The mildew in the tunnel was like a damp rope, slowly winding its way into Lin Xiu's nostrils.
He bent down. The last fragment of the Nanite Swarm trembled slightly at his fingertips, then, with an almost inaudible click, precisely embedded itself into a gap in the tracks.
In the darkness, only the blue light of the Oracle System flickered across his retina, pulsing as steadily as a heartbeat—three kilometers away, the thermal signatures of five outdated Stark drones were slowly closing in, their red dots unnervingly clear.
His hearing had been amplified several times over. Even the sound of himself swallowing seemed to come from somewhere far away.
His knuckles lightly tapped the Tesseract fragment in his palm. The instant metal touched skin, the sensation of God Metal particles traveling through his veins sent a numbing, prickling pain up the back of his neck.
Need to change the bait, he murmured inwardly.
The fragment's temperature rose another two degrees, a sign that its quantum entanglement level had increased, as though some invisible force of attraction were quietly tightening.
Half an hour earlier, the Oracle System had already marked abnormal energy fluctuations along this abandoned subway branch line—an almost imperceptible energy barrier, like a natural signal sponge capable of scrambling drone scan waves into gibberish.
He removed his tactical glove and pressed his fingertips against a crack in the tunnel wall. The cold concrete bore the rough texture of years of neglect.
The Nanite Swarm seeped through the gaps between his fingers, weaving silvery, spiderweb-like patterns across the wall, as fine as hair yet incomparably tough.
This was the "bait program" he had just recalibrated, deliberately amplifying the resonance frequency between the Nanocore and the Tesseract fragment—like scattering blood powder through a wolf pack's den. The ones he wanted to hook were the Chitauri.
The communicator suddenly crackled, and J-09's electronic voice, laced with the scrape of metal, bored into his eardrums. "Quantum resonance source detected in Zone 07. Frequency matches the 'Balder Core.'"
Lin Xiu's pupils contracted slightly, and his heartbeat instantly fell out of rhythm.
Sure enough, the Chitauri's main control AI was more sensitive than S.H.I.E.L.D.
During the Battle of New York, these alien programs had already excelled at detecting abnormal energy. Now, the Nanocore inside him even carried Tesseract-derived God Metal factors.
"Prey retrieval protocol initiated." J-09's command pierced his ears like an ice pick.
He swiftly brought up the Oracle System's tactical map. Seven red dots were approaching the branch entrance at a speed of five meters per second.
He crouched down, his fingertips brushing the rails as the Nanite Swarm sank beneath the gravel under the sleepers like a black tide—that was the first net he had laid, capable of sensing enemy positions through vibrations.
"Silent mode," he said softly. The golden patterns on the Nano Armor's surface immediately dimmed, and even his breathing was compressed to its lowest rhythm.
The air in the tunnel seemed to freeze. The smell of mildew mingled with rust, growing ever stronger. He could hear the echo of his own heartbeat, once, twice, overlapping with the distant metallic footsteps that were gradually becoming clearer.
"Beep—" A warning flashed across his retina from the Oracle System.
He looked up. At the far end of the tunnel, seven figures emerged from the darkness.
They wore deep-purple Chitauri Power Armor. The bioluminescent strips on their shoulder plates resembled the tongues of venomous snakes, and they carried Phase Guns in their left hands—new models, their barrels wrapped in anti-nanite coating that had caused the swarm to disintegrate by thirty percent the instant it made contact during their last clash.
The assault captain at the front raised his hand. His power armor visor slid open, revealing gray-white compound eyes beneath.
"Heat source signal has vanished," he said in a sonic language produced by vibrations in his throat. "But the quantum resonance remains."
Lin Xiu slowly moved along the tunnel wall, his back brushing against damp moss. The chill seeped through his tactical suit.
His right hand quietly pressed against his waist—the Nanite Swarm there had already dispersed into microscopic particles, mixed into the metallic dust in the air, waiting only for a signal.
"Spread out and search." The assault captain waved his hand, and the seven advanced in a fan formation.
When the third man's boot crushed over the rail, Lin Xiu's pupils abruptly contracted—that was the vibration trigger point he had set.
Swarm, take form, he commanded inwardly.
The metallic dust in the air suddenly trembled violently. The Nanite Swarm gathered like a living creature, and two diamond-shaped daggers "grew" from Lin Xiu's palms, their surfaces flowing with intertwined patterns of God Metal, silver, and black.
Like a shadow, he flashed out from behind the tunnel wall. His dagger precisely stabbed into the gap in the nearest Chitauri soldier's shoulder armor—the power armor's energy interface, one he had simulated seven hundred times in the Oracle System.
With a muffled pop, the Nanite Swarm bored through the interface and instantly devoured the power armor's energy core.
The soldier's Phase Gun went limp before he could raise it halfway. Lin Xiu reversed his dagger and sliced open his neck armor, the swarm slipping inside like a snake's tongue and clearing out the enemy's biological brain within three seconds.
"Enemy attack!" Red light flashed through the assault captain's compound eyes as the blue glow of his Phase Gun locked onto Lin Xiu's chest.
But just as his force field generator activated, a crisp crack rang out—at some point, a bracer had appeared on Lin Xiu's left arm, and the Nanite Swarm covering its surface was frantically devouring the force field's energy. The blue barrier collapsed at a visible rate.
"Tactical Form, second stage unlocked." The Oracle System's prompt sent a sharp gleam through Lin Xiu's eyes.
He spun aside to evade the second Phase Gun shot, then drove his dagger backward into another soldier's knee joint. The swarm flooded through the hydraulic lines, and the power armor immediately emitted a piercing alarm.
The seven-man formation was torn open within thirty seconds. Lin Xiu moved as swiftly as a precision machine, every slash accurately severing the energy lines of a force field generator, every devouring swarm making the golden patterns on the armor shine a little brighter.
"Core energy absorption completion: 87%." The Oracle System's voice loosened Lin Xiu's tense shoulders slightly.
As he turned, the last Chitauri soldier's Phase Gun was aimed at the center of his back.
At the critical moment, the bracer on his left arm suddenly extended into a shield. The Nanite Swarm wove hexagonal patterns across its surface—the force field structure it had just devoured had actually been analyzed and replicated on the spot by the Oracle System.
The instant the blue light struck the shield, he heard a humming resonance.
Ripples spread across the shield's surface, reflecting a third of the Phase Gun's energy back.
The soldier had no time to react. The rebounded blue light punched straight through his chest armor, burning a charred hole into the power armor.
The tunnel suddenly fell silent.
Lin Xiu bent down and tore the biological brain chip from the assault captain's neck. The Nanite Swarm instantly devoured its data.
A new prompt appeared in the Oracle System: "J-09 main controller location signal detected. Counter-tracking program activated." When he looked up, sweat dripped from his chin onto the ground, mixing with the green energy leaking from the Chitauri Power Armor and spreading into an eerie color across the floor.
"Clang."
The sound of metal scraping came from the direction of the tunnel entrance.
Lin Xiu sharply turned his head and saw a figure quickly duck back behind a train-car wreck twenty meters away—a woman in a dark gray trench coat, with the indentation of a S.H.I.E.L.D. special operations badge behind her ear.
He instantly recalled the intelligence Freddy had mentioned: Mia Chen, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical analyst, had recently been investigating abnormal energy fluctuations in New York.
Almost at the same time, the sound of boot heels striking the tracks came from the tunnel entrance.
Lin Xiu listened closely and heard four distinct sets of footsteps—it was the Iron Shadow Squad, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret unit, equipped with EMP grenades and spectral scanners.
He could even smell the growing scent of gunpowder in the air, coming from the specialized explosive fuses on their tactical vests.
"Someone else is watching," the Oracle System suddenly warned.
Lin Xiu looked up toward the ventilation shaft and caught a flash of red light behind the metal grille—the indicator light of a camera.
He did not need to guess. It was Melvin Carson, the underground hacker who always sold intelligence on the dark web. At this moment, he was probably compressing footage of the battle into a data packet, preparing to sell it to Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D.
Lin Xiu took out the Tesseract fragment. The God Metal particles flowing across his palm had slowed.
He looked at the approaching footsteps at the tunnel entrance, then at the faintly visible edge of the trench coat behind the wreckage, and suddenly smiled—more troublesome than the Chitauri assault squad had always been these Watchers, each with their own agenda.
"Oracle, locate the nearest safe exit," he said quietly. The Nanite Swarm began gathering toward him from the ground and walls, reforming across the surface of his armor.
From deep within the tunnel came the Iron Shadow Squad's conversation, mixed with the faint sound of Mia Chen adjusting her binoculars and the click of the camera in the ventilation shaft powering down.
When the last Nanobot slipped into his wrist guard, Lin Xiu heard someone shout from the tunnel entrance, "The heat signal is over here!" He turned and rushed into the darkness, his heels crushing fragments of Chitauri Power Armor. The crisp sound echoed through the tunnel like an omen—the web woven from the Nanocore, the Tesseract fragment, and the various factions had only just tightened its first thread.
Before you continue