"Bang-!"
The dull gunshot was instantly torn apart by the cold wind high above New York.
A specially made 12.7 mm depleted uranium armor-piercing round left the barrel, and a half-meter tongue of orange-red flame erupted from the muzzle. With terrifying kinetic energy at more than twice the speed of sound, the bullet plowed a channel of white airflow visible to the naked eye through the air.
For this killing machine, covering twelve hundred meters took less than two seconds.
Washington, D.C., a monitoring room seven floors underground. Pierce gripped his coffee cup tightly, veins bulging on the back of his hand. He stared at the screen, a manic anticipation flickering in his eyes as he waited to see that arrogant agent's blood splatter across the scene.
Brooklyn, inside the safe house.
Lynn did not so much as blink an extra time.
Deep in his mind, his top-tier Spider-Sense frantically sounded its highest-level red alert, and the muscles in his back instinctively tightened into an iron plate. But he forcibly suppressed his body's urge to dodge, even deliberately adjusting his seated posture to expose his back more fully to the window's field of fire.
Dodge? Why would I dodge?
He had gone to painstaking lengths, even risking Pierce's wrath with his provocation, all to wait for this bullet.
"Lynn?" Wanda noticed the unusual stiffness in his muscles. She raised her head, a little cinnamon roll icing still on her lips, a trace of puzzlement in her eyes.
"It's nothing, sweetheart." Lynn smiled and raised his hand, wiping the icing from the corner of her mouth with an utterly natural swipe of his thumb.
At the very microsecond his fingertip touched Wanda's soft lips.
Crack!
The thick bulletproof glass failed to offer even the slightest resistance, instantly exploding into a shower of glittering fragments. A piercing whistle swept into the room with a bone-chilling gust of wind.
The armor-piercing bullet, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, crossed a thousand meters and bore straight toward Lynn's right shoulder blade!
The impact, powerful enough to overturn a light armored vehicle, came to an abrupt halt less than three centimeters from Lynn's back.
There was no explosion, no spray of blood.
There was only a layer of scarlet energy so dense it seemed about to drip blood, erupting from Wanda without warning and forming an absolute wall of lamentation that held Lynn firmly protected within.
The rapidly spinning bullet struck the barrier of Chaos Magic with an excruciating metallic screech. The violent friction between kinetic energy and magic instantly generated extreme heat, and the depleted uranium projectile softened and melted at a rate visible to the naked eye.
A few drops of dark yellow molten metal slid down the scarlet barrier and dripped onto the floor, burning several charred holes. The pungent smell of gunpowder mixed with the odor of scorched wood, instantly overwhelming the sweet scent of cinnamon.
Time came to a complete standstill at that moment.
Lynn turned his head slightly and looked at the bullet mere inches away, already compressed into a metal disc, as a flicker of utter coldness passed through the depths of his eyes.
Pierce, you finally stepped into the grave I dug for you.
"Pat."
The half-eaten cinnamon roll fell from Wanda's hand.
She stared blankly at the bullet suspended behind Lynn, her gaze moving upward little by little to his wind-tousled hair and the puddle of molten metal still smoking on the floor.
It had been so close.
Just three centimeters.
If she had not instinctively released her magic, if her reaction had been a tenth of a second slower...
The man who had shielded her from a sky full of lasers with his back in the ruins of Sokovia, who had died in her arms drenched in blood, would once again have had his life taken before her eyes!
"No... no!!"
An utterly piercing scream tore from Wanda's throat.
The scream did not sound human. It sounded more like an ancient savage beast driven into a desperate corner after its most inviolable boundary had been crossed.
Boom!
Violent Chaos Magic swept wildly outward in every direction from her like a flood bursting through a dam.
The gravitational field throughout the safe house instantly collapsed. The sofa, coffee table, refrigerator, and even the clock on the wall all broke free of gravity and hung in midair. Then the scarlet particles shredded them silently into dust.
"Wanda..." Lynn deliberately pretended to have been driven back by the shock wave, clutching his chest and calling out with a pale face.
He knew all too well that Wanda needed an outlet right now.
"Who did this..." Wanda slowly turned her head.
Her once-clear eyes were now completely filled with scarlet energy, without a trace of white remaining. Dense killing intent condensed into a tangible red mist that swirled around her.
She stared fixedly at the hole in the window.
"Who gave you permission... to point that filthy thing at him?!"
Before her words had faded, Wanda jerked up her right hand. She spread her fingers, aiming her palm at the empty space outside the window.
Chaos Magic surged backward along the lingering bullet trajectory with a violence that surpassed the speed of light!
Twelve hundred meters away, on the top floor of the Clock Tower.
Through his high-powered scope, the Winter Soldier saw everything that happened inside the safe house.
When he saw that specially made armor-piercing round forcibly stopped in midair by a layer of red light, this emotionless killing machine experienced a rare hitch in his brain's underlying logic. This lay completely beyond the tactical understanding Hydra had given him.
Then he saw the woman in red turn her head.
Across more than a thousand meters, through layer upon layer of buildings, the Winter Soldier felt himself pinned by a pair of eyes belonging to death itself.
An unprecedented sense of danger pierced the suppression of his brainwashing program and struck straight at his central nervous system.
Retreat!
The Winter Soldier decisively abandoned his sniper rifle without even reaching for a spare magazine. He braced one hand on the concrete parapet and exerted his mechanical left arm, preparing to leap straight from the Clock Tower's dozen-plus stories and withdraw.
But he had only taken half a step.
The surrounding air suddenly became impossibly viscous. The howling wind stopped, and airborne dust froze in place.
The Winter Soldier looked down in astonishment and discovered his body floating uncontrollably into the air. A layer of scarlet energy like solid chains bound his limbs, his torso, and even his indestructible silver mechanical left arm.
"Crack, crack, crack..."
The piercing sound of fracturing metal rang out.
Under the pressure of that scarlet energy, the mechanical arm the Winter Soldier took such pride in actually began to deform severely. Sparks flew, its internal servo motors whined under the unbearable strain, and plates of titanium alloy armor peeled away.
He jerked his head up.
In midair twelve hundred meters away, a scarlet storm was rapidly taking shape.
Wanda had already smashed through the apartment wall and was hovering in midair. Her long hair whipped wildly like snakes as she faced the distant Clock Tower, slowly closing her fingers.
"Anyone who touches him... dies!"
The whisper, filled with a desire for destruction, crossed a thousand meters and exploded clearly beside the Winter Soldier's ears.
Great sections of the concrete structure atop the Clock Tower began to collapse, and enormous stones were crushed by an invisible giant hand. The Winter Soldier felt his internal organs being compressed little by little, his sternum giving brittle cracks as it neared breaking.
In the monitoring room, Pierce watched the Winter Soldier suspended helplessly in midair on the screen, his legs suddenly giving way as he collapsed into his seat.
The ultimate weapon he took such pride in was less than an insect before this witch!
"Sir... the asset's heart rate is dropping rapidly, and the pressure on his bones has reached critical levels!" the technician shouted in terror, his fingers hammering frantically at the keyboard to no avail.
Pierce's face was ashen, his shirt soaked in cold sweat.
He finally understood what Lynn's provocative smile as he raised his glass had meant.
Lynn was not afraid of assassination at all.
He was using his own life as bait to draw out this mad dog that could bite at any moment, then have this deity named Wanda grind the dog into pulp little by little before Hydra's eyes!
At the very instant the Winter Soldier's cervical spine was about to snap completely and the entire Clock Tower was about to be razed by Chaos Magic.
A warm hand suddenly reached out from behind and seized Wanda's spellcasting wrist. Disregarding the violent magical turbulence around them, Lynn forcibly pulled Wanda into his arms.
Before you continue