Chaos Magic

Chthon, also known as the God of Black Magic. As one of the Elder Gods, he was one of the earliest life forms on Earth. Even Kamar-Taj's ancient tomes contained only scant references to him. He could be said to be the source of the vast majority of dark magic, and his power was immeasurable. Even Dormammu, the evil god of the Dark Dimension, and Mephisto, ruler of Hell, feared this ancient deity.

And now, the black-clad girl standing before Michael—the Scarlet Witch—was radiating the same Chaos Magic as that demonic god, surging from her body like a tidal wave, though it was not yet nearly as powerful.

The power gathering within the crimson waves seemed to have reached a critical point. A suffocating pressure dominated the hall. The girl's hem was whipped up by magic, while her reddish-brown hair danced wildly in the magical storm. She spread her slender arms, her delicate fingers like a conductor's baton, and the dark-red Chaos Magic was the movement she commanded.

As she lowered her arms, the surging magic filling the hall was drawn into motion. It swept across heaven and earth, condensing into a dark-red torrent as it lunged at her opponent, like a dark-red water dragon roaring as it bared its fangs.

Michael raised a hand, magic pouring from his palm and forming a circular spell shield in the nick of time. The torrent of Chaos Magic slammed into his round shield. The force made the heels of Michael's alloy boots slide slightly backward, scraping tiny sparks from the floor.

Michael leaned his upper body back slightly and bent his arm. Under the overwhelming impact of Chaos Magic, the spell shield looked like a lone boat on a raging sea, on the verge of capsizing.

"Hmm, not bad," Michael muttered to himself.

He retreated half a step, then suddenly twisted his palm, making the spell shield spin rapidly with his gesture. The rapidly spinning shield became like a centrifugal pump. The condensed Chaos Magic scattered the instant it struck, blasting the surrounding walls of the hall full of holes.

Michael spun one hundred and eighty degrees, gave a low shout, and delivered a powerful spinning kick into the torrent blocked by the shield. The kick, infused with special magic, shattered that wave of energy into fragments. The suffocating magical fluctuations spread back in the opposite direction.

The Scarlet Witch staggered back two steps with an "Ah!" The magic gathered around her instantly dispersed. She stared at Michael in surprise, clearly caught off guard by his response.

But she quickly regained her composure, and dark-red magical waves filled her eyes again. A silver-white whirlwind came to a stop behind Michael. A silver-haired young man in a black coat halted behind him, gripping a short metal baton in each hand.

The Twins surrounded Michael from front and back. The Scarlet Witch spread her palms, and Chaos Magic began circulating once more. Quicksilver loosened his joints, bent slightly forward, and shifted his right foot back, like an arrow nocked on a fully drawn bowstring.

The Scarlet Witch gave a low cry and flung out a ball of energy molded from magic. Michael swept it aside with his arm, but Quicksilver moved at the same moment. He shot forward, leaving a long white streak as he raced around Michael at high speed.

"Sherry, track his movement path and calculate every possible direction he could move. Mark them on my display," Michael ordered.

"Already doing it, sir."

Michael could not keep up with Quicksilver's speed, but that did not mean his supercomputer could not. With Sherry's assistance, Michael raised his arm without even looking. An auto-targeting Micro-missile streaked through black smoke toward the predicted route, cutting off Quicksilver's next step.

Sherry completed her prediction perfectly, but unfortunately, the missile was not fast enough to finish the job. Quicksilver's sharp dynamic vision caught the incoming missile while he was moving. He slid half a meter sideways, avoiding the missile that appeared to be flying toward him in slow motion, then adjusted his course and continued charging at Michael.

What he did not know was that this was no ordinary high-explosive missile. Its warhead was a specially made Lotus Bomb. Sherry timed its detonation with perfect precision, triggering it the instant it passed Quicksilver. Fire and thick smoke rapidly expanded, while countless metal fragments spun out from the blast point, slicing through the flames like hidden weapons scattered in a rain of flowers.

The scorching gust chased at the back of his neck. Quicksilver glanced sideways and could not help sucking in a breath. But he held it, pushed off the ground, forcibly accelerated again, and shifted several meters sideways to escape the fragments' range before regaining his balance and charging at Michael once more.

Yet as if it had already anticipated his evasive route, a second missile carrying a Lotus Bomb shot toward his landing point the instant he arrived. Quicksilver had no choice but to evade again. The Lotus Bomb exploded once more, and he forcibly accelerated to avoid it. The entire process repeated itself almost exactly, except Quicksilver had indeed closed half the distance between them.

A third missile blocked Quicksilver's path in advance, but with the experience of the first two, he handled it with ease. He dodged the missile and its fragment spread at the same time, tracing an obtuse arc to seize the position directly behind Michael.

The thick smoke released by the three explosions reduced visibility in the hall to its lowest point, but at this distance, Quicksilver could still barely make out his opponent's outline through the haze. He lunged forward, his body like a bolt of lightning tearing through the smoke as he charged at Michael's back.

Michael spun around and lashed out backward without looking, as though he had eyes in the back of his head. The gale driven by his steel battle boot pierced the smoke like a spike, and the white afterimage flashed into it at that exact moment—direct hit!

The instant Quicksilver burst through the smoke and reached his opponent, he saw the incoming kick. But with such tremendous momentum, he had no time to change direction. He could only raise his arms in front of himself with a muffled grunt. With a heavy thud, the white afterimage seemed to crash into Michael's backward kick on its own, flipping through the air several times before slamming hard into a load-bearing pillar in the hall.

That kick appeared to be a coincidence, but it was actually the result of extremely precise calculations and deliberate guidance. Using Sherry's extraordinary motion tracking and computational abilities, Michael accurately calculated and predicted Quicksilver's movement path. He then deliberately used three Lotus Bombs as guiding attacks, steering Quicksilver into evading along the route he had already calculated, so that Quicksilver appeared at the exact instant Michael had designated directly behind the armor.

Quicksilver's body could withstand the strain of supersonic movement, so his physique was naturally exceptional. Even so, if Michael had not deliberately held back, reduced the output of his leg power system, and avoided vital areas, Quicksilver would never have escaped being killed on the spot.

"Pietro!"

The Scarlet Witch shouted her brother's name as Chaos Magic erupted in a mighty burst, squeezing all the thick smoke and dust from the hall.

With her vision restored, the black-clad girl's hem fluttered as dark-red waves slowly revolved around her like a blooming flower. She fixed Michael with a blazing gaze. The magic rushing through the air formed a scarlet domain, and every element within it obeyed her command.

Michael leaped into the air. His jetpack instantly rose to maximum power, blasting out two long trails of flame that propelled him upward. Yet the magic chased after him from below as if it possessed a will of its own. Chaotic scarlet magical energy crawled up his legs and over his torso, binding him like chains. Under the girl's command, boundless power seeped through every tiniest gap in the armor like water finding its way through cracks, ready to blast the Black Armor apart from within.

Perhaps the Scarlet Witch was too focused on casting her spell, because she did not notice the true threat approaching from behind at all. The Pulse Cannon struck her back without any obstruction. Her light body flew into the air, and the gathered Chaos Magic instantly vanished.

The real Michael slowly lowered his arm behind her, while the illusion caught in the pincer attack of Chaos Magic disappeared into thin air after gloriously completing its task.

Illusory duplicates were as useful as ever, especially when bullying rookies with little combat experience.

Still, the Scarlet Witch's performance genuinely surprised him somewhat. The Chaos Magic she unleashed seemed bottomless, and this was clearly not even her full strength. She just appeared to be using that power solely as a telekinetic superpower, without finding the proper method at all. She was like an infant carrying a vault—possessing terrifying magical power but able to wield only a tiny fraction of it.

With proper guidance, she might become a truly terrifying mage in the future.

The Twins had both fallen, and neither seemed capable of fighting again anytime soon. Michael had only taken two steps when a bright red warning symbol appeared on his display once more. The sensors showed something rising vertically from directly beneath the hall at incredible speed.

Michael rapidly retreated, flames blasting forward from both sides of his armor's waist to push his body several meters back. The hall floor, scrubbed spotless by repeated waves of magic, burst apart with a thunderous groan. A huge, heavy steel body erupted from the ground, standing before him like a mountain.

"You've waited long enough, Dr. Norton." Baron Strucker's grim voice echoed loudly through the steel armor's speakers in the crack-ridden hall. "Now, I'm ready to talk."