novel-bin Chapter 883 Black Bat King
Chapter 883 Black Bat King
Chapter 883 Black Bat King
Finally, the Avengers met with the Inhuman leadership. The previously inaccessible throne room was now open, and the assembled Avengers stepped inside.
The staff of Skyfire have gradually returned to their posts, but due to Ultron's unique nature, they cannot leave yet. The global network cannot be directly connected until Vision completely eradicates and removes Ultron from the world's network, to prevent Ultron's resurgence.
So they've only returned to the Sky Sword Bureau to rest for now, and they probably won't be able to return to Earth until Ultron is completely eliminated.
However, something else surprised the Avengers: the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were invited to Attila's throne room to meet with the Avengers. Although they had already heard from Coulson that one of their team members was an Inhuman, they were still surprised that the king of a nation would intend to receive them directly.
Until they heard that the entire Inhuman race had only four thousand people left.
Now, the Avengers arrived at Attila's throne room. As the doors opened, they saw Attila's entire royal family: seated on the throne, the man in black armor was Black Bolt, the leader of the Inhumans. Standing beside him on the throne was his queen, Medusa, an Inhuman woman with long red hair.
Below the throne are the other members of the Inhuman royal family. Apart from Crystal, whom Peter just met, he doesn't recognize most of them. The Inhumans' popularity in Marvel is practically nonexistent. When the X-Men movie rights didn't return to Disney, Marvel promoted Inhuman comics for a while, hoping to replace the X-Men. They even made a TV series and planned to make a movie.
As it turned out, they were all just roadside figures; nobody cared about the Inhumans. Peter only knew Black Bolt, his teleporting dog Tetanus, and his wife Medusa.
After the Avengers entered, Black Bolt gestured to Medusa, who then turned to the group: "Black Bolt greets all the warriors from Earth. Although the Inhumans have been away from Earth for hundreds of years and have changed significantly, we are still blood relatives in every respect."
"It's a pleasure to see you all here, cousins." T'Challa, the Black Panther, spoke on behalf of the Avengers. He stepped forward and saw a burly man, almost as tall as the Hulk, with hooves, standing before him. He continued, "My comrades have already covered the situation between the Kree Empire and the Inhumans. I wonder what Attila's opinion is on this?"
While Black Bolt was using sign language, Maximus came to his brother's side and whispered something. Black Bolt then continued using sign language, and Medusa translated: "Indeed, the Kree Empire is an enemy that humanity cannot defeat at present. Both humans and Inhumans need to be cautious in the face of this dangerous adversary. However, we Inhumans are also in crisis, and it is a crisis of imminent annihilation."
Then, Medusa informed the Avengers that the Inhumans were facing a crisis that might be even more serious than the Kree invasion: the Inhumans' gene pool was about to be exhausted, and the entire race would be functionally wiped out in just a few years.
As mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons the Kree Empire abandoned the Inhumans was that they had a serious genetic defect. This genetic defect is similar to how mutants can always create a bunch of messy and useless mutant abilities. Many Inhumans, after awakening, may not necessarily gain powerful abilities, and may even gain "abilities" that make them completely unable to survive and have genetic defects.
These abilities only hasten death, so the Kree Empire abandoned the Inhumans after their rebellion. The Inhumans, having gathered and multiplied, realized this and established a special organization to manage their reproduction. This organization, known as the Genetic Council, was responsible for classifying Inhumans into different social classes based on their genetic strength and strictly controlling intermarriage and reproduction.
Through this artificial selection of genes, the negative traits in the Inhumans' genes have been almost completely eliminated in modern times. Although there are still drawbacks such as crystals being easily contaminated, they are basically no longer fatal.
Furthermore, due to thorough eugenics, the Inhumans' lifespan has been greatly increased, with an average lifespan of 150 years. They define adulthood as 31 years old, and anyone with Inhuman blood must fuse with the Terrigen Mist by age 31 at the latest. However, the drawback of this approach is obvious: with each generation, the Inhuman population is dwindling, and their gene pool is nearing depletion.
After listening to this very vague, yet somewhat plausible, history, Peter muttered to himself, "Even so, they couldn't have reduced the population to only a few thousand. The number of humans the Kree modified must have been enormous. How could they have exhausted the gene pool? Did they remove inferior genes through backcrossing?"
Upon hearing this, Tony glanced back at Peter, then muttered, "Don't say that about humans, but then again—"
Medusa, who was in the distance, saw the two whispering and asked curiously, "Is there something you're wondering about?"
'
"Uh, no, it's just some internal Avengers business. You can continue."
After listening to everything, T'Challa asked, "Regarding this issue, I'm afraid we can't help you. The Inhumans practice very strict endogamy, don't they? In other words, non-Inhuman DNA cannot be integrated into your society."
"That's how it was originally."
Maximus interrupted Medusa, smiling broadly as he put his hands in his pockets and looked at the team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents: "In the distant past, when the ancestors of the Inhumans decided to leave human society, not everyone left. Some Inhumans, knowing their genetic defects, chose to stay in human society, and—their DNA has survived to this day."
"Even now, their genes still possess the unique characteristics of the Inhumans, and can be activated through the Terrigen Mist. For example, the hacker in this squad."
All the Avengers and Inhumans looked at Skye, leaving her pointing at herself in disbelief.
"Me?"
The captain looked at Coulson, because he remembered that Coulson knew about this.