Sensing danger, raising their guard

Ye Mo withdrew his finger from the communication node without pressing it. That hesitation hanging in mid-air was like a thin thread; if stretched for too long, it would break cleanly. He turned and walked away, his footsteps making a rhythmic "click, click" sound on the metal floor, as if keeping time for the spiraling fluctuations in his mind.

The corridor lights were dim, with only the emergency signs glowing green, making half his face appear bluish. As he walked, he disassembled and replayed the energy signal he had just heard, not from memory, but by directly retrieving the raw waveform data stored in the system—this thing, though silent, had a better memory than anyone else. Frequency 0.17c, direction the edge of Orion, the three positioning trajectories connected into a straight line, as if drawn with a ruler. The most dangerous thing was that it was too clean, not like something emitted by a living person, but more like some kind of machine running at a constant speed, coldly crashing towards Earth.

He walked to the outside of the isolation pod. Inside the glass window, Emma Frost sat cross-legged on the suspended platform with her eyes closed, a thin, cicada-wing-like Mental Barrier around her flickering slightly. She wasn't dead asleep; she had simply entered a low-power maintenance state, in which case an approach by an outsider would trigger an automatic alarm. Ye Mo raised his hand and swiped his fingerprint and iris scan on the biometric panel. A green light illuminated, and the observation window slid open a crack.

He didn't call her name or knock on the glass; he just stood there waiting. Five seconds later, Emma Frost's eyelids twitched, and she opened her eyes. Her pupils were initially a little dilated, but they focused after she saw it was him.

"Something happened?" Her voice was a little hoarse, like when someone just comes out of meditation, like a phone with too many background programs that need time to restart.

Ye Mo nodded. "I sensed an energy fluctuation from the depths of the universe, heading towards the edge of Orion, at a speed of 0.17c, and approaching Earth."

He spoke casually, as if reporting the weather. But Emma Frost understood—this wasn't a drill, nor a misjudgment. Ye Mo never spoke nonsense, much less would he come to chat with her about literature in the middle of the night.

She slowly rose, the platform lowered, and the Mental Barrier retracted simultaneously. She stepped out of the isolation pod, casually pulling on a dark gray robe with a swift and decisive movement. "Are you sure it's not interference? Like solar wind disturbance or a satellite debris explosion?"

"No." Ye Mo shook his head. "I've ruled out all known variant ability fluctuation patterns and filtered out regular cosmic microwave background radiation. This signal... it carries no emotion, nor any intention to attack, but it's moving, and it's getting closer. The system didn't alarm, but the Gene Spiral Tower in my brain trembled, just like the eve of the Battle of New York last time."

Emma Frost paused, her eyes changing. She knew he was telling the truth. That primal warning mechanism couldn't be simulated through data analysis; it was a sense of crisis that the body perceived before consciousness. She had once thought it was psychological suggestion, until she witnessed Ye Mo predict Thanos's team's attack route three times in a row.

"I can try to capture its remaining traces." After saying that, she walked to the main control area, ran her finger across the projection table, and brought up the historical waveforms of the Mental Scan recorder. She closed her eyes, and her consciousness sank into the deep sensory layer, like a net slowly spreading out into the night sky.

A few seconds later, she opened her eyes and nodded. "There are residual ripples of consciousness... very faint, almost drowned out by the background noise, but I can confirm it's there. It's not a hallucination, nor is it your neural backlash."

The two stood side by side in front of the central projection table. Ye Mo pointed, activating the system's built-in environmental monitoring module. A pale blue, semi-transparent halo spread outward from the center of the base, marking real-time energy readings within a 500-meter radius on the 3D star map. "I've doubled the size of the Perception Network and set an automatic alarm for abnormal thresholds. Once an unknown frequency intrusion occurs, the system will immediately lock onto the coordinates."

Emma Frost simultaneously activated her Mind Radar, switching the interface to a thought frequency distribution map. She set three levels of alert labels: Level 1 was "Fear," Level 2 was "Concealment," and Level 3 was "Intrusion Intent." Key monitoring targets included recent visitors, unregistered communication signals, and any allies who suddenly lost contact. "I can now cover the thought processes of thirty people both inside and outside the base. If anyone is infiltrated or controlled, I'll detect it immediately."

Ye Mo glanced at the data stream and asked, "Could it be a deception? For example, someone is deliberately releasing false signals to attract our attention?"

"Possibly," Emma Frost, staring at the screen, "But if it's fake, the other party would need to know you have this precognitive ability. And this information... right now, besides Tony and me, nobody knows it."

Neither of them continued talking about Tony. Mentioning certain names could do more harm than good, especially at a time like this.

Ye Mo looked down at his palm. The Vibranium fragment in his palm was still slightly warm, not because of training residue, but because it was also responding to that fluctuation. Ulysses Klaue's things could only sense Vibranium- level materials, but now its reaction mode had changed, as if it was being synchronized with something.

"Looks like we're not the only ones who feel something's off." He smiled, his tone relaxed, but his eyes remained fixed on the straight line on the star map.

Emma Frost didn't laugh. She turned and walked to the access terminal, entering a set of encrypted commands. "I request temporary control over some of your system permissions. In case you suddenly lose contact, I can remotely trigger the escape route through Wall Phasing or the Fire Core Barrier."

Ye Mo raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe I can hold out?"

"It's not that I don't believe you," she turned to look at him, "It's that I don't believe in the thing that hasn't even shown itself yet."

He shrugged and agreed to the authorization. The system notification remained silent, but a green checkmark appeared on the screen, indicating that the transfer of permissions was complete.

Next, he mentally pre-set three rapid response plans: the first was "Fire Core + Self-Healing," used to withstand high-damage attacks head-on; the second was "Wall Phasing + Evasion," mainly for instant escape; and the third was "Regenerative Phasing Preparation," a trump card among trump cards, to be used only as a last resort. He had practiced these combinations many times, and now he was simply re-solidifying the paths to ensure that they could be activated within 0.5 seconds.

"How do you plan to defend it?" Emma Frost asked.

"I'll take the first shift." Ye Mo sat down in the chair in front of the control panel, adjusting his posture to keep his spine and the back of his neck in a straight line. "Push your consciousness outwards, all the way to the edge of the ionosphere. You go and rest, conserve your mental energy, and take over when I can't hold on any longer."

Emma Frost didn't object. She knew that arguing about who went first was pointless at this point; the key was to remain vigilant. She returned to the isolation pod and re-entered a state of deep meditation, her mental energy spreading out like a spider web, covering every possible point of attack.

The base returned to silence. The equipment continued its low hum, the lights remained steady, and the air circulation system functioned normally. On the surface, everything seemed normal, but both men knew that the real battle had not yet begun; this was merely the stage of tying the shoelaces.

Ye Mo closed his eyes, his consciousness ascending along his nervous system, passing through the Earth's crust, atmosphere, and ozone layer, finally reaching the outer edge of the ionosphere. It should have been calm there, but now, that spiraling fluctuation still existed, like an invisible thread, stretching across the starry sky and pointing straight to Earth.

He discreetly recorded the latest wave of data, comparing it to the strength of the previous three signals. The increase was 12 percent faster than expected, indicating that the target was rapidly approaching. He also noticed a small detail: the phase of the fluctuation had slightly shifted, like a refraction effect produced when passing through some kind of high-density spatial structure.

"It's not a natural phenomenon," he concluded to himself. "It's man-made, and deliberately approached."

He opened his eyes and glanced at the time: 2:17 AM. It was still dark outside, the city lights were sparse, and there were no signs of unusual activity around the base. But he dared not relax. The calmer it was, the more it meant the enemy hadn't made a move yet.

Emma Frost's breathing rhythm changed slightly, indicating that she had fully entered a state of alert meditation. Her Mental Network was so extensive that it could even detect the emotional fluctuations of stray cats in the nearby neighborhood. She would immediately wake up at the slightest sign of any abnormal thought.

Ye Mo closed his eyes again and focused his senses on deep space once more. This time, he attempted to trace the signal source in reverse, using data from the past twenty-four hours to perform a triangulation. The results came quickly: the target's mass was no less than that of a destroyer, its hull material was unknown, its propulsion system was suspected to be non-chemical, and its flight trajectory showed no corrections, indicating extremely high navigation accuracy.

"Either it's self-driving," he thought, "Or... there's no one inside at all."

The thought sent a chill down his spine. But he didn't flinch or open his eyes; he simply saved the analysis into his combat log, intending to show it to Emma Frost during his next shift.

Time ticked by. The temperature inside the base remained constant at 21 degrees Celsius, the humidity at 45 percent, and the oxygen content in the air was normal. All sensor readings were within the safe range, but Ye Mo knew that the truly dangerous things were often not listed on the data sheets.

He recalled the days when he first transmigrated, hiding in a rented Queens, eating instant noodles. Back then, his biggest wish was to avoid trouble and spend his life hiding in a corner, picking up leftover fragments of other people's abilities, living a life of leisure and waiting to die. And now? He can now perform Fire Dragon Jet in front of Thor, can team up with Emma Frost to break through the mental array of the Dark Elves, and even dares to detonate Fire Core on Malekith's chest.

He keeps saying he "just wants to live a peaceful life," but his body has already betrayed that statement.

He exhaled softly, his shoulders still and his fingers trembling. He knew what to do next: keep an eye on this line and wait for it to reveal a flaw. Whether it was a person or a machine, a god or a ghost, as long as it dared to land, he would face it head-on.

Now, all we need to do is wait.

Emma Frost frowned slightly inside the isolation pod. Her Mental Network detected an extremely faint disturbance of thought, originating from an abandoned truck outside the eastern wall of the base. There was no one in the truck, but just now, for a fleeting moment, she had a sense of "observation," as if she had been swept by something unseen.

She didn't open her eyes, nor did she disturb Ye Mo. She simply marked that location as a "suspicious point" and increased the sensitivity of her Mind Radar by two levels.

Ye Mo kept his eyes closed, his consciousness lingering on the edge of the ionosphere. He didn't know what Emma Frost had discovered, but he knew one thing: they had to win this battle. Not to be heroes, but because they had no way out.

The lights in the base flickered suddenly. It was extremely brief, lasting less than a tenth of a second, like a voltage fluctuation. But both of them felt it.

Ye Mo opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

Emma Frost raised her hand and pressed it to her temple.