Closing the Door and Sun's Wrath

A destructive energy storm raged over the villa's ruins. A portal of ghostly blue and blazing gold, like a wound in the universe, violently tore through space and emitted a piercing shriek that made souls tremble.

The violent turbulence swept concrete chunks and twisted rebar into deadly vortices, while smoke and dust blotted out the evening sun.

Xiao Han stood at the heart of the storm, like an absolutely motionless singularity.

The raging energy currents and flying debris struck the invisible barrier around him as though they had hit the sighing wall at the end of the universe, instantly smoothing out and vanishing. Not even the edge of his gray hoodie stirred.

He tilted his head slightly upward, his gaze piercing through the swirling dust and distorted light as he calmly watched the energy portal grow increasingly solid, radiating an icy, ancient aura.

Beyond the portal was no longer the Chitauri Mothership of mechanical flesh and blood on the other side of New York's wormhole.

It was a chaotic sight beyond description—twisted, non-Euclidean geometric structures writhed madly like cavities within living tissue;

Cold, non-stellar light flickered in the depths of the void, outlining enormous silhouettes too vast to comprehend;

A pure, indifferent sense of "existence" spread through the gaps of the still-unstable portal like an icy tide, carrying the will to devour and assimilate.

Even the Avengers scattered across the world felt a suffocating fear born from their survival instincts through the holographic feed!

"W-what is that?!" Banner's voice cracked over the comm channel, filled with utter horror.

"Unknown life-form! Energy readings... unable to parse! Beyond every known classification!" Fury's voice was cold and rapid, accompanied by shrill alarms aboard the mothership and terrified shouts from its personnel.

Tony's armor steadied itself amid the lingering energy shockwaves, but his face beneath the helmet had gone deathly pale.

He saw the massive breach blasted through his villa, the sanity-shattering sight beyond that portal, and the figure standing at the center of the storm, as calm as if he were taking a stroll through his own backyard!

An absurd emotion, mixed with fear and a trace of twisted relief, seized him—Thank God! Thank God this monster was home!

Xiao Han's brow creased almost imperceptibly. Not because of the sanity-draining sight beyond the portal, nor because of that cold will to consume.

"So ugly," he muttered, his tone openly disdainful, as though he were judging a crude doodle.

Then his gaze dropped to the small freezer at the edge of the rubble, overturned by the blast and covered in sand and ash. Boxes of colorful ice cream cones had spilled out from inside, blanketed in dust and looking especially miserable.

"And you got my ice cream dirty." His voice carried the genuine displeasure of someone whose dessert had been disturbed.

At that moment, the warped portal suddenly shuddered! It seemed about to open completely! The chaos beyond it abruptly became clear for an instant!

A... or rather, a mass of indescribable "limb," formed from flowing shadows and cold starlight, thrust out from the portal with terrifying force capable of tearing space apart!

It ignored physical laws and spatial distance, reaching straight for Xiao Han like a tentacle crossing dimensions!

Its purpose was not attack, but something on a higher level—a grasping driven by greed and the desire to assimilate! It had sensed it! It had sensed the vast, pure source of stellar energy contained within this body!

That incomprehensible grab moved faster than the limits of sight!

Tony's pupils shrank sharply, and a brief cry escaped his throat!

In the holographic feed, Fury, Steve, and the others felt their hearts nearly stop!

Hulk inside Banner let out a terrified roar!

At the instant that cold, viscous "limb" was about to touch Xiao Han—

Xiao Han moved.

He did not dodge or block.

He merely raised his right hand. The hand that had just flicked away an ice cream cone covered in dust. A pale hand that even looked somewhat slender.

The motion was unhurried, even a little casual.

He spread his fingers and casually pressed downward at that soul-freezing "limb" reaching across dimensions.

There was no burst of energy, no blazing light.

There was only an indescribable, incomprehensible "force," as pure as something born at the beginning of the universe!

Bzzzz—!!!

Space released a muffled groan, as though crushed beyond its limits!

The approaching "limb," made of flowing shadow and cold starlight, was struck head-on by an invisible cosmic hammer!

The seemingly law-defying "matter" composing it instantly froze and stiffened! Then, starting from its fingertips, it shattered inch by inch like glass dropped into absolute zero! It disintegrated! It became the most primitive fragments of cold stardust!

The collapse was utterly silent, yet horrifying enough to make scalps tingle! It was not merely physical destruction, but more like the forcible erasure of the very concept of its existence!

From deep within that chaotic void beyond the portal came a soundless shriek of extreme agony and terror, impossible for human hearing to catch yet exploding directly within the souls of every living being that sensed it! The enormous silhouette convulsed and thrashed violently!

Xiao Han did not withdraw his lowered right hand.

He rotated his wrist and curled his fingers, as though gripping an invisible "door bolt" in the air.

Then he yanked outward!

The movement was simple and brutal, like casually shutting a broken old wooden door blown open by the wind.

Riiip—!!!!

A teeth-grating shriek rang out, as though the very structure of the universe had been forcibly torn apart!

The portal, pried open by ghostly blue and blazing gold energy and connected to an unknown terrifying dimension, along with the violent energy currents still swirling around it, was forcibly "ripped" from the structure of space by an irresistible, overwhelming force!

Like tearing an ugly old poster off a wall!

The torn-off portal, the chaotic scene within it, and that horrifying silhouette writhing in pain were instantly compressed into an infinitely tiny, incandescently white singularity too bright to look at!

Without even glancing at the singularity compressed to the extreme, Xiao Han casually tossed the blazing white sphere upward, directly toward the setting sun overhead, which was casting its final warm glow.

Whoosh—!

The blazing white sphere became a tiny streak of light and vanished into the atmosphere in an instant, moving so fast it left no afterimage.

The next moment.

Deep within the distant solar corona, beyond the reach of human sight.

A barely perceptible point of blazing white light suddenly appeared, only to be instantly swallowed, annihilated, and assimilated by the sun's violent plasma flames, millions of degrees hot.

It did not even stir a ripple.

Like a speck of dust falling into a boiling furnace.

Over the ruins of Malibu Villa, the violent energy storm suddenly subsided.

The forcibly torn spatial structure sealed itself like a healing wound, leaving only a massive, smoking blackened breach in the villa's foundation and glassy crystalline dust that had been melted by extreme heat before rapidly cooling, drifting slowly down from the sky.

The terrace fell utterly silent.

The holographic feed had frozen. The Avengers looked as though they had been struck by a paralysis spell, their faces locked in extreme shock and blank confusion. Tony stood with his mouth open, his jaw beneath the helmet seemingly dislocated. Happy lay sprawled on the distant beach, having forgotten to get up.

Xiao Han lowered his hand as though he had merely dusted off his sleeve. He looked down at the terrace floor covered in ash, then at the overturned freezer in the distance, caked with sand, and his brow furrowed again.

"Tch." He clicked his tongue softly, his tone thick with displeasure at being disturbed. "There's even more dust now."

He turned around and stopped looking at the devastated ruins, instead directing his gaze toward the western horizon. The golden light of the setting sun struggled to pierce the smoke and dust, spilling out its final radiance.

He started walking toward the relatively clean section of the terrace, heading for the beach chair that had miraculously survived the explosion unscathed.

As he passed Tony, who stood frozen like a statue, Xiao Han paused and turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Tony's vacant face.

"Tony." His voice had returned to its earlier calmness, as though he had merely swatted a buzzing fly to death.

Tony jolted as if awakened from a trance, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. "...Yeah?"

"The house." Xiao Han gestured with his chin toward the smoking breach in the ruins. "You're fixing it."

Then, as if remembering something more important, he added, "The ice cream got dirty from the dust. Replace it." His tone was perfectly matter-of-fact and left no room for argument.

After saying that, he ignored Tony's petrified state and walked straight to the beach chair. He brushed away the small amount of dust that had settled on it, then lay down comfortably once more. The golden glow of the sunset fell over him again, its warmth driving away the chill of the smoke and dust.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of air carrying the smell of burning and faint ozone, his brow gradually relaxing.

"Finally, some peace and quiet," he murmured, a nearly imperceptible satisfaction in his voice.

The terrace became quiet once more, leaving only the soft sound of the breeze stirring the smoke and dust, and the steady rhythm of distant waves.

In the holographic feed, Fury's single eye remained fixed on the figure reclining in the beach chair beneath the last of the sunset. His virtual face showed no expression, only an unfathomably grave solemnity. He slowly spoke, his low voice seeming to rise from an abyss and shatter the silence:

"...Update the file. Codename: 'Sun's Son.' Threat level... reassess."

The sun sank below the horizon, and its final thread of golden light vanished. Night fell, and the first stars emerged.

On the beach chair, Xiao Han's breathing was steady and deep, as though that brief, terrifying incident of "closing the door" had been nothing more than an unimportant dream during an afternoon nap.

Only the enormous blackened breach in the villa's foundation, as though gnawed open by some colossal beast, silently told the tale of the lingering embers of Sun's Wrath.