Silk's warning at the bottom of the substation, Lynn dismantled the high-voltage anomaly
A gap was melted open in the emergency iron door on the basement level of the broadcast tower by an oxy-acetylene torch.
A cold wind, carrying the damp, rusty smell of the underground, rushed into the tunnel.
The 60-centimeter-thick cast iron door panel rolled inward, its edges glistening with dark red molten droplets.
Two Black Crow Honor Guard, carrying heavy riot shields, led the way, their boots crushing the charred remains at the threshold.
Lynn pulled a glow stick from his tactical belt with a backhand motion, but didn't light it up; he just held it loosely in his palm.
Gwen Stacy crouched down, following half a step to his left rear, the exoskeleton armor on her wrist adjusting the damping to eliminate the friction noise of the mechanical bearings.
Hela did not follow the narrow descending gangway, but stayed with Wanda at the breach on the ground to control the situation.
Obsidian dagger was stuck diagonally in the Load-Bearing Beam above the door frame, with a wisp of eerie green Death Energy hanging down.
This is a silent division of labor.
The space above ground belongs to two women with excessive destructive power, while life and death within the claustrophobic network rest entirely on the fingertips of the mine-clearing team.
The lights in the basement power area were not on.
The air was filled with the distinctive tarry smell of turpentine from an overloaded transformer.
Every five meters, a bolt on the metal mesh footboard came loose, making a faint metallic clicking sound.
Lynn stopped at the corner of the third electrical cabinet and raised his hand to stop the advance of the two guards behind him.
"Turn off the optical gain of the night vision goggles."
Lynn's voice was very soft, suppressed within three meters by the lingering inertial howl of the power distribution room's ventilation fan.
The squad leader, holding his helmet steady with one hand, cut off the power to the goggles.
"Director Lynn, the thermal imaging shows that the main power distribution panel forty meters ahead has a normal temperature and there are no living heat sources."
"It's precisely because it's so normal that we can't step forward."
Lynn crouched down, extended his ungloved right index finger, and gently placed it on the galvanized heat sink plate at the edge of the floor drain.
The ambient temperature here is four degrees Celsius.
However, the temperature of the galvanized iron sheet that the index finger touches is at least 35 degrees Celsius.
That's not waste heat from the transformer's cooling pipes, but rather electrostatic heat generated by the long-term energy storage of the high-frequency oscillating capacitor.
"Gwen Stacy, deploy the Probe."
Lynn didn't turn around; his gaze followed the cable tray at the bottom of the pedal deeper into the distance.
Gwen Stacy slightly raised her left wrist, and a matte steel ball with a diameter of only one millimeter popped out from under her cuff.
The steel ball rolled forward seven meters along the slope of the ground, trailing a strand of special synthetic Silk that was almost invisible to the naked eye.
The surface of Silk is covered with a nanoscale piezoelectric coating.
As the steel ball rolled through the gap in front of the main transformer base, two sets of chaotic waveforms suddenly appeared on the micro-terminal screen on Gwen Stacy's wrist.
"There is tension feedback, and also high impedance leakage."
Gwen Stacy knelt on the ground, her right hand's two fingers loosely pinching the end of the Silk tail. The vibration from her fingertips made her brows furrow slightly.
There are six in total.
"The cross-section is 20 centimeters off the ground, precisely positioned at the turning point where the combat boot lifts its foot."
The guard squad leader's fingers tightened unconsciously around the Long Halberd, the alloy armor plates making a soft cracking sound.
"Is it a tripwire? We can use a heavy breaching shield to crush it."
"If you want the entire supporting column at the base of the tower to vaporize in half a second, feel free to try it."
Gwen Stacy gave him a cold glance, then lightly flicked the Silk with her fingertips to retrieve the circuit impedance data.
"This is not a conventional sapper mine."
"The lead wire is filled with liquid helium-3 and plasma gel, and the outer shell is wrapped with highly conductive copper foil."
"As long as the force exceeds fifty grams, or the circuit current is interrupted for more than 0.1 milliseconds, the six shaped charge charges installed under the main transformer tank will detonate simultaneously."
"The Watchmaker connected the entire backup diesel circuit in series."
The squad leader's cheek muscles twitched slightly. He silently took half a step back and held the heavy shield upright in front of his chest.
Lynn did not speak.
He pulled the Obsidian sword, its surface entirely black, from his inner jacket.
The blade's surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting no light even in dim light.
This is a fragment of Hela's sword that she left in the corridor. Its material comes from mineral veins in the Abyss Asgard and naturally possesses the dual properties of superconductivity and energy insulation.
"He not only connected to the main fuel tank."
Lynn bent down, his chest almost pressed against the oil-stained non-slip steel plate.
His nose was less than ten centimeters from the ground, and he could clearly smell the extremely faint scent of Ozone.
"Look up along the cable trough."
Gwen Stacy his gaze and raised her tactical goggles.
In the center of the thick, python-like bundle of high-voltage cables, a silver metal needle, only as thick as a ballpoint pen refill, was inserted horizontally.
The tip of the metal needle pierced through the insulation of the main grounding wire, and a tiny pulse timer, about the size of a fingernail, was attached to the bottom.
The red ticker on the LCD panel was frozen at "00:43".
He used a physical closed loop.
Lynn braced himself with one hand on the ground, while his other hand held the Obsidian broken sword horizontally in front of him with remarkable stability.
"The six plasma leads are an illusion, used to force us to slow down."
"This grounding circuit is the real detonation core."
"As soon as the directional pulse transmitter on the top floor begins to forcibly extract energy, the voltage trough of the main coil will trigger this timer."
"Once the countdown reaches zero, the main grounding wire short-circuites, and the resulting electric arc can instantly ignite the plasma gel."
Gwen Stacy stared at the tiny "jump" on the coin, holding her breath almost imperceptibly.
"Do not use insulated shears."
"This mechanical structure has a dynamic balance sensor; the moment the copper core is cut, the tiny capacitance difference caused by the shear blade will break down the electrode."
"No need to cut it."
Lynn's voice was as calm as if she were proofreading a supplies list.
His pupils reflected the dancing red letters, his gaze rapidly shifting between the three sets of bypass capacitors on the side of the transformer.
"The broken sword is made of a superconducting material with near-zero electrical resistance."
"I need you to seal the vent hole of the secondary capacitor with high-tension Silk the instant I cut into the circuit."
The error must not exceed 0.05 seconds.
"If the pressure relief vent isn't blocked, the bypass current flowing back will burn my arm along the broken sword."
"If the blockage occurs too early, the main coil will lose power, and the timer will detonate immediately."
Gwen Stacy raised her hand and pulled down the mechanical safety of the exoskeleton glove, revealing two spray valves fitted with sealing flame-retardant adhesive on her right wrist.
I'll count to two.
Gwen Stacy stared at Lynn's profile, her knuckles turning pale from the force of her grip.
"No need to count."
Lynn exhaled the last breath of stale air from his lungs.
His shoulder muscles suddenly tensed, and his whole body became like a powerful bowstring taut with full force.
The Obsidian sword drew a very short straight line in mid-air.
The sword tip didn't slash; instead, it precisely pierced the tiny gap between the main grounding wire and the capacitor, like a surgical Scalpel.
puff.
A dull thud echoed through the deathly silent substation.
Almost simultaneously, the Silk- shooting device on Gwen Stacy's wrist suddenly fired.
Two clumps of grayish-white flame-retardant polymer adhesive, accompanied by a piercing whooshing sound, were precisely applied to the orifice of the secondary capacitor's exhaust valve.
A ring of eerie green ripples appeared on the surface of the sword blade from the pulsating red electrical current.
The violent high-voltage current was instantly guided to the galvanized sheet on the ground by the special crystal structure of the broken sword, without sparking a single spark at the cable joint.
Lynn slightly lowered his wrist, Obsidian broken sword completed an extremely small ninety-degree flip in the narrow space.
Click.
The tiny firing pin at the bottom of the timer was firmly wedged by the sword spine half a millimeter outside the reed.
The numbers on the LCD screen flickered twice before settling on "00:02" and then went completely off.
The tense, high-pressure hum deep inside the tunnel gradually subsided.
The static electricity that permeated the air dissipated like a receding tide.
Gwen Stacy slowly loosened her clenched lower lip; her palms were already soaked with cold sweat.
The two Black Crow Honor Guard exchanged glances, their arms gripping their Long Halberd drooping half an inch involuntarily.
Even among the vanguard of Asgard, very few dared to gamble on the stability of a high-energy electric arc with half a piece of ordinary iron within two seconds.
Without pausing, Lynn smoothly withdrew the broken sword and used his backhand to sever the six plasma wire support legs that were blocking the center of the passage.
With the support lost, the deadly fuses drooped limply onto the insulating pad, completely losing their detonation potential.
"The main power supply line has been saved."
Lynn stood up, dusted off his knees, and kept his uniform collar buttoned up perfectly.
Gwen Stacy retracted the Silk, her fingertips swiftly tracing the wrist strap:
"We cut off the bypass to the underlying protocol, and a set of power supply capacitors on the top-floor relay transmitter failed, slowing down their progress in leveraging the Force Field by at least five minutes."
Just as the squad leader was about to step forward to report the safety situation, the thick cable tray at the top of the passage suddenly began to vibrate violently without warning.
Buzz--!
That wasn't ordinary electrical oscillation, but a near-tangible infrasound echo.
The emptied energy storage cable emitted crackling, popping sounds, as if some enormous object in the sky was forcibly drawing air out in reverse using an external mechanical pump.
Thump!
A dull, heavy thud echoed as it crashed down through the ventilation shaft, the steel frame of the entire broadcasting tower emitting a sickening grinding sound.
Cement debris poured down like rain from the cracks in the ceiling above everyone's heads.