Steve's Adam's apple bobbed hard beneath his collar. Cold sweat seeped from the back of his neck and slid down his spine into his combat suit, like countless icy ants gnawing at his nerves.
He had no idea whether the energy projection's so-called star-destroying cannon really possessed the power to obliterate stars, but he wasn't about to take that chance.
His throat worked again, and a chill ran over the back of his neck as he hurriedly stopped the energy projection from finishing the spell formation.
"That's way too much power. We only need to kill Sitwell. Don't blow this entire planet apart!"
The energy projection was surprisingly easy to reason with. It accepted Steve's suggestion, redrew the formation, and said coldly, "Suggestion accepted. Reducing magical output. Modifying spell formation to Spell No. 011: Super Electromagnetic Cannon."
Only then did Steve let out a breath. He had seen Harry use the Super Electromagnetic Cannon before. Its power was still enormous, but compared to the super star-destroying cannon, it was obviously much safer.
The energy projection used AI to draw the spell formation, and it worked fast. In just a few seconds, the formation for the Super Electromagnetic Cannon was complete.
Just as Steve thought Sitwell was about to be killed by the spell, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
After the formation was completed, it didn't activate at once. Instead, it began expanding.
In only a few seconds, its diameter jumped from one meter to five meters, and it was still expanding at a terrifying speed.
A bad feeling immediately rose in Steve's chest. A Super Electromagnetic Cannon released from a one-meter formation had been enough to badly injure the Hulk. What about a five-meter one?
By the time that thought finished running through his mind, the formation had already expanded to ten meters across. Steve hurriedly shouted, "Stop increasing the power! That's already more than enough! Are you trying to kill me too?"
Reminded by Steve, the energy projection abruptly paused. Then, instead of continuing to pour violent chaos magic into the formation, it activated it.
The next instant, a dazzling blue radiance wrapped in endless plasma shot into the distance at incredible speed.
Metal walls, ceilings, floors, and every other structure in its path were torn apart like paper. The unstoppable torrent of energy annihilated everything before it.
In the span of a blink, the energy flood struck Sitwell head-on. Even a body that could shrug off conventional ammunition was pitifully fragile before that force. He was instantly erased.
When it was over, an enormous hole had been blasted through the military base, nearly splitting the entire facility in two.
Steve stared dumbfounded at the ten-meter-wide metal "tunnel" in front of him. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, before finally sighing, "Harry is getting stronger and stronger."
…
A few hours later, inside a hidden secret base, the Avengers were discussing how to deal with Hydra's attacks from here on out.
Tony was the first to stand up.
"Without Harry, we've been getting beaten at every turn. We're just too weak.
I'm going to build custom magic battle suits for each of you to raise our combat power. That's the only way we'll have a shot at defeating Hydra."
But the moment he finished speaking, Steve cut in.
"Even then, we still won't be Hydra's match.
Hydra's Supreme Commander is far too powerful. Even if all of us attack together, we'd still be crushed."
Thor was visibly agitated. He roared, "So we just sit here and watch Hydra slowly devour the government? If we keep doing nothing, they really will rule Midgard!
To hell with it. I'll charge in there myself and smash them one by one!"
Tony shot forward and planted himself in front of Thor, the air humming from the force of his movement.
He yanked off his sunglasses, revealing bloodshot eyes.
"Are you insane?! With the power you've got right now, charging in there would just make you target practice for Hydra! Are you trying to get yourself killed?
You'd be better off reporting this to King Odin and seeing if he'll intervene.
If the king is willing to move, Earth might still have a sliver of hope."
Thor's expression grew heavy, and he shook his head.
"My father's condition is getting worse and worse. If he acts again, then I'm afraid…"
For a moment, the atmosphere in the entire secret base turned oppressive.
Then they suddenly saw Wanda close her eyes, as if she were communicating with someone.
As Wanda's brother, Pietro was naturally the first to ask, "Wanda, what's wrong?"
Delight lit up Wanda's face as she explained, "Harry just contacted me. He says he can remotely control my body so he can use part of his own power through me.
Wait… he wants to go save Captain Rogers!"
Steve spread his hands helplessly from the side.
"Looks like he really was teleported to another parallel universe. Time there seems to flow differently from here.
Wanda, please tell Harry I'm already fine. The energy projection he left behind has already dissipated.
And… next time, maybe don't make an energy projection that terrifying."
The moment he remembered that final scene—how the energy projection, overloaded with too much power, had started wildly unleashing magic and destroying everything around it—Steve felt cold all over.
Luckily, the artificial intelligence inside the projection had retained at least a shred of reason and hadn't attacked him. Otherwise, he really would have become part of history right along with Hydra's military base.
Wanda nodded.
"Got it, Captain Rogers. I'll tell Harry everything."
After Wanda finished communicating with Harry, Tony looked at her expectantly and asked, "Wanda, how much of his strength can Harry bring out while controlling your body?"
Wanda answered, "My body is extremely compatible with Harry's magic. If conditions are right, he could even use his full power."
Tony's eyes lit up.
"Then there's no reason to hesitate. We mobilize everything we have and launch a counterattack. With Harry backing us up, we don't need to hold back so much."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
They were all Harry's friends. Of course they knew what kind of person he was.
A friend like that was worth trusting.
…
As for Harry, once he learned that Steve was safe, and that even the energy projection overloaded with too much magic hadn't completely spun out of control, he finally let out a deep sigh of relief. Only then did he have the peace of mind to look around at his surroundings.
As Harry sent his magic vibrating outward, his falling speed not only failed to slow, it actually increased.
The closer he got to the planet's surface, the more he realized that the world below him was not some alien planet at all, but Earth in this universe.
What surprised him even more was that the place he was falling toward looked strangely familiar.
That was the Battle of New York.
Harry swept his gaze around, and sure enough, he spotted a deep-blue portal below him.
No mistake. This really was the Battle of New York. He had only just arrived in this world, and he had already run into something like this.
As Harry accelerated faster and faster, already breaking the sound barrier, he wrapped himself in a Shield Charm to keep his own high-speed movement from injuring him.
Very soon, trailed by a sonic boom cloud, he arrived above New York.
At the same time, both the Avengers and the Chitauri soldiers noticed him.
Tony flew rapidly through the sky, blasting Chitauri soldiers with the repulsors in his hands and the energy cannon in his chest.
But every time he took one of them down, another one rushed forward to replace it.
These bottom-tier soldiers could be mass-grown with nothing more than nutrient solution. They were essentially free. The Chitauri mothership could churn them out at will.
Tony was just starting to think of a way to shut down the portal when J.A.R.V.I.S. suddenly alerted him.
"Sir, I must warn you: an unidentified object has been detected descending from beyond the atmosphere at Mach 2.7. Its trajectory is aimed directly at New York City."
"What the hell?" Tony immediately looked up using the data J.A.R.V.I.S. provided.
There, he saw a figure wrapped in a sonic boom cloud, plummeting downward at nearly three times the speed of sound.
More importantly, when he zoomed in on the figure, disbelief instantly filled his face. Staring at his screen, he muttered to himself and opened a channel to Thor.
"Thor… do you happen to have another brother?"
"What the hell? At a time like this, you're joking around?" Thor roared back, smashing a massive Leviathan aside with Mjolnir while pressing a hand to his earpiece.
"Just look up," Tony said over the comms. "There's a guy falling out of the sky from tens of thousands of feet up!"
"The hell with this. I'm looking."
But when Thor raised his head and looked skyward, he froze just like Tony had.
With his eyesight, he didn't need mechanical assistance to see clearly through the sonic boom cloud.
Inside it was a man around twenty years old, dressed in robes full of fantastical flair, with a cloak snapping wildly behind him.
He was plummeting at several times the speed of sound. In the time Thor and Tony had spent speaking, he had already dropped level with the portal in the sky.
Tony's voice sounded in his ear again.
"Thor, do you know him? Is he friend or foe?"
Thor shook his head in confusion.
"I don't know him. I've never even heard of anyone like him anywhere in the cosmos.
But judging from his appearance, he should be some powerful sorcerer. Some sorcerers are even capable of traveling the multiverse, so I suspect he may not belong to this universe at all."
Tony blanked.
"So you're saying he's not from this universe?"
"Most likely, yes. But I can't be certain of his strength or his allegiance."
"Forget that for a second. The Chitauri already helped us test him.
Wait… what the hell just happened? He only said one sentence, and every Chitauri up there just dropped dead!" Tony shouted over the team channel.
The distance was too great, and with the wind and explosions swallowing the sound, even Thor couldn't hear what had been said from several thousand meters above.
So he asked curiously, "Then what did he say, Tony?"
Tony slowed his speech. His voice trembled slightly as he answered.
"It was like God creating the world. He just said, very calmly…
'Here, there are no Chitauri.'"
Thor: "!!!"
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810