Just one long chapter today.
The important plot points should be enjoyed in one satisfying chapter.
"Captain, where are Thor and Banner? Why aren't they here yet? That wizard kid, Ivan's whip is practically smoking. We were prepared, but it's clearly not enough. If you don't plan to forget something, we won't be able to hold on."
Rogers ' voice came through the communication channel, interspersed in the background the muffled thud of Vibranium Shield striking Chitauri soldier's face and the shrill whistle of an energy rifle firing. "Who knows where those two burly men went? They haven't been seen since the ship was built."
Lynn's voice suddenly broke in, his tone as casual as if discussing what takeout to order for dinner, " Thor and Banner are on their way, just hang in there and we'll see them. But I'm a little curious, Whiplash, your whip is a high-voltage arc, a high-energy current, isn't it normal for it to smoke?" He paused, his voice suddenly turning somber, losing its usual playfulness and gaining a layer of frustration that only appeared when facing something one didn't want to do but had to. " Tony, do you know how awful that magic circle's effect is? I tried it once, and last time I forgot I should cut off the input, so I just stayed there all night. If JARVIS hadn't kept reminding me, who knows how long it would have lasted."
Another crackling sound of electricity filled the air, mingled with Ivan's Russian curses and the parrot's shrill squawking. Lynn's speech suddenly quickened, as if he were forcing the words out of his head rather than speaking them aloud, "You're not exactly weak. Forget it, Tony, you wicked capitalist."
He turned off the communication channel and took out the Mind Stone he had copied on the Helicarrier. A pale yellow glow shone in his palm, still carrying the same feeling of "absence of authority" he had experienced when recording the original. It lacked the original's rule-based imprint, but its structure was exactly the same, the energy circuits were exactly the same, and the refractive index of every facet was exactly the same. Lynn looked down at it and said in a voice only he could hear, "I hope you're of some use."
Without hesitation, he raised his hand and placed it on the center of his chest, precisely focusing his ability on the skin and bones there. Information flowed from his fingertips, silently dismantling a small area in front of his sternum—skin, subcutaneous tissue, a small section of bone from the outer edge of the sternum—then rearranging it into a shallow groove perfectly sized to hold the gem, its edges smooth and its depth just right, as if it had been there since birth. The entire process was painless and bloodless; only a faint silver light spread from his fingertips to his chest, then quickly faded. He gently pressed the counterfeit Mind Stone into the groove. The moment the gem touched the bone, it emitted a very soft hum, and a pale yellow light emanated from his chest, intertwining with the dark golden light of the magic circle within his sternum. He pressed the communication button again.
" Tony, things will be a little... different after I set the memory anchor. Don't be too surprised." He took a deep breath and tapped the temple of his glasses. " JARVIS, I'm about to begin. Remember to remind me to disconnect when things are under control."
"Received, Mr. Lynn. Anchor point set. You will be prompted to disconnect input repeatedly." JARVIS's voice was calm and steady.
The moment the words left his mouth, the lazy and carefree air about Lynn vanished completely.
It wasn't calmness, nor composure; it was an extremely abrupt, almost pathological, rupture.
All the previous complaints, laziness, and schadenfreude were wiped away, replaced by a deathly, obsessive silence. The clamor of the battlefield—the artillery fire, the screams of the crowd, the roar of engines—was forcibly stripped away, dismantled, and categorized in his perception. The noisy outside world was completely shut out, and the world instantly became eerily quiet.
Time flowed at a constant rate, but with the help of the Mind Stone, his thoughts were forcibly stretched to an extreme, morbidly fast speed, making everything move as slowly as a tortoise in his eyes.
The yellow light emanating from the replica of the Mind Stone on his chest surged, frantically eroding along his nerve pathways and amplifying his analytical instincts. There was no divine mercy, only an infinitely magnified obsession with order and a destructive urge.
Pale silver particles seeped out frantically from under the skin, densely covering the entire body like the regular lines of a pathological growth, cold, stiff, and devoid of warmth.
Lynn remained standing on the edge of the rooftop, motionless, her relaxed posture exuding an eerie sense of oppression.
There was no charging motion, no burst of aura, yet those familiar with him would never recognize him at this moment.
Those eyes, which used to be smiling, languid, and always held a hint of amusement, have completely changed.
His eyes were slightly red at the corners, his pupils were pale and empty, devoid of any human emotion, yet concealing an extremely eerie and chilling smile.
It's not indifference, it's a mad rationality.
He hates chaos and detests being out of control. Normally, he's too lazy to care or bother, letting everything develop as it pleases. But once he's forced into a situation, he'll crush all the chaos and variables into absolute order.
The smoke and fire of battle, the fleeing crowds, and the rampaging alien machinery downstairs were no longer battle scenes in his eyes, but a pile of dirty, disorderly garbage in dire need of being cleaned up.
Every flaw in the propulsion of an aircraft, every gap in weapon recharging, every panicked thought of a soldier, and every deviation in the trajectory of a bullet were all magnified infinitely, becoming clear and glaring.
Chaos, glaring chaos.
The smile in his eyes deepened, becoming both sickly and chilling.
In mid-air, a Chitauri fighter, bypassing the MK5's firepower, locked onto a residential building, its plasma cannon glowing with charged energy, ready to deliver a fatal blow in an instant.
The battlefield was completely absorbed by the intense fighting, and no one could stop it.
Lynn didn't even lift his eyelids, only slightly twitching the corner of his mouth.
A wisp of silver particles shot out of thin air, instantly forming an invisible barrier.
The plasma projectile struck the barrier and silently dissolved, without even a spark.
In the same second, the internal engine structure of the three fighter jets that surrounded the MK5 was instantly dismantled.
The energy circuit collapsed, and the propulsion particles dissipated. The three advanced alien fighters, like punctured scrap metal, plummeted straight down and crashed, exploding into clouds of smoke and dust.
The entire process was eerily quiet, brutally clean.
There were no flashy, explosive kills, only one-sided, unreasonable erasures.
The communication channels were still filled with the noise of gunfire; everyone was fighting desperately.
Tony hovered in mid-air, and the HUD frantically displayed error messages about enemy units inexplicably malfunctioning, with the data extremely chaotic.
" JARVIS, who fired the enemy damage report just now? The MK5 squadron has no corresponding firing record."
JARVIS's electronic voice stuttered unusually, "It's Mr. Lynn. No firing record, no residual heat, no impact fluctuations. Determined as -- Unknown rule erasure."
On the rooftop, Lynn finally looked up.
The wind rustled his clothes, the silver patterns on his body flickering in and out of focus, while golden light danced and pulsated across his chest. As he gazed at the devastated and chaotic Manhattan, the mad laugh in his eyes grew ever clearer.
He was neither angry, nor compassionate, nor passionate.
There was only one kind of obsessive-compulsive frustration, and the pleasure of about to clean up the trash.
There is no sense of righteousness or protection in his heart, only a single obsession bordering on the pathological:
Disorder is error, and error must be destroyed.
He muttered to himself, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper, yet it carried a chilling obsession. "It's so filthy it's jarring... A perfectly good city, turned into a pile of garbage."
He finally spoke, his voice calm and gentle, even carrying a hint of gentleness rarely seen in his daily life, but within that gentleness lay a bone-chilling madness and coldness.
"Everyone, hold the line!"
"What happens next is going to be really cool."
He looked up at the Chitauri fighters darting wildly across the sky, his morbid smile widening as he murmured almost gleefully, "Don't rush, one at a time. I'll sort them out slowly."
The moment the words left his mouth, the entire Stark Tower trembled violently!
The rooftop concrete exploded with a deafening roar, and countless ancient, dark gold patterns burst through the ground, walls, and floors, spreading wildly with extreme ferocity. Giant magic arrays intertwined and expanded layer upon layer, spanning the entire rooftop and flowing vertically down the building's exterior walls. Golden runes surged like lava, and silver particles poured down like a galaxy. The warm yellow halo of the Mind Stone exploded, and a burst of tri-colored light instantly tore through the dark night sky.
No longer a low hum, but a deafening roar that pierced the clouds and shook the entire Manhattan! The energy shockwave spread out from the rooftop, stirring up clouds of dust and causing all the surrounding aircraft to shake violently. The sounds of artillery fire and explosions from the entire battlefield were instantly suppressed and covered up.
A violent torrent of energy surged from the ground, firmly supporting Lynn's body. His feet left the ground abruptly, and he was suddenly lifted into the air at an incredible speed. His clothes and hair fluttered wildly in the turbulent energy flow, and his body was covered in bursts of light patterns, with every inch of his skin flowing with dazzling, rule-based light.
A massive amount of silver particles erupted behind him, piling up, spreading out, and taking shape, transforming into two pairs of giant particle wings, each tens of meters long! The wings were crystal clear, with flowing patterns, and silver-white, dark gold, and warm yellow light intertwined and burned, with countless fragments of light falling like falling star debris, magnificent, cold, and carrying a world-destroying sense of oppression.
The domain was fully activated! Tri-colored divine light enveloped the entire Midtown Manhattan, and a massive barrier of light was inverted above the city, imprisoning the entire war zone within it. The night sky was completely illuminated, and the previously dim battlefield was instantly as bright as day. All the smoke, fire, and shadows were penetrated and torn apart by the intense light.
The people fighting fiercely below froze on the spot, their breath caught in their throats, and an instinctive fear crept up their spines.
Rogers' shield bash abruptly stopped, his arm tense and numb, his pupils contracting violently. That overwhelming field of light, that dazzling yet chilling pressure, was not a power that humans should possess; it was an inhuman, obsessive, and morbid judgment.
Ivan abruptly pulled back his whip in mid-air, the arc of electricity instantly Oblivion, and the white parrot on his shoulder folded its wings tightly, trembling, not daring to utter a single cry. The engines of the countless Chitauri aircraft in the sky collectively erupted with a piercing jolt, and countless mechs shook violently in the air, on the verge of shutting down.
Tony's armor thrusters were constantly malfunctioning and sputtering, and the HUD screen was flooded with massive amounts of high-energy data. He was filled with extreme shock and Shocker. This was no support; it was a madman, a powerful being, completely unleashed, reshaping the battlefield with the rules of the game!
High in the sky, Lynn hovered steadily hundreds of meters above the center of the night sky, overlooking all buildings, all the flames of war, and all the struggles. His figure was upright, standing in mid-air, a sickly smile playing on his lips as he looked down upon the chaotic world below. Watching the alien monsters struggling in vain below, he chuckled lazily, his tone both mocking and cruel. "Struggling? The more chaotic it is, the happier I'll be to tidy it up."
The next instant, a thought flickered in his mind.
The Chitauri aircraft that had been raging across the sky for two or three blocks were instantly frozen in mid-air, as if a pause button had been pressed. Engines shut down, energy levels dropped to zero, and exhaust flames dissipated. All the struggle, all the roar, all the agitation, came to an abrupt halt. The densely packed alien mechs hovered in the night sky, reduced to cold, unyielding bodies at the mercy of the enemy.
Countless silver particle threads proliferated wildly from the void, weaving into a dense, all-encompassing net that instantly locked down every fighter jet and every alien soldier. The threads brutally pierced through armor gaps, locked mechanical cores, and imprisoned the alien race's consciousness, rendering the monsters unable to move an inch despite their frantic roars and struggles.
All the energy rifles aimed at civilians on the street had their charging circuits instantly dismantled by particles, their muzzle flashes Oblivion, and they were all reduced to scrap metal. The firepower that had been raging through the streets and alleys was instantly wiped out.
The once bustling and brutal battlefield fell silent in an instant, leaving only enemy troops floating in the sky and divine light swirling around them.
Lynn gazed at the airspace instantly frozen in place, sighed softly, a hint of morbid dissatisfaction in his voice. "It's still too noisy... Wouldn't it be better to be quiet?"
Lynn's indifferent gaze swept across the streets and alleys, his soft yet icy voice piercing through the lingering echoes of gunfire and resounding across every communication channel. There was no ripple of emotion, yet it carried an undeniable, forceful command:
"Captain, airspace suppression complete. Prioritize the orderly evacuation of civilians along the north-south main road. I will cover all blind spots in real time."
" Tony, Ivan, this is the extent of my capabilities for now. I'll need your support in other areas."
The moment the words fell, the countless imprisoned aircraft began to silently disintegrate.
The alien mechs across the entire night sky simultaneously activated and shattered! From the outer shell to the core, from the energy circuit to the mechanical structure, they broke apart inch by inch, disintegrating layer by layer. Billions of metallic sparks, accompanied by tri-colored streams of light, drifted across the sky and dissolved into the night. There was no explosion, no impact, no residue. The threat to the entire airspace was completely cleared away, leaving an almost eerie cleanliness.
He gazed at the completely empty night sky, a satisfied, almost manic laugh spreading across his eyes, and murmured softly, "That's more like it."
In just a few seconds, the aerial threat that had been ravaging Manhattan was completely eliminated.
The moment Rogers came to his senses, a cold sweat broke out on his back. He dared not think any longer about that terrifying yet dazzling power, and immediately gave a deep order to seize this once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity to evacuate the civilians with all his might.
The sporadic sounds of gunfire continued, and the crisis had not completely dissipated, but all the Avengers clearly sensed that... in the sky, a capricious and mad controller was hovering, forcibly suppressing the entire chaotic and overturned city with his own morbid order and shattered domain of rules.