Chapter 91: magic Shura Field! Chaos Magic vs. Electromagnetic Control
"Crack."
The sound of shattering exploded across the floor.
That was a Ming Dynasty blue and white porcelain vase that Aaron had just bought from the auction house last week.
White porcelain shards, mixed with the withered roots of tulips, rolled across the carpet and finally stopped beside a pitch-black leather boot.
The air in the apartment's living room felt as though it had been forcibly sucked into a giant vacuum pump.
The air pressure plummeted drastically.
The eardrums emitted muffled sounds caused by the pressure difference.
Wanda stood at the edge of the dining room.
The red light winding around her fingertips was no longer a warm, gentle mist, but a viscous pulp like fresh blood.
The red light slithered along the gaps in the floorboards; wherever it passed, the expensive Persian carpet instantly turned charred and curled up.
The air was permeated with a salty, fishy stench burned by high heat.
"The rules of this house are not for an outsider to meddle with."
Wanda spoke, her voice carrying a suppressed tremble.
Her fingernails dug deep into her palms, and what seeped out wasn't blood, but a pulsating crimson energy.
That was Chaos Magic.
A destructive power capable of instantly altering Karmaand erasing matter.
Lorna leaned her back against the wine cabinet originally used to store whiskey.
Her dark green long hair twisted wildly in the air like a living creature.
Emerald electromagnetic currents gathered deep within her pupils.
That was a jade green even more intense than high-voltage electricity.
"Master brought me back because I can open every bottle of wine he wants to drink."
Lorna's voice was as cold as a blade's tip.
She suddenly spread her five fingers outward.
"And you are nothing more than a vessel that only knows how to wet his carpet."
Hum——!
A low-frequency vibration that made one's teeth ache swept across the entire room.
That was an ultra-high-frequency magnetic field forcibly pulling at the metal atoms in the air.
The reinforced steel bars inside the living room walls let out a painful creak.
The plaster on the surface of the load-bearing wall began to fall off in flurries.
Those silver cubic parts scattered mid-air.
At this moment, they became a millstone contested by two wills.
On the left was the red fog attempting to melt them.
On the right was the green glow forcibly adsorbing them.
Under the squeeze of the two energies, the parts emitted a vibration akin to a lament.
The originally precise interlocking structures began to twist, turn red, and heat up.
"Get lost!"
Wanda let out a scream, her right arm swinging fiercely.
A massive blob of Chaos energy transformed into huge sharp claws, tearing towards Lorna's face, which was written full of provocation.
The sharp claws slashed through the air.
What was left behind wasn't the sound of wind, but subtle black cracks produced by space failing to bear the pressure.
The floor beneath Lorna's feet violently shattered.
She didn't dodge.
She was Magneto's daughter, with the most violent genes of war flowing in her bones.
She slammed her hands together forcefully in front of her chest.
All the metal ornaments——
Forks, candlesticks, and even that decorative cross sword hanging on the wall.
In this second, they were all swept up by the magnetic field, forming a rotating metal shield array.
Emerald electric arcs danced across the surface of the shield array, crashing head-on into that red sharp claw.
Boom——!
A visible Impact exploded in the center of the living room.
The originally flat marble floor looked as though it had been trampled by a giant beast, instantly cracking and collapsing.
The interwoven red and green pillars of light surged into the sky, crashing into the ceiling and shattering those expensive sensor lights into powder all over the sky.
Smoke and dust flew mixed with shattered wall plaster.
Furniture disintegrated in mid-air.
That coffee machine worth hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars, which Pietro had just bought back, turned into a ball of scrap iron under the tug of the magnetic field.
Then, under the corrosion of the red fog, it transformed into a puddle of foul-smelling black water.
This kind of collision had already gone beyond the scope of a mere fight.
These were two Mutants powerful enough to destroy half of New York, using their lives to fill the trace of perverted possessiveness deep within their hearts.
A thin red scratch flowed down Wanda's cheek.
That was scratched by the metal fragments that had just shot out.
She didn't care.
She only felt an unprecedented fury exploding within her chest.
This green-haired woman had just stood by Aaron's side using such a cheap excuse as a 'bottle opener'.
"I'm going to stuff you... into a crack in the ground!"
Wanda clasped her hands together, the red light at the soles of her feet spreading out radially.
The logical reality of the entire living room began to collapse.
The neon lights outside the window began to distort.
The space where gravity originally pointed downward turned to the left in an instant.
Lorna let out a muffled grunt.
Due to the sudden gravity mutation, her entire body slammed hard against the side wall.
But the magnetic field output in her hands didn't stop.
She forcibly locked onto the keel of the entire building, pushing the magnetic field strength to the absolute limit.
"Want to play big? I'll keep you company!"
The air in the living room began to produce blue ionization phenomena due to the high pressure.
Oxygen was rapidly depleted.
If an ordinary person stood here, even for a single second, they would die from their lungs bursting.
Just at the moment when this chaotic energy was about to overturn the entire floor of the apartment.
"Yawn——"
A lazy, even somewhat sleepy yawn sound.
Abruptly pierced through the violent roaring noise.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a cold paper cutter, instantly slicing open that viscous red and green energy field.
Both girls froze simultaneously.
They felt an irresistible, superior coercion sweeping over from the direction of the sofa.
Aaron had been lying there the whole time.
Even when the floor lamp exploded beside his ear just now, even when the shattered porcelain shards brushed past his shirt collar.
He didn't even raise an eyelid.
But now, he felt it was really too noisy.
So noisy that his head ached a little.
Aaron slowly straightened his body up from the sofa.
He didn't look at the messy living room, nor did he look at the two girls treating him like a formidable enemy.
He simply raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers crossed.
"Snap."
That was Aaron's signature finger snap.
In the one-ten-thousandth of a second when the finger snap fell.
Time seemed to have been pressed with a clear button.
The viscous red fog that had originally enveloped the entire living room and was enough to corrode matter——
Vanished.
As if it had never existed in this World, it was forcibly erased directly from space.
The magnetic field that was originally so violent it tilted the building and pulled out emerald electric light in the air——
Extinguished.
All induced currents and all magnetic field lines instantly returned to silence.
Those furniture debris, torn rags, and broken steel bars still flying around in mid-air.
Should have continued to fly straight ahead following inertia.
But after the finger snap, they seemed to have been deprived of all kinetic energy, dropping vertically and neatly onto the ground.
Emitting a series of muffled thuds of 'thud, thud'.
Inside the living room.
The lights were still out.
But the moonlight spilled in, shining on the somewhat sluggish faces of the two girls.
Wanda's fingertips, which had still been burning earlier, were empty at this moment.
She felt as though the Chaos energy within her body had encountered a wall of despair, being forcibly shoved back into the deepest parts of her cells.
Lorna had it even worse; she felt as though her magnetic field sensing had been doused head-on by a basin of ice water.
That sense of power of controlling everything was directly cut off from power by Aaron's single finger snap.
Aaron pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket.
He wiped his fingertips.
Then he raised his head; there was no anger in his black pupils.
Only a chilling calmness that made one's spine turn cold.
"The property management fee for this apartment is very expensive."
Aaron spoke, his tone as flat as a straight line.
"You broke my vase and shattered my carpet."
"And you even dirtied the gift I was going to give to someone else."
Aaron stood up.
He walked barefoot on the floor full of broken glass.
Those fragments, sharp enough to cut open the soles of his feet, automatically turned into powder the moment they touched his skin.
He walked between the two girls.
Wanda lowered her head, her fingers twined together.
That Aura of destroying heaven and earth from just now shattered into dust the moment Aaron stood up.
She felt the kind of Aura emanating from Aaron's body.
No longer laziness.
But an absolute will that could hold the entire Planet in the palm of one's hand and knead it to pieces.
Lorna trembled even more violently.
She had been provoking just moments ago, but at this moment she didn't even have the courage to take a glance at Aaron.
That superior suppression made her knees go soft, almost causing her to directly kneel into the pile of broken glass.
"Want to fight?"
Aaron stopped between the two of them.
He extended his left and right hands, respectively flicking a finger against the foreheads of Wanda and Lorna.
"Thud."
The crisp sound was exceptionally clear in the dead-silent room.
"Next time you want to play for real, go fight on the moon."
Aaron turned around, walking toward the terrace that had been shaken and cracked.
"In that place, even if you split the moon in half, I can still use it as a side dish for wine."
"But here with me, whoever dares to smash another cup..."
Aaron stopped his steps, turning his head sideways.
The moonlight outlined one side of his face.
"I will turn her into a candle, light her in the toilet, and let her shine for a hundred years."
Wanda bit her lip, her eye sockets somewhat red.
That wasn't pain, but guilt after being pierced by Aaron's cold gaze.
"I'm sorry... Aaron."
Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's hum, her palms covered in cold sweat.
Lorna was even more frightened and didn't dare to move.
She originally thought Aaron was just strong.
But now she discovered that this man's understanding of power had reached the Realm of 'law follows every spoken word.'
What magnetic field, what magic, in front of him, couldn't even be considered toys.
"Master... I know I was wrong."
Lorna lowered her head, that green hair hanging down in front of her face.
Her pride was ground into powder in front of Aaron's single finger snap.
Aaron didn't speak.
He looked at New York outside the terrace.
This chaotic, sin-filled yet vibrant city.
He originally wanted to teach these two ignorant little madcaps a lesson.
But looking at them trembling like little kittens soaked in rain.
The slight displeasure in his heart from being disturbed inexplicably dissipated.
Although these girls were annoying.
They were indeed the most obedient and powerful 'tools' in this World.
Tools that are worn out need to be repaired.
Tools that are obedient need to be rewarded.
Aaron turned around.
He looked at the two girls, his palm grabbing into the Void Realm.
The red light flashed once more.
But this time, the center of the light was no longer destruction.
Instead, it was two sets of glowing, flowing light... emitting breathtaking energy fluctuations...
"Since you know you were wrong, come over here."
Aaron waved his hand.
"This is the... reward prepared for you."
Wanda and Lorna raised their heads simultaneously.
They looked at the things pulsing in Aaron's palm, their breathing suddenly stalling.
Chapter 92 Aaron's Technique for Managing Wives, Giving Each a Divine Rank Battle Suit
Aaron stood right in the center of the living room.
The shards of glass under his feet were crushed into fine powder, making a rustling sound.
He opened his palms, and two soft yet deep lights danced between his fingers, resembling miniature galaxies imprisoned in his palms.
The one in his left hand was a translucent scarlet, and the aura overflowing from its edges caused the surrounding space to constantly wrinkle.
That was [True · Chaos Crown].
The one in his right hand was an introverted dark green, so heavy that it seemed capable of crushing the light in the air.
That was [Stellar Magnetic Core Inner Armor].
Wanda lowered her head, her fingers tightly clutching the hem of her white hoodie.
The Killing Intent that had threatened to overturn the entire building just moments ago was flicked back into her stomach by a single snap of Aaron's fingers.
Her throat was somewhat dry, and the corners of her eyes turned slightly reddish from holding back her grievance.
Lorna knelt beside a piece of broken steel reinforcement.
Her green hair hung down her cheeks, covering what was originally a provocative face.
Her fingers pressed against the cold tiles, and the gaps in her nails were filled with dust left behind from the collision just now.
"There are only two items."
Aaron spoke, his tone as flat as if he were pointing out a few pieces of tofu at a morning market stall.
"I originally planned to throw them into the storage room to gather dust."
"But the demolition enthusiasm you two showed just now makes me think you probably feel you don't have enough strength in your hands."
Aaron took a step forward and stopped in front of Wanda.
He raised his left hand, and that mass of scarlet light slashed an afterimage across the air.
Buzz—
Wanda felt a heaviness on top of her head.
There was no sense of physical weight, but rather a profound power pierced through her entire body starting from the crown of her head.
The scarlet light solidified within her hair, transforming into a dark red thorn circle only as thick as a pinky finger.
This was not metal.
It was materialized rules of reality.
The Chaos energy that had been rampaging wildly inside Wanda's body, at the instant it came into contact with this circle,
became completely obedient.
If her energy previously was a mad Beast roaring in a cage,
then now, this Beast had been fitted with a gold-inlaid chain, and the handle of the chain was right in Aaron's hands.
"This thing is called [True · Chaos Crown]."
Aaron flicked Wanda's forehead lightly with his fingertips, "In the future, whatever you want to transform, think it through clearly in your head before acting."
"If you turn my coffee machine into foul water again, I'll stuff you into a coffee cup."
Wanda raised her hand, the pads of her fingers rubbing against the slightly cool thorn circle.
She could feel that with just a single thought from her, the pile of ruins in front of her could be restored to its original state within a ten-thousandth of a second.
Even the falling position of every single speck of dust could be precisely corrected by her.
"Aaron..."
The originally tightly pressed corners of Wanda's mouth relaxed.
She looked at Aaron, and the tension in her eyes caused by her sense of crisis instantly transformed into a viscous attachment.
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against Aaron's palm, like a stray cat that had found its Master.
Lorna watched that scene from the side, grinding her back teeth until they creaked.
She stared at that red circle, her emerald eyes filled entirely with jealousy.
Although she feared Aaron, she hated even more that she was like a redundant appendage in this household.
"There's yours too."
Aaron turned around and waved his hand casually.
The dark green flowing light in his right hand, resembling a ball of liquid mercury, crashed directly into Lorna's chest.
Lorna let out a muffled groan.
That flowing light rapidly spread along her skin, instantly covering her torso.
Then.
The light disappeared.
There was no weight whatsoever, nor any sensation of a foreign object.
Lorna looked down and saw a layer of dark green patterns, as deep as a stellar core, faintly showing through the surface of her skin.
These patterns flashed and vanished, completely lurking into every single one of her cells.
[Stellar Magnetic Core Inner Armor].
This was not defensive gear.
This was a planetary-grade gravity engine directly implanted into the human body.
Lorna tried to mobilize her magnetic field.
The air molecules that previously required strenuous pulling now felt as light as a grain of sand in her senses.
As long as she was willing, she could even feel the core of the Planet beneath her feet rotating slowly.
She could follow the gravitational lines and directly control the magnetic pole deflection of most of Earth.
"Mas... Master."
Lorna's voice carried a tremor.
She stood up, and due to the overwhelming newly acquired power, the gravitational field around her produced a slight distortion.
The glass shards on the floor even began to slowly float upwards.
"Since you've taken the items, hurry up and clean up the house."
Aaron sat back down on the sofa, not caring that the cushion had already been cut open in several places.
"I'll give you five minutes."
The two girls, who had been full of Killing Intent just moments ago and wished to tear each other to pieces, were now acting like completely different people.
Wanda flicked her fingertips.
Red light swept across the living room like ripples.
Those shattered blue-and-white porcelains, collapsed load-bearing walls, and even every single sensor light bulb that had been shattered,
after being brushed over by the red light, reorganized and returned to their places as if time were flowing backwards.
The smell of burning that had originally permeated the air was replaced by the scent of fresh grass after rain.
Lorna commanded the magnetic field.
The steel bars and furniture frames distorted by the collision were forcibly straightened back to their original curvature within a few seconds.
They were even more seamless than when they left the factory.
The living room lit up with warm yellow lights again.
The light shone softly onto the bar counter, where two newly delivered boxes of donuts were quietly resting.
The two girls closed in from left and right.
Wanda took the lead, kneeling on the wool rug by Aaron's legs.
She lifted her face, her red hair hanging over the edge of the sofa, and reached out to undo the crooked button at the collar of Aaron's shirt.
"Aaron, it was my fault just now, I shouldn't have argued with her."
Her voice was soft and sweet, her fingertips brushing vaguely across Aaron's collarbone.
Seeing this, Lorna gritted her teeth.
She quickly walked around to the back of the sofa, placing both hands on Aaron's shoulders.
A warm magnetic field fluctuation emanated from her palms, infiltrating inward along his shoulder and neck meridians.
"Master, my massage pressure is more precise now; I can help you clear every tiny blood vessel."
She lowered her head, her lips close to Aaron's ear, casting a sidelong glance at Wanda with her green eyes.
Aaron closed his eyes, feeling the two distinct yet extremely comfortable forces coming from his body.
This was the art of managing wives.
Reasoning with them was useless.
Giving them a sufficient sense of status and absolutely irresistible rewards would make them learn how to get along within the territory on their own.
"Aaron, do you still want a donut?"
Wanda picked up one drizzled with honey, tore off a small piece, and handed it to Aaron's lips.
"The flavor I picked just now is your favorite."
"Master, tomorrow I can go and buy that coffee machine factory for you."
Lorna gently massaged from behind, her tone carrying a sense of extreme flattery.
"In the future, whatever you want to drink, I'll have them deliver the raw concentrate directly."
The air in the living room became a bit overly sweet and cloying.
The ruins from just now had long since vanished, replaced by a tenderness that made one's bones melt.
Aaron took a bite of the donut, the sweetness of the honey bursting on the tip of his tongue.
He felt that if days continued to pass like this, whether or not he went to save the World really didn't matter.
This feeling of being waited on by top-tier superpowered individuals was indeed much more comfortable than being some sort of Emperor Emeritus.
Right at this moment.
The air in the living room suddenly turned a few degrees colder.
A holographic projection screen unfolded in mid-air without any warning.
The figure of Red Queen appeared.
Her originally delicate little face was scrunched up at this moment, her expression appearing serious and urgent.
"Master, an emergency situation has been detected."
Red Queen's small hand swiped across the Void Realm.
A high-altitude satellite overlooking video window instantly enlarged.
That was a winding mountain road on the edge of Queens, New York.
The road was built against the mountain, with a bottomless bay cliff below.
In the footage, a silver-gray Lamborghini Huracán was racing wildly in the rain like an out-of-control Beast.
The wheels kicked up bursts of white smoke due to slipping on the wet and slippery road surface.
In the driver's seat, a man wearing an expensive suit and extremely neatly trimmed beard was frantically turning the steering wheel with a look of horror on his face.
Stephen Strange.
His cell phone had fallen onto the floor mat of the passenger seat.
The screen was lit up, showing a high-definition photo of a pathological slice.
"Screech—!"
The harsh sound of brakes pierced through the speakers.
Due to a violent tail-flick, the Lamborghini smashed directly through the roadside guardrail.
The front of the car twisted and deformed in the collision, resembling a crumpled piece of tinfoil.
The entire luxury car rolled twice in the air.
Accompanied by the loud crash of shattering glass,
like a heavy iron ball, it plummeted straight down toward the ferocious rocky beach below.
"According to biometric comparison, the driver is Manhattan's most famous neurosurgeon, Doctor Strange."
Red Queen's voice echoed in the living room.
"His hands have been completely shattered in the compression just now due to the structural collapse of the steering column."
Aaron opened his eyes.
He looked at the Lamborghini rolling in mid-air on the screen.
And then looked at the half-eaten donut in his hand.
He knew.
That era belonging to magic,
that Sorcerer Supreme born from an accident,
in this unimaginably tragic car accident,
had officially
drawn back
its curtain.
Chapter 93: Just Before Doctor Strange's Car Accident, Casually Intercepting
The light on the screen was somewhat dazzling.
A silver-gray Lamborghini traced an impatient arc on the horizon.
The tires screamed on the floor, the sound of composite Materials grinding violently against asphalt.
The standing water whipped up by the rear of the car crashed against the guardrail, shattering into a field of white foam.
Aaron swallowed the last bite of the doughnut in his mouth.
The sweet and greasy taste of honey was still lingering at the root of his tongue.
He casually wiped his frosted fingertips on a tissue.
"Strange..."
Aaron softly murmured this name.
The person who, in the original timeline, would travel across mountains and rivers to seek the mystic arts due to the crippling of these hands.
The future Sorcerer Supreme was stuffing himself into that roaring iron beast at this moment.
"Master, the Lamborghini's front left wheel has already crossed the White line."
Red Queen's voice echoed in the spacious living room.
"Due to excessive speed coupled with rainy-day side-slipping, the collision probability is 99.2%."
"In three seconds, the bones in his hands will be completely shredded by the deformed steering column."
Wanda was half-kneeling beside Aaron's legs.
She noticed Aaron leaning forward slightly, which was a rare "interest".
Lorna also stopped massaging his shoulders.
The two girls stared at the screen, not understanding what about this arrogant Doctor was worth Aaron's attention.
"I'm going to go watch the commotion."
Aaron stood up.
He didn't wear a coat, just a thin gray shirt with the collar hanging loosely open.
He didn't take the teleportation array, but instead vanished right on the spot.
Space seemed to have a tiny wrinkle torn open, then quickly smoothed out.
...
The outskirts of New York, cliffside highway.
The torrential rain slammed sideways against the road surface.
The air was filled with a damp, salty-fishy smell, which was the water vapor blowing up from the Hudson River.
Aaron sat on a bench.
That bench was right at the edge of the viewing platform at the highway corner, its paint cracked at the seams.
The rainwater automatically slid away half a meter above his head.
At his feet was a pile of withered, yellow fallen leaves, spinning as they were whipped by the wind.
He raised his hand and glanced at a nonexistent watch on his wrist.
"Ten seconds left."
At the far end of the distant curve, two blinding xenon headlights tore through the rain curtain.
The Lamborghini Huracan was like a silver bullet piercing the air.
The roar of the engine reverberated through the valley, shaking the roadside gravel down toward the cliff.
Inside the cab.
One of Strange's hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning pale and bluish from exertion.
The other hand was swiftly swiping across his phone screen.
He was looking at an X-ray of a spinal tumor, which was a research specimen for his next surgery.
Those fingers of his, praised by the medical community as the "Hands of God," were flexibly zooming in and out on the image.
He was too arrogant.
Arrogant enough to think that as long as his nerve reflexes were fast enough, he could dance on the edge of death.
Suddenly.
The wheels rolled over a puddle of accumulated water.
The tires that had previously tightly gripped the ground instantly lost traction.
The Lamborghini's chassis emitted a muffled vibration.
"Fuck!"
Strange abruptly raised his head.
The phone slipped from his hand and fell deep into the passenger side floor mat.
He frantically turned the steering wheel, his arm muscles twitching violently due to extreme tension.
But it was too late.
The front of the car slammed fiercely into the roadside concrete isolation barrier at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour.
The creaking sound of steel bars snapping had already sounded.
Special glass began to exhibit dense spiderweb patterns.
The deformed engine compartment was pushing against the shattered dashboard, pressing down toward Strange's hands.
The excruciating pain of being shredded by metal was already previewed before those sensitive nerve endings.
Strange clenched his back teeth, his gums oozing blood, leaving a fishy, sweet taste in his mouth.
At this critical juncture.
"Freeze."
Aaron sat on the bench, his buttocks not moving a fraction.
He merely lifted his eyelids, and toward that collapsing metal storm, flicked his finger lightly.
Hum——!
A sense of tranquility that could not be described in words instantly covered the entire stretch of highway.
The torrential rain stopped.
Countless rounded raindrops suspended in mid-air, like specimens sealed in transparent colloid.
The fallen leaves whipped up by the wind were frozen at their highest point, their veins clearly visible.
Most shocking was that Lamborghini.
Its front end was already caved in halfway, and the flying glass shards had now turned into a string of stationary crystals.
Strange's entire body leaned forward, the airbag had just popped out halfway, and the wrinkles of the fabric remained rigid in the air.
Space-time locked.
Chaos Magic's reality warping directly established a physical vacuum zone at that point.
Aaron stood up from the bench.
He took strides and walked into that Domain composed of dead silence.
He did not walk fast.
With every step he took, the soles of his shoes trod on the slippery yet stationary water surface, stirring up a very fine circle of red ripples.
He walked to the car door.
The Lamborghini's metal door had already locked due to the impact.
Aaron reached out, his fingertips touching the door handle.
"Click."
This crisp sound appeared exceptionally harsh in absolute silence.
The entire car door turned into pink petals under Aaron's fingertips, scattering away with the wind.
That directly erased the molecular structure of the matter.
Strange still maintained a terrified expression.
His eyeballs couldn't even move, but his consciousness was still there.
That was what Aaron deliberately left for him.
Strange could feel that his heart had stopped beating and his blood had coagulated, but he could see that young man.
Aaron bent down.
He reached out and grabbed Strange's slightly trembling hands, which were just a few centimeters away from being crushed.
Slender fingers with distinct knuckles.
As if taking a fragile item from a shelf, Aaron dragged Strange out of the twisted driver's seat entirely.
Those dashboard parts that were originally going to pierce Strange's torso softened one after another the moment Aaron made contact.
They turned into some kind of plasticine-like substance, obediently avoiding all vital points.
Aaron hoisted Strange by the back collar and dragged him to the side of that dry bench.
Tossed him casually.
Strange collapsed onto the chair like a broken sack.
Aaron sat back in his original position, taking out a piece of candy from his pocket that he hadn't finished eating earlier.
"Wake up."
He snapped his fingers.
Snap.
The previously frozen World shattered like glass struck by a heavy hammer.
Boom!
Thunder exploded.
The torrential rain tilted down once again.
That Lamborghini lost the support of Aaron's power.
The residual inertia originally frozen in mid-air erupted violently.
Like a lump of scrap metal, it crashed open the guardrail along the direction of the impact with a bang, tumbling down into the cliff.
On the rocky beach hundreds of meters below, it exploded into a brilliant ball of fire.
"Hoo... cough cough! Cough cough!"
Strange abruptly arched his waist, taking large, greedy breaths.
His lungs felt as if they were stuffed with burning charcoal, every breath bringing sharp, intense pain.
Because his brain was still stuck in that one second of impact.
His hands instinctively scrambled in the air, trying to grab the non-existent steering wheel.
"My hands... my hands..."
He screamed in shock, his pupils covered in bloodshot veins.
He lowered his head, frantically checking his fingers.
Safe and sound.
Even the dirt in the cracks of his nails was exactly the same as before the car accident.
Even his expensive custom suit didn't have a single drop of muddy water on it.
Strange froze.
He stared fixedly at his hands, his fingertips trembling violently in the cold wind.
Then, he slowly raised his head.
He saw Aaron.
That black-haired youth was sitting to the side, leisurely swinging his legs.
Behind him, that three-hundred-thousand-dollar supercar was turning to ashes, yet he didn't even look back once.
The surrounding rain was still falling.
But within a meter around him, it was as dry as being in the midday sunlight.
Strange had lived for over thirty years.
He was a medical Doctor, a steadfast materialist.
He believed that the scalpel could solve everything.
But what had happened just now completely shattered his worldview.
That one second of stillness.
That pair of hands that could pull him out from the cracks of space-time.
That nonchalance of viewing all things as mere straw.
"You... who are you?"
Strange slumped onto the bench.
His mouth was open, rainwater flowing down his cheeks into his neck, but he was completely oblivious.
His voice was trembling, carrying a deeply ingrained awe and sense of absurdity.
At this moment.
In the eyes of this once-unrivaled famous surgeon.
The youth sitting by the roadside eating candy before him.
Was no longer a human being.
Amidst the howling storm of Manhattan.
Strange stared blankly at Aaron, his mind falling completely blank due to overload.
He felt that he hadn't just encountered a car accident just now.
But rather, from the mire of Mortals, he had glimpsed a corner of a deity's true visage.
That power to forcefully halt space-time.
Gave rise to a thought that made an elite class member like him feel ashamed yet instinctively obey.
He thought.
He had seen God.
Chapter 94: Healing Strange's Hands, Sorcerer Ancient One's Premature Arrival
The rain was still falling, pounding on the highway in the suburbs of Manhattan and splashing up water mist a person's height.
Strange slumped weakly on a bench.
His fingers, once hailed by the medical community as "the Hands of God", were now like playdough crushed by a mischievous child.
Dark red blood trickled down his cuffs.
Bone fragments pierced through his skin, exuding a grim chill under the pale moonlight.
"Save me... Save my hands."
A wheezing sound like a broken bellows came from Strange's throat.
He gasped heavily for cold air, every breath pulling at his severed nerves and making the veins on his forehead bulge with pain.
He wanted to reach out and grab Aaron's trouser leg, but the moment his arm was half-raised, it twitched violently from the excruciating pain, slamming heavily back onto his knee.
Aaron leaned against the back of the bench, holding a newly unwrapped mint candy in his hand.
He looked at those distorted knuckles without a shred of sympathy in his eyes.
Such injuries were a terminal condition in the eyes of an ordinary Doctor.
In his eyes, it was merely a messy pile of building blocks.
"Noisy."
Aaron bent his index finger and flicked it toward Strange.
A pale red mist flew out from his fingertip.
The mist didn't look like energy; it looked more like some kind of self-aware filament.
The red mist coiled around Strange's hands.
Creak.
A dense sound of bone friction rang out.
Under the forceful kneading of the red mist, those shattered phalanges and carpal bones gathered toward the center, defying common physical sense.
The severed nerve endings, like living nematodes, reconnected seamlessly under the guidance of the red mist.
Strange widened his eyes.
He watched helplessly as his withered skin and flesh filled out again.
Those ghastly wounds quickly closed up, leaving not even a single scar.
In a mere three seconds.
He moved his five fingers, feeling delicate to the touch and even stronger than before the car accident.
"Is this... magic? Or a miracle?"
Strange stared at his own palms, his fingertips grazing the floor and stirring up a faint layer of electrical current.
He raised his head to look at Aaron.
The pride he had held moments ago as a top-tier elite shattered into absolute nothingness at this moment.
Aaron stood up and patted away the non-existent dust on his shirt.
"Don't overthink it. I simply found your screaming too unpleasant to listen to."
He sliced his right hand through the empty air.
A red teleportation array instantly pulled open, and on the other side was the warm lighting of a Manhattanapartment.
Driven by some inexplicable impulse, Strange followed him through.
When he stepped across that circle of light and his soles landed on the soft wool carpet, his entire brain was still in a crashed state.
In the living room.
Wanda was sitting by the bar drinking hot cocoa, her red hair gleaming with a dark red hue under the lights.
Lorna was holding a few small metal balls in her hand, using magnetic fields to make them loop and dance in mid-air.
When the two saw Strange, an unfamiliar man, barge in, their movements paused simultaneously.
Lorna's fingertips flickered slightly, and those few small metal balls instantly turned into sharp rhombuses, suspended right in front of Strange's throat.
"Master, a new toy picked up from outside?"
"A passing Doctor."
Aaron sat back down on his exclusive sofa and pointed at Strange.
"Give him a cup of water and don't let him stand there daydreaming."
Strange stiffened in place, his gaze shifting back and forth between Wanda's red pupils and the magnetic field glow at Lorna's fingertips.
His worldview had collapsed three times in the past ten minutes.
Right at this moment.
The space in the center of the apartment suddenly twisted without warning.
That wasn't the tyrannical spatial tearing of Aaron's.
Instead, it was a ripple as soft as water waves, yet carrying a certain sense of ancient order.
Hiss—
Orange-red sparks splashed out from the Void Realm.
The sparks landed on Aaron's million-dollar mahogany coffee table, making a faint scorching sound.
A perfect circular portal materialized out of thin air.
On the other side of the door was a snow-covered mountain peak.
The cold wind poured into the living room through the crack of the door, blowing the scarf Gwen hung on the coat rack into disarray.
A figure slowly walked out from the sparks.
The person was draped in a yellowish-brown monk's robe, with a simple cloth belt tied around the waist.
She was bald, with a gaunt face and eyes as calm as stagnant water, yet exuding a profound weight that had seen through the passage of years.
Sorcerer Supreme, Ancient One.
Wanda stood up abruptly, and the Chaos magic at her fingertips instantly burst forth.
Lorna also instantly locked onto the building's magnetic field, causing the surrounding metal tableware to emit a harsh buzzing sound.
These two girls, who had just received Aaron's blessing, instinctively sensed a threat from Ancient One.
"Stand down."
Aaron spoke, his tone very light, yet it pressed the two girls' magic back down like a heavy hammer.
He still leaned back in the sofa, neither standing up nor showing any expression of surprise.
He merely reached out and pointed to the single seat opposite him.
"It seems Kamar-Taj's access control System needs repairs."
Aaron rummaged from under the bar for a clean porcelain cup.
"This habit of entering someone else's home without greeting is rather impolite."
Ancient One walked into the living room.
With every step she took, the portal sparks at her soles automatically extinguished.
She didn't look at the two Mutants who were on high alert, nor did she look at the dazed Strange.
Her gaze remained locked onto Aaron all along.
That was due to the spacetime disturbance generated when Aaron forcibly modified reality and saved Strangejust now.
At that moment, the Sorcerer Supreme who guarded the ley lines felt that the spacetime axis of New York had been brutally bent by a section.
"Disrupting established fate usually carries a heavy price."
Ancient One sat down opposite Aaron.
She placed her hands crossed on her lap, her movements as composed as if she were in her own meditation room.
She looked at Aaron, her clear eyes reflecting Aaron's lazy appearance.
Aaron poured a cup of black tea and pushed it in front of Ancient One.
"Price? That's something only the weak need to consider."
"Strange's hands are quite nice-looking; it would be a pity if they were ruined."
Strange listened from the side with his heart leaping in his throat.
He looked at the bald female monk, then back at Aaron, feeling like a Mortal who had strayed into a battlefield of gods and demons.
Ancient One didn't drink that cup of tea.
She slowly raised her left hand, her fingertips moving slightly.
The golden eye-shaped pendant hanging on her chest—Eye of Agamotto, quietly cracked open a gap.
A dim green light overflowed from the pendant.
The energy of the Time Stone wove a transparent net in the air.
Ancient One attempted to peer through the timeline into Aaron's past, or his future that might cause the Universe to tilt.
Aaron allowed that green energy to envelop him.
He even had the leisure to take a sip of tea.
Ancient One's brows suddenly furrowed.
In those eyes that were originally as still as ancient wells, a trace of apparent solemnity appeared for the first time.
Within the horizon of the Time Stone.
The streets of New York existed.
Strange's lifeline should have been cut off right here.
But the coordinates where Aaron Parker was located...
Were empty.
It wasn't disappearance, nor was it death.
Instead, it was an unparseable Void Realm.
He was like a fragment forcibly pieced into this Universe, belonging to no Karma at all.
Ancient One tried to look further into the future.
She saw Thanos's snap, saw the stars falling, and saw the reboot of the Universe.
Yet in all the future fragments, there was no shadow of this youth.
He sat right there, yet seemed to drift outside of all things.
That feeling was like a top-tier painter creating art on rice paper.
All the lines were clearly visible, except for that blob of ink right in the middle named "Aaron", which completely ignored the brushstroke's manipulation.
Ancient One retracted her energy.
The golden pendant closed up, and the green light dissipated.
Her hands trembled slightly beneath her monk's robe.
Her knuckles let out a crisp snap due to excessive deduction.
"You are not a Soul born under this starry sky."
Ancient One stared at Aaron.
The steam from the black tea rose, blurring her vision.
She found that the spacetime order she had guarded for hundreds of years was undergoing a physiological collapse in front of this youth's teacup.
She could not see through it.
Whether looking back a thousand years or forward ten thousand years.
She could find no footnote whatsoever regarding Aaron Parker.
The two sat facing each other across the coffee table like this.
Aaron continued to drink his tea, the tea stalk standing upright at the bottom of the cup.
Ancient One stared at him, her fingertips unconsciously twisting the hem of her monk's robe.
The air in the living room was nearly frozen.
Ancient One discovered.
The future behind this youth was one that even the Time Stone could not dye...
An absolute forbidden zone.
Chapter 95 Ancient One's Shock: You Actually Can't Be Seen in the Time Stone?
Eerie green light.
Like an inseparable, thick emerald pulp, seeping out from that golden Eye of Agamotto.
The halo wove through the penthouse living room of Stark Tower, like countless glowing threads tugging at the surrounding space.
This light was not dazzling, but it carried a sense of order that chilled one to the bone marrow.
Strange shrank into the corner of the bench, holding his breath.
He saw those green lights outlining transparent arcs in the air, like film being forcibly pulled out of a film canister.
Ancient One's fingers traced through the air.
Her fingernails were covered in tiny, fine lines, like a dried-up riverbed.
With her movement, that golden pendant emitted a clicking sound of interlocking gears.
That was the gears turning, every single sound so precise that it made one's scalp tingle.
"Time..."
Ancient One whispered softly.
Her consciousness had already plunged along those green arcs into the long river of time.
In her five hundred years of life, this gem was her most stable crutch.
She had seen through the mist of the future countless times, avoided the invasion of the Dark Dimension, and even arranged the exact moment of her own death.
In the horizon of time, everything had a trace to follow.
Even for the stars all over the sky, the trajectory of their fall was nothing more than a doomed grain of sand on the riverbed.
But now.
Ancient One's brows knit together.
The sweat beads on her forehead gathered into one, sliding down her somewhat aged bridge of the nose.
Plop.
The sweat smashed onto the earthy-yellow monastic robes, blooming into a dark wet mark.
In Ancient One's field of vision, the buildings of New Yorkwere retreating rapidly.
She saw the downfall of Kingpin, and she saw the invasion of the Chitauri.
Looking further back, it was the smoke of World War II and the primeval jungles.
However, when these lines converged on the coordinate of Aaron Parker.
It broke.
That was a fracture in the physical sense.
Aaron sat in the sofa.
In Ancient One's time horizon, Aaron's location was neither a cluster of shadows nor a clump of light.
It was empty.
As if someone had forcibly burned a hole in the center of an exquisite oil painting with sulfuric acid.
Ancient One refused to believe it, abruptly increasing her magic output.
The green light of the Eye of Agamotto surged violently, dyeing the entire living room into a hellish emerald green.
She tried to cross that "void" to capture fragments of Aaron's future.
She saw the purple giant on Titan, and she saw that loud yet silent snap.
She saw the struggle of the Avengers, and she saw the dissipation of half the life in the Universe.
But in every frame, that youth who should have been stirring up the wind and clouds in New York remained blank.
He just sat like that in the center of the World, yet he looked like a passing observer.
Time had never left a mark on him, and Karma had never entwined beneath his feet.
He transcended.
No, that was an existence even more domineering than transcendence; it was as if he directly denied time.
"This isn't scientific..."
Strange watched Ancient One's violently trembling frame from the side, his lips moving.
As a neurosurgeon who had earned dual doctoral degrees, he felt that the light wave emitted by that pendant was mocking his physics textbook.
"Pfft—"
Ancient One abruptly withdrew her hand.
The golden pendant instantly closed, and the green light receded like a tide.
Ancient One's entire person felt as if her spine had been pulled out, sinking softly into the single-seat sofa.
Her breathing was heavy and chaotic, the frequency of her chest's rise and fall shockingly fast.
"You..."
Ancient One looked up at Aaron.
Due to the excessive overdraft of her spirit just now, the whites of her eyes were crawling with dense bloodshot veins.
"I trudged tens of thousands of miles in the long river of time, yet I couldn't find a single hair of yours in those overlapping shadows."
"I said, if you break it, you have to pay for it."
Aaron still had that lazy tone.
He pointed at the bar counter, where a small wooden box had been placed at some unknown time.
The wooden box was unpainted, with rough wood grain, looking like a freebie casually swept down from some old shelf.
"Since you're tired of looking, take a rest."
Aaron stood up.
The collar of his shirt was somewhat loose, and he stepped barefoot on the carpet with a very steady pace.
He picked up the wooden box, walked in front of Ancient One, and casually lifted the lid.
An unprecedented fragrance instantly overwhelmed the lingering smell of gunpowder smoke and rainwater in the living room.
That fragrance was very Strange.
Not intense, yet extremely aggressive.
Like a forest that had just rained, mixed with the slight fishiness of soil and the agarwood of some unknown ancient tree.
Just by sniffing it, Strange felt that his heart, which had been beating wildly due to fright, actually calmed down.
"Tea leaves opened from a blind box."
Aaron pinched out a few tea leaves from the wooden box.
The tea leaves were not curled, but flat like swords, presenting a translucent dark red throughout.
Faint golden flowing light was turning within the veins.
"The System says this thing is called 'Dao Enlightenment Spirit Tea'."
Aaron threw the tea leaves into a porcelain cup, his movements as rude as if he were throwing a pile of waste paper.
"I've tasted it once; aside from the sweet aftertaste being a bit heavy, it's just so-so."
He picked up the electric kettle nearby.
The water in the kettle had just boiled, emitting a deep gurgling sound.
The boiling water poured down.
The dark red tea leaves tumbled and unfolded in the cup, like some deep-sea creature instantly coming back to life.
The originally transparent warm water turned into a mellow wine red within a second.
A cluster of white mist rose from the rim of the cup, condensing and not dispersing in the air, faintly transforming into a small dragon shape.
Ancient One stared at that white porcelain cup.
Her eyes, which had seen countless rare treasures in the World, were locked tightly onto the bottom of the cup at this moment.
She could feel that every single tea leaf contained an Origin of life even older and heavier than Dormammu.
That was not magic.
That was some kind of... rule.
"Want to try?"
Aaron pushed the tea cup forward a bit.
There was a vague smile at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes were full of an indifferent "drink it or not" attitude.
Ancient One hesitated for a moment.
Her fingers were still shaking.
Having lived for five hundred years, it was the first time she felt awe toward a cup of water.
She could feel that her body, which was gradually decaying and withering due to frequently borrowing the power of the Dark Dimension, had every cell screaming greedily upon contacting that tea fragrance.
She tremblingly extended her right hand, her fingertips touching the warm porcelain cup wall.
That warmth instantly drilled along her fingertips into her meridians, smoothing out the severe stinging pain caused by spying on time just now.
Ancient One took a deep breath.
She picked up the tea cup, her movements as solemn as if she were conducting some ancient handover ceremony.
She didn't look at Strange's eager gaze, nor did she look at Wanda and Lorna's vigilance.
She took a shallow sip.
The wine-red tea soup grazed across the tip of her tongue.
Bitterness.
Extreme bitterness.
That was a bitterness even thicker than death, instantly paralyzing her sense of taste.
But immediately after, this bitterness was like a bomb, violently bursting open in her oral cavity.
A violent yet gentle sweetness surged crazily from the depths of her throat.
That was the breath of life.
It was the first tender shoot of spring, the first ray of light at the birth of the stars.
Ancient One's eyes widened abruptly.
She felt that her lifespan, which was almost reaching its end, had actually forcibly broadened backward by a large margin at that instant.
Not only that.
Under the scouring of that red flowing light, those gray corrosions from the Dark Dimension that had entangled her for a hundred years were like leftover snow encountering the scorching sun.
With a hiss.
They disappeared completely.
"This tea..."
Ancient One put down the cup.
Her voice was no longer hoarse, instead exuding a texture like metal collision.
On her originally haggard face, a layer of luster as glossy as jade actually emerged.
She looked at Aaron.
She finally understood why the Time Stone could not see through this youth.
Because for this youth, time was nothing more than a wisp of smoke rising when boiling tea.
What he held in his hand was the most primitive truth of life that transcended the dimension of this Universe.
In the living room, water vapor misted.
Ancient One stared at those few dormant tea leaves at the bottom of the cup.
That touch of dark red reflected in her pupils, as if reflecting an entire newly born World.
Meanwhile, Aaron was leaning against the sofa armrest, casually picking up Strange's phone with the shattered screen.
His fingertips swept across the screen, and he asked casually:
"How's the taste? If it's not enough, there's still quite a bit in my box."
Ancient One's hand holding the cup tightened once more.
The remaining half of the unfinished tea water inside was reflecting her reflection, which had grown younger by a full ten years.
Inside there.
Actually contained what the mages of this World had been searching for for ten thousand years.
Yet had never touched.
The truth of life.