Ye Mo opened his eyes, the Vibranium fragment still pressed against his palm. The tremor was too slight, like someone tapping on a keyboard on his nerve endings. He didn't move or make a sound, but instead sank his consciousness into the nineteenth level of the Gene Spiral Tower, bringing up the background log of the Pseudo-Personality Simulation Program.
The data stream ran through my mind; the timing of the 0.5 Hz fluctuation and the fragment tremor perfectly overlapped. It wasn't a coincidence; it was contact. The other party had indeed followed the false signal and moved in.
He extracted this waveform separately and inserted it into the newly assembled "group perception + language residue" fusion module for reverse scanning. This thing was something he had created using fragments of Emma Frost's abilities; its principle was to catch the noise at the tail of other people's emotions. Now it started to spew something out—a three-second-long low-frequency reverberation, like someone burping in Morse code.
Ye Mo frowned. This sound was strange; it didn't sound like human language, nor like the bioelectrical response when Mutants's abilities were activated. It was closer to a regular heartbeat, but the rhythm was too steady, too steady for a living being.
He casually pulled up the global Mutants energy fluctuation database for the past 72 hours and set a fuzzy matching condition: frequency close to 0.5 Hz, duration not exceeding three seconds, and location without fixed heat source or electromagnetic interference.
The system refreshed for two minutes and displayed three red dots. All of them were located in northern Siberia, near a cluster of abandoned weather stations. The first one appeared at 2:07 AM yesterday, the second at the same time today, and the third just fifteen minutes ago, right after the first release of the pseudo-consciousness field.
27-hour interval.
Ye Mo's fingers paused. He remembered this number. Loki's average recovery period after each failure was 27 days. Now it was in hours? Was it a coincidence, or was the other party imitating him?
He immediately activated the " Memory Resonance " function, replaying all the mental confrontations he had with Loki before. He focused on the pre-casting emotional characteristics of Loki: that cold yet playful feeling, the strong sense of pressure but not impatience, like a cat watching a mouse.
He input this psychological template into the monitoring system and set it as a real-time comparison parameter. Whenever a similar fluctuation occurs again, the system will automatically flag it.
After finishing, he leaned back in his chair, his neck cracking. Eight hours of continuous high-intensity work had made his brain feel hot. The image in front of him flickered slightly, as if the screen refresh rate couldn't keep up. He closed his eyes for three seconds, then opened them again; everything was normal.
We can't stop. Every minute we waste now means the other side takes one more step.
He opened the mind sandbox and projected a map of the Siberia weather station into it. This area had been abandoned thirty years ago; no one lived there, and there were no signal towers. Logically, there shouldn't be any energy activity. Yet, the three flashes were all concentrated on the third underground level of Sector B3, which was originally a secret observation room during the Soviet Union era.
Ye Mo activated the combined ability of " Wall Phasing Technique + Spatial Perception " and simulated the infiltration route in the sand table. He first entered through the ventilation duct on the east side, avoiding the old monitoring cameras in the main passage; then he moved close to the wall, using the building structure to block the heat source signal; finally, he descended to area B3 and used the Neural Silence mode to shield his brainwaves from leakage.
He pre-loaded a "silent intrusion protocol," which included suppressing the heart rate to below 40, adjusting body temperature to match the environment, and increasing the respiratory rate to six breaths per minute. This program has not yet been tested in practice, but data models show a success rate of 78%.
Once he confirmed that it was their hideout, he took action. Not by arresting, but by destroying. These things hidden in the shadows cannot be allowed to remain.
The sand table had run for the seventh time when a pop-up window suddenly appeared: the sensor in the southeast corner had once again detected a 0.5 Hz fluctuation. This time it lasted for 1.2 seconds, longer than before. The source direction was still directly facing where he was sitting.
Ye Mo immediately switched back to the real-world interface, swiping his finger across the consciousness interface to overlay the data from this instance with the previous three. The frequencies were similar, the phases were identical, and even the shapes of the harmonic distortions were the same. This wasn't a random disturbance; it was the same person knocking on the door.
And he knew where the door was.
Ye Mo didn't call the police or notify anyone. Exposing himself now would only alert the enemy. He wanted them to think he was still fishing, when in fact he had already changed his fishing rod.
He stored the encrypted package containing the Siberia coordinates in a separate storage area, marking it as "high-risk and awaiting exploration." Then he closed the sandbox simulation interface, but did not exit the system. His finger was still gently sliding along the edge of the consciousness interface, ready to restart the scan at any time.
He was exhausted. His eyes were dry, his throat was tight, and his ribs felt heavy, as if something was pressing down on them. But he couldn't sleep. If he fell asleep, his memories might be altered when he woke up.
He recalled that low-frequency lingering sound from earlier. It sounded like a heartbeat, but too regular. A normal heartbeat has slight fluctuations, which is the autonomic nervous system at work. But that sound didn't. It was as steady as a machine, yet it had a biological quality, like... some kind of hybrid.
He suddenly realized something: if the other party could attach to Vibranium fragments, could it also spread through other metals? For example, armor parts, communication devices, or even the city's power grid?
He immediately pulled up a list of all metal objects connected to the base's systems, from screws to server racks, and labeled them all with temporary isolation tags. He then performed a low-level test on his wearable device to confirm that no unknown programs had been implanted.
After doing all that, he stared at the main screen. He hadn't told anyone about the green patterns. This thing didn't belong to him, nor to the system. It came from another dimension, another consciousness. And it was right there in his pocket, pressed against his skin.
He didn't know if it could understand what he was thinking, so he didn't think about anything. He maintained only the bare minimum of conscious activity, like a house with the lights off, where no one knew if anyone was inside.
Time ticked by. No new alerts or unusual signals came from the system. The world was eerily quiet.
Ye Mo's fingers continued to slide. He knew the other person was probably watching, waiting for his next move. But he didn't move. He wanted to turn this standoff into an endurance race, to see who blinked first.
Suddenly, the Vibranium fragment trembled again.
This time it wasn't a vibration, but a temperature change. It slowly cooled from room temperature, like a piece of metal just taken out of the Fridge. Ye Mo didn't move, nor did his breathing rhythm change. But he quietly moved up the start time of the pre-loaded intrusion protocol, changing it from "execute after triggering" to "standby immediately".
On the screen, the data stream from the sensor in the southeast corner remained stable. There were no fluctuations, no signal, nothing at all.
But he knew the other party had arrived. Not just a quick glance from the outside, but already inside. Like water seeping into the cracks in bricks, silent and imperceptible, yet the entire structure was deteriorating.
He closed his eyes, and his fingers finally stopped.
The next second, he suddenly opened his eyes and slapped the interface between his consciousness and his body.
"Start up!"
The pre-loaded program was activated instantly. The silent intrusion protocol was fully operational, the heart rate dropped to 40, the body temperature decreased by two degrees, and the brainwave frequency was suppressed to the lowest level. At the same time, he extracted the data from the previous cooling episode and reverse-engineered it into the Pseudo-Personality Simulation Program, creating the illusion that the "host was unconscious."
He wanted the other person to think he had collapsed.
The main screen flashed, and the sand table model unfolded again. The three underground levels of the Siberia weather station were magnified, with red dots flashing.
Ye Mo stared at that spot without saying a word.
His fingers began to slide again.