The piano moved. She walked toward Russell with light, casual steps, but each step left a footprint several feet deep in the ground.
This is not because gravity changed its own weight, but because of the collapse of matter.
Atoms were disintegrated beneath her feet, molecules were torn apart around her, and the air around her ionized into plasma, enveloping her body like a luminous, invisible film.
Russell did not back down; he stepped forward, his feet also treading on the ruins, each step leaving a crystallized footprint in the ground.
This is not ice; it is carbon atoms rearranged into a diamond-like crystal structure, blooming into transparent, hard flowers on the ground.
Two people meet in the middle of the ruins, less than two meters apart. Their eyes meet, and between their white and blue eyes lies an invisible battlefield composed of countless microscopic worlds being created and destroyed simultaneously.
Magneto tactfully led Charles aside, showing no intention of intervening in their fight at the moment.
One is the old Omega Mutants that Charles mentioned, who possesses the Phoenix Force capable of destroying everything.
The other is the Omega Mutants Nova, who has reached an extremely deep microscopic level of Telekinesis, and also possesses multiple abilities such as super healing and super strength.
Qin made the first move. She stretched out her finger and lightly swept it through the air. In an instant, the air on Russell's right side was rewritten into a vacuum. It wasn't that it was sucked away, but that it was wiped out.
Nitrogen, oxygen, and Carbon Dioxide molecules, under Jean's Subatomic-level manipulation, ceased to exist. Russell's body lost its pressure balance and tilted to the right.
His skin began to swell in the vacuum, his blood vessels bulged, and his eyeballs protruded. It wasn't pain; it was a natural bodily reaction. Without external pressure, everything inside was pushing outwards.
[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]
Russell remained completely calm. He drew a circle with his hand in the vacuum, drawing molecules from afar to refill the erased space.
Carbon and oxygen atoms were summoned from the void, combined to form Carbon Dioxide, and re-injected into the vacuum. Instantly, the air pressure was restored, the skin shrank, the blood vessels flattened, and the eyes recovered.
"Interesting." Jean's eyes lit up. "You can indeed control atoms. No wonder you're the man I've chosen."
"Not just atoms." Russell's gaze sharpened.
He clenched his fist in the air, then opened it.
The ground beneath Qin's feet instantly turned into quicksand, not just any quicksand, but quicksand at the atomic level.
The chemical bonds between Silicon Atom were forcibly broken, and the hard concrete turned into powder in an instant. Qin's feet sank into it, and she lost her balance, but she did not fall.
As her body sank, it also rose, not flying, but rewriting its own gravity vector. The gravity beneath her feet changed from downward to upward, and she floated out of the quicksand like a feather blown by the wind, suspended in mid-air.
"Gravity?" Russell frowned.
"It's not rewriting gravity, it's rewriting the Gravitons within my body." Qin hovered in mid-air, looking down at him.
"Gravitons are part of my body; I can make them choose to go up instead of down."
Russell looked at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.
This is the Phoenix Force, completely different from Telekinesis. It is not Telepathy, but one of the most primal forces in the universe, combining creation and destruction.
She can rewrite reality because she can rearrange the composition of all matter at the Subatomic level.
And he can do the same.
He lifted his leg and stepped into the air. Carbon atoms under his feet rearranged into a diamond lattice structure, and the air became a transparent, invisible step.
He stepped on it, then took a second step, creating another step beneath his feet. Step by step, he ascended to the sky, facing the zither.
Amidst the ruins on the ground, Magneto raised his head and looked at the two people standing in mid-air like two Gods, his brows furrowed deeply.
He has seen many Mutants, many superpowered individuals, and many people who call themselves gods.
But he had never witnessed a battle between two people before, starting from the beginning of the change in the macroscopic world.
"Charles, can you see what they're doing?" Magneto didn't turn around.
Charles lay on the ground, his hands bracing against the rubble, struggling to lift his head.
His eyes were blind, not because he was optically blind, but because his consciousness could not penetrate the battlefield between those two men.
They were surrounded by an invisible barrier made up of countless Microscopic Particles that were being created and destroyed simultaneously, which kept his Telepathy out.
In his prime, he could have expended considerable effort to penetrate these dangerous barriers, but not now.
"I can't perceive it." Charles's voice was hoarse and weak. "I can only sense that they are creating and destroying."
Every second new matter is born, every second old matter disappears; their battlefield is not in this world, but in the very foundation that constitutes this world.
Jean's fingers pointed at Russell, spread out, and then slowly closed. Russell's body began to twist, not by Telekinesis, but by Jean rewriting the spacetime around him.
The space to his left was compressed, the space to his right was stretched, the space in front of him was folded, and the space behind him was unfolded.
Russell's body was being torn apart by these contradictory forces; his skin was cracking, his muscles were tearing, and his bones were creaking.
[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]
[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]
[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]
It was a wonderful feeling; Russell's body was being torn apart while simultaneously being repaired, the speed of tearing and the speed of repair racing against each other.
He looked at the zither, the smile still lingering on his lips, and with a casual flick of his right hand, the space around the zither began to vibrate.
It's not an earthquake, it's a vibration at the molecular level. Air molecules are vibrating at extremely high frequencies, generating heat, and the temperature is soaring from 20 degrees to 200, from 200 to 2,000, and from 2,000 to 20,000.
Oxygen molecules in the air are ionized, nitrogen molecules are decomposed, and the chemical bonds between atomic nuclei are forcibly broken. Plasma blooms like a golden flower around Qin.
Qin's clothes were on fire, her hair was on fire, her skin was on fire.
But the golden plasma, resembling the surface of the sun, couldn't effectively harm him; instead, it quickly became part of her body.
She was absorbing that heat, absorbing that plasma, and converting it into her own power.
"Thank you for the gift." A smile curved her lips.
Her fingers traced a more complex pattern in the air, and the air around Russell instantly turned into glass.
Oxygen and Silicon Atom were brought from distant ruins and rearranged around him into a silicon dioxide lattice structure, sealing him entirely in a transparent, coffin-like glass.
Russell's spirit and will expanded, and the glass began to melt—not from being heated, but from being broken down.
The chemical bonds between Silicon Atom and oxygen atoms were forcibly broken, and the glass instantly transformed back into air, back into oxygen and Silicon Atom, back into those homeless particles that Qin had summoned from afar.
"You are indeed very strong." Jean hovered ten meters in mid-air, watching Russell emerge from the shattered glass. "Stronger than anyone I've ever met."
"You too." Russell cracked his neck. "I know you weren't going all out; you were just testing me."
"You didn't use your full strength either," Qin tilted her head, a hint of amusement in her white eyes. "So, what's next..."
"Play seriously?"
"Certainly."
As soon as they finished speaking, their bodies vanished almost simultaneously.
This isn't teleportation; their speed is so fast that even light can't keep up with it.
Qin's body left a golden, burning trail in the air, while Russell's body left a blue, crystalline trail.
The two trails intertwined, collided, and became entangled in the sky, like two hurricanes merging, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake.
They collided, flesh against flesh, atom against atom, microscopic world against microscopic world.
Jean pressed her palm against Russell's chest and used the Phoenix Force to rewrite the cells in his chest. Skin cells were rewritten into cancer cells, muscle cells into fat cells, and heart muscle cells into bone cells.
Russell's chest began to mutate; it wasn't destroyed, but altered from the inside out.
His hand rested on Qin's shoulder, and he was also using Atomic Manipulation to rewrite her body, changing the cells in Qin's shoulder into another form.
Carbon atoms rearranged beneath her skin into a diamond-like crystalline structure, and her shoulder began to harden, become brittle, and turn into a transparent, hard, ice-like solid.
Qin looked down at her shoulder, which was crystallizing, and frowned. Then, her shoulder exploded—not by external force, but by her dismantling the diamond structure from the inside.
Carbon atoms are released and float in the air like a cloud of black snowflakes.
Her shoulder was regenerating, with new cells, new muscles, and new skin growing from the severed ends. A few seconds later, her right arm was completely healed.
The next second, her fist slammed into Russell's face, not with force, but with the rules.
The instant Russell's face was struck by Jean's fist, the cells on his face rapidly evaporated, his skin instantly transformed from a solid to a gaseous state, his muscles from a liquid to a gaseous state, and his bones from a solid to a gaseous state.
Half of his face disappeared, revealing the bright red, still throbbing muscle fibers beneath.
[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]
Russell's face regenerated in a second, with skin, muscles, and bones all completely reconstructed, leaving no scars or even a trace.
He retaliated in kind, placing his hand on Qin's abdomen and using Atomic Manipulation to rewrite the cells there. He transformed the cells in Qin's abdomen into miniature hydrogen bombs.
Inside her abdomen, Hydrogen Atom were forcibly fused into helium atoms under Russell's control, releasing enormous energy. The explosion started from inside Jyn's body and spread outwards.
Her abdomen exploded open, exposing her internal organs and intestines, which slid out, and blood gushed out, drawing an abstract red pattern in the sky.
Qin looked down at the hole in her abdomen, without frowning or crying out in pain. She activated her Phoenix Force and instantly recovered.
"I like you more and more." She wasn't angry about it; instead, she admired Russell even more.
Amidst the ruins on the ground, Magneto stood there, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed on the two intertwined trails in the sky.
His expression remained unchanged, but his fingers were trembling slightly—not with fear, but with excitement.
"Charles, do you see this? This is the future of us Mutants."
Charles lay on the ground, trying to make himself more comfortable. "They're not simply fighting; they're creating and destroying."
"Every second is about creation, every second is about destruction." Magneto's voice deepened. "Our battle is fists and feet, energy beams, metal and magnetism; their battle is the world itself."
Whoever can rewrite more of reality will win.
"Can you beat them?" Charles retorted.
Magneto fell silent.
"Cannot."
He wasn't lying; magnetism can control metals, the Earth's magnetic field, and even electromagnetic forces.
But he couldn't reach the same level as the two of them.
The two beams of light, one blue and one white, entered into a microscopic battle, entangled in combat, and soon fought their way from the location of Xavier Institute to New York.
New York, Manhattan York City.
On the giant screen in Times Square, a news broadcast was showing the two intertwined trails in the sky.
The golden and blue light shone with overwhelming force, like two dragons locked in battle.
The reporter held the microphone, his voice trembling:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am currently in Times Square, Manhattan, and right above us is a... a battle that we cannot describe..."
The sky seemed to be on fire. We didn't know who was in that light, but we knew that if they continued like this, the whole world would be changed.
Nick Fury stood in the command center of the S.H.I.E.L.D.. Helicarrier, the screen in front of him displaying real-time satellite feeds. His single eye stared at the two trajectories, his expression unchanged.
"Sir, the energy readings are still rising." The agent beside him said, his voice trembling. "They've already exceeded the peak levels for a nuclear weapon."
"How much exactly?" Fury's voice was calm.
"Unmeasurable. The detection instruments are off the charts. This isn't because their internal energy far exceeds the level of any known nuclear bomb in the world, but because their ability is altering the laws of physics. Our instruments are designed based on known physical laws, but the things they are rewriting are beyond our ability to detect."
Fury paused for a few seconds, picked up the phone on the table, and dialed a number.
"Get me the Fantastic Four."
On the rooftop of Baxter Building, the home of the Fantastic Four, Mister Fantastic. Reed Richards stood, his body stretched into a thin, noodle-like line, his eyes fixed on the two trails in the sky.
His wife, Susan Stone, stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder.
"Reed, can your new energy glasses see what they're doing?"
Reed narrowed his eyes, which were covered by sci-fi glasses.
"They are recombining matter. One person can recombine carbon atoms in the air into diamonds, and another can break diamonds down into carbon atoms. One person can fuse Hydrogen Atom into helium, and another can split helium into hydrogen."
Susan's face turned pale.
"Then who will win?"