In the apartment buildings of downtown New York, the air was as stuffy as a clump of damp cotton that wouldn't dissolve.
Ye Mo sat on the old, slightly peeling sofa, his hoodie pulled up over his head, obscuring most of his face. Outside the window, the neon lights typical of New York shone through the dirty glass, casting dappled shadows on the floor at his feet. He didn't rest immediately, but closed his eyes, his consciousness spreading silently across the globe like an invisible net.
The " X-Gene Resonance System " operated silently deep within his mind, without any light effects or prompts, only a cold, mechanical precision. It felt like listening to the wind or feeling the pulse of electricity on your skin.
After the anonymous intelligence was sent out, Ye Mo's tense nerves relaxed slightly. But he knew that this calm was just the calm before the storm. Although the storm of the Superhuman Registration Act had been temporarily suppressed in the streets and alleys of New York, the real danger often lurked in unseen places.
His senses traveled along the Atlantic Ocean currents, across half the globe, and finally settled on a point on the Africa continent.
It was very quiet there.
At least under conventional thermal imaging and satellite scans, the Wakanda border appears as a desolate green jungle. But in Ye Mo's perception, something subtle is happening there.
At first, it was just a very discordant frequency, like a sharp string mixed into a harmonious symphony. Ye Mo frowned, further narrowing his focus, trying to pinpoint the source of that anomaly.
As his perception deepened, a familiar, cold metallic texture spread along his nerve endings.
That's Vibranium.
This metal possesses unique physical properties; it can absorb kinetic energy, repel electromagnetic waves, and even resonate faintly with certain specific mental fluctuations. Ye Mo had previously captured this frequency by chance when he was in contact with Mutants at the scene. Now, when this frequency appeared on the border of Wakanda, a heavy, cold, and faintly fishy feeling instantly surfaced in his mind.
It is not a natural phenomenon.
Ordinary geological changes or animal migrations would not produce such regular and aggressive energy ripples.
Ye Mo opened his eyes, his pupils slightly contracting. He saw a picture composed of data: outside a secluded valley on the border of Wakanda, several powerful sonic weapons were tentatively attacking an invisible barrier. Each impact would stir up waves of air invisible to the naked eye, and the feedback from inside the barrier was the high-frequency vibration unique to Vibranium.
There are people outside.
Moreover, the other side was not forcibly breaking through, but rather "measuring." They were calculating the weaknesses of the barrier, searching for that possible window of opportunity, even if it was only for a few seconds.
Ye Mo leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously tapping his knees. The rhythm was slow, one tap after another.
He felt neither anger nor fear. As a transmigrator who had spent years navigating the Marvel Universe, he knew all too well the allure of these top-tier resources. Vibranium, a metal capable of altering the course of war, was a fatal temptation for any ambitious force.
A trafficker of Ulysses Klaue's caliber might not be qualified to directly touch the core of Wakanda, but the shadow behind him is definitely not just that.
Ye Mo picked up the encrypted terminal on the table, the cold light from the screen illuminating half of his face. He brought up a world map, his fingertip swiping across the screen, finally stopping at the green area in southern Africa.
He drew a circle with a red marker.
This action was simple, yet it represented a shift in attitude. Before, he was merely an observer, a " Scavengers " striving to remain neutral amidst the storm of the Superhuman Registration Act. But now, the emergence of Wakanda made him realize that this game was far bigger than he had imagined.
If something happens to Wakanda, the global balance of superhumans will be completely disrupted. The influx of Vibranium will instantly give those organizations that were previously at a disadvantage an overwhelming advantage, and the hero factions, which were already divided due to the Superhuman Registration Act, will likely face even more brutal internal strife.
This is not a problem he can solve alone, but he can't just sit idly by. At the very least, he needs to prepare in advance.
Ye Mo began organizing his notes.
He extracted the fragmented data about Vibranium's properties that remained in the system, combined it with the intelligence he had previously gathered from various sources, and began to mentally simulate possible battle scenarios.
Sonic weapons have limited destructive power against Vibranium barriers, but what if they're combined with high-energy lasers? Or what if there are Mutants with spatial abilities interfering from the sidelines?
He wrote down a few keywords on the paper: frequency resonance, energy overload, psychological blind spot.
Behind every word may lie the boundary between life and death.
Ye Mo was well aware of his current situation. His abilities were still developing; the " Gene Spiral Tower " had only just unlocked a few levels. Faced with a conflict at the national or even interstellar level, his current strength seemed insignificant. A head-on confrontation? That would be suicide.
Therefore, he chose to lie low.
Like a crocodile lurking at the bottom of the water, waiting for its prey to make a mistake.
He turned on his listening device and tuned it to a specific frequency. A faint static sound came through the headphones, followed by some scattered fragments of conversation. Most of it was trivial chatter, but at a certain interval, Ye Mo caught a glimpse of a multi-layered encrypted code transmission.
He had seen the signature of that code in the black market's intelligence network.
They belong to a middleman who specializes in reselling high-tech weapons.
Ye Mo's lips curled into a cold smile. Sure enough, the flies came as soon as they smelled the blood.
He didn't take immediate action, nor did he notify anyone. Premature exposure would only disrupt all plans. Right now, he was more like an outsider, standing on high ground observing every move of the game.
The sky outside the window gradually darkened, and the New York night view became even more hazy. The faint sound of police sirens drifted in from afar, then quickly faded away. This city is forever asleep amidst the clamor, and bursting forth from its slumber.
Ye Mo stood up and walked to the window. His blurry reflection was shown in the glass: a black hoodie, a pale face, and those deep, unfathomable eyes.
He knew that the turbulent events in Wakanda would be the opening act of the next big drama.
He, however, must remain constantly alert.
He turned back to the table, folded the sheets of paper filled with calculation data, and stuffed them into the bottom of his backpack. Then, he put his headphones back on, closed his eyes, and continued to listen to the sounds around him.
The air in the room seemed to freeze, with only the faint hum of the computer tower serving as a testament to the passage of time.
Ye Mo's fingers rested lightly on the table, his fingertips stiff from maintaining the same position for so long. His breathing was steady and deep, each inhale like filtering impurities from the air, each exhale like suppressing the restlessness within.
Beneath this seemingly calm surface, a hunt for Wakanda has quietly begun.
Ye Mo was quietly waiting for his first prey to appear.