Time rewinds to when Lucifer was greatly annoyed by Shiller's harassing phone calls. Fuming with rage, Lucifer momentarily forgot his desire to be a common individual and, instead, sought to locate Shiller through the principles and origins of the universe to scold him and reclaim his feather.
However, even after scouring through the primal essence of the entire DC Universe, Lucifer found no trace of Shiller's existence. This confounded him as it would be impossible for any life in this universe to escape Lucifer's keen sight.
Getting no results in his search for Shiller, Lucifer began tracing the energy of his feather. Though he sensed the feather responding, its aura emanated from beyond the Origin Wall, not within the DC Universe.
This enraged Lucifer even more. Not only did Shiller annoy him with calls, but he also made international prank calls, making it impossible for Lucifer to catch him.
Generally, beings within the DC Universe, no matter how exalted their status, could not venture beyond the Origin Wall. However, the fact that Shiller took Lucifer's feather, which was part of his power, meant that Lucifer could control that power regardless of where it had been taken.
So, Lucifer, in all his fury, started blaring angrily, controlling this part of the power without any second thoughts.
However, Lucifer was from another universe, and while he held a high status here, it didn't mean he could precisely control his power in the other universe. His languished rant, essentially aimed to scold Shiller over a phone call, turned into a mass broadcast due to his lack of precise control over his power.
In other words, Shiller became the phone itself and Lucifer, standing within the Origin Wall of the DC Universe, sent mass text messages to the Marvel Universe.
When Lucifer's roar reverberated above the Marvel Universe, all beings of level Multiverse or above heard his voice.
However, most of them didn't realize that this voice came from beyond the universe and merely thought one of their counterparts had gone crazy.
It was not unusual. At this level, having their voice echoed throughout all universes was a piece of cake.
Generally, if they want to communicate, they would send private messages to individuals. However, there's always a chance that someone might press the wrong button and accidentally send a group message. So, when Lucifer made his outcry, most entities simply assumed that someone had sent a mass message in a fit of madness.
However, some noticed that the aura of this voice did not belong to any known entity.
Many high-level beings detected that the voice might not be from one of them, and they started searching for its origin. Since Lucifer's call was made through Shiller himself, their search eventually led them to Shiller.
After all, the content of this mass message included Shiller's name and it was certainly tied to him in some way.
The recipients of this mass message sent by Lucifer were numerous, including many big shots in the Marvel World. Among them, the most famous one was OAA. Known as the Supreme God of the Marvel Universe, OAA was an omnipotent creator, all-knowing and all-powerful.
OAA is not well-known for showing his human side in the comics. Most of his actions were done through his agents. He would control certain characters within a universe to intervene in the progression of that universe.
For instance, OAA once used Thanos, the heart of the universe, to rectify errors within the universe. He also once transformed into a lonely old man to console Peter Parker, who was stricken with grief over the death of his loved ones. When The Thing from the Fantastic Four died by accident, OAA showed up to encourage the Fantastic Four, praising their spirit of cosmic exploration, and resurrected The Thing as a reward for their exploratory spirit.
It is apparent that OAA is somewhat like the Marvel World's system administrator, operating above all programs, almost without personal preferences. If anything, OAA has an inclination: he admires a universe with infinite possibilities.
At the same time, the Marvel editorial department acknowledges that OAA symbolizes real-life editors, readers, and Marvel's corporation itself. That is, the real-life will is also implemented into the comics through OAA.
Therefore, when a character from another universe comes knocking, OAA certainly cannot open the door. After all, Lucifer is a DC character and his copyright belongs to the DC company. If he appears in a Marvel comic, it would be copyright infringement.
Thus, OAA cannot let Lucifer in. Otherwise, the real-life editorial department would be hit with a lawsuit.
However, OAA cannot let Lucifer incessantly knock on the door either. Lucifer can send group messages through Shiller, but the phones of these beings in the Marvel world were vulnerable. If he bombarded them with thousands of messages a day, was it fair for these beings to be harassed?
Clearly, letting Lucifer knock at the door unattended does not comply with OAA's job requirement to maintain order in the universe.
So, unable to allow Lucifer in or let him persist with his prank calls, the only remaining solution seemed to be for OAA to step up and have a showdown with Lucifer.
However, since Lucifer remained in the DC Universe, OAA couldn't possibly venture into the DC Universe to avoid copyright issues.
It seemed as if Shiller was making prank calls to Lucifer from the Marvel Universe, and Lucifer was retorting with prank calls to the Marvel Universe from the DC Universe. Meanwhile, the two of them couldn't reach each other in their respective universes, much like two Chihuahuas baring their fangs and yipping at each other from a great distance.
However, OAA had another option: to smash the phone.
Shiller's prank calls to Lucifer were made by exploiting a bug. Identifying and rectifying this bug was a challenging task, which Lucifer was not willing to take on. On the other hand, Lucifer's calls to the Marvel World were made through the feather residing in Shiller's soul. In this context, Shiller was essentially the phone itself.
So, smashing this phone would naturally put an end to the prank calls.
However, as the big boss of the Marvel Universe, OAA cannot possibly intervene personally to smash phones, so he gave the order to his subordinates.
His first subordinate is the Court of Life, but beings of the Court of Life's level would not take action personally either. They would also seek their own subordinates. In the eyes of the Court of Life, the so-called phone smashing is merely wiping out certain creatures, right? If so, wouldn't Galactus, the planet devourer, be the perfect specialist for this?
However, an entity at Galactus's level also wouldn't take action personally, for he too has underlings. The apostle of the Planet Devourer is called the Silver Surfer, also known as the Silver Ghosh. He is an astronomer from an alien planet. In order to prevent his mother from being devoured by Galactus, he volunteered to become the apostle of the Planet Devourer.
His main job is to find food for Galactus. Due to his kind nature, he usually leads the Star Eater to consume uninhabited planets.
One day, as usual, he was flying in the universe, looking for food for the always hungry Galactus. Suddenly, the god he served sent him a chaotic message.
Simply put, it asked him to find someone and eliminate them.
But, perhaps due to hunger, Galactus's brain had turned into a mess. In the message he sent, there was no cause or effect, no information about where this person was, how to get rid of them, why they needed to be eliminated, or even who this person was.
The Silver Surfer was very confused. Soon after, Galactus sent a series of messages, one of which pointed to a certain universe, and also gave the Silver Surfer a few short syllables, namely "Shiller."
The Silver Surfer tried his best to analyze it and discovered that the universe pointed to by the coordinates might be where this person was, and the syllables that followed might be the target's name.
Although the message was still very vague and had no rhyme or reason, the Silver Surfer could not resist Galactus's orders. So, he followed the coordinates to this universe.
Every individual universe has infinite dimensions and spaces, and the Silver Surfer wasn't sure where to find this person named Shiller. In fact, even if Galactus didn't provide positional coordinates, the outcome would've been the same because it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
On Earth, it's hard enough to find a person by a name, let alone in the universe. The Silver Surfer didn't have the ability like Lucifer to send messages to the entire universe. He could only use the old-fashioned way, that is, asking everyone he encountered.
There are too many life forms in the universe. Among many races, the two syllables "Shiller" mean different things. After searching for a while, the Silver Surfer found more than three hundred aliens, more than two hundred alien plants, dozens of alien animals, and even a pile of poop.
He floated in the universe, looking at the messy stuff behind him. He sighed helplessly. He felt he must have gotten something wrong.
However, besides the exhaustion method, there were no better ways. The Silver Surfer could only keep asking as he continued his search. But soon, a turnaround occurred when he invaded the dimension of a cosmic sorcerer.
Thanks to the power bestowed by Galactus, the Silver Surfer possessed impressive martial strength, at least enough to deal with minor demons. After he beat up this minor demon, the demon heard he was looking for someone and recommended him a good place to go.
"Hello, this is the Sanctuary of the Nine Realms, how may I assist you?"
"I..." The Silver Surfer adjusted his speech pattern and said with a mix of belief and doubt: "I... I am looking for someone."
"Who are you looking for? Please provide their name, characteristics, and background information. The more detailed the data, the faster we can find them."
"Uh, I only know his name. His name is Shiller."
"Shiller, do you mean Mr. Shiller Rodriguez?"
Finally, the Silver Surfer heard the word "Shiller" pronounced very clearly by a life form in this universe. He exclaimed joyously, "Yes, that's right, it's exactly this syllable; do you know him?"
"I'm sorry. He is our client manager. We cannot help you contact him unless you are a platinum member."
"But the person I am looking for is him."
"We really apologize, the client manager only takes care of platinum members' affairs. Our inquiry shows that you are an unknown caller. Without upgrading to a platinum membership, we are unable to assist you in getting in touch with the client manager."
The Silver Surfer asked many more times, but the answer was always the same. From the customer service's words, the Silver Surfer learned that this man called Shiller Rodriguez was the client manager of the Sanctuary of the Nine Realms. He would need to become a member of this institution in order to contact him.
The Silver Surfer asked for a long time but didn't get any answers. Finally, he had no choice but to ask, "Alright, how do I become a member here?"
"Would you like to directly apply for platinum membership?" The customer service officer on the other side immediately became more enthusiastic. She said, "I will transfer you to a staff member dedicated to handling platinum memberships, Jemma? Jemma?! Are you there? What? She's gone for lunch?... Ah, okay. … Mr. Loki? Would you take over? Yes… yes…"
"Hello, this is the Sanctuary of the Nine Realms, I am customer manager Loki Odinson. How may I assist you?"