The professor's worries, an impenetrable fog
The Spicy Whiskey rolled down his esophagus into his stomach, igniting a fiery sensation. Lynn leaned back in his leather office chair, his fingertips tracing the condensation on the glass.
Just when he thought things had calmed down at Xavier's School, a sharp buzzing sound suddenly rang out from the depths of his mind.
[WARNING! An oversized mental matrix scan has been detected!]
[Energy Source: Westchester County, Cerebro!]
Lynn squinted. The static electricity in the air began to spike, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.
Charles Xavier, that stubborn old man, seems determined to keep going until he hits a brick wall. His earlier attempts at a simple mental test were thwarted, and now he's directly using that machine that connects to the global brain, trying to forcefully tear through the fog over Manhattan.
"Boss, the Magnetic Field readings are off." Susan stared at the Holographic Screens, her brow furrowed. The energy waveforms on the screen writhed like crazed snakes. "An extremely strong brainwave is sweeping across New York, its density is outrageously high, even the shield of the Negative Zone Energy Matrix is resonating."
"Damn rat, you dare to come again!" Wanda's eyes suddenly turned Scarlet, and a strong Ozone smell filled the entire top floor. She raised her hands sharply, and Chaos Magic compressed into two dazzling red lights in her palms, preparing to blow Charles's brain into a pot of mangled flesh by following that brainwave.
"Stop, Wanda." Lynn's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable coldness.
He grabbed Wanda's wrist. The cold touch sent a shiver through Wanda, and she forced back her frenzied magic, only able to grab Lynn's fingers in a resentful yet violent manner.
"Let him see." Lynn's lips curled into a mocking smile.
He knew all too well Charles's self-proclaimed savior mentality. The more incomprehensible something was, the more of a threat he perceived it to. Since you want to see, then I'll show you something exciting.
Lynn gave the system a command in his mind, "Tear off the surface of the Concealment Mechanism and guide him with the mirror image of Causal Backlash."
On the System Panel, the pitch-black Higher-Dimensional Firewall slowly cracked open with a gap the thickness of a hair.
Charles's Psychic Power, amplified to its extreme by the Cerebro, surged in through the cracks like a shark smelling blood.
Lynn closed his eyes, and through the system's feedback, he clearly "saw" Charles's perspective at that moment.
In Charles's Mental World, he originally thought he could see through the secrets of the building and Lynn's trump card. But the moment his mental tendrils probed into that crack, what greeted him was not Lynn's memories, but a bottomless Abyss.
In the Abyss, countless terrifying obsessions, powerful enough to tear apart the Multiverse, materialized into tangible phantoms, all turning their heads in unison and staring intently at this uninvited guest.
Hela's black Crown reeking of death, Gwen Stacy's raging quantum collapse storm, Female Venom's Hellfire -burning slime, and Wanda's Scarlet Eye capable of erasing reality.
There was even the newly awakened Dark Gold Phoenix Force belonging to Jean Grey!
These forces achieved a bizarre and deadly balance within Lynn, but to any outsider attempting to pry into it, it was a potential bomb that could detonate the Omniverse at any moment.
"No--!"
Charles's desperate and piercing screams echoed clearly in Lynn's mind.
The massive mental matrix recoiled violently as if electrocuted, but it was too late. The Causal Backlash backlash, amplified by the Cerebro, slammed back hard.
[Backlash successful. Target's mental state severely damaged; Cerebro Motherboard burned out.]
The system's cold notification sounded, and Lynn opened his eyes, a hint of mockery flashing in them.
Marvel's most powerful brain? Faced with true Dimension causality, it's as fragile as a piece of paper soaked in water.
After this lesson, Charles will probably fully understand that Manhattan is not only a blind spot, but also a forbidden place that even the Deity dare not easily set foot in.
"All done?" Gwen Stacy peeked out from the shadows of the ceiling like an upside-down spider. She toyed with a dagger brimming with Bioelectricity in her hand, her eyes filled with blind adoration for Lynn.
"Just a spying bug." Lynn casually tossed the empty glass onto the table, making a dull thud.
Just then, an urgent communication request came from the underground Supercomputer Center where Natasha was located.
"Boss." Natasha's cold voice rang out from the top-floor speaker, accompanied by the rapid clatter of keyboards, "S.H.I.E.L.D. Darknet has intercepted a high-frequency military flight path request. The Xavier's School's Underground Hangar in Westchester County has opened. A Blackbird employing early Stark Industries stealth technology has just taken off, heading straight for Manhattan."
Natasha paused, a hint of bloodthirsty excitement in her voice. "They're expected to arrive in our airspace in twenty minutes. Should I activate the anti-aircraft missile array and shoot them down?"
Lynn tapped her fingers lightly on the table, making a rhythmic "tap, tap" sound.
Charles was indeed in a hurry. He had suffered a great loss from the mental probing, and Jean Grey was on the verge of getting out of control, so he had no choice but to send someone over in person to investigate.
"No need to intercept them." Lynn slightly raised his eyelids, his tone as calm as if he were discussing the weather. "Open the building's hidden Landing Pad and let them land. Since our guests have come all this way to their deaths, we should at least show them some hospitality."
Upon hearing Lynn's decision, Wanda's breathing became heavy. Her Scarlet nails dug into her palms as she forcefully suppressed the urge to tear the fighter jet to shreds. She knew that the Red-haired Woman was on the plane.
Susan immediately activated the building's security system, activating the top floor's physical defenses and Force Field Shield to the highest level, standing ready like a dutiful housekeeper.
"Alright, put away your unnecessary killing intent." Lynn stood up, his gaze sweeping over the women who were standing at attention. "We'll talk about the X-Men when they arrive."
He turned and walked toward the private elevator leading to the underground laboratory, his leather shoes making a cold, hard sound on the floor.
"Natasha, Susan. Decrypt all of Stryker's X-Gene Core Sample Database and send it to Laboratory One." Lynn's voice came before the elevator doors closed, filled with undisguised ambition. "The bugs outside are getting bigger and bigger. We need to make some of our own 'insecticide' before they tear this building down."
The elevator plummeted, and the feeling of weightlessness caused Lynn's stomach to clench slightly.
He stared at his reflection in the elevator door, his eyes both extremely rational and crazed. Charles's worries and the X-Men's probing were merely appetizers in this game.
The real feast is the Genes treasure trove that Stryker has collected over decades. Once he digests these things, he will no longer be just a behind-the-scenes chess player protected by women, but a tyrant who truly wields the power to overturn the chessboard.
"System, prepare to perform Genes Mapping Analysis," Lynn silently recited in his mind.