"The Universe Civilization Allied Army does not currently have specific intelligence about Salo. We only heard about the name of this Bug Emperor through brief eavesdropping and know that his life form is much more ancient, which makes him easier for us to study."
Shiller, standing in the main control room of the spaceship, commented, "But there aren't many places we can hold here. The area near the big black hole is not suitable for any life form to survive. The insect race won't go through the trouble of defending there."
"The insect race also realizes that most life forms in this universe cannot resist the black hole, so they can weaken their defenses in the direction of the black hole where the transmission gate points. This means that their main forces must be positioned in the direction unrelated to the black hole."
"This ship definitely cannot resist the gravity of the black hole with us, so we may have to abandon this escort ship later. Our physical bodies must infiltrate from the direction of the black hole and sneak into the Insect Race's defense perimeter to have any chance of quietly reaching Salo and abducting him."
Banner frowned slightly and said, "I agree with your previous statements, but are we really going to capture that Bug Emperor alive? Isn't that risk a bit too high?"
"The higher the risk, the greater the return." Doom countered, "In fact, during the flight, I used the new materials left by Stark to make a capture robot in the lab."
As Doom spoke, he snapped his fingers and a small hexagonal robot flew out of the lab. Reed's eyes widened a fraction and a mocking smile began to spread across his face as he heard Doom say, "Only idiots would make traps as big as planets. For surprise attacks, the smaller the weapon, the better."
Unsure of the existence form of the Bug Emperor, Doom incorporated all imaginable capture methods into the robot, including physical preposition, magic confinement, energy wrapping, and time stagnation, etc.
"The robot only needs to stall for a moment," Shiller stated. "Because I need time to drift over in my mist form, and once I touch him, I can drag him into dreaming. At that point, his physical form will naturally be unable to fight back. This is the most reliable way to combat sentient beings."
The group exchanged glances, feeling that this battle strategy could be somewhat effective. But Reed still hesitated. Before heading to the cabin door, he asked, "Do we really need so many people to catch a bug? What use would it be for me to go too? Couldn't I just stay in the spaceship providing you guys with information?"
"Reed Richards!" Banner seemed unable to take any more, he turned and angrily said to Reed, "You are half the reason for this mess! Can't you take responsibility?"
"I just feel that something is wrong..." Reed grumbled, but still followed the rest outside.
A flicker of emotion passed behind Shiller's glasses. He turned his eyes and glanced at Doom, but still said, "We have to abandon the ship together because the Insect Race aren't fools. They will detect this spaceship sooner or later, and by then we will be too late to escape."
"And the Insect Race that defends the Central black hole star zone have never been to the frontline. They probably don't know yet what tactics humans can use for attack. We can catch them off guard and inflict as much damage as possible to reduce the casualties on the front lines."
Shiller spoke righteously, and since he was the main one undertaking the attack, Reed found it hard to object. Moreover, he knew that Shiller's shadow was present in all major and minor events on Earth over the past few years and trusted in Shiller's abilities to plan a mission. So he reluctantly followed them out.
The life support equipment for Earthlings to survive in space has developed quite well. For those that need to transform like Banner, a badge-sized life support device is sufficient. For those who don't need to transform but still require a life support device, such as Otto and Connors, they can wear a belt or a bracelet.
In this way, a small team composed of Shiller, Peter, Banner, Otto, Doom, Reed, and Connors moved towards the direction of the big black hole. Shiller transformed into a mist to resist the gravity of the black hole and shield them from other cosmic radiation effects.
Sure enough, as Shiller anticipated, Insect Race fleets patrolled regularly in several other directions. Bug forces led by Salo seemingly had the ability to use saliva and other secretions to build their nests and hives in the cosmos like islands in the sky, resulting in an abundance of their disgusting tumor-like nests near the transmission gate. Only in the direction of the Black Hole was the infestation less dense.
To prevent Hulk from going berserk and ruining the infiltration mission, Spider Man quietly approached the bug nest holding Doctor Otto's miniature sun device and then threw it in like a flash bomb.
But this miniature sun was not a real flash bomb; it was more like a small-scale nuclear fusion detonator. Once Spider Man, who was throwing the bomb, retreated to a safe distance, he pressed the remote control and in an instant, everything within the bug hive, insects, and the hive, all turned to ash.
The light was decaying very quickly. It was as if the whole cosmos brightened for just a fraction of a second and then returned to darkness.
They used this method to deal with the bug nests around the planned path, ensuring that the Insect Race would not be able to react immediately. Shiller then led the group in mist form towards the Antimatter Universe Transmission Gate.
Even though they knew it was safe, the human beings inevitably felt somewhat nervous. The psychological pressure of infiltrating the enemy's base alone was no small matter. For this reason, the others did not notice when Shiller gave Doom a signal, and Doom quietly pressed a button on his wrist.
Not even a minute had passed before noticeable disturbance began occurring among the surrounding Insect Race defense team. Reed's eyes shot wide open, and he started looking around like a mongoose on alert.
"What's going on? Have they discovered us?"
"They may have already found our spaceship." Shiller's tone became serious. "We must speed up. It's only a matter of time before they discover us."
Suddenly, a "beep beep beep" sound radiated from Doom's face, causing Reed next to him to jump with surprise. Doom pressed a button on his cheek and spoke with a tone tinged with shock.
"We've been locked on by bio-chemical weapons, dodge it now!!!"
In an instant, the gray mist fluctuated and became denser, then enveloped everyone inside like a cocoon. With a swift "swoosh", they moved at a speed almost like teleportation. Their previous location was replaced by a burst of green light in the dark universe space.
Poisonous gas and radiation spread in an instant. Before the group even had time to react, a dim red glow rose from behind them.
The humans, wrapped in the mist, turned around and saw a bug bigger than a planet in front of the biggest hive at the antimatter universe transmission gate.
It lay on the planet-sized hive, its three enormous eyes glowing red fixated on the tiny humans. Numerous holes emerged on its underbelly, also glowing red, from which countless vile-looking insect soldiers were crawling out.
Reed let out a terrified scream. Connors rushed forward to cover his mouth but Reed struggled violently and broke free. In a near panic, Reed yelled at Doom, "Where are your disruption robots? Release one quickly!!!"
Doom stood transfixed, staring at the huge creature in front of him. He was gripping a robot in his hand but wasn't throwing it. One of the creature's giant limbs swayed down, resembling the scythe of the god of death.
Seeing the mountain-like sharp edges about to fall on his head, Reed completely lost it and lunged at Doom, hoping to snatch away the robot to stop the horrifying attack by the giant insect.
But Doom seemed a step too slow to react, and was knocked to the ground by Reed. Reed grabbed the robot from Doom's hand, used the leg armor made by Doom, and sprinted ahead. Reed then throw the robot right towards the clawed limb.
In his eagerness, Reed failed to notice that he'd rushed too far, reaching the edge of the gray mist.
The giant creature was more responsive than anyone expected. Noticing Reed hurling the unknown object, its first reaction was to dodge by changing the direction of its limb.
However, Reed had rushed too close to the giant claw-like limb. At the edge of the gray mist where gravity was hardly shielded, Reed, like a tiny meteor, was caught in the gravity pull of the giant claw. The claw, in its attempt to dodge the robot, flung back, and along with it, Reed was sent flying.
Little did Reed know, he would be heading directly towards the antimatter universe transmission gate. Thus Reed, yet to realize the gravity pulling him in, was sucked into the antimatter universe transmission gate.
At that moment, the gray mist suddenly dispersed. The mini robot Doom had created crashed into the surface of the giant claw. In an instant, all the restraints took effect, with the time stagnation device being the deadliest one.
It seemed that the timelines of the antimatter and positive matter universes were inexplicably intertwined, hence the timeline cutting device also worked on the Insect Race. The giant bug stiffened slightly.
The gray mist then targeted humanoid insect, Salo, who was perched atop the giant bug and was one of the leaders of the Insect Race invasion into the positive matter universe.
A waft of alcohol scent filled the air. Salo felt droplets falling on his skin and an unknown but invasive mist factor carrying this weird liquid penetrating his body.
In an instant, the world spun around for Salo. His consciousness was dragged into the psychic space. His physical body was knocked over by Spider-Man and then quickly dragged away by Otto's mechanical tentacles.
The gray mist quickly evacuated the humans from the battlefield. The insects within the defense circle didn't fully react yet and were waiting for their emperor's command, a command they would never receive.
Upon their return, they saw that their escort ship had not come under the Insect Race attack, and Connors had already sensed something amiss.
So, as soon as Shiller had reformed his human shape, Connors immediately turned to look at him. Shiller already knew what he was about to ask and laughed. He said,
"If Reed is best at causing major catastrophes that could destroy the universe, why not let him loose in the enemy's universe?"
Everyone else finally understood. They looked at each other and more or less grasped the crux of Shiller's strategy: unleashing Reed, the proverbial 'shit', onto the enemies in a classic and effective shit-slinging tactic.