Peter heard It speak.
"The Cosmos is about to be destroyed."
Peter opened his mouth slightly, but didn't show a particularly astonished expression. After hesitating for a moment, he sighed with a complicated look and said: "I know."
What he didn't tell Bruce was that right after the High Energy Collider was launched, in the gap of a high-energy particle spray, Peter gained a transcendent perspective.
He saw the cosmos as if it was a massive server, with each universe's configuration files telling him their lifespans were nearing their ends.
"You know something, right?" Peter looked up at the gigantic black sun and said, "You don't belong here, you're an outsider, so you can see everything."
"The space-time disorder in the Mysterious Space within the gray mist is no accident." Peter took a deep breath and summoned his courage to say, "I know it's already fatally flawed, a sign that it's about to collapse, and you've taken advantage of this sign."
The black sun was silently suspended in mid-air, its mysterious patterns constantly shifting. Peter tried to decipher them, to gain some knowledge, but there was always a thin fog swirling in his mind, preventing him from seeing the entire picture.
But those yearnings for the truth, to understand secrets, made Peter feel an instinctual coldness, as if this quite natural curiosity was pushing him toward death.
"Thank you for saving me." Peter lowered his head and said, "Even though I was prepared to die, no one truly wants to die. All good things in this world come with a price. What do you want me to do?"
"Destroy it, then wait for its rebirth."
At that moment, the grand and strange particle flow within the black sun depicted a series of mysterious patterns, directing countless knowledge into Peter's mind, making him understand all the truths.
The Cosmos really is going to be destroyed, but it ought to be destroyed.
After Peter left, Shiller's figure appeared on Sky Island within the gray mist. This is the world within the ring given to him by the gray mist. Soon after him, came another figure, it was Adam.
But this was not the impatient Warlock Adam from before, this was the true Adam from the Court of Life.
Adam arrived much later than expected. Shiller assumed he would come the moment Battleworld was activated, but he didn't show up until Battleworld was nearly in its final form.
Of course, he came here to discuss some matters about Battleworld, but there was something more important—the cosmos needs to be rebooted.
Take note, it's not a reboot of one or two universes per se, or to put it more accurately, it's the transition of Marvel's era.
In the main story of Marvel, continuing from where we left off, the Transcendent triggered a game of colliding universes with a slap of his forehead.
The great cosmic collision still inevitably happened, countless universes were destroyed in the collision, leaving behind only 24.
The result was even worse; the collision didn't stop. After all the universes paired up and collided, there were only two universes left—the Prime Universe 616 and the Ultimate Universe 1610.
All superheroes fought to the death, but even then, the two universes couldn't escape the destiny of being destroyed in the collision.
Finally, God King Doom, using the powers of the Transcendent, established Battleworld, where the superheroes fought. Reed obtained all of the Transcendent's powers stored inside the Molecule Man, and rebooted the Multiverse.
Thereafter, Marvel entered a completely new era.
So, was this just another sloppy job from Marvel's editorial staff?
Actually no, in terms of quality, the Secret Wars event was considerably decent. Even though the proceedings were a bit dragged out in the middle, the ending of destruction and rebirth matched the all-out presence of the various characters. The ups and downs of the storyline did not result in anti-climax.
This plot wasn't just thought up on a whim, its most important purpose was to bring everything back to its original state.
As we all know, Marvel comics, after many years of development, and going through the hands of different main editors, individual editors, and collaborated editors, has resulted in superheroes and world settings that cannot be described as rigorous or complete, but rather are riddled with holes.
Some characters look one way with one editor and change drastically when handled by another; background stories are written and overturned, overturned and rewritten, leaving even loyal Marvel fans confused. This can make it especially difficult for new readers who don't know where to start.
Beginning with individual character storylines, changes occur as characters become part of the main storyline which become incomprehensible unless you've been keeping up with the main story.
Trying to catch up with the main storyline can be a marathon, especially given the inconsistent quality of Marvel's large-scale event designs. Some storylines can even be described as being both terrible and long—holding your nose and forcing yourself to read can feel unbearable. But if you don't read them, you're left fearing that you won't understand the settings.
Years of accumulated settings have piled up in such a way that it's hard to turn back. So, it's becoming increasingly difficult for new readers to jump in, and fresh blood is becoming scarce, contributing to this pile-up.
The contradictions in character settings and worldview have triggered division among old fans. Some are stacking up boxes, and some are finding loopholes. The output of fan-fiction and influence of fans are declining year by year.
Therefore, a complete reboot of the Marvel Universe is imperative. Establishing a unified worldview, and straightening out every superhero's backstory will allow new readers to read any comic book without having to consume every comic ever created to understand the plot, much like the Herculean task of patching up the sky like the goddess Nüwa.
So, the Secret Wars event came to pass.
You could say that this major event was basically prepared for this grand reboot. The whole plot was designed merely for this purpose. In the end, it blew up all the previous universes, setting things right for the reboot.
But now there's a problem. Shiller has somehow abducted the Transcendent.
Through a series of psychological therapies, Shiller successfully transformed the Transcendent into a different type of thrill-seeker. The Transcendent shifted focus from watching universes clash to engaging in epic battles in the arena.
As the saying goes, a prodigal who returns is more precious than gold. However, once the prodigal Transcendent has run away, how would the universe be rebooted?
Of course, we could rewrite a major event just to dip our dumpling in some vinegar, but that would be too much hassle. Anyway, the filling and wrapper are still there, we'll just have to wrap it in a different way.
So, these administrators at Marvel discussed among themselves and decided that if they couldn't make dumplings, they could make buns instead. To prevent anyone, especially Shiller, from meddling again, they decided to invite him to join in directly.
As long as Shiller is recruited as a company employee, wouldn't that mean they wouldn't have to compensate him for the reboot?
But someone might ask, isn't it necessary to pay a salary if Shiller becomes a company employee? Compensation is momentary, but salaries are long-term. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to pay compensation?
But it isn't as simple as that.
Shiller is a player, and if he demands compensation, he won't do it alone. He'll pull others in to join him, triggering a wave of demand for compensation.
Not everyone wants the same compensation. Powers like Earth, where Shiller resides, mostly want more energy; some Earths want technology, others want safety. If they were to tailor the compensation to everyone's desires, the universe administrators might as well quit their jobs and become deliverymen for compensations.
However, if Shiller becomes an employee, they can just pay him a salary, which is basically a form of hush money. After all, no one but him knows that we're rebooting the universe. Everyone gets to make money as long as you keep quiet about it.
Shiller has been causing havoc in this cosmos for a long time now, not because he's universally beloved, but because everywhere he goes, chaos ensues. The reason is simple: He's not after money nor survival. He's just in it for the fun. He only does three things when visiting a universe: watching fireworks, watching fireworks, and watching fireworks.
As luck would have it, Adam from the Court of Life, who has been closely watching Shiller, discovers that Shiller has recently run into a bit of trouble because he's run out of aliases, so he's almost lost his source of amusement.
This presents a golden opportunity for negotiations because they hold what Shiller currently desires the most.
As is well-known, Shiller doesn't have much of a backstory in Marvel. Initially, in order to avoid being tied to the Book of Destiny in DC, his Superego used System Energy to shift Shiller to Marvel.
The identity of the psychiatrist he possesses in Marvel is simply a creation of the system.
It's not that the Superego didn't want to create a superhero-like character, but as an outsider, he lacked the jurisdiction. The backstory of Marvel superheroes can only be authored by universe administrators.
So, the Superego could only fabricate the identity of a civilian without a backstory. If it wasn't for Tony's poor state of health at that time with Pepper desperately seeking treatment from any doctor with available time, Shiller would have had a hard time infiltrating into superhero stories with this identity.
This led to a problem. Shiller has no origin story, making it impossible to be anything other than a psychiatrist named Shiller. Now, everyone knows of a psychologist named Shiller meddling in the affairs behind the scenes.
Now, it's not so easy for Shiller to change his alias. Most of the universes that have heard of Shiller are on high alert for psychologists, like what Nick did before. No matter where the trouble arises, just capture the psychologist.
This led Shiller to steer clear of any work relating to psychology, not even as a doctor, let alone scholarly professors with similar temperament as his previous identity.
You claim you're not Shiller, but what evidence do you have? Why should I believe you're not Shiller? Even if you're not Shiller, we must not let our guard down. Arrest all those who look like Shiller first and ask questions later.
This has greatly increased the difficulty for Shiller to change his alias, and Adam seized this opportunity, offering Shiller a deal he couldn't refuse.
As long as Shiller helps them complete this era-changing universal reboot, they will use their administrator privileges to establish an official origin for Shiller's new alias.
They guarantee that the official origin is both comprehensive and detailed, with the new alias holding a similar power level, and, most importantly, having no connection to the original Shiller whatsoever.