Chapter Sixty-Four: A Strange Starry Sky

Far away in the Antarctic, the Avengers were still unaware of the upheaval unfolding back home. They had already succeeded in entering that strange spatial rift.

“Tony, is there any way you can contact the outside world?” Steve asked with a grave expression the moment they were through.

Tony’s face did not look any better. “Hey, Cap, this is two different spaces. I don’t have a solution for now either. But I already told J.A.R.V.I.S.: if my communications are cut off, immediately try to break through the spatial barrier at the place where I vanished.”

“Yes, sir. According to your previous instructions, the spatial breaching unit will arrive at our prior location in one hour,” J.A.R.V.I.S.’s terminal was calculating the time needed for support to reach them.

After the battle in New York, Tony had installed J.A.R.V.I.S.’s terminal inside the Iron suit, mainly to prevent signal interference from throwing the armor out of control. This time, being cut off from the outside world had made those preparations worthwhile.

Qu Yizhi was continuously sensing this strange space. Ever since she entered, she had felt that something was off, yet she could not put it into words.

Doctor Banner shrugged, indicating that there was nothing he could do. Even if the Hulk appeared, he would not be able to smash something as intangible as space. And without the aid of his supercomputer, he could not help Tony for the time being.

Steve glanced around at the others and drew a deep breath. This battle would certainly be no easier than the one in New York. So he said in a low voice, “Then Tony and Doctor Banner will stay here and study how to break through the spatial barrier. The rest of you come with me to search for the scientists who disappeared.”

Everyone voiced their agreement.

Just before they set off, Tony suddenly asked Qu Yizhi, “Have you remembered anything?”

Qu Yizhi froze for a moment, then shook her head, then nodded. “If you mean the dance before, then I have no memory of it at all. But after I came into this space, I did feel that something was not quite right.”

“Not quite right? What do you mean?” Tony scratched his metal chin, then lowered his hand again.

Qu Yizhi looked apologetically at the companions waiting around her. “I don’t know what is wrong, which is why I didn’t say anything right away.”

“Well, well. The intuition of a woman,” Tony said, temporarily abandoning the question. He waved a hand and turned away with Banner to discuss the physics of space.

Natasha smiled. “Oh, that’s not all. The sixth sense of women is very strong.” With that, she took Qu Yizhi by the hand and led her outside. Through their recent exchanges, Natasha and Qu Yizhi had grown very close, and Natasha knew Qu Yizhi was rather shy and reserved, so she often took the initiative to drag her out shopping. After all, there were hardly any women in Avengers Tower.

Hawkeye took down his bow and arrows, ready to shoot at any moment. His relationship with Natasha was the best among the Avengers, and they had fought together more than anyone else, so he had always trusted her intuition.

Steve merely nodded to Tony and Banner before following them out of the cave, where Banner and Tony began trying to unravel the mystery of the spatial rift.

The moment they left the cave, a biting wind struck them full in the face, chilling them to the bone. Steve and Natasha immediately looked up at the sky and found it utterly black, with only a few stars still glimmering faintly.

Steve lowered his head in frustration, only to see Natasha looking astonished, even snapping several photos with the camera device Tony had given them earlier.

“What’s wrong here?” Steve asked, somewhat at a loss. He had intended to make a simple observation of the stars to determine their position, but soon discovered that he knew nothing at all about the sky above them and gave up. Yet judging by Natasha’s expression, she seemed to have noticed something.

“Mm. These stars are strange. I’ve never seen them in this position before. I suspect this is no longer Midgard.” Natasha nodded. As an ace agent, memorizing star charts was an effortless matter, so she immediately detected the anomaly in this sky.

“I see.” Steve nodded, though no one knew quite what he had understood. Qu Yizhi kept her head down, apparently deep in thought about her strange sensation, while Barton did not even look up.

“All right, Cap, my data collection is complete. Where do we go?” Natasha carefully photographed the sky above them. This was extremely important information and might well prove invaluable.

Steve looked toward the towering mountain range ahead and pointed. “Let’s go there. The rest of this place is too flat. I think those scientists would have gone to that unusual location.”

“It is unusual indeed.” Natasha followed his gesture and saw the mountain range. Her brows immediately tightened. “Cap, wait a moment.”

Without waiting for Steve to respond, Natasha pulled a pair of glasses from her backpack and looked toward the mountains. Then her astonished voice rang in their ears. “My God, Cap, you will never believe this. The height of that mountain range has already surpassed Mount Everest.”

“Higher than Everest?” Barton and Steve both lifted their brows. They naturally knew what Mount Everest was: the highest peak in Midgard, the highest point on Midgard. Yet here there was a mountain even taller than Everest. It seemed this truly was not Midgard.

Their unease deepened. If this was not Midgard, then it meant that once they failed to find a way out, they might never be able to leave.

But Qu Yizhi’s voice rang out at that moment, breaking the silence among the three. “No, this is still Midgard. It is a folded space, but in broad terms it still exists attached to Midgard.”

“Xiao Qu, have you remembered something?” Natasha looked at Qu Yizhi in surprise. After all, Qu Yizhi had been saying all along that she could not remember anything. Could this really be connected to her origins?

Steve also looked at her seriously. “What else do you know, Miss Qu Yizhi?”

Qu Yizhi shook her head and sighed. “A moment ago, a scene suddenly flashed through my mind. It seemed that long ago, when I first came here, a voice was explaining things to me.”

At that, she hesitated. “So I don’t know whether what I am saying is right. I didn’t even remember what that figure looked like. It may have only been a dream.”

Natasha comforted her. “How could it be? Your memory must be awakening. According to science, the deeper the impact a memory has on you, the easier it is to recover. If it were only a dream, you would probably have forgotten it long ago.”