Chapter 47: The Scarlet Descent, Who Gave You Permission to Touch Him!
The edges of the solid wood ceiling dripped with melted, charred wood pulp, and the pungent smell of ozone, like an airtight net, tightly enveloped the entire living room.
Wanda hovered in mid-air, her toes three inches off the ground, as scarlet Chaos Particles surged wildly around her.
"Who gave you... permission to touch him?"
Her voice was not loud, but it carried a crushing pressure capable of pulverizing bones.
Gwen's Spider-Sense screamed frantically in her mind, the stinging sensation almost tearing her nerves apart.
Yet she did not let go of Lynn's hand; instead, she interlaced her fingers with his, pressing the back of Lynn's cold hand firmly against her cheek.
"Touch him?" Gwen slowly stood up, her azure eyes beneath the mask meeting the scarlet glow without a hint of fear.
"Not only did I touch him, I saved him. If I hadn't cleared out the flies on the perimeter just now, your lousy barrier would have been riddled with holes by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s missiles long ago. Old woman, you should be saying thank you to me."
Old woman.
The moment those three words landed, the air in the living room froze instantly.
"Bug."
Wanda tilted her head slightly, the scarlet in her eyes overflowing like tangible lava.
Boom!
The violent gravitational field instantly doubled.
The expensive leather sofa emitted a groan of unbearable strain, and the marble coffee table was crushed directly into a pile of white dust by an invisible, immense force.
Lynn leaned deep into the sofa, appearing to frown with ragged breathing, but in reality, the Super Soldier Serumthat had just fused within his body was operating perfectly.
Every muscle fiber was secretly tensed, easily shedding this heavy pressure.
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping rapidly between the two women.
He couldn't let them tear this house down.
But intervening forcefully now would only draw all their hatred onto himself.
He had to let them test each other's bottom line first.
Facing the Skyfather-level pressure, Gwen did not retreat in the slightest.
Her legs exerted sudden force, and her super-flexible physique allowed her to slide out from a gap in the gravitational field at an eerily unnatural angle.
"Thwip! Thwip!"
Two high-pressure webs shot from her wrists, accurately wrapping around the ankles of Wanda, who was hovering in mid-air.
"Get down here!" Gwen shouted angrily, her waist and abdominal muscles tightening suddenly as she attempted to drag the high-and-mighty Witch down to the ground.
Hiss—
The moment the webs touched the scarlet particles, they were instantly vaporized by the terrifying high temperature, leaving not even a speck of ash behind.
"Physical tricks, utterly ridiculous."
Wanda looked down at Gwen from above, the corners of her mouth curling into a cruel arc.
She clenched her right hand into a void, and a scarlet energy whip formed instantly, whistling as it tore through the air, lashing out ruthlessly toward Gwen's neck.
"Enough!"
Lynn clutched his chest, coughing violently, deliberately forcing a few drops of blood between his fingers in an attempt to use his "battle damage" to divert the fire.
"Wanda, don't hurt her..." Lynn's voice was weak but clear, "Cough, cough... Gwen, back away..."
This statement, which appeared to be an attempt to mediate, was actually an extremely insidious way to fan the flames.
To Wanda, it sounded like Lynn was "protecting" that bug; to Gwen, it sounded like Lynn was "worried" she would be hurt by the magic.
Sure enough, the two women, consumed by extreme jealousy, had now completely lost their reason in a blood-red rage.
Gwen performed a low side roll to dodge the energy whip.
The load-bearing wall behind her was instantly sliced open, leaving a bottomless, charred crack, and the sound of snapping steel rebars was piercingly sharp.
She used the wall to push off, resembling a white cannonball as she surged directly toward Wanda's face.
"You think you're the only one who understands him?!"
Gwen shrieked in mid-air, her voice filled with suffocating obsession.
"On the Clock Tower in New York, to save me, he cut his own only web with his own hands! He smiled as he fell into the abyss, leaving the hope of survival to me!"
Gwen twisted her body violently in the air, smashing a whip kick into Wanda's shield.
"Do you know the despair of watching him shatter before your eyes?!"
This sentence was like a high-yield bunker-busting nuclear bomb, detonating with a roar in Wanda's mind.
What? The Clock Tower? Cutting the web? Falling into the abyss?
Wanda's pupils trembled violently, and the scarlet energy whip that had been locked onto Gwen halted mid-air.
Her brain fell into an extremely chaotic logical paradox.
In her memories, Lynn had clearly died in the ruins of Sokovia, riddled with bullets while shielding Quicksilverfrom Ultron's armor-piercing rounds, dying in her arms!
That scalding blood, that gradually cooling body temperature—it was the sole obsession that had awakened her Chaos Magic.
Why did this bug in a ridiculous spandex suit possess another set of memories about Lynn's "undying love"?!
"You're lying..."
Wanda's voice began to tremble, and the Chaos Particlesaround her, due to their Master's emotional disarray, entered an extremely unstable, berserk state.
The surrounding air began to crackle with sonic booms.
"I'm lying?"
Gwen landed steadily and ripped off her mask, revealing her cold, obsessed face.
She pointed forcefully at her own heart.
"His blood, his temperature, the sensation of him kissing my forehead before he fell—they are all carved right here! He didn't even want his life for my sake; on what grounds do you think you can possess him alone?!"
Wanda's breathing became extremely rapid, her chest heaving violently.
She turned her head sharply to look at Lynn on the sofa.
Cold sweat broke out instantly on Lynn's back.
Oh no! The plot progression was moving too fast!
The system hadn't mentioned that these yandere heroines would start comparing "death memories" so quickly!
His original plan was to use the information gap to create the illusion among them that "I only love you, but I have to play along for the sake of survival."
But now, Gwen had directly flipped the table!
If Wanda realized she had been deceived, or realized that Lynn's love could be "duplicated," this Skyfather-levelyandere would absolutely restart the Universe on the spot!
"Lynn..."
Wanda descended slowly from mid-air, her scarlet eyes staring fixedly into Lynn's.
Her gaze was interwoven with a bone-chilling plea and interrogation.
"Tell me she's lying. You've only died for me, right? Your life, your soul—they all belong to me, right?!"
Before Lynn could speak, Gwen had already stepped forward, blocking firmly in front of him.
"Get away, don't use your disgusting magic to force him!"
Gwen, like a lioness protecting her cub, reloaded the web-shooters on both her hands.
"I said... get away!"
Wanda had completely lost it.
The conjecture that Lynn might "love someone else" caused her more agony than if someone had killed her outright.
The source of the Chaos Magic was forcibly invoked.
Above the entire Eden Manor, the previously invisible dimensional barrier instantly transformed into a churning sea of blood.
"No one can take him away from me! No one!"
Wanda slammed her hands together, and a scarlet storm capable of annihilating all matter within a hundred-meter radius erupted from her, surging directly toward Gwen, who was within arm's reach.
Gwen, however, did not retreat; instead, she pushed her Spider-Sense to the limit.
With an incredibly tricky slide, she dodged the direct energy impact.
Gripping a specialized web-spike tempered with high-voltage electricity in her right hand, she used the recoil from the wall to charge headlong into that world-destroying storm, fearless of death!
This was a standard suicide attack!
Just at the moment when this fatal clash—a collision of Mars and Earth—was about to occur.
Lynn's superhuman Spider-Sense suddenly captured that "eerie electronic fluctuation" that had been lurking in the shadows all along.
That fluctuation was not some ordinary S.H.I.E.L.D.surveillance; it was an incredibly tiny tracking projectile with spatial folding properties!
Even worse, at this very moment, this tracking projectile had created a lethal resonance with the Chaos energy exploding from Wanda!
Lynn looked up sharply and discovered that the red light of the miniature electronic device had actually pierced directly through Wanda's absolute magic shield, heading straight for the back of her head at an incredible speed!
Chapter 48: Mars Hits Earth, The Clash Between magicand Spider-Sense
That micro-tracking projectile with space-folding properties, like a poison needle piercing the deep sea, silently stabbed toward the back of Wanda's head.
Lynn leaned against the wreckage of the sofa, a flicker of extremely cold calculation flashing in the depths of his eyes. S.H.I.E.L.D. technology? No, this was definitely some kind of countermeasure Pierce had left behind before he died, a frequency jammer specifically designed to target high-dimensional energy fields.
"Hum—"
Gwen's Spider-Sense was a beat slower than Lynn's, but at this moment, it was also screaming wildly. Her azure eyes were locked onto Wanda in mid-air; not only did she not call out a warning, but she instead took advantage of the cover provided by this strange fluctuation, her wrists snapping over.
Two strands of high-pressure spider silk, like a viper flicking its tongue, struck directly at Wanda's throat!
Strike while the iron is hot. In a yandere's logic, there is only one state for a romantic rival: dead.
"Crack!"
The tracking projectile, less than half an inch from the back of Wanda's head, slammed into a crimson barrier invisible to the naked eye. The eerie blue light of the space folding exploded, attempting to forcibly tear through the Chaos Magic barrier.
Wanda's body, hovering in mid-air, swayed violently.
Almost at the same time, Gwen's spider silk was already grazing Wanda's fair neck.
"Get lost!"
Wanda whipped her head around, the crimson in her eyes so thick it was as if it were about to drip blood. She didn't even pay attention to the jamming projectile behind her head, clenching her right hand fiercely in the void.
The violent Chaos Magic instantly crushed that high-tech tracking projectile, along with the surrounding air, into an absolute vacuum! Immediately following, the crimson energy surged back up the spider silk like a burning Fire dragon, opening its bloody maw to bite at Gwen's wrist.
Gwen snorted coldly and cut the spider silk without hesitation. Her super-flexible physique allowed her to contort into an incredible angle in mid-air, and with a fierce push of her toes against the wall, she transformed into a White afterimage, gliding along the edge of the violent energy flow.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. scum... and you, this insect that doesn't know when to die." Wanda looked down from above at Gwen, who was weaving through the ruins. Her voice had completely lost any human warmth, leaving only the arrogance of a deity and an extreme possessiveness. "You are all coveting what is mine!"
Boom!
The moment the words fell, the true crimson storm descended.
The entire second floor of Eden Manor was sliced into countless fragments in an instant. Expensive oil paintings, solid wood bookshelves, and crystal chandeliers were instantly vaporized the moment they touched the Chaos Particles. A strong smell of burning, mixed with the pungent odor of ozone, choked everyone's airways.
"What is yours?"
Gwen leaped to the limit amidst the falling debris. Spider-Sense imprinted the trajectory of every one of Wanda's attacks into her mind Zero point Zero one seconds in advance. With a devious slide, she dodged a crimson blade capable of splitting an armored vehicle in two, and backhanded a strand of spider silk quenched in high-voltage electricity into the load-bearing wall.
Utilizing the pull of the spider silk, Gwen swung into the air like a cannonball, her voice beneath the mask laced with chilling mockery: "You can't even see through his heart; you can only, like a pathetic madwoman, use a barrier to lock him up like a pet!"
"On the Clock Tower in New York, he smiled as he cut the spider silk for me! He willingly gave his life to me!" Gwenfired continuously with both hands, a dense web of spider silk casting over Wanda. "An old woman like you, trying to possess him exclusively, simply doesn't understand him!"
Old woman. Pet. Willing.
These few words were like the most vicious curse, precisely snapping Wanda's tightly wound nerves.
"Everything about him belongs to me! His life, his soul, it's all mine!" Wanda completely lost control, thrusting her hands outward violently.
A visible ring of crimson Impact exploded from her as the center. The spider silk web Gwen had fired instantly turned to ash in mid-air. The terrifying high-temperature air wave scraped across her cheeks, stinging the skin beneath Gwen's mask.
"You insect from the sewer, even glancing at him is a capital offense!"
Wanda curled her ten fingers, and the gravitational field of the entire space was forcibly distorted. The floor cracked inch by inch, and countless sharp stones and steel bars were stripped away by the Chaos Magic, floating in mid-air, aimed at Gwen like ten thousand swords returning to their source.
"Go to hell!"
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
The sky-filling architectural debris, accompanied by ear-piercing sonic booms, smashed toward Gwen in an overwhelming barrage.
This was an absolute dimensional reduction strike. magic's all-encompassing coverage versus the physical side's extreme evasion.
Gwen pushed her Spider-Sense to the limit. Her body twisted frantically amidst the rain of debris, every dodge brushing against the edge of death. Her suit on her left shoulder was torn by a piece of rubble, seeping crimson blood; her right ribs made dangerous cracking sounds due to excessive twisting.
But her eyes grew brighter and brighter; the morbid madness burning for the sake of exclusively possessing Lynn allowed her to completely block out the pain.
"Is that all you've got?!" Gwen stepped on a falling boulder to launch herself into the air, aiming both wrists at Wandasimultaneously. "Then it's my turn!"
Swish!
Two extremely thick streams of special spider silk fluid gushed out, not shot at Wanda, but directly sticking to the precarious load-bearing beam above Wanda's head.
Gwen exerted force from her waist and abdomen, pulling hard!
The steel-reinforced concrete beam, weighing several tons, snapped with a boom, smashing down toward the top of Wanda's head.
"Boring trick." Wanda didn't even lift an eyelid, waving her left hand casually upward.
The huge beam was forcibly frozen by a stream of crimson energy half a meter above her head, and then, like tofu put into a meat grinder, it was annihilated inch by inch into powder.
Just in that Zero point Zero one seconds when her vision was blocked by dust.
Gwen released the spider silk, her whole body like a predatory ghost, using the acceleration of gravity to pounce directly at Wanda's face. Her right hand gripped a sharp piece of rebar pulled from the ruins, striking directly for Wanda's heart!
Below, Lynn, lying in the sofa wreckage, took it all in.
He used his newly fused Super Soldier Serum physique to perfectly control his heart rate and breathing, disguising himself as an ordinary person knocked over by the air wave, heavily injured and vomiting blood.
But his brain was operating at a speed exceeding a supercomputer.
Can't wait any longer.
Gwen's physical stamina had reached a critical point; that last surprise attack was her final trump card. And Wanda's killing intent had completely solidified; once Gwen's attack failed, the Chaos Magic would definitely tear her to pieces.
What was even more deadly was that the true Fire these two women were fighting with had already brought the energy field of Eden Manor to the brink of collapse. If they kept fighting, the entire neighborhood would be blown into a crater.
In mid-air, Gwen's rebar was less than 30 centimeters from Wanda's heart.
And Wanda's hands had already closed, a crimson energy ball compressed to the extreme forming in her palms, emitting a terrifying high temperature capable of melting Vibranium.
Two deadly forces were about to collide without reservation less than three meters above Lynn's head.
"System, don't play dead, lock the magic circuits for me."
Lynn shouted coldly in his heart, unhesitatingly mobilizing the incomplete Chaos Magic Affinity within his body, forcibly reversing the energy circuits that were originally running smoothly!
A tearing, excruciating pain came from his meridians, and a mouthful of real blood instantly surged up his throat.
Lynn suddenly stood up from the ruins, the muscles in his legs exerting force suddenly. Not only did he not dodge, but he actively spread his arms, facing the energy vortex capable of flattening the entire Villa, and slammed straight into it!
Chapter 49: The Best Actor's Performance, Forcibly Halting the Battle with a "Serious Injury"
Lynn reversed his circuits and charged straight into the scarlet vortex capable of melting Vibranium.
Wanda's gaze passed over Gwen's shoulder and caught sight of that blood-stained face. The string in her mind called "sanity" snapped completely.
"No—!"
Wanda let out a piercing, shrill scream. She forcibly pulled back the Chaos Magic sphere that had already left her hand using sheer willpower. The violent energy surged back into her meridians, causing Wanda to cough up a mouthful of blood and fall from mid-air like a kite with a broken string.
At the same time, Gwen's Spider-Sense also captured Lynn's suicidal action.
"Lynn!"
The area around Gwen's eyes beneath her mask instantly turned red. The steel bar in her hand was originally aimed at Wanda's heart, but if she continued forward, it would definitely pierce through Lynn, who had thrown himself in the way.
In the split second of 0.01 seconds, Gwen performed an action that went completely against biological instinct. She violently contracted her waist and abdomen, forcibly twisting the inertia of her sprint, grabbed the steel bar tightly with both hands, and bent it into a huge U-shape. The immense reaction force instantly shattered the wrist bone of her right hand, and the "crack" of breaking bone was clearly audible in the ruins.
Lynn had won the gamble.
Both deadly attacks were forcibly withdrawn one inch before they could touch his body.
But the price of reversing his magic circuits was not something he had to act out.
It was a sharp pain like putting his entire body's blood vessels into a meat grinder and crushing them repeatedly. Lynn's vision was instantly blurred by blood, and an uncontrollable metallic taste surged in his throat.
"Pfft—!"
A large mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed out, splattering onto the scorched marble floor.
Lynn slammed into the ruins like a broken ragdoll, with broken glass and wood chips piercing his back. He didn't get up immediately, but instead let his body twitch violently according to physiological instinct.
He rapidly adjusted his breathing frequency in his mind, perfecting the feeling of near-death weakness. His lungs made a hissing noise like a bellows, and every breath brought out large mouthfuls of blood foam.
If you're going to act, you have to do the whole performance. To deal with yanderes, you have to be crazier and more miserable than them to regain the initiative in this shuraba.
"Lynn... Lynn!"
Wanda scrambled into the ruins. She even forgot that she could fly, and didn't even notice that her knees were bloodied and mangled from hitting the rubble.
The high and mighty Scarlet Witch, who viewed human life as nothing, was gone. Kneeling beside Lynn at this moment was just a panicked woman on the verge of a breakdown.
She tremblingly reached out her hands, wanting to cover Lynn's bleeding mouth, but then retracted them as if electrocuted. She was afraid that her Chaos Particleswould hurt him again.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..." Wanda's tears fell in large drops onto Lynn's face, her scarlet eyes filled with extreme fear. "Don't die... Please, don't leave me..."
On the other side, Gwen dragged her broken right hand and stumbled over.
She tore off her mask, revealing her face that was as pale as paper. Her azure eyes were bloodshot, and tears mixed with dust washed two muddy tracks down her cheeks.
"Get lost! You crazy woman!" Gwen, like a Beast protecting its food, slammed into Wanda's shoulder and used her intact left hand to press firmly on the acupoints on Lynn's chest, trying to help him stop the bleeding. "If it weren't for you going crazy, how would he have ended up like this!"
"You were the one who started it!" Wanda was knocked to the ground, the killing intent in her eyes surging again, and the red light at her fingertips began to flicker. "I'm going to kill you—"
"Cough... cough cough..."
Just as the killing intent between the two was about to collide again, Lynn chose the perfect moment to let out a violent cough.
He raised his hand with difficulty and, with extreme precision, grabbed Wanda's wrist that was glowing with red light.
Lynn's fingers were icy cold and covered in cold sweat.
"Wanda..." Lynn half-opened his eyes, looking at her with unfocused vision, his voice so light it could be blown away by a gust of wind. "Don't... don't blame her... it's me... I didn't control the barrier well..."
As soon as these words were spoken, the red light at Wanda's fingertips instantly extinguished.
She backhanded his hand, gripping it tightly, and pressed her face against his palm, sobbing uncontrollably. "I won't blame her, I won't fight anymore... Stop talking, I'll use magic to save you..."
Lynn didn't let her continue casting spells, but instead turned his head slightly to look at Gwen, who was pressing on his chest with red-rimmed eyes.
He pulled up an extremely weak, yet indulgent smile.
"Gwen..." Lynn's thumb gently brushed over the strangely twisted fracture on Gwen's wrist, a flash of heartbreaking tenderness appearing in his eyes. "Your hand is broken... it must hurt, right? As long as you're okay... that's all that matters."
Gwen's defenses collapsed completely at this moment.
At the moment of falling from the Clock Tower, he had looked at her with this same expression, smiling as he cut the spider silk.
Now, to keep her from being killed by that Witch, he had actually thrown himself into that kind of destructive magic!
"It doesn't hurt! You idiot! Liar!" Gwen cried, trembling all over, her left hand clutching the corner of Lynn's clothes tightly. "Why did you rush out? Do you not want your life anymore!"
Lynn let out a long sigh of relief in his heart.
It worked.
The aggro from both sides had successfully shifted from "mutual combat" to "heartache for the male lead" and "extreme self-reproach."
As long as they felt that continuing to fight would cost Lynn his life, this world-destroying shuraba could be temporarily put on hold.
"I... I just..." Lynn's breathing became weaker and weaker, and his eyelids began to fight uncontrollably.
This wasn't acting; the aftereffects of reversing his magiccircuits had truly pushed him to his physiological limit.
"I just... didn't want to see either of you get hurt..."
Lynn spat out the last half of the sentence, his head tilted to the side, and he completely "passed out."
"Lynn!"
"Lynn!"
Both women let out a cry of alarm at the same time.
Wanda didn't hesitate to mobilize the purest Chaos source within her, the scarlet energy turning into a layer of soft halo that directly covered Lynn's chest.
At the same second, Gwen pulled a high-concentration S.H.I.E.L.D. special cell repair serum from the tactical belt at her waist, holding the syringe in her left hand, and stabbed it fiercely into Lynn's carotid artery.
One red hand and one white hand collided without warning at Lynn's neck.
The exclusivity of Chaos Magic and the bio-electric field of the high-tech repair serum erupted into an extremely piercing hum the moment they made contact.
"Zzzzt—!"
The unconscious Lynn jerked suddenly, and a wisp of black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth again.
Wanda and Gwen's movements froze at the same time.
They discovered in horror that the energy circuits in Lynn's body were completely chaotic. Whether it was pure magicinfusion or physical drug injection, as long as it entered his body alone, it would trigger a more fatal rejection reaction.
"Damn it..." Gwen gritted her teeth, staring fixedly at Wanda's eyes.
Wanda also stared fixedly at Gwen, a flash of extreme humiliation and struggle flickering in her scarlet eyes.
A crazy and bizarre option lay before these two yanderes who wished they could tear each other to pieces.
Chapter 50: Eerie Ceasefire, A Temporary Agreement Between Yanderes
Two vastly different energies collided violently at Lynn's carotid artery.
The high-concentration cell repair fluid carried a cold Bio-charge, while the Chaos Magic was a raging, high-dimensional heat flow.
One cold and one hot, one technological and one magical, they whipped up a micro-storm inside Lynn's fragile blood vessels.
Lynn's body arched sharply, and a muffled groan, suppressed to the extreme, escaped his throat.
Cold sweat instantly soaked the fabric on his back, and violent spasms made even his breathing intermittent.
"What are you doing! Your chemical trash is destroying his magic circuits!"
Killing intent surged in Wanda's scarlet eyes as she abruptly raised her other hand, her fingertips aimed directly at Gwen's face.
"Are you blind! Your red light is scorching his blood vessels!"
Gwen did not back down, her left hand gripping the syringe tightly; beneath her mask, those azure eyes were bloodshot, and her web-shooters were already aimed at Wanda's throat.
Seeing that a second round of catastrophic collision was about to erupt on his own body, Lynn gritted his teeth until they nearly shattered.
He knew very well that when dealing with these two women, who had been driven mad by jealousy and possessiveness, reasoning was useless.
He could only use more extreme madness and more tragic pain to shatter their sanity.
"Cough..." Lynn gathered his last ounce of strength and suddenly raised both hands.
His left hand gripped the wrist where Wanda was channeling her Chaos Magic.
His right hand grabbed the left hand Gwen was using to hold the syringe.
His fingers were as cold as ice, and his palms were covered in sticky cold sweat and blood.
Both women froze simultaneously, all their movements abruptly locked in mid-air.
"If you... really want to kill each other..." Lynn's chest heaved violently, each breath bringing up mouthfuls of bloody foam, his voice raspy and unrecognizable, "then step over my dead body first."
These words hit the two women's hearts like a heavy hammer.
The scarlet in Wanda's eyes flickered violently, and the red glow at her fingertips instantly dissipated.
She pulled her hand back as if electrocuted, and looking at Lynn's face, which was contorted in pain, tears welled up in her eyes again.
"I won't touch her... I'll withdraw my magic..." Wanda knelt in the ruins, her hands hovering helplessly in the air, wanting to touch him but afraid to do so, her voice filled with extreme humility and panic, "Please don't be angry... I'll do whatever you say..."
On the other side, Gwen also pulled out the syringe abruptly.
She looked down at her slightly trembling left hand, then at Lynn's punctured neck, a flash of intense self-reproach crossing her eyes.
"I'm sorry..." Gwen bit her pale lips, her desperate paranoia collapsing in the face of Lynn's serious injury, "I won't fight anymore. As long as you can get better, I won't do anything."
Lynn leaned against a charred broken wall, closed his eyes, and gulped down the air that smelled of burnt debris.
The two energies within his body, having lost their source, were being slowly digested by his newly merged Super Soldier Serum constitution.
The tearing pain began to recede, replaced by a sense of exhaustion from having survived a catastrophe.
It worked.
Extreme balancing act, finding life in death.
By utilizing information asymmetry and playing the victim, he had forcibly carved out a path to survival in this Shura field of two top-tier combatants—a Skyfather-level and a street-level fighter.
But Lynn knew this wasn't enough.
A yandere's compromise is always temporary; once he was out of danger, these two women would definitely continue to tear each other apart behind his back.
He had to put a stronger shackle on them.
"Wanda." Lynn slowly opened his eyes, his gaze landing on the Scarlet Witch's tear-stained face.
"I'm here! I'm right here!" Wanda immediately crawled forward on her knees, tightly gripping Lynn's cold hand with both of hers, pressing her cheek against his palm, greedily savoring his body heat.
"Gwen." Lynn tilted his head slightly, looking at the Ghost Spider standing to the side, her eyes guarded yet filled with worry.
Gwen didn't speak, just silently stepped forward and grabbed the corner of Lynn's clothes with her uninjured left hand.
Lynn looked at these two women who had nearly torn New York apart for his sake, his tone unprecedentedly serious, even carrying a hint of unquestionable coldness.
"I want you both to promise me." Lynn said, enunciating every word, his pale lips trembling slightly, "As long as I am alive for one more day, you will never fight in front of me. You will never harm each other."
Wanda abruptly lifted her head, a flash of extreme unwillingness crossing her eyes.
Her territorial instincts were screaming wildly—why should she let this bug that dared to covet her possession stay?
Gwen also clenched her fists.
In her mind, Wanda was a ticking time bomb that could hurt Lynn at any moment, and she had to take Lynn away.
But when they met Lynn's bloodshot eyes, which were filled with extreme exhaustion and determination, all their rebuttals got stuck in their throats.
"If you can't do it..." Lynn's mouth curled into a tragic arc, "Next time, it won't be as simple as a serious injury. I will just die right in front of you."
This sentence precisely struck the most fatal weakness of the two yanderes.
They could destroy the World, they could slaughter anyone, but they alone could not bear the cost of losing Lynn.
"I promise..." Wanda's voice trembled violently as she hugged Lynn's arm tightly, like a drowning child grabbing onto the last piece of driftwood, "I swear to you, as long as she doesn't touch you, I will never kill her."
Gwen took a deep breath, the gaze beneath her mask gradually becoming cold and firm.
She glanced coldly at Wanda, then turned her gaze to Lynn, her tone paranoid to the extreme: "I agree. But I will keep an eye on her, and if she dares to do anything to harm you, I will risk my life to take you away."
An eerie balance was barely achieved amidst the ruins and blood.
Two women, who wished they could skin each other alive, reached this extremely fragile yet absolutely unbreakable temporary agreement for the sake of the same man.
Lynn exhaled a long, heavy breath in his heart.
He let Wanda lift him up with gentle Chaos Particles, while Gwen, like a diligent guard, dragged her broken right hand and followed closely on the other side, not leaving him for a single step.
On the surface, he was a tragic Agent, weak to the extreme and in need of protection from women.
In reality, he was the mastermind behind the scenes, the one in the center of the storm's eye, firmly holding all the chains.
Just as the three of them were preparing to leave the ruins and transfer to the underground safe house at the estate.
Lynn's extremely sensitive Spider-Sense suddenly pulsed wildly deep in his mind.
It wasn't a lethal threat, but rather an extremely covert feeling of being watched, filled with intense curiosity.
Lynn calmly projected his mental energy outward.
A thousand meters away.
At the edge of the Triskelion ruins, atop a communication tower that had not yet collapsed.
The night wind howled, and a red-haired woman wearing a tight black tactical suit was lying on the cold steel frame.
She was holding a specially modified high-magnification electromagnetic sniper rifle, with the crosshairs locked firmly on the center of Lynn's forehead.
Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff.
She had not retreated after being choked by Wanda earlier; instead, like a venomous snake lurking in the Shadow, she had taken in everything that had just happened.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top ace, Nick Fury's sharpest blade..." Lynnwalked down the stairs, supported by Wanda, his mouth curling into a cold arc in the shadows.
He knew Natasha was thinking.
A low-level Agent who not only controlled the Scarlet Witch, who was capable of destroying the World, but also made a mysterious Spider-Woman who had crossed the Universe go crazy for him.
Even more terrifying was that he could control the entire situation with just a few words amidst the life-and-death struggle of two top-tier combatants.
In the eyes of a top-tier spy like Natasha, Lynn's danger level had definitely surpassed HYDRA and Pierce, making him the ultimate enigma that had to be dissected and analyzed.
"Since you want to see through me so much..." Lynnchuckled deep in his consciousness, "Then let me let you see even more thoroughly."
One Wanda, one Gwen—this pot of water was already muddy enough.
But he didn't mind adding more fuel to the fire, pulling S.H.I.E.L.D.'s final trump card into this endless Shura field.
"System." Lynn issued a cold command in his mind.
[Ding! Host has awakened.]
"Lock onto target: Natasha Romanoff. Initiate the third simulation."
[Target locked. The current target has extremely high soul strength and has undergone top-tier anti-interrogation and mental isolation training.]
[Generating exclusive tragedy script...]
[Scene loading: 1999, Budapest, rainy night.]
[Identity loading: Red Room defector Agent / Natasha's only life-and-death partner.]
On the communication tower a thousand meters away.
Natasha's finger rested lightly on the trigger, adjusting her breathing.
She didn't need to shoot; she only needed to record every micro-expression of Lynn.
But the very next second, Lynn in the sniper scope suddenly tilted his head slightly.
Across a thousand meters of night, through countless floating dust and building debris, Lynn's gaze actually penetrated the scope with extreme precision, colliding with Natasha's eyes.
It was a pair of eyes so deep they were hair-raising, carrying a sense of mockery and control that saw through everything.
Natasha's heart contracted sharply, and she instinctively wanted to pull the trigger.
But the moment her fingertip applied pressure—
"Boom!"
A deafening roar suddenly came from deep within her brain.
The night scene before her eyes instantly twisted and shattered, and a thick smell of gunpowder mixed with the scent of cold rain violently rushed into her nostrils.
Natasha's eyes instantly rolled back, and her body uncontrollably tumbled off the steel frame.
In the final second before her consciousness plunged into darkness, she heard a man's voice, heavy with blood, whispering in her ear:
"Nat, run... don't look back..."
Chapter 51: A Rainy Night in Budapest, Blocking the God of Death's Bullets for You
1999, Budapest.
Cold rain, mixed with the thick smell of gunpowder, slammed furiously against the abandoned heavy industrial factory in this Eastern European city.
The rusted steel frames groaned under the burden of the gale. Natasha leaned against an abandoned hydraulic press, breathing heavily. Rainwater streamed along her red hair into her eyes, stinging intensely.
She clutched her left abdomen, warm blood constantly welling up between her fingers, dripping down her combat uniform into the oil-stained puddles, spreading into dark red pools.
"Romanoff, you can't escape."
The harsh Russian voice pierced through the rain curtain via a loudspeaker. Outside the factory, three armored vehicles sealed off all exits, their blinding searchlight beams sweeping back and forth through the ruins like the eyes of the God of Death. More than twenty heavily armed Red Room elite assassins were closing in on her in a fan formation, submachine guns raised.
As the Red Room's most perfect "Black Widow" creation, she knew better than anyone the consequences of betraying Dreykov.
No rescue, no miracles. The S.H.I.E.L.D. extraction point was three kilometers away, and with her current blood loss, she could barely even stand.
Natasha bit her pale lips, pulled out the Glock pistol from her thigh holster, and ejected the magazine for a look.
Only three bullets left.
She gave a bitter smile. Of these three bullets, one was reserved for Dreykov's lackey, and the remaining two, she would send into her own jaw before being captured alive.
Just as she prepared to lean out for a final counterattack, a faint metallic friction sound suddenly came from the ventilation duct above her head.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three consecutive muffled suppressed gunshots rang out.
The searchlights shattered on cue, and the three closest Red Room assassins didn't even have time to scream before blood burst from their foreheads, and they fell straight into the muddy water.
Darkness descended instantly.
A shadow dropped silently from the steel frame over ten meters high like a night owl. The moment his feet touched the ground, he executed a tactical roll, sliding with extreme precision behind the cover where Natasha was.
A thick smell of blood mixed with the scent of cheap tobacco rushed towards her.
"Are you crazy?" Natasha saw who it was, a rare flash of panic crossing her deep blue eyes, her voice even trembling, "The code I gave you was to retreat! Dreykov has mobilized the entire underground forces of Budapest, are you coming back to die?!"
Lynn knelt half-way in front of her, saying nothing.
At this moment, his left arm hung limply, two shrapnel pieces embedded in his shoulder, his black tactical vest already soaked with blood. He panted heavily, fished out a mud-stained military hemostatic Agent from his lower back, and without hesitation, jabbed it into the edge of the wound on Natasha's abdomen.
"Hiss—" The sharp pain caused Natasha to arch her back instinctively.
"Bear with it, Natasha." Lynn's voice was terribly hoarse, yet carried an unquestionable steadiness. He bit open a roll of bandages with his teeth and quickly and roughly wrapped her waist and abdomen, "I said, if we go, we go together."
"Are you an idiot?!" Natasha grabbed Lynn's collar, her eye sockets turning red from extreme emotional fluctuation, "I am property of the Red Room! My life has been meant for consumption since birth! Is it worth it for you to throw your life away for a tool?!"
As a killing machine, she had been indoctrinated since childhood to abandon all emotions. But this man in front of her, this partner who had been through life and death with her countless times over the past three years, was like a madman, time and again using his body to block those lethal bullets for her.
Lynn's movements paused.
He raised his head, his deep eyes staring fixedly at Natasha in the dim light. He didn't explain, just grabbed Natasha's blood-stained hand with his backhand and shoved a Beretta pistol full of bullets into her palm.
"You are not anyone's property." Lynn wiped the rain off his face, a defiant arc pulling at the corner of his mouth, "You are Natasha Romanoff. As long as I have one breath left, no one is taking you back to that hell today."
This sentence, like a red-hot iron nail, smashed fiercely into Natasha's heart, which had been frozen for over twenty years.
"Boom—!"
Before Natasha could respond, an RPG Rocket dragged a tail flame and slammed fiercely into the wall beside the hydraulic press.
Violent shockwaves mixed with debris swept over instantly. Lynn threw himself onto Natasha without hesitation, shielding her tightly beneath him. A piece of rebar the size of a fist grazed Lynn's back, tearing away a large chunk of flesh and blood.
Lynn muffled a groan, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, but he didn't even frown, quickly dragging Natasha to roll behind another abandoned iron trough.
"They're going for an all-out assault." Lynn quickly poked his head out to scan; the mercenaries outside had switched to heavy firepower and began indiscriminate blanket fire.
"The underground drainage tunnel." Natasha endured the sharp pain in her abdomen and pointed to a heavy iron door in the deepest part of the factory, "That's the only exit not surrounded; it leads directly to the Danube River. But the hydraulic system of that door is broken; someone has to manually pull the control gate from the outside, and then lock it."
At this point, Natasha's voice stopped abruptly.
Manually pulling the control gate meant that the person would be left completely outside, facing the strafing fire of dozens of guns.
"I'll pull the gate." Lynn didn't hesitate at all, quickly removing the last two high-explosive grenades from his body and hanging them on the tactical slots on his chest.
"No!" Natasha grabbed his wrist tightly, her nails almost embedding into his flesh, "You'll be riddled with bullets! Let's try another direction, or I'll stay behind to cover..."
"Listen, Natasha." Lynn grabbed her shoulders back, with astonishing force. His gaze was unprecedentedly serious, even carrying a trace of determination.
"I'll count to three, and you run to the iron door. I'll be responsible for cover and pulling the gate." Lynn didn't give her a chance to argue at all, pulling a military knife from his thigh holster and holding it in a reverse grip.
"Lynn..." Natasha's voice carried a plea for the first time.
"Three!"
Lynn stood up abruptly; without counting two or one, he directly raised his submachine gun and rushed out into the dense rain of bullets outside.
"Lynn!" Natasha's pupils shrank sharply; her body's instinct made her grit her teeth and sprint toward the iron door of the drainage tunnel the moment Lynn rushed out.
Gunfire erupted.
Lynn was like a lone wolf driven into a dead end. Without any cover, he first threw a blood-stained coat as a feint to attract fire, then used extremely tricky movement and precise point shooting to forcibly suppress the frontline offensive.
Bullets grazed his cheek and pierced his thigh, but he didn't even pause, forcibly carving out a path of blood and rushing to the console beside the iron door.
Natasha dove into the iron door and turned to look outside.
Through the light of the lightning, she saw Lynn's appearance at this moment.
He was covered in blood, his left leg already broken by large-caliber bullets, and he could only stand by leaning on the console. But he was still gripping that rusty hydraulic gate lever tightly.
"Lynn, come in! Come in quickly!" Natasha hammered the door frame frantically through the iron bars, tears finally uncontrollably bursting from her eyes.
"Don't look back, Natasha."
Lynn looked at her, the corners of his mouth lifting into an extremely gentle smile. There was no fear in that smile, only a sense of relief.
He used the last ounce of his strength to pull down the hydraulic gate abruptly.
"Clang—!"
The heavy iron door slammed down, completely isolating Natasha from the hell outside.
Through the last gap in the iron door, Natasha saw over a dozen submachine guns aimed at Lynn simultaneously. And Lynn calmly pulled the pin of the high-explosive grenade on his chest.
"No—!"
"Boom—!!!"
The deafening explosion blew off the entire dome of the factory. Blinding fire swallowed Lynn's figure, and the violent shockwave surged into the underground tunnel through the ventilation duct, knocking Natasha flying.
In the last second before her consciousness fell into darkness, the only image left in Natasha's mind was that man, covered in blood, yet still smiling at her.
...
"Beep— Beep— Beep—"
The shrill alarm of medical equipment echoed crazily in her ears.
In the real World, in the top-secret medical room in the basement of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion.
Natasha on the hospital bed opened her eyes abruptly. Her pupils contracted violently, her chest heaving like a bellows, and cold sweat instantly soaked her hospital gown.
"Lynn!"
She instinctively sat up, her right hand subconsciously reaching for the sidearm at her waist, but she only touched the cold medical tube.
"Agent Romanoff, calm down."
A deep voice with the authority of a one-eyed man sounded beside the hospital bed.
Nick Fury, wearing his signature black trench coat, stared fixedly at the Black Widow on the bed with his only remaining eye, his brows knitted tightly.
"You suddenly lost consciousness on the communication tower and fell from thirty meters high. If it weren't for the buffer net, you would be a corpse by now." Fury rested his hands on the edge of the bed, his tone cold, "Tell me, what exactly did you see? Why did your heart rate exceed 180 beats per minute while you were unconscious?"
Natasha didn't answer.
She stared blankly at her empty hands, the unforgettable memory of that rainy night in Budapest in her mind crashing against her reason like a tsunami.
It wasn't a dream.
That heart-wrenching pain, the temperature of Lynn's palm, and his final, determined smile were so real that every nerve in her was trembling.
He was dead.
To save her, he was blown to pieces.
No... wait!
Natasha raised her head abruptly. Just a few hours ago, she was clearly still in the safe house, being choked by that rampaging Scarlet Witch! Lynn was still alive! He was right there!
"Director Fury." Natasha's voice was terribly hoarse; she slowly turned her head to look at Nick Fury.
In the eyes of that ace spy, which should have been absolutely calm and devoid of any personal emotions, there was now a creepy, paranoid madness surging.
"Where is Lynn?" Natasha asked, word by word.
Fury keenly sensed the anomaly in Natasha's tone. As a top Agent he had raised himself, Natasha had never asked about a man's whereabouts with such a possessive tone.
"He is dangerous, Natasha." Fury straightened up, his eyes becoming extremely vigilant, "He not only controlled that Witch, but is also entangled with a Spider-Woman from another parallel Universe. I have listed him as Zero-level taboo, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is evaluating the possibility of erasing him."
Hearing the words "erasing him," Natasha's pupils constricted suddenly.
"Erasing him?" Natasha laughed suddenly.
She yanked out the IV needle from the back of her hand, blood instantly spurting out, but she didn't even look at it. She stepped barefoot on the cold floor, slowly approaching Nick Fury.
"Director." Natasha tilted her head slightly, her voice soft, yet carrying a murderous intent that made people's spines chill.
She suddenly raised her hand, and with a speed so extreme that even Fury couldn't react, she snatched the sidearm from Fury's waist, the "click" of the slide racking sounding.
The pitch-black muzzle was pressed directly against Fury's forehead.
"Whoever dares to touch him..." Natasha's deep blue eyes were bloodshot, the corners of her mouth curling into a morbid arc, "I will kill."
Chapter 52: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Sharpest Blade Has Turned
The cold-toned shadowless lamp in the medical room shone on their faces, pale and blinding.
The muzzle of the gun was pressed firmly against Nick Fury's glabella, the icy temperature of the metal barrel seeping into his bone marrow through his skin. This king of Agents, who controlled the World's largest intelligence organization, was covered in a fine layer of cold sweat on his back.
It was not because he feared death. It was because of Natasha's eyes.
In those azure eyes that were once absolutely calm and devoid of any superfluous emotion, there was now a churning of extremely twisted possessiveness and killing intent. This was not the look an Agent should have at all; this was a mother wolf protecting her cubs, a mad beast ready to tear apart any threat at any moment.
"Natasha, put the gun down." Fury's remaining eye narrowed slightly, his voice kept very low, "You have been mentally controlled by that man. Your heart rate, your micro-expressions, they have all deviated from normal thresholds."
"Mental control?" A mocking arc tugged at the corner of Natasha's mouth.
In her mind, that man who was blown into a bloody mist on a rainy night in Budapest, that man who used his body to block all the bullets for her, that heart-wrenching pain, was causing every breath she took now to ache.
"If that is control..." Natasha's hand holding the gun was as steady as a rock, the muzzle even pressing a dent into Fury's glabella, "Then I am willing. Fury, listen clearly to every word I say next."
Fury did not move. He was quickly assessing the success rate of disarming her. Zero. With Black Widow's close-combat ability combined with her current frenzied state, if he moved even a finger, his head would be blown open.
"Revoke the erasure order for Lynn." Natasha's voice had no fluctuation, cold as the Siberian ice field, "Destroy all biological characteristic data about him on the S.H.I.E.L.D.servers. Change his threat level from 'Zero Taboo' to 'Untouchable'."
"That is impossible." Fury refused flatly, "He is an extremely dangerous variable. He can control Wanda, and now he can control you; S.H.I.E.L.D. absolutely cannot allow this kind of..."
"Bang!"
A deafening gunshot exploded in the small medical room.
The bullet grazed Fury's left ear, directly blowing up the main control server behind him. Sparks flew everywhere, and the smell of burnt electronic components instantly permeated the air. Fury's eardrums were buzzing, and a trickle of blood dripped down his earlobe.
"I am not negotiating with you, Director." Natasha tilted her head slightly, the muzzle aimed at Fury's glabella again, her tone so soft it was hair-raising, "I am notifying you. If you don't do as I say, I will kill you right now and then go to the server room to manually format it. Whoever stops me, I will kill."
Fury stared fixedly at the woman in front of him. He finally realized that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sharpest blade had completely snapped. No, it had been reforged by that man named Lynninto a Shadow Blade that belonged only to him.
"Fine." Fury slowly raised his hands, making a gesture of compromise, "I will revoke the order. But you must understand, Romanoff, you are making an enemy of the entire World."
"My World, only has him."
Natasha coldly threw down this sentence. She violently turned the gun muzzle, firing three consecutive shots to blow up the three hidden cameras in the medical room. Subsequently, without even glancing at Fury, she stepped barefoot over the shards of glass covering the floor, like a true ghost, quickly vanishing into the dark corridor outside the door.
Fury stood in the midst of the mess, touching the blood on his earlobe. He walked quickly to another backup terminal and entered a dozen or so extremely complex passwords.
The screen lit up. He did not mobilize Agents to hunt down Natasha, but instead directly opened an encrypted communication channel marked with the highest authority.
"This is Fury." He said in a deep voice into the microphone, "The plan has changed. That Agent named Lynn not only possesses some kind of dimensional-level mental rewriting ability, but has also turned Romanoff. Conventional force is already ineffective."
From the other end of the communicator came a flurry of rapid keyboard typing, followed by a male voice filled with arrogance and casualness: "Hey, One-Eyed Man. I told you long ago that those little Agents of yours with guns couldn't handle this kind of supernatural phenomenon. Send me his energy wavelength; I can't wait to dissect this 'heartthrob' who has captivated the Witch and the Spider-Girl."
"Stark." Fury's one eye flashed with cold light, "Don't be careless. He is a monster through and through."
...
On the outskirts of New York, inside the Eden Manorunderground blast-proof safe house.
The air here was so stuffy it made it hard to breathe. It was not because the ventilation system was broken, but because two extremely terrifying energy fields were crazily compressing each other in this space of a few dozen square meters.
Lynn leaned against the medical bed, his face pale, his chest wrapped in bandages.
On the left side of the bed, Wanda sat on a chair. Wisps of scarlet Chaos Particles lingered at her fingertips, and she was carefully manipulating a water glass, attempting to bring it to Lynn's lips. Her gaze had not left Lynn's face for a single second, that pathological attachment almost overflowing.
On the right side of the bed, Gwen was wearing the Ghost Spider suit, not even having removed her mask. She held a sharp scalpel in her hand, peeling an apple. The red peel fell continuously, her Spider-Sense radar fully activated, locked tightly onto the Wanda opposite her. As long as that ball of red light dared to make the slightest move, she would absolutely, without hesitation, plunge the scalpel into the Witch's neck.
"The water temperature is just right, drink a little." Wanda's voice was as gentle as could be.
"The apple is peeled, replenish some vitamins." Gwencoldly handed over the sliced fruit, incidentally bumping away Wanda's water glass hanging in mid-air with her shoulder.
"You are courting death!" A flash of scarlet appeared in the depths of Wanda's eyes, and several Chaos tentacles instantly formed behind her.
"Come on! Old woman!" Gwen backhanded her web-shooters, the muscles under her suit instantly tensing.
"Cough, cough... cough, cough, cough!"
Lynn erupted into a fit of violent coughing at the right moment, clutching his chest, his brows knitted together in pain.
The two colliding killing intents instantly dissolved and vanished.
"Don't get angry! I won't pay attention to her!" Wandahurriedly dispersed her magic, reaching out to stroke Lynn's chest.
"Don't touch him! You have static electricity on your hands!" Gwen slapped Wanda's hand away, but leaned in herself to help Lynn catch his breath.
Lynn waved his hand weakly, signaling he was fine. He closed his eyes, covering the trace of mockery at controlling the whole situation in the depths of his eyes.
Extreme balancing act, it seems to be working perfectly so far. These two women are checking each other, neither daring to truly make a move, and instead, they have become his two most solid lines of defense.
Just at this moment, the system panel deep in Lynn's mind suddenly lit up.
"[Ding! Target: Natasha Romanoff.]"
"[Current Status: Shadow Yandere Awakened (Loyalty absolutely locked).]"
"[Target has escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. control and is clearing potential physical threats for you.]"
Lynn chuckled inwardly. The Black Widow card had finally been secured. With Natasha providing intelligence and counter-reconnaissance from the shadows, the remnants of HYDRA and those little maneuvers of S.H.I.E.L.D. would become completely transparent to him.
Suddenly, the special tactical watch on Lynn's wrist, which he had swiped from S.H.I.E.L.D., vibrated extremely slightly three times.
This was the highest-level one-way encrypted frequency of the Red Room.
Lynn, without changing his expression, used the motion of turning over to press the receive button. Natasha's hoarse voice, carrying a trace of suppressed panting, was transmitted directly to Lynn's eardrum via bone conduction.
"Lynn, it's me."
In Natasha's voice was a suffocating fanaticism, completely different from her usual coldness, "I have paralyzed Fury's surveillance network. The physical coordinates regarding you inside S.H.I.E.L.D. have been completely erased by me. No one will ever be able to find you again."
"Well done, Nata." Lynn responded vaguely in his throat with an extremely low voice, disguising it as a painful groan.
Wanda and Gwen by the bed immediately leaned in nervously.
"But..." Natasha's speaking speed suddenly accelerated, carrying a trace of rare anxiety, "Fury has activated the backup plan of the Avengers Protocol. He sent the Chaos energy wavelength residue from when you erupted at the manor to Tony Stark."
Lynn's pupils contracted violently beneath his eyelids.
Tony Stark? That genius cursed by knowledge?
"Stark used Jarvis to lock onto the underground blast-proof layer where you are through reverse deduction of the energy wavelength." Natasha gritted her teeth, the roaring of a strong wind coming from the background; she was clearly moving at high speed, "Lynn, leave quickly. He has brought the 'Anti-magic Armor' developed specifically for high-dimensional energy, and is already above your heads!"
Lynn opened his eyes violently.
Before he could open his mouth to warn Wanda and Gwen, a blinding dark red ring suddenly lit up on the special alloy blast-proof ceiling that was three meters thick above their heads.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh—"
The extremely piercing sound of metal melting through instantly tore the silence of the safe house. A high-temperature laser cutter of several thousand degrees cut through the defensive layer capable of withstanding a nuclear explosion like cutting tofu.
Wanda and Gwen raised their heads simultaneously, their gazes transforming within half a second from the hostility of jealousy to absolute killing intent in the face of an external enemy.
"Boom!"
The cut-off huge alloy disc crashed down with a roar.
The blinding tail flames of the thrusters illuminated the entire Underground Room. A heavy mecha, painted in dark gold and deep red, with a physique a full circle larger than a normal Iron Man Suit, landed with irresistible pressure three meters in front of Lynn's hospital bed.
The mecha's faceplate popped open, revealing Tony Stark's face with its playful, cynical smile.
His gaze swept over Wanda, who was covered in Chaos Magic, then glanced at the Ghost Spider who was in an attack stance, and finally stared fixedly at Lynn, who was leaning on the bed.
"Wow, look who this is." Tony raised his eyebrows, his tone full of mockery, "A sick Agent being protected by two super girls. Kid, what kind of love potion did you feed them?"
Lynn looked at the Iron Man in front of him, said nothing, and just silently issued a command in his mind.
"System, lock target: Tony Stark."
"[Ding! Detected that the target does not meet the 'female hero' prerequisite, unable to initiate the 'Unwavering Devotion' simulation.]"
Lynn's mouth twitched slightly.
Damn, forgot about this. If I can't simulate, then I can only fight it head-on.
Tony closed his faceplate again, the arc pulse cannon in the mecha's palm instantly lighting up with a blinding white light, directly locking onto Lynn's head.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. says you are an extremely dangerous mental controller." Tony's voice came out through the electronic loudspeaker, carrying a cold metallic texture, "So, to prevent you from hacking into my brain, I have decided to just knock you out and take you away. Ladies, move aside."
The high-frequency buzzing sound emitted by the arc pulse cannon reached its peak.
However, Tony never had the chance to pull the trigger.
"What do you think you are..."
Wanda's voice squeezed out from the depths of her throat, as if it were a curse from the abyss. She slowly levitated into mid-air, her eyes completely swallowed by scarlet, and the violent Chaos Magic instantly twisted the gravity of the entire Underground Room to the extreme.
"To dare to point a gun at him?"
Chapter 53: Dimensional Strike, Iron Man's Cognitive Collapse
The air in the Underground Room was as heavy as lead.
The "Anti-magic Armor" that Tony Stark prided himself on was currently emitting an unbearable metallic groan.
This dark gold mecha, equipped with high-frequency energy repulsors and capable of withstanding tactical nuclear missiles, was being gripped like a soda can by an invisible giant hand under the gaze of Wanda's scarlet eyes.
"Warning. External gravity coefficient has soared to forty times Earth's normal state. Minor cracks appearing on the chest armor plate."
Jarvis's flat electronic voice echoed inside the helmet.
Tony gritted his teeth, his tongue tasting a faint trace of blood.
The anti-pressure gel inside the mecha was being injected frantically, but he still felt the air in his lungs being squeezed out bit by bit.
"Push the anti-gravity thrusters to the max! Cut off her energy field!" Tony growled, his eyes locked on the Scarlet Witch in mid-air.
"Sir, thrusters are at full capacity. But this energy... it is rewriting the physical constants of reality. Countermeasures are ineffective."
The arc pulse cannon in the armor's palm, which had been glowing with a blinding, eerie blue light, now flickered violently like a candle in the wind before extinguishing completely.
"This is impossible!" Tony's eye twitched.
Could the pinnacle of technology really not analyze a woman's Fury?
"Tin can, you've picked the wrong opponent."
A white afterimage streaked by from the side.
Gwen hung upside down from a broken steel bar, flipping her wrist.
"Sshh—" Two streams of high-pressure, specially-made spider silk shot out precisely, instantly sealing the heat vents on the armor's back and its leg joints.
Unable to vent the high heat, the temperature indicator lights inside the mecha instantly turned red.
The smell of burnt synthetic rubber mixed with the acrid stench of burning engine oil instantly filled the cramped Underground Room.
Tony was completely immobilized.
The Iron Man Suit he prided himself on hadn't even lasted three seconds in front of these two women.
"You just said..." Wanda floated slowly toward Tony, dark red Chaos Particles coiling like vipers around the neck gaps of the armor.
She tilted her head slightly, her tone soft yet laced with absolute killing intent, "You were going to knock him out and take him away?"
A harsh sound of metal snapping came from the armor's neck.
The high-strength alloy was being forcibly twisted and torn by Chaos Magic.
Tony's breathing became increasingly difficult, but he didn't plead for mercy, only staring fixedly at the man on the hospital bed not far away.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence was absurdly wrong.
This was no "mentally controlled Agent"; this was clearly a forbidden existence being guarded fiercely by two world-destroying Beasts!
Just as the neck armor was about to be completely ripped off and Tony's neck was about to be exposed to the Chaos Particles.
"Cough, cough... That's enough, Wanda."
An extremely weak, even slightly hoarse cough came from the hospital bed.
Lynn leaned against the pillows, his face as pale as paper, the bandages on his chest stained a striking dark red.
He seemed to lack even the strength to lift his hand, simply looking calmly at the Witch in mid-air with those deep eyes.
"Come back." These two words carried no magical fluctuations, nor did he even raise his voice.
But a miracle happened.
Wanda, who a second ago had been ready to crush Iron Man like a world-destroying deity, suddenly stiffened.
The scarlet in her eyes faded instantly, and the violent gravitational field dissipated without a trace like a popped bubble.
She didn't even glance at Tony again, landing directly by the bed like a child who had done something wrong, carefully wiping the blood from the corner of Lynn's mouth with her fingertips, her voice filled with deep self-reproach: "I'm sorry, I disturbed your rest..."
"Bang!"
The Anti-magic Armor, having lost the gravitational suppression, crashed heavily to the ground, kneeling on one knee.
Tony panted heavily, his mask popping open automatically to reveal his face, which was covered in cold sweat.
Looking at this scene of extreme contrast, his brain experienced a momentary shutdown.
A terrifying Witch who could tear apart a helicarrier with her bare hands and crush special alloys with mere pressure had instantly turned into a docile lamb because of this man's cough?
"Mr. Stark." Lynn patted the back of Wanda's hand, signaling her to step back.
He then cast his gaze toward Tony on the ground, the corners of his mouth curling into a faint arc, "Your Anti-magic Armor is designed quite ingeniously, but in the face of 'rules,' physical defense is just a joke."
Tony pushed himself up with his knees, tearing off the scorched spider silk from his back.
He stared at Lynn, the flippancy in his eyes completely gone, replaced by extreme vigilance.
"Who exactly are you?" Tony asked in a deep voice, "Furysaid you were a variable. But to me, you look more like a puppet master hiding behind women."
"Who I am is not important." Lynn adjusted his sitting posture slightly, wincing as he tugged at his wounds, "What's important is that you're being used as a pawn, Tony. Nick Fury sent you to capture me just to cover up the rotten truth inside S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Whether S.H.I.E.L.D. is rotten or not, I'll investigate that myself." Tony sneered, "But what I see right now is an extremely dangerous supernatural group entrenched in the outskirts of New York."
"Oh? Then have you found your name, Tony Stark, in the underlying code of the Insight Project?" Lynn played his first card.
Tony's pupils constricted.
"Have you found that beneath the S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelionlies an arsenal that HYDRA has kept for half a century?" Lynn continued to raise the stakes, his voice not loud, but every word struck deep.
Tony did not refute this.
Just a few hours ago, three helicarriers had been torn into scrap metal over Washington, and the fragmented data Jarvis had intercepted did indeed point to HYDRA.
"It seems you've already guessed some of it." Lynnwatched Tony's expression and sighed softly, "You are a genius, Tony. But you are too arrogant—arrogant enough to think you can control everything. Unfortunately, in the eyes of those true conspirators, you are nothing more than an ATM and an armory that can be sacrificed at any time."
Lynn extended two fingers and tapped on the tactical terminal at the bedside.
"Ding."
A notification sound rang in the internal communication channel of Tony's armor.
An encrypted data packet was forcibly transmitted into Jarvis's database.
"What is this?" Tony frowned.
"A gift." Lynn leaned back against the pillows, his gaze becoming extremely profound, "It's about the surveillance footage from that Long Island highway on December 16, 1991. And the list of the assassin who was brainwashed by HYDRA and equipped with a metal left arm."
As soon as these words were spoken, the temperature in the Underground Room seemed to drop to freezing point.
Tony's breathing suddenly hitched.
December 16, 1991—that was the day his parents, Howard Stark and Mary Stark, died in a car accident.
"Jarvis, open it." Tony's voice carried a rare trace of trembling.
"Sir, the data packet has been decrypted."
A blurry black-and-white video began to play on Tony's retinal display.
A car veering off the road, a cold figure riding a motorcycle, a metal arm smashing through the window, and the brutal scene of Howard being beaten to death.
Tony stared fixedly at the screen, his eyes instantly bloodshot.
Every muscle in his body tightened to the limit, and the sound of gears grinding came from inside the armor.
"Who..." Tony jerked his head up, staring intensely at Lynn, his voice hoarse like an injured Beast, "Who is that bastard with the metal arm?!"
"The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. HYDRA's ultimate weapon." Lynn dropped the final bomb, "And he is also the best brother of Captain America Steve Rogers. S.H.I.E.L.D., or rather HYDRA, has been keeping him hidden in a cryo-chamber."
The dimensional strike of information asymmetry landed perfectly.
Tony's arrogance was instantly shattered, replaced by overwhelming rage and the humiliation of betrayal.
He finally understood that the technology and funding he had provided to S.H.I.E.L.D. all these years were actually handing knives to his father's killers.
"Why give this to me?" Tony forced himself to calm down, but his trembling hands betrayed him.
"Because we need to cooperate." Lynn said unhurriedly, "Although HYDRA has been severely wounded, the centipede dies but never falls. Fury isn't a good bird either. You need revenge, and I... need a quiet environment to recover. Help me block S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Military, and I will provide you with the coordinates of all of HYDRA's secret Bases."
Tony fell silent.
He looked at Lynn, then at Wanda and Gwen, who were eyeing him like tigers.
This man had completely turned the situation around with just a few words and a video.
Not only did he dismantle his hostility, but he even turned him into a shield.
"You are a devil, Lynn." Tony closed his mask, his voice returning to its cold, metallic quality, "I will verify these things. If the footage is forged, I will bring the entire Iron Legion back and blast you to dust."
The thrusters reignited, and the Anti-magic Armor soared into the sky with a heavy roar, following the hole in the ceiling and disappearing into the night.
Only when Tony's radar signal completely disappeared did Lynn let out a long breath.
Extreme psychological warfare, accomplished.
The Iron Man card was temporarily firmly in his grasp.
"Why did you let him go?" Gwen jumped down from the shadows, retracting her spider silk, her tone filled with a hint of dissatisfaction, "He saw our location."
"He won't tell anyone." Lynn smiled and patted Gwen's head, "Right now, he hates S.H.I.E.L.D. more than anyone else."
Wanda snorted coldly, using Chaos Magic to seal the hole in the ceiling back up: "Next time another tin can flies in, I'll rip his heart out directly."
Lynn smiled helplessly, just about to say a few words to soothe her.
Suddenly, the system deep in his mind emitted an extremely sharp alarm, making his temples throb.
"Beep—! Severe warning!"
"High-dimensional space folding detected! Abnormal disturbance in the timeline detected!"
"An unknown spiritual entity is forcibly penetrating the system's shielding, attempting to read the host's soul fluctuations!"
The smile on Lynn's face froze instantly.
His Top-tier Spider-Sense went crazy at this moment, alarm bells ringing wildly. The shivering sensation of being stared at by an absolute, high-level existence made every hair on his body stand on end.
This was not HYDRA, nor was it S.H.I.E.L.D.
The space in front of the hospital bed suddenly began to distort.
Circles of golden sparks splashed out of thin air, spinning and expanding rapidly, outlining a circular portal emanating an ancient magical aura.
Behind the portal stood a bald woman wearing bright yellow monk robes, her hands behind her back.
She wore an eye-shaped pendant around her neck that emitted an eerie green light.
She did not look at Wanda, who was facing a formidable enemy, nor did she look at Gwen, who was ready to strike.
Her gaze pierced through all defenses, locking directly onto Lynn on the bed.
"You should not exist in this timeline, Mr. Lynn." The Sorcerer Ancient One's voice was ethereal and vast, as if it were sounding from all directions at once, "Your 'death' is tearing apart the foundation of the Multiverse."
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