Chapter 35: Pierce's Death Wish, Aiming the Cannons at the Safe House
Washington, the top floor of the Triskelion.
The thick smell of gunpowder mixed with the aroma of high-end cigar tobacco permeated the Director's office, which was in complete disarray.
"Director Pierce, I suspect you must be regretting not having purchased a high-value accidental death insurance policy in advance by now."
Nick Fury's only remaining eye glinted with a cold light. The Glock pistol in his hand was pressed hard against Alexander Pierce's mandible, the cold sensation of the barrel conducting directly into Pierce's nerves through his skin.
Facing the muzzle pressed against his fatal point, Pierce's body merely stiffened slightly. There was no expected panic or begging for mercy; instead, a creepy, sinister grin slowly tugged at the corner of his wrinkled face.
Like a madman who had lost all his chips but still attempted to flip the gambling table, a hoarse, low laugh rolled from his throat: "Fury... you always like to jump out at the last moment. But have you forgotten that the one standing here is the supreme leader of HYDRA?"
"It's over, Pierce." Steve Rogers stepped forward, the edge of his Vibranium shield still dripping with the blood of HYDRA Agents. "The main cannon of the first helicarrierhas been blocked. Order the remaining two helicarriers to land immediately and shut down the underlying protocol of the Insight Project."
"Over?" A trace of extreme, morbid fanaticism flashed in the depths of Pierce's eyes.
He slowly raised his hands, making a standard gesture of surrender. Seeing this, Steve's tensed muscles relaxed slightly.
But this was merely a feint to deceive everyone.
As an old fox who had been lurking in S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades, Pierce knew all too well how to use body language to create an intelligence gap. The moment his hands were raised above his head, his jaw muscles tightened abruptly, and his back molars clenched fiercely.
"Click."
A tiny, crisp sound exploded deep within his mouth. It was a micro-biological trigger hidden in his dental pulp, directly connected to the core mainframe at the lowest level of S.H.I.E.L.D., a "backdoor" that only he knew about.
Fury's Agent intuition sounded a frantic alarm at this moment. Ignoring Pierce's raised hands, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Bang!"
Gunfire erupted. The bullet did not Pierce Pierce's head but accurately penetrated his right shoulder.
Pierce gave a muffled groan, fresh blood instantly staining his expensive custom-made suit. He clutched his bleeding shoulder and collapsed into the leather swivel chair, yet laughed wantonly regardless of the pain.
Too late. Everything was too late.
A harsh, synthetic electronic sound echoed crazily throughout the entire office without warning, drowning out all the alarms:
"Highest biological command confirmed. 'Insight Project' final protocol initiated. Number two and number three helicarriers, main cannons fully charged. Target locked: Coordinates outside Brooklyn, New York. Execute indiscriminate saturation strike."
Natasha's expression changed drastically, her red hair whipping an arc in mid-air. She lunged toward the console, her hands turning into blurs on the keyboard, attempting to forcibly cut off the command.
A few seconds later, she punched the metal panel and turned back, gritting her teeth: "The authorization is completely locked! Physical disconnection is also ineffective! The fire control systems of these two helicarriers have completely detached from the mainframe and entered an irreversible self-destruct firing sequence!"
"Are you crazy?!" Sam Wilson, holding his gun, stared at Pierce in disbelief. "If the main cannons of both helicarriers fire simultaneously, that neighborhood will be completely wiped off the map! Tens of thousands of civilians will be buried with you!"
"So what?" Pierce leaned back against the chair, blood dripping through his fingers, yet his eyes were terrifyingly bright.
He stared viciously at Steve, his tone filled with the madness of someone going down with the ship: "Fury, Steve, you don't understand what true despair is! That low-level Agent named Lynn is not a victim at all; he is that Witch's only 'Jade'!"
Pierce gasped for air, as if reciting some vicious curse: "As long as that piece of Jade is completely crushed, that monster who possesses the power to modify reality will lose all her sanity! She will become a nuclear bomb that destroys the World! If I can't live, then let the entire Earthbe buried with HYDRA's noble ideals!"
Fury's only eye contracted violently, cold sweat instantly soaking his black trench coat. The thing he feared most had been pushed into acceleration by this madman's own hand.
...
The gaze spanned hundreds of kilometers.
Outside Brooklyn, New York, the safe house.
The burnt smell in the air was suffocatingly thick. The strong wind picked up the ashes carbonized by high heat on the lawn, slapping them fiercely against the dilapidated walls.
Above the firmament, the clouds that had been forcibly torn apart by Wanda's Chaos Magic were now roiling like boiling ink. Two steel shadows as massive as mountains squeezed violently into this night sky, accompanied by sound-breaking sonic booms.
Number two and number three helicarriers.
Two war behemoths representing the highest current killing technology of humanity hovered on the left and right at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Deep blue energy matrices were gathering frantically on their hideous bottom armor, the light twice as dazzling as the first helicarrier just now.
The target coordinates were still locked tightly onto this crumbling safe house.
Lynn sat on the soft leather sofa, his Top-tier Spider-Sensein his mind feeling like ten thousand steel needles were stabbing his nerves simultaneously, frantically sounding a lethal warning.
He raised his head, looking past the completely flipped-off roof at those two main cannons in the sky capable of vaporizing everything, his back molars clenching secretly.
"This old dog Pierce, still playing this kind of mutual destruction trick before dying?"
Lynn complained frantically in his heart. Rather than watching nuclear bombs fall from the sky here, or watching two yandere heroines fight over him, he now missed the days of watching anime in front of the screen before transmigrating. Even eating a bowl of Ichiraku Ramen or having barbecue under the sunset at the training ground would be far better than being locked on by a 30,000-foot orbital cannon now.
But he knew his current situation too well. At this moment, he must absolutely not show even the slightest bit of panic.
Because in this killing field, he was the "Vessel" that had to stabilize the big picture.
Ten meters away from the sofa, Gwen Stacy, standing in the broken glass shards, was gasping for air.
Her Ghost Spider suit, interwoven with pure white and bright pink, still had scorched marks from resisting the high heat earlier. Under the mask, her bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the two helicarriers in the sky, her pupils shrunken to the size of needlepoints due to extreme fear and paranoia.
"It's this thing again... it's this thing that wants to take him away from me again!"
Gwen's fingernails dug deeply into her palms, fresh blood dripping onto the dilapidated floor. Like an extremely stubborn rogue ninja, only the thought of protecting their bond remained in her mind.
She didn't care whether her stamina was exhausted or how terrifying the firepower of those two helicarriers was. Her legs exerted force suddenly, and she leaped high like a protective mother leopard.
Her wrists vibrated frantically, dozens of special spider-webs shot out, weaving crazily on the ceiling wreckage above Lynn's head. She attempted to use her own body and spider-webs to forcibly weave a protective net above Lynn.
Even if it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, she would die before Lynn.
However, faster and more violent than her was that flash of scarlet suspended in mid-air.
Wanda Maximoff.
This Skyfather-level Chaos Witch was looking down at all of this from a high vantage point.
The pajamas she was wearing, originally lazy and homey, snapped in the violent energy turbulence. Her eyes had completely lost their whites, completely filled with scarlet particles that were so thick they seemed capable of dripping blood.
Just a moment ago, she had crushed a helicarrier with one hand. But these ants of HYDRA dared to use this kind of junk to threaten her only man right under her nose.
Moreover, there was a reckless White spider nearby who actually attempted to snatch the right to protect Lynn in her territory.
Absolute possessiveness.
Pure, extreme desire for destruction.
These two emotions exploded in Wanda's chest, turning into tangible killing intent, causing the temperature of the surrounding space to plummet to freezing point.
"Get lost."
Wanda glanced coldly at Gwen, who was weaving a web, and flicked her fingertips slightly.
A scarlet energy whip lashed onto Gwen's web without warning. The special spider-webs, capable of withstanding several tons of tension, were like fragile cotton threads in front of Chaos Magic, instantly snapping and dissipating.
Gwen was forced to roll three times in mid-air by this recoil, landing on one knee, staring fixedly at Wanda, a Beast-like low growl issuing from her throat.
But Wanda didn't even look at her again.
The Witch slowly raised her head, her scarlet gaze piercing through the distance of 30,000 feet, locking tightly onto the two helicarriers crazily charging in the clouds.
"You... are truly damned."
Wanda's voice was not loud, yet it carried a terrifying pressure that transcended all rules of the Multiverse.
As her words fell, the surrounding space began to show visible, violent distortions. Gravity failed completely at this moment, and dozens of tons of building debris, mud, and even broken oak trees around the safe house all floated uncontrollably into mid-air.
The two helicarriers in the sky had completed their final charge, and two deep blue destruction beams with diameters exceeding ten meters, carrying the momentum to level everything, crashed down.
Just at this critical moment.
Wanda raised her hands abruptly, her ten fingers spreading out suddenly as if playing a symphony of Worlddestruction.
The night sky of all New York changed color completely in this instant.
Chapter 36: Who Allowed You to Attack Him! The Scarlet Witch's Rampage
At an altitude of 30,000 feet, two deep blue beams of light, each over ten meters in diameter, slammed down.
The moisture in the air was completely evaporated in 0.01 seconds.
The temperature of tens of thousands of degrees instantly vaporized the clouds along the way, and the pungent smell of ozone mixed with the burnt scent of scorched earth flooded into Lynn's nostrils.
The gale was like a knife, cutting through the dilapidated walls.
Lynn sat upright on the leather sofa, his back straight.
The intense light overhead cast a pale glow on his profile, but he didn't even blink, and even had the leisure to raise his hand and brush the ash from his cuffs.
"This woman's morning grumpiness is even worse than I imagined," Lynn muttered to himself.
As the 'vessel' at the center of this storm, he knew his position all too well.
Moving around at this time would only affect the output of a Skyfather-level powerhouse.
He just needed to sit here quietly, acting as a piece of 'jade' that needed absolute protection, and Wanda's desire for destruction would automatically clear all obstacles for him.
In mid-air, Wanda's thin loungewear snapped violently in the turbulent airflow.
She slowly raised her head.
Those eyes, originally clear, had now completely lost their whites, entirely filled by thick, crimson particles that looked like tangible blood plasma.
"Who allowed you..."
Wanda's voice was not loud, but it eerily drowned out the sonic boom of the main cannons, slamming clearly into everyone's eardrums.
"...to attack him?!"
Accompanied by the sharp roar of the last half-sentence, Wanda suddenly lifted her hands upward, her ten fingers spreading out as if playing the piano.
Boom!
No incantations, no charging.
Violent Chaos Magic erupted from her thin body like a tidal wave in reverse.
The night sky over the outskirts of Brooklyn was dyed a suffocating blood-red in that instant.
The deep blue beam of destruction slammed violently into the crimson tsunami.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, nor any shockwave of mutually canceling energy.
It was an extremely eerie 'devouring'.
The orbital cannon energy, sufficient to instantly level half a city block, the moment it touched the Chaos Particles, was like a snowflake falling into strong acid—it didn't even bubble before its underlying physical rules were directly modified, instantly annihilating into red light spots scattering across the sky.
"This... how is this possible?"
Ten meters away, Gwen Stacy, kneeling on one knee in the ruins, suddenly raised her head.
Under her mask, her bloodshot eyes were wide open.
Even though she had crossed the Universe, and even though she possessed extremely keen Spider-Sense, she felt a tremor in her brain at this moment.
That was not a confrontation of power; it was a dimensional crushing of low dimensions by high dimensions!
But the paranoia in Gwen's eyes did not recede; instead, it burned even more crazily.
She stared fixedly at the calm man on the sofa, her fingernails digging deep into the soft flesh of her palms.
"He is being controlled by such a monster... He must be in so much pain. I must take him back!"
Ghost Spider's logic had completely closed the loop, treating Lynn entirely as a tragic princess imprisoned by a demon king.
Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers away in Washington, on the top floor of the Triskelion.
Inside the Director's office, there was a deathly oppression.
On the giant tactical screen, the progress bar representing the firepower output of the two helicarriers had been pushed to a 120% overload state, but the life signs at the target coordinates had not disappeared; instead, they erupted with a terrifying energy pressure that caused all detectors to crash.
"Warning! Energy backflow detected in the main cannon of helicarrier No. 2!"
"Warning! Unknown distortion in the gravitational field of helicarrier No. 3!"
Harsh synthesized electronic sounds echoed crazily in the room.
The veins on the back of Steve Rogers's hand, gripping his Vibranium shield, bulged.
His Super Soldier Serum, which he was so proud of, seemed like a ridiculous toy in the face of that reality-tearing crimson storm on the screen.
"What kind of power is this..."
Sam Wilson swallowed, his mechanical wings emitting a grating sound of grinding gears uncontrollably.
Alexander Pierce, slumped in his leather swivel chair, no longer had the arrogance of a cornered beast from just a moment ago.
He clutched his bleeding shoulder, staring fixedly at the screen, his whole body shaking like a sieve.
On the screen, after consuming the main cannon beams, the crimson energy tsunami did not stop.
Like living abyssal pythons, they surged forward against gravity along the trajectory of the beams, directly latching onto the two helicarriers at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
"No... cut the connection! Make the helicarriers gain altitude!"
Pierce roared hoarsely at Rumlow like a drowning man.
"Officer... the engine thrust is already at maximum, but..."
Rumlow's hands were frantically typing on the keyboard, sweat blurring his eyes, his voice filled with undisguised despair, "They... they won't move!"
The external surveillance view on the screen cut in.
The tens of thousands of tons of steel behemoths still had their four massive plasma engines at the rear spitting out blinding exhaust flames, attempting to climb upward.
But it was useless.
Countless crimson magical tentacles had already tightly wrapped around the thick bottom armor of the helicarriers.
The laws of gravity were forcibly altered at this moment, and the two helicarriers were like flies pinned in amber, hovering in mid-air, emitting overwhelming metallic groans.
"Click, click, click—"
The half-meter-thick special alloy shells began to show terrifying, visible indentations under the squeezing of the Chaos Magic.
Pierce's ultimate weapon, which he was so proud of, had turned into two soda cans that could be crushed at any moment in the hands of that Witch.
"What kind of monster have you provoked, Pierce."
Nick Fury narrowed his one remaining eye.
His palms, gripping his gun, were covered in cold sweat.
He knew Lynn was dangerous, but he hadn't expected this trump card in Lynn's hand to be able to directly ignore the pinnacle of human technology.
...
In the outskirts of Brooklyn.
The gale gradually subsided, but the sense of oppression in the air increased exponentially.
Wanda held her hands loosely in front of her chest, her crimson eyes staring coldly at the sky.
A trace of extreme cruelty curled the corners of her mouth.
How could merely freezing these two heaps of scrap metal appease the anger in her heart?
Someone had tried to destroy her only bond right in front of her.
As soon as that thought crossed her mind, Wanda's sanity would slide crazily toward the abyss.
"Since you all like to open fire so much..."
Wanda's voice was as soft as a whisper in a lover's ear, but the words she spat out carried bone-chilling murderous intent, "Then become fireworks."
She twisted her ten fingers inward sharply.
Just at the moment when everyone's attention was drawn to the helicarriers about to be crushed in the sky.
Gwen, who had been lurking in the shadows of the ruins, moved.
Like a silent white bolt of lightning, she used her Spider-Sense to avoid the perimeter of the Chaos Magic, landing directly on the back of the sofa behind Lynn.
Lynn raised an eyebrow slightly; his Spider-Sense had long since detected Gwen's movements, but he did not resist, merely leaning back against the sofa and lowering his voice: "Gwen, are you really trying to die by coming over here now?"
"Shut up, liar."
Gwen's voice was filled with heavy panting and a morbid fervor.
She grabbed Lynn's shirt collar and gave it a hard yank.
Rip.
The buttons flew off, exposing Lynn's left collarbone to the air.
Gwen's gaze was nailed to that patch of skin.
There, was a deep, crescent-shaped bite mark that had already darkened slightly in color.
That was the mark she had left by biting Lynn's shoulder before falling from the Clock Tower in the simulation, in order to make Lynn remember her forever!
"You really... carry all the memories."
Gwen's fingers gently stroked the bite mark, tears instantly bursting forth from under her mask, yet her tone revealed a hair-raising paranoia, "You lied to everyone, you used this old woman as a shield, didn't you?"
Lynn's eye twitched, and he was just about to use his words to stabilize this over-imagining Ghost Spider.
In mid-air.
Wanda, who was just about to completely crush the helicarriers, froze abruptly.
She slowly turned her head, her crimson gaze piercing through the void, locking onto the white figure on the sofa who was almost pressed against Lynn.
The surrounding temperature instantly dropped to absolute zero.
Chapter 37: Tearing Apart a Gundam with Bare Hands, The Destruction of the HYDRA Fleet
Gwen's fingertips were cold, carrying the chill of the night wind.
Through the fabric of his torn shirt, her fingertips pressed firmly against the crescent-shaped bite mark on Lynn's collarbone.
Her breathing beneath the mask was rapid and heavy, like a lone wolf guarding its food, having finally found its long-lost prey.
Lynn leaned against the back of the sofa, not struggling.
His Top-tier Spider-Sense was screaming crazily in his mind, every nerve transmitting signals of fatal danger to him.
This was not because of the paranoid Ghost Spider in front of him, but because of the scarlet figure in mid-air who had already turned around completely.
Wanda saw it.
She saw clearly that a white bug, having crawled out of some unknown sewer, was clinging to her man.
That dirty hand even dared to touch Lynn's skin!
Extreme territorial instinct completely exploded at this moment.
The scarlet particles in Wanda's eyes instantly thickened, as if they were about to drip blood.
The space around her, unable to withstand this terrifying emotional fluctuation, began to show visible, glass-like cracks.
"Where... are you touching?"
Wanda's voice was extremely soft, without hysterical roaring, yet it carried an absolute pressure that transcended all rules of the Multiverse.
Gwen froze.
The fear brought by her Spider-Sense instinctively made her want to retreat, but she bit her lip, forcing herself to withstand this pressure.
Not only did she not retreat, she gripped Lynn's collar even tighter, lifted her head, and met Wanda's gaze without fear.
"I am touching the bond he left behind to save me."
Gwen sneered, her tone filled with pathological provocation, "You old woman, trying to control him, you don't understand at all what he truly wants."
Lynn's eye twitched violently.
This girl really isn't afraid of death.
Outputting to someone's face in front of a Skyfather-levelbigwig; this is even crazier than telling Uchiha Madara he's a piece of trash to his face.
He just wanted to open his mouth to smooth things over, to cool down this shura field that could explode at any moment.
But Wanda had already moved.
The Witch's chest heaved violently.
She didn't directly smash magic toward the sofa because Lynn was there; subconsciously, she was afraid of accidentally hurting her only "jade."
This monstrous jealousy pent up in her chest, enough to destroy the World, urgently needed an outlet.
Thus, Wanda slowly raised her head, her scarlet gaze piercing through the 30,000-foot night sky, locking firmly onto the two helicarriers in the clouds that were still struggling desperately, trying to gain altitude.
"A bunch of eyesores."
Wanda's red lips parted slightly, her hands slammed together in the middle, fingers tightly interlaced.
Boom!
The celestial phenomena above Brooklyn changed completely.
The scarlet tentacles that were originally just wrapped around the bottom armor of the helicarriers, the moment Wanda closed her hands, proliferated and expanded crazily.
Hundreds of Chaos Magic energy pillars with a diameter of over twenty meters, like giant pythons reaching out from the abyss of hell, directly wrapped and enveloped the two steel beasts that were hundreds of meters long.
"Crack—Bang!"
The deafening sound of metal bursting smashed straight down to the ground from an altitude of 30,000 feet.
That wasn't ordinary destruction; that was the pure physical rules being forcibly tampered with.
The half-meter thick special alloy shell, under the strangulation of magic, was as fragile as a thin sheet of paper.
The two helicarriers, representing the pinnacle of human technological crystallization, were forcibly squeezed and twisted inward in mid-air.
The huge main axis snapped.
The fighter jet groups on the deck were crushed like toys.
The four plasma engines capable of pushing tens of thousands of tons, the moment they burst with blinding fire, had their reactors directly extinguished by the backflowing scarlet particles.
Even the explosion's Impact didn't have time to spread before it was completely swallowed.
In just three seconds.
The two behemoths in the sky, under everyone's shocked gaze, were twisted by Wanda with her bare hands into two huge, irregular twists of scrap metal!
"My God..."
Washington, the top floor of the Triskelion.
The assault rifle in Sam Wilson's hand dropped directly to the ground.
He opened his mouth wide, looking at the scene on the tactical screen that looked like a god destroying the World, feeling his legs go weak.
Steve Rogers' hand holding the shield was also trembling slightly.
The Super Soldier Serum he was so proud of couldn't even be considered a joke in the face of this kind of dimension-reduction strike.
"It's over... it's all over..."
Alexander Pierce collapsed beside the leather swivel chair.
He clutched his bleeding shoulder, his eyes staring hollowly at the screen full of static.
Three helicarriers, the ultimate trump card that HYDRAhad spent decades lurking to accumulate, were just like that, in less than ten minutes, crushed by one person—no, by one monster—like squeezing a soda can.
The Insight Project completely became a bubble.
"Fury..."
Pierce wheezed like a broken bellows. He lifted his head, looking at the one-eyed Director walking toward him, and pulled a miserable smile at the corner of his mouth, "You won. But you have also opened Pandora's box. That Agentnamed Lynn... he will take that Witch and drag the entire World into hell."
Fury didn't answer.
His only remaining eye looked coldly at Pierce, and without hesitation, he raised his pistol and aimed it at the center of Pierce's forehead.
"Go and preach the philosophy of HYDRA in hell."
"Bang!"
The gunshot echoed in the dilapidated office.
A blood hole appeared in the center of Pierce's forehead. His body collapsed heavily into the ruins, his eyes still staring fixedly in the direction of the screen, dying with a grievance.
With Pierce's death, the Triskelion, symbolizing the highest power of S.H.I.E.L.D., also let out an unbearable moan due to the shockwave from the Impact of the first helicarrierfalling just now.
The load-bearing walls began to crack over a large area, and concrete fragments from the ceiling fell like raindrops.
"The building is collapsing! Retreat!"
Steve roared, raising his shield to protect his head.
S.H.I.E.L.D., this behemoth that controlled order on the dark side of Earth, along with the ambitions of HYDRA, was declared completely dissolved tonight.
...
New York, outside Brooklyn.
The sky full of steel wreckage fell from the high altitude like a meteor shower, smashing toward the ground with a shrill whistling sound.
But these tons of scrap iron, when they were still a hundred meters above the safe house, hit a translucent scarlet barrier and were instantly vaporized into ashes by the violent magic energy.
Not even a speck of dust could fall into this dilapidated room.
Wanda slowly descended from mid-air.
She wasn't wearing shoes.
Her fair bare feet stepped on the floor full of glass shards and scorched Earth, but those sharp fragments, a second before touching her skin, were automatically ground into powder by magic.
She walked toward the sofa step by step.
The pressure in the air became heavier and heavier, making even breathing extremely difficult.
Gwen suddenly let go of Lynn's collar and landed steadily with a backflip three meters away from the sofa.
With a flick of her wrist, two strands of special spider silk shot out instantly, sticking to the remaining walls on both sides.
Her body lowered, striking an extremely aggressive defensive pose.
Beneath the mask, her Spider-Sense had pushed the danger level to the maximum, but the paranoia in her eyes did not retreat in the slightest.
"Do you think destroying a few piles of scrap metal can scare me off?"
Gwen stared coldly at the approaching Witch, her tone full of hostility.
Wanda stopped walking.
She didn't even look at Gwen directly, instead turning her gaze to Lynn, who was sitting on the sofa.
Looking at Lynn's open collar, looking at that glaring bite mark, the scarlet in Wanda's eyes rolled violently again.
She extended her slender finger and flicked it lightly.
An irresistible force instantly wrapped around Gwen's neck, lifting her straight into mid-air.
"Urgh—"
Gwen gripped the invisible shackles on her neck with both hands, her legs struggling painfully in mid-air.
"I don't care which sewer you crawled out of."
Wanda tilted her head slightly, looking at Gwen, who was suffocating in mid-air, her voice as cold as ice, "And I don't care about those ridiculous fantasies in your head."
She tightened her fingers abruptly.
"Keep your dirty hands away from my man. Whoever touches him, I will grind them into meat paste, bit by bit."
Gwen's face turned red from lack of oxygen, but she still stared fixedly at Wanda, squeezing out intermittent mockery from her throat: "Your... man? On the Clock Tower... when he cut the web... and died for me... he didn't mention you, this... crazy woman!"
This sentence precisely stepped on Wanda's most sensitive nerve.
Died for her?
Lynn, in another Universe, died once for this white bug?!
Wanda's brain went boom, and the string of reason snapped instantly.
The surrounding Chaos Magic went violently out of control, turning into countless sharp scarlet blades, aimed directly at Gwen in mid-air.
Just at this critical moment.
Lynn, who had been sitting on the sofa watching coldly, finally moved.
He didn't use his newly acquired flexible physique to resist the magic, nor did he shout.
He just stood up slowly, brushed the dust off his shirt casually, and then stepped out, walking straight into that field of scarlet blades filled with lethal killing intent.
"Wanda."
Lynn's voice was calm, without a trace of panic, as if he were calling out to a wife who had just had a nightmare.
He ignored the magic blades that were almost touching his skin and walked up to Wanda.
In Wanda's trembling gaze, he reached out and gently grasped the Witch's wrist, which was preparing to strangle Gwen.
Chapter 38: Dust Settles, Lynn's Behind-the-Scenes Harvest
Lynn's fingers were warm, and the heat from his palm penetrated Wanda's cold skin, reaching straight to her taut nerves.
"Wanda."
Lynn's voice was soft, yet it sounded like an irresistible spell.
In mid-air, the scarlet particles churning in the depths of Wanda's eyes suddenly stalled. She turned her head, looking at Lynn, who was within arm's reach; the terrifying pressure capable of tearing space apart halted abruptly the moment it touched Lynn's gaze.
But the Witch's possessiveness did not subside. She bit her lower lip, her chest heaving violently, and her voice carried a chilling paranoia: "She touched you. That dirty bug, her hands touched your skin! She must die!"
"Let her go." Lynn's fingers tightened slightly, his tone carrying an unmistakable refusal to be denied.
Just as Wanda was about to erupt in resistance, and the scarlet in her eyes began to boil again, Lynn's brows suddenly knit together in pain. Without hesitation, he triggered the residual magical backlash within his body, forcibly reversing the energy flow of the Chaos Magicconstitution he had just acquired.
Agonizing pain instantly tore through his meridians, and his complexion turned visibly pale.
"Cough—"
A striking mouthful of fresh blood spilled from the corner of Lynn's mouth, dripping onto his tattered shirt and blooming into a shocking red plum blossom.
"Lynn!"
Wanda's pupils contracted sharply, and that World-destroying killing intent vanished in an instant. She panicked and reflexively grabbed Lynn's hand. Gwen, who had been suspended in mid-air, instantly lost the restraint of the magic shackles and fell heavily into the ruins filled with glass shards, clutching her neck and coughing violently.
"You're hurt... Was it my energy that affected you just now?" Wanda's hands trembled as she cupped Lynn's cheeks, her scarlet eyes overflowing with self-reproach and panic. She didn't even dare to use magic to probe Lynn's body, fearing that her own wild energy would cause secondary damage. In her World, Lynn's safety was above all else, even surpassing the jealousy she had just ignited.
"I'm fine." Lynn took the opportunity to lean into Wanda's arms, resting his chin on her shoulder, and from the blind spot of her vision, he cast a cold glance at Gwen on the ground.
Gwen was half-kneeling in the ruins, gasping for air. Beneath her mask, her bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Lynn, and the paranoia in her eyes not only failed to subside but burned even more crazily because of Lynn's "injury."
"He would rather spit blood himself than let that old Witchprotect her..." Gwen's fingernails dug deep into the charred soil, her logic completely distorted under a pathological filter, "He has been controlled too deeply. I must become stronger to take him back!"
"Take me away." Lynn withdrew his gaze and whispered weakly in Wanda's ear, his warm breath hitting the Witch's neck, "It's too noisy here; I don't like it."
This sentence was like an imperial decree.
A flash of ruthlessness crossed Wanda's eyes. She swept a cold glance at Gwen on the ground, her tone like a God of Death pronouncing a death sentence: "Consider yourself lucky, bug. If I see you within a hundred meters of him again, I will rip your soul out and stuff it into a sewer rat."
Before the words faded, the violent Chaos Magic turned into a dark red spherical shield, firmly wrapping the two of them.
Boom!
The airflow exploded, and Wanda, holding Lynn, shot into the sky, turning into a scarlet meteor that instantly tore through the clouds over the Brooklyn night sky and disappeared without a trace.
Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers away in Washington.
Accompanied by a deafening roar, the last load-bearing wall of the Triskelion completely collapsed.
Tens of thousands of tons of concrete and steel bars poured down like an avalanche, kicking up a gray-white dust storm dozens of meters high. Alexander Pierce's corpse, along with HYDRA's decades of ambition, was completely buried under the bottomless ruins.
Nick Fury stood in a safe zone a few streets away, his only remaining eye staring fixedly at the ruins. The night wind blew, bringing the pungent smell of gunpowder and the disgusting stench of burning.
"It's over." Steve Rogers walked to Fury's side, carrying his scratched Vibranium shield, his voice hoarse and carrying a weariness born from the collapse of his faith, "S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA... it's all history now. We won, but the cost was too high."
"Won?" Fury sneered, turning his head to look at Steve, his single eye full of gravity and wariness, "Captain, do you really think we won?"
Steve frowned: "Pierce is dead, the Insight Project has been destroyed, and the top brass of HYDRA has been almost completely wiped out. Isn't this a victory?"
"Don't you see it yet?" Fury gritted his teeth, his voice extremely low, "From beginning to end, we were just pawns on a chessboard! That Agent named Lynn, he used you to reveal the true face of HYDRA, and then used that Witch's power to destroy the helicarrier. He dismantled the two largest intelligence organizations in the Worldwithout spilling a drop of blood!"
Steve was stunned, and the image of Lynn's tragic and forbearing appearance in the cafe surfaced in his mind, a chill rising inexplicably up his spine.
"The real nightmare has just begun." Fury clenched his fists, "He took away a nuclear bomb capable of destroying the World, and we don't even know his true purpose."
Thirty thousand feet in the air, above the clouds.
The biting gale was completely blocked by the Chaos Magic shield. Wanda held Lynn tightly, her eyes full of heartache and anxiety.
And Lynn, leaning in her arms, had his eyes closed slightly at this moment, a cold, imperceptible sneer curling the corner of his mouth.
He wasn't seriously injured at all. That mouthful of blood was just a routine operation for a master of extreme balance.
At this moment, his brain was running at high speed. Top-tier Spider-Sense was like an all-weather radar, keenly capturing the scanning bands of every Military radar on the ground below.
"Fifteen degrees to the left, avoid the air defense array in Nevada." Lynn secretly planned the route in his heart, while the micro-terminal hidden in his cuff was flashing wildly with deep blue data streams.
In the second before the Triskelion completely collapsed, Lynn used the Level 7 clearance card Pierce gave him, along with a backdoor Trojan horse implanted in the underlying firewall of the Insight Project, to complete an epic "harvest."
"Beep—Data transfer complete."
A crisp prompt sounded in his mind.
Lynn slowly opened his eyes.
The core database accumulated by HYDRA over more than half a century, the coordinates of seventy-three secret Bases across the globe, tons of Vibranium smuggling route maps, and research data on all extraordinary creatures... at this moment, they were all lying quietly in his terminal.
S.H.I.E.L.D. disbanded, HYDRA annihilated. The Avengerswere doubting life in the ruins, and Fury was overwhelmed in the dark.
And he, a Level 3 Agent who was not even as good as cannon fodder at the beginning, had not only eaten up all the trump cards of both warring parties but also freeloaded a Skyfather-level yandere bodyguard, escaping unscathed.
"Lynn, where are we going?" Wanda's soft voice interrupted Lynn's train of thought. She looked down at the man in her arms, the madness in her eyes completely replaced by pathological tenderness. As long as Lynn was by her side, she was the most well-behaved wife.
Lynn looked at a top-secret coordinate file finally decrypted on the terminal screen, his eyes moving slightly.
It was a hidden manor in the suburbs of upstate New York, marked with "HYDRA Safe House - Codename: Eden."
"Go to the suburbs of upstate New York." Lynn raised his hand and gently stroked Wanda's cheek, his tone gentle but carrying undeniable control, "There is an absolutely quiet place there. We are going to build a home of our own."
Hearing "a home of our own," Wanda's eyes lit up. She obediently rubbed against Lynn's palm and accelerated her flight.
Just as Lynn closed the terminal, a scarlet warning pop-up suddenly appeared in the bottom right corner of the screen.
[Warning! Residual highest-level clearance network of S.H.I.E.L.D. detected, releasing top-secret files to the global dark web...]
Lynn's pupils constricted slightly, and he clicked on the file.
It was a file personally signed by Nick Fury. On the cover of the file, photos of Lynn and Wanda were clearly printed, stamped with a glaring black seal:
[Zero Taboo: Absolutely do not make contact, absolutely do not provoke.]
And at the end of this file, there was an encrypted instruction that could only be seen with Director clearance:
"At all costs, find extraordinary powers capable of contending with Chaos Magic. We must find his weakness."
A playful, cold sneer curled the corner of Lynn's mouth.
Find my weakness?
Fury, you have no idea that the group of crazy women around me who would destroy the Universe for me is my most indestructible armor.
Chapter 39: Fury's Fear, Listing Lynn as Zero-Taboo
Underground Bunker. The ventilation ducts emitted a dull humming sound. The air was thick with the pungent odor of medical alcohol and aged machine oil.
For three whole hours, the silent footage on the large screen had been played repeatedly forty-seven times.
It was a low-resolution clip captured by a military satellite. At an altitude of twenty thousand feet, three helicarriers, representing the pinnacle of human military force, were brutally entangled and crushed by countless crimson energy tentacles. The heavy special armor cracked and twisted like water-soaked cardboard, ultimately being crumpled into two heaps of scrap metal before crashing down.
There was no explosion, no flash of fire. There was only the physical laws, extreme in their purity, being forcibly rewritten.
Nick Fury sat on a metal folding chair. His remaining single eye was bloodshot, and the muscles at the corner of his eye twitched uncontrollably. A drop of cold sweat slid down his dark forehead, landing on his tactical vest and leaving a dark water stain.
"Stop it." Fury finally spoke, his voice as hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of gravel.
The Agent in charge of operating the computer felt as if he had been granted an amnesty and immediately hit the Enter key. The screen froze on that crimson figure suspended in mid-air, wreathed in Chaos Magic.
"This is what we are facing." Fury stood up, walked to the screen, and pointed to the tiny, barely visible figure at the edge of the frame—Lynn. "And this is the leash holding that monster."
In the corner, Natasha was applying medicine to the bruise on her neck. As the cotton swab dipped in alcohol wiped across her skin, the stinging sensation made her gasp. Those purple-black fingerprints were terrifyingly deep, having almost crushed her cervical spine.
"It's not a leash." Natasha tossed the cotton swab aside and looked up, her eyes revealing a rare lingering fear. "It's a collar. The Witch's collar is held firmly in his hands. He doesn't even need to speak; a tiny glance from him is enough to make that monster which tore apart the helicarrier withdraw its killing intent."
Steve Rogers leaned against the mottled concrete wall, the scratched Vibranium shield in his hand feeling exceptionally heavy. He recalled that conversation in the Brooklyn cafe.
"He looked me in the eye and told me he was just a helpless low-level Agent." Steve shook his head with a bitter smile. "He even calculated the rhythm of my breathing. We thought we were investigating HYDRA, but in reality, we were just free muscle he used to clean up Pierce."
"Not just that." Natasha pulled up a data report. "This is the physiological monitoring data I intercepted when I infiltrated the safe house. At the moment the Witch went berserk and the helicarrier's main cannons locked onto them... his heart rate was stable at 65 beats per minute."
The Underground Room fell into an oppressive silence.
65 beats.
This meant that in the face of such an apocalyptic crisis, not only did that man feel no fear, but he was in a state of extreme relaxation. He was watching coldly, enjoying the destruction of HYDRA.
Fury felt the cold sweat on his back completely soak through his undershirt. In his thirty years in the business, he had seen alien fleets and mutant monsters, but he had never seen such a lunatic who played everyone in the palm of his hand while remaining deeply hidden.
"HYDRA's trump cards have been devoured by him, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets have been seen through by him." Furywalked to the console, pulled out the keyboard, and quickly entered a thirty-six-digit dynamic password with the highest clearance.
A blood-red file box popped up on the screen. Furydragged the photos of Lynn and Wanda into it and hit the Enter key hard.
[File Encryption Level: Above Omega-class]
[Codename: Zero-Taboo]
"Listen, this is a standing order." Fury turned around, his single eye sweeping over everyone present, his tone chilling. "From now on, withdraw all tracking methods targeting Lynn. Shut down satellite scans and destroy all paper files. Until we find a way to counter that crimson energy, anyone who dares to test him..."
Fury drew the sidearm from his waist and slammed it onto the metal table.
"I will send him to hell myself. The consequences of angering that woman are something this Earth cannot bear."
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, in a remote mountainous area two hundred kilometers from the city.
The cold wind before dawn passed through the dense pine forest, bringing waves of cool pine resin scent. A sprawling, luxurious estate, disguised on the outside as an abandoned logging camp, lay quietly dormant in the night.
This was HYDRA's highest-level safe house— "Eden".
Boom!
The airflow in mid-air surged, and a dark red energy shield tore through the night wind, landing steadily in front of the estate's tightly closed alloy gate.
The crimson particles dissipated. Wanda stepped barefoot onto the cold stone slab, her hands still tightly wrapped around Lynn's waist. Her cheek pressed against Lynn's chest, greedily inhaling the unique scent on him; the madness in her eyes finally gradually subsided, replaced by a morbid sense of satisfaction.
"This is the place." Lynn patted Wanda on the back and pulled himself out of her embrace.
He walked to the half-meter-thick alloy gate, fished out the Level 7 clearance black card that Pierce had given him, and swiped it on the hidden card reader.
"Beep—"
A red light scanned across Lynn's iris. The silent estate instantly woke up. The six fully automatic Gatling gun turrets hidden in the dark silently retracted underground, and the gate slid open to the sides, accompanied by the hissing sound of hydraulic cylinders.
"Identity confirmed. Welcome, Officer Alexander Pierce." A cold, synthesized electronic voice rang out in the night sky.
A mocking arc curled onto the corners of Lynn's mouth. He took out his micro-terminal, rapidly typed a few lines of code, and directly tampered with the underlying logic.
"Correction." Lynn looked at the luxurious hall, which was lighting up with warm-colored lights. "Pierce has already turned into mush in the concrete. From now on, this estate belongs to Lynn."
"Commands updated. Welcome home, Mr. Lynn."
Lynn stepped into the hall. Top-tier calfskin sofas, temperature-controlled wine cabinets, a full suite of smart ecological systems, and even the basement was equipped with a layer of Vibranium armor capable of withstanding nuclear strikes. The fruits of HYDRA's decades of exploitation were now all his spoils of war.
Wanda followed closely behind him. She looked around the spacious Villa, and a wisp of crimson magic energy overflowed from her fingertips. This energy, as if it had a life of its own, quickly spread to every corner of the estate, instantly crushing all potential surveillance cameras and listening devices into powder.
"It's very quiet here." Wanda walked in front of Lynn and helped him take off his dust-covered jacket. Her movements were as gentle as a newlywed wife's, but her eyes were staring straight at Lynn's lips. "No S.H.I.E.L.D., no HYDRA, and no... disgusting bugs."
She stood slightly on her tiptoes, her warm breath hitting Lynn's chin.
"Just us. No one is allowed to disturb us."
Lynn took the opportunity to wrap his arms around Wanda's slender waist, enjoying this tenderness mixed with extreme danger. He had just gotten a top-tier Base for free and held all of HYDRA's inheritance in his hands, and he was preparing to take stock of his next chips.
However, just as he was about to lower his head to kiss those red lips.
"Buzz—"
Deep in his brain, the newly fused Top-tier Spider-Senseemitted a sharp, buzzing sound without warning!
This was not a warning against killing intent. This was a feeling of being watched that was extremely viscous, cold, and carried a morbid obsession! It was as if a pair of eyes were, across a vast distance, fixed firmly on his spine.
Lynn's movements stiffened abruptly, and the hairs on his back instantly stood up.
He turned his head nonchalantly, his gaze passing over Wanda's shoulder, looking at a towering tree canopy two kilometers outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
The night wind blew the leaves.
In a dark blind spot where no surveillance equipment could capture her.
Gwen Stacy was crouching on a thick tree branch. The white Ghost Spider suit almost blended into the night. In her hand, she held a high-precision thermal imager she had picked up from the ruins of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the crosshairs on the screen were locked firmly onto Lynn's chest.
Beneath her mask, Gwen's eyes were bloodshot. She watched the two figures pressed tightly together in the thermal imaging, her nails digging deeply into the bark of the tree trunk, wood chips piercing her fingertips.
"You can't run away." Gwen chewed on this sentence neurotically, her mouth pulling into a creepy arc. "I will dig you out from that old woman's hands... bit by bit."
Chapter 40: Occupying the Magpie's Nest, a Cozy Daily Life in the Suburbs of New York
The morning sunlight pierced through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting dappled light and shadows onto the carpet.
Lynn opened his eyes, and the first thing that flooded his nostrils was a unique fragrance mixed with roses and a faint scent of ozone. A fair, slender arm lay across his chest; Wanda, like an insecure cat, was curled up in the crook of his arm, her cheek pressed tightly against his neck.
Even in her deep sleep, her fingers were still gripping the corner of Lynn's shirt tightly.
Lynn did not move. He narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling the almost viscous fluctuations of magic in the air.
The entire "Eden" manor had been completely transformed. The heavy, explosion-proof alloy door from last night was now wrapped in a layer of swirling crimson particles, preventing even a fly from entering. The original cold, hard metal walls of HYDRA had been forcibly twisted and reshaped by Chaos Magic into warm, beige wainscoting.
This woman had actually used Skyfather-level destructive magic to do interior decorating.
"You're awake."
The woman in his arms let out a lazy murmur. Wanda lifted her head; those eyes, originally filled with hostility and madness, were now fluid and shimmering, brimming with an inseparable infatuation. She leaned forward and lightly pecked Lynn's chin with her warm lips.
"Good morning, dear." Lynn took the opportunity to wrap his arm around her waist, his fingertips sliding slowly down her back, feeling the tremors radiating from her delicate body.
"Are you hungry? I'll go make you breakfast." Wanda's eyes were shockingly bright. She grabbed one of Lynn's oversized white shirts and threw it on, too lazy to even button it up properly, walking barefoot on the solid wood floor.
As she walked, strands of dark red magic energy, like obedient servants, automatically drew the curtains and tidied the bed.
Lynn leaned against the headboard, watching the graceful figure busy in the morning light, a faint, ambiguous smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
If one ignored the magical defensive array surrounding the manor—capable of grinding an armored division into mincemeat—the scene was practically the perfect family drama.
He threw off the quilt, got out of bed, and shuffled in his slippers toward the open-concept kitchen.
The frying pan emitted a "sizzling" sound as the butter melted, and the charred aroma of fried eggs filled the air. Wanda was even humming an ancient Sokovia tune, her mood visibly joyful. Three chef's knives hovered in mid-air, controlled by crimson particles, precisely slicing tomatoes into slices of identical thickness.
Lynn walked over to the bar counter and sat down, his fingers habitually tapping on the marble surface.
Just then, on an oak tree outside the window, a lost gray sparrow flapped its wings and landed on the windowsill outside the kitchen. It tilted its head, looking curiously into the house.
Almost at the same instant, the singing in the kitchen came to an abrupt halt.
Wanda's chopping motion stopped abruptly. She did not turn back, but the tenderness in her eyes was instantly replaced by extreme coldness. A wisp of crimson mist silently slipped out through the window gap.
"Poof."
An extremely faint, muffled sound.
The sparrow didn't even have time to scream before it was crushed into a ball of crimson blood mist right on the windowsill, then completely erased by magic, including its remains and feathers, leaving not even a drop of blood on the glass.
"Too noisy." Wanda turned around and placed the fried Sun-side-up egg onto a porcelain plate, her smile so sweet it sent a chill down one's spine. "I don't like anything disturbing our morning. Not even a bird."
Lynn's eyelids twitched slightly.
This woman's territorial awareness and possessiveness had become completely pathological. She didn't just want to isolate S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA; she even wanted to clear out every living thing within a radius of several kilometers, just to ensure that Lynn's line of sight contained only her.
"Well done, I hate noise too." Lynn didn't change his expression; he even reached out to take the plate she handed over, cut a piece of the fried egg with his fork, and popped it into his mouth. "It tastes perfect."
Upon receiving the praise, Wanda immediately beamed with a radiant smile. She didn't sit on a chair, but instead walked around the bar counter, straddled Lynn's lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and rested her chin on his shoulder.
"Lynn." Her voice was as soft as if she were whispering some kind of curse. "Let's live here forever, okay? No missions, no disgusting Agents. Just us."
"Of course." Lynn put down his knife and fork, wrapped his arms around her slender waist, and gently rubbed his thumbs against the skin on her side. "This is our World."
The first rule of an extreme master of balancing relationships: never use logic when a yandere is demanding emotional validation; go along with her, fulfill her.
Sure enough, Wanda's body went completely limp, melting into Lynn's arms like a pool of Water. She closed her eyes, greedily breathing in Lynn's scent, as if she wanted to carve this man into her very soul.
For the entire day that followed, Lynn played the role of a perfect "captive."
He sat on the sofa reading a book, while Wanda leaned against his knees flipping through a cookbook; he picked wine at the wine cabinet, and Wanda's magic would prepare the ice cubes a step ahead. This kind of life, where one's every need was catered to and a top-tier beauty was throwing herself into his arms, was enough to destroy any man's will.
But Lynn's mind was clearer than ever.
Because his back had been aching faintly for the entire day.
That was the [Top-tier Spider-Sense] rewarded by the system, continuously emitting a low-frequency warning.
Lynn held a glass of bourbon, his gaze sweeping seemingly casually over the dense pine forest outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. He knew that on that tree two kilometers away, the Ghost Spider in the white battle suit had been crouching like a statue for over ten hours.
Gwen Stacy.
That girl who had turned completely dark in the simulated spacetime because he had cut her web, causing her to fall to her death, was now staring fixedly at this manor, driven by an obsession that spanned the Universe.
Lynn could even imagine those bloodshot eyes beneath the mask.
"This Shura field is truly lethal." Lynn sighed silently in his heart and tilted his head back, downing the whiskey in his glass. The spicy liquid flowed down his throat, making his nerves even tighter.
He could not let Wanda discover Gwen's presence, otherwise the scene from last night of tearing apart a helicarrier with her bare hands would repeat itself today in the suburbs of New York. Once two dark, high-level combatants fought here without restraint, the entire New York state would be wiped off the map.
Night fell.
The lawn lights of the manor lit up one by one, illuminating the surroundings in a warm yellow glow.
Dinner was beef stew in red wine, meticulously prepared by Wanda. The candlelight flickered, and the silver knife and fork clinked against the bone china plate, making a crisp sound.
"You looked out the window three more times today than you did yesterday."
Wanda's meat-cutting motion stopped suddenly. She propped her cheek with one hand, looking at Lynn across the candlelight, dangerous dark glints flashing in her crimson eyes. "Is there something interesting outside? Or... do you find it too boring here?"
The temperature in the air dropped suddenly by a few degrees. The red wine glass on the dining table began to tremble slightly, and ripples appeared on the surface of the wine.
Lynn's hand, cutting the steak, remained as steady as Mount Tai.
He looked up, his eyes showing no sign of evasion, but instead carrying a hint of just the right amount of helplessness and indulgence. He speared a piece of beef coated in rich sauce and brought it directly to Wanda's lips.
"I was just looking at those walls you reinforced with magic." Lynn's voice was low and magnetic. "I was wondering how much effort my girl put in to protect our home."
Wanda was stunned for a moment, and the hostility about to roil in her eyes was instantly shattered by this sentence.
She opened her mouth, bit into the beef, and as she chewed, her eyes remained fixed on Lynn, her cheeks flushing with an unnatural rosy hue.
"As long as I can keep you by my side, I'm willing to kill everyone outside." She mumbled indistinctly, but her tone was extremely serious.
"I know." Lynn took a napkin and gently wiped the sauce from the corner of her mouth. "But tonight, I just want to taste this bottle of red wine you chose."
Dinner ended in a bizarre atmosphere where horror and tenderness were intertwined.
Wanda went to the kitchen to clean up the dishes, the sound of running Water masking the silence in the room. Lynn walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a cup of coffee.
At this very moment.
The Spider-Sense at the back of his head suddenly gave a sharp, intense sting, as if struck by high-voltage electricity!
Lynn's pupils constricted sharply.
His hand holding the coffee cup paused slightly, his gaze piercing through the glass and locking onto a certain direction in the night.
By the faint light of the lawn lamps, he clearly saw a pure white, highly resilient web silently attached to the carved railing of the second-floor balcony of the manor.
And at the other end of the web, in the shadows of the night, a slender yet murderous inverted figure was faintly outlined.
Gwen's patience had run out.
"Dear, does the coffee need sugar?" Wanda's cheerful voice came from the kitchen.
Lynn looked at the taut web outside the window, the corner of his mouth slowly curling into a dangerous arc.
"No need." He turned around, placed the coffee cup on the coffee table, his voice calm without a ripple. "I think the taste is just right as it is. I'm going out for a smoke."