"Stark, Wayne."
Lynn's cold voice traveled through the encrypted comms channel, crossed the atmosphere, and thundered inside the helmets of the two men working in orbit.
Low Earth orbit.
The temperature here approached absolute zero.
The skeletal remains of the Celestial Arishem stretched for tens of thousands of kilometers, coiled tightly around Earth like a gigantic metal serpent biting its own tail.
Tony Stark wore deep-space demon metal engineering armor and held a high-frequency plasma welding torch.
Sparks flew across the surface of the celestial alloy.
Bruce Wayne, clad in heavy radiation-shielded Bat Armor, crouched on a raised metal platform, tightening a thick Neural Optical Fiber with a ratchet wrench.
Both men stopped working the moment they heard Lynn's voice.
"Listen, whichever unlucky bastard from whichever dimension you're planning to dissect this time, my engineering schedule is already booked through next month."
Tony rolled his eyes and clipped the welding torch to the magnetic fastener at his waist.
"The Celestial Great Wall's defense grid is only ten percent installed."
"If you want me to come back and operate on those clowns hanging from the ceiling, forget it."
"I don't need doctors." Lynn's voice carried an unmistakable air of command.
"Go to the Third Defense Zone of the Celestial Great Wall. Remove the three cervical vertebrae right in the middle of Arishem's neck and deliver them to the Miracle Dimension."
Dead silence filled the comms channel for five full seconds.
Veins bulged on the back of Bruce's wrench-gripping hand as he studied the radar data on his bracer.
"Lynn." Bruce's voice held barely restrained anger.
"Do you know how big one of Arishem's cervical vertebrae is? Each one is over a hundred kilometers in diameter! You want us to tear out structural components on that scale? If anything goes wrong and