"Heimdall!!!" Loki had just shouted this sentence when he suddenly remembered there was no Heimdall in the Battleworld. He sighed deeply and grabbed the crocodile on the table, throwing it out of the window.
"Let Loki from universe 0632 come see me!"
It wasn't long before the door was opened, and another Loki, holding a magic wand, appeared at the door, leaning on the doorframe and said, "You were looking for me?"
"What's the deal with the supply department of your spaceship research institute's accounts?" Loki turned to look at him and said, "The warehouse has caught fire more than 500 times in the last 600 years. Odin really shortchanged you by not giving you the Fire God title!"
That Loki looked quite young and unconcerned. He shook his head and said, "Who made him not give me the core of that cannon I fancied? I simply burned his warehouse. If I can't have it, no one can…"
With a bang, that Loki was flung away. All the other Lokis in the office briefly lifted their eyes before lowering them again to continue going through the accounts.
Loki shook off his hammer and looked at the returning Crocodile Loki, saying, "Go ask who still has interregional communication data left. Send a message to his brother immediately, say his brother is in our hands..."
"I mean, send the part of the accounts that are in question to his brother." Loki rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling recently he had been a bit scatterbrained.
President Loki stepped over the unconscious body of that younger Loki to come inside, folding his arms as he said, "The statistics are in and as we thought, any universe on the main timeline sees 70% of Asgards facing Ragnarok within 300 years."
"We don't have much time left." Loki looked angrily at the young Loki he had knocked out and said, "And to think we have so many troublemakers here!"
"Don't be angry. Who hasn't been a troublemaker once?" President Loki said with a smile. He walked over to Loki's side, resting his hand on the windowsill and said, "I don't think telling Thor will change anything. Until he awakens, he will never awaken."
"Then we'll do it ourselves," another Loki said without even looking up.
"Dad's always busy waging wars, not caring about anything else. My sister destroyed half of Asgard at the flick of her wrist, and my brother... if only he had a bit more brains. I swear, I owe nothing to that Odin clan!"
Loki threw the ledger onto the table but suddenly realized that his words sounded a bit too much like a nagging wife, so he added, "Luckily, there are still a few reliable Thors. Where's Rune King Thor's brother? And the one who became Father of All Gods, his brother? Call them all here."
Soon, many Lokis gathered together. The brothers who were more accomplished were not as unruly. Among them, Heavenly Father Thor's brother was also managing state affairs for his brother and got along best with Loki. There was also Lord Thor's brother, who seemed a bit timid but also had the capability to manage the Nine Realms.
For Loki here, exploring the Battleworld wasn't important at all, because they were already struggling to survive. Ever since his brother became the King of Brightness, he's been exploring ways to completely avoid Ragnarok, but so far, the best method seemed to be to delay it by supplying enough power. There seemed to be no complete solution yet.
Without fusing with other powers, Thor's strength could at most reach the peak of an individual universe. If merged into a trinity, it could attain the strength of the Multiverse, but that was useless, because Asgard's fate is its own and cannot be resolved by others.
If one wished to break through in strength, they had to fuse with other powers, either by sacrificing their eyes to the World Tree or merging with other powerful forces. Thor wanted to walk neither path, and most universes couldn't either.
Thor wanted to save not just his own universe but all Asgards, so he had to find a method that most universes could avoid before a large-scale Ragnarok erupted.
It was possible to have other universes gain enough power to postpone the arrival of Ragnarok, but then, a good cook can't cook without rice. Some universes simply couldn't muster more power, and some Asgards couldn't unite. Universes with later timelines had Thor's siblings who hadn't grown up fully and were even less capable of changing their fate.
Therefore, for Shiller's Asgard in this universe, the Battleworld was the best opportunity to unite other universes and find a way out. Other matters could be put aside for now, focusing first on solving their own survival crisis.
Before entering the Battleworld, Thor, Loki, and Hela had already agreed that they must each take leadership in their squad to unite everyone.
It was relatively easy for Loki since many multiverse Lokis had been picked up by him when the Time Management Bureau had troubles and had been helping with state affairs in the Prince Mansion.
The Lokis weren't the sort to follow 'might makes right,' and seeing the overwhelming support for Loki, most held their noses and accepted it.
Thor and Hela had it less easy. Through interregional communication, Thor learned that there was an intense battle happening. From their descriptions, Loki knew about the existence of so many strong Thors; even the singular universe peak, the King of Brightness, didn't have a sure plan to defeat them.
According to Thor, the most formidable was the Rune King. Just like Odin, he sacrificed his eye to the World Tree and gained the incredibly powerful Rune Power, making him a very tough opponent.
Fortunately, the Rune King in this universe had already solved their universe's Ragnarok problem. He stood basically on the same side as Thor, feeling the issue needed to be dealt with sooner or later and thinking it was his responsibility to help other universes' Asgards.
Heavenly Father Thor, who had become Father of All Gods, was similar. Although very strong, he was comparatively rational and willing to help Thor.
The toughest one to deal with was Lord Thor, currently fighting with Thor. Apparently, his kind side had been split off, leading to his extreme arrogance—it made him a temperamental dictator.
Such a person clearly couldn't be persuaded with reason, which is why Thor was dueling with him now.
The situation over at Hela's front was pretty much the same; although the gap between Hela and her counterparts wasn't that significant, this group of Crown Princesses was naturally war-hungry. As soon as they saw each other, they started brawling, and Hela couldn't extricate herself for the time being.
After receiving messages from Thor and Hela, Loki thought for a moment and then sent out another message.
Helen had reverted to her original form but had shrunk in size. She was now lying on an island basking in the sun. The small animal alliance had been allocated a tropical island, where Gray Mist was using his unique talents to construct houses between the islands.
They might be the only team not to fret over materials, as Gray Mist could mold sand into any shape. At that moment, he had constructed a massive sandcastle, with Rocket Raccoon supervising the work.
Suddenly, there was a sound in the team channel. They checked and found that Helen had sent a picture. The person in it seemed to be Thor.
"Loki said if we run into this hothead, don't hold back and to give him a good thrashing," Helen continued after flipping over, "He tricked Thor into a loss, but he better not let me get my hands on him..."
"Did that egomaniac send you a message?" Rocket Raccoon asked, turning his head.
"Which egomaniac?"
"The most egotistical one."
"Oh, my dad? No, he hasn't, which means he might have run into some trouble too," Helen said with schadenfreude.
Stark indeed encountered some trouble, to be precise, quite a lot of it.
The root of the issue was that during their pre-team formation, they had considered the matter of building houses. Consequently, many Starks had integrated materials into their Mecha equipment using micro-nano technology, so they were the first team to have houses at their disposal.
Their houses were quite cost-efficient, established on the African grassland and resembled an enlarged version of Stark Building; they were more of a conglomerate of laboratories than dwellings.
They also diligently followed the plan agreed upon earlier, which was one room per person, no socializing unless necessary.
Socializing was supposed to be avoided, yet technical communication was still essential. Initially, everyone was busy in their own labs, but it wasn't long before someone couldn't resist raising a technical issue, leading others to join the heated discussion.
Although all of them were among the brightest minds on the planet, the universe presents different scenarios, and their eras varied; there was much to discuss regarding technology.
However, the discussion soon turned problematic. At first, they were somewhat on point, but of course, it eventually led to arguments, with one claiming a certain research direction was wrong, another claiming there was an issue with some data.
As old as time, no argument stays on topic for long, and amidst the discourse, an Iron Man started to grumble that nearly all facilities of the Three Great Empires of his universe had been commandeered, leaving him reference-less upon reaching the cosmos.
Then curiosity arose: who had packed up and removed the equipment of these Three Great Empires? Naturally, the discussion led to that name—Shiller.
Actually, there were quite a few Iron Men in the universe who knew of Shiller; other than those who had dealt with him personally or encountered him in the replicants, many had heard of his renowned name.
All these Iron Men shared a common trait; they all knew that Shiller might lack ethics, but he was definitely not a quack.
Meaning, they all recognized Shiller's professional competency as a psychologist. This sparked even more curiosity among the Iron Men. Was this Doctor really that miraculous?
Upon hearing Shiller loved money, most Iron Men scoffed. It's just money, right? Fortuitously, money I have in abundance. Whoever has this doctor's contact, let me have a look at what this is all about.
And very predictably, the discourse shifted to surmising that Shiller's universe should also have its own Iron Man, all guessing who this Iron Man could be, which room he lived in, and what made him special.
More coincidentally, among the Iron Men was one who professed to know everything from astronomy to geography, named Master of All Things Calculating Element Iron Man, and another who loved stirring the pot, White Can Iron Man.
With just a few words from these two, the secret was out: it was the notorious Iron Demon God.
The trouble began when during the technical discussion, Stark, in an effort to prove he was correct, let slip that he was the Iron Demon God.
Requests for Shiller's contact info flooded in, what was most infuriating were the escalating offers, each bidding higher than the last. Seeing a string of zeros behind their bids, Stark's anxiety truly began to flare up.
Stark opened the cross-regional chat channel, ready to send a message to Shiller, but as soon as the chat window popped up, he was greeted with a glaring line of text—
"The other party is currently in-game and may not receive messages promptly."