In Brooklyn's underground laboratory, fluorescent lights flickered like drunken fireflies amid the Quantum Collider's constant, low hum.
The shifting light cast patches of brightness and shadow over the old experimental equipment around him.
The Nanocore at the back of Lin Xiu's neck seeped out a dense blue glow. Like a dormant ghostly serpent, it flickered with an eerie light as it slowly slithered down his spine, leaving behind a cold, clammy sensation, as if countless tiny ice needles were pricking his skin.
He stared fixedly at the energy charts overlapping in the holographic projection, their multicolored lights flashing ceaselessly. He did not dare blink.
Then the Oracle System's cold mechanical voice exploded in his ears like thunder. "The Mind Stone encryption level has been detected as Nine Realms standard. Oracle Form must be activated for deep decryption."
"Intermediate Fragment." He instinctively licked his dry, peeling lips, making a faint sizzling sound.
Then he slowly reached into his tactical belt, fumbled around for a moment, and finally pulled out a crystal the size of a pigeon egg.
It was a Tesseract Fragment he had "borrowed" from a S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouse three days ago. Blue electric arcs flowed across its surface, crackling like countless tiny snakes in motion.
When he clasped the fragment in his palm, he could clearly feel a fierce, restless energy surging there. It was like molten lava, leaving his hand hot and numb.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch the fragment's interface, a burning sensation flared at the back of his neck. It spread through his entire body in an instant, making him tremble uncontrollably.
Lin Xiu staggered and braced himself against the console, gripping its surface so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
The holographic image before him began to distort. Its once-clear lines became blurred and chaotic, as though an invisible hand had kneaded them into a mess.
The Quantum Collider's hum abruptly changed as well, turning into a sharp, piercing ringing in his ears. It was like countless bees buzzing madly beside his head, splitting his skull with pain.
He heard the Oracle System issue its final warning. "Unknown energy fluctuations detected on the mental plane—"
Darkness surged in like a tidal wave, carrying a damp, frigid presence as if it had swept up from the abyssal seabed.
It swiftly devoured his vision, plunging him into silent chaos.
When Lin Xiu opened his eyes again, he was standing in an endless corridor.
The corridor reeked of damp rot, like a basement that had not been ventilated in years.
Picture frames covered both walls, and every one of them held one of his memories.
The block castle he had smashed on his seventh birthday, its broken pieces scattered across the floor with crisp cracks; the formula-covered draft papers he had written beneath a desk lamp on the eve of his college entrance exam, their pages slightly yellowed and seemingly still carrying the scent of nervous sweat; the sparks flying during the laboratory accident, burning through his white coat with crackling bursts and the scorched stench of burning fabric.
In the frame at the very end was the final scene before he had crossed over—the Quantum Collider's blue light, like raging ocean waves, swallowing his entire field of vision. Beneath the skin at the back of his neck, dark golden patterns spread like veins, flickering with mysterious light like a giant dragon hidden in darkness.
"Familiar, isn't it?"
A sinister voice came from behind him, like the wailing of ghosts in a cold wind, carrying an indescribable chill.
Lin Xiu spun around sharply, and a blast of cold wind hit him head-on, making his hair whip and rustle.
He saw a figure in a dark green robe slowly emerge from the shadows. A crushed-diamond brooch at his collarbone refracted a dim green glow, like the eerie eyes of a specter.
Up close, it was Loki—but not entirely.
The contours of this face were sharper, and the smile at its lips carried a sickly sweetness. It was like a Mirror that had magnified every trace of malice.
"Who are you?" Lin Xiu instinctively pressed his right hand to his chest, but all he touched was an ordinary cotton T-shirt, cool against his skin.
In this dream, the Balder Armor had not come with him.
"Who do you think I am?" Phantom Loki's fingertip brushed across the nearest frame, and the image of childhood blocks suddenly warped into the devastation of the Battle of New York.
Burning buildings crackled as flames roared, filling the air with a pungent scorched stench. Falling Chitauri ships thundered down, making the ground shake. And there he was, standing amid the ruins in dark golden armor, blue light dancing in his pupils just like the glow of the Nanocore.
"Look at what you are now. A mechanical engineering graduate student? A Quantum Sentinel? You're nothing but a puppet being led around by the Oracle System." Phantom Loki's voice coiled around Lin Xiu's ears like a demon's whisper.
Lin Xiu's temples throbbed. Anger and resentment surged inside him. He wanted to argue, yet for a moment, he had no words.
He remembered fighting alongside the Avengers in Stark Tower, when Tony had clapped him on the shoulder and said, "You're ten times smarter than my armor." Those warm words seemed to echo in his ears. He remembered Black Widow handing him hot coffee and saying, "Stop being so tense. We're not test subjects." The coffee's aroma seemed to linger beneath his nose. He even remembered Lena shouting, "Tell me the truth," at the entrance to the passageway, the ends of her hair damp with night dew and carrying a faint fresh scent of grass and leaves.
Those memories suddenly blurred, as though covered by frosted glass, and pain stabbed through his heart.
"They need you because you can fight." Phantom Loki's voice swept over his eardrums like a snake's tongue, cold and nauseating.
"But what if one day your armor suddenly fails to recognize them? What if the Oracle System says, 'Kill these burdens'—do you think they'll smash your head in first, or beg you to be a hero one more time?"
The burning sensation at the back of his neck returned, licking at his skin like tongues of flame.
In terror, Lin Xiu saw dark golden patterns emerge across the back of his hand. Like tiny snakes, they twisted and writhed beneath his skin, making faint rustling sounds.
They were the mark of the Balder Armor, but now they were no longer camouflage. Instead, they crawled toward his wrist like chains, and every movement felt as though countless needles were stabbing into his flesh.
He staggered backward and crashed into a picture frame.
It showed the night before he crossed over, his mentor patting him on the shoulder and saying, "Your nanomaterials thesis can change the world." The frame shook from the impact with a loud clatter.
"Change the world?" Phantom Loki laughed, his voice sharp and grating like shattering glass.
"You're nothing but an abandoned child from another world. Quantum entanglement? The Tesseract was merely looking for a new toy. Once it gets tired of playing—" He suddenly grabbed Lin Xiu by the back of the neck, his icy fingertips piercing through skin and straight into bone like ice spikes. Lin Xiu could not help shuddering.
"Your Nanocore will become the prettiest fireworks, and you won't even leave behind a pile of ashes."
The armor patterns crawled over Lin Xiu's neck. He could clearly hear the scrape of metal, like rusted chains dragging across the ground, making his scalp tingle.
His consciousness began to scatter. The memory scenes before him vanished one after another like photographs blown away by the wind, leaving only hazy patches of light and shadow.
In his daze, he remembered the man in gray robes in an alley outside Kamar-Taj—Icarus Vaughn.
At the time, Icarus had been crouching on the ground, drawing runes. They glimmered faintly, accompanied by a subtle herbal scent.
He had said, "Some powers cannot be analyzed by technology."
"Bzzzz—"
A silver rune suddenly exploded before Lin Xiu's forehead. Its lightning-bright radiance illuminated the entire dark dream.
Lin Xiu cried out in pain, yet within that pain was a strange warmth, like a mother's hand pressed against a feverish forehead.
He could feel the rune turn into a thin stream that seeped into his skin, carrying a cool sensation like a mountain spring flowing past.
The wildly crawling armor patterns suddenly froze. Blue light from the Nanocore surged up from the back of his neck, intertwining with the rune's silver radiance deep within his consciousness to form a vortex. Its spinning sounded like rushing water, making his thoughts whirl along with it.
Lin Xiu forced himself to calm down and rapidly recalled the knowledge about the Anti-Mental Force Field that he had learned from the Oracle System.
He tried to sense the energy woven from the rune and the Nanocore's blue light, feeling its flow and changes.
He discovered that this energy was like a key. As long as he could find the right way to guide it, he could activate the Anti-Mental Force Field.
So he focused his mind and guided that energy with his consciousness, like commanding a disciplined army.
Under his guidance, the energy began flowing in the direction he envisioned, gradually forming a stable force field.
"Anti-Mental Force Field... activated." Lin Xiu's pupils suddenly contracted, and his voice trembled with nervous excitement.
He heard the Oracle System's voice lose its mechanical quality, gaining a sharpness like something breaking free from a cocoon. It seemed to come from the depths of the universe, brimming with power.
The dark golden patterns burst along his arm. This time, they did not restrain him. Instead, they gathered in his palm to form a virtual control panel.
The panel glowed softly. Its buttons and lines were perfectly clear, identical to the Quantum Collider's control interface in the laboratory.
"Now it's your turn to be trapped in the loop." Lin Xiu drew a deep breath, forced his hand to stop shaking, and pressed the red button on the panel.
The dream corridor instantly twisted into a torrent of data, roaring like a raging waterfall.
Phantom Loki's body was torn into fragments, but he was still laughing. "You think you've broken free? The questions in your heart are my finest key—"
Bang!
Lin Xiu snapped awake, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. The sweat ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the ground with faint taps.
The laboratory's incandescent lights made him squint. Their white glare was harsh, accompanied by a faint electric buzz.
The Quantum Collider was still humming, but the holographic projection on the console had gone completely black. It was like a vast black hole, filling him with dread.
He staggered to his feet and only then realized that the laboratory was a complete wreck.
The glass cabinets around him had been smashed to pieces, shards scattered across the floor with clattering sounds.
The box containing the Intermediate Fragment lay crooked on the ground, while the most important data disc—the silver disc holding the entanglement equations for the Mind Stone and Nanocore—had vanished without a trace.
"Oracle, track it." He tore the terminal from his tactical belt and tapped rapidly across the screen, its keys clicking beneath his fingertips.
Red warnings kept appearing: "Location signal covered by dimensional magic." "Energy residue purified." "Last contact point... three kilometers southeast of the laboratory."
A corner of a note protruded from the shattered glass.
Lin Xiu bent down and picked it up. A line of Nordic runes had been written on it in blood using a raven feather. The ink was still wet, carrying a sweet, metallic scent of rust that was sharp and heavy.
He recognized those runes—Asgardian secret script, used only by royalty and the most ancient sorcerers.
"We will meet again soon."
The Nanocore at the back of his neck suddenly vibrated violently. It was like an earthquake, making his entire body shake.
Lin Xiu looked up at the laboratory's ventilation duct. A faint silver gleam flashed there, like the lingering trace of some magic circle. It vanished in an instant, like the figure of a Ghost.
He clenched the note, its runes burning against his fingertips. A new message appeared across his retina from the Oracle System: "Nordic Divine Arts fluctuation detected. Suggested tracking coordinates: catacombs beneath the old church in Brooklyn."
Inside Kamar-Taj's observatory, the Ancient One lightly brushed the surface of a crystal ball with her fingertips. It emitted a soft glow, like moonlight spilling across water.
Within the image, Lin Xiu was holding the note near his nose, frowning as he identified the runes. His brows were tightly furrowed, and anxiety showed on his face. Outside the image, dark green mist was slowly seeping into the laboratory through the ventilation ducts, carrying a pungent sulfurous smell.
She removed the Eye of Agamotto from around her neck. Deep within the gem, the timeline suddenly split apart, and one branch shone with blinding brilliance—
"The Mind Storm has begun." She smiled softly at the void, her laughter light and mysterious like a breeze brushing through leaves.
Outside the laboratory, the cawing of ravens rang out once more, mournful and sinister, like death's summons.
Lin Xiu folded the note into a small square and tucked it behind his ear. Beneath the skin there, dark golden patterns rose and fell slightly with his heartbeat, as though a sleeping beast were breathing softly.
He pressed the tracking button on his tactical terminal. The red dot on the screen began to move, like a deadly invitation.
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