Emma Frost lifted her hand from the ground, and the shield receded into her body like a receding tide. Her knees buckled, and she almost knelt down, but Ye Mo quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her to his side. Her breathing was heavy, and her face was pale, but she didn't speak.
Thor stood still, his hammer still embedded in the ground in front of him. He looked up at the sky; the wreckage of the mothership was stuck in the clouds, emitting black smoke, but the portal was still flashing, with spacecraft occasionally emerging and then disappearing, as if waiting for orders.
"They're gone," Thor said.
"It's not leaving, it's retreating." Ye Mo stared at a half-collapsed building in the distance. Just a moment ago, he saw Loki. It wasn't a hallucination; it was a real mental fluctuation—the other party hadn't fled at all; instead, he was laughing.
He closed his eyes and maximized the range of his Telepathy. Tony's signal was getting closer and closer; his heartbeat was stable, and his vital signs were normal. The nuclear crisis was over. But another signal was hidden deep in the underground passage, weak and intermittent, carrying traces of magic, and perfectly matching Loki's aura.
"No, that wasn't right." Ye Mo opened his eyes. "That attack just now was fake."
Emma Frost leaned against the broken wall, panting, "What does that mean?"
"They're testing us." Ye Mo touched his right arm; the skin was still somewhat translucent, but it wasn't getting any worse. "The firepower is heavy, the rhythm is chaotic, the assault vehicles are charging forward but not fighting desperately, and the aircraft are flanking but not engaging in close combat. This isn't an attack; it's a probe."
Thor frowned. "You mean, the Chitauri have another trick up their sleeve?"
"It wasn't the Chitauri," Ye Mo shook his head. "It was Loki. He wanted to see how long we could hold out, how much strength we had left, and who would fall first. Now he knows the answer."
The words had barely left his lips when a low hum of engines filled the air. A golden-red shadow slid down from a gap in the clouds, landing with a series of metallic clicks from its armor. Tony removed his helmet; his face was covered in sweat, and the thruster on his right shoulder was still smoking.
"I'm back." He took a breath. "Are you guys having a tea party here? The area outside is practically a barbecue stand."
No one responded to his joke.
Ye Mo looked him straight in the eye. "Are you alright?"
"They can't blow me up." Tony waved his hand. "I flung the nuclear bomb into the ionosphere, and the mothership didn't self-destruct. It's not a perfect score, but it's passable. What's wrong? Something happened?"
" Loki didn't run away," Ye Mo said. "He's right down there, watching us."
Tony's expression changed. "What else did you see?"
"He smiled," Ye Mo said in a low voice, "Not the kind of smile that comes from losing desperately, but the smile of someone who has successfully schemed."
Emma Frost suddenly spoke up, "I sensed it too. There's magical fluctuation in the underground passage, the same frequency Loki uses. But he didn't leave, nor did he strengthen the signal, like... he's waiting for someone."
Tony looked around. "Wait, you mean that attack we just desperately held off was actually a smokescreen? The real trouble isn't here yet?"
"That's exactly what I mean." Ye Mo nodded.
Thor gripped the hammer handle tightly. "If he still has ulterior motives, we should take the initiative and capture him."
"No," Emma Frost immediately objected. "The underground structure is complex; traps are most easily set in those places. Besides, we're all in poor condition; pursuing them rashly is too risky."
"So you're just going to leave me here waiting?" Thor raised his voice, "Let him do whatever he wants with his troops?"
"It's not 'waiting,'" Ye Mo interrupted, "it's 'observing.'"
He closed his eyes and activated his Telepathy once more, this time not scanning for surface emotions, but delving into the flow of energy. Although the mothership was out of control, there were still faint energy pulses at its bottom, forming an almost invisible connection with the portal. And the end of this line was the entrance to the underground passage in the old city.
"Found it." Ye Mo opened his eyes. "There's a backup control system between the mothership and the portal, hidden underground. Loki didn't intend to win by force; he wanted to use this system to restart the entire intrusion program."
Tony reacted the fastest. "So he deliberately gave us a false impression, letting us see him down there, just to lure us in?"
"Possibly," Ye Mo nodded, "But why would he expose himself? If he only wanted to secretly activate the system, he could have kept it hidden. Unless..."
"Unless he needs us to go in," Emma Frost interjected, "Some kind of ritual, array, or trigger condition requires someone to enter that area to activate it."
"Or," Tony sneered, "The person he's waiting for is me."
All three of them looked at him.
"Don't forget, during the Battle of New York, I was the one who sent the nuclear bomb into the portal." Tony pointed to the reactor in his chest. "He's been annoyed with me for a long time. Maybe this is all aimed at me. Everything before was just a setup, to lure me in, close the door, and play with me slowly."
Ye Mo was silent for a few seconds. "Then we can't go along with his pace."
"But we can't do nothing," Thor said. "The mothership isn't destroyed, the portal isn't closed, and the enemy could attack again at any time. We have to make a choice."
The scene quieted down.
Everyone is thinking about the next step.
Tony spoke first, "Two steps. I'll go up in the air and keep an eye on the mothership to prevent it from suddenly reviving. The three of you will investigate the ground. But remember, don't go too far, and maintain communication."
"Are you sure you can manage on your own?" Emma Frost asked.
"My armor can still fly, my reactor still has power, and I'm good at talking." Tony put on his helmet. "As long as they don't make me shut up, I won't die."
Thor looked at Ye Mo: "You lead the way?"
Ye Mo didn't answer. Instead, he walked to a broken cement slab, squatted down, and ran his fingers across the ground. There was a shallow mark there, as if something had dragged it, with a faint green glow at the edges. He leaned closer and smelled it; it smelled like ozone mixed with rust.
"These are the remnants of Asgard incantations," he said. " Loki used a short-lived mark, indicating he passed through here recently and wasn't in a hurry."
"So he really was waiting," Emma Frost said.
"And he knew we were coming." Ye Mo stood up, brushing the dust off his hands. "The question is, was he waiting for Tony, or something else?"
"Who cares who he's waiting for?" Thor picked up his hammer. "Since he wants us in, we'll go in. But not now."
"Yes." Ye Mo nodded. "We're going in now to deliver the vegetables. We need to figure out the structure of that control system first, and see if we can interfere with it remotely."
Tony was already in the air. "I'm going up to check if there's any usable equipment in the mothership wreckage. You guys wait for my news."
He had only taken a few meters into the air when Ye Mo suddenly called out to him, " Tony!"
"What's wrong?"
"You just said the nuclear bomb was thrown into the ionosphere?"
"Yeah, we can't blow up the Earth, we can't just let it explode in the city, can we?"
"Have you confirmed that it really disintegrated?"
Tony paused, then said, "Well... I wasn't watching that closely."
Ye Mo's eyes darkened. " Loki isn't a god; he can't create things out of thin air. If he really has a backup plan, it will likely require an external energy source. And a nuclear bomb that hasn't completely detonated is just enough."
The air suddenly turned cold.
"You mean..." Tony's voice tightened, "He's going to use nuclear bombs as batteries?"
"I don't know." Ye Mo stared at the sky, "But I'm sure he wouldn't have relied solely on that underground system to tamper with things. There must be a second, a third line of communication. What we've seen is probably just the tip of the iceberg."
Tony didn't say anything more, and immediately increased altitude, flying towards the mothership wreckage.
On the ground, three people stood in the center of the ruins.
Emma Frost sat against the wall, closing her eyes to recover her strength. Thor stood in front, his hammer on the ground, his gaze fixed on the entrance to the underground passage. Ye Mo stood between the two, holding the silver-rimmed glasses in his hand, wiping the lenses one by one.
He can't actually see things clearly in the distance; he wears glasses simply to appear calmer. Whenever his mind races, he habitually touches his glasses, as if pressing a pause button on his brain.
Right now, his mind is racing.
Why is Loki laughing?
Why leave traces intentionally?
Why choose this particular time to launch a feint attack?
There's only one answer—he's waiting for a variable.
This variable hasn't appeared yet.
" Ye Mo." Emma Frost suddenly opened her eyes. "What did you discover?"
"I'm thinking," he said softly, "If I were Loki, how would I turn a defeat into a victory?"
"By trickery," Thor said.
"Damn it, chaos," Emma Frost said.
"Relying on others to make mistakes." After saying this, Ye Mo looked up at the sky.
Tony's figure had become a tiny dot.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something moving in the shadows at the entrance to the underground passage.
It wasn't a human figure.
It's a string of numbers.
The numbers engraved on the wall: 04:17:33
Countdown is on.