At the exact moment Li Guang's consciousness faded into the darkness of a forced coma, a silent alarm tripped in a facility buried deep within the Kunlun mountain range.
A siren blared, a harsh, rhythmic mechanical scream that echoed for miles across the desolate plateau.
Hidden beneath camouflaged netting and fake rock formations, hangar doors ground open.
The roar of engines shattered the silence. Over twenty Chengdu J-5 fighter jets, the pride of the era's air force, taxied onto the runway.
In the lead cockpit, a Colonel with a scar running down his cheek and eyes hard as flint grabbed his radio.
"Alarm Alert! Shadow Mission Failed," he barked, his voice distorted by the static.
"Target is hostile. Everyone take action now. Capture is preferred, but neutralization is authorized if containment breaks."
A buzzing hum filled the air as the squadron took off in perfect formation, their afterburners painting streaks of fire against the twilight sky.
They banked hard, heading towards the vector of Ernst's helicopter-turned-transport.
This was a black operation. No official logs. No flight plans.
Because some equipment, like long-range radar, couldn't be utilized without alerting the central government in Beijing, the radical faction had installed high-frequency trackers on Ernst's plane in advance.
They were hunting a tiger, and they had brought a pack of wolves.
— —
High Altitude - Above the Himalayas
Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was tense.
The pilot, a young man responsible for flying the aircraft, groggily opened his eyes. He saw Li Guang slumped in the seat, unconscious.
He saw the red-skinned demon looking at the door. And he saw Ernst, calm and terrifying, standing over him.
The pilot's demeanor changed dramatically. The blood drained from his face.
"Dr. Ernst!" he stammered, his hands shaking as he reached for the yoke.
"This... this is a misunderstanding! Please believe me, I truly have no connection to this matter. I was just told to fly!"
Ernst looked at him. His blue eyes were cold, calculating, but not cruel.
"I know it has nothing to do with you," Ernst said softly.
"You are just a pair of hands on a wheel. But since you're implicated, consider yourself unlucky. Collateral damage is a reality of war."
"Wait, "
"You rest now," Ernst interrupted.
Ernst pressed his thumb against the pilot's carotid artery.
A precise discharge of bio-electricity surged. The pilot's eyes rolled back, and he slumped forward.
"Azazel," Ernst commanded.
"On it," the demon grunted.
Azazel grabbed the unconscious Li Guang by the collar with one hand and the pilot with the other.
His tail flicked, cutting a hole in the fabric of space.
BAMF.
A wormhole opened, revealing a snowy slope thousands of feet below, a safe, soft landing spot near a village.
Azazel tossed the two men through the portal like bags of laundry.
The wormhole snapped shut.
Azazel jumped into the pilot's seat, his large, clawed hands gripping the controls.
"I hate flying these tin cans," Azazel muttered, banking the plane to correct their course.
"Dr. Ernst, with our capabilities, it's quite easy to escape. I could teleport us to Hawaii right now. Why stay and create a scene? We risk turning against the Chinese side completely."
Ernst walked to the rear of the cabin. He opened the cargo door.
The wind roared in, a hurricane of freezing air.
"Humph!" Ernst scoffed, checking his nanite suit.
"I just want to make a scene," Ernst shouted over the wind.
"I need to show some people that I have my limits. If I run, they will chase. If I hide, they will hunt. But if I break their teeth, they will learn not to bite."
He adjusted his gloves.
"As for whether it strains relations with China, don't worry about that. I'm against a few individuals, a radical faction, not China itself. After this incident, the wreckage and the failure will expose them. They might face repercussions from Beijing. The Chinese side will need to explain this treachery to me, not the other way around."
Only then did Red Devil grasp Ernst's plan.
It was peculiar. In all their years in Germany, even when manipulated by the Red Skull or ordered around by Hitler, Ernst had remained indifferent, detached.
He moved like a glacier, slow, unstoppable, emotionless.
This time was different.
Red Devil sensed a newfound anger in Ernst. It was sharp, hot. It made him seem more human.
"Hold it steady," Ernst ordered.
"Here they come," Azazel warned, checking the radar.
"Closing fast."
The enemy did not disappoint.
Within minutes, the sky was filled with the scream of jet engines.
Over twenty fighters swooped in, flanking Ernst's transport plane on all sides like a school of sharks.
The radio crackled.
"This is Red Falcon Leader. Unidentified aircraft, you are in violation of restricted airspace. Land immediately for inspection, or we will open fire."
"Ignore them," Ernst said.
Azazel grinned. "With pleasure."
The Red Devil continued to fly straight, maintaining course.
In the lead jet, the Colonel cursed. He felt helpless.
The special instructions were clear: Capture the scientist alive. The brain is the asset.
"Everyone, be alert," the Colonel barked.
"Prepare Plan B. We force them down. Target the engines and the control surfaces. Capture the enemy's aircraft. Be cautious not to cause casualties inside."
The Captain's plan was sound for dealing with a rogue transport. But he had underestimated the cargo.
"Azazel, bank left!" Ernst shouted.
As Red Devil yanked the stick, the transport plane executed a sudden, violent turn, throwing off the aim of the flanking jets.
Ernst didn't hold on.
With a forceful kick that dented the steel floor of the cargo bay, he leaped out of the plane.
He didn't have a parachute.
He soared through the thin air, a bullet of a man.
He covered dozens of meters in a heartbeat, intercepting the flight path of the nearest J-5.
THUD.
He landed on the fuselage of the fighter jet.
The impact was heavy. The metal groaned and buckled under his increased density.
Despite the plane's Mach-speed trajectory and the violent wind shear, Ernst stood firmly on the smooth metal surface as if rooted to the spot by magnets.
Inside the cockpit, the pilot looked up through the canopy glass. His eyes went wide with primal terror.
He saw a man in a trench coat standing on his plane, staring down at him with glowing blue eyes.
"Goodbye," Ernst whispered.
He stomped.
His foot, reinforced by the nanite armor and his own super-density, punched through the fuselage like a cannonball.
He ruptured the central fuel line.
BOOM.
The fuel tank exploded.
The plane turned into a fireball. The pilot, caught off guard by the sheer impossibility of the attack, failed to eject in time.
He succumbed to the explosion instantly.
"Monster!" exclaimed other pilots witnessing the scene over the radio.
"Did you see that? He jumped on it!"
"He's not human!"
Panic spread like a virus. Disregarding the Colonel's order not to harm the target, survival instinct took over.
"Open fire! Bring him down!"
Bullets rained down. Tracers lit up the sky like a chaotic thunderstorm.
Ernst was unfazed.
He leaped from the burning wreckage of the first plane. He calculated the vector, the speed, the wind resistance.
He landed on the second fighter.
This time, he didn't stomp. He punched.
He drove his fist into the engine intake.
The turbine shattered. The engine seized and exploded.
This time, the pilot was prepared. He pulled the ejection handle.
The canopy blew off, and the seat rocketed away seconds before the plane disintegrated.
"Two down," Ernst counted.
The loss of two fighters in under thirty seconds left the others in absolute terror. They broke formation.
They distanced themselves, pulling up and away, resorting to machine gun fire from a safe distance, attempting to defeat Ernst from afar.
The plane Ernst stood on plummeted rapidly, a smoking ruin.
By this time, the other planes had distanced themselves too far for a physical jump.
Even with Ernst's strength, he couldn't bridge a gap of two kilometers in mid-air... unless he chose to reveal his true capabilities.
Ernst's brain development had surpassed 35%. His connection to the Reality Stone allowed him to manipulate the fundamental forces.
His mastery of Earth's gravity had reached an impressive depth.
He could fly. He could simply float.
But he preferred not to reveal the full extent of his strength.
Not yet. Information was ammunition, and he saved his best rounds for the final boss.
Gravity manipulation: 10%. Reduce terminal velocity.
Ernst rode the wreckage down. To the observers, it looked like he was falling to his death. In reality, he was controlling the descent.
Boom!
Flames erupted as the plane crashed into the rocky plateau below.
A split second before impact, Ernst casually leaped. He landed on the ground in a crouch, the shockwave of the crash ruffling his coat, but leaving him untouched.
He stood up.
The onslaught began immediately.
From the sky, the remaining eighteen jets dove in strafing runs.
BRRRRRT!
The ground was chewed up by 23mm cannon fire.
Amidst a hail of bullets and rock shards, Ernst maneuvered like a nimble rabbit. He didn't run in a straight line.
He evaded the dense barrage effortlessly, the bullets kicking up dust inches from his heels.
Although unscathed, Ernst's inability to counterattack brought relief to the pilots above.
"He's grounded!" the Colonel shouted.
"He can't reach us! Keep him pinned! Bleed him out!"
It seemed they could prolong Ernst's demise. They just needed to get lucky once.
Ernst, however, was not one to be cornered.
He leaped behind a massive granite boulder, using it as cover.
He reached into his bag. He didn't pull out a weapon. He retrieved a simple, hollow metal cylinder, a component from a microscope he had packed.
He held it in his hand.
"Time for a magic trick," Ernst muttered.
He focused. He drew upon the energy stored in his cells, the kinetic energy absorbed from the fall.
He channeled it into his hand, and then through the metal cylinder.
The cylinder hummed. It began to glow white-hot, acting as a focusing lens.
As the planes attacked again, diving low for a kill shot, Ernst exposed only the end of the metal cylinder from behind the boulder.
ZZEWW!
A scorching beam of concentrated plasma shot forth. It was brighter than the sun.
It sliced through the air instantly.
It hit the lead plane in the wing root. The fuel ignited. The plane exploded in mid-air.
The pilot met a swift demise.
"No!" the Colonel screamed.
"Attack! Everyone attack! Kill him! Forget the capture!"
The flight team captain, consumed by vengeance for his fallen comrades and the sheer horror of the situation, abandoned the mission parameters in favor of annihilation.
"Rockets! Loose!"
Cannonballs and unguided rockets trailed by flames were unleashed.
Their roars echoed off the mountains.
The boulder Ernst was hiding behind was vaporized.
But Ernst remained impervious to the explosions. He moved through the fire like a ghost.
His nanite suit absorbed the thermal shock, converting it into more ammunition.
He skillfully maneuvered through the cannonball onslaught.
He raised the metal cylinder again.
ZZEWW! ZZEWW!
Two more beams. Two more fireballs in the sky.
He downed planes one after another.
The Colonel was baffled by the cylinder's capabilities. He watched his squadron disintegrate.
"What is that weapon?" he gasped.
"Is it nuclear? How does it endure repeated use without melting?"
Little did the captain know that the metal cylinder was a mere facade. It was just a piece of steel piping. Ernst was the weapon.
He absorbed energy, transforming it into scorching rays, concealing the true nature of his abilities behind a prop.
"Retreat!" the Colonel finally screamed, his voice breaking.
"Everyone retreat! Abort!"
With only a handful of planes remaining out of the initial twenty-plus, the flight team captain abandoned the mission entirely.
He was overwhelmed with regret and terror.
He pondered the intelligence behind the mission.
'They told us he was a scientist. They didn't tell us he was a god.'
He vowed to question, or shoot, the person responsible upon their return.
Twenty planes arrived; only five escaped into the clouds.
Wreckage littered the valley floor. Smoke columns rose into the sky, casting a desolate scene.
Ernst finally relaxed. He dropped the melted cylinder onto the ground.
He breathed heavily. The battle took a toll on his energy reserves.
He could have prevailed easily by simply crushing the planes with gravity or teleporting inside them, but maintaining the masquerade required effort.
Soon, the roar of the transport plane returned.
Red Devil descended, hovering the plane skillfully just a few feet off the ground.
Ernst leaped into the open cargo door.
The aircraft took off, climbing rapidly away from the slaughter.
Ernst settled back in his seat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small tracker left by Li Guang.
He looked at it for a moment, then crushed it between his fingers.
He peered through the glass at the retreating mountains of China.
"Let's go," Ernst said, his voice tired but satisfied.
The Castle, United Kingdom
Hours later.
On the rugged coast of Scotland, a gloomy ancient castle stood perched on a seaside mountain.
It was a place of legends, enveloped by perpetual darkness and occasional thunderstorms. The local villagers avoided it, whispering of ghosts and curses.
The eerie surroundings deterred all but the brave, or the invited, from venturing near.
On a cliff overlooking the churning black water of the North Sea, the air shimmered.
Abruptly, a blue light flashed.
A space wormhole slowly opened, ripping through the mist.
Ernst and the Red Devil emerged.
They gazed at the castle across the abyss.
A deep chasm separated the land from the solitary rock the castle stood on.
Ernst raised his hand, addressing his watch.
"Red Queen, open the bridge."
"Dr. Ernst," the cool, synthesized voice replied instantly.
"Please wait a moment. Authentication confirmed."
With the Red Queen's response, a mechanism at the castle gate groaned to life.
A heavy stone section of the cliff face slid away.
A flat, metallic plate extended towards them. It unfolded like origami, segment by segment.
Within minutes, a bridge over 100 meters long formed, connecting the cliff to the castle gate.
It was sleek, silver, and hummed with energy, a stark contrast to the medieval stone around it.
Ernst and the Red Devil traversed the bridge.
"Why don't we just teleport inside?" Azazel asked, shivering in the damp air.
"Because of the dampeners," Ernst said, tapping the railing.
"I installed them to prevent unauthorized access using teleportation. Even you would be scattered if you tried to blind-jump into my home."
As they reached the castle's massive iron-bound entrance, the door opened automatically.
"Dr. Ernst, welcome back," the Red Queen's voice echoed from hidden speakers.
They stepped inside.
The contrast was jarring.
Lights illuminated a surprisingly warm and modern interior.
The walls were lined with white panels, holographic displays floated in the air, and the temperature was a perfect 22 degrees Celsius.
Despite the castle's ancient exterior, Ernst had gutted it and incorporated advanced technology, managing the castle with a subroutine separated from the Queen.
He had built a fortress that surpassed current technological standards by over a century.
-------------
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