lucky because you t , but at the sa ti, you are unfortunate because of the tragic wars that will happen in the future. I have to harden my heart and squeeze anyone who is willing to fight for the future of mankind."
His voice carried weight, prophecy and promise combined. "Victor von Doom, are you willing to continue fighting for the people of Latveria and the survival of mankind itself? No matter whether the enemy you are about to face is a rampant heretic or a cunning alien? No matter how desperate the situation you face in the future, you will still not choose to compromise easily?"
A pause. Then the critical addition: "I remind you friendly, you only have one chance to answer correctly."
Silence settled over the chamber. The purple lights continued their rhythmic pulsing. Pus continued its slow drip onto stone.
Then Doom laughed.
The sound was low, erging from his throat as sothing between amusent and revelation. Broken and bitter but genuine.
"I think I know who you are." His voice carried newfound strength, pain temporarily forgotten. "Although I don't understand where your hatred for heretics and aliens cos from, I think I can do what you ask..."
He drew breath, the motion clearly painful given his injuries. "Especially the painful experience brought to by this failure, it also made gradually understand that the road of revolution without overwhelming power has always been an illusory luxury!"
The words carried conviction born of suffering. Ideology tempered by reality. Idealism burned away in torture's crucible.
Doom spoke while slowly, with visible effort, raising his drooping head.
The motion was deliberate. Purposeful. Like unveiling a monunt.
And what was revealed struck even Nolan's hardened sensibilities.
In an instant, the full horror beca visible.
A festering wound covered the entire face. Knife cuts crisscrossed skin. Axe-chop scars carved through flesh. But those were rely decoration.
The eyes. Dear God, the eyes.
Both eyeballs had been dug out. Removed with brutal precision, leaving empty sockets that wept pus and blood. The cavities stared at Nolan, seeing nothing, yet sohow looking directly at him.
The terrifying face revealed itself fully. Ruined. Destroyed. A mask of suffering that would haunt nightmares.
And from that destroyed visage, Victor von Doom spoke words that would bind him forever.
"Please save , guide , help ..."
His voice carried absolute commitnt. Total surrender to purpose beyond self.
"And I am willing to fight for you!"
The pledge hung in the air. Unbreakable. Eternal. Doom had looked into hell and chosen to return, willing to descend again if commanded.
Nolan stared at the eyeless face. At the ruin of a man who refused to break despite everything.
And in that mont, Victor von Doom beca his.
Not just an ally. Not rely a rescued prisoner. Sothing more. Sothing forged in pain and tempered in determination.
The future Doctor Doom had just been born. And Nolan would be his maker.
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