The art of a superior's cold shoulder: supreme authority needs no defense
The energy fluctuations, powerful enough to tear space apart, strangely subsided after reaching a critical point.
It's not dissipating, it's collapsing inward.
The Scarlet Mist surrounding Wanda stopped thrashing wildly and instead solidified into a ball, like a red-hot iron plunged into ice water, violently churning and hissing, locking all the destructive power tightly around itself.
The ground beneath Jean Grey's feet stopped cracking, and the immense psychic power receded, transforming into invisible shackles that firmly bound her to the spot.
All that remained in the air was the sickening buzzing of two forces squeezing each other out of control.
Their questions, in the end, remained unspoken.
Or rather, in front of that man, they found themselves losing the right to question him.
The "whistleblower report" submitted by Ultron was full of solid evidence, and the emotions in the footage were so real they were almost scorching. But when they looked up at the Throne, all their anger, resentment, and sense of betrayal crashed into an invisible wall.
A wall built of silence and indifference.
Lynn's posture remained unchanged.
He simply stopped the unconscious tapping of his fingertips on the armrest.
This tiny movement acted like a signal, instantly freezing the precarious structure of the entire Negative Zone.
He didn't look at them.
His gaze passed over them and landed on the Spatial Barrier in the distance, distorted by uncontrolled energy, as if he were examining a flawed, unsatisfactory work of art.
There was no anger, no surprise, not even a question in his eyes.
There was only one kind of pure, undisguised displeasure.
Like a chess player who discovers that two of the most important pieces are not moving as expected, but instead disrupting the entire chessboard.
This displeasure carried more weight than any Thunder rage.
It stripped away all personal emotions, directly characterizing the current chaos as a low-level, unprofessional, and disappointing work mistake.
Jean Grey's forward steps froze halfway.
She had prepared everything, ready to use the Phoenix Force to burn away the falsehood, ready to use mental torture to tear apart the truth. She had imagined that Lynn would defend himself, would comfort her, would use one lie to cover up another.
She never expected him to react this way.
No explanations, no compromises.
They wouldn't even deign to glance at them.
It was as if the storm they had stirred up was nothing more than a trivial trouble in his eyes.
The "sense of justice betrayed" that fueled her anger began to crumble rapidly in the face of such absolute, condescending indifference.
Anger is quietly transforming into another, deeper emotion.
Fear.
The fear of losing "favor".
"Why..."
Wanda's voice was choked with sobs, like a flickering flame about to go out, sounding exceptionally weak in the deathly silence.
She wanted to ask, "Why aren't you looking at me?"
She wanted to ask why I didn't explain.
She also wanted to ask, what do those women, those women for whom you would die, mean to you?
But when the words reached his lips, only three words remained.
Lynn finally turned his gaze away from the distant Spatial Barrier.
He slowly, inch by inch, fixed his gaze on Wanda.
That gaze was calm, yet like the sharpest Scalpel, precisely dissecting Wanda's facade and reaching her heart, which was pounding wildly with jealousy and unease.
Wanda's body trembled uncontrollably.
The surging Scarlet Mist around her seemed to have encountered a natural enemy, instinctively contracting inwards and clinging tightly to her body, no longer daring to leak out in the slightest.
Lynn did not speak.
He simply looked at her, then leaned back slightly, resting his entire back against the cold, Bone Throne.
This is a subtle adjustment in the posture of power.
The perspective shifted from scrutiny to a bird's-eye view.
An extreme, weary, and disappointed bird's-eye view.
Wanda understood the subtext of this action.
Your performance disappointed me.
--The mess you made has exhausted me.
--I don't even have the interest to explain to you.
This is a silent form of pressure.
Within the system, the harshest punishment a leader can give a subordinate is never public criticism, but rather this cold treatment of ignoring them. It means that you have been excluded from the inner circle, and your emotions and demands are no longer important.
You have lost your value as someone who is valued.
For paranoid individuals like Wanda and Jean Grey, who see Lynn's "favor" as everything, this kind of passive-aggressive violence is more deadly than any physical blow.
Their pride and the capital they relied on to win favor, at this moment, all became the "original sin" that displeased the leader.
Wanda's tears flowed even more fiercely.
But that urge to destroy everything disappeared. In its place was the helpless panic of a child facing the suffocating silence of their parents after doing something wrong.
Lynn's gaze shifted from Wanda to Jean Grey's face.
Qin's heart clenched suddenly.
She noticed something else in Lynn's eyes besides displeasure.
It is to examine and consider.
It's like reassessing the feasibility of a project, or weighing the value of a tool.
Qin instantly realized that her relentless pressure had crossed his line. She had escalated an internal emotional dispute into a challenge to his supreme authority.
This is a major taboo.
That soul-crushing jealousy was replaced by an even stronger fear of being abandoned.
The tiny Dark Gold Phoenix flame at her fingertips silently went out.
The entire Negative Zone returned to stability completely in Lynn's silence.
He forcefully suppressed those two forces that were about to go berserk in the most effortless way.
Time passed, second by second.
This silent torment is more unbearable than any form of torture.
Wanda and Jean, two women capable of easily destroying stars, were now as restless as two interns waiting to be punished outside their boss's office.
Their obsession with the "truth" had been completely overwhelmed by their fear of "falling out of favor."
Just as the oppressive atmosphere was about to reach its peak, Jean Grey could no longer bear it.
She took a deep breath and lowered her head slightly towards the Throne.
This is a gesture of submission.
She didn't speak, but her gesture said it all.
Seeing Qin's movements, Wanda also hurriedly suppressed all her outward aura, like a startled bird, landing on the ground and nervously twisting her fingers.
A Yandere riot, powerful enough to overturn the Multiverse, was initially suppressed in this bizarre atmosphere filled with the aesthetics of "cold violence" within the system.
However, Lynn knew that this was only temporary.
Once the seed of doubt is planted, it will take root and sprout wildly in your heart.
He leaned back on his Throne, looking at his two subordinates who were temporarily intimidated by his power, his heart unmoved.
At that moment, Wanda and Jean, almost simultaneously and unintentionally, looked up, their eyes briefly meeting in the air.
That glance was very complicated.
Gone was the hostility of the past; instead, there was a sense of bewilderment born of shared misery, and a hint of... unspoken, secret communication.