Luke carefully examined the Ancient One's arm and resolved never to casually seek out "Eternity."
"Ancient One, haven't you tried using time to restore your body's condition?"
The Ancient One shook her head, her tone calm and unwavering.
"It's useless. This is a 'blessing' granted by Eternity. No matter how many times I reset time, I cannot remove this boon."
"If you don't mind, I'd like to try?" Luke frowned, deep in thought.
"You may."
After speaking, the Ancient One added, "Don't worry about Eternity noticing. I've already tried one thousand three hundred and fifty-four possibilities, and none showed any improvement."
"Whether it's the highly corrosive Dark Force, the Sea of Serpents filled with madness and violence, or the holy power of the Vishanti, when faced with this force, all they can do is slow its spread."
"It's like cancer on Earth—infinitely proliferating, growing without end, impossible to stop or eradicate. Until it transforms my entire existence into another kind of being—an ugly, terrifying, chaotic, and disordered monster."
Luke listened carefully. As he recalled his knowledge of Marvel, he increasingly felt that this power didn't seem to belong to the Marvel universe at all.
Oh no—there was one force that matched it disturbingly well.
The terrifying, anomalous Cancerverse.
If it truly was that thing, then this universe was very likely already doomed.
Luke asked cautiously, "Have you studied Shuma-Gorath, the Eye Demon?"
The Ancient One paused briefly, then nodded. "I did consider whether this was the Eye Demon's power. But after carefully comparing the characteristics of the two forces, I determined that while they are somewhat similar in nature, they are definitely not the same entity."
"Furthermore, although Shuma-Gorath transcends time, it does not transcend Eternity itself. It cannot steal Eternity's great power, so the source must be something else."
After observing her closely, Luke recalled the scene of writhing, animated intestines from the movie Annihilation that he had seen before crossing over.
Although Luke didn't know exactly what this thing was, he was certain of one thing—It was absolutely a power from outside this world.
Coincidentally, his own power also originated from outside the world.
Luke immediately released a beam of holy light.
"How does it feel?"
"It feels warm," the Ancient One replied, "granting me infinite courage and confidence."
Her answer avoided the core of the question, so Luke switched to another ability.
A healing spell.
A rejuvenation spell.
Star infusion...
"It's useless," the Ancient One said quietly. "The best way to deal with it is to never approach It."
The Ancient One was not discouraged by this. Perhaps she had already accepted her fate.
Luke sifted through his thousands of entries in the skill library. Most of them contained powers that originated outside the Marvel universe.
It was just that he couldn't yet unlock the truly bug-level abilities, which was why he appeared so helpless.
"No… I may not actually be powerless."
The Reality Editor can edit everything. In theory, it should be able to directly remove this negative status.
But the Ancient One…
Luke looked her up and down. It wasn't a matter of hunger—he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.
If he could truly obtain the Ancient One's sincere approval and her complete, unreserved trust through some other means, then he could wield the overwhelming power of the golden finger.
But for now, that was clearly impossible.
The Ancient One was merely seeking death. Expecting her to place absolute trust in another person was simply laughable.
Even now, though she was asking for his help, what she truly wanted was for Luke to become the next Guardian of the World.
Luke considered another approach. "Since Eternity and Annihilation are unreliable, have you tried seeking out Death or Infinity?"
The Ancient One shook her head and said in a peculiar tone, "I'm not qualified to know Infinity's whereabouts. As for Death…"
"When I die, I'll naturally be able to see her, won't I?"
"Of course, it's also possible that I won't find her at all, because… Death may have already disappeared."
"Huh?" Luke's mouth twitched. "Seriously, what kind of bug-ridden universe is this?"
Could it be a universe that spawned from a bug?
Was there really any need to maintain the existence of such a trash-tier universe?
It was like spaghetti code—you should be grateful if it even managed to run.
What more could you possibly want from it?
Fix it? Are you sure you want to fix it?
What if the major bugs go on strike?
Luke seriously suspected that the reason this universe had managed to survive until today wasn't because justice was strong enough, but because there were enough bugs—so many that they crushed and restrained one another.
Now that Galactus had suddenly died, the spaghetti code had lost a crucial "bug."
The world would likely suffer a series of chain reactions, like falling dominoes.
The code was on the verge of crashing.
No wonder the Ancient One wanted to run away.
Luke was so convinced by this reasoning that he almost felt like leaving first, out of sheer principle.
"But that doesn't make sense. If Death disappeared, then the concept of death shouldn't exist in this world, and no one should be dying."
Luke frowned in confusion. The Cancerverse was a classic dark dimension where Death had been sacrificed and cancer ran rampant.
Yet in this world, living beings still died when they were supposed to.
The Ancient One herself was even seeking out Death.
"Death still exists, and there are more Gods of Death than ever before, but…"
"Do you know who understands Death the best in this universe?"
The Ancient One suddenly posed a strange question.
Luke almost blurted out Deadpool, but at that moment, the image of a certain obsessive simp flashed through his mind.
"Thanos?"
The Ancient One looked surprised, then nodded. "Thanos is the one who understands Death the most. Just recently, under the banner of restoring the Goddess of Death, he set out on a journey to seek the Infinity Stones."
Death still existed—but Death was also missing.
Luke was momentarily baffled, yet a hypothesis quickly formed in his mind.
"Are you saying that Death still exists, but it's no longer the former Death? That it's maintaining the world's operation by completely replacing the chaos left behind by the previous Death?"
Luke was left even more speechless.
What kind of situation was this supposed to be?
At least three of the four abstract entities that maintained order in the Marvel universe had, without anyone noticing, been replaced.
Now only the last remaining entity—Infinity—was left.
Luke now began to suspect that perhaps… Infinity had already run away.
No—not just Infinity.
Maybe all four abstract entities had fled together.
After all, this universe was truly far too outrageous.
Only Galactus—the eternally starving child—had been unable to run away because he lacked sufficient energy.
That was why he had died.
Thinking of his own golden finger, of anomalous objects and anomaly points…
The conjecture forming in Luke's mind felt increasingly solid.
Perhaps this world had originally been a normal one, but at some point, the very first "anomaly" had appeared.
After that, more and more anomalies merged into it.
Until today, this world had transformed into an anomalous universe riddled with bugs.
That made perfect sense.
Too many different worldviews had fused together in this single world.
At this point, it wouldn't even be strange if someone named Clark suddenly popped out.
One more Superman wouldn't make much difference, and one less wouldn't either.
Anyway.. it was doomed.
No, it was worse than that.
Luke thought of his golden finger.
A flash of inspiration struck him.
Since this world is already a complete mess, why not add more fire and make it burn even brighter?
They're just anomalies, right? As long as I become the biggest anomaly of them all, then every other anomaly will become normal.