Nano Barrier Under Divine Sense

When morning light leaked through the rusted ventilation ducts into the abandoned subway station, Lin Xiu's eyelashes trembled first.

Condensed droplets on the metal walls slowly slid down the pipes, spreading a patch of shadow at his feet.

He woke slowly, as if someone had scraped across the ends of his nerves with a dull blade. Even breathing came with a stabbing pain.

The first thing to flood his consciousness was the dull ache at the back of his head, as if Nanobots had built a nest inside his skull. Then came the faint chill against his skin—the Balder Armor was pressed against his spine, maintaining minimal energy circulation in power-saving mode. Its metallic patterns were so dim they nearly blended into his skin; only when his fingertips brushed it could he feel the subtle tremor of electrical current.

"Ding—"

The Oracle System's notification sounded three degrees softer than usual, projecting a pale blue stream of data across his retina like ghostly words floating in the air.

Lin Xiu closed his eyes, then opened them again, confirming that it was not an illusion. The final log entry had stopped 0.3 seconds before the time rift closed. A new module had suddenly appeared amid the scrolling code—God Power: Basic Model. Its progress bar was clearly displayed at 92%.

"I captured it in reverse during the clash with Odin's mental scan." He braced himself against the wall and sat up, his knuckles tapping the mold-stained tiles with a hollow echo. "That divine sense had pierced my sea of consciousness like red-hot wire... So the system had been analyzing it in sync."

Half a finger's worth of dust had accumulated on the subway tracks. His footprints dragged trails through it, stirring fine particles that hung in the slanting sunlight.

The armor gave off a faint hum as he moved. Its energy reading remained steady at 17%—the limit in power-saving mode. It was enough to get him back to the laboratory, but nowhere near enough to handle another emergency.

"I have to conceal the quantum entanglement signal between the Nanocore and the Mind Stone." Lin Xiu took the Quantum Locator from his pocket. The red dot on its screen was jumping frantically like an uneasy heart. "Ancient One's prophecy, Odin's gaze... If they lock onto me again, they might not merely 'observe' next time."

When the laboratory's metal doors slowly opened before him, the lingering traces of battle made him narrow his eyes.

The scorched smell mixed with the metallic scent of coolant rushed toward him.

The burn mark left by Odin's spear on the workbench was still smoking. Aaliya's Temporal Anchoring Device had shattered into pieces the size of fingernails. Scraps of Vera's robe hung from the ventilation opening like a faded battle flag, fluttering softly in the airflow.

"Nanite Swarm, deploy."

Millions of silver points of light poured from his palm, gathering into a vortex in the middle of the laboratory like a meteor shower rising into the sky in reverse.

These Nanobots, thinner than strands of hair, followed the Oracle System's commands and began constructing a Vibranium Resonance Field within the walls, ceiling, and gaps between equipment. It was an interference device he had reverse-engineered from Vibranium's ability to shield magical energy. The vibration frequency of every Nanobot precisely simulated the lattice structure of Wakandan metal, and a static-like hum gradually filled the air.

"First layer of interference: Quantum Noise Cover." Lin Xiu watched the monitoring screen as the green dot representing his energy was swallowed by snowy static. "Second layer: Photon Camouflage, so thermal imaging will identify me as an ordinary human.

Third layer..."

"Ding—Resonance Field construction 98% complete."

The instant the system notification ended, the laboratory's temperature suddenly dropped by three degrees, as though someone had quietly opened a freezer door.

Goosebumps rose on the back of Lin Xiu's neck. It was the instinctive reaction of danger drawing near.

He looked up through the bulletproof glass at the ceiling—the sky, once blanketed with dark clouds, was splitting open with a golden crack, as if someone had sliced through the heavens with a blade. Blazing light poured down from within.

"They're here." He spoke softly, pressing the emergency stop button on the console. The metal key pushed back faintly beneath his finger.

The moment the golden beam crashed down, every alarm in the laboratory shrieked at once, like hundreds of startled night owls screaming together.

Lin Xiu staggered two steps amid the armor's activation tremors. The patterns of Tactical Form surged from his ankles to his shoulders like living things, while the fusion schematic of the Mind Stone and the Tesseract on his chest armor began spinning at high speed—the Oracle System was drawing upon every available computing resource.

"Heimdall." He watched the figure step out of the beam, his Adam's apple moving as his dry voice came out slightly hoarse.

The golden-haired watcher of Asgard stood with his hair moving despite the absence of wind. Runes covered the spine of the greatsword in his hand, each one releasing divine power capable of tearing space apart. The air smelled of ozone and burning feathers.

His gaze swept over the laboratory, then the street, before finally nailing itself onto Lin Xiu's position like a spike.

"Mortal." Heimdall's voice was like two meteorites colliding, shaking the laboratory windows. "You carry a light that does not belong to this era."

Lin Xiu did not respond.

He could feel the other man's divine sense climbing along the threads of quantum entanglement like a snake flicking its tongue, trying to burrow into his sea of consciousness.

The dynamic photon barrier formed by the Nano Armor across his body began to heat up. Low-frequency shockwaves spread from beneath his feet—countermeasures he had temporarily derived from God Power: Basic Model, specifically designed to disrupt mental links.

The clash on the level of consciousness was fiercer than any battle visible to the naked eye.

Lin Xiu's temples throbbed as countless fragments flashed before his eyes: Asgard's Rainbow Bridge, the star map of the Nine Realms, and Heimdall's millennia of memories standing watch over the bridge.

A crushing pressure nearly robbed him of breath, like diving into the depths of the sea while invisible hands kept dragging him farther down.

For one brief instant, he was almost crushed beneath the overwhelming flood of information, but the Oracle System's notification suddenly exploded within his consciousness. "Divine power fluctuations detected!"

"Analysis progress: 15%... 30%... 50%..."

"Lena, you're late." Heimdall's voice suddenly seemed more distant, as if it were coming from some faraway space.

Lin Xiu split off a thread of consciousness to look and saw another figure leap down from the pillar of light.

She was a female warrior in silver armor, twin swords at her waist. Her earrings chimed with her movements, like a cool wind passing by.

She landed without stirring a speck of dust. Her gaze swept between Lin Xiu and Heimdall, one hand remaining on her sword hilt, yet she showed no intention of drawing it.

"Odin's order was to observe." Lena spoke into the communicator, her voice softer than Heimdall's but carrying a metallic chill. "He did not attack."

A low, hoarse response came from the communicator. Lin Xiu could not make out its contents, but the pressure of Heimdall's divine sense visibly weakened.

Seizing the chance, he severed the neural link. A blue light shot out from his chest armor with a click—the file Divine Power—Level One Decoding Complete floated in midair, its data stream still carrying faint golden patterns like flames not yet fully extinguished.

"Buzz—"

Every electronic device in the laboratory exploded at once.

Monitor fragments blasted against the walls. The needle of the energy monitor bent into a hook. Even the Quantum Locator in Lin Xiu's pocket began to emit black smoke, and the stench of burning filled the air.

But what made his heart race most was the golden mark emerging on the concrete wall in the corner—it was the trace left behind by Heimdall's divine sense, like a crumpled star map, faintly flickering amid the shifting light and shadows.

"Looks like I succeeded." Lin Xiu touched the mark. A faint burning sensation reached his fingertips, as though he had touched a dying star.

When he looked up, Heimdall's pillar of light had already vanished, and Lena's figure had dissolved into the clouds as well.

Sunlight streamed in through the shattered glass again, casting mottled shadows across his face.

The laboratory was once again shrouded in silence. Only the Oracle System's notification continued to sound: "New energy source detected... Recommendation: upgrade to Oracle Form—Pre-Apocalypse Stage..."

He lowered his head to look at the decoded file on his chest armor. The corners of his mouth slowly rose, and a sharp edge hid within his smile.

Deep within his consciousness, the Nanocore was shining more fiercely than ever before—a sign that it was about to break through its limits.