Chapter 273. The Origin of the New Breed
As Noah posed his question regarding the onset of these strange mutations, he was met not with an answer, but with a renewed surge of mindless aggression.
It seemed the «Hedgehog» was either too dim-witted or too consumed by bloodlust to grasp the astronomical chasm between their respective powers. He appeared to have already forgotten the humiliating failure of his previous strike, ignoring the fact that his wrist was currently a mess of crushed bone and shattered quills. With a roar that sprayed spit into the air, he lunged again, swinging his spiked fist in a wide, desperate arc.
Noah let out a long, weary sigh, the sound of a man burdened by the predictable. His right hand remained an immovable anchor around the attacker's wrist. He didn't even bother to raise a guard or move his head to avoid the incoming blow. Instead, he simply tightened his fingers, applying a fraction more pressure.
CRACK!
«AAAGGHHH!!!» the Hedgehog shrieked, the sound tearing through the alleyway and echoing off the soot-stained windows above.
The bones in his forearm gave way with a sickening pop, snapping like dry kindling. His arm went limp, dangling at a grotesque, unnatural angle. The man recoiled, stumbling back as Noah finally released his grip, his cries of agony rising into a shrill, rhythmic wail.
«Are we ready to talk now?» Noah asked, his voice as cold as the moonlight overhead.
But the wretch was beyond hearing. He collapsed against a dumpster, cradling his ruined limb and sobbing. Noah's brow furrowed in irritation. He didn't have all night to wait for a common thug to regain his composure. He raised his hand, his fingers dancing in a brief, intricate pattern as he channeled a thin stream of shimmering magical energy.
An invisible, telekinetic force snared the man, pinning him against the brick wall. The quills on his remaining «healthy» arm began to vibrate violently. Then, under Noah's meticulous control, the spikes began to move. One by one, they were slowly, agonizingly extracted from his flesh.
It was a systematic torture; each quill pulled free felt like a hot needle being dragged through a raw nerve. It was the biological equivalent of having one's fingernails torn out, over and over. Noah waited patiently, watching the man's eyes roll back in his head.
«STOP! STOP! I'LL TELL YOU!» the Hedgehog howled, his spirit breaking under the relentless pressure.
Noah halted the process instantly. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the opposite wall as he watched the mutant slide to the ground, gasping for air and trembling like a leaf in a gale.
«I... I only noticed it the night before last,» the man rasped, his voice a broken whisper. He looked at Noah with a primal, soul-deep terror, as if he were staring at a god of death. He went silent then, trembling too hard to continue without a prompt.
The night before last? Noah echoed the thought internally, his mind whirring like a high-speed processor. That timeline lined up perfectly with the aftermath of the Battle of New York. At that exact moment, they had been attending the victory gala hosted by Tony Stark.
The presence of the Mind Stone's residual energy in this man's system was the smoking gun. Noah knew he hadn't used the stone's power on Earth since acquiring it. The only individual who had wielded that celestial energy with such reckless abandon recently was Corvus Glaive.
During their climactic struggle, Corvus—possessed and bolstered by the raw, unstable essence of the Mind Stone—had saturated the atmosphere, creating a chaotic, swirling vortex of cosmic radiation in the New York sky.
The puzzle pieces snapped together with a satisfying click. That residual energy hadn't simply dissipated; it had been carried across the globe by the «Second Breath» spell Noah had cast to heal the city. The man cowering before him was merely one of the «lucky» few who had been touched by that diluted, cosmic fallout.
In the original cinematic timeline, the Mind Stone was a known catalyst, capable of unlocking latent potential within those possessing a specific genetic marker. It was the «X-Factor.» This man hadn't been given powers by the stone; he had been unlocked by it.
Unlike the world of the X-Men, where mutants were a common, if persecuted, demographic, the Marvel Cinematic Universe treated the X-Gene as an extreme rarity—a dormant seed that required a specific, violent environmental trigger to bloom. The Mind Stone's energy had been that trigger.
Thus, across the world, a handful of individuals with the hidden mutant gene had suddenly found themselves transformed. The Hedgehog was just one of the first to crawl out of the woodwork.
However, Noah wasn't concerned about a sudden global epidemic of «Gifted» individuals. He realized the percentage of successful activations would be infinitesimally small.
Firstly, he noted that only the Hedgehog had shown such overt, violent manifestations. Most others with the gene likely hadn't received a high enough dose of energy or were currently hiding in their basements, terrified of their own hands.
Secondly, the energy field Corvus had created wasn't pure Mind Stone essence. It was a volatile cocktail of Space Stone radiation and Noah's own Rune of Bravery magic. In Noah's estimation, neither of those energies possessed the specific «evolutionary» properties required to wake the X-Gene.
He concluded that a mass uprising of mutants was unlikely. The real question, however, burned in the back of his mind: what about Wanda and Pietro Maximoff? In this reality, Loki's scepter—and the Mind Stone within it—had never fallen into the clutches of HYDRA. It was in Noah's possession. This meant the HYDRA base where the twins were held lacked the primary tool used to «awaken» them in the original history.
[Quest Completed]
As Noah reached his conclusion, the golden light of a system notification flickered in his peripheral vision.
«Hm? That's it? No boss fight, no grand revelation?» he muttered, a small smirk playing on his lips. He had barely broken a sweat. A little physical interrogation and some deductive reasoning were all it took. The System, it seemed, was feeling generous today.
[B-Level Quest: Mutant? — Success!]
[Reward: 500 Essence Units]
The 500 units were the bare minimum for a B-rank task, but considering he had only broken one man's arm and a few dozen spikes, it was an easy profit.
Noah flicked his fingers to open his inventory. After his recent spree of «10x Summons,» his reserves had been sitting at 2,800 Essence. With this new bounty, he was nearly halfway to his next major pull.
«Excellent. Now, let's see what to do with you,» he said, closing the shimmering panel and turning his predatory gaze back to the Hedgehog.
The man flinched, a low, pathetic whimper escaping his throat as he tried to press himself further into the brickwork.
Noah rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The man was a criminal, a murderer, and now an unstable biological weapon. He couldn't just let him walk. But the Hedgehog's constant sniveling and pleading were starting to grate on his nerves. With a dismissive wave of his hand, Noah cast a minor sleep charm, and the man's head lolled forward as he slumped into unconsciousness.
«I wonder if your condition is reversible,» Noah mused aloud, stepping closer to begin a deeper magical scan of the man's cellular structure.
Mutant powers were hard-coded into the DNA—the legendary X-Gene. To «cure» such a thing would require more than just a healing spell; it would require rewriting the very blueprint of the subject's soul and body.
--------
You can read up to 200+ advanced chapters and support me at patreon.com/raaaaven
Daily +2 chapters updates