A Chess Game Beneath Divine Authority

Lin Xiu's fingertips hovered over the control panel for three seconds before finally pressing the confirmation button for "Oracle Form - Pre-Apocalypse Stage."

The metal key was cold and smooth, like pressing down on a sleeping glacier.

The Nanocore's vibrations spread upward from his sternum, as though some living thing inside his chest were pecking softly—an armor identical to the Balder's Apocalypse Form he had touched in the vision was awakening.

Each tremor carried a faint yet distinct pulse, as if the heartbeat of some ancient creature were thudding against his ribs.

"The Anti-Mental Force Field requires a simultaneous upgrade. Current core energy remaining: 19%." Oracle's electronic voice carried a faint buzz, a sign of impending system overload.

The sound was like a fine needle scraping across glass, stirring a sting deep within his eardrums.

Lin Xiu tore open the collar of his lab coat, revealing the blue-glowing nanite patterns along his collarbone. Silver threads crawled over his skin toward his arms, gathering into tiny clusters of light around the cracks on the back of his hand.

As the light flowed beneath his skin, it brought a tingling sensation, like an electric current slowly moving along his nerves.

He knew the core was repairing itself, like a cut wound scabbing over—except this "scab" contained quantum force capable of tearing open space.

"Activate Mind Sense - Level-One Decoding." He issued the command to the air, and the holographic screen unfolded at once, green code pouring down like a waterfall.

The fluorescent glow reflected on his face like a cold flame in the night.

When the "Decoding Complete" prompt appeared, his pupils contracted slightly—the face of that silver-backed figure from the vision suddenly flashed across his retina. Golden hair, blue eyes, a faint scar along the brow bone. It matched the portraits of Balder in Asgardian mythology exactly.

For that instant, he could almost smell flames consuming a temple and hear thunder rolling down from the heavens.

"So what are you trying to warn me about?" he murmured to the core in his chest. His fingertip tapped it lightly, and the vibrations abruptly intensified, making his molars ache.

The pressure felt like an iron plate gently striking the inside of his skull.

Cold wind rushed in through the laboratory vent again, rustling the Proto-Armageddon Upgrade Plan on the table. One page curled down to his feet, and the words "Primordial Fragment" in its title cast a ghostly blue shadow across the floor.

The wind carried the scent of corroded metal, along with a low hum that did not belong to this world.

At 2:17 in the morning, Lin Xiu stood in the fire escape of the outer data center at Stark Tower.

He wore the orange-yellow uniform of the Stark Industries maintenance department. Hidden in the inner compartment of his tool bag was a modified Nanite Swarm—each bug no larger than a grain of rice, its shell coated in matte paint matching the wall. He had refined the Vibranium microparticles from laboratory scrap over three days.

The fabric brushed softly against his skin, reminding him of childhood memories of walking through the rainforest.

"Facial recognition has been covered by the camouflage program." Oracle's voice sounded in his earpiece. "The target archive is on B3. The low-clearance access control can be cracked." Lin Xiu lowered his head to adjust his tool bag strap. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guard at the end of the corridor yawn, then tap two short beats on his walkie-talkie—his agreed signal with Oracle for "safe."

Those brief taps were like some ancient password silently passing through the air.

The data center doors opened, and the hum of the cooling units came rushing out with the burnt smell of electronic components.

The odor mingled with old paper and motor oil, evoking the twilight of an abandoned library.

The instant Lin Xiu's heel brushed the floor, a chill suddenly prickled across the back of his neck.

It felt as if someone had stabbed him with an impossibly thin ice needle—the trace of mental force sweeping over him.

The cold slid down his spine like snowmelt seeping into his bones.

His right hand unconsciously tightened around the tool bag, his nails digging into his palm—Heimdall's mind sense was sharper than it had been last night.

Pain shot through his fingertips, but it only made him more alert.

"Data Gorging activated." Oracle's prompt brought him back to himself.

He walked to a server terminal against the wall and poured the Nanite Swarm into the port. The moment those tiny particles slipped into the USB slot, a holographic screen unfolded across his retina, green data streams slithering like living things.

The glow reflected in his eyes, as though he had glimpsed the entrance to a digital universe.

The moment the keyword "Mind Project" appeared, the data stream suddenly stalled, as if an invisible hand were pulling the information back.

The screen flickered once, as though resisting his intrusion.

"Monitoring intensity increased by 30%." Oracle's voice carried an alarm tone. "Recommend reducing download speed." Lin Xiu's Adam's apple bobbed. He deliberately pulled up the document titled Vibranium Cooling System Improvement Plan and typed slowly on the keyboard, as though he were genuinely studying technical specifications.

The rhythm of his keystrokes was slow and heavy, as if waiting for the gears of fate to turn.

At the same time, he said to Oracle in his mind, "Hide the Mind Stone data in JARVIS logs from 2012. Use the old encryption algorithm."

The glass of the top-floor observation deck hummed beneath the night wind.

The wind sounded like the whisper of some ancient god.

Lena Thorson leaned against the railing, a communicator pressed to her ear as Asgardian runes flowed through her pupils.

The chill of the metal railing seeped through her clothes and kept her alert.

"He's looking at the Vibranium cooling plan." Watching the lights of the data center below, she unconsciously rubbed the short blade at her waist. "His movements are slow, like he's reading a maintenance manual."

Odin's sigh came through the communicator, heavier than the thunder of the Rainbow Bridge. "Continue observing." Lena was just about to respond when she narrowed her eyes—at one terminal in the data center, the figure in orange-yellow work clothes bent to pick up a tool. His shadow stretched long across the floor, and for an instant, a silver glint flashed within it, strikingly similar to the patterns on Balder's armor.

"He might be..." Lena's words were cut off by static from the communicator.

She looked up at the night sky. Half the moon was hidden behind clouds, and for one fleeting moment, she seemed to see Heimdall's golden eyes flash behind them.

The wind swept across her face, carrying a trace of divine presence.

Fine sweat beaded on Lin Xiu's forehead.

He could feel that mind sense was still there, but it was no longer staring directly at the data stream. Instead, it spread through the air like a net.

Sweat slid into the corner of his eye and stung slightly, but he did not dare blink.

When the document "JARVIS Log, May 17, 2012" finished downloading, his fingers tapped the keyboard three times. The Nanite Swarm crawled back into the tool bag along the same route, leaving behind only a nearly invisible grain of Vibranium dust in the port—a marker for Oracle, allowing it to locate the terminal directly during the next infiltration.

That speck of dust glimmered faintly in the darkness like a lost star.

"Evacuation countdown: 30 seconds." Oracle's prompt made the corner of his mouth twitch.

There was exhaustion in his smile, but also a certain resolve.

He slung the tool bag over his shoulder and headed for the exit. Passing the guard station, he deliberately paused. "The air conditioner needs refrigerant. Have maintenance come by tomorrow." The guard waved without looking up, his attention entirely fixed on the soccer match streaming on his phone.

The noisy commentary sounded as though it came from another world.

The moment he pushed open the glass door, a voice suddenly exploded in his mind like a warhammer shattering crystal. "You are very clever, mortal." Lin Xiu froze, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

The voice had no frequency, yet it pierced his soul.

He looked up at the night sky. The wind tore a gap through the clouds, and moonlight spilled down onto the nanite patterns on the back of his hand—the silver threads shone with a blinding brilliance, as if answering something.

Moonlight fell across his face, as cold as a god's gaze.

When he returned to the laboratory, Lin Xiu had not even set down his tool bag before rushing to the console.

The instant the decryption program activated, a line of blood-red text appeared on the holographic screen: "Mind Stone original design blueprint match rate: 98.7%." His fingers hovered before the display as he clearly heard his own heartbeat—the patterns at the blueprint's edges perfectly overlapped with the armor of the figure from his vision.

His heartbeat boomed in his ears like a drum pounding against fate's gates.

"Primordial energy fluctuation detected." Oracle's voice suddenly changed pitch, as if mixed with some ancient chant. "Immediate analysis recommended..."

Lin Xiu did not listen to the rest.

He grabbed the Proto-Armageddon Upgrade Plan from the table. The words "Primordial Fragment" along the edge of the blueprint glimmered faintly beneath the light.

The paper rasped softly against his fingertips, as though it were breathing too.

Thunder rumbled outside the window. Staring at the blueprint on the holographic screen, he suddenly smiled—a smile carrying the excitement of an experimenter discovering a new variable, along with the madness of staking everything on one throw.

His laughter echoed through the sealed laboratory like the beginning of some ritual.

"So you've been waiting for this all along." He spoke softly to the core in his chest, pressing his fingertip against the blueprint. "Then let's see who is truly making the moves on fate's chessboard."

Another gust of wind blew in through the laboratory vent, lifting another page of documents from the table.

The page flipped over in the air, revealing its title: "Tesseract and Balder Core Quantum Entanglement Topology Map."

Moonlight shone through the window onto it. At the intersection of the topology map, two words were clearly marked: New York.