X Squad Annihilated

"I'm fine!" Professor X stopped Jean from supporting him. He raised his head and stared gravely at Chino. "Who exactly are you?"

"Me?" Chino raised an eyebrow and said playfully, "Didn't I introduce myself just now? Oh, right, I forgot. Let me formally introduce myself... Chino Marcus, S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Professor X's expression froze, and his brow twitched slightly. "Has S.H.I.E.L.D. finally decided to move against us?"

Cyclops sat up, clutching his arm.

Storm also woke from her faint, watching Chino warily.

Jean's expression grew even more solemn.

Wolverine Logan looked curious. "What S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"A secret organization under the Security Council, a special force dedicated to handling all kinds of strange incidents. It rose after World War II, and its full name is—the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Jean gave Logan a brief explanation.

"What?" Wolverine furrowed his brow. What the hell was that?

"Strictly speaking, we Mutants also fall within the scope of their duties."

Chino did not attack immediately. Instead, he looked at the pair with amusement. It seemed the two of them getting together... had not been an accident.

They had probably caught each other's eye long ago.

"Mutants? Uh... does that mean they want to eliminate us?" Wolverine asked in astonishment.

"No..."

"I refused S.H.I.E.L.D.'s recruitment. So S.H.I.E.L.D. still couldn't resist making a move against us?" Charles interrupted their conversation and asked.

In Charles's heart, while he was not that extreme, he still distinguished Mutants from humans. He simply did not take it as far as Magneto did. Charles neither agreed with nor refuted the view that Mutants were the future.

The reason he had not accepted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s invitation was partly because he knew something about Hydra's infiltration, but there was an even more important reason—unless absolutely necessary, he did not want to kill his fellow Mutant "brothers."

That did not fit with his usual ideals. And if he did so, he would completely stand against Mutants. Those who did not know the truth, those who did not understand him, might even call him a "traitor"!

"Oh? Didn't I make my intentions clear just now?" Chino tapped his head in "frustration," putting on a deeply annoyed expression. "Fine, my mistake! Actually... I merely wanted to use you to test myself and see what tier my strength belonged to. But now it seems that you... can't even bring out my true level!"

Professor X's face twitched. So he had come to challenge their dojo?

At that moment, Chino glanced at Wolverine Logan. The latter froze slightly.

"Oh, Logan? A guy full of tragedy. Let's have a fight and see whether you can hurt me!"

Then Chino lightly waved his hand. Streaks of crystalline blue light swept across everyone and enveloped the entire school.

"What did you do?" Professor X asked in confusion.

"Spatial Isolation, a not particularly complicated spatial spell. I isolated the entire school. People outside can't see the changes within. Even if we fight until the heavens collapse and the earth cracks, everything outside will remain normal."

Everyone: "!"

Damn!

Spatial Isolation?

"A fight? Why? I... I don't want to fight you, and I'm not even part of this school." Wolverine shook his head.

"Are you afraid?"

"Heh, what a joke. Why would I be afraid?" Wolverine smacked his lips.

It seemed Professor X had not yet promised to help him recover his lost memories, so Wolverine Logan felt no sense of belonging toward this school.

He did not need anyone else's rescue at all.

Cyclops and the others had simply acted on their own initiative!

"You... you should know that my telepathic abilities are far stronger than Professor X's! Don't you want to know about the memories you lost?" Chino asked with a smile.

"Huff—"

Wolverine's breathing instantly quickened, and his previously vacant eyes became much sharper. The hollow feeling left by his missing memories tormented him every moment. Year after year, he searched for himself, only to return disappointed time and again. He did not know who he was, nor where home was!

A bone-chilling loneliness constantly shrouded him!

"You'd better not be lying to me!"

Slash—

With a shake of both arms, Wolverine's Adamantium claws shot out.

Wolverine's fighting style was simple: run fast, leap high, stab, and slash!

Watching Wolverine stride toward him, Chino smiled.

He took a large step forward, bent slightly at the waist, and assumed a very familiar stance—Whitebeard's opening stance!

The back of his fist smashed viciously into the air.

Then everyone watched in stunned silence as the air before them shattered with countless cracks, like a glass mirror.

Centered on the back of his fist, cracks spread—crack, crack—massive spiderweb fractures tore through the air, split the ground, and shook space itself!

"—Pwah!"

Wolverine, who bore the brunt of it, was struck as though by a crushing blow to the head. He spat out a huge mouthful of blood and was sent flying backward.

The X-Men were not far away and also suffered impacts of varying severity!

"Cough—pfft!"

"Ah—!"

"Ungh!"

"Cough—ah!"

One after another, they were hurled backward and collapsed miserably onto the ground. Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, and Jean all suffered internal injuries to varying degrees.

Even the walls of the school building behind them had been shaken open with countless terrifying cracks, swaying as though they might collapse at any moment.

Looking at his own fist, Chino shook his head irritably. "A little disappointing! The mighty X-Men, yet not one of you could take even one move from me. What a pity. I couldn't test my true level, but... it wasn't completely without gains."

"Cough, cough..."

Wolverine stubbornly spat out the clotted blood and climbed back to his feet. His wounded wolf eyes looked even fiercer as he stared unblinkingly at Chino.

"You know, amnesia... isn't actually a bad thing for you! The event that awakened your Mutant abilities was extremely painful, so your healing factor protected you. It sealed away that 'past' and made you forget your former pain! Believe me, uncovering it... isn't a good thing!"

Wolverine frowned. His fierce wolf eyes remained fixed on Chino without yielding, even though blood continued to flow from the corner of his mouth.

Chino raised a hand to cover his forehead and sighed.

"Fine, I can tell you a little. You were probably born in the nineteenth century, sometime between 1880 and 1890. Your hometown was—Alberta! As for the rest? Come find me when you're mentally prepared to bear it, or investigate it yourself. Believe me, that was a... very, very, very painful past. If it were me, I definitely wouldn't want to remember it."

"Oh, right. I also found a name in your mind!"

"Who?" Wolverine gritted his teeth and asked with difficulty.

As he spoke, he coughed up blood.

Fortunately, he had a healing factor, but his injuries were too severe to heal instantly.

"William Stryker!"

"A madman. He was the one who replaced your steel claws, using... Adamantium. Oh, right. You used to have bone claws."

"That's all I can tell you."

Having obtained the answer he wanted, the badly injured Wolverine could no longer hold on. He collapsed and lost consciousness.

Chino glanced at Scott, hesitated for a moment, then strode toward him. At that very moment, a black shadow flew toward him with a biu—

Before he could react, he felt a soft body in his arms.

Emmmm...

Was this... the rhythm of throwing herself into his arms?