Sabretooth's ambush, Natasha's bloody battle

The torrential rain poured down, but was brutally sliced apart by an invisible Invisible Force Field just three feet above Lynn's head.

A pale blue Force Field transformed into a smooth net, gently lifting Natasha, who had collapsed in the mud. Lynn looked down at the woman, his brows furrowing slightly.

She was severely injured. Her black, tight-fitting combat suit was torn to shreds, her left leg was bent outward at an eerie angle, and the white bone fragments pierced her flesh. The five deep purple strangulation marks on her neck were swollen high, almost crushing her trachea. Thick blood mixed with mud dripped from her fingertips onto the aura of the Force Field.

"Master..." Natasha coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of thick blood mixed with fragments of internal organs. There was no relief in her eyes from surviving the ordeal, only extreme fear and self-blame. She struggled to kneel down, but the Force Field held her firmly in place.

"I failed to defend... your territory. It's a disgrace." Her voice was hoarse and broken, tinged with a morbid obsession.

Lynn didn't speak, but a Scarlet Chaos Magic flashed at her fingertips as she prepared to seal the artery that was causing her massive bleeding.

"Roar--!"

A deafening roar of Beast suddenly erupted from the depths of the ruins. Thirty meters away, the load-bearing wall that had been collapsed by the Force Field exploded open. Victor the Sabretooth pushed aside the several-ton concrete slabs that were pressing down on him, and his massive body slowly straightened up in the torrential rain.

His bones cracked and popped like popping beans; his sternum, shattered by the Force Field, was visibly reconnecting and healing. His Beast -like vertical pupils were fixed on Lynn, and his breath turned into white mist in the cold rain.

"Mutants?" Wanda stood slightly behind Lynn, her Scarlet eyes narrowing instantly. She raised her right hand, destructive energy vortexes dancing at her fingertips. "Lynn, let me wipe this disgusting trash off the face of the earth."

"No."

A weak yet unusually sharp voice interrupted Wanda.

Natasha suddenly reached out her mud-covered right hand and grabbed the hem of Lynn's black trench coat. She didn't know where she drew the strength from, but she resisted the Force Field's lift and knelt down on one knee in the cold puddle.

"This is... my mission." Natasha raised her head, her eyes, which were usually calm like those of a top agent, now burning with a fanatical flame. She pulled a dark red syringe from a hidden compartment in her tactical belt—an incomplete version of the Super-Soldier Serum from the S.H.I.E.L.D.. laboratory.

Without the slightest hesitation, she plunged the thick needle deep into her femoral artery.

"Natasha! You're asking for it!" Gwen Stacy's pupils contracted sharply beneath her mask. Her Spider-Sense was frantically alarming; the drug was violently draining this woman's life force.

Natasha completely ignored Gwen Stacy's warning. The moment the potion was injected, veins bulged like earthworms beneath her fair skin, and her pale cheeks flushed an unnatural red. She gritted her teeth, gripped her dislocated left leg bone with both hands, and twisted it with a sudden burst of strength.

"Snap!"

With a muffled groan of pain, her leg bone was forcibly put back in place. Sweat mingled with rainwater, dripping down her chin.

"Give them to me." Natasha gripped a broken military dagger in reverse, stood up unsteadily, and stood like a tattered but sturdy shield, firmly blocking Lynn's path.

Lynn stared at the once proud Black Widow. The False Memory implanted in Budapest, coupled with the absolute control he displayed in reality, had completely distorted her perception. At this moment, Natasha was a rabid dog guarding its food; anyone who tried to invade Lynn's territory would have to step over her dead body.

Lynn slowly lowered his right hand, which was shimmering with magical light.

He understood Natasha's mindset. Depriving her of the right to fight now would be more cruel than killing her outright.

"Five minutes." Lynn's tone was calm, yet carried an undeniable authority. "If you can't do it, I'll find someone else."

"That's enough." Natasha's lips curled into a bloodthirsty smirk.

Under the cover of rain, members of the Brotherhood of Mutants gathered around.

Toad perched atop a rusty shipping container, its long, slimy tongue flicking in and out of its mouth; Arclight's arms were bulging with muscles, his knuckles cracking as he clenched them; several low-ranking Mutants held steel pipes, their eyes filled with cruel killing intent.

"A mere mortal bug on the verge of death dares to block my way?" The Sabretooth charged out, its massive paws splashing water everywhere. On all fours, like a raging mammoth, it pounced on Natasha, bringing with it a pungent, foul stench.

Natasha moved.

The incomplete serum granted her a brief but ferocious burst of power. Instead of retreating, she charged towards the Sabretooth's massive body. Just as its claws were about to tear her throat apart, Natasha's knees buckled, and she executed a daring slide, her body almost skimming the muddy ground.

"Puff!"

The broken bayonet plunged precisely into a blood vessel at the base of the Sabretooth's right thigh from bottom to top, and then twisted forcefully.

The Sabretooth roared in pain and swung its claw downwards.

Natasha couldn't dodge in time and was struck on the left shoulder by the claws. Three deep, bone-revealing gashes instantly exploded, and flesh tore open. She was thrown back by the immense force and crashed heavily into the barbed wire behind her.

But she didn't hesitate at all. Using the force of the barbed wire rebounding, she drew her spare Tactical Dagger from her waist in mid-air.

"Sizzle!"

A whooshing sound came from above. The Toad's long tongue, like a steel whip covered in barbs, lashed out at Natasha's neck, simultaneously spitting out a pungent green Venom.

Natasha's eyes were icy cold. While in mid-air, she made an extremely bizarre tactical move. She suddenly unfastened the buckle of her tactical vest and flung the heavy vest toward Venom and Long Tongue.

"Sizzle—" The Venom instantly corroded a large hole in the vest, and the long tongue tightly wrapped around the "double."

Taking advantage of that fraction of a second of blind spot, Natasha landed and rolled, like a Black Panther hunting its prey close to the ground, instantly darting to the bottom of the container where the Toad was. She pushed off with her legs, using the edge of the container to leap into the air.

A flash of sword light streaked across the rainy night.

The Toad's scream ripped through the air, and half of its tongue, covered in fleshy growths, fell into the muddy water, writhing wildly.

"Bang!"

Before Natasha could even land, the Quake from the Arclight followed closely behind. The invisible air Impact slammed into Natasha's back like a heavy hammer.

She coughed up a mouthful of blood, her internal organs were severely concussed, and her body crashed into the rubble like a kite with a broken string.

But just two seconds later, the mud-covered hand gripped the rubble again.

Natasha staggered to her feet. She completely abandoned her defenses, unleashing the killing skills instilled in her from childhood in the Red Room to their fullest extent. Every strike was aimed at mutual destruction. Like a tireless meat grinder, she frantically weaved through the Mutants onslaught.

Throat-slitting, eye-gouging, tendon-severing.

She allowed herself to accumulate more and more gruesome wounds, all to leave a fatal mark on her enemy.

Standing behind Lynn, Susan looked at the blood-soaked, demon-like mortal woman, a flicker of shock crossing her blue eyes. She knew she could never have done that if she lost her Force Field. Wanda snorted, but a rare hint of approval appeared in her Scarlet eyes.

"Roar!"

Having been repeatedly outmaneuvered, the Sabretooth went completely berserk. The wound on its thigh had fully healed, and it leaped up, its massive body blocking out the remaining searchlights in the factory.

Natasha had just stabbed a low-level Mutants in the throat with a dagger, and her strength was nearing its limit. The side effects of the incomplete serum began to backfire violently; her heart was throbbing with pain, and her vision was blurring.

The Sabretooth's sharp claws, accompanied by a piercing shriek, hurtled straight towards her heart.

There's no escaping it.

There was no fear in Natasha's eyes. She simply threw away the dull dagger in her hand, opened her arms, and bravely faced the claws that could tear her apart.

"Pfft!"

Ten-centimeter-long Adamantium claws pierced Natasha's abdomen. Hot blood gushed out instantly, staining her tattered combat suit crimson. The immense Impact propelled her backward, ultimately pinning her firmly to a thick, load-bearing steel pillar.

"Die! You annoying bug!" The Sabretooth grinned as it approached, preparing to twist its wrist and completely disembowel her.

But the next second, the smile on his face froze.

The expected scream did not occur. Natasha gritted her teeth so hard that her lips bled. Her hands were like two iron clamps, gripping the Sabretooth's thick arm tightly. Her nails dug deep into its flesh.

She slowly raised her head, her pale face covered in mud and blood, but she gave the Sabretooth an extremely mocking, even pitying, smile.

"Gotcha... you idiot."

Natasha didn't look at the Sabretooth's furious expression. She turned her head with difficulty, looking through the layers of rain, at Lynn stood not far away, expressionless.

Those bloodshot eyes held a fervent desire to complete the mission, as well as an extreme, morbid attachment to Lynn.

"Master... I didn't... take a single step back."

Lynn looked at Natasha, who was nailed to a steel pillar, blood gushing wildly down her thighs into the muddy water.

The torrential rain is still raging.

But the rain within three meters of Lynn suddenly stopped in mid-air without warning.

An indescribable, terrifying killing intent erupted from Lynn. The surrounding air temperature plummeted to freezing point, and the water on the ground instantly froze into white frost, emitting a chilling crackling sound.

Wanda, Gwen Stacy, and Susan simultaneously felt a suffocating sense of oppression and instinctively took a half step back. Looking at Lynn's retreating figure, a chill ran through them.

Lynn strode forward, his leather boots crunching crisply on the ice. He stared at the Sabretooth's astonished face, his deep pupils swirling with Scarlet Chaos and eerie blue spatial turbulence.

Which hand did you use to touch her?

Lynn's voice wasn't loud, but it clearly drowned out the thunder, carrying a deathly silence like a judgment.