In the pitch-black depths of space, Carol was enveloped in dazzling cosmic energy, shining like a miniature star.
She crossed her arms before her chest as immense power gathered between her hands, condensing into a blinding sphere of light.
"You killed Nick."
"You'll pay for that!"
Xiao Han floated silently in the void, his expression utterly calm.
He said nothing.
He simply raised his right hand and casually beckoned with a single finger.
Come.
BOOM!!!
Carol unleashed an energy blast powerful enough to obliterate a small planet.
A brilliant beam of light tore through the darkness and shot straight toward Xiao Han.
Watching from a distance, the Avengers instinctively raised their arms to shield their eyes from the blinding flash.
Tony's armor alarms screamed.
"Sir! Energy levels have exceeded safe parameters! Immediate evacuation is strongly recommended!"
Yet when the light finally began to fade...
Everyone stood frozen in disbelief.
Xiao Han had caught the blast—with one hand.
A golden force field expanded before his palm, effortlessly blocking Carol's all-out attack.
"...Impossible."
Carol muttered in disbelief.
"Your power..."
Xiao Han's voice echoed directly inside her mind through telepathy.
"...comes from the Space Stone."
"And mine..."
He suddenly accelerated.
In an instant, he appeared directly in front of Carol.
"...comes from the Sun itself."
His punch looked simple.
Unadorned.
But it carried an unimaginably terrifying force.
Carol hastily crossed both arms in front of herself as cosmic energy condensed into a protective barrier.
BANG!!!
The shield shattered like fragile glass.
Carol was blasted away, leaving behind a brilliant golden trail across the vacuum of space.
She barely managed to steady herself.
A streak of golden, energy-like blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
"...What exactly are you?"
Carol wiped away the blood as cosmic energy surged wildly through her body, repairing her injuries.
Xiao Han didn't answer.
Instead...
His eyes began glowing with an unprecedented golden radiance.
Power comparable to a solar flare erupted within him.
Even the surrounding cosmic background radiation began to distort.
The observing Avengers felt an inexplicable chill run through them.
Banner's voice trembled.
"His energy output..."
"It's increasing exponentially!"
Carol refused to back down.
She raised both hands high above her head, drawing even greater amounts of cosmic energy from the depths of space.
Her body gradually became translucent,
as though she were merging with the universe itself.
"Ultimate Photon Burst!"
"Die!"
She compressed every last bit of her power into a single point before firing a beam no thicker than a strand of hair.
Though impossibly thin,
its energy density was terrifying.
Everywhere the beam passed,
space itself developed tiny cracks.
Xiao Han didn't dodge.
He didn't even try to defend himself.
He simply allowed the beam to strike him square in the chest.
Then...
Nothing happened.
"...What?!"
Carol's eyes widened in horror.
Golden patterns flowed beneath Xiao Han's skin like liquid sunlight.
Slowly,
he raised both hands.
His palms faced each other.
Between them,
a miniature sun was being born.
"Carol Danvers."
His voice carried the authority of divine judgment.
"You call yourself the police of the galaxy..."
"Yet you allowed aliens to infiltrate Earth."
"Today..."
"I'll show you what true power looks like."
With a gentle push,
the miniature sun floated forward.
It appeared slow—
yet arrived before Carol in an instant.
She tried to evade.
But found herself locked in place by an invisible force field.
She couldn't move at all.
"No!!"
An overwhelming white light swallowed everything.
When the brilliance finally faded...
Carol floated silently in space.
Her uniform was torn to pieces.
The glow surrounding her had dimmed to little more than a dying candle flickering in the wind.
Her consciousness was fading.
The only thing she could still make out
was Xiao Han slowly approaching.
"I could have ignored you."
His voice echoed gently within her mind.
"But..."
"You wanted me dead."
He placed a hand upon her forehead.
A flash of golden light appeared.
"Sleep."
"May you become a better person in your next life."
Carol's body drifted limply through space.
She had completely lost consciousness.
The Avengers were utterly silent.
Beneath his helmet,
Tony's face was filled with shock.
"He..."
"He just defeated Captain Marvel?"
"And it wasn't even close?"
Adam's eyes flickered with complicated emotions.
"...What kind of being are we fighting?"
Wanda flew over to Xiao Han's side.
She watched as scarlet eyes widened slightly.
Xiao Han's heat vision ignited.
Captain Marvel's unconscious body was instantly vaporized.
"What do we do now?"
Xiao Han slowly swept his gaze across everyone before looking toward the damaged space station.
"Now..."
"We hunt down the remaining Skrulls."
His voice was colder than ice.
"And then..."
"We bring this Secret Invasion to a complete end."
He raised one hand.
A golden portal opened before them.
Turning toward Adam, he said,
"You'll remain here and guard the station."
"Prevent the Skrulls from staging a rebellion."
Adam opened his mouth as though he wanted to object.
In the end, however,
he simply nodded.
"Understood."
The other side of the portal led directly into Tony Stark's mansion laboratory.
Xiao Han strode inside,
his black combat boots clicking crisply against the floor.
With a casual wave of his hand,
JARVIS immediately went to work.
The laboratory's holographic projection system activated automatically.
Countless streams of data intertwined throughout the air.
"JARVIS."
"Pull up the Skrulls' biological profile."
Xiao Han spoke calmly.
Tony whistled as he removed the damaged gauntlet from his armor.
"Wow."
"This is my lab, right?"
Banner had already walked over to the workstation.
Behind his glasses, a scientist's focus shone brightly.
"Their cells possess extremely high plasticity..."
"But gamma-ray scanning should be able to—"
"Too slow."
Xiao Han interrupted him.
Golden light shone from his eyes.
"We need real-time global surveillance."
His superhuman brain began operating at incredible speed.
His fingers danced across the holographic keyboard so quickly they left afterimages.
Before long,
Tony and Banner were completely drawn into his train of thought.
The three entered a flawless rhythm.
"Difference in polarized light refraction..."
Tony suddenly snapped his fingers.
"Combine it with quantum resonance."
Banner immediately continued.
A thread of golden energy appeared at Xiao Han's fingertips before being injected into the holographic model.
"And add this."
Only twenty minutes later...
More than a dozen silver-gray wrist-mounted detectors lay neatly across the laboratory table.
"...This is unbelievable."
Natasha picked one up and slowly examined it.
Clint adjusted the miniature detector attached to his bow.
"So this thing can really identify those green-skinned aliens?"
"In theory, each unit has a detection radius of two kilometers."
Banner adjusted his glasses.
"JARVIS has already begun mass production."
Xiao Han tapped the watch on his wrist.
"Turing."
"Spread news of the Skrull invasion across every major media outlet."
"And leak it onto the dark web."
"Command executed, sir."
Turing's voice replied.
"Reports have already appeared on The Wall Street Journal and within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal network."
Standing in the center of the laboratory,
Xiao Han slowly closed his eyes.
His super vision pierced through countless buildings,
sweeping across the entire surface of the Earth.
"...Found them."
His eyes snapped open.
"North Africa."
"Three hundred meters beneath the Sahara."
"The shelter Fury built for them..."
"...has become their headquarters."
Tony equipped a fresh suit of armor.
"Rhodey and I will lead military forces to search New York and Washington."
"Banner and the two agents can—"
"I'll handle the Skrull headquarters."
Xiao Han interrupted.
Black nanotech armor flowed over his body,
its golden patterns shimmering beneath the lights.
"Wanda."
"You're coming with me."
Scarlet Chaos Magic already danced around Wanda's fingertips.
She nodded quietly.
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"Just the two of you?"
A faint smile appeared on Xiao Han's face.
"Isn't that enough?"
Without waiting for an answer,
he tore open another enormous golden portal.
Beyond it stretched an endless sea of scorching desert.
Golden sand dunes rolled endlessly beneath the blazing sun.
Wanda stepped through after Xiao Han,
her crimson hair dancing in the hot desert wind.
Behind them,
Tony shouted,
"Hey! At least take this!"
A silver-gray wrist detector flew through the portal just before it closed.
Xiao Han caught it casually.
The desert's searing heat washed over them.
The air shimmered from the intense temperature.
Wanda raised a Chaos Magic barrier,
keeping the oppressive heat outside.
"The entrance is over there."
Xiao Han pointed toward an ordinary-looking sand dune.
Golden light ignited within his eyes.
BOOM!
His heat vision erupted.
The sand instantly vaporized,
revealing the massive metal door hidden beneath the desert.