Chapter 1333: The Interstellar Stage (End)

Inside the New Warriors' base, several members were holding a meeting. The topic of the meeting remained the security situation in the Bronx.

"Another person hidden within the Ten Rings gang lost control yesterday," Speedball Robert said, looking worried. "Fortunately, we discovered it in time and dragged him into an empty alley. The scale of the explosion wasn't too large, and it didn't alarm the crowd, otherwise, it would have been a disaster."

The other members sighed in unison. The most powerful member, Scarlet Witch, and Jarvis, who held the most intelligence, had gone to other universes to collect resources. The other young heroes, lacking sufficient methods, were somewhat flustered in dealing with such matters, exposing many problems within the team.

"I think we should come up with a complete emergency plan to..."

Night Thrasher had just said this when a phone rang. Everyone's gaze fell on Wanda, who was sitting at the very end of the table. Wanda was startled for a moment, then pulled her phone out of her pocket.

The Witch's tone was full of apology. She said, "Oh, sorry, I forgot to turn on silent mode. I'll just... wait a moment, it's Dr. Schiller calling. I think I should take this."

After saying this, Wanda stood up, waved at the others, and pressed the answer button. As she walked out, she said, "Hello, Doctor, what's wrong? Oh, I see. Then I'll go over in a while."

"Okay, but what do you want to talk to him about? That guy is quite annoying and has a foul temper. If there's nothing going on, I rarely go there."

"Of course, Doctor, I'm happy to help you, but that guy always asks for the moon. If he says anything rude—well, of course, I trust your character. Alright then... that's it, bye."

Wanda hung up the phone before she even walked out the door, then returned to her seat. The others looked at her with curious eyes. Wanda shrugged and said, "Dr. Schiller has something to ask Chthon. He wants me to help contact the Great Demon Shadow."

Jarvis frowned slightly and looked at the Scarlet Witch with some concern. Wanda shook her head and said, "What I can't stand most is someone with such a bad temper who doesn't know how to speak properly. After we argued for a week straight, I rarely go to him anymore."

"Now, Madame Hydra is his agent. It's just as well; he has another choice, otherwise, you might see me calculating accounts at the Sanctum Sanctorum day and night."

The others laughed, and Wanda also showed a helpless smile. However, Jarvis lowered his voice and asked, "Then why didn't Dr. Schiller contact him directly through the Sanctum Sanctorum instead of finding you?"

"I don't know either," Wanda said, spreading her hands. "Maybe he thinks my relationship with Chthon is better. But he found the wrong person; we look at each other with mutual disgust now, there's nothing to talk about."

"However, I still have to go to Dr. Schiller's place in a while to help him contact the Great Demon Shadow. Professor X asked us to cooperate with this doctor as much as possible, all for the future of mutants, you understand."

The New Warriors' regular meeting didn't have any new content, mostly just updating patrol routes and reallocating security tasks. The meeting ended in less than half an hour. Not long after, Scarlet Witch Wanda arrived at the Arkham Asylum.

Schiller received her in his office. He said to Wanda, "It's nothing major, I just wanted you to help me ask Chthon if he has seen any traces of Knull recently."

Wanda was stunned for a moment. She felt the name "Knull" sounded familiar, but she couldn't recall who it was for a moment. After thinking carefully, she said, "Oh, I seem to have heard Chthon mention this name. He said this damn guy kept drawing on chaos power, almost collapsing his house."

"Exactly, they are enemies. Chthon even went above Klintar, where Knull is located, wanting to teach him a lesson. I suspect Chthon should be paying attention to Knull's movements, at least to the flow of chaos power on Knull," Schiller nodded and said.

He sat in his seat, placed his hands on the desk, and looked at Wanda, saying, "It's like this: some time ago, a mysterious disappearance occurred in the universe. Knull, known as the oldest creature in the universe, suddenly vanished."

"As you know, humanity has an unshirkable responsibility for cosmic security. With such a big event, we must participate in the investigation, and human investigations rely most on evidence. So, we hope that insiders can provide us with some valuable clues."

Wanda nodded, but she didn't really understand. She didn't understand what Knull had to do with humanity. However, she remembered Professor X's instructions well, so she said, "Of course, Doctor, I'll help you contact him now. Of course, I don't mean I'm unwilling to help, I just want to know why you didn't call the Sanctum Sanctorum directly?"

"I already called," Schiller shook his head helplessly. "But the Madame Hydra that Chthon newly selected doesn't seem to satisfy him. Madame Hydra sent several communication messages to Chthon, but he didn't reply, so I had to come to you."

"So that's how it is," Wanda nodded and said, "It looks like Chthon went to sleep again. No problem, I'll wake him up now."

After saying this, the Witch flicked her hair, a red light flashed, and her figure instantly disappeared. Deep in the universe, in a space of extreme darkness and chaos, a deafening roar erupted:

"Chthon!

! Sleeping, sleeping!

How can you sleep? Get out here! I have something to ask you!

!"

A few minutes later, Wanda reappeared in the office. She shook her head, showed an apologetic smile, and said, "Chthon said he hasn't seen Knull recently. However, he just checked the recent flow of chaos power. About two days ago, Knull did indeed use his power once, but the act of drawing power stopped abruptly. The aura also disappeared."

"Can you find out where he was drawing power from?" Schiller asked.

Wanda shook her head and said, "Chthon just woke up and his head isn't clear. I asked him for a long time, but he was mumbling and couldn't say. These demon gods are all like this; their way of thinking is different from humans, chaotic and messy. If you're not in a hurry, should I ask him another day?"

"Alright, thank you for your trouble. Go ahead, Miss."

After Wanda left, Schiller sat in his chair and began to think. The time Wanda mentioned for Knull drawing power coincided exactly with the time Klintar disappeared. That is to say, when Klintar disappeared, Knull was not completely unaware.

Although Knull was very exhausted after several member gift events and spent most of his time sleeping, he shouldn't have been unable to notice when someone moved him to a different place. Since he noticed and mobilized his power to resist, why did the resistance fail?

Who is stronger, Knull or the Iron Demon God?

Theoretically, Knull shouldn't be able to beat the Iron Demon God in an ascended state. However, Knull's strength lies in the fact that his life is truly tough, and this ancient creature can directly mobilize the power of the cosmic origin without energy limitations. To subdue him, it would probably take a lot of effort.

It's impossible for the two of them to fight without any movement. Stark doesn't possess the power to instantly subdue Knull. Since that's the case, Knull's sudden cessation of drawing power was likely due to being plotted against.

If it were only Stark, Schiller wouldn't make this inference. But if there was also a Batman living in Stark's brain, then it's hard to say. Batman's level of conspiracy is also second to none.

Knull is imprisoned in a cage by his own creations and finds it difficult to explore the outside situation, which means Iron Man and Batman had plenty of time to set a trap to lure Knull into stepping in.

This should be the modus operandi of this god disappearance case. But the method is a relatively independent part of the case; the motive and the ultimate goal are the main event.

What is special about Knull?

Schiller frowned and thought. If you want to talk about strength, although Knull is also very strong, you can see from the current situation of him being trapped on his own planet that his strength is not a special feature. There are too many powerful gods in the universe.

If you want to talk about being ancient, it is indeed one of Knull's biggest characteristics. He is a survivor from the previous universe. But as Wanda said, these ancient gods, especially those who use chaos power, don't have very clear heads. Expecting them to tell historical stories is asking too much.

Setting aside these two points, Knull really has nothing worth praising. Schiller thought, sure enough, the safest method is to wait for multiple victims to appear and then observe the commonalities between them.

But just at this moment, Schiller had a flash of inspiration. Could Knull's special feature be that he actually has no special features?

Looking at the entire universe, gods who can be called special must have some tricks up their sleeves, either being peerlessly strong in some aspect or being closely related to the existence of the universe.

And although Knull is ancient and powerful, he has no prominent strengths, nor does he have a very important role. Adding him to this universe doesn't add much, and losing him doesn't lose much. Another way to say he survived from the previous universe is that he is redundant to the current universe.

Then, Schiller had a moment of realization. It seems that the goal of Batman and Iron Man should be the gods in the universe.

They want to murder gods but don't want to harm the universe, so Knull became the first victim.

A serial murder case targeting gods? Schiller narrowed his eyes slowly.

Originally, he was just reasoning with a playful attitude, wanting to see if he could jump out at the right time to give them a surprise after breaking their schemes. This slightly childish act was just to pass the boring time.

But now it seems that these two cunning murderers have big plans, and they also need a detective who is on par with them.

Schiller closed his eyes slowly, and the light and shadow outside the window flowed across his face, from the faint morning light to the brilliant sunset.

When Schiller turned around, he was already wearing a tuxedo and holding a wine glass, standing in the banquet hall of the Asgardian God King's wedding.

Glasses clinked, brilliant light flowed, and guests from major interstellar civilizations were chatting lively, wearing gorgeous and colorful formal wear.

And behind layer after layer of dreamy light and shadow in the vanity fair, Schiller saw a familiar figure; it was Tony Stark.

The light of the colored glass in the Immortal Palace hall fell on the center of the auditorium, dividing the noisy and bustling stage of people coming and going into two.

The superhero standing in the light merged with the night, while the mastermind behind the scenes who sank into the shadows walked to the front of the stage.

Amidst the rapid drumbeats of the music, positions were swapped, black and white were inverted.

Stark's brown eyes were full of flowing light, as if they were about to overflow with honey. When he saw Schiller, he didn't walk over as usual, but raised his wine glass to Schiller, toasting from afar.

They had never been so far apart, and they had never been so close.

Schiller and Stark were friends, but the mastermind who controlled everything was accustomed to looking down on and controlling everyone, like the wind, formless and substance-less yet everywhere, sometimes gentle and sometimes violent.

He loved every fledgling eagle that had not yet left the nest, grooming their feathers and letting them grow in strength, while also taking pleasure in manipulating them, creating various air currents to control the direction of their flight.

Stark was the chess piece often held in the chess player's hand, the dark line woven into the web of schemes by the net-weaver, the last fledgling eagle to leave the nest, and also the strongest bird of prey.

And the best reward for this was to toast the murderer and the detective with wine in a wider sky, in this endless sea of stars.

Toasting the greedy person who would dance alone on this already boring interstellar stage from now on, and the addition of another opponent who would make him never feel lonely again. ===== CHAPTER 1334 =====