As if validating Harvey's unease.
An invisible psionic force suddenly appeared, attempting to forcefully invade his brain.
"Professor X?"
Sensing this vast psionic power, a startled Harvey hastily activated Occlumency and turned his head to shout to Wanda.
"Darling, help me quickly!"
At this moment, besides Deadpool and Colossus in the room...
Luke, Jessica, and Matt had all had their minds forcefully invaded, frozen in place and unable to move.
They were clearly in a state of suspended consciousness.
And Wanda, highly proficient in telepathy, sensed the appearance of the mind controller, her eyes blazing with intense red light.
Chaos Magic erupted.
A seemingly unparalleled psionic shockwave, with Wanda at its epicenter, blasted outward in all directions.
In terms of sheer psionic power, Wanda, having only recently mastered Chaos Magic, definitely couldn't compare to Professor X, who had lived for decades.
But Chaos Magic, as one of the three ancient powers of the Marvel Universe, had an upper limit reaching the Omniversal level, and a lower limit at the sub-Skyfather level.
Therefore, as the wielder of Chaos Magic, with just a small burst of power, Wanda completely purged all hostile psionic energy from the battlefield.
...
At this exact moment, far away in the underground base of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Professor X suffered considerable backlash from this.
"Hmph!"
Charles let out a muffled groan, fresh blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Professor, are you alright?"
Behind him, Rogue (Marie D'Ancanto) saw Charles, sitting in his wheelchair, actually spit up blood.
Her eyes were filled with worry.
"I'm fine. The enemy this time is a bit difficult to deal with; the other side also has a powerful telepath."
Charles wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth without caring, reaching out to turn the red dial on the Cerebro amplification console in front of him.
[1x Amplification, 2x Amplification...]
The amplified psionic power rapidly spread outwards once again.
200 meters, 2 kilometers, 20 kilometers...
...
Soon, Charles successfully invaded the mind of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stationed at the outer perimeter lockdown around the Rand Building.
Controlling the agent, he walked into the Rand Building, intending to negotiate with Harvey.
In Harvey's eyes, after the enemy's psionic power was brutally and forcefully repelled by Wanda...
Luke and the other two finally regained their freedom.
"That feeling just now was absolutely terrible. It was like blacking out from drinking; my consciousness was completely out of my control..." Jessica said with lingering fear.
Simultaneously, an unfamiliar male agent walked into the building.
He stood in front of Harvey and began to introduce himself.
"I am Professor Charles Xavier, the headmaster of an ordinary school."
"I apologize for having to communicate with you using the body of a stranger."
"I hope we can reach a consensus as quickly as possible. That is, you all open your minds and accept my psychological evaluation..."
Halfway through listening, Harvey let out a disdainful laugh.
"Your suggestion is great, but why would I agree to let an outsider explore my memories?"
The agent controlled by Charles said: "I don't want to arbitrarily invade others' minds, but your actions have had an extremely negative impact..."
This kind of righteous-sounding speech, placing himself on the moral high ground, disgusted Harvey immensely, and he couldn't help but interrupt:
"Stop right there. It's very obvious now that you people can't beat me."
"You don't naively think you can gain at the negotiating table what you couldn't win through war, do you?"
"Time is precious, cut the crap. If you have any other trump cards, bring them out right now."
"Defeat me, and you can do whatever you want."
"Otherwise, trying to convince people with just your mouth is impossible!"
Seeing that Harvey was completely unyielding, the persistent Charles once again brought out the stick and the carrot.
"Master Harvey, although your strength is great, you have yet to witness the true power of mutants."
"I don't want to lightly start a war; that would cause a lot of unnecessary casualties and damage."
"I hope you can understand what I mean."
"Furthermore, I am not threatening you. I was merely commissioned by S.H.I.E.L.D. to conduct a psychological evaluation on you. You can propose any conditions for exchange..."
A flash of impatience crossed Harvey's eyes.
"Does my talking nicely to you give you the illusion that I am very amiable?"
"Are you deaf? Can you not understand human speech?"
"At this stage, the strongest among the X-Men should be Jean Grey. Just have her come over and fight me."
"Whoever has the bigger fists makes the rules. What's the point of you babbling all this nonsense for half a day?"
Hearing that Harvey seemed very familiar with the X-Men, Charles's heart skipped a beat in shock.
Logically speaking, this should be impossible.
The period when Jean Grey turned to the dark side had a massive impact on the entire world.
So, in the aftermath, Charles erased the memories of the X-Men from all ordinary humans worldwide.
Coupled with the fact that Jean also perished in that battle.
Now, the only people in the entire world who knew the X-Men existed were the mutants and a scant few others.
So how did Harvey know so much about the X-Men?
Lost in deep thought, Charles suddenly noticed a flash of green light growing brighter and brighter in his vision.
"Ah!"
After letting out a scream, the male agent controlled by Charles got a vacant look in his eyes. His body went rigid, and he fell backward with a heavy thud.
Even though Harvey had spoken so seriously and sternly, Charles was still spacing out.
Clearly, the other party wasn't taking him seriously at all.
Feeling annoyed, Harvey decisively cast an Avada Kedavra curse, sending the agent Charles was controlling to see God.
And when Wanda saw her man unreasonably kill another person, she was just about to question him when she remembered Harvey's words from before, and held herself back.
At this moment, the entire area was dead silent.
There were no more voices of doubt.
Harvey swept his gaze across the room.
Tony Stark lying unconscious on the floor, Deadpool with only half his body left still insisting on crawling, Colossus hanging upside down in the air looking dumbfounded.
The heavily injured Storm outside the building's doors.
And Luke, Jessica, and Matt, who didn't dare make a sound, all looking at him with grave expressions.
Harvey met their gazes expressionlessly.
"Being targeted by S.H.I.E.L.D. is like stepping in dog shit; you can't shake them off. Good luck to you all."
He shifted his gaze to Wanda.
"Wanda, you've had your fill of playing superhero, right? It's time to go home and rest for a while."
Harvey's underlying meaning was obvious: he wanted her to leave the Defenders.
And Wanda never argued with Harvey's instructions. Although her eyes showed reluctance, she still said goodbye to Jessica and the others.
"I'm sorry, everyone. Cho Chang and I might have to take a break for a while. I hope you won't be too sad. Wait for us to come back."
"Goodbye. We will definitely wait for you to come back!"
After a reluctant farewell, Wanda followed Harvey into the portal and disappeared.
Once the two of them left, the heavy pressure weighing on everyone's hearts finally vanished.
Luke was just about to ask what they should do next when a round object was suddenly tossed through the building's main entrance.
"Bang!"
A stun grenade exploded.
Everyone's vision went completely white, and a ringing, buzzing sound echoed in their ears.
A highly trained S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical squad stormed into the building, aiming the dark muzzles of their assault rifles at Luke and the other two.
"Freeze! Put your hands up and surrender immediately!"
...