At her feet, Scott had long since lost consciousness and lay motionless.
Facing Jean Grey's utterly cold eyes, Chen Xiao refused to back down and demanded icily, "Senior Jean, are you really going to kill Mr. Scott with your own hands?"
Before he had finished speaking, the telekinetic power surrounding Jean Grey suddenly fell into disarray, and a flicker of intense struggle crossed her eyes.
"S... Scott..."
Jean lowered her head with difficulty, her gaze falling to her feet. Scott's skin was cracked and gray, his breathing so faint it had almost ceased, with only a thread of breath stirring in his throat. His eyes were sunken, his pupils unfocused. The struggle churning in her eyes grew increasingly fierce, as though her soul were being torn apart.
"Ah!"
A piercing, grating scream suddenly erupted. The raging telekinetic power around Jean burst outward, whipping up a towering hurricane, sending shattered rocks whirling and dust surging into the sky.
Yet that seemingly world-destroying energy stopped short in the blink of an eye, receding as completely as an ebbing tide.
Jean went limp and fell straight to the ground, losing consciousness entirely.
The sudden turn left Storm, Wolverine, and Chen Xiao stunned.
With the crisis over, Chen Xiao let out a long breath and slowly withdrew his ability with a slight shift of thought.
In an instant, all the golden aura surging across his body went out.
Immediately afterward, a piercing sense of exhaustion assaulted every part of his body. His face turned as pale as paper, his legs weakened, and he swayed twice, barely able to remain standing.
He felt as though he had stayed up for several nights and then had every last bit of strength wrung out of him, his entire body drained of muscle, bone, blood, and vitality.
Congratulations, host. Mission accomplished. Gained 2 origin points.
Having just landed, Storm and Wolverine looked at the unconscious Jean and the dying Scott on the ground, then exchanged glances, momentarily unsure where to begin.
It was as though they had come specifically to clean up the aftermath.
Storm glanced at the broken rocks suspended around them, the scorched and cracked ground, and the enormous crater more than ten meters deep at its center. Her voice trembled slightly. "Vitas, that attack just now... was incredible."
They had known Chen Xiao was formidable, but had never expected him to unleash such terrifying power.
When that punch had struck, even she had felt a chill down her spine. Had she taken it head-on, there probably would not have been so much as a bone fragment left.
"Cough..."
Chen Xiao coughed softly and managed a wry smile. "Ms. Ororo, save the praise for later. If we delay any longer, Mr. Scott really won't make it."
"Right, saving them comes first!"
The two immediately snapped into action, one picking up Jean while the other lifted Scott.
Wolverine had just reached out to support Chen Xiao when Chen Xiao hurriedly waved him off. "Mr. Logan, I can still walk."
He did not want to be carried bridal-style by a tall, powerfully built man.
Whoosh!
Storm and Wolverine blurred into motion, racing toward the black jet parked in the distance, moving as if on the wind as they fought for every second to get back and save them.
Chen Xiao dragged his heavy legs after them, his steps unsteady and sweat beading at his temples.
That blow had indeed been terrifyingly powerful, but its cost had been astonishingly steep as well, nearly draining all his strength.
Rumble!
The jet's engines roared, dazzling blue flames blasting from its tail as it rose into the air, cut across the sky, and sped away.
Inside the cabin, Chen Xiao leaned back in his seat, resting with his eyes closed.
Logan opened his mouth, then swallowed every question he had wanted to ask.
Yet although Chen Xiao appeared weak, he had actually already recovered somewhat. He quietly brought up his attribute panel to examine the rewards from this mission and the changes to his abilities.
Host: Chen Xiao (Vitas Chen) Race: Human Level: One star Bloodline: Krypton Superman "Bronze Age" Constitution: 1680 Spirit: 872 Strength: 1820 "Grip strength: 25 tons" Agility: 1752 "Normal running speed: 200 meters/second; burst speed: up to 410 meters/second" Abilities: Heat rays "Properties: temperatures of 1,500-3,500°C, with a powerful impact effect"; flight "Levitation and high-speed movement" X-Gene ability: Energy Fission "Level two; chain excitation of energy within the body, capable of explosive output" Origin points: 2 Functions: Virtual Battlefield; storage space "1 × 1"
Only two days had passed since the research institute operation, and one of those days had been overcast, so Chen Xiao's attribute gains had been limited, with only his constitution increasing by over four hundred points.
But those four hundred-plus constitution points were equivalent to more than forty times an ordinary person's constitution, already an extraordinarily frightening increase.
The other values had changed little.
However, the speed range listed after agility had clearly expanded, changing from its original single value to between 200 and 410 meters per second.
The reason was clear: the former was his normal movement limit, while the latter was the instantaneous peak reached during the burst following his second awakening.
His gaze passed over the basic statistics, and Chen Xiao focused his attention on his advanced X-Gene ability.
Its name had changed from "Energy Berserk" to "Energy Fission."
The instant his awareness touched this ability, a flood of information automatically poured into his mind:
Fission was not simple amplification. It triggered a chain reaction in the energy within his body, producing an exponential increase in an extremely short time and unleashing tens or even hundreds of times his normal combat power.
More importantly, the energy after fission was no longer merely an invisible impact. It condensed into a tangible energy stream with a physical blasting effect. This was the real reason Chen Xiao had shattered Jean's telekinetic barrier with a single punch.
Recalling that moment, he roughly estimated that Level Two Fission provided at least twenty times the amplification of Level One Berserk.
What did that mean?
His base strength of fifty tons had already reached two hundred and fifty tons after the fivefold amplification of Level One Berserk; stacking the twentyfold amplification of Level Two Fission on top of that instantly broke through the ten-thousand-ton threshold, and that was only in terms of raw strength.
More crucially, the nature of the energy in his fission state had transformed, turning from intangible to tangible, from yielding to unyielding, overbearing and sharp, crushing everything in its path.
During his final confrontation with Jean, his amplification had actually climbed to thirtyfold, or a hundred and fifty times his base strength, along with an explosive penetration effect.
The reason was simple: the longer fission continued, the more fully the energy chain reaction developed, and the more ferocious the amplification became.
At the time, he had vaguely sensed that if he held on longer, the amplification might break through fortyfold, fiftyfold...
As expected of an X-Gene ability after its second evolution, it was suffocatingly powerful.
Precisely because of that, maintaining the fission state for just three minutes had exhausted all his reserves, leaving him as listless as someone recovering from a serious illness.
The root cause was that the two levels of the ability worked in entirely different ways:
Level-one berserk burned the bioenergy accumulated through muscle fibers and cellular metabolism. It remained within the human body's tolerance threshold and could be sustained for a relatively long time;
Moreover, Level Two Fission directly disrupted the underlying structure of energy, drawing on a deeper source of life itself, so its cost was naturally much heavier.
Moreover, what Level Two Fission tore apart was not ordinary energy, but the biological vitality stored deep within his cells. The energy it released in an instant far exceeded that of Level One Fission by several times.
Yet although the human body contained tens of trillions of cells and its metabolism never stopped, there was ultimately an insurmountable physiological threshold. Once crossed, the damage could not be reversed.
Thus, the cellular fission triggered by his second X-Gene awakening was no longer merely overtaxing his stamina, but directly burning his life essence.
That was precisely why this ability possessed such astonishing power.
Terrifyingly strong, but fueled by life.
For ordinary mutants, this would be tantamount to self-destruction; for Chen Xiao, whose cells possessed limitless evolutionary potential, it remained within controllable limits.
He simply could not use it lightly in the future.
Although destroyed cells could regenerate and proliferate through his evolutionary mechanism, frequent use would slow his overall evolution and lower his growth ceiling.
If he maintained that state for too long, exceeding the limits of what his life could currently withstand would endanger his life.
"Jean's vital signs are stable, and her life is not currently at risk, but her brain activity is extremely weak. There's no way to estimate when she'll wake up."
"Scott's vital signs are weak. He needs to be transferred to a life-support pod immediately for treatment. Still, he's out of immediate danger, which is a blessing."
The underground base, medical wing. A group of X-Men had gathered inside the pristine white examination room.
Rogue Anna, Iceman, Colossus, and Shadowcat were all present.
Before them was Professor X, his expression grave.
Behind him, Jean and Scott lay motionless on two wheeled hospital beds.
Anna looked at the two people on the beds, her eyes holding both shock at Jean's return from the dead and uncertainty over Scott's brush with death. "Professor, Jean... why would she..."
She stopped with the words on the tip of her tongue, ultimately leaving "why would she try to kill Scott" unspoken.
Most of the X-Men present felt much the same. After all, three years ago, Jean and Scott had been deeply in love; everyone had seen how much Scott cherished her.
No one had expected that Jean's first reaction upon returning to life after three years of silence would be to attack Scott.
Professor X sighed softly. "Please don't blame Jean for this. That wasn't her will, but her most primal survival instinct."
"Instinct...?" Iceman and the others looked puzzled.
Professor X nodded slowly, repeating Chen Xiao's earlier analysis and adding his own assessment:
Three years ago, Jean had been gravely injured and near death at the bottom of the lake, barely preserving a sliver of life through suspended animation;
Because Scott's ability resonated strongly with hers, his inadvertent approach to the lakeshore had unexpectedly activated her dormant neural pathways;
Driven by instinct, she had subconsciously sought to seize Scott's energy to repair her body, which was on the verge of collapse.
The few who had not yet heard the details immediately exchanged glances. So this terrifying ordeal had happened because Jean had been "starving."
Professor X said gently, "Fortunately, Vitas and the others arrived in time, preventing a tragedy."
"When Jean wakes up, please try to avoid bringing up anything related to this. Don't agitate her."
"Understood."
"All right, Professor." Everyone nodded in agreement.
"That will be all. Go attend to your own affairs. Vitas, sorry for the trouble, but please help wheel Scott to the life-support pod."
"All right."
Professor X dismissed everyone, keeping only Chen Xiao behind to help.
In the corridor, Chen Xiao steadily pushed the hospital bed forward while Professor X rolled slowly beside him in his wheelchair, speaking gently. "Vitas, Ororo and the others mentioned that you unleashed a remarkably powerful surge of golden energy while rescuing Scott."
Chen Xiao nodded slightly. "Yes, Professor. When I arrived at the lake, the telekinetic barrier Senior Jean was unconsciously releasing was so strong that I couldn't even get within three meters of her."
"The situation was desperate. Even half a second later, Mr. Scott might have been completely assimilated and devoured."