Chapter 170: The Phoenix Girl Awakens

Mental communication is like the Eastern idiom 'A Dream of Millet in a Yellow Pot'; to outsiders, an instant passes, yet within consciousness, a thousand turns may have already spun.

They say sincerity moves people most; Professor X, having opened his entire soul, finally made Jean Grey understand his good intentions, comprehending all causes and effects, and learning the purpose inadvertently stated by the alien leader when he was drained of power and fell into a coma.

Especially the last item!

He did not mind abandoning power that did not belong to him to help homeless aliens rebuild their home. But the price could not be Earth, could not be the place where he grew up, could not be trading all living beings on Earth for the aliens' new home.

So he must resist, in the identity of X-Man, Jean Grey.

Waking from the slumber of escaping survival, Jean Grey opened his eyes. Although other mutants had been liberated, the device suppressing his X-gene had never stopped.

However, the power he now used was not purely brought by the X-gene. So the limiter could not function at all, simply turning to ash.

Jean Grey controlled his body to float into the air, looking down on everyone with a godlike posture. His expression was empty, only a pair of eyes appearing resolute and spirited.

Wu Ke looked at the awakened Jean and simply said, "You promised to transfer all your power to me."

"Yes, before knowing your plans, I did promise. But why would you think that when you take the destruction of Earth as a premise, I would still agree to such a thing?"

"Then I can only take it myself. The result will not be different." Wu Ke spoke cold words as if stating a fact.

The clash between two vessels of the Phoenix Force was a trivial matter for them, but to the outside world, it was no less than a change of heaven and earth.

No one knew how much of the Phoenix Force Wu Ke had absorbed, or rather, whether the method of allocating this power by proportion made sense.

However, the fact was that the D'Bari leader Wu Ke indeed relied on the Phoenix Force to gain some extra abilities. But it was completely inferior to Jean Grey, who, just after awakening, began to influence the real dimension.

Under Jean's influence, the moving train derailed. Spinning in the air like a twisted pastry, the iron sheets torn into strips extended like tentacles, piercing the D'Bari aircraft cruising around.

Wu Ke, inside it, did not escape the fate of being twisted into a rag; his entire body twisted and deformed. Only the mutants and human soldiers were protected, all covered in bubble-like bubbles, isolated from the external rotation and distortion.

All aircraft within a certain range were wiped out in one net, none spared. Even those D'Bari who were too close, trying to return to the train, were pierced by the extended iron-sheet tentacles and lost their lives.

Only Wu Ke, twisted into a twisted pastry, did not die there. He maintained a clear consciousness and began to contact the mothership lingering in low Earth orbit.

The D'Bari warship broke through the atmosphere in one breath, reaching the sky above the battle location. Immediately, a ground-targeting naval gun fired, with a diameter of no less than several hundred meters, not only smashing the train but also causing severe scorch marks within the range.

The train was merely ruined, not completely vaporized, because Jean's power was protecting it. Those he protected were the same; everyone stayed within that bubble that seemed as fragile as a blown eggshell, unharmed.

But hardening against a starship cannon shot was by no means an easy task. Especially for Jean, who was still unfamiliar with wielding that power within his body.

Although he protected everyone, the crowd was inevitably scattered by this shot, and the protective barrier originally set up was also broken.

The bushes ignited by the naval cannon energy, and the burning wreckage of the train, provided night illumination for the mutants and US Army soldiers.

D'Bari soldiers gathering from all directions, and single-person aircraft released again from the aerial warships, besieged the remaining humans.

Their mission was simple: kill everyone here, or at least find a way to pin them down. Let their leader face the target alone and seize the complete cosmic ray energy.

Facing the full-scale attack of an entire warship, whether mutants or US Army soldiers, were in a perilous situation like a tower of eggs.

They were just a group of miserable infantry, and moreover, infantry with insufficient ammunition. But even if they were given sufficient ammunition, it would not be enough to cope with the weapons of the technologically superior D'Bari, nor the combined air-ground offensive posture.

Being able to maintain survival and struggle desperately could be said to be the mutants' extraordinary performance. Those US Army soldiers skilled at dealing with mutants were, at such times, a burden needing protection from others.

The restored Wu Ke still used his mimicked human appearance and came before Jean Grey.

The reason humans could struggle on was largely due to Jean, the master of telekinesis.

If it were his original self, he could not cover the whole field, but the Phoenix Force within his body was simply too powerful. What Jean needed to do was get used to wielding this power and perform more precise operations.

After all, if he exerted too much force, let alone blocking attacks from both air and ground for humans, even humans themselves would be affected and thus erased from reality.

So Jean Grey could only hold back his power to protect people, which is why others still got injured.

And Wu Ke was here to break such a balance. Just as the D'Bari conquered the universe, those who loved their companions would inevitably generate despair due to their companions' death and injury. A crack in the heart would become his opportunity to seize power.

So Wu Ke was not in a hurry, but advanced step by step against Jean Grey, who was too busy to attend to himself, bringing him pressure.

Both troop superiority and tactical superiority were on the D'Bari side. Wu Ke believed his side could resolve everything before the native reinforcements of this planet arrived.

Because the mental power amplified by the Phoenix Force allowed Wu Ke to calculate what would happen next and seek the most advantageous course of action.

But he miscalculated one existence, an existence no one in this universe could understand, an existence even the three ancient powers, the immortal Phoenix, had never encountered.

A Kryptonian who had been irradiated by a yellow sun... a madman.

The Clown-Super, appearing again, carried a radio on his shoulder, playing the Queen band's famous three-beat song, 'We Will Rock You'.

Stepping with a flashy gait, strictly following the rhythm of 'stomp, stomp, clap', seemingly slow but actually fast, he strolled forward.

As a man who should come with his own BGM, the Clown-Super finally found the reason why his whole body felt wrong: he was missing a grand entrance theme.

So he specially took a detour to a nearby town, 'borrowed' this radio, and found a suitable cassette to play.

Listening to the music, he couldn't help but sigh, "As expected, watching a movie on-site gives a sense of being there, but lacks the matching passionate soundtrack. No wonder I've never been able to get hyped; you need music for that."

With the support of the battle song, he even felt his Buffers on his body rising rapidly, almost able to kill the Phoenix with one punch!

(End of this chapter)