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When Bruce opened his eyes again, he found that he had left that spiritual world and returned to the Batbase in the real world.
He checked the time in the monitoring room and realized that even though he had experienced so much in his spiritual world, it felt like an eternity had passed. However, real time seemed to have frozen, and only began to flow again after he emerged. From entering to exiting, and then Stephen's intervention to resolve the problem, it had only taken ten seconds in total.
"Does it feel like a long time has passed?" Stephen guessed, seeing the look of surprise on Bruce's face. "That's just how the spirit world is. The speed of time there is meaningless compared to the speed of time in the real material universe."
Bruce nodded, a momentary uncertainty about what to say. He simply felt a strange discomfort, both physically and emotionally. But when he tried to pinpoint the source, it became murky.
He felt his body grow heavy, a sensation reminiscent of the heaviness and discomfort one experiences during recovery after a long period of bed rest following a serious illness. An action that had previously come easily to him now felt distinctly difficult.
At the same time, the heaviness of his body made him feel that his mental state was a little light, as if a smaller soul was stuffed into his well-trained and powerful body, and the sense of burden immediately appeared.
Bruce speculated that this was a side effect of the surgery and he needed to adapt to it slowly.
"This is for you." Stephen threw a golden hollow ball that seemed to be made of an unknown metal to Bruce. Bruce grabbed it in his hand with his body's reaction and looked at it carefully in front of his eyes.
It was a very ordinary sphere, but there seemed to be some kind of light trapped inside it, which reflected the golden color of the sun along the lines of the sphere.
The moment Bruce grasped the sphere, his body trembled. A sense of familiarity, an extension of his limbs, emerged from the depths of his soul. The sphere in his hand felt like a long-lost, yet still incredibly familiar object. He couldn't help but glance at Stephen, hoping for an answer.
"What is this?" Bruce instinctively felt that this was something very important to him.
"A fragment of your soul. Or rather, the portion of your bright personality that was cut out after it materialized." Stephen explained, "Although it's been cut out, if you wear it constantly, you'll be subtly influenced by it, increasing your chances of quickly recovering your previous mental state."
Bruce's grip on the sphere tightened at that. A fragment of his soul? Could something this illusory actually materialize? And actually appear before him?
Was Stephen exaggerating, using metaphors, or was he being serious? Even if Bruce wasn't a wizard or someone with supernatural abilities, he could understand how much trouble a soul fragment could cause him if it fell into the hands of someone.
Although Stephen had completely cut it off, feeling that vague sense of connection, Bruce had already treated it as a weakness.
"The other one is your dark personality. I can't give it to you. It has infected the abyss. No matter what, contact with it is unnecessary and dangerous. Your current state is like a blank sheet of paper. The dark personality's influence on you is much stronger and more obvious than it." Stephen waved his hand, and in his open palm he held up a black sphere that was exactly the same as the one in Bruce's hand except for the color.
"What are you going to do with it?" Bruce thought for a moment before asking. This was, after all, one of his split personalities, and as its former owner, especially one so sensitive, he had to ask more questions.
If he hadn't felt the power of the abyss revealed by young Wayne in the spiritual world and sensed the immense danger, he would have definitely snatched it from Stephen. After all they had been through, he had some initial trust in Stephen, but this trust wasn't enough to make him let down his guard and doubts.
"Take it back to Luke and see if he can save your dark side. If it's hopeless, we'll have to find a way to seal it away and treat it as a dangerous item." Stephen was very familiar with the procedures for handling Abyssal Infection. The goal was to control the Abyss's uncontrolled expansion as much as possible.
The Time Administration has used similar items containing a modicum of Abyssal power to destroy more than one civilization. Many affected civilizations, after inexplicably acquiring Abyssal items, have experienced a strange power within them. Unaware of the dangers of the Abyss and overly confident in their own technology, they often analyze these items and conduct various experiments.
Some of these technologically advanced civilizations have indeed researched a lot of things from objects, and even developed entire disciplines from scratch.
But no matter which civilization it is, and no matter what it has researched from the items in the abyss, as time goes by, it will inevitably fall into war, chaos, and destruction.
This time span may be measured in hundreds of years, but all people and civilizations that have obtained items from the abyss will eventually die and be destroyed.
Some were caused by accidents, while others were inexplicably attacked by another civilization, or by a sudden war involving multiple civilizations. The fall of each civilization and the death of its owner seemed to be caused by various factors, but the birth of each civilization's ruins still added a bit of legendary color to the Abyss items.
There are also some civilized races with special abilities who, without any other information, accurately judge the danger of the abyss items and have thought about throwing them away or destroying them, but both methods failed at the beginning.
One is the lack of understanding that those who come into contact with Abyssal Items will be marked by them, and the more contact they have, the deeper the mark becomes. Coupled with the covert manipulation of the Time Administration, the option of discarding Abyssal Items is almost impossible.
Another option is to attempt to destroy it. However, Abyssal Items, materials capable of bearing the power of the Abyss and possessing strong resistance and tolerance to it, are even superior to those used to forge divine artifacts. Therefore, when powerful weapons possessed by civilizations are unable to destroy it, they often place their hopes on the almighty universe.
One civilization, technologically less advanced but possessing a profoundly superior racial spirit, once planned to launch a mysteriously acquired abyssal object into a launcher and launch it into a planetary system. The result, decades later, was that the entire sun became black, possessing strange energy properties that distorted and infected all life within the system.
That race, renowned for its exceptional psychic abilities, was virtually defenseless against the sun's pollution. The changes affected not only them, but also their planet's energy, vegetation, environment, wildlife, and bacterial species. They had no escape, constantly experiencing multiple infections. Ultimately, they were corrupted, becoming a mad tribe worshipping the Black Sun and the power of the Abyss. These frenzied followers even hunted down those of their own race who remained relatively calm, forcing them to participate in the depraved rituals, believing this was the best way to preserve their species and their lives.
Malice, disaster, destruction.
With the widespread release of Abyssal items, legends abounded across the multiverse, with many viewing them as a catastrophic disaster like a flood or a beast. However, after obtaining and analyzing Abyssal items, no one could be certain of this. After all, Abyssal items were so diverse.
It may just be the core of a certain mineral buried under the planet. Then the planet was discovered by a nearby civilization, and some minerals with strange energy were mined. It was regarded as an important resource star, and new technology trees were climbed and new technologies were discovered.
Then, at this moment, they unearthed the core of the abyss. After careful study and analysis, even though they realized its dangers, due to the significant initial investment and the prospect of various new technologies in the future, they were reluctant to make the drastic decision and could not make the drastic decision immediately. Instead, they forced themselves to ignore the potential dangers and continue on, hoping for a lucky break. Ultimately, they inexplicably fell deeper and deeper into the abyss, becoming increasingly fearful and mad, filled with destructive desires and aggression, until they destroyed themselves or were destroyed by other civilizations and powerful beings.
In a world where Asgard existed, Odin, the young god-king full of conquest and warlike spirit, once obtained such an abyssal object from a country he had conquered and destroyed. He kept it in his own treasury as a trophy.
This abyssal item was quickly noticed by Hela and picked out.
It can only be said that Hela's personality and strength attributes are very pleasing to the Abyss items. With the two complementing each other, Hela's power rapidly expanded, but at the same time, the distortion of her mind and body became increasingly difficult to conceal. Eventually, her abnormality was discovered by Odin.
Just like the story Thor and his three siblings have known countless times, their family war inevitably happened. The first battle was still the familiar one between the God King Odin and the Goddess of the Underworld Hela.
The Valkyries fell one after another, and their souls did not return to Valhalla. Instead, they and their bodies became deformed forms of the Abyss Undead under the influence of Abyss items and Hela's power.
This time, the God King Odin failed to subdue the already powerful Hela. Instead, Hela chopped off his head with her sword, achieving what Hela had longed to do in many other universes but hadn't been able to do. Having devoured Odin's divinity and power, Hela's power grew even stronger, leading to the complete fall of Asgard!
Every Asgardian was forced to undergo a corruption ritual, becoming the carrier and followers of the two major forces of the abyss and the undead in Hela's hands.
You won't die, you won't get tired, and the abyss is highly polluting, assimilative, and devouring.
An abyss army that was feared by the entire universe swept across the nine realms and the universe under the reorganization of Hela.
No one could resist Hela's assault. No one could confront or destroy the Abyssal Legion. Every time they killed one, they would pollute a patch of land, eventually resurrecting there to continue the fight. This meant that even a powerful legion capable of confronting Hela's Abyssal Legion head-on would face the catastrophic consequences of their homes, their tribes, and themselves being contaminated. Ultimately, even fighting to the death, they would become one, forced to submit to Hela's constraints. This was the point that truly broke the defenses of all civilizations and powerful beings.
Ultimately, Hela, who had failed to unify other universes, was forcibly achieved by this universe's Hela. Every civilization and planet Hela had set foot on was corrupted and degenerated into the Legion of the Abyss. Eventually, the situation became so catastrophic that the Time Administration, unable to cope, was forced to intervene and clean up the mess.
They even guided the rebels of this universe to find the whereabouts of the Infinity Stones and pointed them in the right direction one by one. As the leader of the rebels, Thanos did his old job in other universes, collecting Infinity Stones, making Infinity Gauntlets, and snapping his fingers.
But this time it's not to destroy more than half of the life in the universe, but to eliminate Hela and her rampant Abyss Legion.
With the secret help of the Time Administration, Thanos successfully fulfilled all the prerequisites for snapping his fingers and snapped his fingers in front of Hela.
The Abyssal Legion was indeed destroyed by the power of the Infinity Stones, and the dead could no longer be resurrected. But unfortunately, the power of the Infinity Stones failed to erase the power of the Abyssal Force. Instead, due to the loss of many carriers, the power of the Abyssal Force exploded, and through life, it began to pollute the starry universe.
Realizing this, Thanos had to forcibly extract more power from the ring again to restart it. Unfortunately, the restart did not make the power of the abyss disappear. Instead, it was more deeply integrated with the universe because of the early stage of the universe's restart.
Ultimately, the Time Administration was forced to dispatch Kamar-Taj's mages and Hybern's technicians to clean up the mess. After expending immense manpower and resources to contain the Abyss within this new universe, the Energy Bank immediately established stringent regulations regarding the use of Abyssal artifacts and began collecting previously discarded Abyssal artifacts to prevent such a loss of control in the future.
However, due to this, the Time Administration obtained numerous detailed observation reports on Abyssal artifacts, sharing this valuable intelligence with Hybron and Kamar-Taj. With the help of this data and intelligence, the restrictions on the power of the Abyss were updated twice.
So while the Abyss is still a problem, as long as it doesn't spread, Stephen can even use it as a lethal weapon. Bruce's Abyss contamination, which is separated by several layers, won't be a big threat to Stephen once it's under control.