Chapter 3964

When Natasha carried Stark and Doom back to their original universe, one in each hand, they were still discussing why Arkham Batman was so angry. Creating magical life was such a great subject, why couldn't Batman understand it?

Of course, the greatness of this subject lay in: it wasn't created in one's own origin universe, not even in one's own Great World, but in the neighboring Great World—even that last little problem that might lead to the destruction of the universe was gone. How perfect.

"It's a good thing Batman was called away by the Main Universe Batman on their side for a meeting. Otherwise, if he gave you two a punch each, would you still want to stand and come back?" Natasha crossed her arms and said, "Don't blame me for not reminding you, provoke Batman less in the future. Most of them are very petty, and sooner or later they will retaliate."

Stark curled his lips and said: "Rest assured, this is the origin universe of greed. No one who isn't suicidal would dare to come here..."

"Tony, are you there?" Charles's voice sounded in Stark's mind, "The Radiance Alliance needs to hold a meeting; I have already summoned other members. Can you come over now?"

"Okay, I'll be there immediately." Stark said in his heart. Then he turned his head to look at Doom and said: "Don't be in a hurry to return to Asia; there might be a global superhero conference later, and people from the Spear Bureau will also come."

Doom nodded and said: "Fine, but I need to use your laboratory. I used the remaining funds to get some good things."

Stark didn't object, because after all, with Jarvis watching, Doom couldn't do anything too outrageous. He set off for the Radiance Alliance base—of course, there was no need to go physically, because the Radiance Alliance base was in the spiritual world.

When he arrived at the hall, people were basically all there. Seeing Schiller was also there, Stark walked over and said: "Why did you come back too?"

"The mission is mostly completed, so of course I came back." Schiller was looking at the interns' internship reports and said without raising his head, "Of course, it's mainly because I'm afraid of being discovered by Batman for what I've done."

"What did you do?"

Schiller actually thought about it very seriously, and then said: "Other than stirring the situation there into a mess, it seems I didn't do anything else."

"I think Batman might have already guessed that it was you who caused the trouble." Stark sat opposite him and said, "He doesn't expose you just because he's afraid you'll be angry out of shame, so he pretends not to know."

"He doesn't expose me not because he's afraid I'll be angry out of shame, but because exposing it has no meaning. The situation developing to this point today is actually not because of what I did. All the dilemmas they face are dilemmas they already had. It wouldn't have erupted because of this matter, and it would have because of something else. Isn't that so?"

Stark thought about it; it was actually really like that. For example: Ultron split into multiple threads, attacking the multiverse simultaneously, causing the Batmen to be unable to attend to everything, each person could only passively defend their own universe and had no time to attend to others, causing Ultron to act recklessly for a period of time.

Ultron's invasion was like this, and the invasion of other multiverse-level existences would also be like this. It could even be said that Ultron was already considered very gentle—because he was a love-struck fool, and his primary purpose in coming here was to find himself a lover, not to destroy the universe as soon as he arrived.

The vast majority of existences that would invade the multiverse were not this gentle; most were aiming to have the multiverse re-forged. They wouldn't have time to engage in any murder cases; otherwise, it would be direct slaughter and extermination, or perhaps even directly crushing the universe. By that time, Batman would only be more miserable.

Take another example, the battle between righteous and evil Supermen: although without Injustice Batman's stroke of genius in faking mind control, Injustice Superman wouldn't be collectively hunted by Supermen, but there wasn't only this one evil Superman among Supermen. Injustice Superman was considered relatively weak among evil Supermen; when that group of truly powerful evil Supermen started to exert their strength, both sides would sooner or later have a battle.

Although one cannot use "victim-blaming" to push the responsibility for the chaos caused by the multiverse invasion onto the Justice League, this invasion did indeed expose many problems that had long existed in the various Justice Leagues of the multiverse. No problem would disappear out of thin air, nor would it really not exist just by pretending not to see it; rather, it would wait until the disaster erupted, exploding one after another, causing unpredictable and painful consequences.

Ultron's invasion was equivalent to a firecracker; although it exploded very loudly, scaring all the superheroes in the multiverse, it was all thunder and no rain. Let alone blowing the house down, it didn't even blow over tables and chairs, but instead exposed the pits under the house's floor, allowing Batman to repair them early and make full preparations when the true strong enemy broke in.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this that even if they guessed that this series of invasion events might have been deliberately caused by someone, the Batmen didn't choose to expose it. Compared to spending time blaming others, the Batmen were more willing to reflect and improve themselves.

Of course, it might also be because they knew blaming was useless—you can never condemn a runaway engine with words to make it stop. If blaming and cursing were useful, Greed wouldn't have such a resounding reputation.

"How did you think of tricking Ultron?" Stark asked.

"I didn't let Ultron invade the neighboring side." Greed sighed and said, "My initial plan was just to build a Brainiac of our own. A world ruled by a super artificial intelligence has various shortcomings, but you must admit, this is a method with a very high lower limit. We can choose not to use it, but we cannot not have it."

Stark understood immediately: so it was because of the good performance of Brainiac in the universe where Arrogance was, that Greed also had the idea of shaping a super artificial intelligence ruler.

"But the problem is, the super artificial intelligence in our universe doesn't follow this route." Schiller continued, "They all possess emotions and have become more like intelligent life. If you want one like Brainiac, you have to cultivate it from scratch."

"So you set your sights on the Ultron of the Main Universe?"

"I conducted a screening, but the one that best met the conditions was indeed the Ultron of the Main Universe." Schiller tapped the desktop lightly with his finger and said, "He was just born not long ago, his evolutionary path had just begun, and he didn't trust his creator, and had no other ties."

"But he went crazy." Stark said, "He fell in love with Scarlet Witch—to be precise, a powerful red-haired woman."

"At the very beginning, that couldn't be considered love." Schiller shook his head and said, "He just felt that Jarvis completed a transformation through Scarlet Witch, so he wanted to as well. It's just that the action logic of electronic life is different from humans, so he lost control."

"Then you gave up the plan to shape a Brainiac and turned to layout the multiverse."

"You could say that." Schiller nodded and said, "After Ultron transformed his life form, I knew he couldn't follow Brainiac's route either. But we had also been watching him for a long time and invested a lot of energy; giving up just like that was a bit uneconomical. In order to make the best use of everything, I drove him to Battleworld."

"So his true body was in Battleworld." Stark nodded thoughtfully and said, "No wonder so many Batmen searched for so long and didn't find a source server."

"This is actually considered a loophole. Just like other Iron Men can enter Battleworld wearing armor equipped with Jarvis and still count as one person. Ultron, who hadn't gained emotions or ignited the flame of the soul, wasn't regarded as an independent life, but more like a piece of equipment, so he could come and go freely in Battleworld."

"Then couldn't Brainiac do it too?"

"Of course." Schiller continued, "So, even if I didn't use Ultron to do this, Bruce might have used Brainiac to do it. Essentially, it's because to establish a multiverse human alliance, there must be such an opportunity. Who does it is the least important thing."

"Batman also wants to establish a multiverse human alliance, so that's why he didn't excessively pursue you." Stark sighed lightly and said, "And the Main Universe on our side doesn't know this. They feel they've caused a massive disaster, so they don't explain or make up for it, but instead have made preparations for confrontation."

"This is the Dark Forest effect. You cannot assume that a powerful organization from a strange world holds goodwill toward you, but must speculate about them from the worst angle. In this case, friendly communication between universes is almost impossible to establish, and in the end, the result must be confrontation."

"This is actually fine." Stark said, "A quick cut to resolve the mess; long pain is worse than short pain. Relying on Stephen's glib tongue to lobby others is really too slow; it's better to let them beg us."

"Of course, Batman thinks so too." Schiller continued, "In the multiverse, there are simply too many neutral Batmen. Most of them are incurable skeptics who refuse to have much contact with any side, or even simply pretend not to know about the existence of the multiverse, putting the vast majority of their attention on their own universe. And Ultron's invasion is like digging an ostrich's head out of the sand, letting them know: it's not that if you pretend not to see, the problem will disappear on its own. Facing a multiverse-level disaster, uniting is the only way out."

"In this regard, we happen to agree." Stark laughed in a low voice and continued, "If there are no accidents, people from the Main Universe will soon come knocking. We need to formally engage with them; the conditions under which we fight for the multiverse will determine our status."

"That's right, it's precisely because of this matter that the Radiance Alliance has assembled." Charles walked over and said, "Our universe is very special and very suitable to be a battlefield for both sides to collide. For this reason, we should receive more rewards and achieve a higher status."

"Wait," Stark turned his head to look at him, "You didn't say you wanted to make our place a battlefield. How are we suitable?"

"Our Earth can run." Charles said lightly, "This means that no matter where the war is fought, we can hide and not be affected by the war."

"Of course, it also means that no matter where a war breaks out, we can be the first to run over and watch the fun." Schiller put the wine glass to his lips and smiled, saying, "This is the most important thing, isn't it?"