A fundamental analysis of the reset bomb, the iceberg of the Sacred Timeline
The Core Zone of Chaos Furnace has never been so quiet.
It was so quiet you could hear the faint hum of energy flowing through the pipes.
Wanda stood in front of the central control panel, having lost track of how much time had passed.
Inside the specially made container in front of her, the wisp of orange energy that Hela's subordinates had traded their lives for was like a piece of amber's residual light—serene, yet carrying an absolute sense of order that kept people at a distance.
The pledge made at the accountability meeting now feels like an invisible hand gripping her heart.
She knew better than anyone the consequences of failure.
That would not only mean that she and the entire Technology Integration Department would become a laughing stock, but also that she would completely lose the little bit of initiative she had managed to gain in front of Lynn.
She tried.
Use the purest Chaos Magic to touch, to envelop, to analyze.
The result was setbacks.
It was a sense of rejection that couldn't be described in words. Her power, in essence, was the distortion and rewriting of reality, an art based on "possibility." But that wisp of orange energy was the embodiment of "uniqueness," allowing no assumptions or "what ifs."
The contact between the two forces is like water and red-hot iron; nothing is left except for a violent, meaningless evaporation.
A direct assault won't work.
Wanda closed her eyes and went through in her mind Lynn's emotionless gaze at the accountability meeting and Hela's icy stare.
She cannot lose.
When she opened her eyes again, the anxiety in them had faded, leaving only an almost obsessive calmness.
Since we cannot break through from the outside, let's dismantle it from the inside.
She abandoned direct analysis and instead mobilized the computing power of the entire Chaos Furnace, using that wisp of orange energy as the core, to begin constructing a completely closed, illusory "sandbox."
Scarlet energy threads spread from her fingertips, no longer a violent erosion, but transformed into billions of the finest Probe, carefully weaving a false reality.
A reality that is most basic and simple.
There is only one atom, moving along a fixed trajectory.
She gently covered the container with the "sandbox" and then injected a barely perceptible disturbance into it.
That atom deviated from its intended trajectory.
Almost simultaneously, the orange energy inside the container fluctuated slightly.
There was a reaction.
Wanda was highly focused.
Instead of increasing the intensity of the disturbance, she began to conduct repetitive tests in an extremely tedious manner.
Time and again, that atom was deviated from its trajectory.
Time and again, every tiny fluctuation of orange energy was recorded.
Time slips away in monotonous repetition.
The laboratory lights simulated the alternation of day and night, but to Wanda, it was meaningless. She worked tirelessly, her Scarlet eyes reflecting the Data Stream, as if she had become one with this massive, Chaos machine.
She was like the most demanding engineer, reverse engineering an incomprehensible black-box program.
Failure, failure, and more failure.
The data accumulated to tens of thousands, yet it remained a jumbled mess, with no discernible pattern.
Until the forty-eighth hour.
When she caused the atom to deviate from its trajectory again, she did not immediately "reset" it as before, but instead used Chaos Magic to forcibly maintain this "erroneous" state.
The "sandbox" began to tremble violently, as if it could not withstand this persistent paradox.
At that very moment, the orange energy within the container finally exhibited its first violent reaction.
It was no longer a simple fluctuation, but rather it suddenly expanded outwards for a moment, and an extremely subtle, almost non-existent signal flashed from the Energy Core, seemingly trying to correct the "mistake" Wanda had made.
It's been captured.
Wanda's eyes flashed with an astonishing light, and all computing power instantly followed, capturing the fleeting signal and dragging it into the pre-prepared data buffer pool.
It's done.
She slumped into the chair, utterly exhausted, almost falling asleep immediately. But the credit that was about to be hers forced her to stand up.
On the control panel, Holographic Projection unfolds.
The signal that was forcibly intercepted, through the stripping and translation of Chaos Magic, finally revealed its true nature.
That's neither a piece of code nor some kind of energy waveform.
It's a line.
A perfectly straight, shimmering golden line composed of countless fixed coordinates linked together.
Next to the line, its name is labeled.
"Sacred Timeline".
Wanda stared at the line, a chill she had never felt before rising from the depths of her heart. She finally understood that the other party's erasure was not an omniscient and omnipotent destruction.
That's more like... pruning.
Along this predetermined "Sacred Timeline," all deviated and superfluous "branches" are pruned to ensure the absolute "correctness" of the main trunk.
This is a higher-level working logic.
She continued to dig deeper.
Since it's pruning, we need tools for positioning. We can't scan the entire universe every time to find those off-center branches.
Her gaze fell on some extremely tiny "nodes" on the golden line, which were almost integrated with the line itself.
These nodes, like lighthouses, are evenly distributed at various key locations along the lines.
Wanda reached out and used Chaos Magic to simulate the orange energy from before, gently touching one of the nodes.
Instantly, a coordinate graph popped up on the screen.
It's the location of that Clock Shop in Manhattan.
I see.
Wanda finally understood.
TVA's tools are not random. They rely on specific "Time Anchor" pre-embedded in the Timeline for coordinate positioning. Once Anchor is activated, the area around Anchor can be precisely "trimmed".
This is both the reason for their high efficiency and their most fatal weakness.
Finding these Anchor means that their actions can be predicted, and even reverse interference and deception can be carried out.
The passive situation instantly turned into an active one.
Wanda let out a long sigh of relief, all the fatigue of the past few days vanished.
She straightened her back, and confidence returned to her face.
Submitting this report will be enough to shut everyone up. Hela's failure will become the most dazzling stepping stone in her record of achievements.
She turned and walked towards the communications console, preparing to report this achievement, which could change the entire course of the battle, to the person on the Throne as soon as possible.
However, her hand had just touched the console screen.
"Beep--! Beep--! Beep--!"
A piercing alarm, sharp enough to tear your eardrums, suddenly resounded throughout the Chaos Furnace!
On the laboratory dome, all the white lights went out instantly, replaced by glaring, blood-red rotating alarm lights that represented the highest level of threat.
This alarm does not belong to the internal system.
Wanda suddenly turned around and looked at the central control panel.
On the Holographic Projection Star Map, a brand new, extremely dazzling orange dot appeared out of thin air at the coordinates on the outer edge of Negative Zone, flashing wildly.
A cold, emotionless synthesized voice rang out amidst the alarm.
"Warning: Unknown coordinates detected, forced activation."
"Time Anchor... locked."