Chapter 4673: House of X: Destruction (1)

The sun's storms were as fierce as ever. The massive factories humans built around the sun were like trees swaying in a storm. Automated drones and spacecraft shuttled through sunspots. Beneath the extreme light were even thicker shadows. A squad was standing by in the shadows of a cargo warehouse.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"

Massive explosions rippled through space, erupting with extreme, dazzling firelight even in front of the sun. Accompanied by screams, the advancing assault squad was blown to pieces.

More robots were released from the factory. They quickly captured the attackers' aircraft. The robots began a ruthless slaughter, and lives vanished in the pitch-black space. In the distance, within the massive metal head located in the steel giant ring, a faint light emanated from its eyes, and three of the four connecting pillars had already been destroyed.

But the moment the last attacker slowly stopped breathing and the neural link disconnected, a figure wearing a giant metal helmet clenched their fingers tightly. They exhaled from their chest and declared through the mental link: "The squad led by Scott that raided the Orchis factory has been wiped out, and the Mother Mold has not yet been taken offline. Now, mutants should seek help from the multiverse."

New York had been snowing for two days, and all the streets were submerged; the East Coast hadn't had such snowfall in decades. With ground traffic almost at a standstill, almost everyone chose to travel by shuttle. This led to queues at the shuttle stations as well.

Shiler got off at the Presbyterian Hospital station and tightened his clothes. As soon as he stepped out the door, he felt the cold wind howling, so he had to wrap his scarf tighter and pull his mask up.

"Good morning."

"Good morning."

Shiler came down the stairs of the shuttle platform, walked into the rooftop door of the hospital building, and greeted his colleagues. Almost everyone was holding hot coffee, and some still had snow on their heads that hadn't melted yet.

"Good morning, Dr. Rodriguez."

"Good morning, Doctor. Any consultations today?"

"Morning, Doctor, want a cup of coffee?"

Shiler walked down the stairs, took another corridor, and arrived at the emergency department's nurse station. Even on such a snowy day, the emergency room was still very busy. Smelling the thick scent of blood in the corridor, Shiler stopped a nurse walking in a hurry: "What happened?"

"A pile-up," the nurse said with a frown. "And a small bus fell into the river; more than twenty people were injured, and two have quite heavy bleeding."

"Is there any danger to their lives?"

"No, but there are quite a few organs that need to be put back in, and the emergency room is busy." The nurse shook her head.

Shiler sighed and turned to walk back. Just as he walked up to the second floor, he ran into David, who was rushing downstairs; he had just become a practicing physician last month, but was still learning.

"David," Shiler called out, "Where are you going?"

"Wanda called me to help in the emergency room; there are too many injured people, and they can't handle it," David said. "Did you just come from there, Doctor?"

"Yes, I originally wanted to find Wanda, but heard she was busy, so I didn't go over."

"What did you want with her?" David asked.

"Actually, nothing much," Shiler said vaguely. David narrowed his eyes, and Shiler had to lower his voice and say, "The honorable Mr. Hand of God has a backlog of forty-six medical records; he only started writing the ones from the month before last this month. I really can't finish them, so I can only find someone to help..."

David widened his eyes and said: "The month before last? Wouldn't the patients have been discharged by then?"

"Yes. The patients have been discharged, and only the admission course has been written, and some haven't even written the admission ones. Otherwise, would I be looking for someone to help?"

"These surgeons are crazy," David said. "But I really have to go to the emergency room; I'm afraid I don't have time to help you fill in the medical records."

"Alright, I'll think of another way myself."

Shiler shook his head. He continued upstairs, preparing to see if he could find a few more acquaintances to be the scapegoats. Otherwise, Strange's debt would never be paid off.

Unfortunately, the Presbyterian Hospital was just too busy. Besides seeing patients, doctors also had to bring students. Once they heard about filling in medical records, they all shook their heads; they had a pile of their own that hadn't been written yet.

Logically speaking, this kind of thing is done by the interns under them. But the interns under Strange, at the very least, are also the fingernails of God, also busy around the operating table every day. The medical records owed by this bunch of people combined might be more than Strange's, so no one should think about helping anyone.

After turning around the hospital and gaining nothing, Shiler had no choice. He took the shuttle to Stark Industries again, preparing to seek help from the omnipotent AI, letting Jarvis be a generative AI for once and write the medical records for him.

Who knew, Stark, who was always at home taking care of children, actually came today. As soon as Shiler entered the office, both were stunned.

"What are you doing here?"

"How did you get in?"

Both asked in unison. Shiler said: "This is your office, not your laboratory, why wouldn't I be able to get in?"

"Oh, I forgot," Stark patted his forehead. "Taking care of children lately has made me dizzy; even my dreams are filled with little Morgan's voice. But why can't I be in my office?"

"Every time you come to Stark Industries, you dive into the laboratory. You always say the commercial atmosphere in the office will affect your genius inspiration..."

"I need a rest," Stark said. "I know you might not believe it, but taking care of children really made me feel what exhaustion is for the first time. I never felt this way even after pulling several all-nighters in the lab."

Shiler sized up Stark. He looked okay, but his mental state was much more normal, no longer so anxious and neurotic. This is what you call "no worries for the future, there must be immediate worries."

A few years passed, and little Morgan was at the age where she could run and jump with infinite vitality. Besides being busy with company matters, Pepper also had to take care of Helen, and most of the work of taking care of little Morgan fell to Stark. And he clearly wasn't the kind of person who could safely leave the child to a nanny. Little Morgan was about to torture him into becoming a normal person.

"I want to go traveling," Stark said shockingly.

Shiler couldn't help but size him up again. Stark sat at the desk, planning to himself: "I want to go to a warm place, quiet, lonely, where I can think alone."

"I can fully understand your desire to escape. But if I really threw you into a big forest, I guess it wouldn't be long before you'd miss the equipment in your lab."

"I want to take that equipment with me," Stark said. "I want to go to the tropical rainforest and do research with pythons, letting nature and machinery combine perfectly."

"Truly hopeless," Shiler sighed, then sat opposite him. Only then did Stark remember to ask him: "Are you here to find me?"

"Of course not, I'm here to find Jarvis to fill in medical records."

Stark wasn't interested in this kind of thing at all. He waved his hand and said: "Then go ahead, come find me after you're done, we can drink together tonight, and call Steve too..."

So Shiler started sending messages to Jarvis. However, he didn't reply to phone messages, so Shiler sent him a Battleworld message, and then learned that he wasn't in this universe at all.

Shiler sighed long and hard, not knowing if it was his bad luck or Strange's bad luck. When the medical records couldn't be filled, everyone was busy, and no one could help.

Shiler was somewhat resigned. Originally, he wanted to return to Arkham Asylum and finish them all at once, but he had to drink with Stark tonight. The road conditions were bad, going out was very inconvenient, and out of some escapist psychology, he simply didn't write them today.

The two of them huddled in the office, chatting intermittently. Stark was now saying whatever came to his mind; Shiler listened for a while and started to get sleepy, falling asleep on the table.

"Shiler! Shiler! Where did you go?! Come quickly!"

Shiler woke up with a start, only to find himself lying on the sofa alone, covered with a blanket, and Stark was nowhere to be seen. But if it wasn't Stark calling him, then...

"Shiler, it's me, Charles. The Illuminati is just waiting for you, come quickly."

"What? Go to the Illuminati? How can you drink in the mental world?" Shiler was still a bit sleepy.

"What's wrong with you, Doctor? We aren't going to drink, there's an emergency, come quickly!"

Only then did Shiler wake up. This Stark was summoned over and didn't even call him. Shiler wrapped himself in the blanket again, came to the Illuminati base in the mental world, and saw an anxious Charles.

Shiler was very surprised; what could make Charles so anxious? Could it be Reed...

"We received a distress signal," Charles said, "from a universe that participated in the multiverse war. The mutants there established an independent nation, but the situation isn't very good. The human government built an Orchis factory near the sun, used to produce aggressive robots targeting mutants, and at the same time wanted to develop a robot core hub 'Mother Mold' similar to a super AI."

As soon as Shiler heard it, he understood. Although there were many Orchis bases in many universes, and even this universe had appeared before, there weren't many universes where mutants established an independent nation. Besides theirs, the other one was the famous "House of X."

This comic tells the story of mutants uniting to build their own country, which can be said to be one of the more capable mutant comics. Regardless of whether it's the X-Men or the Brotherhood of Mutants, including the Hellfire Club and Apocalypse, all mutants united to build their own home, and they finally succeeded.

The ending of this comic is a good ending; not only did they succeed in building the country, but they also resurrected the sacrificed mutants. Logically speaking, nothing should go wrong, so why would they seek help from the multiverse?

Charles continued: "In order to prevent the Mother Mold from starting, Cyclops Scott organized a suicide squad, leading many powerful mutants including Wolverine and Jean Grey to raid the Orchis factory. They fought bravely and destroyed three pillars of the Mother Mold. However, something went wrong when destroying the last one."

While he was narrating, Shiler also recalled the plot of this comic again. This raid did have some twists and turns, and the eight-person squad was wiped out, but normally, the four pillars should have been taken down completely, and the Mother Mold would have been scrapped directly. Hearing what Charles meant, everyone died, but the Mother Mold was still alive in the end? Why did such a variable occur?

Charles sighed long and hard and said: "Originally, the mutants in that universe had already united, but they had disagreements on whether to participate in the multiverse war. At that time, it was an important node for their negotiations with the human government. Professor X believed that even so, they couldn't be absent from multiverse activities; this was for the long-term future of mutants. But the Brotherhood of Mutants and the Hellfire Club didn't approve."

"They had infighting again?"

"That's not it," Charles shook his head. "Although they disagreed, they still came. The problem lies right here. The suicide squad members were injured while fighting the multiverse war, which allowed the sentinel robots sent by the Orchis factory to succeed in a sneak attack. Even Jean Grey couldn't release her power in time, leading to the last pillar not being destroyed, and all the squad members were already dead." ===== CHAPTER 4674 =====