1407 Graymalkin Lane

"How much longer until we reach New York?" Watching the scenery race backward outside the window, Pietro's tense nerves finally began to ease.

"A few more hours. Honestly, I thought you'd be unconscious for a long time. I'd already decided that if we arrived and you still hadn't woken up, I'd have to give you a little physical awakening."

"Heh heh heh." Pietro did not need to guess to know that this so-called "physical awakening" would not be a gentle way to wake someone up. Fortunately, he had come to in time.

Seeing that Pietro had mostly calmed down, Zhang Ye continued. "We could have reached New York this morning, but someone leaked the news of President X's death. Now the entire United States has fallen into war. I had no choice but to avoid the war zones and take the back roads to New York."

"War!?" Pietro froze.

"Yes, war. At first, it was only gangs occupying cities and carving up territory. Later, it escalated into a nationwide melee. Even the state governments and military got involved. I heard that one gang raided a military research base and discovered an experimental subject there codenamed 'Hulk.'"

"What is Hulk?"

Zhang Ye sighed. "If you ask me, then according to my memories, Hulk was an 'antihero' in other worlds. After being exposed to Gamma Rays, he gained unrivaled and terrifying combat power, practically becoming invincible. At first, he was a villain, but later he joined the Avengers."

"But here, the terrifying Gamma Rays turned him into a monster neither human nor ghost. His body underwent nauseating mutations. In the end, he was recovered by the military and lay in a laboratory until those gang members found him."

"How could he become like that..." Pietro murmured in disbelief.

"Who knows? Ever since I saw the X-Men girls turned into hostesses and the Avengers turned into a rich second-generation kid leading a group of lunatics, I had already foreseen it. This world is gradually heading toward destruction."

As Zhang Ye spoke, his gaze fell upon the stack of file folders beside his lower leg.

Perhaps that was the source of everything, the beginning of this despairing world.

The Fantastic Four had ushered in the age of heroes in this world. Although the Fantastic Four were not Marvel's first superheroes, they were truly the first superhero team. They had created this world of heroes and drawn back the curtain on superhero groups.

But here, they might also have been a crucial link in creating this tragic world.

Inside the file folders were an old evening newspaper and some documents. They contained an exclusive interview with former astronaut Ben Grimm, in which he described the unknown details of that aerospace disaster.

Many years ago, he had participated in a manned spaceflight project. It was during that project that he met the brilliant scientist Reed Richards, as well as the siblings Susan and Jonathan.

Reed had been obsessed with the space program. He could not wait to uncover the mysteries of outer space. After all, Earth was far too insignificant compared to the universe, and everything in the cosmos was novel and unknown to humanity.

He wanted to sail toward the stars and embark on an unparalleled adventure—observing cosmic energy fluctuations.

Although everything had been prepared, the spacecraft built at the time clearly could not support such dangerous research. But Reed could not wait that long. He had already made every preparation.

One night, Reed came to Ben's door and hoped Ben would support his dream, join his great experiment of observing cosmic energy, and serve as the pilot to accomplish this feat with him.

But Ben understood very well that the spacecraft at that time was not stable enough. Launching it rashly was simply too dangerous. As a researcher specializing in aerospace technology and satellite orbital technology, no one understood the risks of the journey better than he did. If the machine failed, even he could not guarantee that he could bring everyone back alive.

So Ben firmly rejected Reed's request, because this was practically treating lives as a joke.

What happened afterward filled Ben with regret to this day. Reed did not abandon the plan because of Ben's refusal. Instead, he continued according to schedule. Perhaps he believed that even without Ben, the technical expert, they were more than capable enough.

Thus, Reed took Susan and Jonathan, along with another man named Doom, into space. Before long, while observing cosmic energy, they were engulfed by a radiation storm of cosmic rays.

Later, news of the air disaster reached the project team. People spent enormous manpower and resources searching for them. Near the wreckage of their spacecraft, they found Susan and Jonathan. One had been burned into a desiccated corpse by terrifying heat, while the other had had his cells altered by cosmic energy.

Susan's entire body could reflect light, allowing her to achieve optical invisibility at any time. But this light reflection had blinded her, and it was completely uncontrollable.

Not long after the siblings' bodies were recovered, people found Doom's corpse as well. Compared with the first two, the radiation on Doom's body was even more terrifying. His body was constantly changing, with every bit of matter in it randomly rearranging itself without pause, causing him to continually shift between mineral and living life-form.

Reed was the last to be found. His body had been stretched like a rubber band, twisted and collapsed upon a snowfield. By the time people found him, he had become a grotesquely elongated skeleton.

Ben had always felt guilty about that space disaster. If... if he could have persuaded Reed to wait a little longer, if he had become the pilot of that spaceflight mission, perhaps...

Perhaps the four of them would have become the true Fantastic Four according to the original script.

Zhang Ye silently sighed. Perhaps this world would not have become what it was now either. But he also understood that everything had already happened. There was no medicine for regret in this world, nor would there ever be.

Time continued to pass, and Zhang Ye and Pietro finally arrived at their destination.

1407 Graymalkin Lane. It was a private estate, and in the distance stood a historic castle.

Fortunately, this was on the outskirts of New York and was private property, so no one had come by for the moment. Otherwise, this building would probably have long since been destroyed by those gangs.

"No wonder this address sounded so familiar. So this is Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." Zhang Ye stopped the car and looked up at the exquisite castle.

"You know this place?" Pietro sat in President X's wheelchair and came to Zhang Ye's side.

"More or less. This should be the school founded by Professor X, specifically for mutant children. Here, they could receive a better education, and the teachers were the first generation of X-Men."

Zhang Ye explained, but soon sneered. "This was originally where Professor X dreamed of building a bridge between humans and mutants. Now it has become his treasure vault for storing trophies. How ironic."

The two walked to the front gate, where the keypad lock soon lit up with a six-digit password.

"Leave it to me." Pietro pushed his wheelchair up to the keypad. "I can test every possible combination on this lock."

"Okay."

Zhang Ye nodded. He truly was not very good at this sort of codebreaking work.

Pietro's fingers instantly tapped the screen at a speed too fast for the naked eye to see. However, his movements were gentle, probably because he was afraid of smashing the keypad screen by pressing it too quickly.

"Don't rush. Just wait a little longer~"

There would be a mass update tonight.