Chapter 1803: Journey of a Madman (Part 16)

Schiller looked at the notebook and fell into deep thought. Stark, who walked over from behind him, recognized Peter's handwriting at a glance. After all, the Spider-Man of Schiller's universe spent most of his time in Stark Tower's laboratory, and the time they spent together far exceeded that of any Iron Man and Spider-Man in any universe.

Because of this, Stark had a kind of father-son feeling for Spider-Man, and added a kind of importance that a teacher had for an excellent student. As time went on, whenever Stark heard bad news about Spider-Man, he would feel his heart being tugged, almost unable to breathe.

At this moment, that inexplicable anxiety surrounded Stark, making him even less able to care about too much, and he rushed forward to take the notebook.

He first glanced at the content Schiller was looking at, but this passage was incoherent, and nothing could be seen. So Stark started flipping forward.

In this way, the truth about this universe, recorded by the Spider-Man of this universe who hadn't lost his memory, was displayed in front of Stark.

First, as a participant, Spider-Man had experienced the complete plot of the zombie universe, and the situation was roughly as follows:

Zombie Sentry fell from the sky, and the Avengers members came to resolve the crisis, but were unfortunately bitten by zombie Sentry, turning into zombies one after another and starting to eat on the spot, infecting many people.

The heroes who turned into zombies in the first round included Captain America, Ant-Man, Wasp, etc., and among them, Ant-Man found Black Panther who arrived a bit later to support.

At this time, they had already had breakfast on the street. Because they weren't hungry for the time being, Ant-Man decided to lock Black Panther up and wait until they were hungry to eat.

Such a big thing happened, so S. H. I. E. L. D. Director Nick Fury organized the remaining survivor heroes, intending to develop an antidote for the zombie virus.

But how to say it, Reed was the engine of universe destruction. Iron Man Stark and Hulk Dr. Banner were researching well, but Reed had a sudden whim, feeling that the zombie virus was a manifestation of human evolution. Since so, why not convert to the great God of Evolution?

So he directly led the traitor into the laboratory, causing the Fantastic Four to be completely infected.

On the other side, Nick and Iron Man intended to build a portal to leave this universe and save the existing survivors, but the place where the Fantastic Four studied the virus wasn't far from where they built the portal, and they broke in on the spot.

The bad thing was that the transmission device was actually built at this time, and it led to the universe where the Watcher was. After the Fantastic Four bit both of them, they happily went to another universe for tourism.

During this period, a series of major events occurred in this universe, summarized as the zombie virus infecting the world, Galactus descending and being eaten by zombie superheroes, Black Panther surviving and returning to Earth, and the zombie superheroes splitting into two groups to fight a big battle.

Afterward, someone who wanted to seize Black Panther's throne activated the transmission device, sending all the zombie superheroes to another universe.

A disaster broke out in another universe, so severe that all three major empires of the universe were destroyed, and some of the zombie superheroes went to the moon and bit the Watcher.

Driven by endless hunger, the part of the zombie superheroes who were relatively bad wanted to go to other universes to find more food. They found a portal and used zombie Sentry as energy.

But just at this time, Spider-Man, who had been turned into a zombie but still hadn't turned bad, opened the jar he was carrying. Inside the jar was Sandman's sand.

The huge sandstorm eliminated all the zombie superheroes, and the nano-robots for the zombie virus that Iron Man had researched before were mixed in the sand, sweeping away the zombie virus.

And zombie Sentry, who had been used as portal energy by the zombie superheroes, was sent back to this universe by the Watcher. Just like that, a cycle began.

The zombie Spider-Man of this universe was also ignorant at first, constantly cycling in this loop. But since Nick from Schiller's universe obtained the actual control of the Time Variance Authority and gradually promoted his multiverse spider-selling plan, more and more Spider-Men were affected by him.

The Spider-Man who received Nick's help started to gradually project faith onto him, which made Nick possess a part of the power of the Spider Totem, but more importantly, his will started to let the Spider Totem connect to more Spider-Men to hear his voice, and the Spider-Man of the zombie universe was one of them.

The voice from the Spider Totem grew louder and louder, interfering with the influence of the two universes' time resets on Spider-Man, allowing him to gradually regain his consciousness in one cycle after another, until finally, he became completely sober.

Then there were the five resets after Schiller came here. The traces left by the outsiders made Spider-Man determined to act as soon as possible. He put his long-considered plan into practice and wrote all the facts in the diary, wanting to let the outsiders provide him with help.

Stark silently finished reading all the information, closing his eyes to digest it quietly. But at a certain moment, the infinite murderous intent leaking from the gaps in his armor made Schiller couldn't help but turn to look at him.

That wasn't even anger, just a kind of naked, cold murderous intent, a kind of destruction desire that could destroy the universe in an instant.

But in less than a second, the gaps closed again. Stark sighed silently, flipped through the notebook again, and said: "There are a few questions, you don't have to answer me, I just need to clear up my train of thought."

"From the complete story described by Peter, the whole process is divided into two periods: before Spider-Man awakened and after Spider-Man awakened."

"The watershed between these two periods is that when Spider-Man didn't realize anything, the two universes would walk through the complete story flow separately until zombie Sentry was thrown back, and the story would continue again."

"But after Spider-Man awakened, the universe started to reset irregularly, and the reset time point was far earlier than the completion of the story."

"I think it might be the gaze from other universes brought by Spider-Man that triggered some kind of special observer effect, making the universe's cycle become irregular. Even if the cycle hasn't finished, it will reset endlessly."

Stark stretched out two fingers and placed them in front of his eyes, then started to rotate them clockwise, saying: "The normal cycle of these two universes is like this, from cause to effect and then to cause, like a single-track loop tape, playing the beginning again after playing the end."

Then he turned his fingers clockwise for half a circle, then turned counter-clockwise back to the origin and said: "And the cycle we experienced is like this, the universe advances, and then suddenly rewinds at a certain time point, returning to the beginning."

"Then this raises a question: if Spider-Man wants to achieve the effect of his plan, he must let the universe return to a normal cycle, that is, always from cause to effect and then to cause, rather than suddenly rewinding."

"His plan didn't mention this part at all. I don't know if he doesn't know or has already prepared."

"There is another point. He wants us to help, but he should have summarized that our rebirth time points are getting later and later. How can we return to the beginning to help him transmit brain waves?"

"Wait." Stark suddenly frowned and said: "Could these two abnormalities actually be one thing?"

"Our rebirth time points are getting later and later, which means the rewind time point will be later and later, so sooner or later the rewind time point will come to the end of the story, that is, when the zombie superheroes are destroyed by Sandman, and the Watcher prepares to throw zombie Sentry back into this universe."

Stark took another look at the diary and said: "I know Spider-Man's plan. He intends to wait for that moment, that is, when the Watcher is about to throw, but only one second away from throwing zombie Sentry back into this universe, to replace it with his own brain waves, and then control it to commit suicide during the transmission process."

"This way zombie Sentry won't land in this universe at all, and the cycle will be broken."

Stark raised his head slightly, looking at the group photo of the Avengers members hung by Peter on the wall of the room, his tone becoming heavy to the bottom.

"He wants to sacrifice himself to completely end the tragedy of the two universes." Stark closed his eyes in pain and said: "Even if I forcibly upgrade to dismantle the two universes, or even find a way to save his family and friends, these countless terrible memories cannot be erased. He will go crazy."

After being with Schiller for a long time, Stark actually understood that when first encountering psychology, one would sigh that this is really a very magical discipline that can do many magical things.

But it is also like every category in medicine. The deeper the research, the more one understands that what can be cured is a minority, and many things are powerless to change.

The fragility of human memory lies in the fact that mental trauma is permanent, the scars are carved very deep, and will completely change a person. This is not reversed by whether the current situation has improved or whether the tragedy has been made up for.

As the saying goes, some people spend their whole lives healing their childhood. In fact, many people in this situation have had quite rich lives after becoming adults, and many regrets of childhood can be supplemented. But the reason they are still deeply affected by this is that certain tragedies shaped their personality and character. Walking to this point, this is no longer pathological, but normal.

Stark thought that there was nothing that couldn't be changed by joining forces with Schiller. Spider-Man didn't need to sacrifice himself, but what if he didn't sacrifice? In this terrible cycle, he ate Aunt May and Mary Jane one time after another.

How much trauma this would bring to a person, Stark simply didn't dare to imagine. He was just glad that fortunately, the Schiller who surfaced now didn't look like a psychologist, so he could endure not asking him, not asking that question that was destined to get a negative answer.

And what is even more desperate is that Stark had long known that memory and personality are inseparable. Once memory is deleted, personality is very likely to collapse, and the mysterious subconscious will defeat all arrogant people who try to modify surface consciousness at will.

If Spider-Man is allowed to lose his memory, the result is nothing more than suffering from a chaotic mental state and subconscious nightmares. One day he will still remember, and still collapse.

Looking at it this way, no matter what is done, it is walking on a dead end. At this moment, Stark fully realized what is called—saving the world is easy, but saving you is difficult. ===== CHAPTER 1804 =====