Before long, Alexander Pierce, whose mories had been tampered with by Neagley, slowly awakened from his dazed state.
He seed like an entirely different person.
"Ms. Neagley, Boss."
With fanaticism and reverence written across his face, he stood there respectfully, looking first at Neagley, though his gaze ultimately settled on Matthew, who was sitting on the sofa flipping through files.
"You know what to do next. Erase all traces of our visit today." Matthew said without looking up.
"Understood."
"Also, coordinate with Neagley from now on. Use your resources to gather intelligence on suspected supernatural incidents—anything related to the undead or demons. Also, you've retained the formula for the Super Soldier Serum, correct?"
"Yes, Boss. We never gave up researching the Super Soldier serum. We successfully reproduced several Winter Soldiers."
Pierce offered his explanation.
These Winter Soldiers all possessed physical abilities no weaker than those of Steve Rogers in his pri. However, aside from Bucky Barnes, the others had been sealed away in cryogenic suspension within a secret base in Siberia.
This arrangent was entirely tied to Hydra's long-term strategy.
Since their defeat during World War II, Hydra had abandoned overt operations and instead gone underground, focusing on concealnt and gradual expansion. During the Cold War, their limited resources forced them to prioritize key projects and missions.
Freezing certain Super Soldiers for later use was both a practical and calculated decision. It conserved resources while ensuring that these powerful assets could be deployed swiftly when needed.
At the sa ti, it minimized the risk of exposure. If these enhanced soldiers were revealed too early, they could draw the attention of global powers—especially Nick Fury and the S.H.I.E.L.D. under his command.
As for the Super Soldier Serum itself, research had never ceased. Resources continued to be invested, primarily toward refining the formula and eliminating its side effects, though the level of investnt was far from substantial.
After all, the majority of their resources had been funneled into the Project Insight.
This included preparations targeting mutants. According to their projections, once the Project Insight succeeded, the entire world would fall under its algorithm. Even individuals as powerful as Magneto or Professor X would not escape death.
"For now, redirect your resources and focus entirely on the Super Soldier serum gene formula. I need a version with no side effects. As for your test subjects, use only drug traffickers, human traffickers, and death row inmates. Also, do everything possible to recruit the world's top scientists in biology, chemistry, and related fields."
After a brief mont of thought, Matthew gave his instructions clearly.
With Pierce's resources at his disposal, Matthew could track down traces of demons and hunt them more efficiently—sothing crucial to manifesting Devil Fruits.
Powerful Devil Fruits required a massive number of demon souls.
As for a side-effect-free version of the Super Soldier gene serum, that would serve as the foundation for cultivating future Devil Fruit users.
So Devil Fruits were incredibly powerful, but without a sufficiently strong physique, their full potential could never be brought out. The genetic ceiling of ordinary people in this era was far inferior to the naturally gifted genetics found in the world of One Piece.
Just like he himself had once been, before signing in and obtaining Big Mom's talent.
Of course, certain powerful Ancient Mythical Zoan types were exceptions. Those Devil Fruits could directly break through genetic limitations.
Later on, he even planned to use the top scientists he recruited to study the genes of Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit users.
If things went well, they might eventually be able to continuously produce even stronger gene serums.
Naturally, there was no way he would let Hydra under Pierce handle that step.
The lower and middle ranks of Hydra might be brainwashed into absolute loyalty, but among the upper ranks, there were still plenty of senior mbers who had never been brainwashed at all—each with their own ambitions and sches.
Even if Neagley would later alter their mories, Matthew still didn't trust them that much.
Because there was always risk involved, Matthew never fully trusted abilities like mory manipulation.
In this world, there were simply too many powers capable of altering mories, and there were also plenty of specialized counterasures designed specifically to resist or detect such interference. If even a small mistake occurred, it could create a great deal of unnecessary trouble.
Using those people was fine.
Trusting them?
That was impossible.
To him, they were nothing more than tools. Once their value had been completely squeezed dry, Matthew would discard them without hesitation if it ant gaining greater benefits.
That included Pierce himself.
After explaining the core structure of Matthew's larger plans, Neagley left Pierce with a private contact thod before she and Matthew departed from the villa.
Fortunately, since Pierce was still in Hydra's dormant phase of operations, the security in the wealthy residential district where he lived, while good, had not reached the level of absurd paranoia. It was simply standard high-end security at most, with surveillance systems and alarm devices installed throughout the villa.
For people with Matthew and Neagley's abilities, entering and leaving such a place was almost laughably easy.
After the two of them left, Pierce imdiately went to the hidden safe room inside his villa and deleted all of the surveillance footage from that night, along with every trace of Matthew and Neagley's visit.
After that, he simply took a shower and went to sleep.
There was no need to rush the plans Matthew had assigned him. Those could be carried out gradually over ti.
anwhile, Matthew and Neagley were already seated inside a Chevrolet, heading toward the airport.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Matthew gazed at the neon lights flashing past on both sides of the road, his mind still occupied with refining the details of his future plans.
Building an army of Devil Fruit users was an inevitable path.
But the people chosen for that purpose had to be absolutely loyal to him—especially those who would consu top-tier Devil Fruits. That was sothing he had to guarantee.
What kind of people were most likely to develop fanatic devotion and unwavering loyalty?
People trapped in darkness.
Those who had fallen into despair, those whose hearts had already turned to ashes—when a single ray of light suddenly broke through that darkness and pulled them out of hopelessness, that was the mont when loyalty was most easily born.
And there were far too many such people in this world.
With Pierce's resources helping to cover his movents, Matthew would face far fewer unnecessary complications from now on.
That also ant he could devote much more of his ti and energy to training, hunting demons, and manifesting Devil Fruits.
As for the battle against Jennifer at the Devil's Kettle, it had at least given Matthew a basic understanding of demons.
Demons were extrely strange beings.
Setting aside the fact that so were strong and so were weak, one of their most unusual traits was that they were incredibly difficult to kill through ordinary ans.
Without the proper ritual and their true na, it was almost impossible to truly kill or even banish a demon.
Demons themselves possessed all kinds of abilities and powers, including things like dark magic.
In Matthew's eyes, Jennifer had probably been considered a relatively weak demon.
Of course, that was likely because she had used a curse as a bridge, stealing and occupying a human body in soul form. Her true demonic body was probably far stronger than what he had faced.
At the ti, even his attacks coated in Armant Haki had failed to inflict truly fatal damage on her.
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