Their side currently had only six people: Wolverine, Storm, Vitas, Kitty, Bobby, and Peter.
A head-on fight? Their chances of winning were practically zero. Wolverine fell silent for a moment.
Then Colossus, Peter, spoke gravely. "But when mutants cause trouble, the X-Men have a responsibility to intervene, contain them, and apprehend them. Otherwise, we can't answer to the outside world."
"Logan is right." Unexpectedly, Chen Xiao nodded in agreement.
Everyone turned to look at him. After his performance that morning, no one dared treat him as a fifteen-year-old boy anymore.
Chen Xiao smiled faintly. "The X-Men do have a duty to combat crimes like these, especially organizations like the Brotherhood of Mutants that openly disrupt public order."
"However..." He paused. "The professor just passed away, and we've lost our most crucial command and intelligence hub. Mr. Scott's serious injuries are also proving difficult to heal, greatly reducing our fighting strength."
"So we need time to regroup and reorganize. If the authorities ask, Ms. Ororo, you can give them that response."
"As for the Brotherhood, I suggest we hold our position for now and watch how things develop."
"Until we understand their true intentions, rushing into a confrontation will only scatter our limited forces and cause even greater losses."
Storm gave a slight nod, a measure of agreement showing on her face.
At this point, Chen Xiao truly did not want to act rashly. Having just completed the final transformation of his Superman genes, he was in a period of explosive growth.
Every extra day he waited brought a substantial leap in strength.
Right now, for instance, in just half a day, his grip strength had soared from 52 tons to 75 tons, while his punching force had broken past the 400-ton mark.
A single day's gains rivaled an entire week in the past. The rate of improvement was staggering, and this was only the beginning.
This was the true pace of Superman's growth.
In truth, there was no fixed standard for what counted as "fast" or "slow."
When Superman first came to Earth, he had been strong as a child, but far from world-shaking. After more than twenty years of ordinary life, his strength remained steady, yet lacked an edge.
By contrast, after Zod and the others arrived, exposure to the yellow sun sent their fighting strength surging in wave after wave.
Then Colossus, Peter, who had remained silent all this time, spoke slowly. "Vitas is right. We really shouldn't act rashly right now."
He recalled Chen Xiao's conversation with Hank that morning. There had been something beneath their words, clearly hinting that the school was nowhere near as peaceful as it appeared.
Kitty raised her hand. "I'll go along with everyone."
Iceman nodded. "Holding steady and responding to their moves is the safest option right now."
Wolverine frowned slightly, but ultimately said nothing more.
"Ms. Ororo, please wait."
After the meeting, Chen Xiao caught up with Storm in the hallway.
She turned back with a trace of puzzlement. "Vitas, did you need something?"
Chen Xiao nodded and asked, "I heard the professor mention that he had a twin brother who had been in a deep coma since childhood, with someone specifically assigned to care for him."
Storm thought briefly. "Yes, that's true."
"Then, ma'am, do you know where the professor's brother is now?"
"Well... I really don't know." Storm frowned in thought for a moment, then gently shook her head.
She only remembered the professor casually mentioning his brother once during a conversation. He had never explained where exactly his brother was, what he was doing, or even whether he was still alive. She truly could not answer that question.
"I see."
Chen Xiao looked a little disappointed. He had intended to visit that long-comatose patient and see whether he could find any traces of Professor X transferring his consciousness.
Storm suddenly caught on. Her gaze sharpened, fixing directly on Chen Xiao. "Vitas, why are you suddenly asking about this... did you discover something?"
Her lips parted slightly, her face filled with shock and disbelief.
"Shh."
Chen Xiao raised an index finger to his lips, quickly scanned their surroundings, and lowered his voice. "Ms. Ororo, do you remember the theory of 'consciousness transfer' the professor mentioned years ago?"
Storm's breath caught. She nodded emphatically, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the hem of her clothes.
Chen Xiao continued, "With the professor's decades of research into the mind, even if his body were completely destroyed, his consciousness wouldn't necessarily be truly extinguished."
"In a moment of mortal danger, he could very well have voluntarily separated his consciousness and transferred it through some means, achieving another form of 'rebirth.'"
"And the ideal, safest host would be..."
He did not finish, but Storm already understood. Her whole body trembled slightly, her fingertips were ice-cold, and her chest rose and fell rapidly.
"Ms. Ororo? Ms. Ororo?"
"Huh? Oh... Vitas, was there anything else?" She abruptly came back to herself, but a light long absent had already kindled in her eyes.
Chen Xiao reminded her, "This is only a theory of mine. The chances are very small, so don't take it as fact."
"Also, to guard against anything unexpected, the fewer people who know about this, the better. After all, not everyone hopes the professor will return."
"I understand." Storm's voice steadied, her gaze resolute. "This stays between you and me."
As she turned to leave, her steps were much lighter. Along the way, scattered details from the past kept connecting in her mind: the professor's unusual concern for his brother, the several times he had fallen silent on the verge of saying something, and that old laboratory kept locked year-round... The more she thought about it, the more she felt Chen Xiao's deduction held up.
Watching her straight-backed figure recede, Chen Xiao stood still for a moment before turning toward the student dormitory himself.
He had approached Storm partly to try his luck and see whether he could uncover any clues. More importantly, he wanted to give her something to hold on to. As the person effectively steering the school right now, she could not fall apart.
As for their conversation just now, he was certain: no one had heard it, and no one could have spied on them.
Before speaking, he had already fully extended his five senses to cover the entire campus. Any unusual attempt to approach, eavesdrop, or spy would not have escaped his perception.
The instant he pushed open his dorm room door, Chen Xiao froze, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Inside, a black-haired girl was curled up on his bed, her arms wrapped around her knees like a frightened little animal.
"Clarice, why are you on my bed again?" He pressed a hand to his forehead. "If someone saw you, it'd be hard to explain."
"Oh..."
She answered quietly, tilting her face up. Her large, moist eyes watched him silently, her shoulders slightly tense with unease.
Chen Xiao sighed, closed the door behind him, and sat on the edge of the bed, his voice gentle. "Weren't you fine this morning? Why are you so down now?"
Her voice was very soft. "This morning, lots of people were saying the school was going to close, and the teachers would be leaving one after another..."
"I started wondering where I could go if the school really broke up."
"Then I realized I had nowhere to go except here. I have nothing." As she finished, her head drooped lower, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her nightdress.
She had wandered from place to place with her adoptive father since childhood. After he died, she was completely alone. This one school was her entire home.
Chen Xiao reached out and rubbed the top of her head. "Don't be scared. The school won't close."
"Even if that day really comes, don't panic. You'll still have me. You're the girl I picked, after all. Once you're two years older, I'll officially marry you."
He paused, blinked, and gave her a teasing smile. "Where I'm from, the old term for this is 'child bride'-raising you from childhood and waiting as you grow."
"Ch-child bride?!" Her cheeks flared red, her mouth hanging slightly open as words failed her.
Chen Xiao nodded with a smile. "That's right. A child bride."
As he spoke, he raised his hand to stroke the top of her head. The instant his fingertips touched her soft black hair, her entire body stiffened, and she even held her breath.
"Th-th-this..."
Before she could finish, Clarice sprang up like a startled rabbit, yanked the door open with a bang, and vanished in a flash.
Chen Xiao leaned against the headboard, unable to suppress a smile.
"Silly girl, always overthinking things."
"If I didn't give you a scare, you'd really think I was easygoing."
The sight of her fleeing in embarrassment improved his mood considerably.
After getting everything in order, he lay down on the bed. With a thought, his consciousness sank into the Virtual Battlefield.
Caught up in miscellaneous matters over the past two days, he had barely set foot here.
Or rather, until he understood the flaws in that saber technique and found a way to counter it, he really did not want to come in and get beaten up.
But today...
On the dim, deathly silent wasteland, Chen Xiao appeared out of thin air. With a tap of his fingertip, he selected [Hard] mode directly.
In an instant, two expressionless middle-aged men stood with sabers in hand. The moment Chen Xiao confirmed the start, two gleaming streaks of saber light tore through the air, slashing toward his face with piercing shrieks!
He did not meet them head-on. He merely angled his body slightly and pivoted lightly, avoiding the blades by a hair.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
All three had similar attributes, their speeds approaching 250 meters per second. Afterimages crisscrossed as they fought like three intertwined bolts of lightning.
Two of them unleashed ferocious saber attacks, their flashing blades weaving an impenetrable net. Space trembled wherever they passed, and the ground repeatedly burst apart. A single shock wave swept past, ripping a jagged fissure more than ten meters long through the earth. Stray sharp energy scraped through the air like broken glass, stinging the skin.
Yet even under the combined assault of two saber grandmasters, Chen Xiao's footwork remained composed throughout.
Amid the sky-filling blade shadows, he pushed his dynamic vision to its limit, his brain working at high speed to calculate thousands of evasive routes every millisecond. Combined with neural reactions and physical coordination far beyond those of ordinary people, as long as he chose not to take a blow head-on, the blades could only skim past the edges of his clothes.
The first strike, the second, the tenth, the fiftieth, the hundredth...
Last time, he had endured a dozen or so strikes head-on, shattered a middle-aged man's saber, and died on the spot. This time, Chen Xiao handled them with ease.
The reason was not that his combat experience had grown more seasoned, but that his brain's processing speed and depth of comprehension had surged dozens or even a hundredfold.
"That vibration isn't simply produced by fast saber strikes. It's a special energy that gives their blades cutting properties like those of a high-frequency vibrating particle blade."
As he dodged, Chen Xiao's gaze sharpened slightly. "This energy... is very unusual. I'll have to make direct contact to truly analyze it."
The moment the thought passed, he abruptly changed direction after retreating all this time. The saber in his hand slashed out like lightning to meet the cold gleam of the incoming blade.
Clang!
The instant the two blades collided, a burst of high-frequency vibration erupted through the middle-aged man's saber, surging along the spine of the blade in an instant.
Bang!
The saber in Chen Xiao's hand shattered, fragments flying in every direction. The violent force also jarred his body to a halt and sent him stumbling.
At that very moment, a second streak of saber light swept diagonally down, straight for his neck.