New York, an ordinary morning that couldn't be more ordinary. The downtown streets were crowded as usual, while the suburbs on the edge were very calm and peaceful. Whatever major happenings this universe might bring, they had no connection to the people on Earth, still engaged in their mundane lives.
The ringing of an alarm clock sounded. A hand pressed on the alarm clock but slid, bringing the small metal clock crashing to the floor. The sleeping figure let out a sigh and awoke from the sleep.
Shiller, who had slept a full 9 hours, didn't feel refreshed with the morning. His face was etched with fatigue.
It was rather simple dispatching the houseguests of his home. After all, the one consuming the most energy was Charles, who had to create a hole in each of the dreamscapes. But gathering all of these guests back was difficult.
Each character in a dream was Shiller, and each Shiller there was shared one trait—that is, they loved some action.
The opportunity to travel to various individual universes was a rare treat for them and many of them were not willing to take the bus back on time. They needed to be found by the other Shillers one by one.
After they were found, they had to be delivered back to their respective rooms. Before they could run out, doors and windows were shut. The Superego and Ego spent an entire night before finally gathering all the Shillers.
Even Marvel Shiller, who was only responsible for driving the bus--that is, ferrying all personality traits back with the Ship of the Underworld, was exhausted. By the time he perceived this universe's situation from the memories of other personalities, he was very surprised.
Shiller didn't intend for the OAA to kick the entire multiverse out of the Marvel Headquarters' Cartoon World.
Normally, it would be the responsibility of the supreme existence to maintain the steady operation of the entire world.
Using a reset is indeed a simple, expedient method that can solve the problem fundamentally. After the world was restarted, tweaking the World Line could prevent many potential bugs from existing.
However, that's from the perspective of the administrator. If you consider it from the perspective of a game character, it sounds more like a horror story similar to a horrific cruise ship.
For instance, while playing a game, after great struggle and consuming numerous health potions, you finally managed to kill a powerful monster. The top-tier loot is right in front of you, just a few steps away.
But at that moment, the game administrator says there was a bug in the server, and everything needs to be reset to before the monster was defeated. Even though the health potions and equipment you used will be returned, the time and effort spent cannot be paid back.
Of course, the characters in the game, whose statuses are all reset, will not recall the times they defeated the monster in front of them and will not feel anger or sorrow. However, those who can escape this cycle will not quell their fury that easily.
Fundamentally, if a program has a bug, it's not the responsibility of the game characters or the players. Even if one character walks into a tavern, orders a dish of fried rice and it causes the program to crash, it can only be attributed to the developer for not performing comprehensive tests.
As the developer made this game and appointed an administrator with high privileges, it becomes the administrator's responsibility to perfect the entire program. If a bug unfortunately occurs, it is necessary to restore and fix it, and should provide compensation.
However, what OAA did—tracing back the individual universe—is equivalent to, after a bug was found in the program, directly stopping the service for restoration without any compensation.
As the majority of lives in this universe are unaware of restoration, such behavior inevitably seems like deceiving, making fools of everyone.
Game characters should not be reset just like that. Preventing the destruction of the universe is not a valid excuse to restore without offering compensation.
Ordinary people who are unaware of this event are just like the characters in the game; they can't see the administrators, nor were they aware of their existence.
However, beings like Shiller, Stark, and Strange, who are already aware of the truth of the universe are like players co-existing with the administrators in the third dimension.
As characters in the game are unaware of the administrator's existence, they can't do anything even when there is no compensation given. However, the players won't stand by and do nothing.
Time, effort, painstakingly gathered resources disappear in a flash. Not only does the official side not offer compensation, they don't even apologize.
They even published a post, claiming that the players who found bugs are meddling troublemakers trying to destroy the universe, and boldly say, "You are ruining this game," and would defend their action of resetting as saving the universe with merciful, life-saving purpose.
Any normal person bears the responsibility if such a game can survive for three months.
Therefore, Shiller's original intent was to just get some maintenance compensation.
He was not demanding much for the compensation, as the speed at which OAA fixed the bug was fast, so there was not even a shutdown. Thus, he couldn't be too greedy.
Compensate with some energy and pretend nothing happened. If they offer some technology and blueprints, he will forget about everything. If they could offer a few spare resource planets, Shiller would unilaterally declare OAA as the eternal God in the realm of supreme existence.
Shiller's attitude towards the restart is, either don't restart, or if you are restarting, give compensation. Unplanned maintenance is acceptable, but compensation must be given. Fixing the bug and improving the system to protect the Game World is acceptable, but compensation must be given. If not, who else should be targeted other than you?
Yet it is unknown whether Shiller's request for compensation was too grand, too aggressive, or OAA simply misunderstood. The supreme existence directly exiled the entire multiverse from the Marvel Comics Universe.
Outside the main Marvel headquarters in the cosmos, there are quite a few additional universes, such as the cross-promotional universe, the legal dispute universe, and the universe that is still in negotiations for cooperation, etc. These universes aren't in the main Marvel universe but are part of the Marvel Universe, somewhat like trinkets of the Marvel Universe.
If you represent the main universe as a spherical hood with countless matryoshka dolls inside, these extra universes are essentially trinkets hanging on this spherical hood.
Now, the whole multiverse which Shiller is in, has been hung by OAA outside the hood of the central universe, becoming part of the spin-off universes.
This suits the consistent public relations strategy, the most efficient PR methods in the world besides playing dead are severance.
We have severely criticized the relevant infringers and demanded compensation, the individual behavior of the employees does not entail the company, temporary staff's training is insufficient, we regret but are not legally responsible for this …
In any case, there are countless ways of passing the buck. It's nothing new to sever ties with any objects that may engage in legal disputes. If asked, it has nothing to do with the main creative team at all. It's all because of the staff's sloppy work. This method is universally accepted in ancient and modern times, domestically and internationally.
Shiller didn't expect OAA to be so decisive, but more startled than him were the five major gods of this multiverse.
Each multiverse has five major gods, and when the five major gods of this multiverse where Shiller is located awake, they find themselves "optimized".
As the five gods forming the foundation of the universe, they can't resign from their job. They merely changed from programmers in the head office into gatekeepers on the outskirts of the city. Eternity, during the process when OAA threw the whole universe out, unprecedentedly developed a keen urge to resign from his job.
However, Eternity is the cosmos and the cosmos is Eternity, it's a lifetime job, resignation is not an option. Moreover, as long as this universe remains part of the Marvel theme, Eternity is still under the jurisdiction of the Court of Life, which means, Eternity still has to attend when the Court of Life holds a meeting.
Initially, when the Court of Life held a meeting, Eternity only needed to send part of his power to attend. But now, including Eternity, the five major gods have to cross the whole world's barrier if they want to go to work, and then they can succeed in clocking in.
If anyone is at fault in this matter, it's OAA for not carefully checking the system resulting in a bug and not providing compensation upon reboot. Shiller, for pressing so hard for compensation, fretted the other party so much that they decided on severance. Hence, the innocent one might be Eternity.
The company boss isn't him, the project deployment does not involve him, the compensation decision isn't issued by him. He is just a programmer drawing salary, but when he woke up, he found that his workplace had moved from Dashilar to Tongzhou. He is a regular guy under the Marvel Universe, and he has to trek through mountains and oceans to simply go to work. Who did he offend?
Since the five great gods all have their own personalities, Eternity is bound to be angry. However, there is no chance he-can vent his anger at his own boss.
He doesn't want to provoke Shiller again either. In case this mad man releases countless personalities once again and stirs the universe into a mess, OAA might implement another round of severance, then the workplace will have to be moved to Wuhu.
Moreover, Eternity has doubts about this matter. He doesn't understand why Shiller went mad. In order to figure out why he was hit by undeserved calamity, Eternity started investigating the root cause along the timeline of what happened.
As time rewinds, the sequence of events unfolds before his eyes.
Shiller went mad because OAA reset his universe. OAA reset his universe because some of Shiller's behaviors caused a bug in the world.
And Shiller behaving so was because he wanted to go to the land of death, and he wanted to go to the land of death because he wanted to set up a hall of valiant spirits.
And the reason he wanted to set up a hall of valiant spirits was because he noticed that death was in business with Asgard and the Egyptian pantheon.
Wait, what? Death in business with Asgard and the Egyptian Pantheon?
When it came up, Eternity could not help being puzzled. How could death cooperate with these two organizations?
As gods managing the order of the cosmos, indeed they do have some believers. For instance, Captain Universe Spider-Man and The Ancient One are Eternity's deputies.
However, there are explicit rules about how to exercise one's powers. These deputies work for Eternity, and Eternity pays them with powers — these are all in compliance with regulations.
But, for death to gain more death, deliberately denying some creature's death, letting the leaders of that force use them to generate more death, that is a kind of performance-attributing behavior.
It's like, in order to complete a quota, deliberately letting some criminals slip through so they can commit more crimes. And then, after their crimes become more heinous, their charges more severe, their reputation bigger, take them down to buff up one's CV.
So, everything was because death was brushing up its performance???
Eternity's current feeling is, I used to be afraid of people, but people have never hurt me a bit; I'm not afraid of ghosts, but the insider makes me suffer all over.
No discussion, any performance that was brushed up will be voided, any hall of valiant spirits that was illegally operated on will be banned. The main idea of the message Eternity passed onto death was: "Similar behavior again, and I can report to the big boss."
Thus, all the setups of allowing cosmic beings to resurrect at their own will, which death put into place over the span of a few hundred thousand years in the universe, disappeared overnight. Naturally, this includes the hall of valiant spirits in Asgard, the Netherworld of the Egyptian pantheon, and other similar worlds.
First off, a new possibility that comes out from the development of this cosmos is, death is in big trouble.