Chapter 540: A Ghost Named

The weather had gradually turned cold again. The mornings and evenings no longer held the suffocating heat waves that made breathing difficult; instead, they had become cool. The dampness characteristic of East Coast cities drifted ashore with the morning sea breeze, and as it blew through the window, it made the steam rising from the coffee appear somewhat thin.

Schiller picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and turned to look at the scenery outside the window. On the brightly colored walls of Hell's Kitchen, a new piece of graffiti had been added just last night. Looking at the Mexican-style Day of the Dead motif, one could tell it was definitely painted by Gonzalez, the taco vendor.

That's right, Schiller had moved back into that clinic in Hell's Kitchen, but in a way, he had brought this upon himself.

Perhaps some still remember that Schiller's original goal was simply to find some work for the Avengers, to keep them from constantly staring at the weak and helpless Hydra, so as to preserve the last spark of the poor organization.

The first major turn of events occurred when Nick Fury reported Schiller on the spot.

Perhaps some still remember that when the DC Schiller came online, he wrecked several of Nick Fury's secret bases. Since Nick's secretly built bases were damaged and he had to pay for the repairs out of his own pocket—with absolutely no way to get reimbursed—the one-eyed man's heart was bleeding in pain. Reporting Schiller could be said to have been a long-planned scheme.

Later, Schiller was taken to the CIA and ran into Moon Knight; that could only be called a coincidence.

But afterward, Schiller began constantly opening side quests. First, out of curiosity about the secret of the Egyptian pantheon's resurrection, he made a deal with Khonshu. After drawing out Ammit, he let Ammit kill him to replicate Marc's experience from the *Moon Knight* TV series, which was the only way to reach the Duat.

After hijacking a boat in the Duat, the trouble started again. To retaliate against the Marvel Schiller for giving him so much work in the Green Lantern industry, the DC Schiller simply opened the security permissions of the Mind Palace, allowing Stark and Steve to enter the depths of the Mind Palace.

Then, the DC Schiller persuaded the Id to put on a show for Stark and Steve, fabricating a tragic childhood origin story for himself.

Who would have thought that Stark and Steve, based on this, would assume Schiller had fallen into an obsession with resurrection? They rushed to find Schiller, who was currently exploring the secrets of resurrection. The process of Schiller talking on the phone with Death looked so much like a mental breakdown that it deepened their misunderstanding.

The third accident appeared in Death's stubborn attitude.

For some unknown reason, Death adamantly refused to allow Schiller to enter the Realm of Death. Driven by his competitive nature, Schiller teamed up with Strange and Loki to produce hundreds of sales pitches, vowing not to stop until he had landed Death as a major client.

However, the scales existed within the dream world. If Schiller wanted to pitch, he had to enter dreams. To outsiders, this looked like he had fallen into narcolepsy due to mental issues, making Stark and Steve even more worried.

At this time, the DC Schiller's revenge wasn't over. He had long since intentionally left the Philby List and the Red Banner Medal—which he had found in the Metropolis manor—in the cabinets of the sanitarium Schiller now owned. Besides causing some trouble for the Marvel Schiller, it could also blow the lid off the ceiling, thereby resolving the issue of the Hydra head's identity he had left behind during his substitute shift.

Stark and Steve were guided by the DC Schiller to find these clues at the sanitarium, and they concocted another strange story, though it was later refuted by Natasha.

But the fourth turning point was quite unexpected. At the time, superhero culture had just begun to develop and had gained significant popularity. Congress couldn't wait to harvest a portion of this heat and make superheroes serve them, so they proposed the Superhuman Registration Act.

By then, the Marvel Schiller already knew he had been tricked. If he didn't solidify his identity as a KGB agent, Stark and Steve would only continue their endless speculation about those melodramatic stories. If they were to have loose lips and let the Avengers members know, Schiller would truly be unable to explain himself.

To regain final interpretive power over his backstory, Schiller had to take the first step and solidify this identity, only then would he have room to explain. The Superhuman Registration Act gave him this opportunity.

On the way to Capitol Hill, Schiller had already thought through this series of plans, the ultimate goal of which was to make the various countries on Earth more united.

In fact, quite a bit of time had passed since the concept of Stark's Solar System Construction Project was proposed. Given Stark's productivity, if no one had been dragging their feet, the probes should have already touched every corner of the solar system by now.

But the problem was that too many people were dragging their feet.

The United States definitely wanted to seize the initiative in this project to restore their hegemony, but the Far Eastern countries would certainly not agree. After their disputes, the U. S. discovered that rather than working hard to build this project and fight for more territory, it was better to frame others. As long as the other side didn't have enough territory, they could still maintain their advantage.

Simply put, this was an era of competing to be the worst. If someone wanted to do well, everyone else would rush up to drag them down.

In the Solar System Construction Project, this point was particularly evident. Stark's productivity had actually far exceeded the needs of the initial plan, and the reason this project couldn't move forward was that the political resistance was simply too great.

Stark's goal wasn't just for him to walk into the universe alone. If he wanted to, he could even break through the single universe directly. But his fundamental goal was to allow human civilization to step into the universe and enter an interstellar society, so even though this project was moving at a snail's pace, he was still working hard to push it forward.

In this regard, Stark showed particular patience, but his patience didn't mean Schiller had any.

In most cases, Schiller was relatively patient, but since the masters on Capitol Hill had already provided such a good opportunity to make trouble, and Schiller's own identity background had already been laid out to this point, the subsequent play would be very easy to perform.

Schiller actually wanted to become a pole himself, and then let Earth return to that peak era of bipolar confrontation, forcing human unity through ideological opposition.

To achieve this, he first needed to state his position. This was why Schiller took an extremely radical, far-left stance during the Congressional meeting. He had to make those congressmen, who had been comfortable for too long, understand that he was a fanatic driven by ideology, capable of doing anything.

Next, he needed to make everyone understand he had the ability. Thus, he made his information and special abilities public.

In reality, Schiller didn't have the mind-control ability as strong as Professor X's; he only copied mind-reading, and in most cases, he could only perceive emotions.

But on the way to Capitol Hill, he took a nap in the car and went to the dream world to have afternoon tea with Professor X.

Previously, Schiller had lent the Duat boat to Professor X as a school bus, which made him very grateful. Professor X indicated that this wasn't exactly lying; what he said was entirely the truth, it just depended on how one interpreted it.

With the strongest endorsement, the rest of the Avengers didn't know the specific strength of Schiller's abilities. In their view, it was more that Schiller was unwilling to use his abilities, rather than being unable to.

With multiple parties verifying each other, leaders around the world believed that Schiller was a long-lived being who had been active since the peak of the Soviet Union, and possessed a faith firmer than anyone else's.

And recently, he felt disappointed with Earth's situation, so he wanted to pull that red behemoth back.

No one wanted him to do this, and there was only one solution: self-inspection, and quickly.

Plug the oil leaks, replace the missing parts, change the tires when they need changing, and step on the gas when it's time to accelerate.

Let us unite and prove to the giant who has passed away that the lighthouse of human civilization is still bright enough. We can join hands and step into the universe, lighting up one star after another in the deep space you looked out upon countless times but never visited yourself.

You can see it, and we are gratified, but the best viewing spot is your grave.

In fact, the smart people in the leadership ranks saw Schiller's goal, but they didn't dare to gamble. The good thing was that the vast majority of people in the leadership ranks of countries now had experienced that Cold War era.

The curtain of idealism had not yet dispersed. They knew that this group of people, in order to liberate all of humanity, would spare no cost. They could even give up their own lives, let alone launch a crazy plan to brainwash all of humanity?

Since that was the case, they should move quickly. The faster they moved and the bigger the actions, the larger the share they could occupy in the inevitable forward plan. So, overnight, all countries became incomparably proactive.

Of course, there was one more problem they had to consider, which was that although there was no way to deal with Schiller, they still needed to restrict him.

Professor X was very strong, but he also had weaknesses that could be targeted, namely the Mutant Academy, and an old rival, Magneto. Mutants were the emotional knot he couldn't let go of, so he couldn't be truly invincible.

Although Congress chose to compromise and threw the Superhuman Registration Act aside, and began cleaning lightbulbs, repairing pipelines, and relighting the lighthouse, at the same time, they also had to make a second plan, ready to restrict a crazy Schiller at any time.

If they wanted to know what Schiller's weaknesses were, they naturally had to send people to observe him. The FBI and CIA, after a long time, united and began 24-hour surveillance.

Originally, Schiller lived in his own super-invincible luxury sanitarium, and that super-invincible luxury sanitarium was located in a small town near New York with the best environment and the most wealthy people. Besides the sanitarium, the other buildings were also luxury villas.

Congress gave enough funding, so these agents naturally lived as luxuriously as possible.

They were happy, but one person was unhappy, and that was Schiller.

He had gone through so much trouble to get this sanitarium, and as a result, these agents came over to monitor him, and they even wanted to have the same luxurious hardware conditions? This was just too much!

Based on the European and American diplomatic philosophy of "if I'm not doing well, you can't do well either, and if you're doing well, then no one should do well," Schiller resolutely abandoned that super-invincible luxury sanitarium and moved back to his small clinic in Hell's Kitchen.

This way, although his living conditions became worse, the living conditions of the agents monitoring him became very miserable.

Because the location of that clinic was actually the best building in the surrounding three blocks, while the rest of the houses were as rotten as could be, with extremely poor living environments.

Only then did Schiller finally feel his anger subside, because in his view, he was completely a victim in this series of events. Now, these agents weren't catching the culprits, but were monitoring him, the victim? It was simply unreasonable!

Setting aside the surveillance by the low-level agents, the high-level officials were also discussing what Schiller's weakness was and how to restrict him so that he would consider things a bit more before going crazy.

In the Vice President's office, the old man with graying temples rubbed his temples. He looked much more haggard than usual, and even the white hair on his head had increased.

*Star-Treading*

Apparently, the plan to attack Schiller's weaknesses had almost no progress. He had hit a wall frequently in the last few days, and his blood pressure had risen to the extreme.

The secretary walked over and handed him a secure phone. After picking it up, he said to the other side:

"How is the investigation into his relationship status? If he really is a Soviet, he should have had a marriage history, right?"

"... Can't find it? Could it be that he is also high-level classified personnel? What does the Russian Federal Security Service say?"

"No such person? It seems his security clearance is not just generally high. Could he also be part of some revival plan from the former Soviet Union?"

The Vice President sighed, covered his head, and then said:

"Alright, let's not talk about the past for now. What about recently? Has he had any frequent contact with the opposite sex?"

"Hmm, when he was teaching at the university, didn't he have any close female students?"

The person on the other side seemed to be in a difficult position. The Vice President waved his hand and said, "Just say what you have to say."

"He had almost no interaction with the opposite sex. If I have to say he had frequent contact with someone of the opposite sex, there was indeed one, but she wasn't a student; she was an agent."

"An agent? An agent from where? An agent is even better, it even saves the trouble of persuasion and training."

"Uh, she is an agent from S. H. I. E. L. D."

"Who?"

"Natasha Romanoff. She just finished an internal investigation regarding her suspicion as a KGB spy..."

"Clatter!"

"Mr. Vice President! Mr. Vice President! What's wrong with you?... Your Excellency! Wake up! Quick! Call a doctor! Mr. Vice President is having a heart attack!

!" ===== CHAPTER 541 =====