Crisis in Jotunheim

The scorch mark on his palm twitched again.

This time it wasn't just one tap, but three in a row, like someone typing Morse code inside. Ye Mo didn't move; his fingers were still resting on the edge of the main control panel, his fingertips tingling. He had just pulled the system log to its maximum, and the message on the screen, "Resonance Lightning Frequency Continues to Decrease," was still refreshing—61.8Hz, 0.5 Hz lower than three minutes ago.

Emma Frost stood beside the Faraday cage, her eyes closed, her skin gleaming with a thin metallic sheen. She didn't open her eyes, but said, "Your heart is racing."

"I know." Ye Mo looked down at his right hand, "It won't listen to me."

"It's not your heartbeat," she said. "It's the rhythm in your head. You're trying to suppress it with your breathing, but it's pushing you back."

Ye Mo didn't refute. He knew what she was talking about. From the moment he started breathing, his palms were out of sync, as if there were two metronomes in his body, one wanting to go fast and the other wanting to go slow, neither giving way to the other.

He raised his left hand and typed a series of commands on the keyboard. The log of the 20th level of the Gene Spiral Tower popped up, and the original waveform of the high-dimensional space Anchor offset filled the screen. The lines were crooked, like broken wires.

He magnified the data from the day Thor activated his God of Thunder powers, comparing the two sets of waveforms side by side. The difference was found—0.7Hz.

Not much, but enough.

"It didn't break naturally," he said. "The bridge was cut open, and precisely. Loki didn't destroy the bridge; he changed the tracks."

Emma Frost opened her eyes, half of her Diamond Form receding. "Change to where?"

"Jotunheim," Ye Mo pointed to an unusual fluctuation on the graph, "Look here, the energy flow has deflected by twelve degrees, directly targeting the gravitational well of the Frost Giants ' homeworld. This isn't a malfunction, it's aiming."

The air went still for a second.

"He's going to blow up the whole planet?" Emma Frost's voice was low.

"It's not an explosion," Ye Mo shook his head. "It's a detonation. The energy from a single charge of the Bifrost is enough to tear apart the Earth's core. He just needs to align the bridge with the core's resonant frequency, and the shockwave will collide with it, causing the entire ley line to collapse."

How many people?

"I don't know, but it won't be less."

Emma Frost didn't ask any more questions. She turned and walked back to the monitoring area, her Mental Network re-deploying, circling the ceiling before finally stopping above the Faraday cage.

"The image I just saw was wrong," she said. "The angle of the light bridge's break was too sharp, like it was cut with scissors. A normal collapse would have a diffuse spread, but this... it was a directional cut, and there was even gravitational traction behind it."

Ye Mo nodded. "So he had already controlled the launch coordinates. The bridge isn't in Asgard's hands; it's his weapon now."

The question is, why did he choose this time to make his move?

"It's not about choosing the right time." Ye Mo stared at the chip. "He's been waiting for this moment for a long time."

He reached out and opened the isolation chamber. The black cube lay quietly on the tray, its surface flashing with blue light, the rhythm perfectly synchronized with the beating of his palm.

"It's not sounding an alarm," he said. "It's simulating. Simulating the seismic frequency of Jotunheim's core. Each jump is a pre-charge rehearsal. Once it's fully synchronized, the bridge is fully charged, and the attack is automatically triggered."

"So this thing is a countdown?"

"It's an alarm clock." Ye Mo closed the cabin door. "Or he set it himself."

Emma Frost was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "You don't believe this is a trap?"

"I believe him," Ye Mo, looking at the screen, "But I believe in Loki's character even more. He never kills someone directly. He prefers to let people watch the ending unfold step by step, and even calculate the time themselves. It doesn't feel like a trap; it feels like showing off."

So what do you plan to do?

"We can't let him proceed according to plan." Ye Mo pulled up the access control tree diagram. "We have two problems now. First, how do we interrupt the synchronization? Second, how do we avoid dragging the other eight realms into this mess?"

Can you touch the bridge?

"I can't touch it. My lightning is divine energy borrowed from others; it can't even enter the passage."

"Can I send a mental signal?"

"The Asgard's barrier will stop you. Forcing your way through will result in a mental breakdown."

They both stopped at the same time.

No one spoke.

The base lights were a dark red, indicating a level three defense system. All external communications were cut off, with only passive eavesdropping allowed. The sound of the wind outside was completely inaudible, as if the base were encased in a glass dome.

Ye Mo's right hand twitched again, this time accompanied by a surge of heat rushing up his arm. He gritted his teeth, pressed his left hand to his temple, and a purple light flashed before his eyes.

"Are you still holding on?" Emma Frost asked.

"I won't die." He let go, "But my head feels like it's being drilled."

Don't try to tough it out.

"If I don't carry it, who will?" he chuckled. "We can't just wait for Tony to come and fix the router."

Emma Frost didn't laugh. She walked over to him and grabbed his right wrist. The moment their skin touched, she frowned.

"Your nerves are conducting in the reverse," she said. "It's not that they follow you, it's that you're being led by them."

"I know."

"If this continues, you'll become the receiver, not the user."

"Then let's try a different approach." He withdrew his hand and opened the memory cache. "I need to look at what happened before."

What are you looking at?

"Thor," Ye Mo clicked on a video, "He mentioned Jotunheim and Loki's background. I didn't pay attention then, but now that I think about it, there might be clues hidden in it."

The scene flashed before his eyes. It was the night a few months ago, when Thor had just regained his divine power. He was sitting on the ruins, drinking and muttering words that no one could understand. Ye Mo dragged the progress bar and found the key paragraph.

[Audio excerpt: Thor talking to himself while drunk]

"... When Loki was little, he always asked me why his father kidnapped the children of Jotunheim... He said those Frost Giants were children too, just different-looking... Later I realized he wasn't asking them, he was asking himself..."

Ye Mo paused.

"Wait a minute," Emma Frost leaned closer, "You're saying Loki is Frost Giants?"

"No," Ye Mo shook his head. "He was taken in by Odin, and his identity has always been ambiguous. But this statement shows that he empathizes with Jotunheim. He couldn't have wiped out his race for no reason."

"Unless... he wants to prove something."

"Yes." Ye Mo's eyes darkened. "He wasn't trying to kill anyone; he wanted to prove he wasn't one of them. He was afraid people would call him a monster, so he took action first and wiped out the 'monster's home.' This wasn't revenge; it was self-defense."

"He's gone mad."

"Not madness," Ye Mo sneered, "But ruthlessness. He knows that as long as Jotunheim is gone, no one will dare mention his origins again. Then he can rightfully become the King of Asgard."

"But the price is the entire race."

"It's not important to him." Ye Mo turned off the video. "We now know why he did it, but we don't know how to stop him."

Is that chip still usable?

"Yes," Ye Mo, looking at the Faraday cage, "But it's now an extension of the Loki system. If we force our way in, it's like handing over our own consciousness."

Are there any other entrances?

"Yes." He suddenly looked up, "Thor."

"Didn't he return to the Asgard?"

"But he's bound to the Bifrost by a contract. As long as he acknowledges himself as God of Thunder, his authority remains within the bridge. If we can use my lightning abilities to simulate his signal characteristics, perhaps we can fool the system and insert interference commands."

"Can you imitate him?"

"No," Ye Mo shook his head. "But I can borrow his 'shadow.' I've been struck by his lightning and hit by his hammer; I have fragments of ability stored in my system. If I piece them together, it should be enough."

What about the risks?

"At best, it'll cause amnesia; at worst, brain death." He shrugged. "Same old rule, don't blame the system if you die."

Emma Frost stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "You've changed."

"Um?"

"You used to always say, 'The system is telling me to run,' but now you're willingly jumping into the fire."

"There's no other way." He looked down at his right hand. "This time, it's not about saving my own life, it's about preventing others from dying."

My palm twitched again.

This time it's blue.

The frequency dropped to 61.5Hz.

He didn't move, continuing to type with his left hand, archiving and categorizing all the memory fragments related to Thor, preparing to replay and analyze them one by one. His body was exhausted, but his mind was clear. He knew he couldn't win this battle, but he had to try.

Emma Frost stood against the wall, saying nothing more. She closed her eyes, her Mental Network maintaining a minimum energy level, like an invisible shell enveloping him and the entire base.

In the corner of the monitor screen, the system log refreshes automatically:

[Resonance Lightning frequency deviation detected, current value: 61.5Hz, estimated time remaining until critical synchronization: 2 hours 47 minutes]

Ye Mo stared at the line of text, his finger hovering over the Enter key.

He didn't press it.

He knew that once the parsing started, it was equivalent to starting a countdown.

He wasn't ready.

But it must begin.

He took a deep breath and entered the command:

"Retrieve all of Thor's dialogue records, filtered by keywords: Jotunheim, Loki, childhood, frost, bloodline."

The screen flickers briefly, then loading begins.

The first paragraph pops up:

[Thor, Battle of New York, in a hospital corridor]

"Loki isn't a bad person... he just desperately wants to be seen."

Ye Mo stared at that sentence, his right hand suddenly trembling.

A blue light flashed twice in my palm.

It's like a response.