Chapter 708: U: The Infinite Event (24)

The timeline reversed from the future back to the moment Shi Ler successfully arrived in the Land of the Dead.

While the Death was busy dealing with Shi Ler's problem—namely, making nuisance calls to Lucifer—Shi Ler wasn't idle; he kept pitching to her relentlessly at her ear.

Although by this point both sides' primary goal was simply to win, Shi Ler, having nothing better to do, figured it wouldn't hurt to gain another client, so he pulled out all the stops and began negotiating with Death.

Death initially ignored him entirely, but as Shi Ler switched through various negotiation tactics, she began to feel slightly tempted, though she pretended complete disinterest and listened closely anyway.

Sensing Death's hesitation, Shi Ler grew more energetic; face-to-face pitching was nothing like phone calls—he could use gestures, diagrams, even PPTs and proposals to fully demonstrate how advanced his cooperation method was.

Soon, they entered the back-and-forth bargaining phase, which was truly the hardest part—neither side would budge, constantly probing each other's limits, adjusting their own, locked in a long, grueling tug-of-war.

The two ate meals together while negotiating in the Land of the Dead, and it was peaceful enough—but over at OAA's end, problems arose.

Death kept calling Lucifer with nuisance calls, so Lucifer kept calling Marvel with nuisance calls; OAA, whose duty was to maintain the stable operation of the universe, clearly could not tolerate constant nuisance calls as part of stable operation, so he had to find a way to hang up the phone.

OAA wanted to smash the phone and delegated the task to his subordinate, who passed it down to his subordinate's subordinate; after Cengcengwaibao, Silver Surfer, a henchman of Galactus, became the sacrificial lamb for the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Hearing that Silver Surfer and his master Galactus wanted to sign up for the Sanctum Sanctorum's Platinum Membership, Loki personally took charge; the terms were agreed upon, the contract signed, and only payment remained—but at that moment, Silver Surfer said he needed to submit a budget request and ask Galactus for funds.

But Galactus was starving, constantly hungry and never full, making him the hardest boss in the entire universe to get a budget from; Silver Surfer couldn't squeeze even a scrap of energy from Galactus's teeth.

Silver Surfer had no choice but to escalate the request upward—and fortunately, the Living Tribunal was generous enough; once the budget was approved, Silver Surfer successfully obtained the Sanctum Sanctorum's Platinum Membership.

Loki was thrilled—this single deal equaled a year's worth of his efforts—and Silver Surfer was also delighted; in his view, since it wasn't his money and the target was already found, this mission would be effortless.

But then Loki delivered him bad news: according to information provided by Frigga, who had been present, Shi Ler was dead.

When Silver Surfer heard this, he froze; according to his understanding, his mission was to locate the target and then have Galactus devour the planet the target was on—but now that the target was dead, what was the point of Galactus going there?

Silver Surfer didn't know whether someone had eliminated the target before him or whether some accident had occurred; either way, since the target was dead, his mission was complete, so he returned to inform Galactus, who then informed the Living Tribunal.

When OAA learned Shi Ler was dead, he was deeply confused—how could the nuisance calls still be ringing if the phone was gone?

After investigation, OAA realized it was precisely because Shi Ler was dead that the calls hadn't stopped.

But since Death's current actions involved certain entities from DC, OAA couldn't determine the underlying mechanism—he only knew he had to resurrect Shi Ler first, then investigate whether the nuisance calls were caused by his death.

Yet OAA also embodied the will of readers and the editorial board; as the Supreme Will of the Marvel Universe, his rules dictated that anyone who had ever said "With great power comes great responsibility" must die.

Or rather, this was simply the readers' desire and the editorial board's will, manifested in the comics.

The so-called "Spider Curse" was simply this: readers loved seeing Spider-Man's growth, and the editorial board achieved this by killing off his loved ones.

The side of OAA that maintained the universe's stable operation required him to resurrect Shi Ler to investigate the nuisance calls, but the side embodying readers' and editors' will demanded that anyone who said "With great power comes great responsibility" must die.

If OAA's different aspects could converse, the situation might unfold like this:

"Maintaining the stable operation of the universe is my duty—I say, I must resurrect Shi Ler and hang up the phone!"

"Upholding the readers' will is my duty—I say, Shi Ler said 'With great power comes great responsibility,' so he must die!"

"He cannot die—I must hang up the phone!"

"He must die…"

"He cannot die…"

"He must…"

"He cannot…"

In short, OAA's program developed a minor bug regarding whether Shi Ler could die.

Of course, a bug of this scale could never cause the Supreme Will of the universe to freeze—a well-designed program always has self-detection and emergency braking functions.

For OAA, the best solution was a reboot.

Not a full reboot of the entire Marvel Universe, nor a rewrite of all character backstories—just a simple reversal of time for the individual universe, resetting all cause-and-effect to the point before the problem occurred.

In simple terms: roll back the save file to erase the buggy segment, then use OAA's intervention to steer the universe's development away from the path that would cause the bug again, permanently resolving the issue.

In the Land of the Dead, Shi Ler held a contract, pointing to the signature line at the bottom, saying to Death: "If everything's fine, just sign here—according to the terms we agreed upon…"

Death reviewed the contract again, confirmed there were no issues, and a pen appeared in her hand; elegant cursive script flowed onto the paper.

But the moment she finished the first letter, she sensed something strange—Shi Ler also heard an odd sound.

Both looked up at the sky; Shi Ler didn't know what Death saw, but he noticed a strange constellation suddenly appearing above the Land of the Dead.

The constellation grew larger, drawing closer to Shi Ler; he squinted and stepped back two paces, a bad feeling rising—just one second before the stars swallowed him, he shouted:

"No!

! My contract!

!

"

Instantly, the Land of the Dead fell into absolute silence.

Shi Ler was now surrounded by a brilliant starfield; he realized all the points of light around him were racing forward—or rather, he was racing backward.

Amid the endless stream of stars, he saw countless universes flickering out like bubbles, an infinite number of universes sweeping past him, every detail within them crystal clear.

A man chose to drink milk in the morning—a universe flew past Shi Ler's eyes; another man chose not to drink milk—another universe flew past.

Infinite choices created infinite possibilities; infinite possibilities became infinite universes; each individual universe within the multiverse represented an infinite possibility at an infinite point in time.

Countless bizarre things flew past Shi Ler—each one was a separate universe; everything within this infinity was a universe.

Milk was a universe, a chair was a universe, a cat was a universe, a dog was a universe, a person's thought was a universe, a dream was a universe…

As time reversed and cause-and-effect reset, Shi Ler's individual universe was rebooted to the moment before it had ever encountered the multiverse.

Shi Ler jolted awake in his bed at Arkham Sanitarium; the room was silent, the city lights and bright stars outside the window did nothing to lessen his drowsiness.

Using spider-sense to reach the Spider Legion's base, learning about the Spider Curse, using the Spider Curse to reach the Land of the Dead, then manipulating Death to call Lucifer… it all felt like a bizarre dream.

Waking from bed always brought this illusion—that everything before had been a hazy dream—but Shi Ler knew it wasn't a dream.

He glanced at the wall clock; according to the date and time, in two minutes, Spider-Man would contact him via spider-sense.

Seconds ticked by; when two minutes passed, the familiar "buzz" did not come.

Spider-Man did not contact him; the Spider Totem remained silent; events had deviated from their original path—the potential program error had been corrected.

Shi Ler looked at his hand; there should have been a contract signed by Death, his trophy, his victory.

But now, with cause-and-effect reset, everything had vanished.

Shi Ler took a deep breath, sat up in bed, and remembered the infinite universes he had witnessed during the universe's reboot, in the fleeting gap between time reversal and cause-and-effect reset.

Everything became a universe: a cat was a universe, a dog was a universe, a dream was a universe…

A dream… was also a universe?

As the moonlight dimmed, the clean glass of the window reflected Shi Ler's figure; slowly, a dangerous, mad smile spread across his face.