An Unexpected Awakening of the Underlying Protocol, the Time Pruners' Lockdown

The roaring sounds grew louder as they approached, one after another.

Gwen Stacy's fingers flew across the Data Pad, and the energy curve on the screen climbed steadily.

"It wasn't the backup power," she said, her voice strained. "It was the underlying protocol of the entire partition rebooting. The moment we cut off the power supply, the system detected the theft of the main control asset and automatically activated the defense program."

"Stolen?" Hela sneered. "We handled this according to regulations, with all four parties signing off, and all seals are intact."

"The machine doesn't recognize the seal." Gwen Stacy looked up. "It only recognizes whether the cabinet is still on the foundation. If the cabinet is off the ground, it's been stolen."

Natasha stood beside the valve, her hand still resting on the dial.

"Can it be restored?" she asked. "Put the cabinet back."

"It's too late." Gwen Stacy shook her head. "The agreement is already running; putting it back won't stop it."

Before the words were even finished, a ring of dark blue light patterns lit up the four walls of the Main Control Room.

Light patterns rose from the ground, traversed the walls, and converged above everyone's heads. The entire Main Control Room was enveloped in a semi-transparent Light Membrane.

Jean Grey's Psychic Power reached out, but was bounced back as soon as it touched the Light Membrane.

She frowned.

"It's not an energy wall," she said. "My Psychic Power can't get through, not because it's blocked—it's because there's nothing there."

"What do you mean by having nothing?" Wanda asked.

"There's no corridor, no lobby, no branch office outside the walls." Qin opened her eyes, a golden halo freezing in them. "Outside the walls, it's empty. This room was cut off from the entire Timeline."

There was a moment of silence in the Main Control Room.

Hela walked to the Light Membrane, raised her hand, and stopped when her fingertips were three inches away from the membrane surface.

She didn't touch it.

The lesson from the Archive Cabinet incident is still fresh. Things in this section follow rules, not brute force.

"Spatial Rift." Gwen Stacy stared at the Data Pad, uttering each word carefully. "TVA's Pruning Technology. They used this to cut out the entire Timeline back then. This partition has a low-level protocol that activates upon alarm—it isolates the area where the incident occurred, seals it within the fault, and sinks it to the bottom, along with the people and belongings."

"Where will it sink?" Natasha asked.

"Nowhere," Gwen Stacy said. "Outside the fault line, nothing exists. What's sealed inside isn't transferred, it's erased."

Wanda's fingertips lit up with Scarlet.

She pressed her palm against the Light Membrane, and Chaos Magic surged up, causing ripples to spread across the membrane's surface before settling back down. The magic slid along the membrane's surface and dissipated into the void, leaving no trace.

"I can't tear it." She withdrew her hand, her face darkening. "This layer is immune to magic."

"It doesn't eat anything," Gwen Stacy said. "It's not a shield, it's a boundary. This side of the boundary is us, and that side is nothingness. If you attack it, you're attacking a non-existent opponent."

Hela's Night Sky Sword was drawn half an inch from its sheath, then slowly returned to it.

"What about communications?" she asked.

Gwen Stacy shook her head.

"The Nibelung's signal was cut off the moment the Light Membrane closed. The Fleet didn't know we were in trouble—in their eyes, this area, along with us, had just vanished from the coordinates."

Hela's jaw tightened.

Her Fleet was overhead. At her command, the Main Cannon could raze this ruin to the ground. But now, the order couldn't get through.

Five people, a sealed cabinet, and a house that is sinking.

Natasha leaned against the control panel, her gaze sweeping over everyone's faces.

"Gentlemen," she began, her voice still unhurried, "I just counted. From the start of the roar to the closure of the Light Membrane, it took forty breaths. This agreement has progressed slowly, step by step."

"What do you want to say?" Wanda asked.

"I would say there's a next step," Natasha pointed to the Light Membrane, "Please look, everyone."

Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing.

On the inner wall of the Light Membrane, the Dark Teal Light Patterns was slowly moving downwards. The membrane surface was shrinking inwards inch by inch at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Light Membrane that was just covering the four walls is now half a foot closer to the walls.

Gwen Stacy looked down at the Data Pad, her pupils contracting.

"The fault is contracting," she said. "It's not just sealing us off; it's compressing this room into a single point, until it ceases to exist."

"How much longer?" Hela asked.

"At this rate," Gwen Stacy tapped her finger twice on the screen, "It won't even take an incense stick to burn."

No one spoke in the Main Control Room.

The Sealed Storage Box stood silently in the center of the room, its three seals gleaming faintly in the dim light. They had fought over this box for half a day; now the box was safe, but the person who packed it was gone.

Qin suddenly spoke.

Did Lynn know things would turn out this way?

That one question sent a chill down everyone's spine.

Yes. The coordinates were provided by Ultron, the exploration was approved by Lynn, and the seal on the cabinet is the standard one from the Management Committee. Does Lynn truly know nothing about what's buried in this area?

Or did he already know about this fault line, which is why he sent all five of them together?

Wanda stared at the Sealed Storage Box, the Scarlet light on her fingertips flickering and then fading.

"Wait until we go outside," she said softly. "We'll ask him outside."

"The prerequisite is that we can get out," Hela said.

The Light Membrane moved another half foot closer.

Gwen Stacy, holding the Data Pad, suddenly looked up.

"The contraction isn't uniform," she said. "Look at the east wall—the light patterns there travel slower than elsewhere."