Aux found himself in a completely dark world, or perhaps it wasn't that the world was only black, but that he couldn't see anything at the moment.
Suddenly, a faint red light appeared above his head, and when he looked up, he saw a huge eye, followed by two eyes and a blurred face.
He heard a sigh from a woman, unsure if he had heard those slight complaints, but he indeed saw a giant woman's face above his head, as if he was placed in a box in her palm.
Then a man's voice appeared, sounding very familiar. The two conversed for a while; the woman's tone showed impatience, but ultimately, he was moved and handed over to the man, then taken to an unknown distance.
After a few handovers, he arrived at a place filled with light, feeling as if he were soaked in warm water, just like inside his mother's womb.
A dazzling burst of bright light flashed, and Aux abruptly sat up. He found himself still lying in bed; was that just a dream?
But he quickly froze because he saw blood from his pillow dripping onto the sheets, the blood he had left behind earlier.
Aux subconsciously touched his neck but found nothing, yet the blood was real. Turning his head, he found Shiller was bending down writing a medical record.
Aux cleared his throat, but found his voice unusually clear. In fact, ever since his health had deteriorated, his voice had been hoarse, likely a side effect of overusing medication, just like those addicts.
Then he touched his body, squeezing the muscles in his arm firmly—this was a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time. Previously, he was a fitness enthusiast, with particularly well-developed arm and back muscles, often envied by friends at the gym.
However, since going to the space station, his mental state had declined, and he hadn't had much time to exercise. Coupled with insufficient nutritional supplements and the influence of medication, his muscles had almost completely reduced; this full and powerful feeling had been absent for a long time.
Aux touched his face, even the beard on his face felt pricklier than before—a sign of good nutrition.
But he also knew that restoring nutrition and adjusting the body's condition was a long process; no magical medicine could restore someone to the healthiest state overnight, so what exactly was happening?
By then, Shiller appeared to have finished writing, he put down his pen, turned around, and asked, "How are you feeling? Is there any discomfort?"
"I'm fine," said Aux. "I just feel something unusual, what exactly happened?"
"You died and then were revived," Shiller said straightforwardly. "I killed you, then revived you from Death, now tell me how you feel."
Aux cried out loud, then covered his mouth with his hand, looking around. It seemed Lisa had heard the noise and ran up from downstairs; Aux quickly shouted, "It's nothing, Lisa! I just accidentally fell out of bed!"
Lisa sighed in relief, "You have to be careful, Aux, don't scare the doctor..."
After they spoke, both were stunned; it was like returning to the old days. In fact, conversations like this had been rare because Aux always seemed disoriented and numb, and it had been a long time since he felt as vital as now.
Previously, Shiller had learned from Lisa that Aux liked to overreact, showing his emotions openly and prone to laughing and crying big. Now, this seemed like a good sign.
"Alright, lie down let me check you again, if there's no surprise, you should be recovered," Shiller stood up and pushed Aux back onto the bed, and hypnotized him again.
As expected, Aux's mental problems had completely healed. Of course, certain bad memories, especially those of being bullied by his boss, still made him feel depressed, but it was nowhere near the morbid level—his mental illness was indeed tampered with by someone.
And it was tampered with on the body itself.
This was easy to guess; a person only has two components, the software is the mind, the hardware is the body, since there was no problem with the software, the problem must be with the hardware.
Shiller would not question Professor X's examination results; if he said there was no mental issue, then there definitely was none, so the problem lay with the body, and if there was an issue with the body, then a new body was needed.
That's right, Aux wasn't resurrected through possession; he, like Howard and Maria, directly acquired a new body.
After the hypnosis, Shiller took Aux to the bathroom. As soon as the door was opened, Aux was shocked; he was about to scream but Shiller covered his mouth with gray mist.
There was a body lying in the bathtub of the bathroom—it was Aux himself, and the blood had almost completely been drained, with some red remaining at the bottom of the tub.
"Th-th-th-that…" Aux trembled and pointed at his own body.
"Don't overreact; your problem was with your body, so I replaced it. Don't touch this body, agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. will come to collect it soon," lied Shiller.
Indeed, after a while, a helicopter landed on the farm, and several unfamiliar S.H.I.E.L.D. agents quickly placed the body in a body bag and took it away.
Shiller gave Aux medication, and Aux went back to sleep. If nothing unexpected happened, everything would return to normal when he woke up.
Then Shiller went downstairs to find Lisa, and he called Gaia again to reiterate precautions since Aux had recovered normally and the baby would soon be born. To prevent the behind-the-scenes manipulator or that Incubus from causing trouble again, Shiller had to take some preventive measures.
In the following days, Shiller stayed at Lisa's house overseeing their mental states, while also guarding against potential accidents.
Of course, during the day, it was indeed so, but when night fell, Shiller would return to New York through the Gray Mist.
In a temporary prison of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Sofia Adra, pale-faced, curled up in a corner of the room, unable to rest properly due to the bright overhead lamp. The constantly shifting shadows beyond the bars also kept her on edge.
It didn't matter, the mysterious person would definitely come to rescue her, Sofia thought. He had the ability to turn invisible, making it a cinch to extract her from a regular prison. She would soon be free.
As for Beck, he was on his own.
Sofia was exhausted to the brink, and wanted to take the opportunity to catch a little sleep, so she completely missed the shadow that appeared at the end of the hallway, and the figures outside the bars were gradually decreasing.
Finally, only a shadow stood before the bars. Sofia's eyes fluttered open in a daze, but she couldn't see clearly as the shadow approached her.
Sofia jolted awake, but it was too late. Her neck was grasped by a hand, and with a plop, a sharp scalpel slid into her trachea. Sofia convulsed for a dozen seconds before she went completely still.
Beck, sitting next to her, clearly saw a figure in a white coat walk past, but physical examinations were supposed to be during the day. Why would a doctor be there at night?
He heard a faint scream, more like the gurgling sound someone makes when drowning.
Beck's nerves tightened.
Indeed, a shadow appeared outside the bars. Beck, somewhat panic-stricken, retreated to the corner of the wall, and just a second before the scalpel was thrust into his throat, he saw his face—Shiller!!!
He couldn't cry out, and like Sofia, he too became a lifeless corpse.
The next morning, Nick was awakened by a phone call. He incredulously said into the phone, "What did you say? Silenced? What are you guys doing?!"
Nick almost cursed out loud since these two were arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D., but it only took three days in Federal Bureau of Investigation's hands to get them silenced.
He had to hurriedly get dressed and rush to the murder scene.
There was a knock on Clark's door, who was still farming in Mexico, but this time his partners were not Magneto, but Wolverine and the other X-Men, with whom Clark got along quite well.
"I'll be right there!" Clark removed his muddy gloves, opened the door, and saw an unexpected person—Shiller.
"Good morning, Clark, I am here hoping you could help me find someone," Shiller said straightforwardly.
"Alright, who are you looking for? As long as they are on Earth, I should be able to find them."
"A person named Robbins, active in the East Asia region. His mental state should be quite unstable, and he is evading SWORD's pursuit."
Clark nodded. This information was quite enough for him as he could hear everyone speaking around the world. This ability wasn't a brainwave search, couldn't be detected by special equipment, nor would it provoke reactions from East Asian countries.
Clark listened intently for a moment, then furrowed his brow in thought, suddenly enlightened, and then said, "This person is hiding in a hostel in Hong Kong. I didn't see what the hostel was called, but its owner is called 'Fat Chen.'
Clark spoke very fluent Cantonese and gave Shiller a set of geographical coordinates, which was completely sufficient for Shiller. By that evening, he had appeared in Hong Kong.
Eventually, SWORD agents only found Robbins's body.
Ten minutes after receiving this message, Zhengxian, also informed by S.H.I.E.L.D. about Beck and Sofia being silenced, slammed his phone down on the table in anger, preparing to fly to America to meet with Nick.
Subsequently, Shiller found Sandman, and under Spiderman's guarantee, William did not resist and was likewise killed by Shiller, his soul sent to the Realm of Death.
After wrapping up a series of tasks, Shiller went to the Realm of Death and took away a few cube-shaped objects from Death. These cubes contained the souls of the three, and they could be quickly revived by simply going through the processes at the United Heaven Office.
But Shiller didn't do that because among these three, someone must have seen the real behind-the-scenes manipulator.
Shiller conjectured that this might be a type of contamination that could be transmitted from person to person, so there must be a source, which could control who to pass this contamination to.
Originally, Shiller thought this source should be Robbins, because from the timeline, he was the first one affected.
But after careful deduction, he realized this wasn't right; it wasn't about who was affected first, but rather who went insane first.
Robbins, after acquiring the Invisibility Cloak and engaging in petty thievery and voyeuristic activities, was not really abnormal—this could be considered normal adolescent behavior at that time, meaning that he was normal then.
So when did the abnormality begin?