We Can Seek S.H.I.E.L.D. Protection

The air fell into an eerie silence. In this freak show bearing the sign of the [Hero Association], common sense was the most extravagant thing of all. Every member constantly redefined the limits of ordinary people's understanding.

The green-haired girl floating in midair curled her lips, her skirt fluttering without wind. "That big idiot is the Norse God of Thunder?" She scrutinized the blond man built like a fitness coach. "I can't even detect any psychic fluctuations."

With his divine power gone, Thor's current combat ability was probably inferior to that of a junior hero patrolling the streets.

"The data in his sealed state is indeed mediocre." The man in the white coat flipped through his tablet. "But based on the energy spectrum analysis, he should reach S-Class standards once fully unsealed."

The boy in goggles had already taken out a scanner. "This is a rare opportunity. I'd like to collect some samples of divine body tissue." His eyes behind the lenses gleamed with the distinctive light of a mad scientist. He had even mapped out an entire experimental plan in his head—while the subject had yet to regain his divine power, this was the golden window for acquiring valuable data.

"Tony Stark!" Jane Foster suddenly grabbed her boyfriend's arm, her voice trembling slightly with excitement. Thor followed her gaze and saw the gilded armor reflecting a blinding halo beneath the sunlight.

Thor rose to his feet with a dark expression, his muscular body blocking the two of them like a wall. "You brought children to a picnic?" He deliberately looked down at the armored man, his gaze sweeping over the two shortest figures in the group.

"I suggest you retract that statement immediately." A warning, electronically altered, came from beneath the faceplate. Unfortunately, the Asgardian failed to understand the survival instinct hidden within it.

"I'm talking to Iron Man." Thor deliberately flexed his biceps. "Irrelevant people, please step aside."

The faceplate clicked shut. "I hope your health insurance has a high enough limit."

No one noticed that the green-haired girl's bangs were slowly rising against gravity, while the boy in goggles quietly pressed the red button on his belt. A laboratory-grade force field generator began operating silently, and electronic devices within a five-hundred-meter radius simultaneously displayed gibberish.

Li Chen unleashed psychic power far greater than Tatsumaki's, forcibly suppressing the irritable little girl just as she was about to attack Thor.

Child Emperor merely curled his lips, while Tatsumaki, glowing green all over, was so furious that even her energy field had begun to distort.

"Sorry..."

Thor scratched his short golden hair and gave an awkward laugh. Although Odin had sealed his divine power, a warrior's instincts still stabbed at his nerves—the faint energy fluctuations coming from the two people opposite him made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"I'm Li Chen, founder of the 'League of Heroes.'"

"Then, eldest prince of Asgard, can you explain why you sought to start a war with Jotunheim?" The young man pushed up his glasses, a cold gleam flashing across the lenses. "This was clearly a conflict that could have been avoided."

He had long since figured out how to recruit this reckless heir of the divine realm, while conveniently adding a powerful fighter to his organization.

Thor's expression instantly darkened like iron. Jane Foster suddenly rose from her seat, spreading her arms like a hen protecting her chicks. "You people from S.H.I.E.L.D. went back on your word! Agent Coulson clearly already—"

"Calm down." A faint blue glow appeared in Li Chen's pupils. "If you really wanted to fight, you couldn't touch even a single hair on my head in your current state."

The ripples of psychic power swirling around his fingertips distorted the air itself. Even a fully powered Thor would gain no advantage against a powerhouse approaching vice president level.

"The point is that you can't even protect yourself now, so how can you talk about protecting others?" Li Chen snapped his fingers, projecting images of monsters running rampant around the world. "Any random mutated rat could take your lives."

The entire Earth was mutating at an astonishing speed. No one knew whether, upon waking tomorrow, the owner of the bakery on the corner would suddenly grow three heads.

Earth was no longer safe. In the past, natural and man-made disasters had patterns to follow. As long as one avoided high-risk areas and was lucky enough to escape Thanos's snap, one could live peacefully. Now, however, mutations were erupting everywhere—new monsters could be born anywhere in the world at any second.

Without strength, how could anyone protect those they loved?

"I understand your point, but my father has taken back my divine power. I'm just an ordinary person now," Thor said with lowered eyelids.

"Even a mortal body can create miracles." The other man responded firmly. "There was once an ordinary man who, through three years of arduous training, eventually mastered the domineering power to win with a single strike."

Thor sank into thought. His fingers unconsciously rubbed the place where he had once held Mjolnir. It was true—even without divinely granted power, physical strength could still be forged.

"Join us and regain the power to protect what you love."

Thor's chest rose and fell slightly. The offer was like a firefly in the darkness, exceptionally tempting in this perilous new world.

What Li Chen intended to teach was nothing more than close-combat techniques. In the movies, this Asgardian prince had relied purely on brute force to charge headlong through everything. Against a powerful enemy, he would likely suffer badly. As for his supposedly stripped divine power? Odin had merely placed a seal on it.

How could the true God of Thunder rely on a weapon? Once Thor completed his transformation, he would naturally regain Mjolnir's recognition. Before that, he had to break his unhealthy dependence on the warhammer.

"Wait!" Jane suddenly screamed and rushed over, spreading her arms like a hen protecting her chicks. "Don't even think about taking him away!"

These unknown persuaders actually wanted to abduct her lover. Worse still, Thor seemed to be seriously considering it.

"I have to become stronger," Thor said hoarsely.

"We can seek S.H.I.E.L.D. protection!" Jane clutched his arm tightly.

Li Chen suddenly sneered. Invisible psychic power condensed abruptly, seizing Jane by the throat and lifting her into the air. Her legs kicked uselessly as her hands clawed at nonexistent shackles.

"Stop immediately!" Thor's eyes were bloodshot with fury.

Wrath of Thunder

Seeing the woman in his arms turn deathly pale, Thor immediately panicked.

Li Chen had only intended to give her a slight punishment. His fingers loosened slightly, and the silver chain fell away at once.

"Cough—"

Jane Foster's slender fingers brushed the red marks on her neck. As she gasped violently, air rushed desperately into her lungs. The icy sensation of metal still seemed to coil around her throat.

"Do you still believe in that theory of protection now?" Frost gathered between Li Chen's brows. The sound of his knuckles tapping the table was like the blade of a guillotine. "If it had been a monster gripping your throat just now, you would only be a numbered corpse in the morgue."

"Even so..."

"No need to say more." Thor clenched his fingers, and the armored bracer emitted a hum. "I'll go with them."

A desperate resolve surfaced in Thor's eyes. Just as this Eastern man had said, if today's attacker had been a world-ending calamity, Jane and he would both have become ashes in the footnotes of history. Even stripped of his godhood, this body could still forge a new legend.

"This is for you."

Silver light tore through the twilight, and the Member Bracelet landed precisely in Thor's palm. The instant its clasp locked around his wrist bone, a vast torrent of information swept through the blond god's mind—war fortresses floating in quantum dimensions, annihilation fleets cruising through parallel universes...

Asgard's Golden Palace was nothing more than a sandcastle built by children before such power.

"Take me with you." Jane tugged at the torn corner of her lover's cape.

"No problem."

Li Chen flicked his fingers and added the scientist to the traveling list. Beneath the League of Heroes' dome, there should have been room for such soft ribbons adorning battle robes.

"Curvature fluctuation detected!" Iron Man's palm cannons charged in advance, and JARVIS's alarm tore through the stagnant air.

Child Emperor's candy fell to the ground and shattered.

He looked up at the black fissures splitting the sky. Void tides capable of flattening New York were seeping out from within. Unfortunately, they stood at the very center of the storm's eye.

The destructive power of a spatial storm was practically unsolvable. Unless one possessed a powerful body capable of resisting the tearing of the void, ordinary people had no way to withstand it.

Even Thor at full divine power would suffer severe injuries or even die on the spot if he took the impact of a spatial rift head-on.

"It really is... troublesome."

Li Chen sighed softly as vast psychic power abruptly erupted.

Although he could not be certain whether psychic power could offset spatial rifts, it was enough to move the entire town out of the danger zone.

"Boom—"

The immense psychic power directly shattered the town's foundation, precisely controlling the entire landmass as it sank ten meters, narrowly avoiding the lethal range of the spatial storm.

In an instant, the terrifying spatial turbulence swept over the ground like an eraser over a canvas, wiping away everything on the surface.

When their vision returned, the area within several miles had become a massive crater seven meters in diameter.

Had Li Chen not acted in time, the entire town would likely have had only four survivors capable of teleporting away.

"Such utterly overbearing power."

Li Chen thought to himself that, if time had not been so short, he would definitely have tested whether psychic power could withstand spatial turbulence head-on.

Of course, even if he failed, it would not matter. His abilities were more than enough to protect himself. Only the town's residents would all have been reduced to dust.

"So this is a Spacequake..."

Cold sweat seeped across Tony Stark's forehead. Before such power, the Iron Man armor was simply too fragile to withstand a single blow.

This annihilating energy ignored the laws of physics, returning all things in its path to nothingness.

"Sigh—"

A clear sigh drifted over on the wind.

Violet hair reaching her knees danced within spiritual energy, while crystal-like eyes shimmered with dreamlike colors. Amethyst armor wrapped around a dress-like battle skirt, and the hem formed from a membrane of light bloomed with magnificent radiance. The crystals on her headpiece sparkled brilliantly.

The girl stood proudly upon the armrest of a throne, a vortex of purple spiritual power coiling around her.

This being, designated by the United Nations under the codename "Princess" and rated a Dragon-Level Disaster, was the supreme lifeform created by the [First Spirit] Mio.

"I am the guardian of the throne of the Kingdom of 'Kabbalah.' Lowly humans, come at me if you dare!"

Above the once-peaceful city, a graceful purple figure stood in midair.

The girl slowly drew the greatsword embedded in the throne, "Angel Sandalphon." As the blade trembled slightly, dozens of deep ravines split open across the ground. This was already the thirty-seventh time she had encountered a siege by human armed forces.

Satellite surveillance systems across the world simultaneously sounded piercing alarms. Whenever this purple-haired girl descended, Spacequake phenomena would inevitably erupt within a hundred-mile radius. Even if she merely stood still, emergency phones in the offices of national leaders would ring one after another.

The month-long pursuit had worn away the last of her patience. The girl looked down at the army beneath her, as tiny as ants, while the sword hilt grew warm in her palm. With a single thought, Manhattan Island would be split in two wherever her blade pointed.

As an Original Spirit who had evolved by absorbing the energy of the Marvel Universe, Mio's power had long surpassed conventional understanding. The Spirit Crystal forming the core of her origin now radiated a trembling rainbow glow.

"God... is that a Spirit?" Tony Stark's armor scanner blared frantically, sweat seeping beneath his mask. He had never felt such an oppressive energy field.

Child Emperor, carrying a cartoon backpack, quietly stepped back two paces. "I recommend immediately initiating the S-Class evacuation protocol." More than anyone, he understood that the twenty-seven advanced weapons he treasured were nothing but children's toys before absolute power.

Mjolnir hummed in Thor's hand. "Which madman's experimental product is that?!" He was shocked to discover that the divine power he had always been proud of was so insignificant before this spiritual power.

Standing in the corner, Li Chen's eye twitched as he silently added another entry to his grudge book.

Jane Foster clutched Thor's cape and trembled. "This isn't something humans can possibly fight..."

"In theory, we can communicate..." Before Li Chen could finish, the figure with green curls had already shot into the sky.

Tatsumaki floated in midair, her pupils contracting with excitement. "Finally, someone strong enough!" She waved her little hand at the heavens, and the asteroid belt in outer space suddenly shook violently. A meteor a hundred meters in diameter was breaking through the atmosphere, dragging a crimson tail of flame as it screamed downward.

(

Flames tore across the sky as the meteor, trailing a scorching tail, fell with unstoppable force.

Three stunned faces lifted in unison.

"She's going all out right from the start?" Child Emperor's mechanical backpack clattered.