Tearing Down the Stage

New York's battlefield burned in deathly silence.

Burning buildings crackled, twisted metal gave faint groans as it cooled, and scattered cries and explosions still sounded in the distance. Yet all of it seemed muffled by a thick pane of glass, vague and far away.

Everyone still alive and able to move, whether Avengers or surviving Chitauri infantry, had their eyes fixed on that figure.

Xiao Han stood in the middle of a wrecked street, his gray hoodie completely spotless. He shook his wrist as if the punch he had just thrown had merely swatted away an annoying fly.

Above him, the enormous space wormhole twisted and contracted violently like some colossal beast that had been struck senseless. Deep within the passage came thunderous explosions and the shriek of tearing metal. The unlucky Chitauri Mothership had been struck head-on by the wreckage of its own out-of-control war beast.

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the smoke and dust before locking precisely onto the pale figure at the edge of Stark Tower's top floor—Loki.

Asgard's God of Mischief now looked like a frozen ice statue. His wicked smile had vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but terror that reached his very bones. The knuckles gripping the Scepter had turned bluish white from the force, while the Mind Stone at its tip flashed frantically like his erratic heartbeat.

"Bug, the field's being cleared." Xiao Han's voice was not loud, yet it pierced the battlefield's strange silence like an icy steel needle and rang clearly in everyone's ears.

He paused. His gaze was like invisible shackles, pinning Loki firmly in place. "The stage..." He tilted his head slightly, seeming to admire Loki's fear-twisted expression. "...should be torn down."

The moment those words fell, Xiao Han moved.

There was no warning, no buildup. The ground beneath his feet exploded like it had been struck by a meteor! Spiderweb cracks spread wildly as gravel and dust blasted outward in rings!

And he himself had already become a blurred afterimage completely impossible to catch with the naked eye, tearing through the air as he shot straight toward the top of Stark Tower!

He moved so fast that a string of milky-white sonic booms trailed behind him! The air was brutally ripped apart, unleashing an endless series of deafening thunderclaps!

"Stop him!" Loki screamed, his voice breaking into a shrill wail. Almost instinctively, he pointed the Scepter at the oncoming blur. The Mind Stone at its tip erupted with an unprecedented, blinding golden radiance!

A powerful beam of psychic energy, carrying the will to enslave and sow chaos, crossed space in an instant like an invisible giant serpent and slammed viciously into Xiao Han!

Bzzzt—!

The golden beam struck the gray afterimage dead on!

Yet there was no mind control as Loki had expected, no halt or confusion from the target. The instant that psychic beam touched Xiao Han's body, it was like striking an absolutely smooth, absolutely dense barrier. It did not even raise a single ripple!

The dazzling light shattered and vanished soundlessly like fragile glass!

The fear on Loki's face froze completely, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints! Impossible! The Scepter's power could control minds and enslave the strong! It could even affect Hulk! How could it... how could it have no effect at all?!

In the instant his mind reeled, the gray afterimage had already reached the edge of the tower's top floor!

Xiao Han's figure abruptly solidified. Both feet landed steadily on the outer edge of the glass curtain wall less than three meters in front of Loki. Fine cracks silently spread beneath his feet through the reinforced glass. He did not look at the Scepter in Loki's hand as it instantly dimmed. He merely extended his right hand calmly, spread his fingers, and made a grasping motion toward Loki.

"Urgh—!"

Loki felt as though an invisible, icy steel hand had clamped tightly around his throat! An overwhelming, utterly irresistible force descended upon him in an instant! His entire body was forcibly lifted from the ground! His feet dangled in midair!

Suffocation flooded over him like a tide! The mighty physique of an Asgardian god seemed utterly laughable before such absolute power.

His handsome face turned purple-red from oxygen deprivation and terror. His eyes bulged as both hands clawed futilely at the nonexistent hand. All he could produce from his throat were dying, ragged gasps.

His golden helmet tilted crookedly, and his carefully styled black hair fell into disarray. The Scepter slipped from his hand, clanging onto the dust- and shattered-glass-covered floor. It rolled twice, and the gemstone at its tip went completely dark.

Xiao Han's fingers tightened slightly.

Loki's neck bones immediately gave an unbearable, teeth-grinding series of cracks! His suspended body convulsed violently, his tongue lolling out uncontrollably as the shadow of death enveloped him!

"Stop!" An angry roar came with the sound of something tearing through the air! Golden lightning ripped apart the sky as Mjolnir, carrying all of Thor's fury and a trace of barely perceptible panic, slammed toward Xiao Han's back like a hammer of divine judgment!

Thor followed close behind, his golden cape snapping wildly in the wind. His blue eyes burned with fury at Loki's miserable state, mixed with deep wariness toward Xiao Han's inhuman power. The clear dented fist mark on Mjolnir's face now seared his palm like a brand.

Xiao Han did not even turn around.

His free left hand casually reached back.

The movement was faster than the limit of vision, as though he had always held his hand there, waiting for the hammer to deliver itself.

Smack!

A crisp metallic clash that made hearts tremble!

Mjolnir, capable of shattering mountains and summoning heavenly thunder, was firmly and steadily caught by one pale, seemingly ordinary hand gripping its hammerhead!

Time froze once more.

Thor's furious charge struck something like an invisible wall of sighing air, forcing him to halt in midair in a thoroughly awkward state! The expression on his face—a mix of fury and frantic desperation to save his brother—was instantly replaced by utter shock and absurd disbelief! Mjolnir... had been caught? Caught barehanded?!

Xiao Han's palm did not move in the slightest. Mjolnir trembled restlessly in his grasp, erupting with blinding lightning. Thick arcs of electricity leaped and burst wildly across his arm!

The violent power of the God of Thunder could vaporize steel in an instant, yet it could not even scorch the cuff of his gray hoodie. The dancing lightning snakes wrapped around his arm like obedient pets before finally dispersing unwillingly into the air, leaving only a faint scent of ozone.

He turned his face slightly, glancing at Thor's face filled with disbelief and a trace of fear. A faint, cold curve touched his lips. "Power bank, be quiet." His voice carried no inflection, only the natural indifference of one looking down upon ants.

Before his words had even faded, Xiao Han casually flung his left hand—still gripping the hammerhead—to the side.

The movement was effortless, like brushing a fallen leaf from his shoulder.

Boom!!!

Thor felt an incomprehensible, irresistible force surge through the hammer's handle! The webs between the thumbs and forefingers of his tightly clenched hands split open instantly, blood pouring down!

His entire body was like a golden meteor struck head-on by a speeding train, flying uncontrollably sideways away from Stark Tower!

"Thor—!" Loki could only force out a desperate rasp through his constricted throat.

Thor's body smashed through three consecutive skyscrapers! Reinforced concrete and steel structures were as fragile as cardboard before him! Smoke, rubble, and shards of glass mixed with erupting fire and shot into the sky!

At last, he crashed deep into a fourth building and was completely buried beneath the collapsed reinforced concrete ruins. Only a human-shaped hole remained amid the billowing dust.

Xiao Han's gaze returned to Loki, who struggled futilely in his grasp. His eyes were as cold as if he were looking at an inanimate object. He slowly raised the hand gripping Loki's throat, lifting the God of Mischief until they were at eye level. Loki's feet kicked helplessly in the air, and his purple-red face held nothing but pure fear and despair before death.

"Your little game," Xiao Han said, his voice utterly calm, "is over."

He raised his left hand—the hand that had so easily caught Mjolnir—and extended his index finger toward Loki's forehead. The air around his fingertip began to twist and heat violently, giving off a faint hum as a point of blinding red light gathered there!

The aura of pure destruction spread outward. Loki's pupils dilated with extreme terror. He could clearly feel that the energy gathering on that finger was enough to erase his head and soul from this universe entirely!

"No... please..." Loki forced broken syllables from deep in his throat.

At that moment, a pain-suppressed roar rose from the chaotic street below.

Boom!

The ruins burying Thor exploded apart! A golden figure shot into the sky unsteadily. Blood hung from the corner of Thor's mouth, and his golden armor was damaged in many places. He looked utterly disheveled, but the fury in his eyes and his determination to save his brother burned even more fiercely.

He raised Mjolnir high. Dark clouds instantly filled the sky as violent lightning gathered within them. Thick bolts flashed like wildly dancing silver serpents, rumbling deafeningly!

"Let him go!" Thor's voice crashed down like thunder. Drawing on all his divine power, he had Mjolnir pull down countless bolts of lightning toward Xiao Han atop Stark Tower once more! This time, it was divine judgment unleashed with every ounce of his strength!

Xiao Han's brow creased almost imperceptibly.

The destructive red light gathered at his fingertip went out instantly.

His right hand, still gripping Loki's throat, suddenly slammed downward!

The movement was brutal, like throwing away an inconvenient piece of trash.

Bang!!!

Loki's body crashed through the expensive flooring on Stark Tower's top floor like a meteor, smashing through the level below, then another! The reinforced concrete structure was as soft as tofu along his path downward! A string of scalp-numbing impacts and shattering sounds came with dust and debris blasting everywhere! Finally, an extremely muffled boom sounded from deep within the tower, accompanied by the groan of an overloaded structure. Loki had been smashed into some dark corner near the building's foundation, his fate unknown.

Only after finishing all that did Xiao Han slowly turn around to face the descending lightning of destruction, enough to turn the entire tower into scorched earth.

He put both hands back into the pockets of his gray hoodie.

Facing divine punishment that tore through the heavens, carrying all of Thor's power and boundless rage, he did not even raise an eyelid.

Rumble—!!!!

Violent lightning as thick as water barrels struck Xiao Han viciously! Blinding light instantly swallowed the entire top floor of Stark Tower! Explosive shockwaves spread outward in a sphere, pulverizing every glass curtain wall on the top floor! Countless steel frames twisted and snapped! The entire building shook violently!

The blinding electric glow lingered for several seconds before slowly fading.

Tony hovered in the air, staring fixedly at the top floor through his mask, his heart nearly stopping. Steve clenched his shield amid the ruins below, his knuckles white. Natasha's aircraft circled overhead as she forgot to breathe. Even Hulk, who had been growling irritably atop distant rubble, instinctively drew back his neck.

The light faded.

The top floor was in ruins, as if ravaged by a storm. Broken rebar lay exposed, and scorched marks spread everywhere.

Xiao Han still stood where he had been, hands in his pockets, his posture unchanged. The gray hoodie remained completely unscathed by the blast and heat, without even a wrinkle. The patch of ground beneath his feet was the only part of the entire top floor that remained mostly intact.

He tilted his head slightly upward, looking toward the blue space wormhole in the sky, which had become extremely unstable and was violently fluctuating and contracting due to the damage to the Mothership. The remaining Chitauri forces still poured out in scattered groups like headless flies, or desperately tried to fly back inside.

"What an eyesore," he muttered, as though commenting on a buzzing fly.

The instant he spoke, Xiao Han's eyes lit up!

They were no longer human eyes, but twin blazing masses of molten, sun-bright crimson gold!

Two crimson-gold beams of Heat Vision, as thick as ancient tree trunks and formed from pure destructive energy, erupted violently from his eyes without warning!

Bzzzt—!!!

The air was instantly ionized and vaporized! Space itself twisted violently wherever the beams passed! Carrying terrifying heat capable of incinerating everything and absolute force that pierced all things, the two destructive beams crossed the distance in an instant and struck the center of the unstable space wormhole!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Only a piercing shriek that made hearts tremble, as though the structure of the universe itself were being forcibly torn apart!

Sizzle—!!!

The blue wormhole energy boiled and vanished the instant it touched the crimson-gold beams, like snow thrown into boiling soup! The fragile structure maintaining the spatial passage was like a weak spiderweb before that torrent of pure violent energy, brutally ripped apart and pierced through!

The beams passed through the wormhole without resistance, shooting into the depths of an unknown universe!

From the other side of the wormhole came a muffled, enormous roar filled with pain and terror! Immediately afterward, that roar became a dying wail!

Through the edge of the wormhole, torn apart and pierced by the Heat Vision, the Avengers saw a brief and horrifying sight: a gigantic, hideous planet-sized head formed from a fusion of machinery and flesh—the Chitauri Mothership—convulsed violently in deep space! At its center, two intersecting molten crimson-gold beams had burned straight through it, creating two terrifying holes more than a hundred meters wide! Molten metal and unknown tissue cascaded from the edges of the holes like waterfalls, rapidly freezing in the cold vacuum! The entire "planet" rolled and broke apart violently beneath the beams' impact!

The next second, the space wormhole, having lost its stable power source and the support of the Mothership's core, began to collapse inward wildly and irreversibly like a punctured bubble!

Its blue glow flickered, dimmed, and twisted sharply!

Boom—!!!

It was not a loud sound, yet it seemed to explode directly within everyone's souls!

The enormous spatial vortex suddenly collapsed inward into an infinitely tiny singularity, then vanished completely!

Above New York, all that remained was a slightly distorted scar in space that had been forcibly smoothed over, along with countless Chitauri aircraft and infantry abandoned within Earth's atmosphere. Having instantly lost power, they fell like dumplings from a pot. Without the Mothership's remote control, they were nothing more than burning scrap metal and twitching wreckage.

The battlefield fell completely silent.

Only the wind remained, along with the crackling of the burning city in the distance.

The crimson-gold light in Xiao Han's eyes slowly faded, returning to their original black. He blinked as though he had merely done something trivial—like switching off an irritatingly bright lamp.

He lowered his head and looked at the devastated, crumbling top floor of Stark Tower beneath his feet, then at the fires burning across the distant city and the fallen alien trash. His brow furrowed once more.

"Tsk. What a mess." He clicked his tongue softly, his tone carrying undisguised distaste.

His gaze swept downward. Thor was struggling out from another pile of ruins, his face covered in dust and blood as he looked toward the top floor with a complicated expression. Steve leaned on his shield, chest heaving. Tony hovered in the air with his mask open, his face completely blank. Natasha had landed her aircraft. Hulk stood atop a pile of alien wreckage, his molten-lava eyes watching the tower's top floor warily while a low rumble came from his throat.

Xiao Han's gaze did not linger on any of them for more than half a second, as though they were pebbles beside the road.

His eyes passed over the ruins and smoke, turning toward the distant eastern horizon. There, an extremely faint yet exceptionally clear sliver of pale dawn was quietly tearing through the deep night sky.

Dawn was coming.

The sun was about to rise.

"Time to go back," he said to himself, his voice calm and flat.

Without another glance at the devastated battlefield, without acknowledging the so-called heroes below with their varied expressions after surviving the disaster, Xiao Han vanished from where he stood without warning.

There was no sonic boom, no afterimage. It was as if he had never appeared at all.

Only the twisted steel bars melted by the lingering Heat Vision and the string of holes Loki had been smashed through on Stark Tower's top floor proved that what had just happened was no illusion.

Tony slowly descended onto the wrecked top floor, stepping over scorching twisted metal and charred chunks of concrete. He looked at the faint glow in the east, then at where Loki's Scepter had fallen, before finally lowering his gaze to the bottomless hole Xiao Han had smashed open.

"JARVIS..." Tony's voice was dry and hoarse, carrying deep exhaustion and an indescribably complicated emotion. "...raise the encryption level of 'Postwar Contingency Plan A' to maximum. And..." He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing. "...install another top-of-the-line sunshade system on the villa terrace. No, two."

On the distant California coastline, the first golden ray of sunlight was struggling through thin clouds and spilling across the fine white sand of Malibu Villa's private beach.

Happy's massive body stood at the edge of the terrace like the most loyal reef. At his feet sat a broad, comfortable beach lounger, and the small cooler beside it was packed with ice cream in every flavor. Its lid was open, releasing threads of chill air. He even held an enormous beach umbrella, ready to open it at any moment.

The sea breeze, carrying the morning's faint chill and salty scent, swept across the empty terrace.

The next second.

Xiao Han appeared abruptly on the beach lounger prepared for him. He stretched out his body like a lazy cat finding its most comfortable nest, his gray hoodie looking especially soft beneath the morning sunlight. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of air scented with sea salt and sunshine. The cold indifference he had worn on New York's battlefield melted away like snow, leaving only complete relaxation and a faint, barely noticeable contentment.