The days that followed were a study in strained normalcy for Lin Feng. He repaired the dojo doors, fielded questions from concerned parents, and deflected inquiries from the local police with the practiced ease of a man used to keeping secrets. Yet, beneath the calm facade, he felt like a live wire. The energy that had saved him and his students now lay dormant, a sleeping tiger in his blood. He spent his nights in the empty dojo, punching, kicking, meditating, trying to coax the spark back out, but it remained elusive.
The city continued its subtle decay. One evening, while walking home, he saw a street vendor being harassed by a group of thugs. It was a common enough sight, but one of the men was different. His eyes had a feral glint, and his skin was covered in a faint, mottled pattern. As the man shoved the elderly vendor to the ground, something inside Lin Feng snapped.
He didn't think. He acted. He moved with a speed that surprised even himself, weaving through the startled thugs. When he reached for the leader's arm, the spark returned—not as a blinding flash, but as a controlled, potent hum. A visible arc of blue electricity leaped from his fingers to the man's arm. The thug screamed, convulsing as the current coursed through him, before collapsing in a heap. The others stared in terror, not at Lin Feng, but at the faint blue light still dancing around his knuckles. They scrambled away into the night.
Lin Feng looked at his hand, then at the groaning man on the ground. He had controlled it. It wasn't just a fluke, a desperate act of survival. It was a part of him. From a rooftop across the street, a figure in a black coat lowered a pair of binoculars and spoke quietly into a hidden microphone. "Director, we have a confirmed, repeatable event. Subject has demonstrated conscious control."
In her subterranean command center, Mei Lin watched the live feed. A faint smile touched her lips. "He's ready," she said. "Prepare the invitation."
The transport that picked up Jack Wilson was a sleek, windowless jet with no markings. Hours later, it landed in a place that didn't exist on any map: a sprawling subterranean facility carved into the rock beneath the Nevada desert. This was the heart of Project Aegis.
If his MIT lab was a sanctuary of discovery, this was a cathedral. He was led through hangars filled with strange new technologies, labs staffed by the world's brightest minds, and containment cells holding bizarre biological specimens—plants that pulsed with light, insects with metallic carapaces.
His new lab was five times the size of his old one. And in its center, Specimen 734—the Star Core, as they were now calling it—sat on a pedestal, wired to an array of sensors that made his own previous attempts look like a child's science fair project.
Agent Coulson stood with him, a tablet in hand. "The Crimson Rain was a global event," he explained, swiping through images. "We've cataloged over two hundred 'Awakened' individuals in North America alone. Most are low-level 강화계 (enhancement types) like yourself, but we're seeing元素계 (elemental) and even a few 특수계 (special) abilities emerge. Your job, Dr. Wilson, is to figure out the science. We need to understand the Star Core energy, how to replicate it, how to weaponize it, and how to control it."
He gestured to a large screen showing a 3D model of a powered exoskeleton. "This is the Aegis Mark I armor. Our first attempt to mechanize the Star Core's power. It's a failure. The power consumption is too high, and it's unstable. We need you to make it work. The world is changing, Doctor. An arms race has already begun. We need you to make sure America wins it."
Jack looked at the schematics, at the endless resources, at the Star Core humming with untold potential. He was no longer a physicist chasing a theory. He was a weapon smith, being asked to forge the future. The weight of the task was immense, but the thrill of the challenge was undeniable.
And as the two men took their first steps onto their new paths, the world spun on, unaware of the forces now at play.
In Tokyo, a young woman named Miyamoto Sakura silently served ramen to boisterous customers, her movements so graceful she seemed to fade into the background, the shadows in the corner of the shop deepening in her presence.
Near Giza, Amira Khan argued with an official, holding up a printout showing an impossible energy reading. "I'm telling you," she insisted, "there's something down there. My father knew it."
Deep in the Amazon, Diego Rodrigues watched a brilliantly colored frog with venomous skin chase down and devour a snake ten times its size, a reversal of nature that sent a shiver of fear through him.
Aboard a Russian icebreaker in the Arctic, a grim-faced Ivan Petrov stared at a sonar screen displaying a shape beneath the ice. It was enormous, organic, and it was moving.
And in a secure biolab in Germany, Sofia Cohen downloaded a firewalled data packet onto a hidden drive. The file was labeled "Project Chimera," and it contained horrifying experimental footage—footage that starred her missing younger sister.
The age of wonders and monsters had begun.