The blue light on Emma Frost's interface had barely gone out when she opened her eyes and said, "They've changed channels."
Ye Mo remained motionless, his fingertips still resting on the Vibranium fragment. The heat remained, but its rhythm had changed-no longer a regular pulse every twenty minutes, but irregular intervals, as though someone were probing for a frequency in a signal dead zone.
"It's not a machine," he said quietly. "A person has taken over."
The air instantly grew still. The false intelligence they had so carefully planted had now become a double-edged sword: the other side was no longer performing routine checks according to a program, but had begun actively listening, analyzing, and rapidly adjusting its strategy.
Emma removed the neural interface ring, her fingertips trembling slightly. "We have to cut off all external communications, or they'll follow the data flow and pinpoint our actual location."
"No." Ye Mo shook his head. "Cutting it off too abruptly would expose us instead. What we need now isn't hiding. It's training."
He rose and walked to the training chamber's main console, pressing his palm against the biometric lock. The screen lit up, displaying an option: [Combat Simulation System · Multiplayer Coordination Mode].
"Are you crazy?" Emma frowned. "Training at a time like this?"
"The danger is exactly why we need to train." He brought up the parameter settings. "The system can generate highly realistic battlefields, including mutant ability interference, sudden traps, sensory confusion... perfect for testing our reaction speed and coordination under pressure."
Emma stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly chuckled. "You want to force yourself to evolve through combat, don't you?"
"Same difference." The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. "We're being monitored even if we sit around. We might as well do something useful."
The console chimed: [Two-person coordination stress test ready. Begin?]
Ye Mo pressed confirm.
The lights abruptly dimmed, and the space inside the training chamber instantly warped. A second later, they stood in the middle of a ruined street. The sky was grayish yellow, explosions sounded in the distance, and the ground trembled faintly.
[Stage one: Urban alley encirclement. Countdown: three seconds.]
"Three."
Emma quickly scanned her surroundings and extended her psychic senses, but caught only scattered fragments of emotion-mostly fear and confusion, clearly interference sources fabricated by the system.
"Two."
Ye Mo closed his eyes and activated Thermal Vision. Everything in his field of view became overlapping red and blue outlines. He quickly locked onto three concealed heat sources: the gas station to the left, the rooftop opposite them, and the entrance to an underground pipeline.
"One."
An alarm blared, and the first wave of explosions erupted from the gas station. Flames shot skyward, the shock wave overturned roadside vehicles, and rubble flew everywhere.
Ye Mo seized Emma's wrist and lunged to the right, pulling her down while transmitting a brief coded instruction into her mind: "Move left, crouch, dodge in three seconds."
Emma's body obeyed instinctively. Just as she crouched, a metal fragment skimmed past her shoulder, throwing sparks through the air.
But she was half a beat too slow.
Ye Mo noticed. Her reaction had been delayed by 0.7 seconds-no more, no less, just enough for a precision sniper shot to hit.
"Are you all right?" he asked through Telepathy.
"Residual effects from the interface. My brain feels like it's been rubbed with sandpaper." She gritted her teeth. "I can hold out."
Another wave of concussion grenades detonated ten meters away, instantly activating a sonic suppression field. Ye Mo's Thermal Vision briefly filled with static, while Emma's psychic scan cut out entirely.
Three AI pursuers converged from different directions, carrying electromagnetic pulse guns that specifically targeted fluctuations in mutant abilities.
Ye Mo immediately switched to a passive defensive strategy. He stopped relying on system warnings and instead observed the enemy's movements in the most basic way-a raised arm or a forward shift of weight half a second in advance could predict the direction of the next shot.
He transmitted again: "Three o'clock. Crouch and stay still."
Emma obeyed. The next instant, a high-energy beam swept over her head and struck the concrete pillar behind her, bringing the entire pillar crashing down.
Ye Mo seized the opening, activated Regenerative Phasing, and passed diagonally through a wall, heading straight for the underground control node.
Thirty seconds later, the main control tower shut down, and the simulation ended.
The lights returned, and the training chamber reverted to its original state.
Emma leaned against the wall, panting, sweat beading at her temples. Maintaining Diamond Form for so long had drained far more stamina than expected.
"You saved me twice," she said.
"You blocked the hit that should have struck me." Ye Mo took off his glasses and wiped them. "We're even."
"But I shouldn't have needed you to save me." Her voice grew quieter. "In that environment, I should have reacted faster and acted more decisively."
"No one is born able to withstand that kind of pressure." Ye Mo put his glasses back on. "Including me. During my first combat simulation, I didn't even catch the system warning. I just froze on the spot."
Emma looked up at him.
"So now we need to change that." He opened a new interface. "Voice communications can be jammed, and hand signals are easily misread at high speed. We need a signal system we can understand without words."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Heartbeats," he said. "I'll use Telepathy to sense your heartbeat rhythm-a fast beat means alert, steady means safe, and a double beat means emergency withdrawal. Simple, hard to fake, and independent of external equipment."
Emma considered it for a moment. "That's not enough. It only communicates status, not intent."
"Then add to it."
She fell silent for a few seconds, then a faint glow suddenly spread over her entire body, her skin gradually turning into clear, crystalline diamond.
"Watch closely," she said. "A faint glow at my fingertips means reconnaissance, light passing through my whole body means an all-out assault, crystals on my back mean cover, and flashing at my head means I need help."
Ye Mo tested it on the spot. He quietly circled behind her and released a faint fluctuation of hostility.
A layer of diamond-shaped crystals immediately formed on Emma's back, reflecting a cold light.
"That works." He nodded. "Next time, add a 'taunt' signal. A flash of your eyebrows, maybe."
"Get lost."
The two entered the simulation system again.
[Stage two: Compound Crisis Simulation · Encirclement in Urban Ruins]
The scene finished loading. This time, five groups of AI pursuers appeared, equipped with electromagnetic suppression nets, sonic oscillators, and psychological illusion generators. The system also added weather interference-torrential acid rain, with visibility below five meters.
They had barely started when external data support suddenly cut out.
[Warning: System assistance disabled. All combat decisions must be made independently.]
Ye Mo did not panic. Standing where he was, he closed his eyes for three seconds and pushed Thermal Vision to full power, quickly marking weaknesses in the enemy formation-there was a blind spot in the northwest corner, and the underground pipe network was passable.
He lightly touched Emma's palm, his heartbeat speeding up for two beats before returning to normal.
Emma understood immediately: Found an opening. I'll draw their fire. You circle behind.
Light passed through her entire body as she charged head-on, fully activating Diamond Form and taking a round of electromagnetic bombardment while releasing low-frequency psychic waves to disrupt the AI targeting systems.
Ye Mo took the opportunity to slip into the underground pipeline, using Regenerative Phasing to pass through concrete walls and silently reach the flank of the central tower.
They exchanged no words, made no gestures, and did not even meet each other's eyes.
But they rendezvoused at the designated coordinates right on time.
Ye Mo handled cracking the electronic lock while Emma stood back-to-back with him on guard. As he entered the final password, crystals abruptly protruded from her back, signaling an approaching threat.
Ye Mo kicked the tower door open, and they darted inside in unison, detonating the devices within.
[Mission complete. Grade: A-. Coordination efficiency increased by 47%.]
The countdown reached zero, and the training chamber's lights returned to normal.
Emma slowly released Diamond Form, her breathing much steadier. She sat in the neural interface chair, the pallor fading from her face and the corners of her mouth lifting slightly.
"This time," she said, looking at Ye Mo's profile, "I didn't hold you back."
Ye Mo was reviewing the results, his fingers tapping lightly on the screen. He glanced back at her without speaking and simply nodded.
A new prompt appeared on the system interface: [Combat Simulation · Phase one complete. Open advanced module?]
He reached out to confirm, then suddenly stopped.
Emma noticed it too.
The Vibranium fragment was burning hot in his pocket-not pulsing, but radiating continuous heat, as though some force had it clenched in a tight grip.
They exchanged a glance.
Ye Mo slowly took out the fragment. The red line on its surface had grown a shade deeper than before.
"They didn't change channels," he said quietly. "They found a new way to listen in."