Scarlet Descends-Who Gave You Permission to Touch Him!

Melted, charred wood pulp dripped from the edges of the solid-wood ceiling. The pungent smell of ozone hung over the entire living room like an airtight net. Wanda floated in midair, her toes three inches above the floor, scarlet Chaos Particles surging wildly around her.

"Who gave you permission... to touch him?"

Her voice was quiet, yet carried enough crushing pressure to grind bones to dust.

Gwen Stacy's Spider-Sense screamed inside her head, the stabbing pain almost tearing her nerves apart. But she did not release Lynn's hand. Instead, she interlaced their fingers and pressed the cold back of his hand firmly against her cheek.

"Touch him?" Gwen Stacy slowly rose, her azure eyes beneath her mask meeting that sea of scarlet without fear. "I didn't just touch him. I saved him. If I hadn't cleared out the flies around the perimeter, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s missiles would've blown your lousy barrier full of holes by now. You owe me a thank-you, old woman."

Old woman.

The instant those words landed, the air in the living room froze solid.

"Insect."

Wanda tilted her head slightly, the scarlet in her eyes spilling out like tangible magma.

Boom!

The violent gravitational field instantly doubled in strength. The expensive leather sofa groaned under the strain, and the marble coffee table was crushed into a floorful of white dust by an invisible, immense force.

Lynn lay back deep in the sofa, outwardly frowning tightly and breathing hard. In reality, the Super-Soldier Serum that had just fused with his body was working perfectly. Every muscle fiber tightened in secret, effortlessly dispersing the crushing pressure.

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze darting between the two women.

I can't let them tear this house apart. But if I force my way in now, I'll only draw both sides' hostility onto myself. I need to let them test each other's limits first.

Facing Skyfather-level pressure, Gwen Stacy did not retreat in the slightest. She pushed off hard with both legs, her superhuman flexibility allowing her to slip through a gap in the gravitational field at a bizarre angle that utterly defied human biomechanics.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two high-pressure strands of webbing shot from her wrists, winding precisely toward Wanda's ankles as she hovered in midair.

"Get down here!" Gwen Stacy shouted furiously, abruptly tightening her core as she tried to drag the lofty witch to the floor.

Hiss-

The instant the webbing touched the scarlet particles, the terrifying heat vaporized it outright, leaving not even a speck of ash.

"Physical tricks. Utterly laughable." Wanda looked down at Gwen Stacy from above, a cruel curve lifting the corner of her mouth.

She curled her right hand around empty air. A whip of Scarlet Energy instantly took shape and lashed viciously toward Gwen Stacy's neck with an air-rending shriek.

"Enough!" Lynn clutched his chest and began coughing violently, deliberately forcing a few traces of blood out between his fingers, trying to divert their fire with his "battle injuries."

"Wanda, don't hurt her..." Lynn's voice was weak but clear. "Cough, cough... Gwen, step back..."

What sounded like an attempt to break up the fight was actually an exceedingly underhanded way of fanning the flames.

To Wanda, Lynn was "protecting" that insect; to Gwen Stacy, Lynn was "worried" that magic would hurt her.

Sure enough, consumed by extreme jealousy, the two women had already become utterly bloodthirsty.

Gwen Stacy rolled sideways low against the floor, dodging the energy whip. An unfathomably deep, charred fissure was instantly sliced into the load-bearing wall behind her, the sound of snapping rebar piercingly harsh. She kicked off the wall, shooting straight toward Wanda's face like a white cannonball.

"You think you're the only one who understands him?!" Gwen Stacy screamed in midair, her voice filled with suffocating obsession. "At the Clock Tower in New York, he cut his own, only strand of webbing with his own hands to save me! He smiled as he fell into the abyss and left me the chance to live!"

Gwen Stacy abruptly twisted in midair, smashing a whipping kick into Wanda's shield.

"Do you understand the despair of watching him shatter before your eyes?!"

Those words detonated in Wanda's mind like a high-yield bunker-busting nuclear bomb.

What?

The Clock Tower? Cutting his webbing? Falling into the abyss?

Wanda's pupils trembled violently. The scarlet energy whip that had been locked onto Gwen Stacy abruptly faltered in midair.

Her mind plunged into an utterly chaotic logical paradox. In her memories, Lynn had clearly been in the ruins of Sokovia, taking Ultron's armor-piercing rounds for Quicksilver, countless bullets piercing his heart as he died in her arms! That scalding blood, that gradually cooling body-those were the sole obsession behind her awakening of Chaos Magic.

Why did this insect in that ridiculous bodysuit have another memory of Lynn's love "till death do us part"?!

"You're lying..." Wanda's voice began to shake. As her emotions spiraled into confusion, the Chaos Particles surrounding her entered an extremely unstable, runaway state. The air around her began crackling with sonic booms.

"I'm lying?" Gwen Stacy landed steadily and tore off her mask, revealing her cool, obsessive face. She pointed forcefully at her own heart. "His blood, his warmth, the feeling of him kissing my forehead before he fell-they're all carved in here! He gave up his life for me. What makes you think you can have him all to yourself?!"

Wanda's breathing grew extremely rapid, her chest heaving violently. She abruptly turned to look at Lynn on the sofa.

Cold sweat instantly broke out across Lynn's back.

Damn it! The plot's moving too fast! The system never said these yandere heroines would start comparing their "death memories" this soon!

His original plan had been to exploit the information gap and create the illusion that "I love only you, but I have to play along with the others to survive." But now, Gwen Stacy had laid her cards straight on the table!

If Wanda realized she had been deceived, or realized that Lynn's love could be "copied," this Skyfather-level yandere would absolutely reboot the universe on the spot!

"Lynn..." Wanda slowly descended from midair, her scarlet eyes fixed on his. A chilling mixture of pleading and accusation filled her gaze. "Tell me she's lying. You only ever died for me, didn't you? Your life, your soul-they're all mine, aren't they?!"

Before Lynn could speak, Gwen Stacy had already stepped forward, planting herself firmly in front of him.

"Get away! Don't use your disgusting magic to force him!" Like a lioness protecting her cub, Gwen Stacy readied the web-shooters on both hands again.

"I told you... to get away!"

Wanda went completely mad. The possibility that Lynn might "love someone else" caused her more agony than being killed outright.

The very source of Chaos Magic was forcibly stirred. Above the whole of Eden Manor, the previously invisible dimensional barrier instantly transformed into a churning sea of blood.

"No one is taking him away from me! No one!"

Wanda slammed her hands together. A scarlet storm powerful enough to annihilate all matter within a hundred-meter radius erupted around her, surging straight toward Gwen Stacy, who was mere steps away.

Yet Gwen Stacy did not retreat. Instead, she pushed her Spider-Sense to its limit. An exceptionally tricky sliding tackle took her past the head-on energy blast. Gripping a specially made web spike charged with high-voltage electricity in a reverse grip in her right hand, she used the recoil from the wall to charge fearlessly into that world-destroying storm!

It was a textbook attempt at mutual destruction!

Just as those lethal attacks were about to collide like two worlds crashing together.

Lynn's superhuman Spider-Sense suddenly caught that "strange electronic fluctuation" that had been lurking in the shadows all along.

That fluctuation was no ordinary S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance device at all, but an extremely tiny tracking projectile with space-folding properties!

Worse still, at that very moment, the tracking projectile actually entered an extraordinarily lethal resonance with Wanda's erupting chaos energy!

Lynn jerked his head up and saw the red light of that miniature electronic device pierce straight through Wanda's absolute magical shield, racing toward the back of her head at an inconceivable speed!