Chapter 2123

Peter found himself back in the misty space again.

"What's going on?" he asked, his tone full of confusion. He said, "Didn't the universe reboot? Shouldn't I have returned to the universe? Or should I have disappeared, with a new me replacing me?"

"That should have been the case, but you died for the sake of everyone's lives."

Peter tilted his head, trying his best to understand these suggestive words, but failed.

He sighed deeply and said, "You could just say you saved me. I fully accept your kindness, I'm grateful, and thank you."

The black sun remained silent.

"Listen, I'm definitely not saying you're the kind of person who helps others and must be repaid, but I think..." Peter placed his hand on his chest, flipped it outward, and said: "Personally, I believe doing good deeds should be rewarded. You did a good thing, right?"

"I'm still alive, and all life in the universe is still alive. No matter why you did it, you improved their situation... So what I mean is, is there anything I can help with?"

Peter gazed at the black sun with very sincere eyes.

And if his gaze could be sharper, penetrating the strange patterns to see inside, he would see a person in a white coat slamming the table and telling several others like himself: "See that! What's a perfect score! What's an outstanding graduate!"

Looking at the silent black sun, Peter sighed somewhat dejectedly and said: "Well, even if I can't help, where should I go? Even though this place is nice, I can't stay here forever—I should do something, right?"

Suddenly, Peter felt many pieces of knowledge appear in his mind, likely explanations for the current situation.

This knowledge first explained the general principle of the universe reboot: in short, this wasn't an ordinary hot update, but more like an iteration from internal test to public release.

That is, the way the new configuration file replaced the old one wasn't by changing a few lines of code, but by a complete rewrite, even a total transformation of the encoding method.

This led to: although everyone in the universe still exists in that way, their mode of existence is actually completely different from before.

And Peter is still alive because those who contributed in the old era to the birth of the new era had their original configuration files preserved and are now stored in a temporary folder—this mysterious gray mist space.

But due to limited storage space, and because this iteration actually only affected Earth in the main universe, the temporary files stored in the mist realm are only those of Earth from the 616 universe.

So far, Peter still roughly understands what's going on, but the following parts confuse him, as they involve realms most comic characters cannot comprehend.

Bruce became Spider-Man, because at the time the situation was urgent, Peter actively gave Spider-Man's abilities to Bruce, and Peter also influenced White Tank to go blow up the universe engine, causing this major reboot.

Although the universe engine doesn't actually have that much power—it's merely a plot device—by now, the events before the major reboot have been locked in, and Spider-Man is now Bruce Wayne.

But Earth-1 still needs a Batman, so Bruce Wayne became Spider-Man—who will be Batman?

Someone might ask, why not let Peter Parker be Batman?

First, judging by Peter Parker's mental state, the probability of him dressing up as a bat isn't zero, but it's very low.

Of course, someone might say he can dress up as Spider-Man, so why not as a bat?

Spider-Man became Spider-Man after being bitten by a spider; is Batman Batman after being bitten by a bat? Obviously not. Batman dressing as a bat is purely because he's a mentally ill person.

Peter is a cheerful, sunny boy—his chances of becoming one of Gotham's three good students are higher than his chances of becoming Batman.

Even if you threw him into Gotham, he couldn't mysteriously put on a bat suit, print bat patterns on all his gear, and then play games with the crazies at Arkham Asylum.

More likely, he'd dive into Gotham University to get a second degree, then after grad school find himself a class.

So it's better to let Bruce Wayne return as Batman and Peter Parker return as Spider-Man.

But Bruce is already Spider-Man now, he has all Spider-Man's abilities—never mind whether he wants to change back, Marvel has already updated to a new version, and the old configuration files can no longer be loaded.

Put simply, the stored 616 old Earth in the mist realm can't be returned to any Marvel universe anymore, just like you can't run a 16-bit program on a 64-bit system.

And if it's not returned, the program is just a program—no one can modify the backend. Marvel's administrators can't, nor can DC's.

So who can modify the backend?

Obviously, Shiler, who had previously preserved the configuration file.

Now Marvel has made such a big move—there will definitely be a series of major events ahead. They must pull off something big to hype this version update to the max.

Just like the first big event after a game launches must be done well, otherwise it wastes players' fresh feelings toward the new game or version.

Marvel's product manager, the Life Tribunal Adam, proposed this need to Shiler. After Shiler weighed his own salary in hand, he thought: Let's do a collaboration.

He went to Lucifer, explained the situation, and Lucifer also felt it was a bit difficult—mainly because the 616 universe has Earth stuck, which is hard to solve.

If you pull Bruce Wayne back, you still can't modify the files related to his spider abilities in his body. So letting him return with his abilities would require paying a licensing fee. But if you don't let him return, then Earth-1 without Batman would have to reboot—and wouldn't that be a loss on our end?

Thinking this through, Lucifer took Shiler's abacus to God. God calculated and said: This collaboration can be called a sure profit, no loss.

Think about it: I don't have to take responsibility for planning. This collaboration's chief planner will either be Shiler, or the group fighting the Combat Realm, or Life Tribunal Adam.

And these people all belong to the Marvel faction—they're paid by Marvel, while my employee Lucifer, whom I sent over, is my son. All family—no salary talk needed.

It's like I don't have to spend a cent on my end to free-ride on the other side's big reboot hype. God flicked the abacus and felt this could work.

God and Lucifer, father and son, studied it and felt: Since things have come to this, remaking a universe would be troublesome and not worth it—better to directly collaborate on Earth-1, making the story line more complete.

Lucifer thought this was a remarkably bold decision—Earth-1 isn't just some nameless background panel for a big event. From its numbering alone, you can see this Earth holds significant meaning for the whole universe.

Earth-1 can be called DC's editorial exploration of a new era in comic style—and it's been quite successful. This historically worst Batman has helped many fans better understand Batman.

Still, so far this Earth's position is somewhat awkward: Batman lacks those wish-fulfilling abilities, so the writing demands for script arrangement are rather high.

A Batman who can't even pry open a chain—how is he supposed to deal with Gotham's demons and monsters?

This problem, while fun to think about, requires creating a reasonable story without damaging Batman's image—either resort to deus ex machina, or dumb down the opposition.

The editors chose to simultaneously lower Gotham villains' strength—but at most, it went from one man destroying Gotham to blowing up a building, or playing with pistol assassinations, and it's still not great.

At the same time, Earth-1 isn't just about Batman—Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern's stories are also written quite well.

But unfortunately, characters usable to explore the relationship between gods and ordinary people are few, the concept is complicated, and they're not favored by readers who love superheroes mowing down everything in a satisfying way.

So Earth-1's stories have lain dormant for a long time. If there's no hope of rebooting with independent publications, then it's probably heading toward slow death.

Now there's an opportunity to inject new vitality into this Earth, and God and Lucifer are both willing to try—but they still think this step is quite bold.

But Shiler is bolder than them.

In fact, the vast majority of Marvel-DC crossover publications take the approach: one universe faces a crisis, the other's superheroes appear and join the event—a classic and effective formula, tried and true.

But Shiler's collaboration proposal is: directly merge the two Earths.

That is, let the old Earth of Marvel's main universe 616 go to DC's Earth-1 to merge, using DC's universe as the background, to create a brand-new fused Earth.

When Life Tribunal Adam and Lucifer received this proposal, they were both shocked—they really couldn't tell who Shiler wanted to screw over.

But upon careful thought, these two Earths really are like crouching dragon and phoenix chick—strangely well-matched.

First, speaking of the old Earth of Marvel's main universe 616, this Earth can truly be said to have weathered many storms, for before the reboot, whenever there was a major event, the final target was always aimed at the main universe—either villains breaking through from elsewhere, or superheroes coming to seek aid.

The Earth of the 616 universe, especially the New Yorkers on the Earth of the 616 universe, have seen great events; they might even experience alien invasions during their morning commute, superheroes battling zombie legions at lunchtime, watch cosmic collisions in the evening, and before bedtime, still catch a glimpse of Ragnarök.

Many say DC's style is much darker than Marvel's, but artistic merit and strength cannot be generalized; rationally and objectively speaking, although Gotham leads far ahead in mental state, when it comes to the frequency and intensity of disasters, only Metropolis can rival New York.

Now speaking of DC's Earth-1, this Earth is good precisely because the vast majority of its villains have been weakened; although the setting remains classic, it has also become somewhat normalized alongside Batman's normalcy.

Simply put, when both feet leave the ground, the virus shuts down, and artistic quality cannot rise, which has slightly unified the styles of the two comics.

New Yorkers have a higher acceptance level, and Gotham residents have relatively stable mental states, so there will be no miscommunication like chickens talking to ducks; instead, fusion becomes possible.

The more both sides researched, the more they felt this was an excellent opportunity to synchronously expand their respective influences, and they hit it off immediately.

Thus, the old Earth of Marvel's main universe 616, wrapped in a thick fog, flew like a meteor toward a universe within DC's vast star disk.

The two blue planets gradually overlapped, with the original New York, located at the border between New Jersey and New York State, now landing precisely atop Gotham and Metropolis, situated at the easternmost tip of New Jersey.

Coincidentally, New York landed exactly between the two megacities, with Queens and the Bronx—this pair of high-crime-rate "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" areas—falling within Gotham, and Brooklyn, the area with the highest population density, likewise.

The most prosperous Manhattan district fell upon Metropolis, while Staten Island became an extra small island, floating not far from the mouth of the Gotham River.

Two equally disaster-prone yet distinctly characterized Earths successfully merged into one.

Following this came the "Twin Cities War" of your side finishing their performance and my side taking the stage.