Chapter 698: U: Infinite Event (14)

What exactly is the world after death like?

Many people can hardly glimpse its true face. Death is death; death ultimately returns to a void. However, if people really arrive at the same place after death, what would it be like?

Schiller had also thought about this question, but an ingrained impression was carved into his mind. His impression of death was a plane falling rapidly, and fragments of life flashing through his mind before losing consciousness.

This wasn't a very painful way to die; he lost consciousness almost in an instant. But at that moment, time was slowed down, and all the places he had reached, all the things he had experienced, were all played back in just one second.

This was the second death Schiller had experienced. He originally thought it wouldn't be any different from the first, but for some reason, when playing the slideshow, his life experience seemed to have skipped a beat.

From the moment he first came to Marvel, met Strange, gave Stark psychological treatment, and then met Steve and Peter, this series of scenes seemed to be missing something, completely inconsistent with Schiller's memory.

After a moment of confusion, Schiller figured out the answer. These slideshows only contained experiences in the Marvel world, while everything that happened in the other universe wasn't displayed at all.

But this wasn't strange. Death in the Marvel world, of course, could only manage things in this world. However, even the experiences in the Marvel world were only played halfway, and then they stopped.

The scene before Schiller's eyes turned pitch black. This pitch blackness lasted for a very long time, long enough for Schiller to feel a century had passed. Then, a point of light appeared before his eyes. After the point of light slowly enlarged, he discovered he had arrived in a garden.

This was the back garden of a Gothic castle. The surrounding plants were very lush, showing no breath of death at all.

In the very center of the garden, there was a fountain, and under a flower pavilion beside the fountain, there was a long table. At this moment, the woman sitting opposite the long table was wearing a black dress, and a thin black veil hung down from the top of her head, making her face look blurry.

Schiller let out a long breath, walked to the opposite side of the long table without ceremony, pulled out a chair, then sat down, put on a napkin, picked up a knife and fork, and prepared to eat.

The woman opposite just watched him quietly. Schiller first cut the steak open. After seeing the slightly reddish beef inside, he reached out to the side, took the salt shaker, and then poured himself a glass of red wine.

After Schiller finished all the food, he started walking in the garden, looking at the fountain for a while, looking at the trees for a while. After seeing all the scenery in the garden, he started walking toward the castle in front of the garden.

Just as he grabbed the handle of the castle's main gate and was about to knock, a voice finally came from behind him:

"How on earth did you get in?"

Schiller lowered his head, turned to look at Death, and said, "I guess you must be very confused now. The realm of death is completely under your control. As long as I get close, you can kick me out immediately. You have done this many times."

"However, you find that I still appeared here, and the time I came here should be earlier, but you made me lose consciousness during that period of time, and then hurriedly started looking for loopholes."

"You searched around and found nothing. Every corner of the realm of death is under your control. This house is very sturdy; there are no doors pried open, and no windows smashed, but I just appeared here, dying outside of Death's expectations."

The woman opposite seemed to be shrouded in a thin layer of mist, not only unable to see her face clearly, but her figure was also flickering.

"Uninvited guest, unwelcome." Death said.

Schiller smiled and said, "Uninvited guest? Do you still remember that you are Death? You should accept every death equally, but now you are scolding a dead person for being an uninvited guest."

"This has nothing to do with you." Death continued. Obviously, she was referring to her refusing death and then letting those people create more death for her.

"Indeed, this has nothing to do with me, Madam. However, whether I die or not also has nothing to do with you. Why do you interfere with my death?" Schiller walked two steps, getting closer to Death, and said, "Death is unavoidable; this is the root of your powerful authority. When you mock many people for resisting death and acting like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, you should also think that there will be people coming to mock you..."

"Mocking you, being Death, yet resisting death for some reason."

The figure opposite began to fluctuate violently. Death seemed to be stimulated by Schiller. Countless screams echoed in Schiller's ears, but he remained unmoved.

Schiller smiled again and said, "You must have many questions now, so we can exchange answers. You answer one question of mine, and I will answer one question of yours, how about that?"

Death's figure slowly stabilized. Her chest heaved, seemingly sighing. She asked, "What question do you want to ask?"

"Why do you refuse to let me enter the realm of death?" Schiller asked.

"Because you cannot die." Death answered. This answer sounded like nonsense, but Schiller keenly captured a different clue from it. He said, "Cannot die? Why?"

Death didn't answer again, but asked him, "How on earth did you come here?"

"Because I died, so I came to the realm of death." Schiller also countered her with the same nonsense, then he continued to ask, "I cannot die—does that mean you cannot receive me, or you are unwilling to receive me?"

"Both." Death answered again, and then she asked one more time, "How on earth did you die?"

"That's a long story." Schiller reached out and pushed the castle's main gate, then said, "You have always been unwilling to let me come to your house as a guest, but I am curious about this place, so I contacted your boss and had him throw me in."

Death didn't speak, but she clearly didn't believe it, and Schiller didn't explain too much. He just said, "I think an existence like you should have the ability to peek into and modify the timeline. Since that's the case, why not try throwing me out again?"

"You are setting a trap for me." Death answered again, but Schiller stopped talking, and Death was thinking.

She heard the inducement in Schiller's tone. Schiller seemed to be tempting her to explore what exactly was going on, but Death also really wanted to know how Schiller had come here.

Just like dimensional demon gods, Death had absolute control over her own realm, or rather, the relationship between dimensional demon gods and dimensions wasn't that of a lord and territory; the dimensional demon god was the dimension itself.

And because Death's authority was stronger and her level higher, it was absolutely impossible for anything to enter the realm of death without her consent.

She managed all death, so as long as she didn't agree, nothing could die. As long as she refused a certain person from visiting the realm of death, they would live forever, such as the Grandmaster.

The Grandmaster actually wasn't strong, but very few people were willing to be his enemy, even Odin was the same, because they all knew the Grandmaster couldn't die.

Even if Odin beat the Grandmaster half to death, the moment he stopped breathing, he would be resurrected again, just because Death didn't allow the Grandmaster to enter the realm of death.

There were many reasons why one would be blacklisted by Death. Some were because Death wanted them to go out and create more death, some were because they left a very bad impression on Death after arriving at the realm of death, and some were simply because Death didn't like the look of them.

Logically speaking, if one could offend Death and get blacklisted by the realm of death, then one had obtained immortality in another sense. But this wasn't a pleasant process; death could be avoided, but the pain of death couldn't be avoided.

If the Grandmaster was beaten to death by Odin, then during this process, the pain he suffered still existed. It was just that he would be resurrected.

For an ordinary person, death could be avoided, but old age couldn't. If an ordinary person was rejected by Death, then their fate would more likely be to linger in the moment of impending death, dying, then being resurrected, then continuing to die because of aging, then being resurrected again. They wanted to die but couldn't, only able to sink into endless pain.

And those who seemed to benefit from being rejected by Death were actually because they were special themselves. The Grandmaster's race was a long-lived species, and Deadpool possessed near-infinite lifespan due to human body modification. At the same time, they had super-strong self-healing abilities, so after being beaten to death and resurrected, they could quickly recover.

If it weren't for these two points, then after being rejected by Death, the situation more likely to happen would be endless lingering between the states of death and serious injury.

Being blacklisted by Death was an automatic program. The realm of death refused a certain soul from entering, and upon detecting this soul, it would automatically kick them out. Schiller was like this before too.

However, Schiller was the first existence to arrive at the realm of death after being blacklisted by Death. Theoretically speaking, this was impossible.

Death represented the concept of death. If Death didn't let you die, how could you possibly die?

After investigating the realm of death from top to bottom and confirming her own state, Death discovered that the problem didn't originate from her.

Thus, even knowing this might be a trap, Death still had to follow Schiller's line of thought, which was to look forward along the timeline to see how exactly Schiller had died.

For an existence at Death's level, looking at the timeline wasn't difficult at all. But when Death saw the scene of Schiller's death, she froze.

From the perspective of an ordinary person, Schiller's death was quite shocking: head-on confrontation with the God of Symbiotes, Knull, then being sneak-attacked, defeated, captured by the star's gravity, and dying in the boundless sea of fire of the star.

However, in Death's view, this didn't count as a bizarre cause of death at all. Death managed all deaths in all universes, and there were all kinds of bizarre ways to die. Just the lives that died from stars in interstellar wars were countless.

Death looked at everything at this time node repeatedly many times, but still didn't find any problems. Thus, she had to continue looking forward along the thread of time.

At the same time, she no longer just looked at Schiller alone, but looked at the stories of everyone who appeared in this world.

Until she heard a sentence in Otto Octavius's mouth:

"This is a curse... a curse belonging to Spider-Man..."

"Everyone who made us understand this lesson, who had said this sentence to us... all died without exception."

Death was confused.

A curse of certain death? How come I don't know about it??? ===== CHAPTER 699 =====