Just as he opened his mouth, before he could make a sound, Jean suddenly called softly, "Scott."
Before her voice faded, she rose onto her toes and kissed him.
The unexpected intimacy made Scott freeze. But that soft warmth lasted only an instant before a suffocatingly violent suction erupted between their lips!
The laser energy inside him poured out like a flood bursting through a dam. His face turned deathly pale, veins bulging at his temples. "Jean... it's me, Scott!"
Right before him was her familiar yet unfamiliar face, but the force madly draining his power was like a silent noose. His eyes filled with shock and confusion. Why was she attacking him?
As she devoured his energy, Jean's aura climbed steadily, growing so intense it was almost tangible. The laws governing the valley began to distort: vapor rising from the lake surged wildly toward her, swallowing the entire valley in moments; stones silently lifted from the ground and hung in midair, as though gravity had been abruptly cut off; even the sky seemed to sag, weighing heavily on their hearts.
At that moment, the Blackbird was sweeping over Alkali Lake. Ten thousand meters above the ground, Chen Xiao had already gripped his armrest without needing Storm's warning. Ahead, amid the rolling mountains, a sea of mist churned, violent winds tore at the clouds, and thick gray-white vapor blanketed tens of kilometers.
Before they could draw close, a vast telekinetic force struck like a giant hammer, making the cockpit instruments buzz.
Chen Xiao sprang to his feet and rushed to the front window. Staring at the pillar of mist surging skyward below, he knitted his brows. "It's already started."
Storm could barely contain her excitement, her voice trembling slightly. "This telekinesis... it's so powerful! And Jean's aura. She really survived?"
"Ms. Ororo, don't celebrate yet," Chen Xiao said rapidly. "Mr. Scott is being drained. Open the hatch now!"
Storm froze. "Vitas, you're going to jump? We're ten thousand meters up. Isn't that suicide?"
"I know what I'm doing." Chen Xiao's gaze was unwavering. "By the time we circle down, find somewhere flat to land, and get over there, Scott won't be able to hold on."
He could not wait another moment for those 2 Origin points.
"...All right." Looking at his tense jaw and the destructive aura roiling in the distance, Storm gritted her teeth and nodded.
Sitting in the back, Logan could only clench his fists and glare. However powerful his regeneration was, he could not fly. A ten-thousand-meter fall? He would be smashed to pulp first, and by the time he healed, it would all be over.
Whoosh!
The aircraft slowed, and the hatch thundered open. Wind poured inside, fierce enough that they could barely open their eyes.
The instant the hatch opened, Chen Xiao shot out! With a dull boom, his dark silhouette tore through the air and plunged straight down.
The shriek beside his ears was like a blade, and the mountains and earth expanded wildly in his vision. In less than ten seconds, his altitude had dropped to a little over five thousand meters, his speed approaching the sound barrier.
At that critical moment, he flung out his arms. The faint force field within him surged, resonating with Earth's magnetic field to counter his descent, abruptly slowing his fall. Then he turned sideways to adjust his angle, riding the airflow in a diagonal glide straight toward the lakeshore.
His extraordinary vision pierced the mist, and he saw it immediately: enormous waves churned across the lake, while the two people on shore were still pressed together, their lips and tongues entwined. Strands of scarlet light were being drawn relentlessly out of Scott and swallowed by Jean.
Still more than three thousand meters away, Chen Xiao threw back his head and roared, "Jean! Are you trying to kill Mr. Scott?!"
The cry burst forth with the full force of his lungs, making the air hum and even the clouds tremble.
But there was no response from below.
Faster! A little faster!
At that moment, even his supersonic speed of four hundred meters per second felt like a snail's crawl.
Bang!
A dozen or so seconds later, Chen Xiao cleaved through the curtain of mist like a falcon and plunged straight down.
Wind lashed around him. With only fifty meters remaining before the ground, his eyes suddenly blazed, and two searing red beams erupted from them!
As his strength soared, his Heat Ray had grown far more powerful, its range long since exceeding forty meters.
Boom!
Still three meters short of the pair, the beams slammed into an invisible barrier, bursting into dazzling red light!
Just as I thought. A telekinetic shield.
The red light in Chen Xiao's eyes abruptly vanished. The dormant power within him roared awake, his X-Gene fully activated!
In an instant, his muscles and bones roared, transparent energy gushed forth, his muscles bulged, and power surged into his right fist.
Fifteen tons of grip strength, multiplied fivefold by his gene amplification-over two hundred tons! With the kinetic energy of his sonic-speed dive added on top, the force gathered at his fist exceeded a thousand tons!
A thousand tons of force compressed onto the tiny surface of his fist made even him feel as though the bones in his hand were about to split.
In his perception, the air beneath his fist had solidified into an iron wall. Every inch he advanced produced a thunderous blast of friction.
This highly compressed energy had undergone a fundamental transformation, turning from intangible to tangible and forming a ring of blazing, dazzling crimson-gold flame around his fist.
At that moment, Chen Xiao poured everything he had into one fierce punch!
Boom!
The instant his punch erupted, the air several meters below him was pulverized. Layers of visible, transparent shock waves burst outward, carrying mountain-shattering, earth-rending force straight down from the sky.
Boom!
Just as his fist came within three meters of Scott and Jean's heads, a blood-dark red telekinetic barrier, translucent as glass, abruptly appeared.
The supremely concentrated force of his punch slammed down. The barrier caved in on impact, forcibly compressed into a transparent depression half a meter deep!
But in that split second, Jean Grey abruptly raised her eyes. Her pupils were pitch-black, and black, cobweb-like markings appeared across her face. Her expression was as cold and savage as an asura's as her indifferent gaze swept over Chen Xiao.
In an instant, an even more ferocious torrent of telekinesis, carrying an even stronger sense of annihilation, exploded from her body!
Boom!
Chen Xiao tasted blood in his throat. Before his muffled grunt had faded, that tremendous force had already hurled him away.
Boom! Boom! Boom!!
Like an armor-piercing shell tearing across the sky, he left explosive air currents and a shattered sound barrier in his wake, hurtling a hundred meters at subsonic speed and smashing through several thick oak trees before crashing heavily into the woods.
"Cough... cough!"
Chen Xiao braced himself against the ground and coughed twice, then staggered to his feet and wiped a trace of blood from his mouth.
Fortunately, though that destructive power was strong, the toughness of his muscles and bones was extraordinary as well.
His blood merely churned and his organs shook slightly; he had suffered no actual damage.
"As expected of the Mutant widely acknowledged to have the greatest potential... The Phoenix Force hasn't truly awakened yet, and she's already this powerful."
He gazed toward Jean Grey, who was still holding Scott tightly in the distance, his expression as grim as iron.
As he was now, he had not managed to shake her telekinetic barrier in the slightest.
"Jean is in a state of confused consciousness right now. Killing Scott isn't what she wants. It's her instinctive, frenzied hunger for energy."
"Otherwise, when she woke up at the base later, she wouldn't have lost control on the spot just because Wolverine casually asked whether Scott was safe."
"The only way to save Scott is to break through that barrier and forcibly bring her back to her senses."
At that thought, Chen Xiao suddenly paused.
That last strike had already been the greatest burst of power he could muster in his current state. Diving from the sky, he had reached several times his normal speed, bringing its power close to his peak.
Without an outside boost, he could not shake that barrier at all.
With a thought, he brought up his attribute interface. His gaze settled on the 1 Origin point he had left untouched. His fingertip hesitated, and his expression dimmed slightly.
He had remained undecided about this Origin point: should he strengthen his ability immediately, or save it for later to accelerate his transformation into Silver Superman's physique?
Now, he had no choice.
The only way to make his strength surge right now was to enhance his X-Gene ability.
Level-one "Energy Berserk" allowed him to enter a full-power burst state, multiplying his strength fivefold and generating a highly resilient energy shield.
Just how powerful would it become after being enhanced?
There was no time to waste.
Chen Xiao's gaze sharpened, and he barked, "1 Origin point. Enhance my X-Gene ability!"
As his words fell, that Origin point on the interface vanished instantly.
The next second, a mysterious, indescribable power exploded from his dantian. Like a spark setting a prairie ablaze, it instantly ignited the long-dormant X-Gene chains within him.
Boom!
It was as though a miniature nuclear fusion reaction had detonated inside him. Endless energy surged forth!
This energy was purer and more aggressive, as violent as molten lava and as domineering as thunder.
From invisible, it turned pale gold, becoming spiraling waves of air that surged skyward around him, billowing and churning.
The raging airflow hurled away the surrounding branches, leaves, and vegetation, leaving not a blade of grass within three meters. Even the air overhead was expelled, forming a dome of vacuum.
His pupils, the tips of his hair, and even the surface of his skin faintly shone with a flowing golden radiance, as though a god had descended into the world.
At that moment, Chen Xiao's pressure was like a mountain, his presence like a blade. Even Jean Grey in the distance could not help glancing over, her cold eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at him.
He lowered his eyes, his golden pupils reflecting his open hands. Then he raised his head, his blade-like gaze piercing straight toward Jean Grey.
Boom!
The ground beneath his feet abruptly shattered, sending stones flying!
Chen Xiao's figure flashed. In an instant, he crossed dozens of meters at a supersonic speed approaching four hundred meters per second, abruptly appearing before Jean Grey and Scott.
He clenched his right hand, golden light blazing around his fist as all the tremendous strength in his body poured into that single punch,
To Wolverine and Storm, who were rushing toward them, Chen Xiao, wreathed in surging golden flames, seemed to be holding up a blazing sun as he smashed down at Jean Grey with overwhelming force!
Before his fist arrived, that sky-scorching, earth-rending pressure made Jean Grey's pupils abruptly contract. Cold light flashed in her eyes, and the telekinetic power around her boiled!
Boom!! Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
The instant his fist struck the barrier, golden and red light collided violently, erupting into a nearly blinding glare!
An earth-shaking explosion rang out,
A pillar of light dozens of meters high shot into the sky. Golden flames and scarlet light intertwined and churned, forming an enormous sphere of light more than ten meters across that illuminated the entire lakeshore as brightly as day!
The shock wave that followed swept in every direction,
The earth cracked and shuddered, vegetation turned to powder, and dust rose into walls several meters high. Stones and gravel shot over a hundred meters like cannonballs, the sheer force utterly terrifying!
The sight left Storm and Wolverine dumbstruck. They could scarcely believe this was power a human could wield.
After an unknown length of time, the raging wind gradually subsided, and the dust slowly settled.
The two focused their eyes and saw a charred crater more than ten meters wide on the lakeshore.
On one side of the crater's rim, Chen Xiao stood motionless as a mountain. Golden flames still surged around him, his aura even fiercer and more oppressive than before, his cold gaze locked on the opposite side.
There, Jean Grey stood at the crater's edge, dark red telekinetic power as thick as blood swirling around her body. A destructive aura rolled off her as she faced Chen Xiao from afar.