Rift in the Mind Storm

A golden membrane enveloped the ruins, like a layer of transparent glass, radiating a soft yet mysterious glow.

The air was like lead-soaked silk, pressing heavily against his body. Every breath seemed to carry the weight of a lead block, making his eardrums ache as though fine needles were pricking them again and again.

Lin Xiu's back pressed against the icy stone wall, its chill seeping through his clothes like a cold current rushing through his entire body.

He could clearly hear the hum of the Nanocore at his spine, low yet piercing, like an ancient battle hymn.

His armor was suppressed by Icarus's magic. The dark-gold patterns of its base form had only crept up to his forearms, while the tactical interface on his wrist armor flashed a dark-red warning light, glaring in the darkness like a signal beacon.

"97%, 98%..." The Oracle System's green data stream flickered across his retina like agile fireflies, glowing with mysterious light.

He stared at the Mind Fragment floating five meters away, its ghostly blue light swaying in the darkness like spectral fire in the deep sea.

The fingernail-sized blue crystal trembled faintly, its dim glow flowing across its surface like liquid mercury.

Its pulse frequency overlapped eerily with his heartbeat. With every beat, the Nanocore at the back of his neck grew hotter, like flames burning beneath his skin.

"You think you're controlling fate?"

A frost-laced whisper brushed past his ear, as shrill and cold as an ice blade scraping across glass.

Lin Xiu's pupils contracted sharply. When he turned his head, he met Loki's mocking gray eyes, cold as a frozen lake.

Loki had somehow moved close to him. The Mind Stone on his scepter glowed faintly within the barrier like a mysterious vortex that drew the eye.

His fingertips lightly tapped Lin Xiu's shoulder armor. "No. You're only fate's echo."

The Nanocore exploded with searing pain at his spine, erupting through his body like a volcano.

Lin Xiu did not move—he had already dispatched the Nanite Swarm when the energy beam struck last time.

Those mechanical bodies, smaller than dust, were now seeping through his skin and into his nerve endings, like tiny ants crawling over his flesh.

They condensed at his temples into a translucent neural filter, glimmering with faint blue light like a veil from a dream.

The instant Loki's mental fluctuations touched the filter, they burst into scattered blue sparks, like fireflies crashing into a spiderweb. The blue light bloomed in the darkness like brilliant stars, brief yet dazzling.

"Stop toying with people's minds!"

A thunderous roar split the air from the left, like a stampede of ten thousand horses that made his eardrums ache.

The veins bulged on the back of Thor's hand as he gripped Mjolnir. Arcs of electricity leaping from the hammerhead burst into tiny sparks against the golden membrane, flashing through the air like scattering embers.

From the corner of his eye, Lin Xiu saw spiderweb cracks spread across the stone wall under the shockwave. Rubble pattered down beside his feet like raindrops hitting the ground.

One stone scraped past Loki's boot tip—but Loki did not even blink, his gaze still fixed on Lin Xiu's temple.

The hem of Icarus's robe suddenly lifted, fluttering in the wind like a banner.

Only then did Lin Xiu notice that the man's fingertips were tracing through the air at tremendous speed. Every time a bright silver rune appeared and vanished, the ripples in the light membrane shifted slightly toward him. The Oracle System's alert had barely appeared—"The mage is guiding the energy."—when Lin Xiu felt a current of heat crawl from his ankles up his spine. It was the aftershock of Thor's lightning, refracted by the barrier and drilling into his body like molten lava.

An opportunity!

Lin Xiu clenched his back teeth and pressed his left hand against the Nanocore in his chest, its surface as cold as metal.

The energy of the Mid-Tier Tesseract Fragment erupted within the core. Dark-gold patterns shot up his neck like living things, while complex quantum totems surfaced across his armor, shining with strange light like mysterious runes.

The Mind Fragment's pulses suddenly quickened. The instant its blue light surged, his consciousness was dragged into chaos.

Countless scenes flashed before his eyes.

He saw himself in armor standing atop Avengers Tower, high-fiving Iron Man. The scene was as clear as a movie, every detail vivid; he saw himself in prison clothes, Loki's Scepter pressed against his brow, his pupils glowing with an eerie violet light like evil flames burning in his eyes; and another version of himself wrapped in dark energy, crushing Thor's hammer into scrap metal... In the end, every image converged into a blurred figure. It shared his face, yet was wrapped in tangled bands of quantum light, its voice seeming to rise from the deep sea: "Choose, Quantum Sentinel."

"To hell with your choice!" Lin Xiu roared within his mind.

The Nanocore suddenly erupted with blinding golden light, and the Anti-Mental Force Field rippled outward. The illusion became like a lake struck by a stone, cracks spreading from its center to its edges before it finally shattered apart.

Lin Xiu tore himself free from the chaos. His consciousness seemed to be dragged back into his body by a powerful force. His ears first rang, then the sounds of reality gradually became clear. He heard faint echoes from the stone wall, felt its coldness against his back, and smelled the dust hanging in the air.

In reality, the Mind Fragment was slowly disintegrating.

Ghostly blue particles drifted through the air like stardust scattered by the wind, fluttering like dreamlike snowflakes.

Lin Xiu's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, his forehead pressed against the stone bricks. Their rough texture brought him back to himself.

He could taste blood on his tongue—he had nearly drained the Mid-Tier Fragment's energy with that move.

"What... did he see?" Icarus's voice carried a tension that was barely perceptible.

Lin Xiu raised his head and met the man's narrowed eyes. That gaze was like someone examining a piece of shattered jade, trying to find the patterns hidden within.

Loki stepped back two paces, and the gem on his scepter dimmed slightly.

He stared at Lin Xiu's golden eyes, the smile at his lips fading. "It seems I underestimated you."

Thor's hammer struck the ground with a clang, the sound rolling through the air like a muffled drumbeat.

He strode over, his iron boots crushing the rubble with a crunch like shattering glass.

He reached out to help Lin Xiu, only to pull his hand back the instant it touched the armor—the dark-gold patterns were still scorching hot. "Are you all right?"

Lin Xiu said nothing.

He stared at his palm—traces of the Mind Fragment's energy still lingered there, while the Oracle System's prompt flashed wildly across his retina: "Unknown energy pattern detected. Import for analysis?"

The night wind swept in from outside the ruins, tousling the loose hair before Lin Xiu's forehead like gentle fingers brushing his face.

He heard Icarus's bronze bell chime softly at his waist, clear as birdsong drifting through the night wind.

Loki's laughter drifted away with the wind, Thor's lightning gathered once more in his palm, and within the Nanocore, the energy of the Mid-Tier Tesseract Fragment was slowly reviving—as if storing up the first spark for the analysis to come.