The Manipulated Dream Hunter

In the underground laboratory in Brooklyn, fluorescent lights flickered like drunken revelers amid the quantum collider's constant, low hum.

As the lights flashed, patches of shifting light and shadow spilled across the old experimental equipment around them.

A fine blue glow seeped from the Nanocore at the back of Lin Xiu's neck. Like a ghostly serpent that had lain dormant for ages, it shimmered 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 overlapping energy charts flashing with multicolored light in the holographic projection, not daring to blink.

Then, the Oracle System's cold mechanical voice exploded in his ears like thunder. "Detected Mind Stone encryption level: Nine Realms standard. Oracle Form must be activated for deep decryption."

"Intermediate Fragment." He instinctively licked his dry, peeling lips, producing 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. Faint blue arcs of electricity flowed across its surface, crackling like countless tiny snakes crawling about.

When he held the fragment in his palm, he could clearly feel a fierce, restless energy surging within it. It was like scorching magma, leaving his hand hot and numb.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the fragment's interface, a burning sensation like fire suddenly erupted from the back of his neck. It instantly spread through his entire body, making him tremble uncontrollably.

Lin Xiu staggered and braced himself against the console, gripping its surface so hard that his knuckles turned white.

The holographic image before him began to warp. Its once-clear lines blurred and tangled, as if an invisible hand had kneaded them into a ball.

The quantum collider's hum abruptly changed as well, turning into a shrill, piercing ringing. It was like countless bees buzzing madly beside his ears, splitting his head apart with pain.

He heard the Oracle System issue one final warning. "Unknown energy fluctuations detected on the mental plane—"

Darkness surged in like a tidal wave, carrying a damp, freezing chill as though it had swept up from the depths of the sea.

The darkness quickly devoured his vision, plunging him into a dead-silent chaos.

When he opened his eyes again, Lin Xiu was standing in an endless corridor.

The corridor reeked of dampness and decay, like a basement that had not been ventilated in years.

Picture frames covered the walls on both sides, and every one of them held one of his memories.

The block castle he had smashed on his seventh birthday, its scattered pieces snapping crisply against the floor; the draft paper filled with formulas beneath his desk lamp on the eve of the college entrance exam, the pages faintly yellowed and seemingly still carrying the scent of anxious sweat; the sparks from the laboratory accident burning through his white lab coat, crackling amid the charred stench of scorched cloth.

In the frame at the very end was the last scene before he had crossed over—the quantum collider's blue light, like a raging ocean wave, swallowing his entire field of vision, while dark golden patterns spread beneath the skin at the back of his neck like blood vessels. They shimmered with a mysterious glow, like a giant dragon hidden in the darkness.

"Familiar, isn't it?"

A sinister voice came from behind him. It sounded like ghosts wailing in a winter wind, carrying an indescribable chill.

Lin Xiu spun around sharply, and a gust of cold wind rushed into his face, 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 reflected a dim green light, flickering like a ghostly eye.

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, like a mirror image with all its malice magnified.

"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 fingertips swept over the nearest frame, and the image of childhood blocks suddenly warped into the devastation of the Battle of New York.

Burning buildings crackled in the flames, filling the air with an acrid scorched smell; falling Chitauri ships roared loudly enough to make the ground tremble; and there he was, standing atop 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 more than a puppet being led around by the Oracle System." Phantom Loki's voice circled Lin Xiu's ears like a demon's whisper.

Lin Xiu's temples throbbed. Anger and resentment surged in his chest. He wanted to argue, but no words came.

He remembered Tony patting him on the shoulder at Stark Tower while they fought alongside the Avengers, saying, "You're ten times smarter than my armor." Those warm words still seemed to echo in his ears. He remembered Natasha handing him hot coffee and saying, "Don't stay so tense. We're not lab rats." The aroma of coffee still 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 wet with night dew and carrying a faint fresh scent of grass and leaves.

Those memories suddenly blurred, as though frosted glass had covered them, and pain stabbed through his heart.

"They need you because you can fight." Phantom Loki's voice brushed across his eardrums like a snake's tongue, cold and revolting.

"But what if one day, your armor suddenly fails to recognize them? What if the Oracle System tells you, '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.

Lin Xiu watched in horror as dark golden patterns surfaced across the back of his hand. They writhed like tiny snakes 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 like countless needles piercing his flesh.

He staggered backward and crashed into a picture frame.

It showed the night before his crossing, when his advisor had patted him on the shoulder and said, "Your nanomaterials thesis could change the world." The frame rocked from the impact with a loud clatter.

"Change the world?" Phantom Loki laughed, the sound shrill and grating, like shattering glass.

"You're nothing but an outcast from another world. Quantum entanglement? It's only the Tesseract looking for a new toy. Once it gets bored—" He suddenly seized Lin Xiu by the back of the neck, the coldness of his fingertips piercing through skin and straight into bone like ice picks, making Lin Xiu shudder.

"Your Nanocore will become the most beautiful fireworks display, and you won't even leave behind a pile of ashes."

The armor patterns crawled over Lin Xiu's neck. He could clearly hear metal grinding against metal, like rusted chains being dragged across the ground, making his scalp tingle.

His consciousness began to blur. The memories before him vanished one by one like photographs scattered by the wind, leaving behind only hazy light and shadow.

In his daze, he remembered the man in gray robes outside Kamar-Taj—Icarus Vaughn.

At the time, he 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 brilliance as dazzling as lightning as it illuminated the entire dark dream.

Lin Xiu cried out in pain, yet that stabbing agony carried a strange warmth, like a mother's hand resting on a fevered forehead.

He could feel the rune turn into a thin current and seep into his skin, cool as a mountain spring flowing over him.

The armor patterns that had been climbing wildly suddenly froze. Blue light from the Nanocore surged up from the back of his neck, twisting with the rune's silver radiance deep within his consciousness to form a vortex. Its spinning sounded like rushing water, sending his thoughts racing with it.

Lin Xiu forced himself to calm down and rapidly recalled what he had learned from the Oracle System about the Anti-Mental Force Field.

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 used his consciousness to guide the energy, as if commanding a well-trained army.

Under his guidance, the energy began to flow in the direction he envisioned, gradually forming a stable force field.

"Anti-Mental Force Field... activated." Lin Xiu's pupils contracted sharply, his voice trembling slightly with tension and excitement.

He heard the Oracle System's voice lose its mechanical quality and take on the sharpness of something breaking free from its cocoon. It seemed to come from the depths of the universe, filled with power.

The dark golden patterns burst along his arm. This time, they did not bind him. Instead, they gathered in his palm and formed a virtual control panel.

The panel glowed softly. Its buttons and lines were clearly visible, identical to the quantum collider's operating 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 figure was torn into fragments, but he was still laughing. "You think you've broken free? The questions in your heart are my best key—"

Bang!

Lin Xiu's eyes flew open. His forehead was covered in cold sweat, which slid down his cheeks and dripped onto the floor with faint taps.

The laboratory's incandescent lights stabbed at his eyes, forcing him to squint. They shone with a harsh white glare, accompanied by a faint electrical buzz.

The quantum collider was still humming, but the holographic projection on the console had gone completely black. That darkness was like a massive black hole, filling him with dread.

He staggered to his feet and only then realized that the laboratory had been thoroughly wrecked.

The glass cabinets around him had been smashed to pieces, their shards scattered across the floor with a clattering rustle.

The box containing the Intermediate Fragment lay crookedly on the ground, while the most important data disk—the silver disc containing the entanglement equations between the Mind Stone and the Nanocore—had vanished.

"Oracle, track it." He ripped the terminal from his tactical belt and rapidly tapped at the screen, the keys clicking beneath his fingertips.

Red warnings kept appearing. "Location signal obscured by dimensional magic." "Energy residue purified." "Last point of contact... three kilometers southeast of the laboratory."

A corner of a note protruded from the broken glass.

Lin Xiu bent down and picked it up. A line of Nordic runes had been written on it in blood with a raven feather. The ink was still wet, carrying a sickly sweet rust scent that was sharp and heavy.

He recognized those runes—Asgard's secret script, used only by royalty and the oldest sorcerers.

"We will meet again soon."

The Nanocore at the back of his neck suddenly vibrated violently, like an earthquake that made 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 a ghostly figure.

He clenched the note. The runes burned against his fingertips as the Oracle System displayed a new prompt across his retina. "Nordic Divine Arts fluctuations detected. Recommended tracking coordinates: crypt beneath the old church in Brooklyn."

In Kamar-Taj's observatory, the Ancient One lightly brushed her fingertips across the surface of a crystal ball. It emitted a gentle glow, like moonlight scattered over water.

Within it, Lin Xiu was holding the note beneath his nose and frowning as he identified the runes, his brows drawn tight with anxiety. Outside the image, dark green mist was slowly seeping into the laboratory through the ventilation ducts, carrying a pungent sulfurous odor.

She removed the Eye of Agamotto from around her neck. The timeline deep within its gem suddenly branched, and one of those paths shone with blinding brightness—

"The Mind Storm has begun." She smiled softly at the void, her laughter as gentle and mysterious as a breeze stirring leaves.

Outside the laboratory, the ravens cried out again, their calls mournful and sinister, like a summons from death itself.

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 faintly with his heartbeat, like a sleeping beast breathing softly.

He pressed the tracking button on his tactical terminal. The red dot on the screen began to move, like some deadly invitation.