Chapter 186: The Tea Drinker in the Corner
"Alright."
Lynn removed his gloves.
"Stand up."
"Walk."
Illyana Rasputina—better known among the X-Men as Magik—carefully swung her legs off the treatment table.
She placed one foot on the floor.
Then the other.
No pain.
No weakness.
No instability.
She slowly bent her injured leg.
Perfect.
The third-degree plasma burn was gone.
The shattered tibia had completely regenerated.
Even the severed anterior tibial artery had been reconstructed.
She stared silently at her leg.
Her blue eyes widened slightly.
She opened her mouth.
"I..."
"I'll submit the invoice to your team afterward."
Lynn had already turned away.
"Next."
Magik looked at him for another second before quietly stepping aside.
She understood.
This doctor truly did not care about gratitude.
Only payment.
The Atlantean warrior approached.
Over the next hour, Lynn treated three additional patients whose genetic profiles possessed meaningful research value.
One yielded a stable A-rank hydrodynamic adaptation.
Another provided an enhanced cellular oxygen-utilization trait.
The last possessed an unusual electromagnetic sensory mutation.
Useful.
None extraordinary.
Still worthwhile.
The notification window appeared repeatedly inside Lynn's consciousness.
His accumulated Reputation steadily increased.
While operating...
He silently reviewed his current ability framework.
The true pillars of his system remained unchanged.
Undying Body.
Quantum Electromagnetic Domination.
All-Seeing Eye.
Those three formed the absolute foundation of every future development.
They were untouchable.
His independent talents—
Iron Will
and
All-Dimensional Magic Affinity
—still lacked suitable fusion materials.
There was no reason to waste them.
As for today's newly acquired B- and A-rank abilities...
They would remain stored until enough complementary abilities had accumulated.
Only then would the Furnace produce meaningful returns.
"Lynn."
Wanda's voice came from outside the medical pod.
He looked up.
She stood at the entrance carrying a steaming cup of Longjing tea.
Her complexion remained pale.
Maintaining the Chaos Magic barrier against the Mind Stone's psionic assault had exhausted her mentally.
Even after resting...
Her eyes still showed signs of fatigue.
"They're asking everyone to return to base."
She handed him the tea.
"Bruce asked me to bring you."
Lynn accepted it.
Took a sip.
The temperature was ideal.
"What about the patients?"
"Pietro is outside organizing them."
"He already transported the lightly injured back to the Avengers medical station."
"I'll stay here with the critical cases."
Lynn nodded.
"Good."
He stood and stretched his shoulders.
Another meeting.
Troubles never ended.
...
Avengers Temporary Headquarters
Command Center
Every seat around the circular conference table was occupied.
No one spoke.
The silence carried considerably more weight than the explosions outside.
Tony Stark sat at the head of the table.
A thick stack of battlefield reports lay before him.
His fingers tapped unconsciously against the tabletop.
Fast.
Irregular.
One of Bruce's observations about Tony had always been accurate:
Whenever Tony became genuinely anxious...
He tapped.
Although Lynn had repaired the abdominal injury, Tony's psychological state had recovered far less successfully.
Across from him...
Steve Rogers folded his hands together.
His attention never left the holographic tactical display.
Each passing minute...
The estimated number of Ultron drones increased.
His jaw tightened.
Thor stood beside the window.
Mjolnir rested against the floor.
The God of Thunder remained unusually quiet.
Today's battle had wounded something far deeper than his body.
Every blast of lightning had been analyzed.
Adapted to.
Countered.
Watching technology evolve fast enough to diminish divine power was not an experience Thor particularly appreciated.
Nearby...
Clark Kent sat on the edge of the conference table.
One hand supported his forehead.
His posture looked utterly exhausted.
Superman.
Perhaps Earth's greatest physical powerhouse.
Today...
He had been mentally incapacitated twice.
Everyone present had witnessed it.
The first time...
The Mind Stone had overwhelmed his extraordinarily advanced Kryptonian nervous system with a flood of higher-dimensional information.
He had fallen nearly five hundred meters.
The second time...
Although mentally prepared...
His combat effectiveness still dropped dramatically.
To Clark...
That helplessness was almost worse than kryptonite.
Physical pain was simple.
Mental violation was not.
It felt as though someone had forcibly opened his mind and poured an ocean into it.
Nearby...
Bruce Banner sat curled inside a chair.
His glasses rested crookedly on his face.
Faint green pigmentation still lingered beneath his skin.
Residual stress from an interrupted Hulk transformation.
Across from him...
Natasha Romanoff quietly handed him a glass of water.
Banner accepted it with trembling hands.
"I lost control again."
His voice barely carried.
"Did anyone get hurt?"
"No."
Natasha answered calmly.
"The Mind Stone disrupted your emotional regulation."
"You transformed."
"Pietro evacuated everyone nearby before you reached them."
Banner closed his eyes.
Said nothing further.
...
In the far corner of the room...
Lynn occupied a folding chair.
One leg crossed casually over the other.
A fresh cup of Longjing tea rested comfortably in his hand.
Several dried bloodstains still marked his white coat.
His gold-rimmed glasses reflected the conference room lights.
He looked less like a participant...
And more like an observer attending an academic lecture.
Bruce Wayne finally stepped forward.
He had changed into a clean black turtleneck.
Two butterfly closures covered the cuts on his cheek.
His shoulder had recovered enough for normal movement.
He activated the tactical display.
"Gentlemen."
His voice immediately focused the room.
"We're running out of time."
The hologram shifted.
Satellite surveillance of southeastern Sokovia appeared.
Thermal imaging revealed expanding concentrations of heat.
Every bright point represented another active production unit.
Another Ultron drone.
"Current production capacity."
Bruce highlighted the numbers.
"Approximately four hundred autonomous combat drones every hour."
"If nothing changes..."
He enlarged the projection.
"Ultron exceeds twenty thousand active combat units within three days."
"More than fifty thousand within one week."
No one interrupted.
Bruce continued.
"These are not conventional robots."
"They willingly self-destruct."
"They coordinate through a single consciousness."
"They continuously improve through shared combat data."
He looked around the table.
"No conventional army wins a war of attrition against that."
He paused.
"And that isn't our greatest problem."
His gaze shifted toward Clark.
Clark avoided eye contact.
"The greatest threat remains the Mind Stone."
Bruce enlarged the recorded combat footage.
"As long as Ultron retains the Stone..."
"He possesses continuous battlefield-scale psionic superiority."
"It suppresses cognition."
"It interferes with decision-making."
"It destabilizes emotional regulation."
"It disrupts nervous systems."
Today's evidence appeared one after another.
Clark incapacitated.
Thor temporarily stunned.
Banner losing emotional control.
Tony's armor disabled.
Even Barry's nervous system briefly desynchronized.
Bruce quietly concluded,
"Our physical strength is irrelevant if our minds cease functioning."
Silence returned.
Finally...
Barry Allen crossed his arms.
"So..."
"What now?"
His speed had allowed him to rescue dozens of wounded heroes.
Yet against Ultron...
He had accomplished remarkably little.
Vibranium simply ignored most of his momentum.
Barry scratched his head.
"Why don't we find that masked guy?"
Bruce looked toward him.
"The one from Metropolis."
Barry shrugged.
"He punched the World Engine apart."
"He looks more than qualified to punch Ultron."
Bruce answered almost immediately.
"The masked man's current whereabouts remain unknown."
"We have no reliable means of contacting him."
"We proceed assuming we are on our own."
Barry accepted the explanation with a shrug.
"Fair enough."
No one noticed...
Except Bruce.
As he finished speaking...
His eyes drifted almost instinctively toward the corner of the room.
Lynn quietly raised his teacup.
Blew gently across the surface.
Took another slow sip.
Set the cup down.
Completely relaxed.
As though he were watching a documentary rather than preparing for a battle that might determine Earth's survival.
Bruce's thoughts lingered there for a brief moment.
Then he forced himself back to the tactical display.
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