Ye Mo Awaited the Challenge, but Undercurrents Still Stirred

When the countdown stopped at 27 minutes, Ye Mo released his grip on the Vibranium fragment.

The numbers on the screen were still moving, but he was no longer staring at them.

He pulled up all the defense logs from the past three days, zoomed in on the timeline to the finest detail, and examined them frame by frame. The system hadn't issued any alarms, but he remembered the exact time each fragment cooled down. All three times, all after Thor used the Bifrost. Earth's rotation has a signal blind spot, each lasting four minutes and seventeen seconds. And those three cooling episodes occurred exactly two minutes and three seconds after the blind spot began.

That's incredibly accurate; it's no coincidence.

He encrypted the data, added a watermark, and stored it in a folder that only Emma Frost could open. The trigger condition was set very simply: if the same pattern appeared again, it would be automatically pushed.

This isn't about who to believe or not. Tony believes in the data, Emma Frost believes in her intuition, and Thor believes in the power of God of Thunder —he understands all of that. But some things can't wait until everyone agrees before they're done.

He took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair. On the monitor, Emma Frost was in the training area. She transformed into Diamond Form, then began to vibrate, the frequency increasing. She was simulating some kind of high-frequency wave field, as if trying to penetrate something.

Ye Mo knew what she was practicing.

After their last encounter, Loki's mental imprint almost seeped into her. Emma Frost used her willpower to hold it off, and her shoulder ached for two whole days afterward. Now she wants to prepare in advance, without waiting for someone to call her to start.

He typed a line in the document. "We may argue, but we're both fighting tooth and nail for the same thing."

I typed it and then deleted it.

Change it to. "Don't wait for me to say 'going to the battlefield,' you're already on your way."

That sentence wasn't left either.

The final sentence reads, "A true line of defense is one where people are still willing to continue defending it even when no one calls for it to stop."

It was posted to the team's shared channel without being credited.

A few seconds later, Tony chuckled softly. The robotic arm moved a little faster. The polishing progress bar on the armor shell jumped forward by five percent.

Thor didn't react.

But ten minutes later, energy records from the direction of Asgard showed that the Bifrost had initiated a short jump. It ended in less than three seconds, before Heimdall could even report it.

Ye Mo glanced at the time. It coincided with the third drop in temperature.

He put his glasses back on, his finger slid across the control panel, moving the "S-level Latent Clue" from "Pending Confirmation" to "Archived." A note was added next to it: The source may be related to cross-dimensional energy attraction; it is recommended to add an asymmetric response plan.

This was written in an official tone, but it was actually meant for Thor's ears.

He knew the other party was proud and wouldn't easily admit they were a weakness. But as soon as he saw it, he would find a way to fix it.

That's why they were able to fight together.

My phone vibrated.

Emma Frost's message: "Was that sentence you just wrote for me?"

He replied, "This is for everyone who doesn't want to lose."

She took a long time to reply, "Have you ever considered that you're also losing?"

"I keep losing," he typed. "Every time I upgrade my abilities, there are fewer people left. I used to be afraid of dying, now I'm afraid of not having enough time."

That's not what I meant.

Who is that?

"You said you'd lead us to victory. But now you can't even say who you are."

Ye Mo stopped typing.

He remembered when he first transmigrated, hiding in an alleyway eating bread, when he heard the system notification say, "[Residual Mutants abilities detected nearby]." At the time, he thought it was a hallucination and asked the air, "Who are you?"

The system, of course, did not respond.

Later, he learned to write his own lines, "According to system analysis, this behavior is high-risk." "This operation is risky, it is recommended to abandon it" -- all excuses.

With thicker skin comes greater boldness.

But now, even he himself can't tell which words were spoken by the system and which he himself wanted to avoid.

He replied to Emma Frost, "Do you think I'm like a machine right now?"

"When you're not speaking, it's like..."

"So what do you think ' Ye Mo ' should be like?"

She didn't reply.

He didn't ask any more questions.

He closed the chat window and went to the background to check the status of the nineteenth layer of the Gene Spiral Tower. The "Invisible Infiltration Protocol" had five minutes left on cooldown. He didn't touch it, but instead dragged the entire module into the sandbox and disassembled it into pieces for rearrangement.

Wade's Self-Healing + Shadowcat's Wall Phasing = Regenerative Phasing.

He's already very familiar with this combination.

But now he tried something new: adding a bit of Emma Frost's mental shield, and then mixing in half a second of Thor's lightning resonance.

In theory, it can briefly disrupt the enemy's perception, creating the illusion that "the person is here, but actually not."

The first time I tried it, I had a splitting headache.

The second time, my left little finger broke, and it took me three minutes to reattach it myself.

On the third attempt, it was successfully maintained for four seconds.

It's not particularly powerful, but it's sufficient.

He named this move "Feint" and added it to his backup list.

It wasn't about fighting; it was about deceiving our own people.

If one day he really does turn into a monster who can only talk about logic, at least he can still play the role of Ye Mo who can joke and act silly.

Tony's armor is 90% complete.

He embedded a countermeasure program at the system's core, which would automatically activate the tracking protocol if "Mr. X's " signal was interrupted for more than twelve hours. The code was written very discreetly, disguised as a routine maintenance script.

Ye Mo discovered it, but didn't dismantle it.

He knew Tony was worried.

Just like he wasn't at ease either.

Some people say "do it your way," but secretly they've already prepared Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, they have it all.

This is what a team in real life is like.

There is no perfect cooperation; everyone must keep their own secrets while leaving each other a way out.

After returning to Asgard, Thor went straight to the council chamber.

He reported the situation on Earth to Odin, mentioning that Ye Mo had recently become suspicious and cautious in his actions. Odin simply nodded and said nothing.

But Heimdall suddenly spoke up, "My lord, the energy of the Bifrost was pulled by an external force three times just now, pointing towards the edge of the abyss."

Thor suddenly looked up.

"You didn't report it?"

"Because the traction is extremely weak, it's like a test."

"Then that's not an ordinary fluctuation." Thor's voice deepened. "Tell the bridge keeper that if it's detected again, ring the bell immediately."

He turned and left, his cloak sweeping across the stone steps.

They didn't return to Earth, nor did they contact the base again.

Ye Mo was unaware of these things.

All he knew was that the Vibranium fragment in his pocket had gone cold once again.

This time it only took 0.3 seconds.

It's so short it seems like an illusion.

But he wrote it down.

Retrieve all the Telepathy feedback streams from the seven secret nodes around the world and listen to them. Not with your ears, but with the system's frequency analysis. Like listening to a heartbeat, listening to breathing, listening to the words yet to be spoken.

He closed his eyes.

His fingers rested on the shards, motionless.

In the surveillance footage, Emma Frost finished her training and walked towards the residential area. As she passed the data terminal, she stopped and entered a key.

Leave a message:

I'm not afraid you won't believe me.

"I'm afraid you'll only believe 'the me in the system.'"

This message remains unread in the background.

Tony's armor progress bar jumped to 87% and then stopped.

He leaned back in his chair, took a sip of coffee, and frowned as he stared at a piece of abnormal code on the screen.

That piece of code wasn't part of his design, yet it was embedded deep within the firewall, like a dormant seed.

He didn't delete it.

Instead, I clicked the mouse lightly and marked it with an asterisk.

"Interesting," he said.

Ye Mo opened his eyes.

The countdown on the screen reached 25 minutes.

He did not initiate any agreements or set up any new meetings.

They simply copied the master control permissions of "Preventive Measure Alpha", divided them into four independent keys, and sent them out separately.

Recipients: Tony, Emma Frost, Thor, and an anonymous address.

The postscript consisted of only one sentence:

"Next time I say something wrong, you can fix it yourselves."

After sending the message, he exited all interfaces and returned to the main control panel homepage.

His eyes were slightly closed, his fingers still resting on the Vibranium fragment.

Listening.

Waiting.

The seven signals flowed smoothly.

A moment of silence.

Suddenly, the feedback stream from the third node experienced a delay of 0.8 seconds.

It was neither an attack nor an intrusion.

It's more like... someone is gently knocking on the door.