Chapter 622: The Undead

Earth, S. H. I. E. L. D. Headquarters.

A large spatial portal glowed to life, and elite anti-Ni forces marched out a group of S. H. I. E. L. D. directors and prisoners.

"Stark, are you really okay?" Banner asked with concern.

"It's fine, just got killed once." Su Su Tuoni Stark shook off the bloodstained, deactivated remnants of his nanotech armor, stretched his neck, and said:

"You get used to it after a few resurrections, Banner! Do you have some kind of divine-kill ability after turning into the Hulk?!"

He'd just jokingly declared "The God of Iron is here" and got smashed flat by the Hulk.

Damn it, this showboating experience was terrible.

Banner gagged slightly and said: "I don't think I could beat that mutated Hulk either."

If Stark hadn't drawn the initial fire, the consequences would've been unthinkable—the Hulk even ignored all the mysterious weapons and defenses the group carried, and even swallowed a living person whole.

Necrophagia? Or some kind of zombie virus?

"Keep an eye on these people. We'll deal with them later."

"You all heard him admit it himself—he's the God of Iron. Do you know how many universes he's destroyed?"

Before the mouth-sealing devices were fitted, Director Carter and others tried to persuade Nick Fury and Steve Rogers from this world to turn back from their misguided path.

Female Nick Fury shouted: "All the gods—including the God of Iron—are devourers of all worlds!"

"Oh, you mean that?" Nick Fury glanced at her and said: "Do you know they're all the Avengers of this world?"

"What."

The mouth-sealing device—commonly called a gag—activated.

All the alternate-universe counterparts surrounding them displayed expressions of shock.

"How on earth did you convince this guy to side with you?" Steve asked curiously.

After God delivered pizza that day, Nick Fury spoke with him, and his vigilance toward this side noticeably eased.

Su Su Tuoni sighed: "According to the movie logic, I won't attack my home Earth, and everyone can retain their autonomy."

"You're joking, right?" Steve's expression was oddly strained.

"That depends on what he chooses to believe."

After chatting briefly about next steps, Su Su Tuoni slipped a resurrection coin into each of their hands: "Take them. We're already this far gone—no point worrying about tech leaks causing big incidents."

The mess we've made is already big enough.

"Where are they?"

I'd entrusted the 2023 version of Su Su Tuoni Stark to use the blueprints to build enough defense devices and robotic guards in the future.

"He said he'd be back in five seconds, but maybe he hit traffic on the way."

Thor shrugged: "He took my hammer too."

Su Su Tuoni froze, then immediately strode off, donning a new armor suit and launching into the sky.

Perhaps because of the recent interstellar war, New York felt unusually peaceful tonight—at least no Servants or Masters were out fighting.

"God! Are you there?"

Su Su Tuoni had just returned to Stark Tower, passed through layers of spatial and micro-world killing arrays, and as soon as he de-transformed and landed, he began searching for Su Lin's figure.

"Yuanshi Tianzun? Anyone? Uh… what's going on here? Who are you?"

A sea brimming with every color and possibility surged and receded; upon a pure white cross hung a shadow that gazed down upon all things.

Its limbs were bound by unknown law-chains, arranged in the shape of a cross.

At the moment Su Su Tuoni Stark called out, the figure turned its gaze toward him—for some reason,

he seemed to see a white Gao Ta adorned with countless brass eyes.

"I thought we were friends."

A gentle voice came from behind Su Su Tuoni; a pair of weightless, utterly comforting hands rested on his shoulders, and the vision before him vanished instantly.

"While I was copying homework in eternal time, I thanked that old woman for playing a millennia-long human history trash game beside me—it cured me of Galgames."

Su Lin stepped forward from behind, gazing at the figure on the cross, and said:

"But I also thank you and Yuanshi Tianzun—if you two hadn't been playing Dou Dizhu inside my body, I might've gone mad long ago."

"Still, I personally feel our battle-bond should be even deeper."

"Even though I've always thought you two could be a couple."

The shadow said nothing, but Su Su Tuoni Stark could sense its unspoken message deep within his soul.

"I think you've been insane for a long time."

What the hell?!

Su Su Tuoni Stark's eyes widened as he looked from Su Lin to the shadow on the cross.

"I'm glad you can speak."

Su Lin sighed regretfully, pulled out a high-backed chair, sat down with one leg crossed, and said: "But if you don't treat me as a friend, I don't like it."

Snap.

Su Lin snapped his fingers; the illusory sea calmed, and beneath its shimmering surface, some light source ignited, bursting forth with a scene resembling the Big Bang.

"I really don't know where He went!"

"Looks like you truly don't consider me a friend."

Vast, primordial light of creation surged upward, lifting the sea; something new was about to be born, and sacred hymns echoed across the world.

At that moment, Meng Qi appeared beside Stark through the Cause of All Results, grabbed his shoulder, and teleported him far from the area.

When Stark came to his senses, the horizon where sky met sea…

Several light columns, writhing like tentacles, pierced through time and space, wrapping around the massive hundred-meter-tall cross and dragging it downward into the sea.

It was all so dreamlike—as if the epic of Redemption itself had been reflected before his eyes.

"What's going on?" Su Su Tuoni Stark asked.

"Fu Sheng Xuan Huang Tianzun did something and vanished from the level of existence."

Meng Qi explained: "He feared Tianzun might interfere with Kleine's advancement, so he awakened the Primordial Creator to find out what had happened."

Moments later, when the golden Buddha realm manifested at infinite height, a Buddha seal descended from the sky and stamped down upon the ocean, forming a Five-Finger Mountain.

The illusory ocean slowly receded, and Su Lin emerged from the horizon, his back adorned with six luminous wings.

"It seems he truly doesn't know."

Su Lin frowned, then handed out a six-character mantra scroll: "Does anyone want to become Tang Seng and journey to the Eastern Heaven to retrieve the Holy Scripture?"

"I don't want to go on another western pilgrimage."

Lu Mingfei glanced at the six-character mantra scroll—"Tai, Chu, Hao, Tian, Shang, Di"—and shook his head violently: "He doesn't even know, yet you—"

"Precisely because he doesn't know, that's the problem."

Seeing no one was interested in a Sino-American co-produced Journey to the West, Su Lin tore up the mantra scroll and sighed:

"They're each other's intestinal worms—yet this time, they don't know where Tianzun went."

"I originally planned to one day resurrect the Fallen Mother Goddess and let the three of them stage a triangle among the Pillars. No, never mind."

Recalling the past, after Huiye finished her game and left, bored out of his mind, he had voluntarily awakened God and Tianzun from within himself; though sometimes aloof, neither had ever sought to seize Su Lin's body.

Now, thinking back, it was rather touching—precisely because of this.

"The Old Weird just vanished suddenly, and I was quite worried about Him."

While they were playing gunfight, Su Lin sensed the Primordial Lord had disappeared from his Nascent Soul's summonable options.

Yet in the group chat livestream, the New York love story presented by Host Huai Zhi Young Lady showed no anomalies.

Damn Zhou Mingrui—with Nyaa-ko on his left and Huai Zhi on his right, this lucky bastard deserves to be burned at the stake.

Su Lin glanced at Lu Mingfei: "You've played with guns—why are you still standing here instead of joining them?"

Tsk.

Lu Mingfei, unable to evade the question, walked numbly toward the exit.

"Su Su Tuoni, you just called me?"

"Yes, about the 2023 side—"

Regaining his composure, Su Su Tuoni Stark hurriedly began recounting how the Avengers had again—

JARVIS: 【Mr., your 2023 self has returned from the future, but something went wrong—S. H. I. E. L. D. is establishing a video call.】

"Uh, looks like I don't need to go find them," Su Su Tuoni exhaled in relief. "Connect it."

A holographic video feed appeared before them.

"Sorry... he's over there."

The person who answered was Steve, who lifted his phone and shifted the angle.

In the center of the S. H. I. E. L. D. lobby, a blood-soaked, armor-shattered figure lay slumped on the ground, clutching a seven- or eight-year-old girl.

"Save him."

On the ground beside him lay a brown-haired teen clad in a Spider-Man suit, his body severed at the waist, long dead, yet a faint smile of satisfaction lingered on his lips.

"You must be able to save him."

As if enduring an endless torment, Iron Man of 2023, upon seeing Su Su Tuoni, deactivated his armor; beneath the mask, his already aged face was scarred, his hair dusted with gray ash.

"What happened?" Su Su Tuoni froze.

"They became undead," he said, eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the screen: "Everyone is dead."

Where are the undead wreaking havoc? I shall end their lives!

—First Marquis Fang Zheng's Ghost Extermination Rune Array Complete

"Why aren't vampires ghosts?"

Another day of wandering the streets of New York.

After resolving a rumor of ghosts in an abandoned underground bar for S. H. I. E. L. D., and calming residents who each night felt they were being drained by a ghostly elevator, Fang Zheng walked the street against the cold wind.

"Has the battle between gods and aliens ended?"

He gazed upward for a moment, regretting he hadn't watched the livestream.

Suddenly, his qi sense stirred—a bloody, filthy, chilling aura emanated from the alley around the corner.

There's no mistake.

This feeling!

He moved swiftly, covering the distance in a few strides and placing his hand inside his robe.

The alley's space turned crimson, and a boy with scarlet eyes across his body was repeatedly stabbing a Red Skull wearing a Hydra armband with a three-pronged, double-edged blade.

"."

"Brother Zheng?"

Yang Jian drew his weapon and flashed through his Ghost Domain to Fang Zheng's side: "Aren't you playing gunfight?"

"It's you," Fang Zheng sighed in disappointment:

"I just accepted a S. H. I. E. L. D. mission—someone reported ghosts in the Clinton District here."

Yang Jian realized something and immediately shut off his blood-red eyes: "It's not me—I just arrived. I thought that guy was some Servant, but turns out he's a Master."

Of course I know it's not you—the vampires are already ash.

"If you turned into a ghost, I'd run away immediately," Fang Zheng said.

"Don't curse me," Yang Jian drew in a sharp breath: "I haven't even solved my own problems—getting possessed by a supernatural revival would be too much."

You haven't even finished your college entrance exam yet, and you're already worrying about this.

But then again, in my original world, I was also conscripted and paid by the state—

"I still need to go check out Tang Renjie—apparently there's some supernatural event going on there."

Fang Zheng pressed something tightly against his chest: "I'm off—see you at breakfast."

Yang Jian asked curiously: "Aren't you joining the Holy Grail War?"

"Spiritual essences can't be farmed from Heroic Spirits," Fang Zheng sighed again. "I wanted to strengthen my technique, Roaring Annihilation of the Star River—but the soul energy it requires is more than enough to kill me ten times over."

"There are still ghosts here in Marvel—keep looking, you'll find some."

"If you see Mephisto, let me know—he's got plenty of ghosts over there."

It's indeed very hard.

After all, when Fang Zheng first entered the Cycle Space, his goal was those supernatural worlds.

Yang Jian nodded in agreement.

"Then I'll go meet up with Yang Jian, Yang Yan, and Yang Erlang first."

"Have you already formed the Yang Family Army?"

Generally speaking, when many people are transported into anime, games, or movies, if they're collecting characters, they'd prefer to gather various Saber-faced Heroic Spirits.

But Brother Prisoner's hobby seems a bit odd—he's collected a lot of Tai Bai Jin Xing and Yang Jian.

After exchanging a few pleasantries and jokes, Fang Zheng pressed his chest and turned to leave—but hadn't taken two steps.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

The Skin Scripture, embedded with a fragment of the Azure Sky, leapt out and instantly gathered gray-white energy into a human shape.

The Exorcising Golden Seal, the Wind God's Leg, the Military Boxing Form—each martial technique materialized midair and struck the lifeless red skull behind Yang Jian.

"Why are you whipping a corpse?!"

"Whipping a corpse."

The Skin Scripture repeated Fang Zheng's words, yet its movements didn't stop—it even activated the recently strengthened Hunyuan Wuji Art, and the external technique enhanced at the cost of all his wealth.

Thunderblade, Flowing Flame, Great Sun—many strange phenomena appeared, then a blindingly brilliant sword slash converged onto the Skin Scripture's palm and came down.

"Living Dad! Stop!"

Boom—!

In Yang Jian's stunned gaze and Fang Zheng's horrified expression.

The surrounding buildings, as if struck by a natural disaster, were torn apart by hurricane-force winds and vacuumed by internal force into dust.

"How can you demolish even better than me?!" Fang Zheng rushed forward to grab the Skin Scripture.

But suddenly—

One, two, three—many soul energies shot out: white, blue, gold, red… several colors Fang Zheng had never seen before.

"What the—"

Fang Zheng froze, before he could say anything, at the exact spot where the Skin Scripture had just struck.

The red skull rose from the ground, its body wrapped in black particle mist, its utterly dark, lightless eyes fixed on them.

Yang Jian blinked, then hurried forward: "Brother Zheng, be careful!"

"Fall back!"

Fang Zheng roared: "Let me handle this!!!"