"How did you get here?"
A hoarser than usual voice resonated in the empty, dark room.
Helen just quietly stared at Strange. Strange looked up and repeated his question, but Helen insisted, "You have to answer my question first, Honorable Supreme Mage, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, just about as fine as I can possibly be." Strange, propping himself up from the ground, stood up with some stiffness. From his elevated perspective, he looked down at Helen and said, "How did you get here?"
Helen raised the suitcase in her hand and said, "We designed a machine that responds to summoning calls. And as you were summoning an Evil God, we responded to your call and naturally ended up here."
Helen looked up at Strange and asked, "So why were you summoning an Evil God?"
"You seem to know me quite well." Strange said with narrowed eyes.
"You are our professor and dean." Harley stepped forward, rubbing her still churning stomach, and said, "In another universe, you are not just a Supreme Magician, but also the dean of Karmatige Magic Academy and a professor at Gotham Magic Academy. We have all taken your classes."
"Another universe? The parallel universe you speak of?"
Helen nodded, "That's right, we come from a parallel universe and we're currently tracking down a troublemaker."
Before Helen finished her sentence, Strange suddenly advanced. He half-kneeled and pressed his hands on Helen's shoulders, gazing at her intensely, "What about Christine from that universe? Is she still alive?"
"Who is Christine?" Helen asked, looking at him somewhat disoriented.
"You don't know Christine? You've never seen her before?" Strange's hands slightly tightened their grip on Helen's shoulders. He instinctively noticed that her petite body was as hard as a rock, but he didn't have the mind to focus on that. All he wanted to know was Christine's whereabouts.
Helen, Harley, and Barry looked at each other and shook their heads in unison. Helen looked closely at Strange's expression and said, "Is she important to you? Is she your wife?"
"She's my girlfriend." Strange replied, slightly desolate. He let go of her, stood up, turned around, and said, "This place is a separate dimension, devoid of the offender you're hunting for. You should leave."
Helen carefully studied Strange again and conjectured, "May I ask, how old were you when you were serving as the head surgeon at the New York Elderly Association Hospital?"
Strange walked over to a cushion nearby and kneeled down, closing his eyes to meditate, ignoring the question.
But Helen didn't give up, she continued speaking, "In our universe, Stephen Strange became the Supreme Magician while serving as the head surgeon at the New York Elderly Association Hospital."
Strange's eyes suddenly opened. He stared intently at Helen and said, "What did you say? I became the Supreme Magician while I was still working at the Elder Council Hospital? At that time, I was just in my early thirties."
"Yes, quite young." Helen nodded, adding, "But you were already a world-renowned surgeon."
"That's far from accurate." Strange's expression turned serious. He continued, "At that time, I was just starting to make my name, and I hadn't met Christine yet."
"Then, I'm afraid you won't have the chance to meet her. I'm talking about Dr. Strange from our universe. Subsequently, you became the spokesperson for the Eternal Life Factor, then you became The Ancient One's student, and established The Sanctum. From then on, you never had a moment's rest and we never heard about you being romantically involved."
Strange fell silent once again as if trying to recall something. However, he quickly added, "That's better. We would have no interaction, Christine wouldn't die. She could continue to be a surgeon. She is the best surgeon in the world."
"What about you?" Helen took a few steps forward, set her case on the ground, looked at Strange's pale face and said, "What is really going on? Dr. Strange, you look absolutely awful, as if you're nearing death."
"But I'm not dead." Strange said, his expression as rigid as a zombie's. He wandered deep in thought and added, "Christine died. Not me."
With a swift motion, the three children huddled together. Harley glanced at Strange as she said, "A very typical case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, in a catatonic state. This suggests he has repeatedly experienced profound shock and is currently in a long, slow process of deterioration."
"Do you have any medication?"
"No use, even if we did, he wouldn't take it." Harley hugged her arms saying, "I've heard that the Supreme Mage can reverse time. If his girlfriend were to die, he would definitely try repeatedly to reverse time to avert the tragedy."
"But looking at him now, he certainly failed. As Professor Shearer has said, these people often underestimate the power of psychological trauma. Repeatedly reversing time and witnessing the death of a loved one can cause immense psychological distress. As it seems now, he's beyond saving."
"We have to save him, regardless." Helen looked back at Strange and said, "Didn't you hear my Dad say earlier that this universe will eventually collapse? I suspect it has something to do with him."
"Although I'm not a superhero, we are still looking for clues to the murderer in this universe. If he destroys the universe, won't we lose all our clues?"
Harley pursed her lips in thought and then said, "The best solution is to bring his girlfriend back to life, but if he failed, we probably won't succeed either. As for counseling... we came a bit too late. The psychological trauma is already ingrained."
Helen spun her eyes around and said, "This situation seems a bit similar to the Spider-Man from the Zombie Universe. They've both repeatedly experienced cycles of trauma, leaving indelible emotional scars."
"So I think we can follow Doctor Schiller's method, first use some brain wave therapy to help him recover from his continued degeneration, and then create a grand scene for him to make a heroic comeback."
The three nodded simultaneously while Barry chimed in, "We'd better figure out why he was summoning the Evil God first. This isn't something to joke about. This could be the reason for the destruction of the universe."
The three quickly dispersed. Harley, who had the sharpest observation skills, feigned curiosity about the surroundings and began examining the room. Barry turned his head to look at the magic array drawn on the ground, while Helen approached Strange, intending to subtly probe for information.
Helen followed Strange's example, kneeling down on the floor next to the mat. At a glance, Strange saw Helen's extremely standard kneeling posture.
He looked away, staring straight ahead and asked, "Did you study at Kamar-Taj?"
Helen nodded emphatically, staring at him and said, "Yes, I was a good student."
"Are you the next Supreme Magician?"
"Certainly not, it's not like all the thousands of students can be the next Supreme Magician. I only went there because my mother is a professor there."
"Who is your mother?"
"Loki, who is occasionally my dad as well."
Strange was silent for a long time, as if digesting this news, but then Helen dropped another bomb.
"Yes, my dad is Iron Man."
Strange finally couldn't help it. He turned his head to look at Helen and asked, "How did he manage that?"
"Don't ask, I can't explain it."
The two fell silent again. Strange closed his eyes and meditated, and Helen also pretended to close her eyes. After a while, she turned her head and stared at Strange with glowing eyes.
The intense gaze was hard to ignore, forcing Strange to open his eyes and look at Helen, hoping that she would stop staring at him.
But the moment he opened his eyes, Helen asked, "Did you summon the Evil Gods to devour them?"
Strange's fist clenched, but Helen continued to speak, picking at her nails, "Actually, I noticed the moment I landed. You aimed some kind of absorbent magic at the magic array, there was a moment when you wanted to attack, but you gave up."
Again Strange closed his eyes, but Helen kept staring at him and said, "You know I'm not a human, don't you? You have felt the immense power I possess, the power you need."
Strange's hand that was resting on his leg clenched. He opened his eyes and in a deep voice said, "What are you trying to say?"
"Aren't you afraid that we are illusions created by the Evil Gods? Why don't you try convincing yourself of this and then act accordingly?"
Strange's silence grew longer, but his clenched fist stayed clenched. Helen retracted her gaze, looking at the floor in front of her and said, "You're not as bad as you think, you can't even deceive yourself. You know what's right and what's wrong, and yet you can't stop."
"I have to save her." Strange's voice started trembling, he said, "The Ancient One told me that without her there would be no subsequent Supreme Magician, she died because of me."
"So, you want to summon the Evil Gods, devour their power, and then resurrect her?" Helen shook her head, appearing strongly opposed.
But Strange's gaze suddenly grew cold. He stood up, both his hands ignited in a magical glow and he looked at three children saying, "Now, get out of here, I don't have time to fool around with you."
"Do you know that this will lead to the collapse of the cosmos?" Helen fearlessly stared into his eyes and said, "Not only will Christine not be revived, but you and all the other people in this world will die."
"That can't be, I..."
"We come precisely from such a future." Helen stated emphatically, "The cosmos was destroyed, and the clues we were searching for disappeared. This is why we traveled back in time to figure out what caused the destruction and then we found you."
"You're lying to me." Strange's hands overflowed with a magical glow which materialized into two golden whips flying towards Helen with a whistling sound.
Helen didn't move, the whip came to a halt just ten centimeters away from her hair.
"I told you already, you know what is right and what is wrong, you know what you are doing is wicked, that's why you're in pain, that's why you're so miserable."
Strange gritted his teeth, maintaining his grip on the whip. The next second, he stretched one hand forward, the whip wrapped around Helen, lifting her into the air.
Instead of the anticipated fear and struggle, Helen mildly flexed her arm and with a slight jerk, the magic whip disintegrated into several pieces with a series of "crack" sounds.
Helen landed on the ground, whereas Strange was shocked at his own hand. Not because Helen had broken free, but because the power he used to create the whip had disappeared.
Helen opened her mouth, and the other magic whip on Strange's hand turned into magical energy and was sucked into her mouth.
Helen showed Strange a bright smile and said, "You've got a long way to go when it comes to devouring the Demon God."
"I'm not here to stop you, but to tell you the correct method to savor the feast of the Evil Gods."