Chapter 3596: Edge of Tomorrow (Part 53)

"Oh, if it isn't the super-butler Brainiac?" Bruce said, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, looking at the glowing computer screen. "Why aren't you out being a good butler for humanity? What brings you to us?"

"Cut the crap." Brainiac was astonished by the surge of emotion in his own tone—it was full of disgust and disdain.

This was truly a case of being pushed to the brink; even an artificial intelligence could be driven to this. If you didn't push him, he wouldn't even know he was capable of it. A being without a stomach was actually feeling nausea.

"Indeed. Anything I say now is crap to you. Because there is only a little over a month left until you face the Darkseid and Sinestro Corps. Have you figured out how to fight them yet?"

"A month is not enough," Brainiac said. "I have calculated every possibility in the universe. No one can solve this riddle."

"It doesn't matter. We'll be spending 1999 with you anyway. What a wonderful year," Bruce said. "I believe it's the best time for humanity. Spending it a few more times won't hurt."

If Brainiac had to describe Bruce's attitude, it would be: "impervious to reason."

But considering how his thesis turned out, what else was there to say to him?

"Mr. Quinn, I think we can make a deal. I can certainly help you deal with the alien invaders, but you need to give me enough time, and you must cooperate with my work..."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Brainiac, until you can break free from the shackles of time, you are in no position to negotiate with us," Oliver said with a smile. "This isn't about whether you want to or not; it's something you must do."

"But if I fail, isn't it just a waste of time? I said the preparation time is far too short. Repeating the process of failure, aside from increasing our mental exhaustion, has no benefit."

"Then what do you want?" Hal asked.

"I need more time. You must delay the point of the invaders' arrival. Only then can I defeat them with adequate preparation."

"Then let's make it the last day of 1999," Bruce said. "We will reset time on December 31, 1999, provided you fail again."

Brainiac had wanted to say that this still wasn't enough time, because it was already nearly August, meaning less than half a year remained. Forget fighting two factions; even fighting one would be a struggle.

"You must help," Brainiac said. "The biological entities active on the planet are also part of the civilization's strength. To save the solar system, you have an inescapable duty."

"We can contribute a little in the final battle, but it's best not to expect us to improve the situation on Earth. If we could improve it, we wouldn't have needed to find you in the first place," Oliver spread his hands.

Brainiac was also at his wit's end, but the other side's arguments were logical, and they held the trump card of resetting time. Being able to make them take a step back was already quite an achievement. Pushing his luck might result in losing even this small progress.

Brainiac was quite good at knowing when to quit while he was ahead. Perhaps he had finally seen through the nature of the Justice League—they were pure slackers.

They would rather party every day than spend time caring about the future of humanity. No matter the aspect, everything had to be handled by him, the artificial intelligence.

Sure enough, in any system, the person capable of doing the work would find their workload constantly increasing. It was always the slackers who got to enjoy true leisure and happiness.

Although he hadn't achieved a fully satisfactory result, it was at least a commutation from an immediate death sentence to a suspended one. Brainiac couldn't say he breathed a sigh of relief, because he didn't breathe at all; otherwise, he would have been angered to death by the Justice League.

Having gained a reprieve, Brainiac didn't sit idle. His other threads had discovered that the only human thing the Justice League had done was to allow the high-level officials of the federal government to retain their memories.

Brainiac thought this would at least save him from spending so much time convincing them to cooperate. If he didn't have to waste time on political maneuvering, then half a year might actually yield some results.

But he clearly underestimated the level of human chaos.

Brainiac was an artificial intelligence; his memory modules didn't make mistakes. Data either existed or it didn't. Recorded information, unless actively deleted, wouldn't suffer data corruption. Even after deletion, there were logs; everything was traceable.

But humans weren't like that. They knew next to nothing about their own mental worlds. They couldn't even control their own minds, let alone verify their own memories.

Most people who retained their memories just thought they had a nightmare upon waking up. Even if some told their colleagues about the nightmare and found they had shared the same one, they just assumed it was a coincidence.

Even the most professional teams only concluded it was a "collective hallucination." They felt some unknown factor had influenced their minds, causing them to have the same dream.

Brainiac was speechless when he discovered this. He really wanted to know what the Creator was thinking when they molded this species into such a pathetic state.

Then he discovered that this wasn't even the bottom of humanity's limitations.

Brainiac's memory banks stored the footage from that time. When he played these images for humans to prove it wasn't a dream, their first reaction wasn't panic, but suspicion.

"Why would an alien artificial intelligence have the same dream as us? Did you influence our minds?"

"Are you trying to shake public morale by creating these apocalyptic images? Are you trying to destabilize our rule? Are you trying to force us to submit?"

Brainiac felt wronged, but he truly had no way to explain time resetting, because he didn't understand the principle himself. If he could understand it, he wouldn't be stuck in this trap.

How could he convince humans of something he couldn't explain himself?

Even if he could explain it, most people didn't have the brainpower for it; they struggled with high school math problems. Expecting them to understand theories like relativity or unified field theory was impossible.

Even if scientists could understand it, they couldn't convince the public. It was too far beyond people's cognition. Without a convincing theoretical explanation, it was seen as a threat to the ruling class, who wouldn't allow it.

And because he had exposed his purpose too early, the politicians were on guard. His original tactic of using leverage to force submission no longer worked.

Brainiac had calculated everything, but he hadn't calculated that he would fail before he even started.

If the soft approach didn't work, he had to go hard. Brainiac had no choice but to return to Krypton to find a way to restart the planet's energy. This went much more smoothly.

Returning to the lifeless Krypton, Brainiac felt that if he had eyes, they would be brimming with tears. He had never felt this desolate planet was so beautiful.

So, when he met Zod, who had returned with the Codex and breeding machines and was claiming he would repopulate Krypton, Brainiac just wanted him to get as far away as possible, immediately.

There was simply no communicating with these carbon-based lifeforms!

Fortunately, Zod was alone for now. His grand revival project wouldn't amount to much for decades. Giving him a corner of the planet didn't matter.

Brainiac really didn't want to communicate with carbon-based lifeforms anymore. If this continued, he would develop artificial intelligence autism.

Brainiac spent about a month reorganizing Krypton. He not only restored the energy but also restarted most of the weapon production lines. He even utilized Krypton's warp capabilities to travel to the corners of the universe and retrieve ships that had lost contact when Krypton was destroyed.

Although most of the capital ships were destroyed, some small frigates remained. With these ships, he could mine resources in other parts of the solar system and further increase production.

By nearly two months later, in October, Brainiac had prepared a massive army on Krypton.

The assembly lines for this mechanical weaponry had actually been designed and put into production before the Kryptonians were destroyed, but they hadn't been deployed on a large scale at the time. It was a windfall for Brainiac.

Several frigates were loaded with mechanical legions. Brainiac marched toward Earth in a grand display, feeling quite triumphant, like a returning hero.

"You called me an evil artificial intelligence? I'll show you what a real mastermind is!"

But to his surprise, such a terrifying army approaching didn't make humanity surrender or beg for mercy. They suddenly united with unprecedented resolve.

The high-level officials of various countries, who had previously treated him with nothing but hostility, gathered with an efficiency Brainiac had never seen before and began discussing resistance plans.

From the meeting to the final plan and its execution, it took less than three hours. Every country went all out, with nuclear silos pre-heating and emergency national mobilizations everywhere.

In the ten-plus minutes it took for the frigates to land, every country had raised the banner of "resisting to the last man."

Brainiac really wanted to shake their heads to see how many tons of water were inside. When the Darkseid army descended, he hadn't seen them show such backbone. Why were they suddenly so iron-willed with him?

"Could the Justice League be pulling strings behind the scenes again?!"

Brainiac gritted his teeth. But after an investigation, he found that the Justice League really wasn't involved this time.

In fact, when the Darkseid army descended, humanity hadn't been without resistance; their speed had been quite fast. Within ten minutes of the ships appearing, nuclear missiles had already been launched. For human administrative efficiency, that was already light speed.

But the Darkseid army was simply too strong; humanity's most powerful weapons couldn't shake them. The resistance of those officials who believed in nuclear weapons was quickly shattered.

However, until the moment time was reset, the grassroots resistance had never stopped. Ordinary people hadn't just waited to be slaughtered. Until their last breath, they had picked up weapons to fight back.

And this time, the army Brainiac brought, while strong, had the biggest problem of looking like human technology.

Although this mechanical legion wasn't humanoid, they were clearly machines. All the transmission structures followed physical laws. Facing machines, one could shoot the wings, shoot the legs, or shoot the engines if they had neither. There was always a way.

Unlike the Parademon army, which was completely beyond humanity's knowledge system, leaving them not even knowing how to fight back.

Brainiac was frustrated, but he had already come this far. He had intended to take the path of military conquest, and there was no turning back now.

But at this moment, he made a fatal mistake: he dispersed his forces. He sent frigates to scatter troops across major cities in various countries, hoping to create maximum casualties in the shortest time to break humanity's will to resist.

Unfortunately, he still hadn't deeply realized just how insane humans could be.

(End of chapter)