Chapter 385

Before the star, the two tiny black dots grew larger in the field of view; North Star, with her green hair, rested her chin on her hand, gazing thoughtfully at the crushed spaceship shaped like an iron ball. After Magneto lowered his hand, she extended hers toward the remaining ship on the right wing.

There was no wind in space, yet North Star's long hair began to float and dance in the air like a fluttering banner. She mirrored Magneto's motion exactly—extending her hand, then closing it gently.

But the remaining ship did not disintegrate cleanly; only its front deck reshaped itself. North Star exhaled, shaking her head.

She turned to look at Magneto, who glanced at her and said: "Watch. One last time."

He raised his hand again, clearly impatient—no extra motion, no explosion, no sound. Countless ship components detached with surgical precision, floating into space. North Star whispered: "... ecomposition?"

She thought for a few seconds, then extended her hand again. One ship on the left wing was dismantled—but when she tried to decompose the cockpit, she encountered difficulties. North Star frowned deeply.

Neither father nor daughter paid attention to the glow gathering at the main ship's cannon. The instant it fired, the searing energy was shoved back into the barrel. The entire cannon exploded with a boom, taking half the ship's hull with it into ash.

Every weapon that fired at them behaved as if they had collectively mutinied—all energy and shells surged back down their own barrels, detonating inside their own chambers.

This kind of catastrophic detonation was deadly. The ships' external shields were insufficient to withstand the shockwaves from their own weapons' explosions. About a dozen warships were damaged in the first volley due to barrel bursts.

The commander hadn't even processed what was happening when red alerts flooded the control panel. The alarm tones, too rapid to distinguish, merged into a single continuous shriek—no one could tell who was reporting damage.

For this fleet, being used as a teaching tool by Magneto was luck. North Star's weak foundation was even better fortune. Otherwise, by now, the entire fleet would have become Magneto's yo-yos.

Magneto wasn't teaching North Star on a whim—he realized the Brotherhood of Mutants lacked the strength to enter the interstellar stage. On the cosmic level, everyone else besides him was merely a liability.

Xavier's school selected several mutant students bonded with symbiotes to travel to the Andromeda Galaxy. The results were excellent. Though young, the mutant students, aided by their symbiotes, could accomplish far more than expected.

In contrast, the Brotherhood's members were utterly inadequate. Aside from Mystique, who could handle some diplomatic tasks, the vast majority were useless in every regard. Whether publicly or privately, North Star was the most worthy of cultivation.

On Hive's homeworld, Hive naturally sensed the fleet's arrival. He assumed the time for internal and external coordination had come—his territory, recognized by the capital planet, was under invasion, so the fleet should assist. But after waiting, no shots were fired. Hive grew puzzled: Why weren't they attacking the surface?

At that moment, the fleet commander felt exactly the same as Hive. Logically, the planet's lord should have seen the fleet's arrival—why wasn't he cooperating with the assault?

Both sides now thought: Where's the space fleet? Come rescue us! Where's the planetary lord? Come rescue us!

After another several dozen seconds, the commander finally snapped out of his shock and contacted the planetary lord. Hive, upon receiving the communication, was furious.

I expected you to save me! Now you want me to save you? Look at what monsters are on this planet's surface!

The heavy rain over the planet had not ceased. All combatants, friend or foe, were now indistinguishable—flames, explosions, roars—everyone vented their emotions indiscriminately, regardless of who their opponent was.

Humans had an innate talent for destruction. They weren't even afraid to hurl bombs at their own planet. Before gaining interstellar colonization, they turned their mother world into a fully stocked arms depot, never considering what came after the apocalypse.

But here, if this weren't Earth, humans owed no responsibility for the environment and bore no post-war repair burden. How many buildings collapsed, how many aliens died—it meant nothing to them.

Then humans would show this universe what a child of chaos truly was. What an entropy demon truly was.

If you pulled back the view, after prolonged chaos, Hive's homeworld had transformed from a potato into a block of cheese—no one could tell whose destruction was greater.

siluke.

If forced to assign blame: the large craters were Iron Man's work; buildings vanished without altering terrain—those were the Venom Bats' doing; massive piles of rubble were the Lizard Doctor's handiwork; buildings shattered into fine fragments were the result of the Hulk's fists and kicks.

As for others, their main role was dragging these human artillery pieces around the streets. Take Steve—he left behind Iron Man's bomb craters wherever he went, while wherever Iron Man passed, Strange's magical glow remained.

In this endless destruction, all massive tentacles near Hive were crushed into pulp, leaving only his solitary core standing.

He looked up at the stars and saw a string of explosions—ship debris fell like fire rain. Upon touching the rain near the surface, they billowed thick smoke, striking the ground and leaving blackened craters. Beyond that, not even a single intact corpse remained.

Hive was utterly hopeless. An unspeakable despair and dark atmosphere enveloped him. He didn't understand—what had happened to this planet?

As he mustered his last strength to struggle, he saw a beautiful arc of light appear on the horizon—a radiant glow he had never seen before, more beautiful than any sunrise or sunset this planet had ever known.

The star bloomed like a flower, shifting from vibrant orange-yellow to a mature, vivid, terrifying red that swallowed nearly everything in the star system.

Sitting in the passenger cabin of the luminous ship, Schiller watched the scene outside. They were far from Hive's star system, yet still witnessed this magnificent cosmic fireworks display.

The shifting lights glowed like flickering neon, bathing the dim cockpit in warm radiance. Schiller slowly closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness into his mental sanctuary.

It was a small screening room. A figure in a black trench coat waited there. Schiller in a white lab coat walked over and sat beside him on the sofa. The projection screen showed the sun rapidly evolving.

"How's it feel to skip work?" asked the trench-coated Schiller. The lab-coated Schiller adjusted his glasses: "This is a legitimate vacation—just like yours."

"By the way, where's that madman? Where did the 'Superego' send him?"

"He's probably on the 100th floor or higher—I don't know exactly which. But he seems to be having fun. After all, he doesn't have to fight Jack for Bruce anymore—he's got half a Batman now."

"Honestly, letting him loose was risky," said the lab-coated Schiller, shaking his head. "When you gave me this idea, I thought you'd lost your mind."

"I nearly did lose it. My brand-new umbrella, barely in your hands for days, was ruined again." The black-clad Schiller sneered. "I had to teach them a lesson."

"Your style doesn't fit Marvel at all. These convoluted, multi-pronged schemes suit your world better," said the lab-coated Schiller, shaking his head.

He fixed his gaze on the projection screen. The images began reversing at incredible speed.

The expanding sun shrank. The craters on Hive's homeworld filled in. The ships reversed rapidly back into the solar system. Earth spun backward from east to west. Day turned to night, returning to the night the sanatorium incident occurred.

At the moment Schiller saw his umbrella slashed, the entire scene froze. Dust motes hung crystal-clear in the air. Through the window, glass shards kicked up by Iron Man as he broke in floated mid-air, glinting with crystalline light.

In that frozen second, from Schiller's own eyes, the DC Schiller in the 300-plus-story tower also froze.

He had just returned from vacation when he received a thunderclap of bad news. Unending rage nearly burned his bedroom to ashes. Sensing this surge of fury, the Marvel Schiller in the lab coat had to immediately withdraw his consciousness and return to the mental sanctuary to stop DC Schiller.

Clearly, Gothamites held grudges. So the trench-coated Schiller proposed a plan—a dark, Gotham-style scheme.

First, the black and white Schillers went to the 200th floor, shoved the green-haired Schiller into an elevator, and sent him all the way to the surface consciousness.

After the Joker Schiller took control of the body, he played along, following Jacqueline to Hive's homeworld. Once the infiltration succeeded, he revealed his true self. His first stop on Hive's homeworld? The weather control tower.

He directly mixed "Wine," the Bacchus Factor, into Hive's rain, converting the planet's scarce water resources entirely into rainfall, triggering a global downpour.

But the real purpose of this rain wasn't to poison the bugs. The true target was Marvel's superheroes.

Compared to Gotham's lunatics, Marvel's heroes—even the antiheroes—looked disarmingly kind.

But sometimes, excessive righteousness, rigid adherence to principles, and impossibly high moral standards create immense psychological pressure. If unreleased, this pressure leads to all kinds of mental disorders.

People often ask: Should good people be held at gunpoint? But good people aren't just targeted by others' guns—they sometimes point their own guns at themselves. Their inflated moral standards breed guilt, just like any extreme emotion, damaging mental health.

Superheroes aren't molded from the same mold. Each has their own personality. When forming teams, friction is inevitable. Add old grudges, new conflicts, failed missions, unmet expectations, inability to pinpoint core problems, and impatience—and internal war becomes inevitable.

Pluck a fully rotten fruit from a worm-eaten tree, drop it into a filthy tavern, seal it in a leaky barrel, ferment it in the wrong season with the wrong method—and you brew a bitter wine called Civil War, which human civilization swallows in one gulp.

The moment they first hurled cruel words at each other, the seed was planted. The bitter wine, like a poison that corrodes from within, eats away at the fragile vessel drifting in the star-sea.

When the guns fired, there were no winners.