Marvel: can do ice and fire
Chapter 1: Dimensional Strike
The sound of keyboard clacking echoed in the cramped rental room.
Arthur stared intently at the computer screen. His right hand held the mouse, pulling off extreme maneuvers, while his left hand left a trail of afterimages on the mechanical keyboard.
"Blink to gain distance! Water Elemental's Freeze for crowd control! Smite it with Fireball!"
On the screen, the Dual-spec Frost-Fire Mage he controlled was facing the leader of the Burning Legion.
In the highest difficulty raid of Azeroth, the boss's health was down to only two percent. The first kill was within reach!
From deep within the computer case, a sharp screech of electrical current rang out.
Before Arthur could react, a blinding azure light burst from the screen.
The light pierced through the screen, transforming into a massive vortex that swallowed him whole in an instant.
His vision immediately plunged into absolute darkness.
A strong sense of weightlessness swept through his body, and the game's sound effects in his ears were instantly cut off.
This was followed by the sound of wind tearing at his eardrums and a violent, World-spinning dizziness.
Bang!
Arthur's back slammed heavily onto the concrete ground.
Sharp pain burst along his spine and spread through his entire body.
He snapped his eyes open, gasping for air in large gulps.
This was definitely not his ten-square-meter rental room!
There was no overheating computer, let alone a gaming chair.
All around was a dark, damp urban alleyway.
The air was thick with the sour stench of overnight pizza.
But even stronger was the smell of gunpowder smoke, and... the scent of blood.
Bang bang bang bang bang!
The sound of automatic rifle fire erupted frantically about a dozen meters away!
Heat waves from burning gunpowder surged through the narrow alley.
A stray bullet whistled past Arthur's hoodie. With a pop, it shattered the neon tube overhead.
Glass shards rained down on him.
Arthur's scalp prickled with fear as he scrambled and threw himself to the side.
Behind a rusted iron trash can, he tightly clutched his head.
A prank? A kidnapping? Or a dream?!
Panting heavily, he poked his head out and squinted through the firelight.
The scene before him made his blood run cold.
At the mouth of the alley, five burly White men with fierce expressions stood in a row.
They wore heavy tactical vests and held AK-47 assault rifles.
Thick tongues of fire spat from the muzzles, illuminating the dim alleyway.
"Kill this son of a bitch monster!"
The bald leader, his eyes bloodshot, frantically pulled the trigger while a long string of vulgar Russian curses spewed from his mouth.
Arthur followed the dense trajectory of the bullets, and his breath hitched.
On a pile of discarded tires ten meters away crouched a four-legged monster that did not belong on Earth!
The monster was over two meters long, its size comparable to a small armored vehicle.
Its body was covered in a grey-black exoskeleton carapace, its surface filled with hexagonal honeycomb structures.
It had no lips, leaving two rows of sharp fangs completely exposed.
Two half-moon-shaped bony scythes grew from its forelimb joints.
Purple corrosive slime continuously dripped from the monster's mouth.
The slime hit the iron sewer grate with a sizzling sound, sending up plumes of yellow-green toxic smoke.
Arthur froze in place, his mind going blank.
This kind of biomechanically modified beast, this alien design of oppressive power... he had seen it in Marvelmovies!
A Chitauri?!
Dammit! I've transmigrated into the Marvel Universe, and right into the carnage of the Battle of New York?!
Da-da-da-da-da!
7.62mm rifle bullets poured onto the Mutant Beast's carapace.
However, the kinetic energy that should have been enough to tear a human body apart only struck sparks on the surface of the shell!
Golden-yellow casings poured from the ejection port, falling onto the concrete.
That alien carapace didn't even have a dented bullet hole left on it!
Pure dimensional strike!
"Reloading!"
The bald gangster roared, pressing the magazine release button.
The moment the empty magazine hit the ground, his right hand quickly reached for the tactical pocket at his waist.
This tactical movement was textbook, requiring only two seconds.
But the Mutant Beast wouldn't even give him a tenth of a second.
The monster's hind leg muscles tightened instantly, its claws crushing the concrete slabs on the ground!
Its massive body turned into a grey-black afterimage, sweeping rapidly across the ground.
It was too fast; the human eye couldn't track it at all!
The two gangsters in the front didn't even have time to Blink.
The Mutant Beast's scythe-like forelimbs swung in a cross in mid-air.
Kevlar bulletproof vests were sliced open easily, without any resistance.
Pfft!
Warm blood instantly erupted, splashing a full three meters high.
The sternums of the two men were completely severed, and their steaming internal organs scattered across the ground.
"Fire! Open fire!"
The remaining three fell into a state of extreme panic.
They screamed hysterically, pulling triggers randomly; bullets hit the walls, sending brick fragments flying.
The Mutant Beast opened its bloody maw and bit down on the third person's shoulder.
Sharp fangs severed the carotid artery and collarbone!
Accompanied by the sound of cracking bone, it jerked its head violently.
The 180-pound corpse was thrown directly at the other two.
The shrill screams were instantly cut short.
The bald gangster and the last thin man completely broke down mentally.
They threw down their empty AK-47s, yellow liquid seeping from their crotches, as they turned and scrambled frantically toward the main road.
The Mutant Beast didn't chase the two deserters.
It stood in the thick pool of blood, its blood-red compound eyes—which lacked whites—slowly rotating.
Then, the monster's gaze locked onto Arthur, who was hiding behind the trash can.
Arthur's heart skipped a beat.
Stared at by those compound eyes radiating killing instinct, he felt the blood in his entire body flowing backward.
The monster shook the scraps of meat off its bone scythes, turned around, and walked toward Arthur with heavy steps.
A distance of ten meters required only an explosive sprint for this alien beast.
Can't outrun it! Can't win! Can't defend!
Arthur's mind raced.
But he discovered in despair that this mortal body didn't even have a rusted screwdriver in hand.
The Mutant Beast lowered its body, its abdominal muscles contracting sharply, a low growl emanating from its throat.
This was the signature move of a feline before pouncing!
If this were a game... I'd have to use Blink to gain distance now, followed by a Freeze control to interrupt the pounce!
In extreme fear, Arthur's left hand acted on instinct, his fingers moving rapidly in the air.
He grabbed nothing.
Only air met his fingertips.
There was no familiar mechanical keyboard in front of him.
Roar!
The Mutant Beast let out a roar, its hind legs exerting massive force, causing the ground to instantly collapse.
Its massive body soared into the air.
Two blood-stained scythe-like bone spikes, carrying a whistle that tore through the air, sliced directly toward Arthur's face!
A foul wind blew against his face; death was within reach.
At the critical moment, a sharp pain shot through Arthur's right wrist!
The pain carried a searing heat, as an ancient and massive power bored out from deep within his bone marrow!
Arthur suddenly looked down.
Beneath the skin of his wrist, blue veins bulged high.
Complex geometric lines and profound runes formed an azure magic circle.
The magic circle rapidly took shape on the surface of his skin, emitting an arcane glow that distorted space!
This was his exclusive class mark as a max-level Mage from the World of Azeroth!
Then, a cold yet clear electronic voice resonated deep within Arthur's mind.
[Warning: Detected that the host is facing a lethal physical threat!]
[Absolute Defense Mechanism triggered.]
[Azeroth Mage Panel officially activated!]
[Arcane inscriptions are imprinting on the host's soul... 10%... 50%... Imprinting complete.]
[Void Mana Source connected... Current status: Overflowing!]
[Current Host Level: Lv.1 (Mortal body limitation).]
[Basic Spell Library unlocked: Frostbolt (Active), Fireball(Active).]
Shua.
A translucent blue stream of data rapidly unfolded across his retina.
Finally, it settled into a magic-epic style game panel.
In the skill bar, two familiar skill icons lit up with a brilliant, castable shimmer.
In the top left corner, the blue bar representing Mana was in a boiling, overflowing state!
Arthur's clenched teeth suddenly relaxed, the fear in his eyes swept away.
What remained was only the madness and sharpness exclusive to a Mage Lord.
At this moment, the Mutant Beast's venom-dripping bone spikes were less than half a meter from the tip of his nose.
He could even see the scraps of meat between its fangs.
Casting spells in the Marvel Universe?
He didn't need a Sling Ring, nor did he need to learn to draw circles like those in Kamar-Taj.
A true Mage Lord relied on muscle memory carved into the soul through tens of thousands of battles and countless raid wipes!
Arthur raised his right hand, fingers spread wide, palm facing that bloody maw.
Buzz!
A terrifying surge of magic power erupted violently with him as the center.
The surrounding temperature plummeted in a cliff-like drop within a tenth of a second!
The puddles of sewage on the ground froze instantly, turning into white ice.
The moisture on the iron grates turned into frost and fell in showers.
Frost magic gathered, compressed, and took shape in Arthur's palm!
No casting time needed! No incantations needed!
A massive ice spike, a meter long, was deep blue and transparent throughout.
Surrounded by freezing white mist, it formed instantly within a hundredth of a second!
High-density magic flowed within the ice spike, its tip shimmering with a lethal edge that could pierce space.
Arthur stared coldly at this alien killing machine, his thin lips parting slightly.
"Frostbolt."
Chapter 2: Ice and Fire COMBO
The Frostbolt shot out, tearing a visible white trail of frost through the air.
Carrying extreme cold energy at the level of Azeroth's laws, it slammed straight into the mutant beast's hard frontal carapace.
There was no sound of an explosion, only the sound of frost cracking as physical properties were forcibly altered.
Crack.
Crack.
The instant the extreme cold energy touched the carapace, it released frantically, and a ring of blindingly blue ice rapidly expanded outward from the point of impact.
White ice crystal patterns spread quickly across the black exoskeleton.
The carapace, which hadn't even shown a white mark after hundreds of rifle rounds, was now cracking in large patches under the Frostbolt.
A thick layer of frost spread rapidly down from the forehead, instantly covering the monster's dense clusters of compound eyes, its giant mouth filled with fangs, and then its thick torso and limb joints.
A combat prompt immediately popped up on the system panel on his retina.
[Target hit. Dealt base Frost damage.]
[Frostbolt additional effect triggered. Target movement speed reduced by 60% for 4 seconds.]
The mutant beast in mid-air let out a muffled wail of sorrow. Its originally fierce and swift pounce decelerated sharply in mid-air, all its strength and speed draining away inch by inch under the erosion of the frost.
Physical inertia carried the heavy body forward as it crashed down.
Arthur didn't even lift an eyelid. He slid to the left, easily dodging the monster's pouncing trajectory.
Boom.
The mutant beast smashed heavily onto the concrete where Arthur had been standing. The massive impact shattered the surrounding discarded bricks. It rolled on the ground, crushing several glass wine bottles, and tried to stand back up.
But the ice at its joints ground against each other, emitting a piercing cracking sound. Its movements were slower than an old man with a cane; it could only wave its bone spikes, which were covered in ice shards, in place.
At the alley entrance.
The bald gang member and the thin man, who had originally fled, stopped in their tracks. Hiding behind a concrete utility pole, they peeked out with half their heads to watch the scene in the alley, the color completely drained from their faces.
The thin man swallowed hard, his voice trembling when he spoke.
"What kind of weapon is that? A portable liquid nitrogen launcher?"
The terrifying monster that hadn't even taken a mark from their hundred-plus rifle rounds had been frozen into a cripple by a casual flash of blue light from that Asian youth.
Arthur had no time to pay attention to these two; he was staring at the combat panel on his retina.
The monster's health bar had only dropped by less than a tenth.
The damage from a Basic Frostbolt was considerable, but the Chitauri Scout Mutant Beast was an armored unit of interstellar warfare grade. Its carapace hardness could withstand close-range high-explosive grenades. Relying purely on frost penetration, he wouldn't be able to kill it even if he ground it down until dawn.
Unless he broke its physical structure.
The mutant beast on the ground let out a furious roar. A large amount of purple cosmic energy began to seep from its body, carrying extreme radiant heat. It attempted to dissolve the ice layer attached to its carapace from the inside, and fine cracks had already appeared on the surface of the blue ice.
The four-second slow control effect was about to end.
Arthur watched the beast about to break free from its shackles. He didn't retreat half a step; instead, he narrowed his eyes slightly.
He was all too familiar with a Mage's combat rhythm.
"Once it's frozen brittle, it's time for a beating."
Arthur quickly mobilized the mana circuits within his body, decisively cutting off the resonance with the frost element and instead issuing a forced command to the fire elements in the void.
He slowly raised his left hand. The violent fire elements nearby immediately found an outlet. An orange-red Fireball appeared out of thin air in his palm and expanded at an astonishing speed.
The color of the Fireball gradually shifted from orange-red to bright white. The core temperature approached thousands of degrees, heating the surrounding air to the extreme and causing the light to visibly distort and warp.
The temperature in the alley soared by thousands of degrees within a single second.
The gang members hiding in the distance only felt a wave of heat hit them, making even their breathing hot and painful.
Arthur locked onto the area of the monster's head where the ice cracks were densest and pushed his left hand forward.
The Fireball whistled out at an extremely fast flight speed, trailing a long plume of flame in the dim alley, even causing the sewage on the ground to boil and evaporate.
Boom.
The Fireball smashed directly into the mutant beast's head, which had been made fragile by the freezing.
The extreme high-temperature flame collided head-on with the extreme cold ice, directly triggering the most basic and violent physical reaction in the Universe.
Thermal expansion and contraction.
No biological carapace could withstand such extreme temperature-induced tearing.
There was a dull explosion.
The mutant beast's indestructible head carapace was covered in spider-web-like cracks in an instant, followed by it shattering inch by inch. The high-temperature energy of the Fireball drove straight in through the cracks, triggering a secondary explosion inside the monster's head.
Purple blood along with brain tissue was carbonized and vaporized by the high temperature. The monster's head shattered from the inside, fragments and steam mixing with the smell of burning as they splattered in all directions.
The headless corpse crashed heavily to the ground. Its limbs spasmed and twitched twice before it completely lost all signs of life.
A dense stream of golden notification characters immediately flashed across Arthur's retina.
[Killed Chitauri Scout Mutant Beast (Lv.15) above your level.]
[Calculating bonus rewards for over-level kill.]
[Obtained 500 Experience Points.]
[Experience bar is full. Level Up.]
[Current Level: Lv.2. All attributes slightly increased. Maximum Mana capacity expanded.]
A warm golden light flowed through Arthur's body. His previous fatigue was swept away, the flow of mana in his blood vessels became smoother, and his mind became incredibly clear.
Arthur retracted his stance and prepared to walk over to examine this alien corpse, which had great research value, to see if he could loot anything useful.
Just then, a flurry of footsteps came from behind him.
The bald gang member and the thin man, who had been hiding at the alley entrance, had returned. Having witnessed the entire process of the monster being killed in an instant, once their fear passed, the two looked at each other, their eyes full of greed.
In their view, Arthur hadn't chanted any spells just now; he had relied entirely on his hands to launch ice and fire. This had nothing to do with magic; it must be some high-tech individual weapon that could be worn on the hands, secretly developed by Stark Industries.
Equipment that could kill a monster in seconds would definitely be worth a luxury apartment in Manhattan if resold on the black market.
The two exchanged a tactical hand signal, picked up the AK-47s from the ground, swapped in fresh full magazines, and pulled the charging handles to chamber a round.
Two dark muzzles were aimed at Arthur's back from behind.
The bald gang member's cold, hard voice rang out from behind.
"Freeze. Put your hands behind your head and turn around slowly."
Arthur stopped, turned around, and looked at these two thugs who were preparing to commit robbery and murder.
The bald gang member licked his lips, his finger resting on the trigger, ready to fire at any moment.
"Take off that glowing thing on your hands and throw it on the ground."
The muzzle was pushed forward slightly by half an inch.
"Don't try any tricks. You can't outrun a bullet."
Arthur looked at his empty hands, then looked at the thugs across from him, their faces full of murderous intent.
Chapter 3: Sky Eye Lock-on
Facing two assault rifles that could spit fire at any moment, Arthur stood still, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.
The shadow of his hoodie obscured most of his face, making it impossible to discern his expression.
"You have a rather blind confidence in Earth's gunpowder propulsion technology."
Arthur's voice was very calm, without any emotional fluctuations.
The bald gangster's eyelid twitched.
This thin Asian youth actually didn't kneel and beg for mercy when faced with the black muzzles of the guns.
It was illogical.
In the underground laws of Brooklyn and Queens, those who don't cooperate have only one path: death. Kill the person first and then take the equipment; the result is the same.
"Go to hell, freak."
The bald gangster squeezed the trigger. The skinny guy beside him followed suit and opened fire.
Da-da-da-da-da.
Two AK47s simultaneously spat out muzzle flashes nearly half a meter long.
The thirty rounds in each magazine were all poured out within two seconds.
Sixty 7.62mm metal warheads, traveling at seven hundred meters per second, formed an airtight metal storm, heading straight for Arthur's face and chest.
According to normal physical understanding, his body would be torn to shreds in the next second.
Arthur didn't dodge.
He didn't even move his feet. With a thought, he mobilized a tiny portion of the mana from his mana pool.
Hum.
Just as the first bullet was only ten centimeters away from the center of Arthur's forehead, a layer of translucent azure energy shield manifested, forming an all-encompassing defensive sphere centered on his body.
Mana Shield.
Bang.
The bullet slammed heavily against the energy shield.
Only a faint ripple appeared on the surface of the shield; there was no substantial dent. The mana value within Arthur's body dropped by a negligible amount. As long as his mana was not exhausted, this shield would not break, no matter how great the external force.
The moment the high-speed spinning metal warheads touched the shield, all forward kinetic energy dropped to zero. The high-frequency arcane shockwaves attached to the shield's surface forcibly crushed the brass warheads.
The sound of metal shattering rang out densely in the alley.
One lethal bullet after another, upon hitting the shield, all turned into fine brass powder, rustling down along the edges of the azure shield, piling up a thick layer of metal ash around Arthur's sneakers.
Sixty bullets were spent.
The barrels emitted pungent white smoke due to overheating.
The alley was so quiet that the sound of brass powder hitting the ground could be heard.
The bald gangster and the skinny guy maintained their shooting stances, their eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets, their jaws almost hitting the ground.
They looked at the rifles in their hands, then at Arthur, who stood there without even a corner of his clothes ruffled.
Their brains completely stalled.
The guy who could kill that invulnerable monster—sixty bullets couldn't even touch a single hair on his head?
"Finished?"
Arthur looked up, his gaze sweeping over the two of them.
"If this is your trump card, it's truly boring. This thing is much more useful than that super soldier with the shield."
He didn't want to waste any more time.
Raising his right hand, his palm pointed toward the two men ten meters away.
No elemental conversion was needed; he only needed to mobilize the most basic arcane rules.
Arcane Blast.
The surrounding space underwent a moment of violent distortion. An invisible arcane force field erupted violently from Arthur's palm. With no flight path and no physical form, this force field crossed space and slammed directly into the chests of the two gangsters.
Bang.
The two burly men, weighing over four hundred pounds combined, were lifted off their feet and sent flying back over a dozen meters.
They slammed heavily against the red brick wall at the end of the alley. The brick wall couldn't withstand the impact and caved in directly, bursting with dense cracks.
Each spat out a large mouthful of blood, and their bodies slid down the wall to the ground. Dense sounds of bone shattering came from their chests, and then they fell completely silent.
Arthur withdrew his right hand and dispelled the Mana Shield.
He walked slowly to the two men, knelt down, and searched through their tactical pockets.
He pulled out two rolls of blood-stained US dollar bills; a rough count showed over a thousand dollars.
This was his first bit of startup capital in this unfamiliar Universe.
Arthur stuffed the dollars into his pocket, pulled down his hood to cover most of his face, and turned to blend into the bustling yet grimy night of New York.
Less than ten minutes after Arthur left the alley, the mutant beast's corpse lying on the ground underwent a change.
The Chitauri energy core remaining in its body lost the suppression of vital signs and began to violently overload.
Spontaneous combustion occurred inside the corpse. Extreme heat quickly dissolved the exoskeleton and flesh.
Ultimately, the massive mutant beast turned into a puddle of foul-smelling purple acid, flowing away through the gaps in the sewer, leaving no biological tissue that could be directly studied.
A few minutes later.
Three black, full-sized SUVs without license plates screeched to a halt at the alley entrance.
The doors pushed open simultaneously, and over a dozen Agents in black suits quickly exited, setting up a cordon and sealing off the scene.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Senior Agent Phil Coulson walked deep into the alley.
He put on white tactical gloves, knelt on the ground, and carefully examined the remains at the scene.
The deep craters on the wall. The scorched concrete floor. The residual ice shards. And that thick ring of brass powder.
Coulson stood up, his brows furrowed together.
This kind of destructive power was definitely not something a gang shootout could cause.
He took out an encrypted satellite phone and pressed a button for a special channel.
"Director, this is Coulson. We've discovered a high-energy reaction site in Queens. The target individual demonstrated unknown freezing and fire abilities, as well as some kind of absolute physical defense field. The energy signature of the destruction marks is completely different from Stark's armored weaponry, and we have no matching mutant files in our current database. Preliminary assessment: threat level extremely high."
Washington D.C., the underground core command center of the Trident Tower.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury stood before a massive holographic monitoring screen, his single eye slightly narrowed.
He listened to Coulson's report without saying a word.
The silence lasted for five seconds before Fury spoke.
"Have the Sky Eye System fully access Queens and activate all cameras. We must find out who this person is. Earth is not peaceful right now; I don't need an uncontrollable variable wandering around the streets of New York."
"Understood, Director."
In a corner of the monitoring room, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s external hacker consultant, Daisy Johnson, was sitting before six high-resolution display screens.
This girl had a more resonant code name on the dark web: Skye.
She had a lollipop in her mouth, her ten fingers flying across the keyboard with a continuous pitter-patter sound.
"Retrieving archived footage from fifty-two traffic cameras across three blocks surrounding the incident site."
Daisy stared at the rapidly scrolling code, her speaking speed very fast.
"I've locked onto his exit route. The system is performing facial feature comparison."
The image in the center of the screen continued to zoom in.
A back view wearing a dark hoodie with the hood pulled low appeared in the frame.
The progress bar pushed rapidly to the right. A red locking frame tightly encased that blurry back view.
The hunter had cast the net. The prey was completely unaware.
Chapter 4: Lv.5 and Frost Nova
New York nights are never truly quiet.
Arthur, carrying the stack of bills that still smelled of blood, navigated the labyrinthine alleys of Queens.
He didn't choose to live in a bright, clean apartment; there were too many neighbors and cameras there, making it unsuitable for hiding secrets.
Eventually, at the border of Queens and the Industrial District, he rented an abandoned auto repair warehouse from a drunken old man for three hundred dollars.
Oil stains were everywhere, corners were piled with rusted car parts, and the air was thick with the unpleasant smell of machine oil and rust.
But for Arthur, it was remote enough, spacious enough, and most importantly, quiet enough.
Clatter.
Arthur laboriously pulled down the heavy rolling shutter door, completely shutting out the clamor of New York.
The warehouse fell into darkness and dead silence.
He didn't turn on the lights; he simply snapped his fingers.
A ball of soft Arcane Brilliance appeared out of thin air, hovering in mid-air and illuminating the entire warehouse as bright as day.
A basic mage cantrip: Mage Light.
Once the Arcane Brilliance stabilized, Arthur flexed his wrists. The burnt smell of the Mutant Beast from the alley still clung to his fingertips. He wiped them on the corner of his clothes and sat cross-legged.
Mana naturally diffused over his body, forming a refractive barrier invisible to the naked eye. This was a passive trait of a mage's constitution, requiring no conscious maintenance. Even the lowest-ranking Mage Apprentice would carry this layer. On Azeroth, its effect was negligible, but in this magic-less Universe, it was enough to cause all optical equipment to completely lose focus on his face.
With a thought, the Azeroth Mage Panel on his retina lit up.
He mentally called out, "Settlement Panel."
The next second, golden light surged on the panel, and a series of delayed settlement prompts rushed up.
[Host detected to have completed the "Cross-Planar First Kill" achievement.]
[Host detected to have completed the "Leapfrog Kill (+14 Levels)" achievement.]
[Experience point rewards are undergoing final adjustment...]
[Congratulations, Host! Total experience points gained: 1200!]
The level bar was instantly filled, emptied, and filled again.
[Level Up! Current Level: Lv.3!]
[Level Up! Current Level: Lv.4!]
[Level Up! Current Level: Lv.5!]
Golden light effects flowed through his body three times. Each time, he could clearly feel his mana pool expanding, and the sluggishness of the magic flow within him rapidly faded.
When the light dissipated, his level settled firmly at Lv.5.
The first watershed moment of the Azeroth Mage Apprentice stage.
Immediately after, new skill icons lit up one by one on the panel.
[Congratulations, Host, for reaching Lv.5. The following skills have been unlocked:]
[Frost-type God-tier Skill (Crowd Control): Frost Nova!]
[General-type God-tier Skill (Passive): Magic Perception!]
The corner of Arthur's mouth quirked up.
Frostbolt and Fireball are the cornerstones of a mage's output, while Mana Shield is the trump card for survival.
But the significance of Frost Nova and Magic Perceptionwas entirely different.
One is an instant-cast area crowd control, and the other is a 24/7 radar. Only with these two things can a mage truly control the battlefield.
Arthur closed his eyes and activated Magic Perception.
Hum!
The entire World changed its appearance in his mind.
The form of the physical World receded. All he saw was a 3D holographic map woven from countless energy points and lines.
Within a hundred-meter radius, all objects emitting heat and energy were presented in his perception with different colors and brightness.
Next to a trash can on the street corner, a homeless man fast asleep emitted a faint orange-red thermal halo from his body.
Further away, a few rats scurrying in the sewers were tiny moving red dots.
In a nearby Underground Room, several clumps of energy halos appeared exceptionally violent and chaotic, filled with sharp fluctuations. Arthur had seen that frequency many times on the battlefield: it was killing intent.
More precise and intuitive than any radar or thermal imager.
He immersed himself in this new perception.
Suddenly, an extremely faint black energy line, carrying a distinct aura of evil and decay, flashed from the depths of the city's sewers.
Arthur's expression changed.
The scent of that energy was all too familiar. Rotting, twisted, with countless tentacles writhing in the darkness.
The Elder Gods of Azeroth smelled just like this.
This Universe has these things too?
Arthur's gaze darkened. He didn't track the black line but silently noted the direction in which it disappeared.
Now was not the time for investigation.
He was only Lv.5.
Just as Arthur was familiarizing himself with his new abilities...
S.H.I.E.L.D., Trident Tower headquarters.
Daisy Johnson, wearing blue-light filtering glasses, typed rapidly on the keyboard as data streams refreshed continuously across six curved screens.
"Found him!"
After massive data comparison and path analysis, she finally mapped out the general trajectory of that mysterious Hooded Man from thousands of surveillance cameras in Queens.
"Let me see who you really are."
She mobilized the processing power of a supercomputer to perform frame-by-frame sharpening and 3D modeling on the most critical blurry footage captured at the alley entrance.
However, a bizarre scene occurred.
As the model's clarity increased, the Hooded Man's figure became more distorted. An invisible interference enveloped his body; all light rays hitting him—streetlights, neon signs, headlights—underwent irregular deflection within half a meter of his body.
The system analysis report concluded: Unknown energy field interference, optical imaging impossible.
Daisy Johnson took off her glasses and stared at the distorted optical noise on the screen.
"Active refraction?" She bit her lollipop and muttered to herself, "He's emitting an interference field himself. What kind of mutation can do this?"
She didn't dwell on it and immediately switched strategies.
Since direct optical tracking was a dead end, she would follow the data.
She hacked into the cash register surveillance of all convenience stores along the target's path, retrieved dashcam footage from roadside vehicles, and performed cross-comparison and trajectory deduction through reflections on countless mirrors and glass surfaces.
Finally, a red dot was locked onto the map of the Industrial District on the edge of Queens.
Daisy Johnson's finger hovered over the Enter key, her eyes narrowing slightly.
She forcibly hijacked a long-decommissioned traffic camera near that area, remotely restarted the power system, adjusted the focal length, and pointed the lens at the location of the red dot.
An abandoned auto repair warehouse.
Through the grime-covered glass window, the lens aimed at the interior of the warehouse.
Inside the warehouse.
Arthur, who was meditating, suddenly opened his eyes.
Magic Perception clearly captured that the broken traffic camera outside the warehouse had suddenly emitted a highly unnatural electronic scanning pulse.
It wasn't a regular electromagnetic signal.
It was a directional scan.
Someone was watching him.
Arthur slowly stood up and walked to the dusty window.
He looked up at the camera, which was slightly rotating and adjusting its angle.
The corner of his mouth quirked up.
"Found me? That was fast."
He extended his right hand, index and middle fingers together, and gave a light tap in the direction of the camera.
"Then come and have a chat."
Chapter 5: Dimensional Reduction of Arcane Interference
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
Daisy stared at the screen. After multiple rounds of enhancement processing on the images across six monitors, she finally captured a humanoid silhouette behind that filthy warehouse window.
Standing. Facing out the window.
"Supercomputer intervening, frame-by-frame sharpening, 3D modeling initiated."
She typed in a string of commands. The supercomputer's processing units ran at full speed, and the progress bar jumped forward at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Daisy leaned back in her chair, took off her blue-light blocking glasses, and held them in her mouth. Her mind was already composing the wording for her report. Brief, professional, and ending with a casual "didn't take too long." Fury loved that style the most.
The progress bar reached 87%.
Then, the figure in the warehouse moved.
In the surveillance footage, he raised his right hand. With his index and middle fingers pressed together, across the window glass and a distance of over ten meters, he aimed at the old, remotely restarted probe on the street corner.
A gentle tap.
No light effects. No sound.
But the six screens in front of Daisy exploded into static at the same instant.
"What's going on?"
She sat up straight, her fingers switching to defense commands. The data stream was jumping frantically, and all running processes were reporting errors simultaneously. Error codes flooded the screen, line after line, impossible to read clearly.
This wasn't signal interference.
Daisy had fought hacker wars for over a decade; she knew exactly what signal interference looked like. Interference was blocking the door, drowning out valid signals with noise.
This was different.
This was something crawling backward, upstream, along the data link she had just established.
Her firewall popped up seventeen consecutive intrusion alerts within three seconds, and then the alert system itself crashed.
It wasn't breached. It was consumed.
The multi-layered encrypted protection architecture she had personally written disintegrated the moment it touched the intrusion data; the code logic was rewritten from the ground up.
Daisy's fingers were still flying across the keyboard, trying to manually isolate the infected nodes. But every time she built an isolation wall, the opponent digested it within tenths of a second.
This was fundamentally unequal.
Her firewall operated on binary logic, while the things pouring in weren't within a binary framework at all.
It was like using sandbags to block water. Water is at least a liquid; you can block it somewhat.
But what was rushing in now was wind. The sandbags couldn't even touch it.
All system windows, code interfaces, and data charts evaporated within a second.
The six screens turned a uniform deep blue.
Then, runes appeared.
Densely packed geometric lines and curved structures, emitting a cold, ghostly blue light, drifted slowly across the screen. The arrangement of those lines didn't follow any known mathematical laws, yet they possessed an unsettling sense of order.
Daisy's hands stopped.
She stared at those runes for two seconds, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.
She couldn't understand these things, but that wasn't the point. Her intuition was screaming. These runes shouldn't appear on any electronic screen. They didn't belong here. They didn't belong to this technological system. They might not even belong to this World.
"Force shutdown."
She didn't hesitate, reaching out directly to press the physical power button on the tower.
The moment her finger touched the casing, she pulled back.
The metal casing was covered in a layer of white frost.
Not condensation. Frost.
Real, physical ice crystals that could only form at an unknown number of degrees below zero.
Cold air drifted out from the casing's vents, and the surface of the half-cup of coffee on the desk was freezing at a visible rate.
Daisy looked down at her keyboard.
White cold mist was seeping from the gaps of every keycap, a thin layer of ice had formed on the keyboard's surface, and the fingerprints left by her high-speed typing were frozen into white marks.
The office temperature dropped by at least fifteen degrees within ten seconds.
Daisy took a step back.
She had thought of many possibilities. A super hacker, alien technology, quantum computing weapons.
But she never thought of this.
The person on the other side had sent some unexplainable power through the network cable right in front of her.
A digital attack couldn't do this. A tangible physical effect, spanning the distance of the entire New York City, was placed precisely on her desk.
The runes on the screen began to move faster, the geometric lines rearranging themselves. Those cold blue lights gradually converged in the center of the screen, sketching out a few of the twenty-six English letters stroke by stroke.
Finally, it froze.
Stop peeping.
Two words. No exclamation mark. No extra embellishments.
Plain and polite.
Like a neighbor knocking on your door, asking you to turn down the music.
Daisy stared at these two words, unable to tell if she felt humiliated or impressed.
At the same time the last letter formed, there was a muffled pop from inside the tower.
The motherboard chips burned out from overload. A pungent smell of burning instantly filled the air. The six screens went dark simultaneously, the office dimmed, leaving only a wisp of black smoke from the tower and the unthawed frost on the keyboard.
Silence.
Very quiet.
So quiet that Daisy could hear the sound of her own heartbeat.
Click.
The door was pushed open.
Fury walked in carrying a coffee.
He saw the black smoke. He saw the darkened screens. He saw the frost-covered keyboard on the desk. He saw Daisystanding before the desk, face pale, motionless.
His single eye swept from left to right, then from right to left.
"Daisy."
"...Officer."
"What are you doing?"
Daisy opened her mouth and spent three seconds organizing her words.
"I was tracking the target in Queens, successfully locked onto his location, and remotely activated nearby surveillance probes for optical capture."
She paused.
"Then he found out."
Fury's expression didn't change. "And then?"
"Then, from over ten kilometers away, he followed the data link I established and reverse-hacked the headquarters' supercomputer."
Fury's coffee cup stopped in mid-air.
"It wasn't an intrusion in the conventional sense," Daisyadded, her voice a bit dry. "His attack methods aren't based on any known programming language or computational logic. My firewall, the entire system, was simply ignored. The underlying code was replaced by something... I don't know how to define it."
She pointed to the keyboard that was still emitting cold air.
"And this."
Fury looked at the layer of frost and was silent for five seconds.
"Physical effects transmitted through the network?"
"Yes," Daisy nodded. "The ice on the keyboard is real. The thermometer shows the room temperature dropped from twenty-two degrees to seven in ninety seconds. This isn't some high technology, Officer."
She hesitated for a moment but said the word anyway.
"This is more like magic."
Fury didn't respond. He walked to the desk and touched the frost on the keyboard with his fingertip.
Ice shards scraped against his finger, the real temperature conducting through his skin.
He withdrew his hand and wiped his fingertip.
"Threat level reassessment," Fury took a sip of coffee. "Starting today, this target's file level is upgraded to Alpha. I want twenty-four-hour continuous monitoring, but any tracking methods must go through me before execution."
He glanced at Daisy.
"Until we figure out what he actually is, don't provoke him again."
Daisy looked at her ruined tower and silently calculated the repair costs.
"Officer, the damage report for this equipment..."
"Write it as 'damaged in the line of duty'," Fury turned to walk out. "Don't write the reason."
"Why?"
Fury stopped at the door without turning around.
"Because if you write 'frozen through the network cable,' the logistics people will return the report with a mental health evaluation form attached."
The door closed.
Daisy stood alone in the office where black smoke and cold air coexisted, taking three deep breaths to calm down.
Queens, abandoned warehouse.
Arthur withdrew his finger.
The mana consumed during the whole process was negligible. The essence of arcane energy is the direct manipulation of the laws of reality; electronic signals have no distinction between encrypted and unencrypted before it.
To him, there was no essential difference between burning a computer and burning a candle.
Though it was indeed using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Finally, some peace and quiet.
He turned to continue meditating, but his stomach growled.
A muffled sound echoed through the empty warehouse.
Arthur looked down at his abdomen.
The metabolic rate of this new body was faster than he imagined. Continuous high-intensity mana circulation accelerated energy consumption; he hadn't eaten for nearly ten hours.
He felt his pocket.
That thousand-odd dollars—specifically, one thousand one hundred and forty—after paying three months' rent for the warehouse, two cases of mineral water, and a week's worth of canned food, had less than eighty left.
Eighty dollars.
Enough for him to eat at cheap fast-food joints in Queensfor six days. Six days later, an Archmage who could paralyze a S.H.I.E.L.D. supercomputer from across half the city would have to consider rummaging through trash cans.
Arthur leaned against the wall, seriously thinking about legal ways to make money.
Apply for a job? What would he write in the skills section of his resume? Proficient in arcane theory, skilled in space folding and elemental manipulation, capable of independently sealing and repairing small spatial rifts?
The HR people would probably just help him book a psychiatric appointment after reading that.
Street performing? Casting a real fireball in Times Squarewould put him on the Fox News headlines that night, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s black SUVs would fill the entrance the next morning.
No. At this stage, any action that exposes his identity is asking for trouble.
Arthur closed his eyes and expanded his Magic Perception.
The night of Queens unfolded within his perception network. Every living being was a point of light, and every emotion had a corresponding color.
His attention probed downward.
Below the surface. Pipes, foundations, subway tunnels.
Further down.
There was a space. A sealed concrete structure with an independent ventilation system, three steel blast doors, and twelve armed guards.
The energy field inside the space was extremely peculiar.
A large amount of paper fiber. Banknotes. The weak electrostatic field generated by densely stacked banknotes, combined with the magnetic signals of metal ions in the printing ink, appeared as a dense dark red mass in his perception.
He perceived more details. The banknotes were tainted with residual chemical scents, the molecular signatures of cocaine and methamphetamine. There were also several money counters and vacuum packaging machines in the corner.
A money laundering den.
And above this dark red energy, in the ground-level part of the building, hung an inconspicuous sign for an imported food wholesale company.
Arthur had noticed this place while scouting the surrounding environment earlier. There was almost no normal customer traffic during the day, but every night, several black vans without license plates entered and exited through the back door.
Run by Russians.
Specifically, it was a branch belonging to a New York Eastern European Criminal Organization, a cash transfer station dedicated to laundering drug trade profits.
Arthur opened his eyes.
He wasn't some chivalrous hero. In Azeroth, the darkness he had seen was ten thousand times worse than anything any criminal organization on Earth had ever done.
But the current problem was simple. He needed money, and those people had money. Their money was dirty.
Taking dirty money from dirty people didn't count as a moral dilemma.
At most, it was a mathematical problem.
How much did he need? To live inconspicuously in New York for the short term while having enough resources to support his leveling and research into this World's supernatural systems.
Five hundred thousand dollars. A starting price.
Arthur pushed open the warehouse window. The night wind poured in, carrying the industrial exhaust and river stench unique to Queens.
He pulled up his hood, covering most of his face.
"Since I can't work..."
He stepped onto the windowsill.
"...then I'll just have to rob the rich to help the poor."
The wind wrapped around his figure as he vanished into the night.
Helping himself, of course.