The instant Li Ming shielded himself, the Helicarrier suddenly shook violently. Then, the floor of the room erupted with a massive blast of flames following an explosion.
When the explosion subsided, Li Ming was the only one left standing unharmed in the room, while the rest of the superheroes were scattered across the floor in disarray.
Natasha, Banner, and Thor had it the worst—they were even blasted out of the room. Strangely enough, aside from Natasha, these two were the toughest of the bunch, the kind that wouldn't die no matter how hard they were hit. So why were these two blasted the farthest? Was there some kind of misunderstanding here?
Steve, who had been knocked flat by the explosion, shook his dizzy head. The moment he regained his ability to think, he realized they were under enemy attack. He hurriedly helped Stark, who was also sprawled on the ground, and shouted, "Suit up, now!"
"I know," Stark clearly lacked Steve's experience, freezing for a moment before realizing the Helicarrier was under attack. He hurriedly ran toward the warehouse storing his battle suit.
Fury was probably the most frustrated among those present. Damn it, the Helicarrier had been flying invisibly—no one on the ground should have known its flight path.
Yet this attack made it painfully clear that someone had discovered the Helicarrier's route. As the King of Agents, several possibilities instantly flashed through his mind about how the enemy could have obtained this information.
But the most likely leak? Either Loki had a tracker on him, or his staff had a tracking function.
So, the moment Loki and his staff boarded the Helicarrier, its location had already been exposed to the enemy.
The only silver lining was that Loki, as an uninvited guest to Earth, couldn't have too many troops under his command. That meant the assault on the Helicarrier wouldn't be massive. And as for the original Hawkeye, Barton—he was almost certainly the mastermind behind this attack.
If Barton managed to escape after returning to the Helicarrier, I might as well resign as Director right now.
With that thought, Fury tossed a communicator to Li Ming and shouted, "Austin, find Barton and recalibrate his mind!"
After speaking, Fury pressed the communicator and asked Hill about the Helicarrier's damage status.
Hill immediately delivered bad news.
"External explosion detected. Engine 3 has shut down. If another engine fails, we'll plummet from the sky. Someone needs to repair the engines now."
Fury pressed the comm and yelled, "Stark, you hearing this?"
"I'm on it," Stark replied tersely, already sprinting toward his battle suit, clearly aware of the severity.
Li Ming, now wearing the communicator, scratched his head. With the Mind Stone in hand, whether or not to petrify Barton didn't matter much anymore. Besides, when it came to repairs, who in this world could outperform the magic of Reparo?
"Fury, why not let Stark—who can fly—look for Barton first and notify me once he's found?" Li Ming pointed at himself. "Meanwhile, I'll go fix the engines."
Since when did being a Wizard come with such high demands? Now even Helicarrier engines are fair game? Fury looked utterly bewildered. "You can repair engines?"
Li Ming shook his head. "Nope."
Under Fury's exasperated glare, Li Ming explained, "But I know magic. Remember how I restored Stark's company in just ten minutes?"
Fury narrowed his eyes. If the engine issue was minor, Stark could probably diagnose and fix it in no time. But Li Ming? Ha! Just locating the problem would take him years.
But Hill had mentioned an explosion—this wasn't some trivial malfunction. Maybe Stark's repair speed really couldn't compete with magic after all. If they were really unlucky and the engines were too severely damaged, and Stark didn't have the right materials on hand, he might not even be able to repair them.
Thinking this, Fury pressed the communicator again and said, "Stark, let Austin handle the repairs—"
Before Fury could finish, the sound of a battle suit taking off echoed through the public channel, followed by Stark shouting, "I heard you. I'm going after Agent Barton now."
Hearing Stark's response, Li Ming waved his hand and opened a Teleportation Gate.
Arriving on the deck of the Helicarrier, Li Ming saw no one around. He put his right hand to his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. A black nimbus cloud, previously hidden in a corner, floated over to him.
After placing the pitch-black gourd from the cloud back into his shoulder bag, Li Ming smirked silently. Yes, he had just released another batch of vengeful spirits into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interior.
There was no helping it. As Fury kept upgrading the security systems—adding energy detectors, brainwave scanners, and all sorts of bizarre equipment—it was becoming increasingly difficult for the spirits to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. undetected.
Now, with alarms blaring everywhere on the Helicarrier, this chaotic opportunity was too rare to pass up. If Li Ming didn't take advantage of it to squeeze some benefits from S.H.I.E.L.D., he'd be wasting the chance the heavens had given him.
Besides, Li Ming was running low on vengeful spirits. This might very well be the last batch he could sneak into S.H.I.E.L.D.
Riding the black cloud, Li Ming quickly floated over to the engines. Pointing his staff at them, the damaged engines began to repair themselves.
As the engines restored, Li Ming covered his face with a dark expression.
He'd forgotten—the Mothership was high in the sky. Some of the engine fragments had already fallen to the ground, making the restoration process much slower than he'd anticipated.
Good thing I still have the Magic Lamp Genie's spells...
A few minutes later, Li Ming pressed his communicator and announced over the public channel, "Fury, the engines are back online now. But some parts were restored using magic. The materials conjured out of thin air will dissipate back into energy in a few hours, so you'd better get the Mothership to a repair facility within that time."
Fury replied, "No need for hours. Once I find the ocean, I'll land on the surface. Then we can figure out how to repair the Helicarrier."
As soon as Fury finished speaking, Stark's voice came through the communicator: "Austin, I found the birdbrain. He just shut down Engine One and is heading toward the containment area."
"Got it. I'm on my way," Li Ming said, then scratched his forehead and asked sheepishly, "Uh... where's the containment area?"
Silence filled the public channel.
Fury's stern face twitched in exasperation. "The lowest deck. Where Loki is being held."
"Got it," Li Ming said, steering the black cloud toward the containment area. As he flew, he grumbled, "Could've just said Barton's running toward Loki. Why bother with 'containment area'? Talk about making things needlessly complicated."The public channel fell silent once again: apart from you, the idiot Wizard, and the single-minded Thor, who else didn't know where the containment zone was?
Before long, following the commotion caused by Barton and Stark's battle, Li Ming successfully located Barton. Concealing himself, he quietly flew behind Barton and swiftly cast a petrification spell on the unsuspecting agent.
Seeing Barton suddenly freeze in place, Stark activated the scanning function of his battle suit and asked, "Austin?"
"It's me," Li Ming revealed himself, one hand reaching into his satchel to grip the Matryoshka Doll without pulling it out, while the other hand holding the staff gently tapped Barton's chest.
Sensing that Loki's mind-control spell over Barton had been broken, Li Ming then dispelled the petrification.
As Barton regained his consciousness, he collapsed to the ground, clutching his forehead and shouting, "Hurry to Loki! I was just bait—there's another group trying to free him!"
No sooner had Barton finished speaking than the staff in Li Ming's hand suddenly broke free from his control, floating autonomously in the air.
Before Li Ming could react, the staff vanished before the eyes of the three. Clearly, Li Ming had guessed right—Loki could summon the staff back at any time.
"Lucky for us, the Mind Stone is already in hand," Li Ming shrugged helplessly. "Looks like Loki's already escaped."
Meanwhile, the moment Loki—now freed from his cell—grasped the staff, a sudden thought struck him: This isn't my original staff. Yet, he couldn't immediately pinpoint what was wrong with it.
But Loki wasn't worried. With the Tesseract in hand, he could open a Teleportation gate. Once he became the ruler of Earth, crafting a more perfect staff would be child's play.
In fact, in that instant, Loki had already decided on the material for his new staff—the Destroyer armor stored in S.H.I.E.L.D. After all, it was Asgardian property, and it was only right that it should serve him now. The Destroyer is pretty bulky—maybe there'll even be enough material left to forge armor too…
Just as Loki was gleefully mapping out his glorious future, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Loki didn't even need a fingernail's worth of thought to guess who the approaching visitor was—his dear brother.
A smirk curled Loki's lips as he conjured an illusionary clone at the cell door. The moment Thor rushed into the room, Loki made the clone appear to be stepping out of the cell.
Thor knew Loki was no match for him in a fight, but when it came to escape tactics, even he had to admit Loki was superior. So he was well aware that once Loki left the cell, he'd have no way of dragging him back to Asgard.
Seeing Loki about to step out, Thor—panicking—raised his hammer, ready to slam Loki back inside.
Unfortunately…
Loki watched as Thor stupidly charged right through the illusion and into the cell, kissing the floor due to momentum. As he shut the cell door and revealed himself, Loki sneered, "That trick never gets old with you."Thor was immediately furious and swung his hammer at the glass.
Unfortunately, the glass only cracked slightly, and worse, the mechanism designed to eject the cage from high altitude was activated by the hammer strike.
Loki smirked and walked over to the control panel. "Humans think we're immortal gods. Why don't you test whether you can survive a fall?"
As he spoke, Loki fiddled with the switches on the control panel, preparing to launch the cage—along with Thor—out of the Helicarrier.
At that moment, Coulson entered the room carrying a high-tech energy gun and aimed it at Loki. "Step aside, please."
Loki glanced at the weapon in Coulson's hand. Without understanding what it was, he wasn't about to test its power with his own body.
However, not wanting to taste the weapon's effects didn't mean Loki was defenseless.
Pretending to be afraid, Loki took a few steps back while secretly completing a spell, leaving Coulson staring at nothing more than an illusionary clone meant to distract him.
Meanwhile, the real Loki had already moved behind Coulson. While Coulson was busy delivering his one-liner, Loki drove his staff straight through Coulson's heart.