January 2014.
The new year had just begun, and the Earth, which had been stable for two years, faced another massive upheaval.
This time, the flames of war were ignited by S.H.I.E.L.D.
S.H.I.E.L.D., which boasted 300,000 agents worldwide, suddenly descended into internal strife.
Minister Alexander Pierce completely tore off his mask, openly leading the entirety of the field operations department and half of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strength in a revolt.
They sought to rule the world, eliminating all resistance to establish a New World Order.
However, the Avengers became a mountain standing directly in Hydra's path.
To counter the Avengers, Pierce utilized Skye (Daisy Johnson) to recruit the Inhumans from Afterlife and Magneto's Brotherhood.
He established a team of super-powered individuals called "The Revengers."
Pierce pushed the Revengers to the front lines to clash with the Avengers.
To combat the superheroes appearing frequently around the globe, he even integrated the Vampire clans as mid-tier muscle.
As Hydra stepped out from the shadows, they initiated a war of blood and terror.
Jiaying led the Inhumans to commit massacres everywhere, using her abilities to drain the life force of ordinary people and transfer it to the high-level officials of European nations.
When the temptation of immortality appeared, the leaders of Europe were quickly corrupted.
They agreed to let Hydra establish its headquarters in Berlin, Germany.
Thus, Europe gradually became the core of Hydra's control.
Meanwhile, Magneto led his Brotherhood of Mutants under the banner of Hydra.
Using the mental control of the White Queen, Emma Frost, they occupied the isolated continent of Australia.
After a lifetime of loving and killing with Professor X, Magneto finally saw his dream within reach.
He intended to establish a Mutant Nation!
Furthermore, Hydra recruited gang organizations from across the globe—the Red Room, the League of Assassins, and ambitious superhumans.
During this period, under Hydra's leadership, all sorts of monsters and freaks emerged on an Earth that had been peaceful for two years.
Harvey was indifferent toward a common villain like Pierce and didn't take them seriously at first.
But Hydra's momentum grew larger and larger, eventually surpassing even the Avengers who had saved the world.
Under the bloodthirsty lure of the vampires' immortality, government officials, capital leaders, and ordinary people who had lost their way joined Hydra one after another.
So, after Harvey finished absorbing the power of the Reality Stone, what he saw was a world situation as volatile as oil hitting an open flame.
Even so, he still didn't believe Pierce could succeed.
It wasn't that Harvey looked down on Hydra, but his Skyfather-level strength was a fact. Without absolute high-end power, the holy war Hydra started was...
In his eyes, it was as naive as children playing house.
But he had misjudged things this time.
January 16th.
A seemingly ordinary day.
Hydra contacted the Inhuman Royal Family on the Moon through Jiaying.
They reached an agreement with Black Bolt to jointly rule the Earth.
And this time, luck favored the villains.
While the Inhuman Royal Family was gathering their kin to prepare to wipe out Earth's resistance, they accidentally discovered a secret base that had crashed on the far side of the moon tens of thousands of years ago.
This base was the resting place of the Transformers' leader, Sentinel Prime.
When Sentinel Prime was awakened by the Inhuman King, Black Bolt, he represented the Cybertronian race in joining the partition of Earth.
Although the agreement was only superficial, the alliance of so many villains to invade Earth was formidable.
One had to admit, for a mere mortal like Pierce to achieve this level...
Harvey had truly underestimated him.
On January 16th at 2:00 PM Eastern Time...
Over a hundred pillars of bright light suddenly rose from the Moon. The violent energy fluctuations captured Harvey's attention.
Sentinel Prime had actually successfully activated the Space Bridge, transporting the home planet of Cybertron, silent for millions of years, into an orbit near Mars.
Through spatial transport technology, the planet Cybertron appeared out of thin air. Although its volume was only half that of Mars, its mass was equivalent to ten Jupiters.
One can only imagine that when such a super-massive celestial body appeared, the gravitational system of the solar system, stable for billions of years, began to change drastically.
Earth was the planet closest to Cybertron.
Now, Earth was being relentlessly pulled by the gravity of both the Sun and Cybertron.
This caused frequent, unprecedented Magnitude 12 earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, super tsunamis, and other severe natural disasters worldwide.
This violent movement of the Earth's crust caused Yellowstone National Park—the head of the ten super-volcanoes, which had been stable for 640,000 years—to face a large-scale catastrophe.
The New York Northern Suburbs Estate.
Inside the dark, lightless underground laboratory, an extremely dazzling "miniature sun" would occasionally flare up.
Harvey was currently using the Solar Rune he had learned to upgrade Lumos Version 2.0.
His goal was to evolve the low-level spells from the Harry Potter world into ultra-high-tier magic.
This goal was difficult, so after successfully merging with the Reality Stone...
Aside from accompanying his three ravenous women—Hermione, Cho, and Wanda—he spent every day in the laboratory researching a more powerful spell system.
description But the difficulty of merging two different magical systems was incredibly high for Harvey.
So high it made him question his life.
So high that Harvey even began to doubt his own magical talent.
Had the smooth sailing of his early spell learning made him too complacent?
Now that he was touching a higher level of magical truth, he realized his initial talent could only take him this far.
Analyzing the magical truths of the Marvel Universe was not something that could be done by gifted talent alone.
He was not a Child of Destiny, nor was he "inevitable" like the Scarlet Witch.
If Harvey wanted to climb the path of magic, he could only rely on himself!
And so—
"Lumos!"
Another dazzling miniature sun appeared.
This thumb-sized sun simulated heavy core fusion similar to a real star, producing fusion reactions every microsecond.
The surface temperature of the miniature sun reached as high as 2,000,000°C.
If he hadn't placed protective magic in advance, such extreme heat would have melted the laboratory instantly.
Even with a bit of leaked hot air, the entire lab felt like a massive oven.
Relying on his Version 2.0 magical shields, Harvey could immune the super-high temperatures caused by Lumos 2.5 at close range.
But many items on the workbench were just ordinary alchemical tools and magical materials.
They simply could not withstand such super-heat.
So, less than 0.1 seconds after the miniature sun lit up, Harvey began to restrict his mana output, extinguishing it.
"Phew... still needs work. Creating a real sun is indeed not easy."
Harvey sighed with emotion.
Lumos had gone through several upgrades.
From only being able to light up a small room at the beginning...
To becoming a flare that could illuminate dozens of kilometers...
To now being a miniature sun that could illuminate nearly a thousand kilometers.
This Lumos 2.5 still failed to satisfy him.
In his vision, using the mana merged from two Infinity Stones, he should at least be able to stably create a super light source equivalent to one-thousandth of a real sun.
But the difficulty of upgrading a spell's power was never a steady climb; it was a spiraling, leaping increase in difficulty.