Unrest at Xavier's School, Jean Grey's Headache

The burning sensation on the back of my hand felt like a red-hot steel Steel Needles, and the Dark Gold burn mark on my right hand was slowly fading. The Dining Room was filled with the acrid smell of a burnt Motherboard and the pungent odor of Ozone.

"Boss, you're bleeding." Gwen Stacy landed lightly from the ceiling. The nausea from her Spider-Sense hadn't completely subsided. She stared at Lynn's hand, a flash of violence in her eyes.

"It's nothing." Lynn casually wiped away the blood droplets and turned his gaze to Wanda was still breathing heavily.

Wanda's eyelids still bulged, like a lioness guarding her prey, staring intently in the direction of the long-vanished afterimage in the void.

Lynn walked over, reached out and pinched Wanda's chin, forcing her to turn her head and look at him. "Well done," he said in a low voice, his fingertips tracing the small crack at the corner of her eye.

Upon hearing the praise, Wanda's tense body suddenly went limp. Like a fervent believer rewarded, she pressed her cheek against Lynn's palm, greedily rubbing against the warmth of his hand. The rage that had threatened to tear the world apart vanished instantly, leaving only extreme attachment.

"She looked at you..." Wanda muttered nervously, Scarlet particles dancing uneasily on her fingertips. "I don't like her eyes. Next time, I'll gouge them out."

"There will be an opportunity." Lynn sneered, turning to look at Natasha, who had climbed out from under the Kitchen Island. "Have you found out?"

Natasha shook the shards of glass from her hair and rushed to a spare terminal that wasn't completely destroyed. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, and countless green Data Stream flashed across the screen.

"Locked on." Natasha's voice carried the coldness and efficiency unique to agents. "The other side just traced our physical coordinates through network nodes; I caught them red-handed."

A high-resolution satellite map popped up on the screen. A red crosshair was fixed on a vast estate in Westchester County, upstate New York State.

"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." Natasha pulled up the manor's registration information, her brow furrowing slightly. "It claims to be a private educational institution, but S.H.I.E.L.D..'s Dark Web data shows it's Headquarters for Mutants. The person in charge is Charles Xavier."

"Xavier's School." Lynn stared at the outline of the Ancient Castle on the screen, the corners of his mouth curving into a wider smile.

Susan, who was frantically extinguishing the flames on the server rack, turned around upon hearing the name: "Boss, that Red-haired Woman is Mutants? But the energy intensity just now... it doesn't make sense from the physics of Genes mutation!"

"That's not a mutation." Lynn looked at the Dark Gold mark on the back of his hand that had completely blended into his skin, his eyes becoming extremely profound. "That's a miracle."

Lynn didn't explain to them what the Phoenix Force was. He closed his eyes, deliberately letting go of his mental defenses, and focused all his attention on the lingering Dark Gold energy on the back of his hand.

The System Panel scrolls rapidly across the retina.

[Analyzing unknown mental remnants...]

[Establish a one-way mental mirror...]

With the help of this resonance of energy, Lynn's consciousness broke through the barrier of space and directly "saw" the scene on the other end of the network cable.

It was an underground meditation room located deep within the Ancient Castle.

There were no windows, and the walls were made of high-density insulation. The Red-haired Woman in the silk nightgown—Jean Grey —was curled up in agony on the cold floor.

Lynn could clearly "hear" the terrifying storm raging in her mind.

The Mind Stone Labyrinth that Charles Xavier spent his entire life building in her mind was originally like an impenetrable Titanium Alloy gate, tightly locking away the monster known as the "Dark Phoenix".

But just now, Wanda's unbridled Chaos Magic crashed in through the Mind Link.

The Scarlet magic, like a heavy hammer, smashed through the outermost three gates.

"Ah--!" Qin rolled on the ground in pain, clutching her scalp with both hands, blood seeping from under her fingernails.

Deep within her Subconscious, a dangerous, dark personality that had been suppressed for over a decade finally peeked out from the cracks.

Lynn "saw" a Dark Gold flame laughing wildly in her mind's sea. The laughter was filled with a thirst for destruction and an extreme greed for the Chaos power she had just come into contact with.

Qin suddenly opened her eyes.

In Lynn's perception, her originally clear green eyes had now been replaced by a thick layer of Dark Gold.

She was not afraid of Wanda's ferocious attack. On the contrary, the destructive desire lurking deep in her Genes was completely ignited.

Using the last vestige of their spiritual resonance, Jean's gaze pierced through the void, looking directly at Lynn.

She "saw" Lynn's cold, rational, and even slightly mocking eyes. She also "saw" the madwoman beside Lynn, who was using Scarlet Magic to protect him tightly.

"Who are you?"

An aggressive, arrogant thought, resonated directly into Lynn's mind.

Qin's breathing became rapid, her chest heaving violently. She slowly rose from the floor, Dark Gold flames dancing in her hair.

She developed a strange curiosity about that man.

Why would an ordinary Mutants contain such terrifying energy?

Why would that powerful Scarlet Witch kneel at his feet like a dog?

If... if I snatch him away and tear off his protective shell, would the taste inside his body be even more delicious than what I just experienced?

The whispers of the corrupted personality echoed in Qin's mind, like the forked tongue of a venomous snake, slowly licking away at her remaining sanity.

Lynn met Qin's gaze without flinching, and in the last second before his mental image completely shattered, he silently mouthed a word.

Come find me.

Bang!

The Dark Gold mark on the back of his hand exploded completely, turning into specks of light that dissipated into the air. The Mind Link was completely severed.

Lynn opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

The system's red alerts flashed wildly in my mind.

[Warning! Target Jean Grey's dark personality awakening progress has reached 30%!]

[The target develops an extreme desire to explore and possess the host!]

Lynn laughed. His laugh was extremely cold and unrestrained.

He personally dragged yet another nuclear-level Yandere, capable of burning the earth to ashes, into this out-of-control game.

"Boss, what are you laughing at?" Gwen Stacy stared warily at Lynn, a faint crackling sound emanating from the Silk- shooter on her wrist. She hated the way Lynn had looked at other prey earlier.

"It's nothing." Lynn walked to the liquor cabinet, poured a glass of whiskey, and the ice cubes clinked crisply in the glass.

He took a sip of the strong liquor; the spicy liquid rolled down his throat and into his stomach, making his mind even clearer.

"Natasha, lock that X-Gene database completely. No one is allowed to touch it without my order," Lynn commanded.

"Understood." Natasha pressed Enter. "But boss, the energy fluctuations we just experienced were too great. Although we destroyed Stryker's base, the military's satellites must have captured something. What's more troublesome is..."

Natasha paused, then brought up another screen. "There's something unusual going on on S.H.I.E.L.D..'s Dark Web. That old fox Nick Fury seems to be trying to contact Xavier 'Xavier's School."

Lynn paused slightly in the hand holding the wine glass.

He turned his head and looked at Charles Xavier's profile picture on the screen, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

Just then, a sharp pain shot through Lynn's temple.

It wasn't Jean Grey's rage, but rather an extremely gentle, secretive, yet all-pervasive mental tentacle, silently attempting to bypass the physical defenses of the Baxter Building and infiltrate Lynn's brain.

Charles Xavier.

The so-called most powerful brain on Earth has finally noticed the anomaly in New York and has begun to probe.

The smile on Lynn's face vanished instantly, replaced by absolute coldness.

A slight tingling sensation came from my temples.

Lynn's hand, holding the whiskey, froze in mid-air. This Psychic Power was extremely gentle, like a fine needle wrapped in velvet, silently bypassing the physical defenses of the Baxter Building and attempting to drill into his cerebral cortex along the electromagnetic waves in the air.

Charles Xavier.

The most powerful brain on Earth finally detected the brief but violent energy collision between Westchester County and Manhattan, and began its probing.

Lynn didn't mobilize the Chaos Origin to retaliate, not even blinking. He knew Charles's abilities all too well; if he tried to fight back with magic, he would only expose his current energy limit. To deal with this kind of peeping tom who liked to wander into other people's minds, the system's Higher-Dimensional Firewall was the perfect meat grinder.

"Want to see? Then I'll let you see as much as you want." Lynn sneered inwardly, voluntarily lowering his surface-level defenses.

The thin needle of mental energy pierced straight through the gap and stabbed hard into the system's built-in [absolute Concealment Mechanism].

There was no explosion, nor any leakage of energy. In Dimension imperceptible to ordinary people, Charles's Psychic Power was like a sports car traveling at full speed, crashing head-on into a boundless, pitch-black iron wall made of high-dimensional code.

[External mental intrusion detected; causal ejection triggered.]

The system's cold notification sounded in Lynn's mind. Immediately afterward, a semi-transparent holographic window popped up on his retina. Since Jean Grey's corruption progress had just exceeded 30%, the system took advantage of the residual resonance to solidify a one-way observation image in front of Lynn's eyes.

Lynn tilted his head back and downed the whiskey in his glass in one gulp. The spicy liquid rolled down his throat, and his gaze fell with interest on the mirrored image.

The image shows a hemispherical basement filled with a cold, hard metallic texture.

"Puff--!"

The bald old man in the wheelchair in the center of the room suddenly ripped off the metal helmet connected to countless cables. Charles Xavier's face was ashen, and a mouthful of blood gushed from his nose, the glaring Scarlet splattering onto the control panel keyboard. He coughed violently, his hands gripping the armrests of the wheelchair so tightly that his fingernails broke from the force.

"Professor!" Hank, the Beast outside, burst through the door and rushed in. Seeing Charles's gruesome state with blood flowing from his seven orifices, he was so frightened that his blue fur stood on end.

Charles gasped for breath, his bloodshot eyes filled with utter terror. He had just tried to probe the Higher-Dimensional Energy source that had suddenly erupted in New York, but not only did he see nothing, he was also crushed by a terrifying pressure that was completely incomprehensible and transcended the logic of the Multiverse.

In New York, there's a terrifying blind spot that even he dares not look directly at!

Lynn looked at Charles's disheveled appearance and a mocking smile appeared on his lips. He lightly swiped his finger, shifting the focus of the mirrored image to the meditation room deeper inside the Ancient Castle.

That was where his real prey lay.

The soundproof door to the meditation room was tightly shut. Jean Grey lay curled up on the cold floor, her silk nightgown soaked through with cold sweat, clinging tightly to her shapely figure. She covered her head with her hands, her ten fingers almost digging into her scalp, and a low growl of pain escaped her throat.

Wanda's merciless mental strangulation had directly torn apart the Mind Stone prison Charles had set up. Now, Jean's brains felt like they were being heated in a microwave oven, the boiling pain making even her breath taste bloody.

Hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor.

"Bang!" The heavy wooden door was violently blasted open by a beam of red laser light. Amidst flying sawdust, Cyclops Scott Summers Summers, wearing specially made quartz glasses, rushed in.

"Jin! What's wrong?!" Scott Summers's heart clenched as he looked at his girlfriend rolling on the floor. He strode over, knelt on one knee, and reached out to hug Jin.

Just as Scott Summers's fingers were about to touch Qin's shoulder, something unexpected happened.

Qin suddenly opened her eyes.

Her once clear green eyes were now completely covered by a thick, violent layer of Dark Gold flames. After experiencing the profound, violent, and all-encompassing Higher-Dimensional Energy within Lynn's body, the dark personality in Jean's Subconscious had been completely awakened.

As Scott Summers approached, Jean felt an unprecedented wave of nausea. He was too weak! Compared to Lynn's unfathomable Abyss, this man's energy fluctuations were like a glass of bland, tasteless water; she even felt that being touched by him was an extreme act of blasphemy!

Don't touch me!

The zither emitted a shriek that echoed with countless higher-dimensional sounds.

Boom--!

Dark Gold flames erupted from every pore of her skin. Scott Summers didn't even have time to scream before he was sent flying backward as if he had been hit head-on by a speeding heavy truck.

He slammed heavily against the Alloy Wall of the meditation room. The indestructible special metal instantly turned red-hot and softened under the scorching heat of the Dark Gold flames. Molten iron dripped down the wall onto the floor, making a piercing hissing sound, and the whole room was filled with a strong smell of burning.

"Jin... you..." Scott Summers fell to the ground, three of his ribs broken, staring in disbelief at the woman who had become an absolute stranger.

Jean slowly rose from the floor. Dark Gold flames danced in her red hair, and the surrounding air distorted violently due to the extreme heat. She didn't glance at Scott Summers lying on the ground, but instead raised her long neck, like a ferocious beast sniffing out its prey, staring intently in the direction of New York.

That man... that man who was being fiercely protected by Scarlet Magic.

Jean's mind kept replaying Lynn's cold, rational, even slightly mocking eyes. The Dark Phoenix's destructive urges and the woman's possessiveness strangely merged at that moment. Why should that madwoman have such a delicious energy source all to herself?

"I want him..." Qin's lips parted slightly, uttering a syllable that only she could understand. Dark Gold flames danced wildly in her eyes; her desire to explore Lynn had completely crossed the boundaries of reason.

The top floor of the Baxter Building.

Lynn leaned back in his office chair, looking at Qin's morbid and fanatical appearance in the mirror, and tapped the desk with satisfaction. The devastating powerhouse in the original work was now beginning to disintegrate from the inside out because of a slight leak of his energy.

A strong, sour, fishy smell wafted over.

Wanda had somehow moved behind Lynn's chair. She stared at the holographic image in mid-air, the capillaries at the corners of her eyes bulging again, and the Scarlet Particles at her fingertips, like a swarm of frenzied wasps, cut tiny black cracks into the surrounding air.

"She wants to steal you away." Wanda gritted her teeth, her voice filled with a chilling murderous intent. "She despises her own man and has her eye on you. Lynn, let me skin her alive."

Lynn grabbed Wanda by the back of the neck, kneading her tense muscles as if soothing a lioness about to erupt.

"What's the rush?" Lynn's voice was deep and carried an undeniable air of authority. "The prey will come to you. Then we'll see whether your chains are stronger or her wings are stronger."

Wanda's manic emotions were instantly soothed by the warmth of Lynn's hand as her vital parts were gripped. She obediently rested her chin on Lynn's shoulder, staring intently at the Red-haired Woman on the screen, the Scarlet in her eyes growing even more intense.

In the mirrored image, Charles was being pushed in his wheelchair by Beast to the door of the meditation room. Looking at the mess on the floor and the harp enveloped in Dark Gold flames, Charles's expression grew even more grim.

"Jin, control your emotions!" Charles tried to soothe her with gentle Psychic Power.

"Don't get into my head!" Jean turned sharply, her Dark Gold gaze piercing through Charles's mental barrier. She strode across the molten iron on the ground, her voice hoarse and inhuman. "New York... there's something there. I need to go to New York."

Charles saw the chilling fire in Jean's eyes and knew things were completely out of control. He took a deep breath and turned to look at Storm and Wolverine had arrived on their way.

"Prepare the fighter jets." Charles's voice trembled. "We have to go to Manhattan. That blind spot... is awakening the monster within her."

Lynn watched the chaotic X-Men on the screen, then casually waved his hand, shattering the holographic image. He picked up the bottle, poured half a glass of whiskey into an empty glass, and the ice cubes clinked together.

"Come on," Lynn raised his glass, offering a slight nod to the void, his eyes as cold as knives, "Let me see if this fire, capable of burning through the universe, can make my Throne burn even brighter."