Are you sure?
Felicia's fighting stance remained unwavering, her grey-blue eyes filled with scrutiny.
"Can a mere Thor defeat those zombie heroes?"
Her fingers were still resting on the grappling hook launcher, and her body was low to the ground.
" Hulk has become a zombie, and our universe's Thor has changed too." Felicia said, emphasizing each word.
"There's even another you—the zombie Scarlet Witch. Have you ever seen what it looks like when it rewrites reality? Chaos Magic combined with insatiable hunger twisted the entire neighborhood into chunks of flesh."
She stared at Wanda.
"Are you sure Thor alone can handle all this?"
Wanda didn't have time to answer.
A muffled thud came from the ceiling of the underground base. It wasn't an explosion or a collapse, but some kind of extremely condensed energy that penetrated the seventeen layers of composite armor plates and landed precisely three meters in front of the two people.
A colorful arc of electricity suddenly exploded out of thin air.
Golden, purple, and silvery-white light intertwined and swirled, weaving a human-shaped silhouette in the air.
The electric arcs crackled, each carrying an energy density high enough to make an ordinary person's hair stand on end, yet they were controlled perfectly, with not a single aftershock spilling out.
Thor's form solidified in the lightning.
Standing at 1.92 meters tall, with long golden hair combed back, he held the Stormbreaker horizontally in his right hand, the remaining lightning on the axe blade still silently swirling.
His landing was extremely casual, even with a relaxed, strolling air, but the oppressive aura emanating from his very bones...
Felicia's breath hitched for a moment.
wrong!
This was different from the Thor she had ever seen.
Her universe's Thor Odinson, even before the infection, was nothing more than a powerful Asgardian Warriors. But this one before him...
She couldn't pinpoint the difference, but every cell in her body was sending out warning signals.
It's like a harmless little lamb suddenly encountering a ferocious tiger weighing several hundred pounds.
This Thor is very strong!
Wanda didn't react much, she just slightly turned her body to give Thor a better view.
Thor's gaze swept over Wanda, making sure she was unharmed, before settling on Felicia.
Felicia instinctively straightened her back, preparing to introduce herself.
" Black Cat, Felicia Hardy."
Thor was a step ahead of her, even with a hint of nonchalance.
" Spider-Man Peter Parker's romantic interest. By the way, weren't you supposed to be infected at the beginning of the zombie outbreak? How are you still alive?"
Felicia froze, looking at Thor in front of her with a bewildered expression.
So, the fact that she's still alive is wrong?
What's wrong with this guy? The first thing he said upon meeting me was, "How come you're still alive?"
And how did he know about her and Parker? There are very few people in this universe who know this.
Before she could retort, Wanda had already spoken.
" Thor, let me tell you the information first."
Wanda's attitude was natural; she condensed the information she had gathered over this period into a very concise version in just a few words: zombie distribution, survivor strongholds, a confirmed list of zombified superheroes, and--
There's Sentry here.
Wanda's Chaos Magic flowed unconsciously through her fingertips, revealing that her heart was not at peace.
"That Power of a Million Exploding Suns you mentioned before... it's in zombie form now. Can we... handle it?"
Thor slung Stormbreaker over his shoulder and thought for a moment.
"It should be possible."
Felicia almost rolled her eyes. Should she?
"These zombie heroes have invaded many parallel universes, but they were always driven back."
Thor's analysis was bland. "This illustrates a point—after becoming zombies, their abilities remain, but they can't be used at 100%. Hunger interferes with their fighting instincts, making them more Beast than warriors."
He tilted his head and looked at Wanda.
"How about I take you home first?"
Wanda shook her head.
"No. I want to see more of the world."
Her hand unconsciously touched the Eye of Agamotto beneath her collar. "If something similar were to happen to the universe I'm protecting... I need to know about it beforehand."
Thor did not respond immediately.
Hunger Virus.
He knew all too well the character's backstory in the comics.
It's not an ordinary biological weapon, nor is it a mutated pathogen. Its essence is a projection of a higher-dimensional concept—the product of "hunger" itself being personified. Even the upgraded version of White Phoenix is helpless against it; it is Omniverse Level existence.
His Comprehension is indeed extraordinary; theoretically, he could attempt to analyze the virus's structural laws, but the problem lies in—
Once he begins to analyze it, he is essentially touching upon the "conceptual origin" behind the virus.
What if we notice something at that level?
He is currently one step away from reaching the Multiverse Level, and that one step could be the difference between life and death when facing truly higher-dimensional beings.
"Is the origin of this zombie virus complicated?" Wanda asked.
Thor carefully considered his words, after all, knowing too much would only cause them trouble.
"It's not just complicated, it's incredibly complex." He chose a compromise.
"This universe and another parallel universe have long been locked together in a closed time loop by the Watcher."
You can think of it this way: after all life in this universe has been devoured by zombies, the zombies will be transported to another universe to wreak havoc. Until that other universe is also completely consumed, only the zombie Sentry will remain in the world.
At this point, the entire timeline will abruptly reset, and zombie Sentry will once again descend from the sky, re-infecting the Avengers, and a new round of apocalyptic crisis will begin, repeating endlessly.
Felicia's face suddenly changed.
"You mean—" her voice was low, "That everything we've been through was already locked down? We can't escape, we can't win, we can only wait to be infected and devoured again and again?"
Thor did not deny it.
Wanda finally understood why the dimensional barriers of this universe were ridiculously thick.
It wasn't formed naturally; someone deliberately reinforced it—welding the two universes together in an Eternity cycle.
"The source of the Hunger Virus is an existence at the Multiverse Level or even higher," Thor continued.
"No one can eradicate it at its source. So the Watcher's logic is simple—sacrificing one universe is better than the entire multiverse collapsing."
Felicia squatted down.
His knee slammed against the cold metal floor with a dull thud.
Her back was hunched, and her short, silvery-white hair hung down, obscuring most of her face.
"So our universe... has long been abandoned."
It's not a question, it's a statement.
Looking at her like this, Wanda felt a tightness in her chest.
Telling someone struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world that all their struggles were futile from the start is crueler than killing them outright.
She turned to Thor.
Is there really no other way?
Thor remained silent for three seconds.
Several options raced through my mind before I finally settled on one person.
The essence of the Hunger Virus is a projection of a higher-dimensional concept. To analyze its structure, Comprehension alone is not enough; a sufficiently large multiverse database is also needed as a reference system.
Of all the people he knows, the one with the most complete data is undoubtedly that perverted little girl.
"Maybe." He raised his hand, and the golden cracks in the void exploded again, forming a teleportation portal. "I need to find someone to come over."
His right hand reached into the portal, precisely grabbed the back of someone's collar, and then yanked hard.
A petite girl was lifted out of the portal, her feet off the ground, and she swayed twice in the air.
He looked to be around seventeen years old, with slightly disheveled long blond hair, and he was clutching a glowing portable terminal in his hand, its screen filled with dense streams of data.
Valeria Richards was stunned for a moment when she landed.
Then those eyes widened, staring straight at Thor like a dead fish, each word squeezed out through clenched teeth.
" Thor! I'm currently investigating Mephisto's dimensional parasitism, and we've reached the most crucial moment."
She brushed away the lingering touch on the back of her neck, her voice rising an octave.
"Can't you at least give me a heads-up before you grab me?! And—I'm a person! Not a cat! Stop grabbing me by the collar!!"
Thor withdrew his hand without changing his expression, and nodded towards Wanda and Felicia beside him.
"The job's here. Zombie Universe, Hunger Virus, higher-dimensional concept."
Valeria's anger got stuck in her throat, and she swallowed it back.
She glanced down at the environmental data automatically collected on the terminal, and her pupils suddenly contracted.
"... Did you drag me to Earth-2149?"
She looked up, staring at Thor's face, and spoke slowly and deliberately.
"You want me to analyze the underlying architecture of the Hunger Virus on the spot?"
Thor smiled.
"Otherwise what?"
Valeria's fingers began to fly across the terminal, bringing up a massive database interface.
Despite the criticism, if you deserve it, you still have to do it.
But she stopped after paddling for three seconds, and her entire demeanor suddenly changed.
That kind of excitement unique to scientific fervor, the thrill of being piqued by the unknown.
"Wait." She raised her terminal and pointed it at a direction invisible to the naked eye in the air; the data on the screen was jumping wildly.
"The information entropy of this virus... no, this value--"
She turned sharply to Thor.
"Are you crazy?! This thing's dimensional level is at least three orders of magnitude higher than my dad's Ultimate Oblivion Device! This is simply beyond my capabilities!!!"