The concrete ceiling of the tunnel suddenly let out a teeth-grating groan, sharp and piercing, like a rusty saw cutting through eardrums.
Lin Xiu had just pressed the Tesseract Fragment into his palm when a warm, tingling sensation spread through it. The Nanocore's tremors were drowned out by the high-frequency resonance from above—the distinctive hum of a Chitauri Antigravity Engine, like steel needles stirring inside his skull. The piercing sound drilled into his brain, making his temples throb.
"Oracle, distance to the energy source?" His voice was kept low, his tongue pressed against his back teeth, his lips trembling slightly as warm, nervous breath escaped them.
The armor patterns of Tactical Assault Form flowed beneath his skin. The blue streams of light moved like lively snakes, crawling up his spine to the nape of his neck and bringing a cool, slick sensation.
The nanostructure of the glider membrane was restructuring around his shoulder blades. The itching reminded him of the burn when he had first activated the core in the lab, as if that scorching heat were spreading across his skin again.
"Three point two kilometers. Vertical altitude: one hundred and eighty meters." The system's electronic voice carried a faint current-like static, hissing and crackling like interference from an old radio.
"Target has locked onto the subway station entrance. Thermal imaging indicates that your abnormal body-temperature readings have been exposed."
Lin Xiu's pupils suddenly contracted.
He looked at the daylight filtering through the ventilation shaft. That beam of light, like a golden thread, was suddenly cut off by a shadow—an airborne unit's shadow, like an enormous black curtain rapidly descending.
Amid the shriek of metal tearing through the air, the sound was as piercing as a blade scraping across glass.
He saw blinding white light seep from the center of the tunnel ceiling, as if someone had carved a crack into the concrete with a laser blade. The glare was so intense that he had to squint.
"Time to go," he whispered to the fragment in his palm. The Nanite Swarm burrowed through the gaps between his fingers and into the armor interface, bringing a faint itch between them.
When the first chunk of rubble smashed down beside his feet, its impact rang out clear and loud. He bent his knees, his back muscles drawing taut like a bowstring, making him feel like a bow about to loose an arrow.
The instant the glider membrane unfolded behind him, the ceiling completely collapsed. A searing white beam, carrying shattered stone with it, slammed into the spot where he had stood moments before. The shockwave hurled him backward into the tunnel wall like a surging wave.
The automatically deployed neck guard struck his cervical spine hard enough to send sharp pain through it.
"Damn it." He cursed through gritted teeth, but amid the rain of falling rubble, he saw an opportunity. The stones crackled and popped as they fell, like a furious drumbeat.
Dense smoke rose from the crater blasted into the ground by the beam, carrying a pungent burnt smell. Using the explosive airflow's recoil, he kicked off the wall and launched himself upward, his glider membrane carving a silver arc through the air that flashed brilliantly beneath the sun.
When his eyes met the daylight again, he saw three Chitauri sky-bikes approaching in a triangular formation. Dim blue energy was gathering at their muzzles, radiating an icy chill.
"Tactical evasion!" Oracle's alert had not even finished before Lin Xiu twisted his body sideways.
The Nanobots along the glider membrane's edges suddenly hardened into serrated blades, cutting through the shockwave of the incoming energy blast as scorching air rushed at him head-on.
The explosion's shockwave nearly knocked him off balance, but it also gave him a clear look at the battlefield below—Brooklyn's streets were unrecognizable. A destroyed bus lay across the middle of the road, its twisted frame glaring beneath the sunlight.
Water from a fire hydrant sprayed into the air, refracting a rainbow in the sunlight. Its colors were beautiful and illusory.
At the end of that rainbow, Chitauri soldiers in silver-gray armor were pouring out from every alley, their armor gleaming with a cold metallic sheen beneath the sun.
"Target exposed!" Carl Weiss's hoarse roar suddenly exploded from the communicator, echoing through it like thunder.
Only then did Lin Xiu notice the nano-surveillance unit somehow stuck behind his ear—it had come from the residual Chitauri communication waves in the tunnel.
He heard Carl's heavy breathing mixed with electrical static. "Carrying a Tesseract Fragment, technological capabilities unknown... requesting air support to blanket coordinates B7-12!"
"In your dreams." Lin Xiu curled his lips and rapidly formed a gesture with his left hand, his fingers moving with crisp, decisive rhythm.
Nanobots reverse-infiltrated the communication channel through the unit behind his ear, inserting a piercing buzz into Carl's transmission. The noise was shrill and grating, enough to make anyone restless.
As his glider membrane scraped past the sign of a damaged convenience store, the sign creaked harshly from the friction.
From the corner of his eye, he caught his own reflection in the glass display window—his pupils glowed with an eerie blue mechanical sheen, as deep and mysterious as a dark pool.
It was the sign that the Oracle System had activated tactical analysis.
The ground rushed closer beneath his feet, making his heartbeat accelerate uncontrollably.
Lin Xiu locked onto an unfinished skyscraper half a kilometer away. Exposed steel rebar stabbed toward the sky like the ribs of a giant beast, gleaming with a cold metallic luster in the sunlight.
He folded up the glider membrane and smashed through the second floor's glass curtain wall using the momentum of his descent. The shattering glass rang out crisp and loud, like glass bells being smashed apart.
He rolled through the shattered glass scattered across the floor to bleed off the impact. The shock-absorption module at his armor's knees gave a faint click.
"Building structural analysis complete." Oracle's projection unfolded across his retina. Red markers identified the weak points of the load-bearing columns, while a green route marked the optimal path from the second floor to the roof. The projection shimmered with faint blue light across his vision.
Lin Xiu tore off a bent length of rebar, and the Nanite Swarm crawled along the metal surface and into the cracks in the wall—this was his Battlefield Sensor Network. Every nanobot was feeding back the building's vibration frequencies in real time, while the metal carried an icy touch.
"Footsteps." He pressed his back against a load-bearing wall and made his breathing almost silent. The wall was cold and hard against his back, sending a faint chill through him.
Oracle's alert had barely sounded when the crisp clank of metal boot heels striking the floor came from downstairs, clear and loud like a sharp drumbeat.
Lin Xiu looked up at the ceiling. The cracks in the cement were trembling slightly with each footstep—it was the heavy armor of Chitauri soldiers, and the fissures gave off faint cracking sounds as they shook.
"Carl came in person." He touched the Electromagnetic Pulse Crossbow at his waist. The Nanite Swarm reassembled three diamond-shaped bolts in his palm, while the crossbow felt cold and metallic in his hand.
Voices came from around the stairwell corner, mixed with the crisp click of weapons being chambered. The conversation was low and indistinct, but the weapon sounds were sharp and decisive.
Lin Xiu lightly tapped the wall with a finger. The Nanobots disguised as cracks instantly came alive and crawled through the wall seams toward the nearest ventilation duct. A damp smell lingered in the cracks.
"Prepare EMP." He spoke softly, the blue light in his pupils growing brighter, like burning flames filled with unshakable resolve.
When the first Chitauri soldier appeared at the stairwell entrance, Lin Xiu saw the thermal imaging on the soldier's helmet visor locking onto him—but the next second, the soldier's weapon suddenly burst into sparks, and blue smoke rose from the energy cannon's muzzle. The sparks flashed brightly, and the smoke carried a pungent odor.
"Interference! It's interference!" Panic was obvious in the soldier's sharp, urgent shout.
Lin Xiu darted out from behind the wall, and the electromagnetic crossbow precisely punched through the cooling vent in the soldier's chest armor with a crisp impact.
The soldier let out a muffled groan and collapsed. Lin Xiu did not stop, however. He raced up the stairs, leaving a cluster of Nanobots every few steps—his second layer of traps. The stairs thudded beneath his sprinting feet.
Meanwhile, at the S.H.I.E.L.D. command center...
"Director, the coordinates of the energy fluctuation in northern New York have been locked." Before the fluorescent screens of the S.H.I.E.L.D. command center, an assistant pushed satellite footage toward Nick Fury. The screens emitted faint blue light as the image flickered.
The one-eyed director tapped his fingers against the desk, the sound crisp and rhythmic.
On the screen, a black dot moving through the ruins flashed with unnatural blue light. "Not one of ours. Doesn't look like Hydra equipment either."
"Do we eliminate it?" The assistant's finger hovered over the communications key, trembling slightly.
Fury stared at the trajectory of the black dot as it suddenly turned toward the unfinished building. His Adam's apple shifted. "Find out what it is first. If it's a threat..." His voice dropped. "Eliminate it as a priority."
At that moment, Lin Xiu stood on the top floor of the building.
He held onto the remnants of the glass curtain wall and looked toward the wormhole growing clearer in the distance—a green vortex churned across the sky as more Chitauri warships streamed out of it, radiating an aura both mysterious and powerful.
The wind swept up the loose strands of hair over his forehead, cool against his face.
The Nanocore burned hot in his chest. He could clearly feel the Tesseract Fragment's energy flowing through his veins like a group of cheering little sprites, warm as a stream running through his blood.
"Infiltrate the battlefield. Face Loki directly." The moment he spoke this plan into the wind, even he was startled by it.
Deep down, he was actually somewhat hesitant. On one hand, he knew this plan was fraught with danger and might trap him in a hopeless situation. On the other, the thought of Earth facing the Chitauri threat stirred a powerful sense of responsibility within him, strengthening his resolve to carry it out.
But Oracle's tactical simulation quickly unfolded across his retina: a 92% probability of approaching the wormhole, a 78% probability of completing energy sampling before the Avengers arrived, and most importantly...
"Hidden Tactical Form function detected." The system's prompt suddenly became clear and bright. "Identity forgery program activated. Requires 10% of a Mid-grade Cosmic Cube Fragment's energy. Activate?"
When the Nanocore supplied energy to the Nanite Swarm, it relied on Energy Resonance with the Tesseract Fragment.
Inside it was a complex energy conversion device that transformed the fragment's energy into a form usable by the Nanite Swarm.
However, prolonged high-intensity use could cause the core to overheat and even risk an energy backlash.
Lin Xiu looked at the green light cast by the distant wormhole, and the corner of his mouth slowly rose.
He touched the fragment still burning in his palm, then turned toward the stairwell—ever-closer footsteps came from there, along with Carl Weiss's furious roar.
But this time, there was no tension in his eyes, only an eager gleam.
"Oracle, prepare the forgery program." He spoke softly, pressing a finger against his armor core. "Make them... unable to recognize who I am."
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