At noon, the sky over Westview turned a deep, dark red without warning, like a vast sheet of blood-colored velvet shutting out both sunlight and hope.
Chu Hang stood at the second-floor window, silently watching the strange sky. Its ominous hue cast a faint reflection in his dark eyes.
This was not his doing. An older, greater malice was knocking at the door of this false world.
Behind him, a stifled groan broke his train of thought.
Wanda gripped the bedsheet beneath her so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Scarlet Chaos Magic surged outward from her in uncontrolled waves, shaking plaster loose from the walls. The air grew hot with overloaded energy.
The baby was coming three full weeks early.
Chu Hang crossed to the bed in a single stride. He covered Wanda's cold hand with his broad palm and gently placed his other hand on her swollen belly. His senses flowed inward like mercury, instantly finding the source of the turmoil: the child was struggling fiercely in her womb, his immense Chaos Magic battering against the natural confines of his mother's body like a young beast desperate to escape its cage.
In almost the same instant, Chu Hang identified the culprit.
"Thor..."
His gaze pierced layer after layer of illusion and settled on Nordic Strength Gym across town.
The God of Thunder, whom he had brainwashed into thinking of nothing but muscles and protein, was doing grueling squats with a one-ton custom dumbbell on his shoulders. It was Stormbreaker and the Six Infinity Stones in disguise.
On his thousandth squat, the resonance of Asgardian might and the universe's primal power struck like an invisible hammer. It shattered the weakest point in the barrier of laws Chu Hang had erected, and the resulting ripples hit the unborn child, who