deltrittennovels Chapter 633 Dr. Manhattan's Hide-and-Seek with the World Founders
Chapter 633 Dr. Manhattan's Hide-and-Seek with the World Founders
Chapter 633 Dr. Manhattan's Hide-and-Seek with the World Founders
The "destruction" that Brainiac speaks of is not quite the same as the "devouring" that Barbatos used to describe, where he simply and crudely swallowed a universe whole, leaving only an empty shell behind.
The former is simply cutting off the energy that should have returned to the world's furnace. The destroyed universes were only destroyed on the "current" timeline, but in the "past" of the trans-time flow, the timelines of these universes still exist.
Simply put, if the universe were a living person, Barbatos would have killed that person, then cooked a pot of prion soup (with the corpse blurred out) and drunk it. After drinking it, he would smack his lips twice, and that would be the end of it.
Even if this "living person" dies, the chemical energy contained in the corpse is absorbed by Barbatos. One day, after Barbatos is defeated, this energy will still be expelled by him and re-enter the entire time-lapse cycle.
Just as raindrops falling into the sea will one day turn back into water vapor and condense into rain clouds in the sky, Barbatos only absorbed energy, but did not make it disappear out of thin air.
But Brainiac's proposed approach is to completely erase the existence of this living person—past, present, and future—the entire universe, utterly and completely disappearing from the hyper-time stream, as if this universe had never existed at all.
This is precisely what the World Forgers wanted to achieve: to permanently weaken the Hypertime Stream in this way, and then, at the right moment, to reap all the energy collected and destroyed by Brainiac, in order to forge their own Hypertime Stream.
"If we want to remove the past, future, and present of this world from the hypertime stream, the first step is to destroy the future of this world. This is also the simplest step."
Brainiac told the Black Death, "And the method is very simple, you'll understand it in a second: just destroy this world."
Yes, when the universe returns to nothingness and is completely destroyed, what future does this universe have?
The timeline of the universe is a road, and what the Black Death Emperor wants to do is change what might have been "hundreds of thousands of years later, this universe will be destroyed" to "a few hours later, this universe will be destroyed".
Essentially, it was about shortening the length of the "road" to make it easier for Brainiac to steal it.
"But note that this destructive future is not something we created, but rather it is because the original future timeline of this world was destined for destruction."
"If we abruptly cut off what was originally a very long timeline, it is very likely that the hypertime stream will detect an anomaly, which will then trigger a hypertime stream counterattack," Brainiac said.
What is the counterattack of the time-traveling world? It's superheroes, of course! When the time is right, the world joins forces with you—that's no joke. You can even crush an infant multiverse.
"After this universe is destroyed, I will capture a point in time before the destruction on the timeline of this universe, and then transfer this universe to the multiverse space I have created."
Brainiac said, "These universes will fight each other under my guidance until one destroys the other."
"I don't quite understand," said the Black Death Emperor.
"It's essentially a ritual," Brainiac said. "If you need a scientific explanation, I can tell you this: it's a deception of time travel. When one universe destroys another, their histories merge at a certain point. And through that point, I can completely merge the two timelines together."
In other words, through Brainiac's act of causing war between the two universes, the two "roads" intersected, forming a Y-shaped intersection. Brainiac could then manipulate this intersection to merge the two forks of the Y together, completely transforming II into I.
And so on, with each world fighting each other until only one thing remains—a perfectly grown leek.
Making the Black Death Emperor the leader of this temporary alliance is a favorable outcome for both Barbatos and Brainiac.
In fact, both Barbatos and Brainiac knew perfectly well that what they were giving up was less "leadership" and more the power to dominate the destruction of the world.
Because their actions are essentially doing bad things, undermining the Hypertime Stream. Previously, Brainiac stole universes from the Hypertime Stream that were already destined for destruction.
For example, "Future," or Earth 3, which was destroyed in "Crisis on Infinite Earths." Yes, that's the crime syndicate universe, the early Earth 3. Back then, Superman was called Ultimate Man, and Owlman was called Owlman, with a real, fluffy owl on his head.
These universes were all naturally destroyed; they reached their appointed time in the trans-time flow, which is perfectly reasonable and legal.
Then Brainiac went straight to steal it, without any major problems.
But if someone deliberately destroys this universe in a time-travel sequence just to steal it, that's a completely different story... that's turning theft into outright robbery!
Even if the Hypertime Stream didn't react immediately, once the multiverse merged, Brainiac completely melted together the past and future of this universe, causing the Hypertime Stream to permanently lose energy and suffer severe damage.
When people start bleeding profusely, and the timeline traces back to the past, it turns out that it was Barbatos or Brainiac who openly stole it. As the guy who destroyed this universe in the timeline, you are bound to suffer a backlash.
Of the three, only the Black Death Emperor is the embodiment of death; he himself represents death, so only he can…
Okay, I can't keep making this up. In short, the most important reason is that this backlash is so delicious that the Black Death Emperor has to drink it first.
Therefore, when the Black Death Emperor came along, neither Barbatos nor Brainiac showed any intention of taking it.
In fact, destroying the world was also the Black Death Emperor's duty. When he launched the Darkest Night, the world should naturally obey the will of the Lady of Death.
The Black Death Emperor seemed completely unaware that the leadership opportunity he had been pushed into by the other two was a complete trap. He accepted the responsibility with satisfaction and immediately began issuing orders:
"Barbatos, the Batman Who Laughs should have already told you about our collaboration with the Emperor Joker... and as you've seen, that's how it turned out."
"Parallax Morhal will soon deal with the Emperor Joker and then come to help Batman Dragon. You must withstand his invasion through the timeline..."
As he spoke, Brainiac beside him seemed slightly dazed.
Huh?
Why would I do something so dangerous?
Data is being analyzed...
Brainiac began to use his computing power to analyze the data, but he couldn't figure anything out.
Why would I go to all that trouble, revealing my plans to that beast Barbatos, and even offering half of my sixth-dimensional energy to lure him into joining me?
That's exactly what happened. Blaignac was the one who found the rice and set up the pot to cook, but when the meal was cooked, he wanted to give half of it to Barbatos. Isn't that idiotic?
And there's more, and more.
I could have taken my time to gradually collect those cosmic timelines that should have been destroyed in the hypertime stream, like a thief secretly stealing things from a general store.
Although stealing might be slower, over time it can still accumulate into a terrifying sum that I need. But why should I, who am not in a hurry at all, give up the safe and stable act of theft and turn to colluding with others to blatantly rob?
To complete the main mission of the Pacific Convenience Store Heist?
From what I've been doing until now, no matter how you look at it, I've been completely idiotic and mentally challenged. So why am I only now realizing how strange this is?
Brainiac had recovered somewhat, but Barbatos was completely consumed by greed.
Instead of reflecting on whether his behavior was out of line, which was different from his previous approach of ignoring everything else and only wanting to devour corpses, he was now thinking about what kind of powerful new realm he would enter after absorbing the six-dimensional energy refined by Brainiac.
He even harbored ambitions so great that he wanted to throw the corpse of the World Maker into that huge pot of food cooked by Brainiac, but he quickly snapped out of it and dismissed the idea.
"How could you think like that? It's too dangerous..." But Barbatos didn't continue thinking about it; his thoughts stopped there.
But Brainiac's thoughts did not stop there.
"Something's not right, something's not good... Am I being manipulated? There's been no indication of it... And who would need to manipulate me to achieve these goals... I have no idea..."
Brainiac grew increasingly terrified as he thought about it, and could barely maintain his composure.
As he looked at Barbatos, who was still discussing ways to destroy the world with the Black Death Emperor and remained ignorant despite his immense power, his fear reached its peak in an instant.
He felt as if he saw a giant hand slowly opening behind his two temporary allies, with countless threads connecting them to their bodies, pulling them like marionettes.
Brainiac took a barely perceptible half-step back, but then abruptly stopped himself from doing so.
He stood there with his body slightly turned to the side, but he was already silently preparing to break through space and quickly leave in front of these two temporary allies, even if he was to be hunted down or risk being attacked in the future.
He must find out who is in control...
But just as Brainiac was thinking this, he heard a whisper in his ear.
The layers upon layers of echoing whispers caused his brain to explode.
Ten seconds later, Brainiac completely forgot his earlier doubts and devoted himself entirely to planning how to help the Black Death destroy the universe before him.
Outside the Time Stream, the World Forger, expressionless, ceased the constant whispering that his lips had been moving.
Brainiac's break free was somewhat unexpected to him. This super artificial intelligence had been completely encoded by him over the years, but it actually deduced a very correct answer based on the facts and the information he had.
It's remarkable, but that's all.
The world's foundry narrowed its eyes.
Yes, next up is that universe. The universe of Reverse-Flash, the reflection of the Flashpoint timeline in the Dark Multiverse.
There's a reason why the World Founders led Barbatos and Brainiac to actively incorporate this universe into the multiverse.
Among the many major events, the Flashpoint event not only ushered in the new 52, but it is also very special.
As a counterpart in the Dark Multiverse, a mirror image of the major events in the main universe, this Dark Multiverse Flashpoint, forged by the Time Stream through the hands of the Forgers of Other Worlds, should have risen into the main universe and become the Flashpoint event if it weren't for its flaws.
Although this timeline was eventually abandoned in the Dark Multiverse due to its collapse, its timeline, like the one that became the Flashpoint event in the main universe, was also connected to a very important person.
Boo!
The World Founder lowered his eyes and then disappeared from the spot.
The next second, a large number of blue light spots condensed into the appearance of Dr. Manhattan at the location where the World Founder had just been, and then Dr. Manhattan also disappeared into the air.
Dr. Manhattan quickly traveled back to the past when the World Forgers existed, but only found a faint black shadow in the past.
As the eldest son of Perpetua, the mother of the multiverse, when the World Builder is on the verge of death, he is able to leave a part of himself in the central control room of the sixth-dimensional multiverse.
Unless Dr. Manhattan is willing to take drastic measures, it will be difficult to find this rat.
And based on this result...
The world's foundries are gambling that Dr. Manhattan won't interfere with their operations.
Yes, that's what the World Forgers were planning:
The quantum power that belongs to Manhattan.
Behind the Flashpoint event was Dr. Manhattan's 10-year experiment of stealing from the multiverse, and a wisp of residual power from this unprecedented mega-theft was also fed back into the Flashpoint universe of the Dark Multiverse.
When the World Maker obtains this wisp of quantum power, he will be able to influence more of the history of the main universe and manipulate more timelines that Dr. Manhattan has been involved in.
That was enough for him to take the risk... for a greater good.
And if he's not mistaken, Dr. Manhattan, this ruthless "god" who only cares about experiments...
The World Foundry watched as the blue figure belonging to Dr. Manhattan vanished into thin air beside them.
He blocked communication with Dr. Manhattan, and now they can only see each other's shadows.
He guessed that he... or rather, he bet that he wouldn't pursue the matter.
The world's foundry breathed a slight sigh of relief.
It looks like he won his gamble.
And then...
The forger turned his gaze to the chessboard.
The Black Death Emperor, Barbatos, and Brainiac seem to have a foolproof plan to drag the Flashpoint of the Dark Multiverse into destruction, but he still needs an extra layer of insurance.
The WorldShaper closed his eyes. Batman Dragon might pose a threat to the plan, especially given his superhero attributes and natural ability to be recruited as an immune system that transcends time.
He also needs the help of someone, someone who currently appears to be on Batman Dragon's side. This person must deliver a fatal blow to Batman Dragon at a crucial moment, completely extinguishing his hope of resistance.
The figure of the world's forger disappeared from the spot.
(I didn't finish writing by midnight, so I wrote it slowly, sob sob. I'm sorry it's late.)
(End of this chapter)