The crash and the core

"Stop watching the show." Zhao Fan looked away and headed into the server room. They could only take the Master Key away. "Once we take the Master Key, Ben's virus won't hold out much longer. Hydra's technicians will soon sever the physical connections and reboot the fire-control system. That should give Captain America's team enough time, but we need to get what we came for before then."

The identification chaos caused by the Master Access Key had already brought down Hydra's internal defenses. All along their route, Zhao Fan and Old Dog had seen the bodies of Hydra soldiers who had killed one another.

"Well, that saved us a lot of bullets." Old Dog stepped over a body that was still twitching and helped himself to a high-explosive grenade from its belt. "But Fan, does the ship feel like it's tilting to you?"

"Uneven engine output." Zhao Fan braced himself against the wall, feeling the vibrations beneath his feet. "Beta's close-in defense guns hit Alpha's port engines earlier. Now the starboard engines and antigravity system are barely keeping it up. This ship won't last much longer."

"And we're still running toward the most dangerous part?"

"Fortune favors the bold."

The maintenance passage leading to the engine room was narrow and long, and the air temperature rose sharply as they went deeper.

The lighting had been damaged in the chaos earlier. Only the emergency lamps cast a dim red glow, stretching and shortening their shadows like phantoms.

"How big is this thing we're looking for?" Old Dog kept a wary eye behind them as he wiped the sweat constantly beading on his forehead. "If it's the size of a shipping container, we won't be able to move it."

"The core isn't big. About the size of a beer keg." Zhao Fan led the way with [Weak Energy Perception] fully active. In his vision, an energy source as dazzling as the sun pulsed rhythmically a short distance ahead. That pure, high-density energy reaction made every cell in his body rejoice.

"But it's very, very dangerous," Zhao Fan added. "And it's connected to the entire ship's main drive shaft, surrounded by high-voltage cables and coolant pipes."

"Sounds like hard labor," Old Dog muttered. "These old bones of mine are going to fall apart working for you sooner or later."

Suddenly, Zhao Fan stopped and raised a hand for a halt.

"Someone's there."

There were no Hydra soldiers around the corner ahead, but several faint yet extremely steady electronic signals had appeared in Zhao Fan's perception.

"Not living people," Zhao Fan whispered. "An automated defense system."

Before he had finished speaking, two automated sentry guns swung down from the ceiling around the corner. Red laser scanning beams instantly locked onto their positions.

"Get down!"

Zhao Fan shouted and pushed Old Dog's head down as he dropped flat.

"Ratatatat!"

Heavy-caliber bullets instantly riddled the spot where they had been standing, sending sparks flying from the metal floor.

"Ben! Didn't you say the system was down?" Old Dog covered his head and cursed loudly.

"The main system is down! But the engine room has an independent security system with its own isolation barriers!" Benjamin's anxious voice came through. "Give me ten seconds... no, thirty! Damn it, did Stark design this firewall himself?"

"We don't have time!"

Zhao Fan's gaze sharpened as he watched the two guns adjusting their firing angles. If they were pinned down here until the Helicarrier crashed, they would get nothing.

"Cover me!"

Instead of retreating, Zhao Fan burst out from behind cover.

"You're insane!" Old Dog cursed, but his hands never stopped moving. He leaned halfway out, raised his shotgun, and fired blindly at the ceiling.

"Bang! Bang!"

The buckshot could not penetrate the guns' armor, but the tremendous impact briefly knocked one of them off target.

In that fraction of a second, Zhao Fan had already closed to within ten meters of the guns.

Bullets chased his heels, plowing trails of bullet marks behind him.

Zhao Fan drew a deep breath as energy surged wildly into his legs. He kicked hard off the wall and launched himself into the air. For that instant, he seemed to break free of gravity.

[Phase Blink]!

His body blurred in midair, narrowly avoiding a lethal burst of gunfire.

Then he appeared between the two guns.

"Get down here!"

Zhao Fan spread his arms and clamped a hand around each gun barrel.

[Hard Carapace: Partial Hardening]!

[Kinetic Repulsion: Double Blast]!

"Boom!"

Two savage waves of repulsive force erupted from his palms and poured straight into the guns' internal mechanisms. Their precision components shattered instantly under that violent force. Trailing black smoke, the two expensive automated sentry guns dropped from the ceiling and smashed into scrap.

Zhao Fan landed steadily, but instead of rising immediately, he stayed on one knee, clutching his chest as he coughed violently several times. Repeated use of high-intensity abilities had pushed his body to its limit, and a trickle of warm liquid ran from his nose.

"Fan!" Old Dog rushed over and helped him up. "Your nose is bleeding."

"It's fine. Just ruptured capillaries." Zhao Fan casually wiped his face. "Keep moving. The door's just ahead."

They pushed open the heavy radiation-shielding lead door, and a wave of heat hit them in the face.

The engine room was a vast circular space, a full three stories high. A cylindrical device glowing a ghostly blue floated at its center-the masterpiece of Stark Industries, the Next-Generation Repulsor Engine Core.

It resembled an enormous mechanical heart, with countless thick cables connecting to it and carrying surging energy to every corner of the Helicarrier.

"What a beauty..." Old Dog gazed at the glowing cylinder with genuine admiration. "One look, and all I can smell is money."

"Don't just stand there admiring it." Zhao Fan walked to the console. "Ben, tell me how to remove it safely. Will this thing explode if we just pull the cables?"

"Yes. And it'll flatten everything within five kilometers." Benjamin's voice grew serious. "Boss, you have to shut off the coolant circulation in a specific order, then manually release the magnetic locks. Listen carefully. First, find the red manual valve on the left..."

The next five minutes were the longest five minutes of Zhao Fan's life.

The Helicarrier tilted farther and farther, and objects kept falling inside the engine room. Zhao Fan had to keep his balance while following Benjamin's instructions through operations as delicate as defusing a bomb.

"...Last step. Push down the yellow lever at the bottom of the core, then turn it ninety degrees counterclockwise."

Zhao Fan took a deep breath and gripped the scalding lever with both hands.

"Click."

With a crisp mechanical unlocking sound, the humming engine core suddenly fell silent. Its blue glow dimmed as it entered a stable standby state.

The massive metal clamps released, and the beer-keg-sized core slowly descended onto the maintenance platform.

[System notification: mission target "Next-Generation Repulsor Engine Core" detected.]

[Conditions for mission "Throne in the Ruins" fulfilled.]

[System Space (1 cubic meter) unlocked!]

Zhao Fan seemed to hear a crisp shattering sound in his mind. Then some invisible barrier broke. His consciousness connected to a strange, gray, motionless space-a cube completely independent of reality's dimension.

"Finally." A wildly delighted smile curled Zhao Fan's lips.

Without a moment's hesitation, he focused his mind and locked onto the engine core before him.

There was no flash of light or distortion of space. In the time it took Old Dog to blink, the cylinder suspended in the center vanished into thin air.

"What the fuck?!" Old Dog's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he looked frantically around. "Fan! Where is it? Where'd that core go?"

Zhao Fan straightened and let out a long breath. The weight that had been pressing down on him-both physically and mentally-vanished completely at that moment.

"Relax. It's somewhere safe." Zhao Fan patted his empty tactical backpack.

Just then, the entire Helicarrier shook violently, as though it had struck something.

"What happened? Did we hit a mountain?" Old Dog nearly fell.

"No..." Zhao Fan looked up at the cracked ceiling. Through the gaps, he could see the chaotic sky outside.

It was another Helicarrier-Beta. Having lost control, it had rammed straight into Alpha's flank.

"The crash has started." Zhao Fan's voice was frighteningly calm. "We need to leave. Now."

Back atop Charlie's bridge.

Steve Rogers's face was covered in blood. One eye was swollen shut, and a knife wound on his abdomen ran deep enough to expose bone-a mark left by the Winter Soldier.

But he was still standing.

At his feet was the fire-control terminal, its final chip now replaced.

"Hill! Now!" Steve pressed his earpiece and shouted with the last of his strength.

Inside the Triskelion's command center, Maria Hill stared at the three green lock-on signals on the screen, her finger hovering over the red firing button.

"Steve, you're still up there." Hill's voice trembled slightly.

"Fire!" Steve did not hesitate. "Don't let all this be for nothing!"

Hill closed her eyes and pressed the button.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The main guns on all three Helicarriers swiveled simultaneously and locked onto one another. The moment the Zola Algorithm was rewritten, the weapons intended to slaughter the world became the reapers of their own destruction.

Violent explosions blossomed in the sky. Steel twisted, and flames devoured everything.

The deck beneath him began to fracture. Steve felt himself grow weightless as he slid down with the collapsing structure.

But he did not reach for anything. His eyes stayed fixed on the figure struggling to crawl out of the wreckage.

The figure pinned beneath a steel beam, the killer whose eyes remained lost even as he instinctively struggled to survive.

"Bucky..."

Steve staggered over. Even now, with the Helicarrier falling and death close at hand, he still did not give up.

He lifted the heavy steel beam with strength beyond an ordinary person's imagination.

"Where are you going?" The Winter Soldier watched him warily, raising his mechanical arm to attack.

"I'm not going to fight you." At that moment, he was simply that scrawny kid from Brooklyn. "You're my friend."

The Winter Soldier froze. A flicker of painful struggle crossed his icy eyes.

"You're... my... mission..."

He lunged at Steve, raining punches onto his face.

Steve did not fight back. He let blood blur his vision and his consciousness gradually fade.

"Then finish it," Steve said softly. "Because I'm with you till the end of the line."

Those words struck like lightning, piercing the thick fog of brainwashing.

The Winter Soldier's fist stopped in midair.

Just then, Charlie finally lost all power, and its massive hull broke apart in the air.

The floor disappeared.

Both men plunged into the Potomac River below.

Meanwhile, aboard the falling Alpha.

Zhao Fan and Old Dog raced through a corridor tilted at nearly seventy degrees.

Zhao Fan kicked aside a piece of wreckage blocking their way.

"Boom-crack!"

Alpha finally gave out. Its spine-the main keel-snapped in the fire, and its enormous hull broke in half, plummeting toward the Potomac River below.

Weightlessness struck instantly.

Zhao Fan and Old Dog tumbled through the corridor.

"An exit! Find an exit!" Zhao Fan shouted.

"Left! Go left!" Benjamin screamed hoarsely through their earpieces. "Only a minute and a half left!"

They slid down the sloping corridor and finally spotted the enormous hole blasted open by a missile.

Outside lay the gray sky and the water below, rushing closer at terrifying speed.

"Jump!"

Without hesitation, Zhao Fan grabbed Old Dog's tactical harness and leaped out of the burning steel coffin.

In midair, the wind cut like knives.

"Aaaah! We're going to fall to our deaths!" Old Dog screamed in the wind.

"We won't die!"

Zhao Fan adjusted his posture in midair. He was falling, but he was also gathering power.

With a furious roar, Zhao Fan unleashed every last bit of his energy.

[Kinetic Repulsion]

Blue waves of light, almost solid, erupted downward from both his hands and feet.

The waves slammed into the water, throwing up enormous surges more than ten meters high.

"Boom!"

The tremendous reaction force instantly struck them both. Though it did not entirely counteract the kinetic energy of their fall, it reduced their lethal impact speed to a survivable level.

"Splash!"

They slammed into the icy waters of the Potomac River, throwing up a huge splash.

The impact still made Zhao Fan's vision go black, and his chest hurt as though a sledgehammer had struck it. But he gritted his teeth and desperately swam for shore, dragging the nearly unconscious Old Dog.

On the riverbank.

A few minutes later, two dripping figures crawled onto the muddy shore.

Old Dog lay sprawled like a dead fish, gulping for air, without even the strength to curse.

Zhao Fan was also in a sorry state, but he soon struggled into a sitting position. He wiped the water off his face and looked toward the middle of the river.

There, three enormous Helicarriers were slowly sinking, the smoke and dust they raised blotting out half the sky.

It looked like the curtain falling on an old era, and like the beginning of a new one.

"We... survived." Old Dog stared at the spectacular destruction and murmured to himself.

"Yeah." Zhao Fan sensed the dormant engine core inside his system space.

A smile curled his lips.

Just then, a commotion came from the riverbank not far away.

Zhao Fan narrowed his eyes and activated [Weak Energy Perception].

Through the layers of smoke and dust, he saw a familiar figure.

It was Captain America, Steve Rogers. Falcon, who was also badly injured, was dragging him from the water's edge onto the sand beside it. Farther away, another figure staggered into the woods and disappeared-the Winter Soldier.

Steve lay in the mud, his face pale, but he still forced his eyes open and watched the smoke of battle disperse in the sky.

"Is it over..." Steve asked quietly.

"It's over, Cap," Sam panted. "We won."

Zhao Fan watched quietly without approaching, much less disturbing them.

He knew that, for Captain America, this was merely a sorrowful victory.

But for him, Zhao Fan, this was the beginning of his rise.

He stood and pulled Old Dog up.

"Let's go, Old Dog." Zhao Fan's voice was a little weak. "Evelyn and Ben are still waiting for us. We've got a lot to deal with next."