Emma Frost glanced at the wrinkled cuffs of her white suit, then looked up at Valeria's expression.
She knew this proud, sharp-tongued genius all too well.
Normally, even if the sky were to fall, Valeria would first make a few sarcastic remarks before taking any action.
She was now covered in cold sweat, and even her breathing was erratic.
"What happened?" Emma Frost's tone turned cold, and she gripped Valeria's wrist with her right hand.
"No time to explain, Emma Frost!" Valeria gasped for breath. "Call everyone! All the top-tier combat forces you can muster—no, call every single person with a brain! A second's delay and they're all done for!"
Emma Frost stared at her for less than half a second.
She pressed the earpiece directly.
" Hill, activate the highest level of the backup tactical plan."
Maria Hill's efficient voice came through the headset. "Received. What is the scope of the command?"
"Entire city, all districts, enter a state of full combat readiness. Activate Batman number one through seven, release them into the main underground tactical room, and tell them to prepare for a tough battle. Instruct the South District's garrison to seal off the surrounding airspace."
After giving her instructions, Emma Frost grabbed Valeria's shoulders, and icy blue star diamond particles rapidly gathered and reformed beneath their feet.
The surrounding scenery changed.
The two appeared directly in the core laboratory on the fifth underground floor.
The moment we landed, the alarm pierced our eardrums.
Red lights flashed rapidly overhead.
The air was filled with the smell of high-voltage static electricity, which made one's skin tingle.
The giant holographic sand table in the center of the laboratory was already crowded with people.
Magneto Erik, stood on the outermost edge with his arms crossed, staring at the data stream on the sand table, his face ashen.
Several metal chairs around him floated in mid-air and trembled slightly under the influence of his magnetic field.
Betsy leaned against the alloy wall, holding a katana in one hand.
The purple psionic light on the blade flickered.
She didn't say a word, but just stared coldly at the holographic projection.
On the other side, Superman Clark and the Flash Barry Allen huddled together watching the changes on the screen.
But what made Emma Frost most nervous were the two people in front of the main control console.
Mister Fantastic Reed Richards, Doctor Doom Victor von Doom.
These two people, who have been at odds for half their lives, are now huddled together in front of a computer, shoulder to shoulder, discussing solutions.
" Lumina!" Valeria rushed over, shoving the Flash aside and lunging towards her designated control console, number four. "Connect the backup data from Observatory Three! Quickly!"
The AI's voice, punctuated by static, announced, "Request processing... Miss Valeria, external data traffic is overloaded. Forcing access will cause the regional motherboard to melt down."
"I'll take it by force! I'll take responsibility if it gets burned!"
The image in the center of the sand table flickered twice, and a three-dimensional tree diagram of a multiverse was projected.
Emma Frost understood what the colors in the picture represented: green was a living universe, red was a collapsing universe, and black was a completely dead universe.
The area representing black is expanding rapidly.
Hundreds and thousands of points of light merged into one dark area without any transition.
" Reed, you've miscalculated the gravitational constant!" Doom pointed to a scrolling code on the screen, his voice booming from beneath his metal mask, carrying his usual arrogance and domineering tone. "The attenuation rate of the gravitational waves has a logical break at level seventeen! Recalculate!"
"It's not a miscalculation." Reed's hands didn't stop; his ten fingers stretched and elongated, simultaneously controlling three different areas of the keyboard. "The rules of reality themselves have been altered. That invading force has crossed the constant framework we've established. Doom, put your Latveria Magic Defense Array into it and run a simulation."
" Doom already tried it!" Doom slammed his hand on the control panel, making the screen shake. "The anchor points of dimensional magic have been completely removed! This thing doesn't make any sense! It's erasing all fundamental existence at the conceptual level."
Valeria's hands flew across the screen, bringing up a surveillance video.
That was a recording from a segment of space on the outskirts of the Knowhere.
There was nothing in the scene except a pure, stark white.
In the pale, advancing area, stellar debris, remnants of timelines, and even the void in the background all vanished instantly.
"Can the Ultimate Nullifier stop it?" Emma Frost asked, walking up behind Valeria.
Reed shook his head without looking up.
"I just imported the Ultimate Nullifier's energy model and ran a simulation." Valeria swiped her finger, pulled up a page full of red warning boxes, and pushed it in front of Emma Frost. "It won't last three seconds; it'll be eaten along with everything."
"What about the Reality Stone? To alter reality and counteract its collapse," Superman Clark suggested.
"Using all Six Infinity Stones now is useless," Doom sneered, his tone extremely agitated. " The Infinity Stones rely on the rules of the current universe, and now even the concept of the multiverse itself is being eradicated. This is a great purge."
No one spoke in the lab except for the frantic whirring of the server rack fans.
Betsy pulled the katana out an inch, then put it back in, making a grating metallic sound.
She hated this feeling of powerlessness.
She could kill most enemies with a single strike, but she couldn't very well go and cut through that desolate, Void.
Where did Thor go? What will he do if he comes back and finds his house gone?
Emma Frost looked at the holographic sand table.
The black erosion has already covered one-third of the entire multiverse tree.
At this rate of spread, it won't be long before it reaches the Knowhere where they are.
She is the city lord here.
Thor entrusted the city to her, so she has to defend it.
No matter what level of monster is coming from the other side.
"The three of you combined are known as the smartest minds in the entire universe." Emma Frost placed her hands on the metal edge of the holographic sand table and leaned forward.
"Even if a fragment of a neutron star were to come crashing down on you, you could calculate the trajectory to avoid it. Now, the three of you are standing here, and you're telling me you can't do anything?"
"This is a dimensional reduction-level cleansing." Reed pushed up his glasses.
"This is fucking cheating!" Valeria cursed. "This energy has no source, no peaks, and even the basic laws of causality have been severed! Scientific formulas simply cannot explain it!"
Doom stared silently at the dots of light that kept turning black.
He raised his right hand and punched the base of the virtual light screen in front of him.
The magical aura, combined with physical force, dented half of the control panel screen along with its super alloy casing below.
Sparks flew, and the smell of burning wires filled the air.
" Doom will absolutely not accept this conclusion!"
He turned to look at Valeria.
Although the metal mask concealed his expression, his voice was completely deep and firm, brooking no argument.
"Take your things and go back to Latveria with Doom. Doom left a separate spacetime slice there; we can rebuild our defenses there."
"I'm not leaving." Valeria didn't even look up, continuing to type the remaining half of the keyboard. "I built this city, and I'm not going anywhere."
" Reed! Keep your daughter in check!" Doom turned to Mister Fantastic.
Reed did not respond to Doom.
He stood there, his arms restored to their normal length, hanging limply at his sides.
The top scholar, who was usually so rational that he seemed Coldblood, was now deathly pale.
He stared at the final survival countdown calculated on the sand table.
The numbers were jumping wildly.
Seventy-two hours remain.
Seventy-two hours later, everything will be reset to zero.
This has completely exceeded the limits of what they can fight against.
In the past, when dealing with Galactus Celestial, at least the patterns and weaknesses in energy circulation could be found.
This time, they couldn't even touch each other's boundaries.
The three of them had run out of computing power.
The star diamond particles in Emma Frost's palm began to aggregate uncontrollably.
Her mind was racing, preparing to issue a city-wide evacuation order.
Although she herself had no idea where she could evacuate the entire city.
Just then, a series of dragging footsteps came from outside the door.
Pat, pat.
The sound of flip-flops hitting the floor was particularly jarring in the deathly silent laboratory.
The door was pushed open.
Franklin walked in slowly, wearing floral shorts and an old T-shirt that read "I love New York ".
He was holding a glass of Coke filled with ice, biting on a plastic straw, taking a few steps and slurping it down.
All eyes in the lab were on him.
Magneto instinctively straightened up, and Betsy completely released her grip on the knife hilt.
Everyone present knew just how much monstrous power this seemingly lazy young man possessed.
Franklin walked up to the holographic sand table, glanced at the multiverse tree that was turning black, and then glanced at his father.
Reed was staring intently at him.
Franklin spat out the straw from his mouth and let out a long sigh.
"Dad, Uncle Victor, don't forget about it."
He casually placed the Coke on the dented control panel and scratched his messy hair.
"This isn't something that can be solved by typing on a keyboard; science and magic are completely ineffective at this level."
Valeria stopped typing and looked up at her older brother.
"Do you have a solution?" she asked.
Franklin burped.
"No." He shrugged nonchalantly, pointing his index finger to the ceiling above him. "But someone has already gone up there to cause trouble. All we can do now is sit here and wait for the outcome."
He pulled over a wheeled office chair, slumped into it without any proper posture, and put his feet directly on the keyboard that Reed had just been typing on.
"If you ask me, it's better to leave fighting to unreasonable people."