Chapter 14: Chapter Thirteen: The Voice Call Invitation from Wong

After that night left Batman depressed, Xiler returned to the Marvel universe; after pumping up Stark, the Night Nurse of Hell’s Kitchen went into hiding from assassins, Spider-Man had just gained his powers and hadn’t officially debuted yet, and Xiler found himself idle.

After that night, Xiler realized he had gained another chance for random chat; he had figured out now that whenever he significantly impacted someone in a world, he earned a chance to be randomly matched with a chat partner—clearly, his conversation with Batman had deeply affected him.

Xiler planned to use this idle time to activate the chat opportunity; Professor Charles had been busy with admissions lately, Spider-Man was too excited about his new powers to reply, and for now there was no one to chat with—Xiler felt lonely.

So he used the random chat chance, and suddenly a voice call interface appeared in his mind—something that had never appeared during his chats with Charles or Spider-Man.

Both of them replied via typing, and what appeared in Xiler’s mind were text boxes; this time it became voice directly.

Xiler looked at the avatar: the Sorcerer Supreme, Wong!

The Sorcerer Supreme, Wong, has sent you a voice call invitation—accept or decline? If you accept, what do you say?

Xiler scratched his head, then finally accepted.

“...Mysterious voice of the cosmos, where do you come from...”

Xiler sensed a stream of sounds—though calling them sounds wasn’t quite right; they felt more like thoughts and brainwaves. He heard no actual sound, yet understood the other side’s meaning.

Xiler replied with thought alone: “...Who are you?”

On Mount Ximalaya, Wong sat cross-legged on a cushion, deeply meditating; suddenly she frowned—a voice answered her.

Wong often meditated to seek answers from the noisy voice of the cosmos; various echoes in the universe represented different mystical omens in her mind, and she could listen to these cosmic voices to divine, cleanse her thoughts, and find peace.

But these cosmic voices had always been chaotic noise, never containing any logical notes; Wong firmly believed any conscious entity wandering through the cosmos was a future cosmic demon.

She immediately raised her guard, focusing all her willpower; her mental strength was so immense she could scan every nearby universe in an instant—but after scanning, she found no anomaly.

The voice that answered her appeared out of nowhere, with no origin and no abnormal energy signature.

Xiler knew Wong was powerful; if combined with comic lore, she was several times stronger than in the movies, and this Sorcerer Supreme was no young Batman—she was at her peak—but Xiler still intended to risk it for gain.

He said: “...Answer me... answer me...”

“...Wherever you come from, whoever you are—stay away from Earth!” Wong’s reply was firm.

“...Earth’s guardian?... Answer me...”

“I am the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth... Who are you? Why are you emitting cosmic signals?”

“I come from Carcosa... the Hali Lake of the Pleiades star system... the dark sun hangs high in the sky...”

Wong sensed a flood of incomprehensible information from the other side; she knew connecting with an unknown cosmic entity was extremely dangerous, but she had to determine if it threatened Earth.

The entity’s message was obscure and profound, but Wong picked out recurring phrases: Carcosa, Hastur, Hali Lake.

After a bizarre exchange, Wong roughly understood: the entity seemed to be warning her, repeatedly uttering one phrase: “When the stars align, the Old Ones return...”

Wong believed the entity might be named “Hastur,” dwelling in a place called Carcosa, where a “Hali Lake” was shrouded in fog, and its enemies—the cosmic demons known as the Old Ones—would return to Earth when the stars realigned.

Under Wong’s probing, she learned the entity appeared imprisoned, unable to confront its enemies directly; it broadcast signals near Earth solely to warn humanity.

But Wong knew humans and these cosmic demons had entirely different life forms—they could not perceive cosmic signals at all; only through daily meditation could anyone understand what the entity was saying.

Even Wong could not fully comprehend the brainwave signals sent to her; they seemed overloaded with too much information—Old Ones, Lord of the Great Old Ones, Azathoth—the entity seemed desperate to dump everything on her, but sadly, Wong could not fully grasp It.

She did not trust this unknown cosmic entity, yet sensed no presence from it, nor any extra attention directed at Earth—but its warning tone pressed upon her: where had another group of demons emerged?

And they could silently approach Earth and broadcast signals—who could guarantee they wouldn’t influence human minds?

To be fair, Wong’s decades as Sorcerer Supreme weren’t wasted; her concerns were entirely reasonable—if this story wasn’t fabricated by Xiler, then the Cthulhu mythos truly drove anyone who encountered it mad.

Fortunately, this was merely a story Xiler invented to fool Wong.

Just as Wong prepared to probe further, the connection severed—the other side seemed to encounter trouble.

It made no demands, sought no power transfer, and uttered no nonsense about ruling the cosmos—this made Wong believe it slightly more.

Cosmic demons rarely knew how to hide; they couldn’t suppress their madness and chaos. If this entity were dangerous, experienced Wong would have instantly traced the line and cut it down.

But now it seemed the demon was calm, rational—but Wong remained utterly vigilant; this might merely be an illusion.

Xiler mastered the art of always leaving half unsaid; before Wong could ask for more details, he hung up, then rubbed his hands, preparing to replicate Wong’s ability.

He tapped, and a system chime sounded: “Low-level magical ability loaded.”

Xiler knew Wong’s ability must be mystical and tied to magic.

After loading the magical ability, Xiler tested it and found it was half good, half bad.

The benefit: he didn’t have to follow Marvel’s magic rules. Xiler could cast spells without any cost or side effects. But the downside: it was truly a low-level ability—Xiler could only do: telekinesis, fire magic, and a short-range blink.

Telekinesis had a range of about 10 meters—similar to a levitation spell; within 10 meters, Xiler could move any object, but only those weighing no more than himself—he couldn’t move houses or cars.

The fire spell had almost no offensive power; Xiler could ignite a small flame in his palm—enough to light a cigarette or burn a sheet of paper or a book, but expecting to use it to fight someone was absurd.

The most useful was the blink: Xiler could appear or vanish at any point within a 20-meter radius—enough to evade many dangers.

Though casting required no cost, it still drained physical and mental energy; after five or six consecutive blinks, Xiler would be too exhausted to stand. Worse, his mind filled with static, making concentration difficult—the consequence of overuse.

But compared to other Marvel sorcerers who paid heavy prices for magic, Xiler was already extremely lucky.

The abilities he loaded were always marked “low-level,” suggesting they could be upgraded—but Xiler hadn’t yet found how. He guessed he might need to increase intimacy with his chat partners, help them, or save them to gain higher-level powers.

In maximum-effort consecutive blinks, Xiler could move over a hundred meters in an instant, and the ability ignored all obstacles—it could pass through walls.

He could sit in his psychological clinic and instantly appear in a house two streets away—this gave him the greatest advantage: S.H.I.E.L.D. agents could no longer track him.

S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had long tracked him to Hell’s Kitchen, but as Xiler predicted, the area was crowded and chaotic; gangs were wary of outsiders, and S.H.I.E.L.D. constantly faced obstacles—for example, when they rented the house across from Xiler’s clinic, they were extorted a large sum.

Since Xiler began using blink to leave, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were utterly baffled: sometimes they saw no sign of him leaving, yet later he walked back onto the street; sometimes they saw him leave but not return, yet moments later he reappeared in the clinic.

This completely shattered S.H.I.E.L.D.’s assumptions about Xiler’s schedule.

But it reinforced Nick Fury’s belief that Xiler was an unpredictable threat—especially as his contact with Stark grew closer, which was not good news.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s plan to use Stark was written plainly on their faces; clearly, Nick Fury wanted to exploit Stark’s sense of justice to serve S.H.I.E.L.D.

But it wasn’t just S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who noticed oddities; Xiler himself had noticed strange occurrences around his clinic—until the cake in his fridge went missing another four pounds, he confirmed: his clinic had been burglarized.