Chapter 723: A New Universe, A New Catastrophe (Part 1)

New York, an ordinary morning, utterly unremarkable; the streets of the downtown core remained crowded with traffic, while the outlying suburban towns were quiet and peaceful—any great event in this universe had nothing to do with the ordinary humans still trudging through life on Earth.

The alarm went off with a "ding-ding-ding"; a hand slapped it down, sliding off and knocking the small metal alarm clock to the floor. The sleeper sighed in sleep, then woke up.

Schiller, who had slept a full nine hours, felt no relief or joy after a good night's rest—his face was heavy with exhaustion.

Letting the residents of his home go out was easy enough; after all, the one who expended the most energy was Charles, who had to drill holes into every dream. But bringing all the residents back? That was tricky.

Every character in every dream was Schiller, and every Schiller shared one trait: they never minded stirring up trouble for entertainment.

Traveling to individual universes was a rare opportunity for them; many refused to board the return bus on time, forcing other Schillers to go out one by one to find them.

After finding them, they had to escort them back to their respective rooms, shut all doors and windows before they could escape again—Superego and Ego worked all night long before finally retrieving every Schiller.

Even though Marvel Schiller only had to drive the bus—using the Ship of the Underworld to send all personality traits back—he was utterly drained. When he later sensed the state of this universe through the memories of other personalities, he was genuinely surprised.

Schiller's original intention was never to have OAA kick the entire multiverse out of the Marvel main comic world.

Maintaining the stable operation of the entire world was the responsibility of the Supreme Being.

Using a reboot was indeed simple, fast, and fundamentally solved the problem: just interfere slightly with the worldline after rebooting, and many potential bugs would cease to exist.

But that was only from the administrator's perspective; from the game character's point of view, it sounded more like a horror story akin to a cursed cruise.

It was like spending great effort, drinking countless health potions, finally defeating a powerful monster, and seeing the legendary loot right before you—just two steps away to pick it up.

Then, the game administrator announces a server bug: everything must reset to before the monster was defeated. Sure, the potions and gear you spent are returned, but the time and energy you invested? Gone forever.

Of course, the characters inside the game are reset entirely—they won't remember having slain the monster multiple times, nor will they feel anger or sorrow. But those who can step outside this cycle won't so easily calm their fury.

Fundamentally, a program's bug is not the fault of the game characters or the players. Even if a character walked into a tavern, ordered fried rice, and crashed the program, it was solely the developer's fault for inadequate testing.

Since the developer created this game and assigned it a highly privileged administrator, the administrator bears the responsibility to perfect the entire program. If a bug occurs, rolling back and repairing it, along with compensation, is only proper.

But what OAA did—rolling back individual universes—was equivalent to shutting down the server after a bug, with zero compensation.

Since most life in this universe knew nothing of the rollback, this act inevitably looked like deception on a cosmic scale, fooling all living beings.

Game characters are not deserving of being reset. Preventing universe destruction is not a valid excuse for rolling back without compensation.

Ordinary people unaware of this are like game characters—they see no administrator, know nothing of his existence.

But beings like Schiller, Stark, and Strange, who already know the truth of the universe, are like players existing in the third dimension alongside the administrator.

Game characters don't know the administrator exists, so even if he offers no compensation, they can do nothing. But players won't sit idly by.

All the time, effort, and hard-earned materials you poured in vanish in an instant. The company doesn't offer compensation—not even an apology.

Worse, they post a message claiming the player who found the bug is causing trouble and trying to destroy the universe, then boldly declare: "You're destroying this game!" while insisting their rollback was an act of mercy, saving the universe.

If this game survives three months, every sane person is to blame.

So Schiller's original goal was simply to request maintenance compensation.

He didn't ask for much—after all, OAA fixed the bug quickly, without even shutting down, so he couldn't demand too much.

A single wave of energy compensation would be enough. Add some technology and blueprints, and he'd forget everything. If they gave him a few resource planets, Schiller would unilaterally declare OAA the eternal god of the Supreme Beings.

Schiller's stance on rebooting was simple: don't reboot at all—or if you must, give compensation. Shutting down for maintenance? Fine, but give compensation. Fixing bugs and improving the system? Fine, but give compensation. No compensation? Who else should he be angry at?

But whether Schiller's demand for compensation was too loud, too harsh, or whether OAA simply misunderstood, this Supreme Being directly sent the entire multiverse out of the Marvel main comic world.

Outside the Marvel main universe, there are many additional universes—crossover universes, legal-dispute universes, universes still negotiating cooperation, etc. none of them part of the Marvel main universe, yet still belonging to the Marvel multiverse, like ornaments hanging off it.

If the main universe were described as a circular dome containing countless nested dolls, these additional universes would be the ornaments hanging on the outside of the dome.

Now, the entire multiverse Schiller inhabits has been hung by OAA onto the outer edge of the main universe's dome, becoming part of the spin-off universe.

This aligns perfectly with the standard PR strategy: the most effective PR methods, besides playing dead, are cutting ties.

We have strongly criticized and pursued compensation from the responsible individuals; personal employee actions do not reflect company policy; temporary hires were inadequately trained; we deeply regret this incident but bear no legal liability…

In short, there are countless ways to shift blame. Cutting ties with any party that might lead to legal disputes is common practice—always claim it has nothing to do with the core team, and blame it solely on careless subordinates. This method works universally, across time and cultures.

Schiller hadn't expected OAA to act so decisively—but even more bewildered than him were the Five Deities of this multiverse.

Every multiverse has Five Deities; when the Five Deities of Schiller's multiverse woke up, they discovered they had been "optimized."

As the foundational deities of the universe, resignation was impossible—they were merely promoted from corporate programmers to gatekeepers in the urban-rural fringe. During the process of OAA tossing the entire universe out, Eternity, for the first time ever, entertained the thought of quitting.

But Eternity was the universe, and the universe was Eternity—a lifetime position, impossible to resign. Moreover, as long as this universe remained a Marvel-themed one, Eternity remained under the jurisdiction of the Living Tribunal—he still had to attend its meetings.

Previously, Eternity only needed to send a portion of his power to attend the Living Tribunal's meetings. Now, all Five Deities, including Eternity, had to travel across the entire barrier of the great world just to clock in.

If anyone was at fault here, it was OAA for failing to properly inspect the system, causing the bug and rebooting without compensation; Schiller for demanding compensation too aggressively, provoking the cut; but the most innocent was likely Eternity.

He wasn't the company boss, didn't set the project schedule, didn't decide on compensation—he was just a salaried programmer. Then he woke up one day to find his workplace had moved from Datong to Tongzhou. He, a pure-blood Marvel universe man, just trying to go to work, now had to cross mountains and seas. Who did he offend?

All Five Deities had personalities; Eternity couldn't possibly be unangered. But he couldn't vent his anger at his boss.

He didn't want to provoke Schiller either—what if that madman unleashed countless other personalities again, plunging the universe into chaos, and OAA did another cut? His workplace might then move to Wuhu.

Moreover, Eternity himself was deeply confused—he didn't understand why Schiller had gone mad. To figure out why he'd suffered this unjust misfortune, Eternity began tracing back along the timeline, investigating the root cause.

As time rewound, the sequence of events unfolded before him.

Schiller went mad because OAA reset his universe. OAA reset his universe because Schiller's actions caused a bug.

Schiller performed those actions because he wanted to enter the realm of Death. He wanted to enter Death's realm because he wanted to build a Valhalla.

And he wanted to build a Valhalla because he saw Death cooperating with Asgard and the Egyptian pantheon.

Wait—Death was cooperating with Asgard and the Egyptian pantheon?

At this point, Eternity was puzzled. How could Death be cooperating with these two groups?

As the deity governing cosmic order, they did have followers—Captain Universe, Spider-Man, and the Ancient One were Eternity's agents.

But how they exercised their authority was strictly regulated: these agents worked for Eternity, and Eternity paid them in power—everything was compliant.

But Death, to gain more deaths, deliberately denied certain beings their deaths, allowing their leaders to use them to generate even more deaths—this was pure performance fraud.

Like deliberately letting some criminals escape, so they commit more crimes, grow more notorious, and then arresting them later to pad one's resume.

So, it was all because Death was faking his performance??

Eternity's mood now: I feared men, but they harmed me not at all; I feared no ghosts—but the traitor within left me covered in wounds.

No more excuses: all fabricated performance was erased, all illegal Valhallas were abolished. Eternity's message to Death was clear: "If you do this again, I'll report you to the Big Boss."

Thus, in a single night, all the Valhallas Death had spent millions of years establishing across the universe to allow cosmic beings to resurrect themselves vanished—including Asgard's Valhalla, the Egyptian underworld, and similar realms.

The first new possibility this universe developed: Death suffered a colossal misfortune.