Lin Xiu's thumb paused over his phone screen for three seconds.
In the video at the top of the trending list, his armor had burst into dreamlike blue light when Mjolnir struck it. The blue glow looped across the screen like some mysterious spell.
The comments seemed to explode beside his ears, filled with a jubilant chorus of "Iron Man's new suit?" and "A secret government weapon?"
He pulled off his hoodie, still dripping with water. Cold droplets fell onto his skin, sending a faint chill through him.
The Nanocore at the back of his neck suddenly heated up, as though a blazing flame were burning beneath his skin. Dark golden patterns slithered up his spine to his collarbone like living snakes, like neural pathways being activated.
"Quantum coupling coefficient: 0.87," he murmured to the mirror, his voice echoing through the silent room.
The quantum coupling coefficient was a key metric for measuring the strength of interaction between two quantum systems. This value meant that the armor's connection to some unknown force was in a delicate state.
Half an hour earlier, he had used the Oracle System to analyze footage Kevin had uploaded. The energy fluctuation frequency of Thor's hammer perfectly overlapped with the Mind Stone resonance curve recorded by the Balder Armor at the seventh harmonic point—a probability that, at the quantum scale, was equivalent to inevitability.
The laptop on the bedside table suddenly emitted a piercing buzz. A holographic projection popped up, displaying a three-dimensional layout of Stark Tower, its brilliant light and shadows flickering before him.
Lin Xiu bent down and pulled a metal case from the hidden compartment of his suitcase. The moment his fingers touched it, he felt a faint chill.
Inside lay ten Nanite Swarms as thin as hairs, each coated in Vibranium and gleaming faintly in the dim light.
"I need to get there before S.H.I.E.L.D. intervenes." He pressed the swarms against his wrist. As the nanoparticles traveled along his veins, an itchy sensation spread through his body. A ghostly blue gleam flashed from the core at the back of his neck. "There are three vulnerabilities in JARVIS's old system. Lina Holt will be working overtime in R&D, Zone B, at ten tonight." Lin Xiu had studied Lina because he knew that during an infiltration, anyone could become a key factor. Understanding her would give him greater confidence in his operation.
At 1:17 a.m., inside the ventilation ducts of Stark Tower's Zone B, Lin Xiu's breath condensed into white mist that slowly drifted through the dim passage.
He moved slowly along the icy metal wall, coldness seeping into his fingertips.
Feed from the miniature camera showed the red warning light of the central server room blinking thirty meters away, like a pair of vigilant eyes.
The Nanite Swarm had already gnawed through two layers of fireproof board. He could hear his heartbeat pounding a frantic rhythm against his eardrums—until that familiar string of beeps suddenly blared, sharp and piercing enough to tear through his ears.
The infrared alarm had been triggered.
The vent grille suddenly became scorching hot under an electric current. He could feel the blistering heat even through his gloves. Lin Xiu jerked his hand back as a red warning flashed across his goggles: Level Two Defense Activated.
Pressed against the duct wall, he listened to hurried footsteps below—a pair of white canvas shoes, their heels stained with coffee. That was Lina Holt's signature.
Three days ago, when he had hacked into Stark's intern roster, he had noticed the girl who always drank hot cocoa from a mug in the middle of the night. Her keyboard rhythm matched that of a prodigy from the quantum computing laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The system's acting up again." The girl's voice carried a nasal tone. She had probably pushed her round glasses back up her nose. In the quiet surroundings, her voice was especially clear.
Lin Xiu saw her upturned face: pale as paper, with dark circles beneath her eyes. Her fingers flew across the console, clattering rapidly. "A false infrared alarm... It was Zone B last time too. Could it be rats?" She bit her lower lip, her fingertip hovering over the Force Shutdown button for three seconds before she finally pressed it.
The instant the alarm stopped, Lin Xiu's Nanite Swarm had already drilled into the server room's door lock.
When he flipped down onto the floor, the blue glow from the core at the back of his neck was neatly concealed by the high collar of his janitor's uniform.
The server's cold airflow poured down his collar like an icy current, cutting to the bone. He found the mainframe port as the Oracle System unfolded a stream of data across his retina: "Data Gorging initiated. Estimated completion time: 4 minutes 17 seconds."
The screen suddenly went black.
"Are you looking for me?"
The voice was like an ice pick soaked in honey. As it seeped from the speakers, goosebumps rose along the back of Lin Xiu's neck.
In the holographic projection, Loki's face was reforming—the green-and-gold horned helmet, the upturned smile at the corners of his eyes, overlapping with the figure who had watched him through binoculars from the rooftop three days ago.
But this face was more translucent, like wet paper. Fine streams of data split from the corners of its mouth whenever it spoke.
"The Mind Stone's afterimage." Lin Xiu's pupils contracted.
The Oracle System flashed wildly. "Mental intrusion detected. Recommendation: sever neural link immediately!" But he did not move—the phantom's fingertips swept across the holographic display, and the laboratory scene suddenly unfolded around him.
He had returned to the Quantum Laboratory on Blue Star.
Professor Zhang, his mentor, was holding a coffee cup and smiling. "Lin, have you finished the stability report for the nanomaterials you designed?" His smile was kind, and his voice was warm and familiar.
At the workstation by the window, his roommate Chen Mo was playing games, his keyboard clattering noisily through the quiet laboratory.
Outside, the shadows of plane trees swayed in the breeze, rustling exactly as they had on every ordinary late night he remembered.
"This is what is real." Phantom Loki's voice came from every direction. "You're nothing more than dust blown off course by a Quantum Storm. Give up that ridiculous dream of becoming a Quantum Sentinel and return here—"
Lin Xiu's breathing suddenly quickened.
He could smell the rich aroma of instant noodles from Chen Mo's desk, mixed with the scent of seasoning and striking his senses.
He could hear the soft clink of ice cubes in Professor Zhang's coffee cup, a crisp sound like a beautiful note.
Every detail felt more real than anything in the Marvel Universe.
But when he looked up, outside the laboratory window—where the city's nightscape should have been—floated a ghostly blue sphere. Star-river patterns flowed across its surface, its dazzling radiance seeming to contain endless mysteries.
"The Mind Stone," he said quietly.
A crack appeared in the phantom's smile.
Lin Xiu raised his hand. The blue glow from the core at the back of his neck suddenly flared, and dark golden armor patterns surged from his collar, converging into a diamond-shaped energy source over his chest.
"Anti-Mental Force Field, activate."
Golden ripples spread from his chest like tangible waves.
The laboratory scene began to warp. Professor Zhang's face melted into data streams, and Chen Mo's game screen fractured into pieces.
Phantom Loki's scream was shredded within the ripples. As his final words, "You'll regret this—," faded away, Lin Xiu crashed into the server console, blunt pain exploding across his forehead.
"Unauthorized intruder located: Zone B server room." JARVIS's mechanical voice exploded overhead, while the red warning lights were so glaring he could barely keep his eyes open.
Lin Xiu yanked out the interface. The data packet had already been completely stored in the Oracle System.
As he rushed toward the vent, the door was violently pushed open. Lina stood in the doorway holding an access card, her face even paler than before. Steam still rose from the mug in her hand, slowly curling through the cold air.
"The elevators are down. There are guards in the fire stairwell." She shoved the access card into Lin Xiu's hand, her fingertips trembling with the tension inside her. "This can open the employee passage. It expires in three minutes."
"Why are you helping me?" The instant Lin Xiu took the card, he felt the icy coldness of her fingertips. His gaze held both confusion and gratitude.
Lina pushed up her glasses, her eyes sweeping over the faint blue glow at the back of his neck. "Last week, I hacked into some encrypted S.H.I.E.L.D. files." She tugged at the corner of her mouth. "There was a photo inside. The markings were exactly like the ones on your neck."
The alarms were getting closer.
When Lin Xiu turned and sprinted into the passage, he heard Lina shout behind him, "If... if the system goes crazy again next time, can you tell me the truth?" His steps faltered for a moment, but he did not turn back. He only ran faster.
As he ran, the data he had just acquired kept surfacing in Lin Xiu's mind. The Oracle System displayed a prompt across his retina: "Data analysis complete. Quantum entanglement equation between the Mind Stone and Balder Core discovered." A quantum entanglement equation was a mathematical expression describing a special connection between two or more quantum systems. This connection meant that the Mind Stone and Balder Core shared a mysterious link transcending space and time.
On the observation deck at the top of Stark Tower, the real Loki leaned against the glass curtain wall. His black-gloved fingertips tapped the dagger at his waist, producing clear, crisp sounds.
He watched the red emergency light glow in the direction of the employee passage. A crushed-diamond brooch reflected a ghostly green gleam in the darkness. "An Anti-Mental Force Field... capable of breaking free from the Mind Stone's afterimage. This armor is more interesting than I expected."
As he turned toward the shadows, sirens sounded below, drawing closer and clearer.
In the underground laboratory of an abandoned factory in Brooklyn, Lin Xiu's black trench coat was still dripping with night dew, each drop pattering against the floor.
He lifted the waterproof tarp, revealing the Quantum Collider in the center. The Nanocore at the back of his neck cast a ghostly blue glow across the console, illuminating the surrounding darkness.
The Oracle System suddenly buzzed. Within the holographic projection, the Mind Stone's energy spectrum and the Balder Core's structural model were merging. A line of quantum code emerged where they overlapped.
"This is... the key connecting the Nine Realms?" he murmured, his fingers hovering over the console and trembling faintly with excitement. "Odin, Ancient One, Loki... this is what they've all been searching for."
The core's blue light abruptly surged. The laboratory's quantum counter began jumping wildly, emitting frantic sounds.
Lin Xiu took half a step back and saw his reflection in the glass—dark golden armor patterns covered half his face, and the core's glow reflected in his eyes, making him look like a warrior from some ancient prophecy.
"Looks like the real trouble is only beginning." He smiled at the empty air and pressed the activation button.
Amid the Quantum Collider's hum, crows called in the distance, like an omen.
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