The future in which Manhattan was born became one possible future timeline within the new universe Brad controlled.
This arrangement gave Manhattan more time to consider her options. If she decided that the potential of Brad's universe ultimately fell short of DC's, she could still choose to leave.
Brad had verified his experiment. Looking at the universe, which had reverted to a sphere, and the surge in information density caused by the arrival of Manhattan's future, he couldn't help giving a healthy smile.
Manhattan finally no longer had to agonize over whether to merge completely with DC. Naturally, she was pleased to have another way out.
Her previous lack of humanity stemmed from her inability to control her power when she first came into being. With a mind that was still merely human, she had not only received tens of thousands of years of Earth's history in an instant, but also read through countless human lives in a short span of time.
It had been beyond her control. After being inundated with so many human minds, Manhattan had spent a long time trapped in an inexplicable state of divinity.
Of course she had wanted to recover the feeling of being human. She had simply tried many times in the Watchmen universe, only to fail every time.
After encountering the DC multiverse, however, Manhattan had gradually learned how to process the human emotions she had previously absorbed passively.
But after thinking like a god for so long, Manhattan could no longer easily savor humanity's joys and sorrows, reunions and partings, or the bittersweet flavors of life.
Still, finding an entirely new universe to settle in was a momentous event. A newborn universe meant a future of infinite possibilities, and even Manhattan, whose gaze spanned past and present, could feel joy at