Chapter 348: S: The Radiant Event (23)

At this time, in the secret meeting hall of the World Security Council, a larger screen surrounded the front of the semicircular seating area, and the image on it was somewhat strange. In the very center of the entire screen was a huge fireball. Obviously, the image had undergone some special processing to reveal the true face of the star.

And if you looked closely, in the upper right corner of this star, there was a very small black dot. That was the Kree's planetary warship.

Although the planetary warship was as large as an entire planet, compared to the huge star, it was still not worth mentioning. At this time, the Kree's planetary warship was squatting next to the sun to absorb energy, simply called "sucking the sun."

Because the size difference was too great, this scene was more like a mosquito sucking a coconut. When the star filled the entire screen, the Kree's planetary warship was already so small it was almost invisible. If it weren't for a red box specifically marking its position, these big shots in the seating area wouldn't have been able to see the existence of that warship at all.

Previously, they had already seen a close-up of this planetary warship. On that screen, the planetary warship appeared incomparably huge and terrifying, with extremely strong pressure. But compared to the uncanny workmanship of nature in the universe, it was still very small.

Although this no longer brought such strong pressure to the audience, it brought them a deeper despair. Even advanced to the level of the Kree civilization, compared to the burning star, it was still as small as a grain of sand. This was the status quo of interstellar society. No matter how powerful a civilization was, one day it would head toward annihilation in cosmic disasters.

But now, humanity didn't even count as a grain of sand. Even without a tidal wave, a slightly larger sea breeze was enough to blow out the fire of civilization.

At this moment, although everyone's thoughts were different and no one's stance was completely consistent, all were harboring their own ulterior motives, they all had to temporarily think about problems from the perspective of human civilization, because if they continued to distinguish between countries and forces at this time, they would be even weaker and collapse at a single touch.

When the game map was still limited to Earth, the struggles between countries and forces appeared thrilling, but when the territory was expanded to the entire universe, no one cared what happened on the surface of a small star. Among them, many representatives' eyes frequently glanced at S. H. I. E. L. D. Director Nick Fury and S. W. O. R. D. Director Zheng Xian.

It was foreseeable that these two departments would gain greater power in the coming time.

Just as they were thinking about the direction of future development, another red box suddenly appeared on the screen, but it looked like there was nothing in that red box.

At this time, the director seemed to have discovered it too. It was an invalid reminder, so he had to zoom in the camera. Against the background of the star's endless flames, a small black dot was constantly enlarging.

The camera zoomed in a bit more, and people finally saw that it seemed to be a person.

Instantly, whispering discussions began to sound in the hall. From this screen, one could see that this person was so close to the star, it seemed even closer than that planetary warship. He was almost about to land on the surface of the sun.

The camera zoomed in infinitely until it focused on his face. Instantly, the meeting hall erupted in intense discussion, because appearing in the center of the screen was an aged face that no one wanted to see—that was Magneto.

His expression remained cold, the corners of his mouth and eyebrows like two underlines. He pursed his lips and said nothing, but lowered his head slightly and brushed off his gloves.

The sun's particles surrounded him, but they couldn't touch the corner of his clothes at all. In the endless stellar flames, his pitch-black cape fluttered with the solar wind, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, and also like a mayfly trying to shake a tree. This scene shocked everyone here.

Magneto slowly closed his eyes, then spread his arms. He floated up and then fell further down, almost completely merging himself into the sun. The particles began to vibrate continuously, and the flame storm grew stronger and stronger.

In a single instant, all the flames on the sun froze.

The image appearing on the screen was as if it had suddenly been pressed on the pause button. If it weren't for the Kree warship in the distance still slowly rotating, the audience would have almost thought there was some problem with the broadcast.

But the signal hadn't been cut off, and everything was happening in reality. Just at that instant, the sun stopped. All the flames, particles, storms, and energy all stopped.

An invisible field froze the sun and then began to collapse inward continuously. The magnetic field tightened, and the entire star was gripped as if by an invisible giant hand.

"This seems a bit different from what we expected?" In the S. H. I. E. L. D. office, Nick narrowed his eyes and said: "The process of a supernova explosion shouldn't be like this, shouldn't it start from the center?"

Stark shook his head and said: "Do you know why a bomb needs a shell? Not just to store gunpowder, but also to increase the power of the bomb."

Accompanied by Stark's description, a more intuitive change began. The particles on the surface of the sun began to gradually disperse, and the entire sphere grew larger and larger, as if it were aging rapidly. The Kree's planetary warship finally reacted, and they wanted to leave immediately.

At this time, Schiller commented: "It seems Magneto is still a tactical master. He first used this slow change to paralyze the Kree commander, making him think the sun wouldn't have an immediate problem, making him think he still had enough time to think about what kind of change had happened to the star, maybe even wanting to go investigate..."

Just as Schiller said, the planetary warship didn't immediately use all remaining energy to forcibly start the engine and begin jumping. Instead, it retreated a distance in the universe, seemingly wanting to observe from a distance what kind of change had happened to the star.

This couldn't be blamed on them for letting their guard down, because before they extracted energy, they had conducted an extremely detailed investigation of this star. Although this star wasn't in its prime, it was still considered stable. At least within tens of thousands of years, there couldn't be any changes.

The more advanced a civilization was, the more confident they were in the data they investigated. So the Kree's first reaction wasn't that the sun was going to explode, but that their way of extracting energy had gone wrong, causing the sun to change. So their first reaction wasn't to run away, but to take two steps back to see what was going on.

Just like when a person hears a microwave suddenly make a "clack" sound, the first reaction is also "Did my posture for heating things go wrong, causing the microwave to break?".

The measure taken certainly isn't to run away, but to take two steps back to observe, maybe even go up and pat the microwave.

But just when the planetary warship had observed for a while without results and intended to go up and pat this star to see where it was broken, within an extremely short unit of time that humans couldn't perceive, the star suddenly erupted with huge gravity, attracting everything around it.

In a single instant, this terrible gravity broke through the upper limit that the planetary warship's anti-gravity device could maintain. This planetary warship, which was very small in front of the star, fell toward the sun at a terrible speed.

Suddenly, this terrible gravity disappeared—

The star exploded.

On the huge screen, that circular fireball first surged with a wave of orange-red, followed by white gradually covering the entire sphere from a point, and then, several brilliant star rings spread out around the sphere, covering the entire elliptical area around the star.

These star rings began to vibrate continuously, and then at a certain moment, bloomed into gorgeous fireworks.

What the human naked eye could observe was very scarce. The process of various particles interacting in this could not be seen by carbon-based organisms at all.

But what they could see was gorgeous fireworks spreading across the entire galaxy, erupting from this huge star, endless radiance completely lighting up the dark universe.

No one cared anymore about that small planetary warship, or in which wave of energy explosion it was destroyed. This gorgeous light made everyone dizzy. This was a brilliance that no painting could depict. The colors known in this world were not enough to express the splendor of this instant.

And just at this time, people discovered that there seemed to be a small black dot on the screen that had always stood in place, and hadn't moved since the sun began to change.

This black dot was as quiet as a speck of dust falling on the surface of the screen, appearing even more abrupt in this gorgeous light. Some audience members even wanted to wipe the screen, but soon, they discovered that it wasn't dust, but a person.

It was a person they didn't want to think about, and didn't dare to think about.

Magneto stood like this in the afterglow of the sun's explosion. Wave after wave of huge energy swept past him, but not a single bit could touch the corner of his clothes. An invisible field always surrounded him, letting him stand in the most scorching energy core, watching this gorgeous scene closer than anyone else, but he remained silent.

Polaris also stood in the S. H. I. E. L. D. office. She looked at the screen in front of her, her face illuminated even brighter by the firelight. While everyone else was staring at the screen, frozen, she lowered her head slightly and looked at her own hands, as if thinking about something.

Then, she looked at Charles as if by telepathy. Charles was also looking at her and nodded slowly at her.

Polaris cast her gaze toward the screen again. The radiance of the explosion didn't weaken, but grew stronger and stronger. The radiance of the supernova explosion would become brighter and brighter within dozens of days.

There was no doubt that this was a supernova explosion that could be observed by humans, because in the next dozens of days, its brightness would be enough to span hundreds of millions of light-years.

In the two meeting rooms, everyone who saw this scene was silent, seemingly still immersed in the shock and unable to extricate themselves.

But that small black dot didn't seem to be in the mood to watch the scenery. In an instant that no one noticed, he disappeared, just like the countless times he had disappeared in the center of the battlefield.

"I think, now, that group of people at the other venue should have a belly full of questions and terror." Nick said slowly, looking at the screen.

"I guess they should really want to ask one question, but that's really a very stupid question—'Why doesn't Magneto destroy Earth?'" Schiller continued: "Better to ask, why would he destroy Earth?"

"Perhaps, when the day comes that mutants are completely extinct, he will..."

"No, he won't." Charles interrupted Nick's speculation. He shook his head and said: "He won't destroy Earth. If mutants really are going to go extinct, he will turn everyone into mutants."

"You can think of him as a madman, but he truly loves this planet, more than any of you love it." Charles sighed, his tone becoming low, just like reading a storybook.

The cold lights in the office dimmed, and only the low voice echoed.

"Many years ago, when I first met him, I thought he was a very lonely person. He rarely communicated with others and didn't like to participate in any lively occasions."

"At the time, I felt that as his friend, I had the obligation to pull him out of this loneliness. But later, I discovered that he actually wasn't lonely."

"Because he was born able to feel magnetic fields, his best friend was the planet under his feet."

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"Erik is like living in the bloodline of Earth, able to listen to the planet's whispers through his special magnetic talent."

"Their magnetic fields are one. This planet is his parent, friend, and lover, heartbeat with him, pulsing together."

"As his power grew stronger, his friends grew more numerous."

"Planets, stars, black holes... all things in the universe have unique magnetic fields. That is their language, and Erik, he is the listener of all sounds in the universe. Only he can hear these celestial bodies singing..."

Finally, accompanied by the screen going dark, Charles's voice was filled with emotion and returned to nothingness.

"This is Magneto, a son of the universe who is not lonely." ===== CHAPTER 349 =====