Worlds collide: magic versus Spider-Sense

The miniature tracking round with space-folding properties shot silently toward the back of Wanda's head, like a poisoned needle piercing the deep sea.

Lynn leaned against the wreckage of the sofa, a flicker of ice-cold calculation crossing his eyes. S.H.I.E.L.D. technology? No, this was definitely some countermeasure Pierce had left behind before his death-a frequency disruptor specifically designed to target higher-dimensional energy fields.

"Buzzz-"

Gwen Stacy's Spider-Sense was half a beat slower than Lynn, but at that moment, it too screamed wildly. Her azure eyes fixed on Wanda in midair. Rather than shout a warning, she used the strange fluctuations as cover and sharply flicked her wrists.

Two strands of high-pressure webbing shot straight for Wanda's throat like snakes flicking their tongues!

Strike while the enemy was weak. In a yandere's logic, the only acceptable state for a romantic rival was dead.

"Crack!"

Less than half an inch from the back of Wanda's head, the tracking round struck a scarlet barrier invisible to the naked eye. The spectral blue light of folded space exploded, attempting to forcibly tear through the Chaos Barrier.

Wanda's hovering body lurched violently.

Almost simultaneously, Gwen Stacy's webs closed in on Wanda's pale neck.

"Get away!"

Wanda whipped her head around, the scarlet in her eyes so thick it seemed about to drip blood. Completely ignoring the disruptor round behind her head, she clenched her right hand viciously in empty air.

Rampaging Chaos Magic crushed the high-tech tracking round and the surrounding air into an absolute vacuum! Then scarlet energy surged backward along the webs like a burning dragon, its gaping maw snapping toward Gwen Stacy's wrists.

Gwen Stacy snorted coldly and severed the webs without hesitation. Her super-flexible physique let her fold her body into an impossible angle in midair. Pushing hard off the wall with her toes, she became a white afterimage, skimming alongside the raging energy stream.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. scum... and you, you suicidal little bug." Wanda looked down from above at Gwen Stacy darting through the ruins. Her voice had lost all human warmth, leaving only godlike arrogance and extreme possessiveness. "You're all coveting what's mine!"

Boom!

The instant the words fell, a true scarlet storm descended.

The entire second floor of Eden Manor was sliced into countless fragments in an instant. Expensive oil paintings, solid-wood bookshelves, and crystal chandeliers vaporized the moment they touched the chaos particles. The thick smell of burning mingled with the pungent odor of ozone, choking everyone's airways.

"What's yours?"

Gwen Stacy leaped to her limits amid the wreckage raining down. Spider-Sense seared the trajectory of each of Wanda's attacks into her mind a hundredth of a second in advance. With an exceptionally tricky slide, she avoided a scarlet blade sharp enough to cleave an armored vehicle in two, then backhanded a strand of webbing charged with high-voltage electricity into a load-bearing wall.

Using the pull of her web, Gwen Stacy swung into the air like a cannonball, her voice beneath the mask carrying a spine-chilling mockery. "You can't even see into his heart. All you can do is lock him up like a pet behind a barrier, like some pathetic madwoman!"

"On the Clock Tower in New York, he smiled as he cut my webs for me! He willingly gave his life to me!" Gwen Stacy fired with both hands, sending a dense web net down over Wanda's head. "An old woman like you, dreaming of keeping him all to yourself, doesn't understand him at all!"

Old woman. Pet. Willingly.

Those words were like the most vicious curses, precisely striking and snapping Wanda's taut nerves.

"Everything about him belongs to me! His life, his soul, they're all mine!" Wanda went completely berserk, thrusting both hands outward.

A visible ring of scarlet shock waves exploded outward from her. The web net Gwen Stacy had fired instantly turned to ash in midair. A terrifying blast of scorching air swept over her cheeks, making the skin beneath her mask sting with heat.

"For a sewer bug like you, even looking at him is a capital offense!"

Wanda curled all ten fingers, forcibly distorting the gravitational field throughout the space. The floor shattered inch by inch. Countless sharp chunks of stone and lengths of rebar were stripped free by Chaos Magic and floated into the air, all pointing at Gwen Stacy like ten thousand converging swords.

"Die!"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Building debris filled the sky, hurtling toward Gwen Stacy from every direction with shrill sonic booms.

This was an utterly one-sided assault from a higher dimension. Magic's coverage without blind spots pitted against the physical limits of evasion.

Gwen Stacy pushed her Spider-Sense to its utmost. Her body twisted wildly amid the barrage of wreckage, every dodge skirting the edge of death. A stone grazed through her suit at the left shoulder, drawing dark red blood; her right ribs made dangerous cracking sounds from excessive twisting.

But her eyes grew brighter and brighter. The sick, burning madness of wanting Lynn all to herself blocked out her pain completely.

"Is that all you've got?!" Gwen Stacy sprang off a falling boulder and launched herself into the air, aiming both wrists at Wanda. "Then it's my turn!"

Swish!

Two exceptionally thick streams of specially formulated web fluid burst out, not toward Wanda, but directly onto the precariously swaying load-bearing beam above her head.

Gwen Stacy engaged her waist and abdominal muscles and yanked hard!

The reinforced-concrete beam, weighing several tons, snapped with a crash and plunged straight toward Wanda's head.

"Boring tricks." Wanda did not even lift her eyelids, casually waving her left hand upward.

Half a meter above her head, the massive beam was forcibly frozen by scarlet energy. Then, like tofu fed into a meat grinder, it was annihilated into powder inch by inch.

In that tenth of a second when dust obscured her vision.

Gwen Stacy released her webs. Like a hunting phantom, she plunged straight toward Wanda's face, accelerating under gravity. In her right hand, she held a sharp length of rebar pulled from the ruins in a reverse grip, aiming straight for Wanda's heart!

Below, Lynn lay in the wreckage of the sofa, taking it all in.

Using the Super-Soldier Serum physique he had just integrated, he perfectly controlled his heart rate and breathing, posing as an ordinary man who had been thrown over by the blast and left severely injured and coughing blood.

But his brain was operating faster than a supercomputer.

I can't wait any longer.

Gwen Stacy's physical exertion had already reached its critical point, and that ambush was her final trump card. Meanwhile, Wanda's killing intent had fully solidified into something tangible. Once Gwen Stacy's attack failed, Chaos Magic would absolutely tear her to pieces.

Even worse, the genuine fury these two women had fought themselves into had already brought Eden Manor's energy field to the brink of collapse. If they kept fighting, the entire block would be blasted into a meteor crater.

In midair, Gwen Stacy's rebar was less than thirty centimeters from Wanda's heart.

And Wanda had already brought her hands together. A ball of scarlet energy compressed to the utmost formed in her palms, radiating terrifying heat sufficient to melt vibranium.

The two lethal forces were about to collide without restraint less than three meters above Lynn's head.

System, stop playing dead. Lock onto my magic circuits.

Lynn barked coldly in his mind. Without hesitation, he activated the incomplete chaos magic affinity physique within him, forcibly reversing the energy circuits that had been running smoothly!

A tearing agony shot through his meridians, and a mouthful of real blood instantly surged into his throat.

Lynn abruptly rose from the ruins, the muscles in his legs exerting force in a sudden burst. Rather than dodge, he spread his arms of his own accord and charged headlong into the energy vortex powerful enough to raze the entire villa!