Chapter One Hundred: The Last Hope

“Congratulations, Tony,” Natasha was the first to offer her congratulations. If Tony truly managed to learn magic, then the forces protecting Midgard would grow stronger once again.

Tony casually handed the Psionic Flower to the others. Qu Yizhi had agreed to let them examine it, so Tony was curious to see who besides himself possessed the necessary aptitude.

Unfortunately, the Psionic Flower passed from hand to hand, yet when it returned to Qu Yizhi, Tony remained the only one who had succeeded in lighting it.

The others fell silent, but Natasha’s eyes suddenly lit up. “The Captain hasn’t been tested yet. Perhaps he should give it a try.”

Qu Yizhi naturally had no objections. Her memories told her that those with the aptitude were exceedingly rare. Even among the entire population of the world, there might be no more than a handful.

Everyone returned to the living room. Steve had been injured while dealing with the Insight Plan and was currently receiving treatment from Doctor Helen in the medical room.

Doctor Helen’s life-science technology was astonishingly advanced, capable of perfectly repairing bodily injuries. Steve’s wounds were therefore healed in no time.

Before long, Steve emerged from the medical room and found an entire roomful of people waiting for him.

“What’s going on? Have those cultists started causing trouble again?” Steve asked, looking at everyone in confusion.

Tony walked up to him with the Psionic Flower in hand.

“Nothing serious. The Captain just needs to take a little test. Here, hold this.”

Tony handed Steve the flower. Though puzzled, Steve accepted it.

After dimming, the light of the Psionic Flower flared up once more. Judging by its brightness alone, it seemed even more radiant than when Tony had held it.

Tony narrowed his eyes when he noticed.

...

“What? You want me to learn magic?” Steve stared at the two people before him in astonishment. Back in the living room, Natasha had already explained in detail the strange flower that could illuminate itself, but he was still baffled by the inexplicable fact that he possessed the necessary aptitude.

“You’re not joking, are you, ma’am? I never knew I had any talent for magic.”

Steve was rarely at a loss for words. Before receiving the Super-Soldier Serum, he had been a frail, undersized young man who was constantly bullied. He had never displayed any unusual abilities.

“It’s psionic potential, Captain,” Qu Yizhi patiently explained. She herself was surprised to have found two people with psionic potential in the building. “This aptitude has nothing to do with physical strength. Even ordinary people who possess it generally show no particularly unusual traits.”

“All right. What do I have to do?”

Steve’s powerful mind allowed him to accept the revelation quickly. His recent battles had made him keenly aware of his weaknesses. If all the enemies he faced in the future were as unreasonable as the cultists, he would have no way to deal with them.

“Obviously, you start by serving tea.”

Tony folded his arms. He was willing enough to acknowledge that Steve possessed the aptitude, but the fact that Steve’s reaction had been slightly brighter than his own irritated him immensely.

“Stop joking, Tony.”

Under Tony’s vehemently disapproving stare, Qu Yizhi finally stopped addressing him as Mr. Stark. Still, she understood exactly what was bothering him.

“Having the aptitude only guarantees that you possess the key to enter the field. If you truly wish to grow stronger, you will still need to rely on your own efforts.”

Qu Yizhi performed a simple initiation ceremony for the two of them. Her memories contained no complete version of the ritual—perhaps her subconscious considered it unimportant—so she merely explained a few taboos and rules.

In truth, Steve had been deeply confused for some time. America had become a thing of the past, yet he was still Captain America. Fortunately, this was not the first time he had faced such a situation. When he had awakened from his long sleep, he too had once fallen into a state of bewilderment.

Now, however, a new door was opening before the two men.

The first step in Qu Yizhi’s instruction was to teach her apprentices the English language.

After all, all the knowledge in her mind had been written in English, and Qu Yizhi did not know how to translate it into any other language. Her apprentices would simply have to learn English themselves.

While the three of them were engaged in their lessons, Washington—the largest human exclusion zone in Eastern America—received several unexpected visitors.

“Ortus, why did you summon us here? Our gods are battling the enemy, yet we can only remain trapped beneath this damned dome, unable to offer sacrifices to the great gods.”

The speaker was a cultic divine envoy completely cloaked in black and wearing an octopus mask. He was questioning another divine envoy. Every envoy in America had gathered here this time. If humanity discovered them, they would certainly pay dearly for it.

“It seems your brain has not yet been assimilated by those vermin, Abbas.”

The envoy known as Ortus glanced at Abbas, then gazed toward Washington in the distance.

“I summoned you here because our only hope is now within this city.”

“Within this city?” asked another envoy, smaller in stature and apparently female judging by her voice. “What does this city have that could help us? We have tried every possible method, yet none of them can send a sacrifice through that curtain of light.”

“Exactly, Ortus. Stop joking around.”

Abbas gave a disdainful laugh. “This city is merely the work of a failure. It does not even possess a sacrificial formation. How could it possibly help us?”

Ortus ignored the two beside him and turned instead to another divine envoy who had remained silent the entire time.

“What do you think, Sari?”

Sari’s voice sounded like a dry piece of wood scraping endlessly across the ground.

“This city truly does contain our last hope. It seems Bacal was not entirely useless after all.”

“That useless fool Bacal even lost the divine statue. What could he possibly have left behind that would justify calling it our last hope?”

Abbas was furious. During this holy campaign, Bacal had been chosen to carry out the most important mission in Washington. The church’s most precious treasure—the divine statue—had therefore been entrusted to him. Not only had he allowed the mission to fail, he had also managed to lose the statue.

This outcome had not only doomed the sacrificial operation but had also obstructed the actions of the other divine envoys. Of the original twelve, only these four remained, hiding wherever they could while the military pursued them relentlessly.

After all, the divine envoys were still human. Even after gaining divine power, they could still be destroyed by human weapons. That was how the other envoys had perished. Once humanity discovered that the divine envoys could be killed, it began trying to capture them alive.

That was also why these four had managed to cling to life. Although the cult had inflicted enormous damage upon America, the holy church was now at the end of its strength. Most of its members had either been killed or captured, while the various exclusion zones were little more than the final remnants of the church’s fading glory.