"Let… let go of me!" Deathstrike, Yuriko, screamed, her body held rigidly suspended in the air. She struggled violently against the unseen, profound force binding her.
Huang Wen, having put away his golden Vajra Indestructible Divine Skill, merely smiled at her desperate thrashing. The subtle power of his Shen—amplified by the Rebirth Dragon Chapter—easily exerted absolute, crushing control over her entire body, pinning her as effectively as Magneto's field pinned Logan in their previous encounter.
"You're right, Uncle Wolf," Huang Wen muttered to himself, shaking his head with a slight smile. "We really should have dealt with you a little later." With a casual flick of his wrist, he redirected the psychic pressure, and the Deathstrike woman was slammed violently back into the wall indentation she had just begun to heal from, effectively silencing her for the moment.
"This Adamantium is a serious logistical problem," Huang Wen sighed, turning his full attention to the mesmerizing, swirling pool of liquid alloy. "Such a perfect raw material, utterly wasted just sitting here. If only my System Space could store anything other than what it extracts via the lottery, this would be a simple matter."
The key issue wasn't just the sheer mass of the material, but its temperature. "Moreover, if this Adamantium alloy cools down, it becomes functionally impossible to utilize in its liquid form—I need to maintain this scorching heat."
A sudden, fierce globe of vibrant red-orange flame burst from Huang Wen's right palm, instantly morphing from raw heat into a sustained, pure current of Fire-Attribute Internal Energy. This energy was channeled directly into the complex apparatus holding the molten Adamantium. With the heat stabilized, Huang Wen acted fast.
The next moment, with a silent, blinding flash of light, Huang Wen and the entire, massive vat containing the liquid Adamantium alloy vanished.
He reappeared in his own private room back at the Wing Chun martial arts school, surrounded by the sudden stillness of the deserted space.
"Hmm, I recall there's an empty space under the bed in the office. Perfect for an inconspicuous storage site," Huang Wen thought quickly. He wasn't about to risk physically wrestling the massive, superheated container.
Instead, he employed his object manipulation ability—a refinement of his former card-swapping skill, but now capable of manipulating objects of tremendous mass. The entire Adamantium vat and its cooling apparatus were instantly and seamlessly swapped, materializing directly into the empty space beneath his bed, concealed by a heavy wooden frame.
"Excellent. Now, back to our secondary mission: the Deathstrike woman. After I secure the facility, she can serve as a potent, dedicated guardian for Chinatown and Uncle Zhong," Huang Wen nodded, satisfied with his quick, high-stakes looting. His figure dissolved once more, transforming into a speck of light that instantly disappeared, reappearing a moment later back in the Alkali Lake base laboratory.
"You… you came back!" Deathstrike Yuriko had just managed to pry herself free from the wall. Her pupils contracted violently as she saw Huang Wen materialize out of thin air. She immediately extended her deadly, ten-bladed claws, positioning herself in a defensive stance despite her obvious terror.
"Easy now," Huang Wen offered a kind, almost paternal smile. He met Yuriko's frantic gaze and, without resorting to physical coercion, unleashed a specialized form of the Dream Butterfly Escape's spiritual manipulation—a deep, focused hypnotic illusion. Yuriko's eyes immediately glazed over, becoming distant, then completely vacant.
Huang Wen quickly got to work. First, he located and severed the deep psychic leash placed on her by William Stryker, freeing her from the colonel's programming. Second, he activated the latent commands within her subconscious, restoring her long-suppressed original memories and identity. Finally, he implanted the single, governing clause: Absolute, unquestioning loyalty to himself, Huang Wen.
The entire process took less than ten seconds of real time, even as the walls around them continued to rumble from the distant fighting.
While Huang Wen was quietly rebranding his new bodyguard, Logan was finding his answers.
Logan, driven by a primal, incandescent fury, had burst into the dam's upper control room. William Stryker, having used the diversion to reach his escape helicopter, was just preparing to lift off.
Logan leapt, his momentum carrying him directly into the cockpit. His steel claws, already unsheathed, punched through the military uniform and deeply into Stryker's torso, slamming the colonel against the seat.
"Tell me! Who am I? What did you do to me? Did you turn me into this thing?!" Logan roared, his voice cracking with years of agonizing, suppressed memory loss.
"You… you were born a beast, Wolverine," Stryker gasped, blood bubbling at his lips, yet maintaining a chilling, manipulative calm even in the face of death. He seemed determined to drag Logan into the abyss with him. "How could I have turned you into anything? This… this is your nature. Unleash it. Stop trying to suppress the animal inside you…"
"Pfft!" Logan's healing factor was not just physical; it was tied to his rage. Stryker's final, twisted words were the last straw. The rage boiled over, and Logan drove his claws deeper, moving them in opposite directions. He brutally sliced William Stryker clean in two along the line of his chest.
"As you wish," Logan whispered, his voice cold and empty as he glanced at the lifeless, ruined corpse of his tormentor. He turned and left the cockpit, a profound sense of vengeance achieved, yet still deeply confused. The truth he sought had been denied to him right up until the final, bloody moment. He needed to find Huang Wen.
"Aaaahhh!"
Just then, a soul-searing, catastrophic psychic pain slammed into Logan. He instantly stumbled, clutching his adamantium skull, dropping to his knees. It wasn't just him. Throughout the sprawling Alkali Lake facility—in the control rooms, the corridors, the prison cells—every single mutant, save for Magneto in his protective helmet, screamed and collapsed, clutching their heads in agony.
The worst-hit were the powerful telepaths and empaths: Jean Grey, Ororo, and the captive children.
The reason was clear: Professor Charles Xavier, under the final influence of Jason Stryker, had successfully donned the Cerebro Enhancement Helmet and initiated the sequence. The combined psychic power, augmented a thousandfold, was tearing apart the minds of every mutant on the planet, eliminating the rival species before moving on to the human one.
"Fortunately, I managed to get here before the true damage began," Huang Wen muttered, glancing at the newly hypnotized Yuriko, who was kneeling, silently enduring the mental firestorm racking her mind. He spoke quickly, his voice cutting through the silent agony in the room. "Wait for me here. Do not move. Do not engage. I will return for you shortly!"
"Y-yes, Boss!" Deathstrike Yuriko managed to utter, her eyes squeezed shut against the psychic shriek, her loyalty already absolute.
Huang Wen's figure blurred. Utilizing his Snow-Treading Traceless Steps in conjunction with his internal Qi control, he vanished from the lab in a silent streak, heading toward the epicenter of the psychic chaos. The time for Magneto's true conspiracy to be revealed had arrived.
"BOOM!"
Outside the main Cerebro chamber, Magneto—fully protected by his magnetically sealed helmet—had just used the final, ultimate focus of his power to rip the complex, metallic Cerebro Enhancement Machine from its moorings, forcibly terminating the psychic feedback loop. The mental pain instantly vanished, leaving behind only the ringing silence of profound trauma.
A triumphant, cruel smile played across Magneto's lips. He ripped open the heavy, reinforced door to the control room. Inside, Jason Stryker was slumped over the panel, his face a mask of bitter resentment, having failed his father. Magneto walked past him, his eyes immediately falling on the still-paralyzed Charles Xavier, who was slowly removing the helmet.
Magneto intended to use Jason to redirect Charles's power at humanity. He tapped his helmet arrogantly—the one thing that rendered him immune to psychic attack—then winked at Mystique, who had been following his lead.
Mystique, having flawlessly imitated William Stryker, walked up to the cowering Jason, about to deliver the final, manipulative command.
"Snap!"
The movement ceased abruptly. Mystique froze mid-step, her body locked rigidly in place, her transformation shimmering in an unstable phase between her military uniform and her natural blue skin.
"Huh? It's you?!" Magneto's expression changed from triumphant victory to sudden, cold fury. He spun around to face Huang Wen, who had materialized silently in the control room. His voice dropped, sharp as a piece of cut metal. "What is this? Are you deliberately attempting to interfere in the affairs of our species?"
"Old Wan," Huang Wen said, using the casual Chinese term for the veteran mutant, his smile gentle but utterly knowing.
"Did you really believe that only you two masters of secrets knew the extent of your plan? You've been plotting this since you heard the name Cerebro." He looked around the machine, then back at Magneto. "What's the matter, Eric? Do you no longer consider me 'human'? Was the plan not to have Charles wipe out every last member of the human race this time?"
"You—!" Magneto's pupils contracted violently. He stared at Huang Wen with an expression of utterly dumbfounded shock and suspicion. He simply couldn't fathom where, when, or how he had possibly betrayed his ultimate, most closely guarded secret.
Huang Wen was about to reply when a sudden, jarring displacement of space-time energy made his internal Shen surge uncomfortably. He looked up, frowning at the air above the Cerebro chamber.
"Hmm?" Magneto's focus immediately shifted from rage to wariness. Jason Stryker's face, pale and defeated, suddenly turned a horrified white. A glimmer of profound lucidity and understanding finally pierced the fog in Charles's eyes.
"Please forgive my intrusion, Master," Charles said, recovering his faculties with astonishing speed. He quickly understood the monumental significance of the arrival. He offered a slight, apologetic smile toward the newcomer.
With an ethereal shimmer, a second bald man materialized in the room. He wore simple, yellow-gold robes and a strange, intricate amulet around his neck—the Eye of Agamotto. The air in the room instantly felt impossibly heavy, filled with a palpable, spiritual energy that overshadowed Magneto's magnetism.
"Ordinarily, I would never interfere in the petty squabbles of this planet, as they are not the concern of Kamar-Taj. They do not constitute an extra-dimensional or cosmic crisis," the Ancient One—the Sorcerer Supreme—said, their voice soft but resonant with the power of the universe. Their gaze swept across Magneto and Huang Wen, acknowledging two sources of immense, unorthodox power.
"However, my divinations showed a clear path: a ten percent chance of success for Eric's plot." The Ancient One gestured to the deactivated Cerebro machine.
"And that success meant the instantaneous psychic death of ninety-nine percent of the human population. This, Eric, would include the vast majority of our Kamar-Taj initiates, leaving the Earth's magical defenses at their weakest point in centuries."
The Sorcerer Supreme's eyes, ancient and infinitely wise, finally settled on Magneto. "At that point, multiple dimensions would seize the opportunity to invade, and ultimately, this entire planet—mutant and human alike—would be consumed. The life force of Earth would be extinguished."
"Therefore," the Ancient One concluded, their presence an absolute, immovable certainty, "I came to prevent the unthinkable."