Chapter 41: The Smile in the Firewall
"Azeroth... find it for me! I don't care if it's a country, an organization, or the code name for some lunatic! I want to see everything about it within thirty minutes!"
In the command center of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Nick Fury's roar nearly flipped the entire bridge.
The Agent in front of him shuddered violently, almost dropping the data pad in his hand. Everyone on the bridge seemed to have been hit with a pause button, leaving only the hum of equipment and the Director's heavy breathing.
His one good eye was bloodshot, a mix of post-survival exhaustion and the rage of being thoroughly played.
The Battle of New York was won.
But in Fury's eyes, S.H.I.E.L.D. had suffered a crushing defeat.
An individual completely outside their control, classified as a maximum threat level, had dominated the course of the entire war under the World's gaze, as if walking through an empty room.
He froze a Leviathan, toyed with Thor, turned Loki into a dog, and finally solved the nuclear crisis in a way they still couldn't understand.
And they, the World's most powerful intelligence organization, hadn't even managed to get a single hair from him.
This wasn't just a slap in the face; it was pressing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s face into the ground and rubbing it back and forth with sandpaper.
What he couldn't tolerate most was that final note.
"Upgraded the firewall?" Fury's voice lowered, every word squeezed out from between his teeth, more chilling than his roar.
The head of the technical department trotted over, sweat dripping down his cheeks, not even daring to wipe it away.
"Director..." he reported, stuttering, eyes fixed on his own shoe tips, "Our main server... was indeed... optimized. The other party used a 'logic chain' we cannot understand to reconstruct all our underlying defense code."
He swallowed, his voice trembling.
"The current firewall strength is theoretically at least fifty times higher than before. We... we can't even modify the code he left behind."
Fury's face was as dark as the bottom of a pot.
This was equivalent to a thief breaking into your house, not taking anything, complaining that your door lock was garbage, replacing it with a bank-vault-level security door, and then leaving a note to mock you.
Extremely insulting.
Fury's fists crunched at his sides as he turned his nearly erupting rage toward his only hope.
"Daisy!" He suddenly turned to the data analysis section on the other side. "What did you find on your end? The intrusion alert came from you!"
Everyone's gaze focused on that corner.
Daisy Johnson, or rather, Skye, was staring fixedly at her computer screen.
Her multi-screen workstation had suddenly gone black a few minutes ago. Immediately after, a smiling face made up of countless brilliant, intricate arcane runes slowly appeared on the central main screen.
[: ) ]
It was him.
This smile was both a provocation and a show-off.
Daisy's heartbeat accelerated instantly, and a flame mixed with curiosity, admiration, and a refusal to lose ignited in her chest.
As a World-class hacker, she had never encountered such an opponent. The opponent's methods had completely exceeded the scope of "technology"; that wasn't code, that was art, that was magic!
"Track him!" Fury's order came, carrying unquestionable decisiveness.
"Received." Daisy replied, her eyes becoming sharp.
She took a deep breath, her hands dancing across the keyboard like butterflies through flowers. The crisp tapping formed a rapid movement in the silent data center.
She mobilized S.H.I.E.L.D.'s core supercomputing matrix, opening her permissions to the maximum. A brand new, aggressive reverse-tracking program took shape at her fingertips, like a poisoned arrow, shooting toward the unknown abyss of the network along the faint data residue.
Code streams scrolled crazily on the screen.
"Locking onto signal source... bypassing the first layer of encryption... second layer... third layer..."
"Got you!"
The program successfully bit onto the opponent's data stream!
Daisy felt a surge of joy, the corners of her mouth just starting to turn up.
However, in the next second, the smile on her face completely froze.
Her computer screen was no longer a two-dimensional plane. The entire image suddenly buckled inward, extending into a deep, boundless... three-dimensional magic maze composed of countless rotating runes, flowing light strips, and constantly changing geometric shapes.
An irresistible suction came from the screen, and Daisy felt as if her consciousness was about to be dragged into that bizarre World.
Physical circuits were forcibly taken over by pure arcane energy!
Her tracking program, like a two-dimensional ant breaking into a three-dimensional World, instantly lost its way in that magnificent magic maze, repeatedly bounced back and torn apart by countless incorrect logic singularities, turning into meaningless data fragments.
"Warning! Server Array No. 7 overloaded! CPU temperature exceeds critical value!"
"Warning! Unable to parse this data packet! Underlying protocol conflict!"
"It's going to blow! Disconnect the physical connection!"
The entire technical center was in chaos, red warning lights flashing frantically. Amidst the piercing alarms, several server cabinets worth hundreds of millions of dollars began to spew thick smoke, and a burnt stench permeated the air.
Agents rushed over with fire extinguishers, but didn't know where to start.
Meanwhile.
In a high-end apartment in Manhattan that had just been refreshed by Arthur using [Cleanse] and [Repair].
Arthur was leaning on a soft sofa, holding a steaming cup of coffee, leisurely flipping through the experience settlement and loot list for the Battle of New York on the system panel.
[Ding! Main Mission: New York Crisis (Completed). Evaluation: S. Rewards: EXP +50000, Skill Points +5, Random Epic Spellbook * 1.]
[Ding! Level increased to Lv.32.]
[Ding! New achievements obtained: Nuclear Bomb Thrower, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Nightmare.]
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Nightmare? This achievement is quite fitting." Arthur chuckled. The S-rank reward was quite generous, especially the epic spellbook, which was worth looking forward to.
He glanced at the "magic maze" being brute-forced in his mental sea, a playful smile curling on his lips.
"Pretty persistent."
That little hacker's skills were indeed good, top-tier in the field of pure technology, actually able to touch the edge of his data stream. Unfortunately, she wasn't facing code.
He tapped his finger lightly on the rim of the warm coffee cup.
Far away on the Helicarrier thousands of meters in the sky, just at the last moment when S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main server was about to burn down completely due to a logic collapse, that terrifying magic maze suddenly withdrew on its own.
A "puzzle-solving backdoor" composed of simple code clearly appeared in front of Daisy.
Daisy grasped it like a life-saving straw, but she knew better; this was the other party's charity. A sense of humiliation at being played in the palm of his hand surged into her heart, but she had no choice.
She gritted her teeth and did her best to crack this "step" that was obviously left intentionally by the other party.
When the last command was entered, all alarms stopped abruptly.
She collapsed into her chair, soaked in cold sweat, gasping for air.
Just then, a clear young male voice with a hint of lazy amusement suddenly came through her expensive noise-canceling headphones.
The voice seemed to sound directly in her mind, bypassing all physical equipment, carrying an irresistible penetrating power.
"Your technique is not bad."
Daisy's body stiffened.
"But the frequency of your typing can't keep up with the vibrations hidden in your DNA."
One sentence.
Earth-shattering.
Daisy's pupils contracted to the size of needle points in that instant!
Her biggest secret, the anomaly buried deep in her bloodline that even she felt fear and confusion about, had been casually pointed out by the other party in a single sentence!
Who is he? How could he know?!
"Buzz—"
Extreme shock and panic acted like a catalyst, detonating the unknown power that had long been stirring within her.
Her hands suddenly began to tremble uncontrollably.
With her hands as the center, circles of invisible ripples spread outward.
Pop!
A water glass in front of her shattered first.
Then—
Pop! Pop! Pop!
In the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. technical center, all the glasses, monitor screens, fluorescent lights on the ceiling... at the same time, without any warning, all shattered!
Broken glass and sparks splashed everywhere, and the exclamations of the Agents rose one after another.
In the midst of the chaos, Nick Fury, standing not far away, locked his one good eye on Daisy in the corner, his face revealing, for the first time, a shock... deeper than anger.
Chapter 42: The First Tremors
The chaos arrived without warning, like a silent tidal wave from the depths of the ocean, instantly swallowing the nerve center of this steel forest.
The shock in Nick Fury's one good eye even overwhelmed the towering rage he'd felt moments before upon discovering the firewall breach.
Centered on Daisy Johnson, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. tech division—this heartland armed to the teeth with the most cutting-edge technology—was undergoing an unstoppable physical disintegration starting at the molecular level!
*Bzzz—bzzzz—bzzzz—*
It wasn't an explosion, but a sustained, ever-increasing resonance. The sound wasn't loud, yet it seemed to act directly on people's cochleas and bones, making everyone's teeth chatter uncontrollably. The metal ceiling grilles trembled, emitting a teeth-grating groan as fine dust cascaded down. The server racks fixed to their mounts shook violently as if in the throes of a seizure; inside, the delicate hard drive heads and platters let out agonized shrieks under the invisible waves. A loosened screw shot out with a *whoosh*, embedding itself deep into the alloy wall opposite!
The screens of the data pads in the Agents' hands filled with static, then *crack*—the screens shattered as if struck by an invisible fist.
"Hostile attack!! Defensive positions!"
One quick-reacting Agent drew his Glock, but his arm trembled violently too, the sight jumping erratically, making it impossible to aim at any target.
"Steady! Everyone, steady! Find the epicenter!" Brock Rumlow, Crossbones, let out a low, Beast-like growl. His battle-hardened physique allowed him to plant his feet firmly, but the tremors coming through the floor still made him feel like he was standing on a raft about to fall apart. Leading a team of fully armed Agents, he pressed forward step by step in tactical formation against the invisible pressure, advancing toward the heart of the chaos.
And there, only Daisy remained.
She was slumped in her chair, face as pale as paper, staring in terror at her own hands as if they didn't belong to her. Those hands were vibrating at a speed invisible to the naked eye, sending out transparent ripples that silently pulverized everything around her—keyboard, mouse, shards of a coffee cup—into dust.
Fear, icy and piercing, drowned her consciousness.
She knew this wasn't an attack.
It was her.
She was the 'monster.'
The mysterious mage's words had acted like a poison-tipped key, prying open the Pandora's box locked deep within her bloodline by heavy shackles. Now, the devil was released, and she was the devil itself.
She could feel Fury and Crossbones' cold, scrutinizing, intensely probing gazes locking onto her. She could even imagine her fate—being treated as the next 'Hulk,' locked away in some sunless Base, cold scalpels slicing her skin, countless needles piercing her veins, dissected and studied over and over until the last drop of value was squeezed out, turned into a cold specimen.
"No... don't..." She closed her eyes in despair, tears mixing with cold sweat as they fell.
Footsteps drew closer. The sound of metal soles striking the floor now sounded like the death knell tolled by the God of Death.
...
In a high-end Manhattan apartment.
Arthur had just severed his connection to the S.H.I.E.L.D.network and was about to examine what the [Epic Spellbook] from his S-Rank mission reward had to offer when his brow furrowed slightly.
The [Arcane Mark] he'd left in Daisy's computer was less of a backdoor and more of a miniature, one-way 'emotion and energy sensor.' Right now, this sensor was transmitting a chaotic, near-collapse emotional fluctuation, along with a raw, wildly growing, and crudely uncontrolled surge of pure physical energy.
"Hah, bit off more than she could chew, did she..." Arthursighed, yet a hint of amusement curled at the corner of his mouth. "No, I should say, the potential is even more astonishing than anticipated."
He had only intended to discipline the overly curious little hacker and plant a seed named 'awe' in her mind. He hadn't expected her bloodline to be so unstable, igniting with just a few words.
"The pawn I've chosen cannot be scrapped prematurely in such a trivial setting."
Exposure now would benefit neither her nor him.
Holding his warm coffee cup, Arthur didn't even rise from the soft sofa. He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the vast, starry sea of his mental World. His slender finger gently tapped the empty air before him.
Before his fingertip, an extremely complex, pale blue rune materialized out of thin air. It seemed composed of countless miniature stellar orbits, full of order and cold beauty. The moment the rune formed, it vanished without a trace.
A strand of supremely refined Arcane energy, imbued with absolute order, separated from within him. Following the invisible link of the [Arcane Mark], it traversed several kilometers of physical distance, ignored the Helicarrier's heavy, layered physical defenses like a ghostly data stream, and instantly injected itself into the storm's eye of the chaos within the S.H.I.E.L.D. tech center.
...
Just 0.1 seconds before Fury raised his hand to issue the order for 'highest-level containment measures.'
Just as Crossbones' hand gripped the handle of his specialized tranquilizer gun, about to pull the trigger.
A sudden change occurred!
On Daisy's wildly vibrating hands, which seemed about to tear space itself, a layer of extremely thin, perfectly transparent, pale blue ice crystals—like works of art—condensed without warning. Upon that ice, countless microscopic runes, barely visible to the naked eye, pulsed like breathing, as if alive.
That was no ordinary ice.
It was a [Frost Armor (Basic)] formed from the purest Frost Runes.
The absolute low temperature, the moment it appeared, forcibly froze and neutralized the molecular activity of that high-frequency vibration at the level of physical law.
*Bzzz—*
The constant resonance sound was abruptly cut off, as if an invisible hand had seized it by the throat.
The violently shaking laboratory instantly returned to absolute stillness.
Everything froze.
Fury remained with his hand half-raised. Crossbones' hand was still rigidly on the gun handle. All the Agents stood frozen in place, faces etched with shock and confusion, staring dumbfounded at the bizarre scene before them.
One moment, it was like the heavens collapsing and the earth cracking apart; the next, it was so calm you could hear a pin drop.
Fury's lone eye contracted into a dangerous pinpoint. He strode forward, almost charging to stand before Daisy.
The girl was still slumped in her chair, trembling slightly from extreme fear and exhaustion, her face frighteningly pale. Her hands rested quietly on the keyboard, perfectly normal. On the computer screen was a mess of normal garbled code from server overload.
It was as if the earlier disaster, comparable to a magnitude 7 earthquake, was just a collective hallucination caused by excessive stress.
Crossbones and his team meticulously searched every corner, deploying various energy detectors. The result was the same—no anomalies.
"Report, Officer. It might be... some kind of delayed EMP weapon effect from the Chitauri warships?" a tech Agentguessed uncertainly, wiping cold sweat from his brow.
Fury didn't speak. He gave Daisy a deep, penetrating look, his gaze sharp as a knife, as if trying to see right through her. In the end, he found nothing. The girl appeared to be just an ordinary, terrified technician.
"Clean up the scene. Restore the system as soon as possible," Fury said coldly, then turned and left with his team. But his tightly furrowed brow betrayed his profound inner turmoil.
Only after everyone had left, when the tech center held only her and the wreckage strewn across the floor, did Daisy dare, like a frightened rabbit, to slowly raise her hands.
The layer of pale blue ice-crystal armor covering her hands was slowly melting.
It didn't turn into water stains. Instead, it dissolved into countless tiny, Arcane-glittering motes of stardust. Like fireflies on a summer night, they gently swirled around her fingertips, finally gathering on the back of her pale hand into a complex, mysterious mark that flashed once and then slowly dissipated into the air.
A cool, yet profoundly comforting sensation lingered on her skin.
Daisy's heart pounded with unprecedented intensity.
She knew it wasn't an illusion.
That mysterious mage, that man who claimed to be from 'Azeroth'...
He had not only seen through her deeply hidden secret, but from a thousand miles away, at her most desperate moment, as she teetered on the brink of the abyss, he had reached out and saved her.
...
Arthur severed the mental link and slowly opened his eyes.
"Energy control as crude as a savage's, but the potential is good. A rough gem worth polishing," he offered a measured assessment.
Just then, savoring the subtle aftertaste of projecting power across space, his expression suddenly turned cold. His sharp gaze instantly shifted to the cityscape shrouded in night beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
A moment ago, within his highly active Arcane senses, a weak yet extremely vile energy fluctuation, brimming with chaos and corrosive aura, had begun to spread quietly from some corner of the city, like ink dripping into clear water. That aura was a blasphemy against all order and life.
It was the aura of an Old God.
During the Battle of New York, more than just the Chitaurihad slipped through that unstable portal.
"Something filthy has snuck in."
Arthur set down his coffee cup.
His 'laboratory,' his 'pasture,' would not tolerate the presence of such an uncontrolled 'pollutant.'
Chapter 43: Arcane Violence Cleansing
The sewer system of New York is the dark, pulsating vein beneath the city's prosperous surface.
It is filled with filth, stench, and a thick darkness that seems to swallow light, utterly forgotten by the Sun.
The air is permeated not just with methane and hydrogen sulfide, but with a faint, chilling madness that pierces to the depths of the soul.
"Hum—"
A ring of pure blue arcane light flashed, and Arthur's figure appeared in a wide main sewage pipe.
The moment he appeared, the shadows around him, twisted and writhing from evil energy, seemed to recoil as if purified.
"Tsk, this smell... it really hits the head."
He subconsciously wrinkled his nose, not because of the physical stench, but because of the Void whispers mixed into the air, attempting to pollute his mind.
Immediately, a thin-as-cicada-wings [Mana Shield], flowing with arcane runes, enveloped his entire body, completely isolating him from the disgusting stench, the filthy liquid beneath his feet, and the intangible mental pollution.
The World instantly became clean.
For a Great Arcanist, elegance is an instinct carved into the bones.
Even when coming down to clean up cosmic trash, one must be clean and spotless.
In his mind, the [Arcane Mark] planted across space acted like a high-precision Void radar, clearly marking the source of that evil energy.
"So it's just ahead... a Void beacon that has just started to leak."
He didn't hesitate in the slightest, strolling leisurely toward the depths of the dark pipe.
After walking for about ten minutes, a huge space, like an underground cavern, appeared before his eyes.
This was the intersection of multiple main pipes, and also the giant crater left behind after a Leviathan fell during the Battle of New York.
S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries had cleaned up most of the wreckage, but the deepest part had been abandoned due to structural instability and the mixture of unknown spatial energy.
It seems the efficiency and courage of these mortal organizations are just so-so.
And at this moment, that abandoned wreckage was becoming the platter for a terrifying feast.
On the giant beast's corpse, which still retained some metallic luster, crawled writhing, purple-black flesh tentacles.
These tentacles, like living vines, were deeply rooted in the beast's biological tissue and mechanical structure, greedily sucking up the remaining bio-energy and the energy of Chitauri technology.
In the center of the wreckage, an unspeakable lump of flesh, stitched together from countless eyeballs, tentacles, and broken limbs, was pulsing slowly like an evil heart.
Every pulse emitted intense mental pollution, causing the surrounding light to twist strangely, as if space itself was retching because of it.
"It looks so sloppy; it doesn't have any of the Creator's aesthetic," Arthur evaluated from the bottom of his heart.
At the top of the lump, several relatively thick tentacles were clumsily dragging some Chitauri energy cores and communication devices together, attempting to piece together a laughably crude micro-dimensional summoning gate.
"Is that it? Want to open a door? Can this structural stability survive three seconds? Go back to kindergarten and practice more."
It wanted to go home.
Or rather, it wanted to pull things from "home" into this World.
Arthur's appearance, and the pure and vast arcane energy on him, were like the Sun in the dark night, instantly interrupting its work.
On that lump of flesh, dozens of eyeballs of various sizes instantly turned, pupils constricting, locking onto Arthur in unison.
"Cheep—!!!"
A high-frequency screech, unlike anything any known creature could emit, capable of tearing the soul apart, exploded in the entire underground space.
Accompanied by the screech, the lump cracked open a huge, hideous maw, spewing a stream of thick green Void acid that radiated an aura of soul corrosion, like a high-pressure water gun, shooting straight at Arthur's face!
Arthur was too lazy to even move, his eyes filled with pity for the mentally challenged.
The arcane runes on the surface of the [Mana Shield] only brightened imperceptibly.
The Void acid, which could instantly melt a main battle tank into molten iron, hit the shield without even causing a ripple.
Like a snowflake meeting a red-hot soldering iron, it instantly evaporated, decomposed, and annihilated, not even a drop sliding down.
"Playing with Void energy in front of me?" Arthur looked at the monster like a fool trying to light a match on the surface of the Sun. "Are you serious?"
He was too lazy to even use his staff.
His right hand was raised casually, his palm aimed at the monster that was still screaming crazily.
"Just right to test my newly constructed 30th-ring Arcane Blast model and see how powerful it is."
[Arcane Blast]!
Hum!
A purple energy ball, compressed to the limit by pure arcane energy and carrying visible spatial ripples, was fired instantly!
Along its trajectory, even the air was ignited, pulling out a gorgeous purple trail!
Boom!!
The stitched monster's massive body was hit head-on as if by a maglev train traveling at full speed.
The part that was hit wasn't pushed away, but instantly vaporized and erased by the violent arcane energy!
The huge impact force slammed its broken body hard against the rock wall behind it, and countless pieces of flesh and eyeballs splattered everywhere like bursting tomatoes.
Before it could react.
Hum! Second shot!
Hum! Third shot!
Three [Arcane Blast]s with no cooldown and no casting animation precisely bombarded, crushed, and decomposed the disgusting flesh monster like a ball between the hard sewer walls!
Every collision caused the sturdy rock wall to crack with spiderweb-like fissures, and the pure energy storm repelled the filthy flowing water, forming a vacuum zone, completely cutting off any possibility of it resisting or casting spells.
The monster let out a wail full of unwillingness and fear, and its massive body suddenly exploded with a "pop," turning into hundreds of smaller pieces of flesh with tentacles, like a school of frightened fish, attempting to split and escape in all directions.
"Coming with this again? No novelty. Do you think splitting can let you run away?"
Arthur tapped his left hand lightly, his fingertips tracing an elegant arc in the air.
[Ice Lance]!
In an instant, with him as the center, the water vapor in the air, the sewage on the ground, and even the moisture on the energy level were instantly extracted and condensed!
Countless sharp, cold-glinting ice lances formed out of thin air, exploding in a perfect fan-shaped storm, like the Ice Crystal Embrace of the Goddess of Death, covering the entire space.
Every piece of flesh attempting to escape was pierced and frozen by at least three ice lances with error-free precision!
"Click—Click—"
The ultimate deep cold swept through everything within three seconds.
The entire huge underground space, along with the filthy flowing water and splattered flesh, was completely turned into a crystal-clear, magnificent ice-sculpted hell.
Absolute silence replaced the previous clamor, with only the faint light emitted when ice crystals refracted the arcane brilliance.
Arthur stepped forward, his leather shoes making a crisp sound on the smooth ice surface.
He walked to the monster core, which was frozen in the center of the ice sculpture and had lost all signs of life.
He raised his foot and kicked it lightly, seemingly casually.
"Clatter!"
The huge ice sculpture, along with the monster wreckage frozen inside it for Eternity, instantly began to disintegrate from the inside, turning into ice crystal powder filling the sky, shimmering with diamond-like light in the air, and then falling quietly.
A fist-sized core fragment, emitting a ghostly purple light with what seemed to be a Nebula swirling inside, rolled out from the powder, slid a distance on the ice, and made a crisp "ding" sound.
[Information stream access: Obtained rare material: Void Core Fragment * 1.]
"Not bad loot." Arthur bent down, picked it up, and felt the pure and chaotic Void power inside.
"After purification, it should be enough to make a'Spatial Stability Anchor,' which will be much more convenient for long-distance teleportation in the future."
Just as his fingertips were about to completely wrap around the core fragment.
The anomaly happened again.
The space around him suddenly, without warning, began to fold, invert, and scramble like a mirror smashed by great force!
The straight sewer turned into a twisted geometric maze, gravity was overturned, and the frozen sewage ice crystals flowed backward toward the "sky."
He was forcibly pulled into a... subspace isolated from the real World.
"Huh? Spatial magic? And it's not from my school; it's a school that borrows the power of Outer Gods."
Arthur straightened his body, not only not panicked but instead looking at the strange structures around him, which resembled Escher's paintings, with great interest.
"Hum—"
A circular portal made of countless orange-red sparks opened out of thin air on the "wall" not far away.
A black mage wearing green robes, with a resolute face and holding a simple, ancient-looking staff, walked slowly out of the door.
His eyes were full of vigilance, caution, and undisguised hostility, locking onto Arthur tightly.
"Who are you?!" The visitor's voice was low, with a questioning tone.
"You used magic that doesn't belong to this dimension here!"
Kamar-Taj's mage, Mordo.
Arthur glanced at him, then looked at the forcibly twisted space around him, didn't answer his question, but instead began to comment like a mentor checking an apprentice's homework:
"Mirror Dimension... the idea is good, able to isolate reality and avoid the battle affecting mortals. However, your technique is too rough."
Mordo's pupils shrank slightly, and his fingers holding the Staff of the Living Tribunal tightened involuntarily.
Arthur stretched out a finger and tapped lightly on a spatial connection point, and the space there immediately rippled with instability.
"Look, the node control of the energy is completely unbalanced, and the cutting surface of the space is as rough as if it were gnawed by a dog.
Didn't your teacher teach you?
Every time this kind of spell that forcibly divides space is used, it is a rough scratch on the dimensional wall, which can easily cause irreversible permanent damage and attract more troublesome things."
His tone was flat, but carried an unquestionable authority, as if he were the true patriarch of this field.
Chapter 44: Mordo Crushed
Mordo's gaze was cold and sharp, like a hawk locking onto a viper that had trespassed into its territory.
He was not blind, nor was he an apprentice with dull senses.
In the air, the sweet, fishy scent unique to the eruption of void energy—reminiscent of ozone mixed with rotting stars—had not yet dissipated, and coexisting with it was the fluctuation of another, purer, more domineering energy, structured as precisely as an orrery, which had forcibly annihilated it.
And when he followed the trail, what he saw was a well-dressed, leisurely-looking Asian young man standing at the center of the energy wreckage, radiating a kind of magicaura he had never seen before—as tight and seamless as clockwork.
The conclusion was self-evident.
In his view, this young man was undoubtedly an evil black magician who had summoned and enslaved this void monster.
Now, perhaps due to a failed ritual or internal backlash, this battle had broken out.
In the history of Kamar-Taj, there had been countless fools who played with fire and burned themselves.
"You wizard who profanes the laws of nature!"
Mordo's voice was low and powerful, echoing through the twisted Mirror Dimension.
"Surrender immediately and come with me back to Kamar-Taj to face the judgment of the Sorcerer Supreme!"
He had no intention of giving Arthur any chance to explain, nor was he interested in any so-called "truth."
To a staunch Guardian like Mordo who revered order above all else, any magic related to the Dark Dimension or the void was a poisonous vine that had to be uprooted.
Saying one more word would be a profanation of his sacred mission.
"Wizard?"
Arthur finally deigned to withdraw his intrigued gaze from the surrounding spatial structure and looked directly at the other party; his expression didn't look like that of a prisoner about to be judged, but rather like someone seeing a strange new species in a zoo.
"Heh, your classification of power is truly... filled with a primitive, tribal-era aesthetic."
"Stubborn!"
Mordo's rage was thoroughly ignited.
He roared, his arm muscles bulging, and he pulled sharply in front of his chest!
"Hum!"
Two circular magic shields—the Rings of Raggadorr—composed of countless golden sparks and engraved with complex patterns, condensed out of thin air, radiating intense heat!
He stomped hard, and the ice beneath his feet instantly filled with spiderweb-like cracks.
He launched himself like a heavy artillery shell, charging toward Arthur with tremendous force.
He chose not to cast more complex spells, but instead brandished the scorching magic shields, preparing to knock this arrogant "wizard" unconscious in the most direct and effective way, then drag him back for interrogation!
This was the classic combat tactic of Kamar-Taj mages when facing spellcaster enemies—use magic to strengthen the body, then use absolute power and speed to disrupt the opponent's casting rhythm; simple, brutal, and effective!
However, watching this melee style that could be called the "disgrace of a mage," Arthur couldn't help but shake his head slightly, a strange, indescribable smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"A mage who actually abandons his greatest advantage to choose close-quarters combat? It's truly... bafflingly primitive."
He muttered a complaint, filled with genuine confusion and a trace of pity.
Seeing Mordo's magic shields, burning with scorching sparks, about to smash his face with overwhelming force, Arthur's figure abruptly dissipated like a wisp of blue smoke, only to reappear out of thin air five meters away, without even stirring the hem of his clothes.
[Blink].
The most basic, yet most unsolvable, displacement skill for an Arcanist.
"What?!"
Mordo missed his strike, his massive momentum causing him to stumble forward uncontrollably, his magic shields slamming into a distant wall and blasting a huge hole in the twisted architecture.
Shock and bewilderment flashed in his eyes.
How did the opponent do it?
In the Mirror Dimension where he held dominion, the spatial rules were set by him; any teleportation spell should have been subjected to extreme interference and suppression!
This defied reason!
"You've got some tricks! But you can't escape!"
Mordo quickly steadied himself, his eyes filled with even fiercer murderous intent.
He quickly formed several dazzling seals with his hands and began chanting an ancient incantation.
"In the name of the Ancient Body of Hoggoth, in the name of the All-Seeing Eye of the Vishanti... Space, twist!"
"Rumble—"
The surrounding Mirror Dimension began to roll and fold violently!
The ground beneath Arthur's feet suddenly flipped upward, turning into a cold, thick wall, while the high walls on both sides rose like two giant hands covering the sky, closing in on him with the momentum to crush everything, attempting to squeeze him into a pulp like a mosquito!
This was the most common method of trapping and killing enemies in the Mirror Dimension: mobilizing the power of the dimension, rewriting the laws of physics—simple, brutal, and impossible to dodge!
However, at the very moment Mordo cast the spell, the very instant his magic circuit—which mobilized the power of the dimension to construct the spatial cage—took shape...
A starlit arcane brilliance suddenly erupted from Arthur's eyes, which had remained calm and waveless until now!
His arcane vision was pushed to the limit in this moment!
To his eyes, Mordo's seemingly profound casting movements were instantly decomposed into the most basic energy nodes, rune structures, and mana flows.
Those complex hand seals appeared to him as full of redundant, meaningless posturing; those long, drawn-out incantations were even more proof of low energy efficiency.
The entire process of constructing the magic, in his eyes, was like code written by a novice who had just learned to program—full of redundancy, conflicts, and fatal logical errors.
"Found it... In your main circuit, there are at least seventeen vulnerable nodes that can be instantly breached."
Arthur's mouth curled slightly, forming a near-cruel smile.
He raised his right hand and, at the unhurried, steady Mordo who was casting with all his might, gently snapped his fingers.
[Counterspell]!
"Snap!"
There was no Earth-shattering explosion, only a dull popping sound, like an old lightbulb burning out instantly.
That sound seemed like the lament of magic itself.
The Rings of Raggadorr burning in Mordo's hands, and the spatial power surging around him capable of turning the World upside down, were grabbed by an invisible hand and choked; all the magical light dimmed, extinguished, and disintegrated in an instant!
The magic was forcibly interrupted!
A violently turbulent energy backflow surged back along his own magic meridians!
"Pfft—!"
Mordo was struck as if by lightning, spraying a mouthful of blood, his whole body flying backward like a broken kite, slamming hard into the spatial wall he had created.
A deep, bone-exposed wound was blown open on the web of his hand by the backlash of magic, dripping with blood, and the Staff of the Living Tribunal in his hand nearly slipped away.
The rolling and folding Mirror Dimension also instantly returned to calm as the caster was severely injured.
Arthur slowly floated into the air, his clothes fluttering without wind.
He looked down at the disheveled Mordo, who was struggling to crawl up, and began a dimension-reduction strike that could be called "academic bullying," using the tone of a teacher pointing out a failure to an incompetent apprentice.
"Your first mistake was to attack me. Your second mistake was using such crude magic."
He paused, looking at Mordo's eyes, which were filled with humiliation and unwillingness, and continued: "Your magicis wrong from the very foundation."
"You rely entirely on 'loans' from other dimensional demons, praying for the favor of the Vishanti, Hoggoth, and Cyttorak to cast corresponding spells."
"This is not magic; this is prayer."
"Therefore, you are not mages; you are... priests."
The word "priest" pierced into Mordo's soul like two red-hot branding irons.
"You lie!"
Mordo roared, flushed with shame and anger.
"I lie?"
Arthur chuckled, "A true mage's power stems from their own understanding and leverage of the underlying rules of the World, and from the precise energy cycles they construct themselves."
"And you? You don't even have basic self-energy cycle models or spell circuit construction theories."
"The casting process is rough, long, and full of unnecessary movements and energy waste."
"Look at those gestures of yours just now—flashy and gaudy; besides distracting yourself, what use are they?"
"Isn't it a matter of course that I interrupted them with a snap of my fingers?"
Every word of Arthur was like a merciless heavy hammer, smashing down on Mordo's rock-solid Daoist heart.
He didn't understand many of the terms, but he seemed to understand the contempt and the truth within them.
He only knew that the person in front of him had easily cracked the sacred magic passed down through Kamar-Tajfor thousands of years in a way he had never seen or even understood, and had belittled it as worthless.
This was the most thorough trampling of his lifelong faith!
"What do you know!"
Mordo struggled to stand up, gripping his staff again, his eyes burning with the crazy flames of a fight to the death, "This is the great power that has protected Earth for thousands of years!"
"Protecting the World?"
Arthur sounded like he had just heard the funniest joke of the century, "Protecting the World by borrowing from loan sharks? When the interest matures and those dimensional demon creditors come knocking, what will you pay with? Your souls, or the reality of the entire Earth?"
Just then.
The entire Mirror Dimension suddenly fell into an absolute, eerie stillness.
The flowing sewage, the dripping water droplets, the ice crystal dust floating in the air, and even the angry expression on Mordo's face were all pressed on the pause button at this moment.
Time seemed to have been gently scooped up from the rushing long river by an invisible hand and frozen in its palm.
A woman dressed in bright yellow monk robes, with a shaved head and a calm, peaceful expression, though her eyes seemed to contain the endless river of time and thousands of futures, walked slowly into this frozen space with her hands behind her back.
Her appearance caused no energy fluctuations, yet it made the entire Mirror Dimension seem to be paying its highest respects to her.
The Sorcerer Supreme, Ancient One.
"Mordo, stand down."
Her voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable majesty, resounding directly in the depths of both their souls, as if it were a proclamation of the laws of the Universe.
The frozen time began to flow, but Mordo remained frozen in place, unable to move.
"This guest is right."
The Ancient One's gaze passed over her incompetent disciple and landed on Arthur, who was floating in mid-air.
In those eyes that seemed to see through the past, present, and future, for the first time, a deeply profound... gravity, curiosity, and a trace of excitement at meeting a worthy opponent were revealed.
"Our magic does indeed have flaws."
Chapter 45: The Sorcerer Supreme's Shock
The Ancient One completely ignored Mordo.
From the moment she stepped into the Mirror Dimension, her gaze had been locked firmly onto Arthur in mid-air, never wavering for an instant.
The Sorcerer Supreme appeared calm and composed on the surface, but Arthur caught a glimpse of the eye of agamotto on her chest, which was quietly flickering with a faint, eerie green light.
The Time Stone was in operation.
Arthur understood her move in a second. This big shot, who had lived for hundreds of years, was trying to use the power of time to strip away his secrets and pry into his past and future.
This was the Ancient One's standard procedure; when in doubt, check the timeline first.
However, just three seconds later, the Ancient One could no longer maintain her icy, stoic expression.
Her brows furrowed tightly. For the first time in hundreds of years, she experienced what it felt like to have her "CPU fried."
In her perception, within the vast river of time, the position where Arthur stood was a complete void!
It wasn't censored, nor was it blocked; it simply didn't exist!
It was as if some indescribable, terrifying power had violently deleted this person from the concept of "time" itself. He was outside the cycle of reincarnation, transcending the five elements.
There was no past, no future, only an absolute blind spot!
"Stop scanning, Master."
Arthur looked down at her, his tone carrying a hint of mockery as if he could see through everything.
"Your timeline is ineffective against me. My fate is in my own hands, not heaven's. My script is not in your river."
The Ancient One slowly looked up, and their eyes met.
They remained silent for a full five seconds.
Then, the Ancient One made a move that made Mordo, who was half-kneeling nearby, doubt his own life.
She actually smiled.
It wasn't the kind of reserved, profound sneer, but rather, she looked as if she had discovered a new continent, her eyes filled with irrepressible curiosity.
"Interesting," she said softly, without hostility, filled only with a thirst for knowledge. "Simply too interesting."
She turned to look at Mordo, instantly switching back to the dignified mode of the Sorcerer Supreme: "Mordo, return to Kamar-Taj to recover. Leave this to me."
"Sorcerer Supreme..."
"That is an order."
Mordo gritted his teeth and stood up, supporting his broken body. He glared at Arthur, his eyes filled with humiliation and unwillingness, but in the end, he could only sullenly draw a circle and limp back home.
As the sparks of the portal dissipated, the Ancient Onewaved her hand.
The Mirror Dimension was instantly reshaped, and the foul stench of the sewer was cleared away with a single stroke. A pure white platform suspended in the center of a sea of stars unfolded.
Two chairs and a low table landed steadily.
A set of white jade tea sets on the table was steaming.
"My treat," the Ancient One said, sitting down first and pouring tea herself. She gestured to Arthur in mid-air. "Since the timeline cannot see through you, let's use the most down-to-Earth way—sit down and chat."
Arthur landed, pulled out a chair, and sat down nonchalantly, picking up the teacup to smell it.
"Darjeeling?"
"Local high-mountain tea from Nepal," the Ancient Onesmiled. "Better than Darjeeling."
She put down her teacup and went straight to the point, her eyes instantly becoming sharp: "Your magic does not belong to the Vishanti, Dormammu, or any dimension I know. Your energy is a self-sufficient closed loop, not borrowed. I've guarded Earth for hundreds of years, and this is the first time I've seen such an anomaly."
"Because I am not from your Universe at all." Arthur took a sip of tea; it tasted quite good. "My power comes from Azeroth. Even if I explained it to you, you wouldn't understand. You just need to understand one thing—"
He put down the teacup and looked directly into the Ancient One's eyes.
"I am not here to cause trouble."
"But you are not one of us, either," the Ancient Onecountered seamlessly.
"Correct. I'm just a helpful citizen passing by, who happened to live next door to you." Arthur spread his hands, smiling playfully. "Between neighbors, the best thing is to not interfere with each other, and maybe borrow a green onion occasionally."
"You are more humorous than I imagined."
The teacup was empty, and the Ancient One refilled it. Her tone hadn't changed, but there was a hint of probing in her eyes.
"Then, mysterious neighbor, since you caused such a scene at my doorstep today, what do you want to borrow?"
"Knowledge." Arthur held up a finger, his posture relaxed. "The basic literature on Earth's spatial coordinates in the Kamar-Taj library. You've accumulated thousands of years of dimensional data, and I need it urgently."
"What will you trade for it?" the Ancient One asked bluntly.
"A complete set of 'Arcane Energy Filtration Models'."
As soon as Arthur said this, he clearly felt that the Ancient One opposite him broke her composure!
It wasn't ordinary surprise, but a violent tremor from the depths of her soul! It was like someone who had been carrying a dark secret for hundreds of years suddenly had their cover blown by an outsider; that trembling feeling of being seen through was impossible to suppress!
Clatter!
The Ancient One's fingers holding the teacup shook uncontrollably.
"Filtration model?" She suppressed the turmoil in her heart, her voice carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling. "...Filter what?"
"Filter the 'toxins' that are corroding your soul when you 'leech' power from the Dark Dimension."
Arthur said it lightly.
But as soon as he finished speaking, the temperature of the entire space dropped to freezing! The air seemed to solidify, and the killing intent almost overflowed.
The Ancient One didn't respond.
The space around her began to collapse, revealing pitch-black cracks. This was not a spell, but the crushing of the laws of reality when the Sorcerer Supreme was truly intent on killing!
A terrifying pressure, capable of instantly crushing ten Mordos into idiots, slammed down towards Arthur like a tsunami!
However, a faint purple light lit up on Arthur's [Mana Shield].
Let her be strong; the breeze blows over the mountain.
This pressure didn't even lift the corner of his clothes; he didn't even change his sitting posture, remaining calm and composed.
"This matter..." the Ancient One's voice was cold enough to drop ice shards. "No one else knows."
"Now there is." Arthur blew away the tea foam nonchalantly. "Don't worry, I have no interest in snitching. I can't be bothered with the messy business of those old guys, the Vishanti. I am just talking business—"
He paused and threw out his chips, word by word: "You give me knowledge, and I will give you a way out. A way out where you don't have to pay high-interest loans to Dormammu, and you don't have to use your soul to pay off debts."
Dead silence.
The spatial cracks symbolizing killing intent twisted madly behind her, ready to devour anyone at any time.
After a moment, the Ancient One slowly put down the teacup.
Clatter—
The overwhelming pressure and spatial cracks instantly dissipated cleanly, as if nothing had happened.
"The filtration model you mentioned," she switched back to her calm, unmoved mage persona, but her eyes became extremely serious. "What is the principle?"
"Your problem is that when you absorb dark energy, the channel is unprotected. It's like, to quench your thirst, you drink nuclear wastewater directly from the bottle; it would be strange if you didn't die."
Arthur gave a straightforward analogy.
"My model can install a high-dimensional arcane filter between you and Dormammu. It only keeps the pure energy and blocks all that messy contamination outside. This is called 'leeching' Dormammu without paying interest."
"Are you sure this thing works for our magic system?"
"Master, open your perspective." Arthur smiled confidently. "I destroyed Mordo's spell circuits with just one finger earlier. My arcane system can crush your energy structure at the underlying logic level. Installing a filter is a piece of cake."
The Ancient One was silent for a moment.
She slowly stood up, pressed her hands together, and nodded solemnly to Arthur.
This was an ancient Eastern gesture representing the highest respect.
"Deal," she said. "From today, you are a VIP of Kamar-Taj. All areas of the library are open to you without restrictions."
Arthur also stood up and replied casually, "Pleasure doing business."
The two walked out of the space one after the other. The Ancient One waved her hand, and the Mirror Dimensionshattered like a bubble, and the gloom of the sewer took over reality again.
The Ancient One looked up, her gaze seemingly piercing through the ground, looking towards the boundless deep space.
Her expression changed.
The composure from the earlier trade discussion vanished, replaced by a suffocating gravity.
"There is one more thing." She didn't turn back, her voice filled with deep exhaustion. "When you closed the portal earlier, didn't you notice anything unusual?"
"What unusual thing?"
"That was not an ordinary spatial crack at all."
The Ancient One slowly turned around, her eyes reflecting a terrifying scene of stars collapsing.
"There is another parallel Universe that is having a physical... massive collision with us."
Arthur's heart skipped a beat.
"And," the Ancient One's voice was bone-chilling, like a doomsday verdict, "the collision speed is skyrocketing. If we don't intervene... the two Universes will eventually collide completely, and then... perish together."
Chapter 46: Zero-Cost Shopping in the Library, the Prototype of the Mage Tower
The library of Kamar-Taj is located deep within an inconspicuous courtyard in Kathmandu.
From the outside, it is just a plain, peeling wooden door. But once pushed open, one is greeted by a massive folded space that completely shatters Newton's coffin lid.
Layers upon layers of mahogany bookshelves, like towering ancient trees, extend from the bluestone floor to the deep dome at the edge of vision. Tens of thousands of ancient books and scrolls rest in silence amidst the pale golden magical glimmer.
The air is filled with the scent of old parchment and dry preservative spices; one deep breath feels like catching the lingering trace of surging magic.
"Not bad." Arthur stands at the entrance, one hand in his pocket, offering a fairly objective assessment.
"The capacity is roughly one-third of the Dalaran library. Although a bit crude, in a low-magic plane like Earth, it counts as a miracle."
Behind him, a short, stocky Asian man with a stern face stands with his arms crossed, staring at him with a look like he's guarding against a thief.
Wong. The Chief Librarian of Kamar-Taj, a veteran mage who values these books more than his own life.
"The Sorcerer Supreme said you could come to read, this is her special permission, I will not interfere." Wong's tone is as cold as a stone, revealing undisguised rejection.
"But in my territory, there are three iron rules: First, you are not allowed to take away even a single page of paper; Second, you are not allowed to use any destructive magic; Third—"
He looks up and down at Arthur's casual dark hoodie, his brows furrowing even tighter: "You are not allowed to eat in the library, and drinking water is not allowed either."
Arthur smiles: "Is there a fourth rule?"
"No."
"That's good, I'm in a hurry."
Wong snorts coldly and turns to walk toward the deepest part of the bookshelves. A moment later, with a dull "thud," he slams a stack of heavy ancient books, taller than himself, onto a wooden table.
Dust mixed with magical debris rises, making the air murky.
"These are the documents on spatial coordinates and dimensional topology you asked for." Wong brushes the dust off his hands, a mischievous smirk hidden at the corner of his mouth.
"By the way, I'll remind you that these are all untranslated original unique copies. They include ancient Sanskrit, lost ancient Latin, and those two at the bottom are even in the hieroglyphic water-wave script from before Atlantis sank."
He leans against a nearby pillar, arms crossed, in a posture of watching a show.
"No index, no catalog, no modern annotations. Take your time, I'll keep you company here."
The tone clearly says: Let's see how long you can keep up the act; if you can recognize all the characters, I lose.
Arthur lowers his head and flips casually through the top book, which is made entirely of some unknown magical beast hide.
The dense, tadpole-like twisted Sanskrit symbols on the title page are not only gibberish to ordinary people, but staring at them for too long can even cause mental derangement.
"Hmm, it is indeed quite primitive." Arthur nods, then with a "snap," closes the book and puts it back in its place.
Wong raises an eyebrow, just about to mock him with "It's not too late to give up now."
Then, he sees a terrifying scene that he will never forget in this life or the next.
Arthur closes his eyes, his hands leisurely clasped behind his back.
[Arcane Wisdom (Advanced)], activate.
Boom—!
In Wong's spirit vision, it is as if a supernova has been instantly ignited in Arthur's mind! Blinding azure arcane radiance radiates from his body.
His cognitive processing speed climbs geometrically at this moment, transforming into a quantum computer that surpasses the scope of Earth's technological understanding! Information reception, analysis, storage—multi-dimensional synchronization, operating in parallel!
Immediately after, Arthur releases his mana.
It is not the crude energy outpouring of the Kamar-Tajmages, but a microscopic force field manipulation that is chillingly precise.
Countless invisible arcane force threads, a hundred times thinner than a strand of hair, spread out from Arthur's body, precisely wrapping around the stack of ancient books on the table that weighs over a hundred pounds.
"Clatter—!"
All the books, at the same time, open by themselves.
Not flipping one page at a time, but flipping frantically at a terrifying speed of hundreds of pages per second! The pages create a continuous crisp sound as they rub against the air.
Those obscure and difficult ancient characters, under the arcane scan, turn into pure information streams, rushing frantically into Arthur's brain along the force threads.
Wong's arms, previously crossed, drop suddenly; his mouth opens bit by bit, and a meaningless "uh-uh" sound comes from his throat, his CPU clearly on the verge of burning out.
But this is just a warm-up.
The deep blue arcane force threads spread and climb along the gaps in the bluestone floor, like a huge, inescapable spider web, covering the entire library in the blink of an eye!
Wong's eyes almost pop out of his head—tens of thousands of ancient books fly out on their own from the bookshelves over a dozen meters high!
They arrange themselves into an extremely spectacular three-dimensional matrix in mid-air, opening simultaneously, flipping pages simultaneously, and being forcibly scanned by that vast, boundless power simultaneously!
[Ding! Recording MCU basic spatial node data... Translating ancient Sanskrit... Complete.]
[Ding! Recording dimensional barrier topology theory... Parsing Sumerian cuneiform... Complete.]
[Ding! Advanced forbidden book area detected... High-dimensional mental contamination discovered... Overriding scan and forcibly purifying...]
Hearing the system prompt, Arthur opens his eyes and glances at the deepest part of the library.
There are a dozen black magic forbidden books locked by heavy iron chains. They seem to sense they are being peeped at; the surface of their covers glows with a scarlet light, attempting to release a curse.
Arthur sneers.
"Suppress."
The rough arcane force threads instantly turn into sharp blades, silently cutting into the gaps of the iron chains, instantly shredding those weak dark magical energies.
Then, they forcibly flip open those pages that have been sealed for hundreds of years, stripping the content word for word and copying it into the system database.
[Ding! All available data recorded. Total documents: 104,592 volumes. Time taken: 9 minutes 47 seconds.]
[System prompt: Deep-level integration of MCU spatial coordinate theory with Host's [Teleportation] in progress... Integration complete. Casting pre-cast animation canceled.]
Arthur exhales a breath of stale air, the blue light in his eyes gradually fading.
"Swish—"
The tens of thousands of books in mid-air return to their original places like tired birds returning to their nests, landing extremely steadily. Neatly, seamlessly, without leaving even a crease on a single page.
No, not only are there no creases, but it is even neater than before.
Because the system, having an obsessive-compulsive episode, casually rearranged the entire chaotic library according to "dimension-era-energy level."
Arthur turns around and looks at Wong.
This librarian is still maintaining the posture of his chin almost dropping to his chest, his eyes staring blankly, his whole person like a stone statue, motionless.
Arthur walks over and pats his stiff shoulder in a very friendly manner.
"To be honest, your classification catalog is too terrible; finding a book is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I just helped you restructure the index system; you don't need to thank me."
He thinks for a moment, then kindly adds: "By the way, the binding threads of those forbidden books are loose; I suggest you replace them with a batch of mithril chains. Those rusty broken iron chains you have now, who can they stop?"
Wong's lips tremble violently, still unable to make any sound.
Arthur doesn't stay any longer; his right hand doesn't even draw a circle, he just snaps his fingers casually in the air.
"Hum—"
An incomparably smooth, mirror-edged azure portal opens instantly in front of him. Coordinates: New York, Manhattan, his high-end apartment.
After integrating the Kamar-Taj spatial data, his Teleportation has completely broken free from the shackles of the Sling Ring, as stable as stepping over the threshold of his own bedroom.
"Goodbye, Mr. Librarian."
He steps into the portal, his figure disappearing into the blue light, the portal instantly contracting into a point of light and dissipating without a trace.
The library returns to a deathly silence.
Wong stands in place for a full minute before slowly closing his mouth like a rusty machine and swallowing a mouthful of saliva.
He walks to the bookshelf like a sleepwalker, pulls out a heavy magic tome, and opens the title page.
Where it was originally blank, there is now a page of catalog engraved with magic. The classification is extremely precise, the index is clear and understandable, and there are even thoughtful cross-reference suggestions marked on the side.
This is goddamn tens of thousands of times better than the draft he spent twenty years organizing! It's simply a dimensionality-reduction strike!
Wong is silent for a long time, so long that the sky outside begins to darken.
Then he silently takes out his phone, his fingers trembling, and sends a message to the Ancient One.
[Sorcerer Supreme... He copied the content of all the books. All of them. It took less than ten minutes. Also... he helped me redo the catalog. It's better than mine.]
One minute later, the Ancient One replies with one word.
[Hmm.]
Wong stares at the light, airy "Hmm" on the screen for a long time, takes a deep breath, stuffs his phone back into his pocket, then sits down on the ground, his Dao heart completely shattered.
...
At the same time, New York, Manhattan.
The moment the blue light of the portal lights up and extinguishes in the center of the apartment living room, just as Arthur's toes touch the expensive carpet, his keen arcane perception captures an anomaly.
A life sign that shouldn't be here.
Breathing is steady, heart rate is low, no magical fluctuation whatsoever. This is definitely not some petty thief, but rather an arrogant visitor who has been waiting for a long time and has already treated this place as his own office.
The living room lights are not on; it is dim. The bustling neon night of New York pours in through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, outlining a highly oppressive silhouette on the leather sofa.
Black leather jacket, black eyepatch.
And that single eye glowing with a cold light in the darkness.
"Good evening, Mr. Lin." Nick Fury sits with his legs crossed, acting profound, even holding a glass of bourbon he poured himself from Arthur's kitchen.
"Your apartment has good taste, but this security system is really lacking."
The voice of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director is low and hoarse, carrying the posture of a superior who controls everything, attempting to preemptively strike with his aura.
However, Arthur doesn't even lift an eyelid.
"Snap."
Arthur snaps his fingers casually.
"Boom!" All the lights in the apartment instantly turn on to maximum power, the blinding white light directly pressing the "Godfather of the Night" vibe into the ground and rubbing it.
Fury's only remaining eye squints sharply from the strong light, he subconsciously raises his hand to block it, and his aura instantly leaks away by half.
"Whether my security system is bad or not depends on whether I want you to die, Director Fury."
Arthur walks to the bar, pours himself a glass of ice water, his tone as casual as if he were evaluating a stray dog on the roadside.
"If I had activated the 'Arcane Alert Force Field' just now, there wouldn't even be ash left of you, let alone you sitting here drinking my liquor."
He turns around, looking down at the other person: "Speak, for trespassing, do you want to leave behind a hand, or your other eye?"
Chapter 47: The One-Eyed Director's Open Plot
Arthur looked at Fury, who was sitting brazenly on his leather sofa. He didn't get angry, nor was he surprised, as if he were watching a B-movie with terrible acting.
Without even turning his head, he walked straight to the open kitchen and poured himself a cup of Americano to the hum of the coffee machine.
"Speak, how did you track me down?" Arthur held his cup, his tone as indifferent as if he were asking what to eat today.
Fury put down his whiskey, pulled a vintage-looking yellow instrument from his leather jacket pocket, and slapped it onto the glass coffee table with a "snap."
A Geiger counter.
"When you handled the nuclear missile on the roof of Stark Tower, your magic did clear away most of the radiation, but it left behind some special, rapidly decaying particles." Furyleaned forward, his one eye locked onto Arthur. "This stuff isn't on the periodic table; my top scientists pulled all-nighters for three days just to extract a few molecules from the air samples."
He reached out and tapped the counter.
"Coulson carried it around Manhattan for two days like a scavenger. No electronic signals, no energy fluctuations, just pure physical searching. For your max-level magical defenses, this most primitive, clumsy method is actually the only blind spot."
Arthur leaned against the bar counter and took a sip of coffee. He knew clearly that this trick was actually quite interesting.
His arcane defenses guarded against high-energy detection, mental perception, and even soul prying. For this "physical tracking" that was primitive to the extreme, it was indeed a small loophole.
However, it was just a matter of patching it.
"So what?" Arthur tapped the side of his cup. "The dignified Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. sneaking into my house like a thief in the middle of the night, just to show off your Agent's step count?"
Fury stood up, trying to regain some presence. He pulled a thick file from his coat and pushed it across the coffee table.
The cover was printed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle emblem, and the title was in bold black font: "Top Secret Agreement for Freelance Consultant of the Avengers."
"The Battle of New York is over, but the trouble has just begun." Fury's tone was low, carrying his ancestral savior-complex cadence. "The Chitauri were just an appetizer; there are plenty of monsters in the deep Universe eyeing Earth. You possess the top-tier power on this Planet."
He paused, then directly plagiarized the famous quote from a certain teenager in spandex: "With great power, comes great responsibility."
Arthur put down his cup without even looking at the file.
"Are you done with the empty promises?"
"This agreement grants you absolute freedom. No clocking in, no reporting, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources are at your disposal. You only need to act when an S-Rank threat breaks out..."
"Fury." Arthur interrupted his spellcasting directly; his voice wasn't loud, but the sense of oppression was immense.
He raised his right hand and casually snapped his fingers toward the night sky outside the window.
"Snap."
The sound was crisp. Outside the window, it was still the neon lights of New York; no explosions, no fire.
But the expression of having everything under control on Fury's face collapsed completely after holding for only three seconds.
Because three blood-curdling screams suddenly erupted from the micro-earpiece hidden in his ear.
"Fuck! Help!"
"Officer! I'm flying! Gravity is gone!"
"What the hell is pulling me!"
On the rooftop of the office building opposite. Three S.H.I.E.L.D. elites holding high-precision sniper rifles were being forcibly pulled into mid-air by invisible arcane power, in a posture that would infuriate Newton.
[Slow Fall] stripped away gravity, and [Gust] provided the push.
The three grown men, like plastic bags, traced three perfect parabolas in the night sky, flying over two blocks.
"Splash! Splash! Splash!" They slammed precisely into the freezing Hudson River, with terrible splash control.
Throughout the whole process, Arthur didn't even turn his head, as if he had just swatted away three mosquitoes.
The splashing sounds in Fury's earpiece lasted for ten seconds, then turned into the Agents' collapsing retching and cursing.
No one died, but the level of insult was absolutely maxed out.
Fury's one eye sank, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Out of Agent instinct, his right hand subconsciously reached for the Stark-modified sidearm at his waist.
"I suggest you take your hand away." Arthur's tone was lazy. "Otherwise, you'll be the next one going for a winter swim in the Hudson River. And with that leather jacket, I doubt you'll float."
Fury's hand froze.
As the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was rational enough. The situation was clear: drawing a gun in front of Arthur was pure stupidity.
This was exactly where he was smarter than those rigid mages of Kamar-Taj—if you can't beat them, stand at attention.
"I am not your foot soldier, so don't use that routine you use to fool the Avengers to disgust me." Arthur hooked his finger, and the top-secret agreement on the coffee table flew into his hand.
He didn't even flip through it; arcane flames of ghostly blue ignited at his fingertips, instantly burning the file into ashes, which fell precisely into the trash can.
"I don't sign indentures, and I am not under anyone's jurisdiction."
Arthur walked up to Fury, the absolute gap in strength bringing a suffocating sense of pressure.
"If you dare to set up snipers at my doorstep again, I will turn your Triskelion building and all the Agents inside into a pigsty. Remember, I mean it literally; my mass Transformation Magic doesn't discriminate by species."
The air was deathly silent.
Fury was silent for five seconds, his brain frantically calculating the gains and losses.
Then, the tense cheeks of the Agent leader suddenly relaxed, and he actually smiled. It was the smile of an old fox who thought, "I knew this trick wouldn't work."
"Fine, Mr. Lin, I've received your stance." Fury pulled a black USB drive with top-level encryption from another pocket and placed it on the coffee table.
He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and slowly backed toward the door.
"Since you don't want to be a savior, then just be a good neighbor. It's only right for neighbors to occasionally share information."
Retreating to the door, he pointed at the USB drive.
"There's a coordinate inside. Eastern Europe, Sokovia. The HYDRA remnant Baron Strucker has a hidden Base there. Intelligence shows he is using Loki's scepter to conduct human experiments."
Fury dropped the official tone, his voice full of temptation. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mess right now; I can't spare any manpower. And honestly, the energy fluctuations in that place are too bizarre; my people don't dare to touch it."
He opened the door, half his body hidden in the shadows.
"But I guess you'll be interested. After all, you've been searching the World for 'high-order energy sources,' right? Just consider it a housewarming gift from a neighbor."
"Bang."
The door closed. The footsteps quickly faded away; the old fox slipped away faster than anyone.
Arthur looked at the USB drive on the coffee table and was so angry he laughed.
An open plot. A thorough, open plot. Fury never expected to suppress him with waste paper and snipers; the real killer move was this USB drive!
Using high-order energy as bait to drive him to pull out the HYDRA nail. Getting a max-level fighter for free.
"Your scheme is so obvious it's hitting me in the face, Egghead." Arthur picked up the USB drive, arcane light glowing at his fingertips, ready to crush it along with Fury's scheming.
However, at that very instant!
The system panel that had been silent for a long time in his mind suddenly erupted with blinding scarlet light!
A top-level alert box with a skull icon forcibly popped up, dominating his entire field of vision:
[!!! Top Secret System Emergency Alert!!!]
[Detected high-dimensional potential energy source (Universe ultra-rare rank)!]
[Energy Type 1: Chaos Magic (Unawakened) — Compatibility with Host's Arcane Origin: 97.3%!]
[Energy Type 2: Speed Force (Mutated Gene) — Compatibility with Host's Space Laws: 82.1%!]
[Warning: This energy is perfectly complementary to the Host's arcane system! If analyzed and absorbed, the Host will break through the life dimension!]
[System strongly recommends: Proceed to capture immediately! Do not miss this!]
[Coordinate Source: USB drive in hand — Eastern Europe, Sokovia.]
Arthur's hand holding the USB drive suddenly paused, and for the first time, an expression of extreme shock appeared on his face, which had been calm for ten thousand years.
Chaos Magic!
A terrifying compatibility of 97.3%!
You have to know, previously he had gone to great lengths to get a fragment of a dimensional demon god, and the compatibility was only a mere 40%!
He looked at the USB drive in his hand that he had almost destroyed, his heartbeat accelerating, and finally, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"Fury, oh Fury..." Arthur laughed wantonly and arrogantly. "You smart-aleck old fox, you have no idea how fat this piece of meat you threw out to use as a knife to kill is!"
He decisively pressed the USB drive against his forehead, his mental power turning into an arcane probe to force an entry.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s proudest top-level encryption was like a sheet of window paper before the massive arcane computing power; it was pierced through in an instant.
A holographic map unfolded in his mind.
Eastern Europe. Sokovia. HYDRA castle. Loki's scepter.
And the two names marked as "Test Subjects" on the file:
Wanda Maximoff.
Pietro Maximoff.
Once awakened, the terrifying twin stars capable of overturning the Marvel Universe's landscape!
Arthur turned and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The thousands of lights of New York outside were not worth mentioning in his eyes at this moment.
"Since you've delivered this windfall to my doorstep, then I won't be polite."
He raised his right hand, surging magic power gathering frantically, and blue electric arcs burst into the air.
A large, extremely complex cross-continental teleportation circle formed at his feet, and the dazzling runes instantly illuminated half of the Manhattan night sky.
Coordinate locked: Eastern Europe, Sokovia secret Base.
"Chaos Magic..." Arthur's eyes were burning. "This is a total win!"
"Boom!"
The teleportation circle's light exploded, space distorted violently, and instantly swallowed Arthur's figure.
The luxury apartment returned to deathly silence. Only the steaming coffee on the bar counter and the paper ashes in the trash can proved that a confrontation capable of changing the World's landscape had just occurred here.