While Marcus and Tony continued discussing the imminent threat of the Dark Phoenix, a notification flashed across Tony's HUD.
He turned to Marcus and reported:
"Xavier's position has been confirmed. And Mutant No. 143—borrowed from William Stryker—is already in place."
William Stryker, the infamous antagonist from X-Men, was the director of the government's Weapon X program—the man responsible for creating the two immortal weapons, Wolverine and Deadpool.
Leveraging his authority as Secretary of Defense (and a healthy dose of intimidation), Tony had secured several key research assets from Stryker, including significant quantities of adamantium and one extremely valuable mutant—
Mutant No. 143.
Mutant No. 143 was none other than Jason Stryker, Stryker's own son.
A former student of Xavier's School, Jason possessed the terrifying ability to manipulate others' brainwaves and force powerful hallucinations onto them.
Years of his father's cruel experimentation had stripped him of any sense of self.
He was now nothing more than an empty shell, a tool meant to obey.
Yet his psychic ability remained frightening—
even an omega-level telepath like Professor X could be overtaken by Jason, given enough time and proximity.
Marcus casually picked up Loki's scepter, maintaining the Mind Stone's psychic barrier.
"Then what are we waiting for?" he said. "Let's move."
Moments after Marcus and Tony departed, the second wave of Hunters surged forward.
The sight alone was enough to freeze the students' blood.
Dozens of Hunters—arms reshaping into hooked blades, cleavers, hammers, tendrils, shields—
charged with inhuman speed, wrapped head-to-toe in hardened chitin and backed by obscene regenerative ability.
With Cyclops and Storm captured, and Magneto barely clinging to life,
the academy was leaderless.
"What do we do? Do we run?"
a trembling student whispered.
"Run where?"
another replied bleakly.
"You've seen how fast they move. Even if we escape today, the whole country will hunt us down."
At that moment, Magneto forced himself upright.
Blood streamed down his torn abdomen, yet his voice carried the same pride it always had.
"If you want to run, then run. As long as I still draw breath, they will not pass this doorway."
He raised a trembling hand.
At once, the metal debris across the courtyard shuddered and rose like an orchestra responding to its conductor.
They twisted, merged, and formed into towering metallic golems—
iron soldiers with bodies of armored steel.
The iron constructs marched forward, colliding violently with the charging Hunters.
Steel fists hammered into black chitin.
Blades scraped across iron bodies.
Sparks and blood sprayed into the air.
One moment, a Hunter's head was crushed like a melon; the next, a steel golem was sliced clean in half.
The war raged evenly—
Hunters repairing themselves by devouring corpses,
Iron golems pulling nearby metal to rebuild their shattered limbs.
Thus, one man—Magneto—was holding back the entire Hunter battalion.
---
"Damn it," the U.S. officer snarled. "Can't that old corpse just stay down? We're using plastic trucks—why can't we use plastic weapons to kill him too?"
His subordinate sighed.
"Buddy… because he's Magneto."
"HULK!!!"
A roar like a collapsing mountain interrupted their conversation.
The Hulk—thrown miles away by Magneto earlier—returned with fury vastly greater than before.
He no longer distinguished friend from foe.
Every Hunter and every iron golem in his path was pulverized instantly.
Even the shockwaves from his footsteps blasted bodies into the air.
And Magneto—
in his fading vision—
saw the Hulk as an unstoppable cosmic projectile crashing toward him.
He understood.
The Hulk's strength had grown past anything he could resist.
Phantom Cat prepared to phase Magneto underground to escape, but—
"STOP!"
Magneto's roar shook the building.
No one had ever heard him shout this loudly—
not even in his youth.
"I said… they will NOT take one step inside this hall!"
The courtyard thundered.
Hundreds—thousands—of tons of metal surged upward like a tidal wave.
Blood-soaked iron fragments, corpses, shattered armor—everything was swept into the air.
The Hunters, still mobile, were instantly bound in layers of metal and helplessly lifted into the storm.
All the steel converged toward a single target.
The Hulk.
He was like a gravitational core attracting all matter around him.
If Magneto lost control for even a moment, the entire building's rebar structure would be ripped apart.
Slowly—agonizingly—Magneto closed his fingers.
The tidal wave of metal collapsed toward the Hulk, wrapping around him layer by layer.
It was a burial—
a metal storm analogous to the Sand Coffin and Sand Burial of the shinobi world—
except here, every grain of sand was a blade.
"To the core of the earth with you… cough… cough…"
Blood flooded from Magneto's mouth.
His vision blurred.
His body trembled uncontrollably.
The iron tide swallowed the Hulk whole—while Magneto's failing heart fought to beat just one second longer.
He had unleashed the last song of the Master of Magnetism.