"The Bat has arrived."
The emotionless voice of the city's AI rang out, prompting Reed to lift his head from his work.
Seeing the dark figure standing at the door, Reed smiled.
"How long has it been?" Reed asked Bruce in front of him.
"Eighteen hours," Bruce replied flatly, while also observing what Reed was working on.
"How is it?"
"Although I've found the time stream, I can't guarantee that you'll be able to return to our timeline from the one at the temporal node."
Reed stepped out and spoke frankly.
Kang the Conqueror's device had indeed given Reed a promising idea—he just hadn't constructed a working model yet.
Moreover—
"Can I know what you plan to do with this device?" Reed asked, leaning in close to Bruce.
Bruce didn't even turn his head. He merely glanced sideways at Reed.
"OK! OK!" Reed could already tell from Bruce's look that the Bat clearly didn't want to share.
"All that's left is the time model," Reed said, turning his attention to the time-travel device he had built.
"Time-travel device" sounded like a massive machine, but what stood before them was merely a small, portable wristband.
Compact, and seemingly indestructible.
"Stark already solved it," Bruce said emotionlessly to Reed.
"Well, that's actually not surprising," Reed replied, not the least bit shocked.
For this man who was at times a friend and at others a rival—though mostly a rival—Reed never doubted Stark's intelligence.
Because to belittle Stark would be to belittle himself.
And Reed would never allow anyone to belittle him.
So he didn't think Stark producing the model was a big deal.
Not to mention Stark had another super-genius, Amadeus Cho, at his side.
Two super-geniuses working together—if they still couldn't catch up to his progress, Reed would honestly look down on Stark.
"So, are you planning to take the device to Stark?"
"No." Bruce walked straight to the time-travel device and picked it up.
"Don't you need me to show you how to use it?" Reed leaned toward Bruce again, pointing at the device.
"I know." Bruce turned and walked out.
Just as silently as he had come.
If Reed hadn't seen Bruce walk out of the city, he might've had a hard time believing the man was even real.
"Has he been monitoring us this whole time?" Reed asked with a frown.
He was speaking to the city's AI behind him.
"Based on the data we've gathered, he never gives up monitoring anyone," the AI replied calmly, making Reed chuckle.
"We're the same kind of people, Bat. Forcing the world to follow our rules."
As he spoke, he turned back to his work.
Only now, he was no longer working on the tasks Bruce had given him.
"Make sure to block his surveillance as much as possible."
"A full system scan has already been conducted. No issues found." The AI had long since started checking its system for anything Bruce might've planted.
"Don't worry, I'll help you," Reed said, joining the AI in scanning for any implants or hidden programs.
At that moment, Bruce was already driving the Batmobile back to the Batcave. Everything he needed to do had to be done in the place he knew best.
Even if it was already completely exposed, when he returned, everything might change.
Though, this time might feel incredibly long for Bruce.
During the eighteen hours he had given Reed and the others to work on their research, Bruce had only spent the first hour with Aunt May and Jessica.
He dedicated the rest of the time entirely to thinking about what might happen when entering those timelines—
And began planning.
But the number of vanished universes reported by the Weaver was no small figure.
Anything could happen.
Any unimaginable event might occur in the multiverse.
Bruce had authority on this. After all, he had versions of himself from other universes in his head.
There were so many Bat variants.
Let alone all the others from alternate universes.
The differences they had might be greater than those between humans and gorillas.
Any plan might fail.
Truthfully, this could be the first time Bruce acted without a solid plan.
It made him wonder if the voices in his head had made him stop using his brain.
Taking a deep breath, Bruce's eyes grew determined once more.
When he returned to the Batcave, it was completely silent.
If not for the bat-themed vehicles scattered around, a bit of decorating might have turned the place into a haunted house.
Bruce headed deeper into the cave.
Toward his meditation chamber.
On the way, he checked the rooms of Jessica and Gwen.
Though he couldn't install cameras or similar devices, he had set up heart rate monitors, body temperature sensors, and breathing trackers in their rooms.
This was a change he made after Jessica had mysteriously vanished last time.
Otherwise, he wouldn't even know when someone under his care disappeared.
Now, these measures served a new purpose: making sure the two girls were sleeping soundly and wouldn't interfere with his actions.
Bruce had already begun assembling the items at hand when he entered the quiet chamber.
It had to be said, perhaps due to their long-standing rivalry, Stark and Reed had become quite familiar with each other's methods, standardizing their devices to a uniform specification.
At the very least, there was no need to worry about compatibility issues.
Of course, this was also the downside of Bruce assigning one project to two people.
At the same time, he linked the time-travel device to his interdimensional travel wristband, ensuring he could traverse time while crossing universes.
Before launching his plan, Bruce intended to visit the prison in his mind one more time.
Perhaps that could help ease the fear within him.
"You might die there, or you might create a future you completely fail to understand." In Bruce's mind, Barry Allen was trying to dissuade him from this course of action.
"Those who toy with time will, in the end, be toyed with by time."
"I have no other choice, Barry." Bruce's sudden words caught Barry Allen off guard and left him speechless.
During the time he had spent with this version of Bruce, Barry Allen had come to understand just how stubborn this bat could be.
In fact, it seemed that all Batmen were incredibly stubborn—once they set their minds on something, they would carry it out, regardless of the outcome.
"So, you do know what it feels like to be out of options. Weren't you so self-righteous when you were accusing me before?" Suddenly, an ear-piercing laugh echoed through the prison—that was the laugh of the Broken Bat.
Bruce had once said that the Broken Bat had long since forgotten the reason he first put on the suit.
Bruce ignored him, and none of the other Batmen said a word, not even the Tormentor, who once harbored intense disdain for Bruce.
"Don't forget, we are Batman." As Bruce passed by the LEGO Batman, the uniquely voiced figure shouted at him.
"We have never feared failure."
Bruce glanced at him, only to find LEGO Batman standing on top of his own Wayne Manor, back turned to Bruce, as if doing so made him seem that much cooler.
At that moment, Thomas also walked to the cell door and looked at Bruce.
"Live well."
Just those four words—Thomas said nothing else.
He simply watched as Bruce exited the prison in his mind.
Looking down at the peculiar device strapped to his forearm, Bruce pressed the button, and his figure vanished from the quiet chamber.
In the next moment, when Bruce opened his eyes, he had already arrived in an entirely new universe.
Bruce recognized this universe—it was the one belonging to the British Spider-Man. But it had already been destroyed previously by some unknown force.
And according to what the British Spider-Man once said, even the all-powerful Captain Britain Corps couldn't determine how these universes were disappearing.
Yet everything around him seemed unusually quiet, as if it were a healthy, normal universe.
But how could a healthy universe just suddenly vanish?
In that moment, Bruce's Batsuit disappeared and transformed into another outfit, allowing him to walk freely through London, the hometown of the British Spider-Man.
But the very next moment, the world changed. Everything shifted, and a blue light enveloped the surroundings.
"What—?"
Bruce looked up at the sky—except it wasn't a sky anymore. It was an enormous planet. And judging by its appearance, it looked almost identical to the Earth beneath his feet.
His suit immediately reformed around his body, beginning a comparative scan between the planet in the sky and his home universe's Earth.
The result Bruce least wanted to see appeared before him: the planet in the sky was an exact replica of the Earth from his own universe.
And now that this planet had appeared here, it perhaps explained why the British Spider-Man's world had suddenly vanished.
At first, Bruce had assumed that someone was using a device to destroy universes, and that's why the timeline was preserved—so that he could navigate through it.
But now, this scene completely overturned that theory. The destruction wasn't caused by some machine.
There were no devices involved—they were destroying two universes by colliding Earth from one parallel universe with Earth from another.
And that was the most terrifying part.
Perhaps they had found some unknown method to make two universes collide.
And the origin point of those collisions… was Earth.
Bruce wanted to stop it, but the events that had already unfolded wouldn't change simply because he appeared.
As the planet in the sky was about to descend, Bruce once again selected coordinates given to him by the Weaver—coordinates of another vanished universe.
Once again, he arrived at the calculated moment of destruction.
Only this time, the surrounding color wasn't blue—it was a deep, crimson red.
But the planet looming in the sky was still another Earth from a parallel universe.
Bruce continued hopping between universes that had been marked for destruction by the Weaver, arriving at the moment just before their annihilation to investigate.
Everything he witnessed filled him with a deep sense of helplessness, but he kept moving forward, pushing himself through.
The Weaver continued sending coordinates to Bruce—the number of destroyed universes was increasing rapidly.
But something changed after Bruce's latest jump.
This time, instead of going to another doomed world, he traveled to a universe where he was familiar with the heroes.
He wanted to see if this world had encountered the same threat…
Or perhaps they had already found a solution.
Earth-616.
At that moment, the members of the Illuminati had arrived in Latveria, domain of Doctor Doom.
At the center of their group stood a completely white device.
A white-haired woman, her eyes glowing red, looked up at the sky and addressed the Illuminati: "The Incursion Wall is about six meters away."
As a member of the Illuminati, Mister Fantastic looked toward the distant castle. "So Castle Doom, the end of the world, and Victor—everything's come together. Wonderful."
But Iron Man clearly didn't want to waste words on the situation. He simply said to the others, "Let's go."
The surrounding Latverian citizens looked on in horror as the Illuminati charged into the rift in space with the device, unaware that a black figure was silently following behind them.
When the Illuminati entered the space and looked up at the planet in the sky, they found it was unlike any other universe they had previously encountered.
That glow—it was blue.
To Bruce, it was all too familiar.
He could even guess what was happening on that other Earth.
When facing red or blue-glowing planets, Bruce had tried entering the alternate Earth to find out what was going on.
And a blue-glowing planet meant that there was no life left on that Earth—all life had been exterminated by the machines that now ruled it.
Upon seeing the blue planet, the white-haired woman with red eyes took a terrified step back.
She murmured to herself, as if witnessing something unspeakably horrifying.
"No, no, no, no…"
(End of Chapter)
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