Charles Xavier took a tentative bite of the snickerdoodle, his eyes darting toward Raizer like a man trying to read a bomb's countdown timer without a manual. The silence in his head was still absolute; a hollow, terrifying void where the psychic "noise" of the world used to be.
"Mr. Raizer," Charles began, his voice barely a whisper. "I believe we have... reached an understanding. You wish for a quiet life. A life of peace and... lemon water. I can respect that. I will ensure that my school and my people do not disturb you again."
"A wise choice, Professor," Raizer replied, setting his glass down. "I find that most problems in life can be solved with a clear boundary and a firm handshake. Or, in your case, a very polite departure."
"Wait, that's it?" Logan growled, his claws still half-extended. "We're just gonna walk away after he fried your brain, Chuck?"
"He didn't fry it, Logan!" Charles hissed, sweating. "He... he sanitized it! It's very clean now! Now, please, wheel me out before I decide to fire you!"
The X-Men began a hasty, awkward retreat toward the door, Charles practically pedaling the air with his feet in his hurry to leave the King's presence. Raizer watched them with a look of mild satisfaction. The peace was restored.
Then, the world exploded.
- BOOM!
The front wall of the apartment didn't just collapse; it disintegrated into a hail of brick and mortar. A massive, metallic girder whistled through the air, smashing through Raizer's dining table, the one S.H.I.E.L.D. had just replaced, and embedding itself in the kitchen counter.
"Found you, Charles!" a booming, gravelly voice echoed through the dust.
In the gaping hole of the wall stood The Juggernaut, his massive frame dwarfing the ruins of the living room. Behind him, hovering on a platform of twisted metal, was Magneto, his cape billowing in the wind. Several members of the Brotherhood of Mutants stood perched on the fire escape, looking down with predatory grins.
"The Brotherhood," Scott Summers yelled, his visor glowing. "They must have followed us!"
Raizer stood in the center of the room. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. He was looking at the debris. He was looking at the dust settling into his fresh lemon water. He was looking at the jagged remains of the photo frame he had brought back from South Dakota.
[Host...] The System whispered, its text turning a dark, ominous purple. [I've calculated the property damage. Including the structural integrity of the load-bearing wall, the custom kitchen cabinetry, and the emotional value of that photo... I think 'King Engine' should be unleashed!]
Raizer's eyes didn't turn darker. He didn't activate the King Engine. He didn't need the roar of his heart to express what he was feeling. Instead, his aura became something else—a cold, vacuum-like pressure that sucked the heat out of the room.
"My house," Raizer said, his voice so quiet it was more terrifying than a scream. "You destroyed my house."
"Move aside, human!" Magneto commanded, his hand outstretched as he prepared to crush the X-Men with the building's internal plumbing. "This is a matter for your betters!"
Because of the adrenaline rushing in his veins, Eric didn't notice the slight tremble in his hands. The quiet wavering of his voice. And the sudden weakening of his powers. His body was reacting to King's Aura, terrified before the mind could even realize.
Raizer didn't respond with words. He moved.
To the mutants, he didn't run. He simply ceased to exist in one coordinate and manifested in another. It was a high-speed movement technique, a sudden, surgical burst of Mana to his calves that ignored inertia.
- CRACK!
Raizer appeared directly beneath the chin of The Juggernaut. He didn't use a hammer or a fist. He coated his palm in a visible, shimmering layer of Chi, concentrating the energy into a point no larger than a needle.
Chi-Boost: Rupture
Unlike the 'Ripple' that had dispersed damage to purge mind control from Jessica Jones without causing permanent damage, this technique was designed for singular, structural failure.
The strike hit the behemoth's chin. The sound wasn't an explosion; it was a dull, sickening thud. The Chi bypassed the mystical Cyttorak armor, vibrating through the metal and striking the Juggernaut's brain stem directly. The 'Unstoppable Force' staggered back, his eyes rolling into his head as his entire nervous system rebooted in a state of sheer panic.
- Thud!
He fell on his back after a single strike. Though his physique could truly be called among the strongest as his body was still fine. His brain simply shut down due to the shock.
"What?" Magneto gasped. He swung his hands, ripping the rebar out of the floorboards to impale the 'ordinary' human.
Raizer didn't even look. He extended his left hand, and a faint, blue magic circle flickered around his wrist.
Vector Alteration.
The flying steel rods didn't hit him. They struck an invisible, frictionless barrier, sliding off into the walls like they were made of silk. Raizer grabbed one mid-air, infused it with a bolt of Lightning Magic: Overload, and hurled it back. The rod didn't pierce Magneto; it slammed into his magnetic field, the electrical discharge short-circuiting the Master of Magnetism's concentration and pinning his cape to the brick wall with a localized EMP.
Raizer blurred again, this time toward Quicksilver. To Pietro, the world was standing still. The speedster tried to pivot, his reflexes faster than any human comprehension, even Raizer. He was the only person holding the slightest threat to the 'King'. Sadly, he was too young.
Raizer was calm, his hand glowing with a soft, green light.
Slow Magic: Field
The entire flat became thick, like molasses. The speedster's Mach-speed momentum returned to the speed of an ordinary person; slowing him alone consumed hundreds of MP every second, let alone the entire room.
Chi-Boost: Ripple
Raizer quickly stepped before him and delivered a light, Chi-infused tap to the boy's chest. The impact sent a shockwave through Pietro's lungs, knocking the wind out of him instantly.
After Pietro was down, Raizer removed the magic. Returning everybody to their normal speed.
"You're tracking dust on the hardwood," Raizer muttered at the gasping speedster.
Magneto, roaring in fury, ripped the appliances out of the kitchen walls. He condensed the stove, the refrigerator, and the sink into a single, rotating spear of jagged metal. "Die, you arrogant monkey!"
Raizer breathed in, a deep, rhythmic draw that filled his lungs with Mana.
He moved through the storm of metal like a ghost. He didn't dodge; he flowed. Every piece of metal missed him by a fraction of an inch. He closed the gap to Magneto in two strides.
Binding Chain
Faint, glowing ropes of pure Mana erupted from the floor, wrapping around Magneto's limbs. Raizer grabbed the older man by the throat.
"My house," Raizer growled, his eyes glowing with a cold, blue light, "was recently renovated. You son of a-"
- Bam!
He slammed Magneto into the remains of the wall. No King Engine. No theatrics. Just the terrifyingly precise application of magic and martial arts.
He picked up a piece of the shattered dining table. He traced a quick rune on the wood with his finger; Weight Multiplier. He flicked it toward Toad, who was trying to leap from the ceiling. The small piece of wood suddenly weighed three hundred pounds in mid-air, crushing the mutant into the floor with a resounding 'CRUNCH'.
Charles Xavier, still powerless and watching from his chair, could only stare in horror. "Who are you?"
By now, the rest of the X-men also felt the King's Aura. They realized the terror of the man before them.
They understood what Charles was fearing. They inwardly thanked the fact that they didn't make a move against him. At least, not without the full force of the entire X-men.
"I'm not a hero," Raizer said, stepping over the unconscious Juggernaut. He turned to the remaining members of the Brotherhood, his shadow lengthening across the ruined apartment. "I'm a man who just had his home vaporized by a bunch of people in spandex."
He looked at Magneto, who was struggling against the Mana chains.
"The fight is over," Raizer said. "Leave. Now. Take your friends and get out of my sight before I decide to kill you all. I happen to have quite the short temper."
Raizer sat amidst the wreckage of his living room, perched on the one kitchen stool that had miraculously survived the Juggernaut's entrance.
Around him, the X-Men were working with a somber, frantic efficiency. Logan was dragging the unconscious Juggernaut by the ankles, the metal helmet screeching against the floorboards, while Storm and Cyclops gathered the rest of the Brotherhood, showing the actual brotherhood of these mutants.
They looked at Raizer with a mixture of awe and genuine dread. He hadn't raised his pulse, hadn't used that terrifying "Heartbeats" of his, and yet he had dismantled the most dangerous mutant terrorists on the planet like he was filing a routine report at work.
[HOST!] The System appeared in a flurry of golden sparks. [Menace level: 99%! Your Chi and Mana techniques were flawless! You looked like a literal God of Calamity! I've archived the footage under 'Disaster Management: Absolute Edition'!]
"Ha~ Damn," Raizer sighed, ignoring the System's hype as he looked at the sky through the giant hole where his wall used to be. "They destroyed my house again. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to think I'm doing this on purpose."
He frowned, clicking his tongue in annoyance. Yet, beneath the frustration, there was a new, cold clarity. In the heat of rage, he had pushed the boundaries of Absolute Control Level 3. He realized that his capacity for magic wasn't just high; it was limitless.
He could weave, spam, and manifest any spell he could conceptualize, his Mana flowing with the frictionless ease of a god. His raw versality already dwarfed the 'Omega-level' classification of mutants. Only short of Reality-benders.
The X-Men departed into the New York night, leaving Raizer alone in the ruins. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, hoping to watch some YouTube. But first, there was the 5-second ad to be watched.
Instead, a frantic news bulletin cut through the advertisement.
"...breaking news out of Afghanistan. Reports have been confirmed that billionaire industrialist Tony Stark has been found alive after three months in captivity. The 'Merchant of Death' has returned to American soil, appearing disheveled but defiant..."
Raizer leaned back, the stool creaking. The "Iron" era was beginning.
"...In a shocking turn of events, moments after landing, Stark held an impromptu press conference at the airport, announcing the immediate and permanent shutdown of Stark Industries' weapons manufacturing division. Stock prices are in a freefall as the world wonders-"
Raizer turned the phone off. He stared at the glowing embers of his ruined apartment, the city lights flickering in the distance.
"Stark is back," Raizer muttered, a thin, sharp smile touching his lips. "The weapons division is dead. That means the market is about to get very, very chaotic."
[HOST!] The System pulsed. [A global economic shift! A genius in a tin suit! This sounds like a prime opportunity to bet on stocks!!]
"Exactly, Watson," Raizer murmured.
The cold rage that had fueled his dismantling of the Brotherhood vanished instantly, replaced by the sharp, calculating mind of a fiscal predator. The ruins of his apartment were suddenly irrelevant. To a man like Raizer, a destroyed house was a temporary liability, SHIELD would fix it for free. But a market collapse was a generational opportunity.
He watched the glowing red tickers on his phone, a thin, predatory smirk spreading across his face. He was waiting for the bottom. He was waiting for the moment the world lost faith in Stark Industries so he could buy the empire for pennies on the dollar. He would hoard the stock in bulk and ride the wave back to the top when the "Merchant of Death" inevitably rebranded as the "Savior of Tomorrow."
"Hehehe!"
[Thankfully, the mutants are gone!] The System chimed in, its tone dripping with a mix of relief and judgment. [The King's dignity would be under serious threat if they saw you giggling like a cartoon villain over stock margins! You just fought a war, and now you're doing day-trading in a debris field!]
Raizer didn't care. He sat on his lone surviving stool, surrounded by the wreckage of his home, illuminated by the city lights pouring through the hole in his wall.
"Dignity doesn't pay for reinforced drywall, System," Raizer said, his thumb hovering over the 'Buy' button.
[And power doesn't mean intellect, host!]
"You always have to have the last word, don't you?"
[I do, indeed.]