If I'd Known, I'd Have Done It Sooner

"Death! My true love! My goddess! The woman of my dreams! The most important woman in my life! I love you! I love you! Please hear my voice! Hear my love!!!"

"Death!!! My goddess!!! The meaning of my existence!!!"

"Death! Let me stay by your side!!!"

In the tense, bustling underground operating room was Claire Temple, the Midnight Nurse who provided free medical services specifically for superheroes.

As she stitched up Daredevil's wounds, she asked Luke Cage whether the lunatic who had been shouting outside the operating room for half an hour was his friend.

Looking thoroughly pained, Cage rubbed his bald head and said quietly, "Ignore him. He said he's professing his love to Death to confirm something."

Hearing that, Claire gave a cold laugh. "I fight the Grim Reaper for time here every day, yet he's professing his love to Death. What a lunatic."

Daredevil, who was undergoing surgery, helplessly defended Jack a little. "He's a very mysterious person. He must have his reasons for doing this."

Leaving aside the discussion in the operating room, after howling for half an hour, Jack was starting to think about giving up. He felt that this place should either be a world recreated by the Tesseract or simply a world inside the Tesseract.

But then a system notification instantly lifted his spirits, only for his face to turn pale moments later...

"Because the host tirelessly professed his love to Death, Death heard him. She likes this young fellow, so she wishes to grant him an opportunity to remain by her side. A grand death could please her..."

"Hatred from Thanos detected. Thanos has cursed you so that you cannot die. You have successfully triggered Thanos's curse—Undying."

"Undying BUFF: Anything that attempts to kill you, or any accident that could prove fatal, will stay far away from you."

"Gained Death's favor. Evil Points +30,000,000."

"Gained the hatred of Thanos, Death's rival in love, causing Thanos to arrive on Earth sooner. Evil Points +30,000,000."

After going through an emotional roller coaster that felt like plunging from a thousand meters up, the surviving Jack muttered, "System, I'm in a hurry. Next time, just report the Evil Points directly..."

After grumbling at the system, Jack wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Then his entire face broke into a grin. He had succeeded! He had succeeded!

Sure enough, coming to Marvel to do research, mess with Venom, or deal with some trash system was all way too troublesome!

Three years ago, he should have professed his love to Death!!!

Right at the start, he professed his love to Death, then got cursed by Thanos to become Undying!

This was the greatest cheat in all of Marvel!

After splashing some water on his face in the restroom, Jack entered the operating room, where the surgery had already ended. Daredevil was still lying on the bed, while Cage was helping Midnight Nurse Claire clean up the medical supplies.

Then, under the horrified gazes of the two of them, he picked up a scalpel and slashed it straight across the artery in his neck.

"Don't! Jack!"

"Are you crazy?! Stop!"

"What are you shouting about?! What happened?!"

The instant the sharp blade touched his soft skin, it passed through thousands of years in a mere 0.1 seconds and turned to ash in Jack's hand.

Cage stared as if he had seen a ghost. "Are you superpowered?"

Jack shook his head. He pulled ten hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and placed them beside the medicine cabinet. Then he opened the cabinet, took out an entire bottle of some emergency medication, and poured the whole thing into his mouth.

The pills turned to ash in midair.

Then he took out a prefilled rapid-injection syringe of adrenaline and began jabbing it into his skin.

The syringe also turned to ash in midair.

Now that she had calmed down, Claire looked at the supplies being continuously wasted and exploded in fury. "If you want to prove you have superpowers, get the hell outside and prove it there!!!"

"Do you know how hard these prescription drugs are to get?!"

Claire's words interrupted Jack's movements. His right eyebrow rose, and without another word, he bolted out of the underground clinic.

After sprinting all the way to the nearby railway, Jack stood on the tracks and quietly waited for the train to arrive.

Unfortunately, Cage simply carried him back...

The facts proved that being Undying did not mean possessing limitless strength...

Back at the underground clinic, Daredevil, who knew nothing about what had just happened, asked nervously, "What happened? What just happened? Can someone tell me what happened just now?"

After returning to the underground clinic, Jack swaggered over to Daredevil, gave him a huge hug, and immediately began praising him. "Good brother! Your injury gave me a chance to test something! Now I finally! Finally! Can strut sideways through New York!!!"

Daredevil: "???"

Cage: "???"

Claire: "???"

A minute later, having completely calmed down from his excitement, Jack leisurely smoked a cigarette, drank the clinic's glucose water, and smugly hummed a little tune.

Daredevil's injury had made him suspect that this was a world inside the Tesseract, or a world altered by the Tesseract.

To prove that possibility, he had to seek confirmation from one of the five cosmic gods.

The only god who would pay attention to humans was Death.

By a strange twist of fate, he had thought of Deadpool's approach and ended up obtaining Thanos's curse before Deadpool did.

Jack had never imagined he could pull off such a three-birds-with-one-stone plan.

"Starting today, I'm someone Death knows by name too. When I really die someday, I can at least cling to Death for a while."

"Thanos hates me now. With him around, the Tesseract definitely didn't alter this world..."

"So it's still like in the comics. Captain America might have been altered into Hydra Cap by the Tesseract in some way. As long as I have the Tesseract, I can bring Captain America back."

It was not as if Jack had never considered preventing the Avengers from ever coming into existence, but once he realized that the price of doing so would be chaos, he rejected the idea.

Because plenty of powerful enemies were still lined up ahead...

He wanted to do whatever he pleased, and they wanted to do whatever they pleased too. So the question became... who would get to do whatever they pleased?

Especially Thanos. Just one curse from him had made Jack unable to die...

Across who knew how many light-years, he had accurately cursed someone on Earth and could even learn at nearly light speed who was professing love to Death...

That guy's abilities were terrifyingly powerful now.

If he got the Infinity Stones too, Jack felt that unless he killed every human on Earth first, he should forget about fighting Thanos.

"Yeah, someone still needs to charge into battle..."

"The first step toward letting the Avengers be born is bringing Captain America back..."