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 along his sternum, like some living creature gently pecking inside his chest—the armor he had touched in the vision, perfectly matching Balder's Apocalypse Form, was awakening.
Each tremor carried a faint yet distinct pulse, as though the heartbeat of some ancient creature was pounding against his ribs.
"The Anti-Mental Force Field requires a synchronized upgrade. Current core energy remaining: 19%." Oracle's electronic voice carried a faint buzzing sound, a sign of impending system overload.
The sound was like a fine needle scraping across glass, stirring a faint ache deep within his eardrums.
Lin Xiu tore open the collar of his lab coat, exposing the blue-glowing nanite patterns at his collarbone. Those silver lines were creeping along his skin toward his arm, gathering into tiny clusters of light at the cracks on the back of his hand.
As the light flowed beneath his skin, it brought a tingling sensation, like electricity slowly moving along his nerves.
He knew the core was repairing itself, much like a cut forming a scab—except this "scab" concealed quantum force capable of tearing open space.
"Activate Divine Sense - Level-One Decoding." He issued the command to the air, and the holographic screen unfolded in response, green code cascading down like a waterfall.
Fluorescence reflected across his face like a cold flame in the night.
When the "Decoding Complete" notification appeared, his pupils contracted slightly—the face of that silver-backed figure from the vision suddenly flashed across his retina: golden hair, blue eyes, and a faint scar along the brow bone. It was exactly like the portraits of Balder in Asgardian mythology.
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 suddenly intensified until his molars ached.
The pressure felt like an iron plate lightly hammering against the inside of his skull.
Cold wind rushed in through the laboratory vent again, rustling the "Proto-Armageddon Upgrade Plan" on the desk. One page curled 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 rusting metal, along with a low hum that did not belong to this world.
At 2:17 a.m., Lin Xiu stood in the fire exit of the outer data center at Stark Tower.
He wore the orange-yellow uniform of Stark Industries' maintenance department. Hidden in a compartment of his tool bag was a modified Nanite Swarm—each bug was only the size of a grain of rice, its shell coated in matte paint matching the walls. He had refined the Vibranium micro-particles from laboratory scrap over three days.
The fabric made a faint rustling sound against his skin, reminding him of childhood memories of walking through the rainforest.
"Camouflage program has overridden facial recognition." Oracle's voice sounded through his earpiece. "The target archives are on B3. Low-level access controls can be breached." Lin Xiu lowered his head to adjust the strap on his tool bag. From the corner of his eye, he saw the guard at the end of the corridor yawn, then tap two short beats on his radio—his and Oracle's agreed signal for "safe."
Those brief taps were like some ancient code, quietly passing through the air.
The data center doors opened, and the hum of the air-conditioning poured out along with the scorched smell of electronic components.
The scent mixed with old paper and engine oil, evoking the dusk inside an abandoned library.
The instant Lin Xiu's heel brushed the floor, a chill rose at the back of his neck.
It felt like being pricked by an extremely fine ice needle—the trace of a mental scan.
The cold slid down his spine like snowmelt seeping into his bones.
His right hand unconsciously clenched around the tool bag, his nails digging into his palm—Heimdall's divine sense was sharper than it had been the night before.
Pain shot from his fingertips, but it only made him more alert.
"Data Gorging activated." Oracle's prompt snapped him back to himself.
He walked to a server terminal against the wall and poured the Nanite Swarm into the port. The instant those tiny particles slipped through the USB slot, a holographic screen unfolded across his retina, green data streams slithering like living things.
Light reflected in his eyes, as though he had glimpsed the entrance to some digital universe.
The keyword "Mind Project" had barely appeared when the data stream suddenly froze, 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 shifted as he deliberately opened the document titled "Vibranium Cooling System Improvement Plan." His fingers tapped slowly across the keyboard, as if he were genuinely studying technical specifications.
The rhythm of his tapping was slow and heavy, as though he were waiting for the gears of fate to turn.
At the same time, he said to Oracle in his mind, "Hide the Mind Stone data inside JARVIS logs from 2012. Use the old encryption algorithm."
The glass on the rooftop observation deck hummed beneath the night wind.
The wind sounded like the whispers of some ancient god.
Lena Thorson leaned against the railing, communicator pressed to her ear as Asgardian runes flowed through her pupils.
The cold of the metal railing seeped through her clothes, keeping her alert.
"He's looking at the Vibranium cooling plan." She watched the lights of the data center below, her fingers unconsciously brushing the dagger at her waist. "He's moving slowly, like he's reading a maintenance manual."
Odin's sigh came through the communicator, heavier than the thunder of the Bifrost. "Continue observing." Lena was about to respond when she suddenly narrowed her eyes—at a terminal in the data center, the figure in the orange-yellow uniform bent down to pick up a tool. His shadow stretched long across the floor, and for an instant, a glimmer of silver flashed within it, strikingly like 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 instant, she seemed to see Heimdall's golden eyes flash behind them.
The wind brushed across her face, carrying a trace of divine presence.
Fine sweat formed on Lin Xiu's forehead.
He could feel that divine sense 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, stinging slightly, but he did not dare blink.
When the document "JARVIS Log, May 17, 2012" finished downloading, his fingertips tapped the keyboard three times. The Nanite Swarm crawled back into his tool bag by the same route, leaving only an almost invisible grain of Vibranium dust at the port—a marker for Oracle, allowing direct targeting during the next infiltration.
That grain of dust glimmered faintly in the darkness like a lost star.
"Evacuation countdown: 30 seconds." Oracle's prompt tugged at the corner of his mouth.
There was weariness in his smile, but also a certain resolve.
He slung the tool bag over his shoulder and walked toward the door. As he passed the security station, he deliberately paused. "The air conditioner needs more refrigerant. Have maintenance come tomorrow." The guard waved without looking up, his attention fixed entirely on the soccer match streaming on his phone.
The noisy commentary sounded as though it came from another world.
The instant he pushed open the glass door, a voice suddenly exploded in his mind like a warhammer shattering crystal. "You are clever, mortal." Lin Xiu stopped sharply, 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 had torn open a gap in the clouds, letting moonlight spill through onto the nanite patterns on the back of his hand—those silver lines were now dazzlingly bright, as though responding to something.
Moonlight fell across his face, 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 control console.
The instant the encryption program activated, a line of blood-red text appeared on the holographic screen: "Mind Stone original design blueprint match: 98.7%." His fingers hovered before the display, and he could clearly hear his own heartbeat—the patterns along the blueprint's edges perfectly overlapped with the armor of that figure in his vision.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears like drumsticks pounding on the gates of fate.
"Origin Energy fluctuation detected." Oracle's voice suddenly changed pitch, as though some ancient chant had mixed into it. "Immediate analysis recommended..."
Lin Xiu did not listen to the rest.
He grabbed the "Proto-Armageddon Upgrade Plan" from the desk. The words "Primordial Fragment" at the edge of the blueprint glimmered eerily beneath the lights.
The paper made a faint rustling sound against his fingertips, as though it itself were breathing.
A muffled rumble of thunder sounded 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 were waiting for this all along." He spoke softly to the core in his chest, pressing a finger against the blueprint. "Then let's see who is moving the pieces on fate's chessboard."
Another gust of wind rushed through the laboratory vent, lifting another page of documents from the desk.
The page flipped over in the air, revealing its title: "Quantum Entanglement Topology Map of the Tesseract and Balder Core."
Moonlight shone through the window onto it. At the intersections of the topology map, two words were clearly marked: New York.
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