"Are you kidding me?! You, you're Tony Stark! Aren't you a superhero?! How could you destroy the cosmos?! I've never seen a Tony Stark like you!!!" Death even protested somewhat aggrievedly.
But after a while, she took a deep breath and said: "It's all that damn Shiller's fault! Without him, the cosmos was fine! He's the one stirring things up!!!"
"Forget it, is it just this injury?" Death gritted her teeth and said, "Let me see… Well, it's treatable, do you want to treat it?"
Stark looked at Death silently until the angry expression on her face began to stiffen. Then, she slowly smoothed out the twisted expression on her face, reverted to her previous teasing manner, and said, "You're pretty smart, you didn't fall into the trap."
"How do you plan to heal him?" Stark asked the key question.
Death walked towards him, and with a smile in her eyes, she looked at him and said, "The wounds on Shiller's soul come from some very painful memories of his past, and I can erase all the memories related to that. This way, he'll be healed."
While saying this, Death squinted, as if she had already seen the bloody and war-filled end through this timeline.
But then, she shook her head regretfully and said, "Unfortunately, you're pretty smart, you noticed."
"But this is not entirely a trap." Death put away her emotions and seriously said to Stark, "The essential nature of those scars is memory, you can only heal him completely by deleting his memories."
"You've made such a fuss, other beings should have discovered you by now. If you don't believe me, you can ask them, my stupid brothers and sisters will only give you the same answer."
With that, Death reached out and touched Stark's face guard, tilted her head, and stared into his eyes, saying, "As long as you give me a positive answer, your friend will no longer have those gloomy and painful pasts."
"Trust me, Shiller's past was more painful than you imagine, and he couldn't save himself. As his good friend, you should help him, help him get out of misery and find happiness…"
Death's face was almost touching the tip of Stark's nose. When their eyes met, Stark heard countless chants, like a hymn from Heaven.
In the sacred sound, innocent children were singing a song of friendship. They said that friends should help each other, helping friends is not a sin, if he can't save himself, you should be the savior…"
Then Death spoke again, "In your memories, there are too many trivial and ordinary things, they are not worth you keeping, not worth you suffering for. If they could be destroyed and replaced with happiness, why not do it?"
"Only by no longer being troubled by the mundane, can you move towards greater and happier future..."
Stark slowly opened his mouth, and it seemed like Death had already heard his affirmative answer.
A piece of starry sky unfolded slowly behind Death, the entire Land of Death was integrated into one, becoming an endless and mysterious confluence, Death, as a cornerstone of the cosmos, revealed her true greatness.
When ordinary mortals would go mad at the sight of such infinite truth and mystery, Stark's eyes gradually cooled down, a different kind of light burst out from his indifference.
That was a strong emotion that even Death who was staring at him felt surprised, it was the kind of feelings and love that these abstract entities could recreate, but would never truly have.
"...No."
Stark uttered a word completely contrary to what Death expected, she reached out with her arms made up of stars and held Stark's face, looking at him with her eyes full of infinite mystery, asking, "Why do you refuse? Why not complete your mission to save?"
In Stark's eyes, there was a pain that Death couldn't understand, Death stroked his eyes, but Stark closed his eyes and said,
"If Shiller is pained by his past, he can choose to forget himself, rather than have anyone help him forget."
"If he hasn't forgotten, it means there's something he has to remember in this memory. These things may be more precious than all the pain in that memory combined."
"Therefore, he would rather suffer torment than forget, just like my past."
"The pain that Howard's and Maria's deaths brought me, cannot compare to the consolation those good times I spent with them brought me. Given the choice, I would never choose to forget."
"Death… Death…" Stark actively reached out and touched Death's cheek, and said to her, "In this world, all beings with emotions and wisdom could never defeat you, but we've all defeated you."
Through the infinite veil of death, Stark looked at the far behind Death's back. He said,
"Prosperous civilizations, bustling cities, they are all built amidst generations of death and rebirth."
"Facing death, we all feel inevitable fear because we are weak, because we are insignificant…"
Stark backed away a few steps, his figure began to become more and more ethereal, while Death stretched out her hand as if she wanted to reach through him, to touch the prosperous cosmos she could never reach.
Before the figure of Stark disappeared, only his emotion-laden voice resonated in the Land of Death, highlighting the desolateness and emptiness here, and also the loneliness of Death, whose arms still had the intention of retaining him.
"Ordinary people like me will eventually return to your embrace."
"But our legacy, spirit, friendship, family, cities, civilizations we've built…"
"The memories that keep us awake at night, causing deep pain, and the treasures they protected that we remember for a lifetime, together form this amazing world."
"Those insignificant things compared to your greatness will remain... forever."
The atmosphere of a winter day close to Christmas was finally breaking the cold and silence, displaying some lively, worldly scenes. Outside the balcony, shuttles full of passengers cut through the morning sky from time to time, adding a unique vitality to the morning.
Shiller was still living in Eddie's house, not because he didn't want to move back to his clinic, but because both of his only places in New York had been involved in accidents.
Arkham Sanatorium Skyline Train Station was almost completed, but Jarvis suddenly cut his power, causing the construction to be urgently stopped. Even though it was quickly taken over by automated machinery, the promised quiet feature wasn't installed. Thus, even though it was operational, the noise made it impossible for Shiller to rest well.
The small clinic in Hell's Kitchen was also bombed. Eddie took Bob there last time to collect some medication when Bob casually tossed the bomb, meant for blasting a flying shuttle, into the basement.
Later, Bob, coveting the expensive drugs in the clinic, decided to break in and steal some in the middle of the night. As a novice, he broke in at night, inadvertently set off the bomb in the basement, and almost killed himself. The explosion caused the collapse of the clinic and made the entire ground floor uninhabitable.
Shiller had no choice but to continue living with Eddie. Luckily, Eddie had made a decent amount of money as an editor and was also willing to live a more modest life, so he rented a large house on the edge of Hell's Kitchen for the same price.
The house Eddie was renting had three bedrooms, two living rooms and two large terraces. Although it was a more traditional apartment building, both Shiller and Thor could live there comfortably, considering the size.
A few days before Christmas in the early morning, Shiller was up at 5:30 in accordance with his extremely punctual biological clock. The first thing he did after getting up was take medication. Of course, this wasn't the painkiller he used to numb the brain, but certain anti-anxiety drugs.
Because of the existence of the gray mist, Shiller did not have any physical disease. Thus, these drugs had become comfort drugs as well. He would take them whenever he remembered to; if he forgot, then he just skipped it.
Shiller took off his sleeping cap and entered the bathroom to clean up. Then he began searching for ingredients in the fridge to make breakfast.
Just then, the door was suddenly knocked. Listening to the urgent knocks coming from outside, Shiller furrowed his brow.
He knew that this couldn't be a courier or newspaper delivery person. There was no delivery service in this neighborhood, and even if there were, they wouldn't knock on the door like this. It was as if they would start shooting if you opened the door a second late.
Shiller put down the lettuce in his hand, walked over to the door, opened it, and found a bruised Stark standing outside.
Shiller looked up at the air above his head, rubbed his eyes, and then closed the door with a "bang".
Upon reopening the door, Stark slowly withdrew his hand that was about to knock on the door again. After being sure that this wasn't an illusion, Shiller looked at Stark up and down and realized that he was not in good shape.
The first thing he noticed was that Stark was wearing a special battle suit, which was different from the nano technology and collapsible designs he had developed before. It resembled the primitive version of the armored battle suit. The type that you had to walk over to, then the battle suit would close and begin to function.
Even this primitive battle suit wasn't complete. Stark wore only the chest armor and the left arm armor. The entire right arm armor and the left hand armor were all missing. He was also only wearing one complete leg armor. The other was missing from the knee down.
Shiller opened his mouth. Before some more critical words could come out, he glanced at the wound on Stark's face. He cleaned up his language a bit before saying: "Recently, is it your ambition to give all your Mechas a fashion show?"
Stark extended his arm without armor to touch the wound on his face, winced, then looked at Shiller with a bright smile. Shiller also smiled back. However, he didn't mean to make way. Consequently, Stark could only press his fingers together and tell him, "A small experiment went wrong."
"What's going on?" Eddie walked out, rubbing his eyes, keeping one eye open while the other was closed. Just as Shiller moved aside, Stark "whooshed" into the house.
Eddie licked his lips, looking at the disheveled Stark from top to bottom. Venom's voice came from his mouth:
"From the size of the impact on your battle suit and the direction of the scratches, you seem to have just been hit by a large truck. Before I mock you, I must ask you a question. Didn't your mother teach you not to knock on the door so hard when you're not sure if someone's sleeping inside?" Seeing the saliva spraying out of Venom's mouth, Stark stepped back a little disgustedly and wiped the surface of his battlesuit with his hand. Then he gestured at his body with a surprised look at Shiller and Eddie and said, "Didn't you guys notice anything special about this new battlesuit?"