After dealing with Stark’s problem, the four of them headed to Stephen’s universe.

"I tried this countless times."

"I ran the experiment over and over."

"She just can’t survive this day. No matter what I do, it doesn’t work."

Stephen covered his face as he watched the woman walk out of the restaurant and get into the car with him, his expression filled with worry.

"I know."

Jovian looked at everything in front of him with complete confidence, as if he were simply waiting for the right moment to step in.

And just as Stephen had said, the girl died again and again, over and over, while the Stephen of that time refused to give up and kept trying to save her. But no matter what he did, it was all pointless. If he did not drive, she got hit by a car. If he did drive, she got hit by a car anyway.

Even if he chose not to meet her at all, she still died. No matter where she was, some mugger would appear that night. It was almost as if the whole country was crawling with robbers.

In the end, after Stephen failed countless times, the Ancient One finally showed up, unable to keep watching. She split Stephen into two people, one to shoulder the burden of the Sorcerer Supreme, and the other to remain consumed by longing for that woman and search for a way to revive her, only to suffer through endless hardship and walk straight down a road of no return.

"Would the three of you care to come out and say hello?"

Right after the Ancient One split Doctor Strange in two, she turned around, smiled toward the gap between universes where they were hiding, and spoke.

?

For a second, the three of them just stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"This is exactly why I hate going to timelines where the Ancient One is still alive."

Jovian let out a sigh. This was why he disliked dealing with timelines where the Ancient One was around. Who knew how strong that old lady really was? Who knew whether she had been secretly practicing dark magic behind the scenes, or how many dimensional gods she had quietly devoured?

"Hello."

Now that the Ancient One had invited them out, the three of them knew there was no point hiding any longer. They stepped out of the gap and appeared in that universe.

"Hello to all of you..."

The Ancient One’s gaze passed over Jovian and Stark before finally settling on Stephen.

When the Ancient One and Stephen met, the atmosphere did not become any warmer. It only turned stranger.

"Ancient One, why didn’t you stop me?"

The moment Doctor Strange realized the Ancient One could see into the gap between worlds, he understood just how powerful she was. And because he understood that, he had to ask why she had not stopped him, and instead had split him into two extremes.

"Stephen, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were born in this universe."

"If I told you that this universe was fated to be destroyed, could you accept that?"

The Ancient One sighed and looked at Stephen helplessly.

"Hah..."

After hearing her answer, Stephen confirmed his suspicion. All he could do was sigh. The more you knew, the more clearly you understood how small you really were. Some things simply could not be changed by people like them.

"It’s good that you understand."

Seeing that Stephen said nothing more, the Ancient One quietly relaxed.

"Are you done talking? Because if you are, I’m going to take her away now."

At that point, Jovian was getting impatient. He raised a finger and pointed at the dead woman.

...

The Ancient One said nothing. She simply stared at Jovian without blinking.

"Uh..."

Jovian felt a little guilty under that stare. He really did not know how strong the Ancient One was, this woman who had defended Earth for centuries from invasions by dimensional gods. Among those gods were definitely monsters at the single-universe level, and probably even multiversal ones.

"You may. You’re special, the most special of all the dimensional lords. Your dimension does not accept governance under any other rules."

The Ancient One agreed, because she had seen what made Jovian different.

"All right, then I’ll do it. And once I’ve saved this woman, I still have other things to take care of."

Jovian intended to restore the universes that had been destroyed during his earlier battle with Infinity Ultron. He was worried there might be more fallout.

"You can save her, but the next thing you’re planning to do, you must not do."

The Ancient One stopped him.

"Why?"

Jovian did not understand, so he asked.

"Because the universe you destroyed was supposed to be destroyed in the first place."

With a light wave of her hand, a model of a universe appeared before them.

"That universe was spreading a virus..."

"All life in that universe had been infected by it. They had become mad and horrifying. The moment they saw any living thing, they would bite..."

Before Jovian’s eyes, the Ancient One showed them a zombie apocalypse universe where all order had collapsed.

"Once I restore that universe, I can clear out all the zombies inside it."

Jovian made it clear that he had the ability to wipe out every zombie in that universe.

"Can you?"

The Ancient One only smiled faintly.

In the next second, within the universe she had projected, a crazed bald man with foam at his mouth slammed into the barrier of the universe. The fabric of space cracked under repeated impacts, and then a terrifying wave of energy swept through and erased everything inside that universe.

"A Watcher got infected?"

Jovian stared at the projected universe, eyes wide. He could hardly believe the bio-virus in the MCU could be that ridiculous.

"That universe was abandoned by Eternity, ahem..."

"In any case, what you did was for the best."

The Ancient One blinked. She had almost said something she could not quite say outright.

"In that case, I’m taking her with me."

Jovian lifted a finger slightly toward the woman, and she was restored at once, then drifted into Stephen’s arms.

"Let’s go."

Jovian had no desire to stay around the Ancient One any longer. Being around that old woman left him with zero sense of security.

"Goodbye, Jovian."

The Ancient One smiled faintly at him.

"Goodbye? Hopefully never again."

Jovian shook his head. He had no interest in ever meeting this old monster he could not read again.

He opened a Spacetime Gate and left that doomed universe with the others.

This time, Jovian left the MCU entirely and brought Stephen and the rest back to his own universe.

Once they returned, Jovian used those Infinity Stones to reshape the universe he lived in. First he fused six Stones into the main universe. Then, using Stephen and Infinite Stark as anchors, he expanded two parallel universes inside his greater cosmos. That used up two full sets of Infinity Stones.

Including the six fused into the main universe, all eighteen Infinity Stones in Jovian’s possession were gone just like that.

"These things really don’t last. It’d be great if I had more."

Jovian sighed in frustration.

"I’ll give you the ones in my chest."

Stark was a man of his word. He decided to give the Infinity Stones in his chest to Jovian.

"No need."

After hearing Stark out, Jovian waved it off.

"I’m leaving your universe in your hands. Don’t let any dimensional lords invade it."

He gave Stark that warning because Stark had no experience with this kind of thing, and Jovian was worried his universe might run into trouble. Stephen, on the other hand, required no such concern. Fighting dimensional gods was practically in his job description.

"We understand."

After thanking Jovian repeatedly, Stark and Stephen finally departed for the universes he had assigned them. As top-level admins of their respective universes, they now had authority over everything there, ranking below only Jovian, the five administrators of the main world led by Jean, and Jovian’s own family.

"Jovian, you have guests."

Just as Jovian finished saying goodbye to the two valuable combat assets he had poached from Marvel, a pleasant voice sounded behind him.

"Hm?"

Jovian turned at the sound.

Jean Grey stood there in a red dress, watching him.

"Jean? What is it? Something happen?"

Jovian raised a brow. Normally, if a universe administrator left their own domain to come find him, it meant something serious was going on.

"Jovian, three guests have arrived."

Jean Grey explained.

"Three guests? I’ll go take a look..."

Jovian frowned. If Jean was calling them guests, then there was usually only one possibility, outsiders from beyond the universe.

"Mm."

Jean nodded and made a small gesture. At once, a door appeared in the endless expanse of the universe.

Jovian pushed it open and walked through.

Inside was a completely white space. White everywhere, with absolutely nothing else in sight...

No, that was not quite true.

At the center of that white space stood a small house that looked absurdly out of place.

Jovian walked up to it, pushed open the door, and stepped inside, only to find three bald men watching TV.

And on the TV was everything currently happening in Jovian’s universe.

"You three..."

The moment Jovian saw those three bald heads, he felt a headache coming on. They were three Watchers.

"You’re back, Jovian!"

"Long time no see, Jovian!"

"Nice to meet you, Jovian!"

Hearing his voice, the three bald men all turned at once and spoke.

"Wait. Tell me which one of you is which first."

The second they opened their mouths, Jovian’s head started to hurt even more.

"I’ll go first."

"Jovian, I’m the Watcher from the X-Men world, the first Watcher you ever met."

The Watcher in ancient Greek-style clothing with a green bracelet spoke first.

"I see, so you’re Green Watcher."

Jovian gave him a name, then looked at the second Watcher.

"And you?"

"I’m one of the Watchers from the MCU. We’ve met before. Back then I was investigating why Arishem had appeared, and that’s when I took an interest in you. I figured you’d definitely be able to help me. Later on, I was also the one who went into the maze and brought you back."

The second Watcher wore a red bracelet.

"I..."

"Aren’t you the same person?"

Jovian blinked after hearing Red Watcher. He had always thought the Watcher who brought him out of the maze and the Watcher from the X-Men universe were the same damn person.

"We’re cousins."

"A lot of people do say we look alike."

Red Watcher and Green Watcher threw their arms around each other’s shoulders in front of Jovian.

"Alike? Bullshit, you two look exactly the same!"

The corner of Jovian’s eye twitched. Calling them similar was putting it lightly. To him, the two bald idiots were identical.

"Fine."

Jovian reluctantly accepted their identities and turned to the last one, Purple Watcher.

"Benefactor, you’re my benefactor!"

Purple Watcher stood up and gave Jovian a small bow.

"And who are you supposed to be?"

Jovian was absolutely certain he had never met this Watcher before.

"It’s me! Me! The infected one!"

"That blast of yours wiped out the virus inside my body!"

The Watcher quickly explained who he was.

"Got it."

Jovian nodded. At last, he understood. So this one was the unlucky Watcher who had gotten infected by the zombie virus.

"So why exactly have the three of you come here to my universe?"

Jovian raised a brow and asked those three goofballs why they had shown up.

"Hm?"

The three Watchers exchanged looks, then all smiled.

"Jovian, we go way back, stop pretending with us."

The Watcher in the red bracelet gave him a knowing look.

"Pretending?"

Jovian froze for a second. He genuinely had no idea what these bald freaks were getting at.

"Jovian, do you really want me to say your plan out loud?"

"Aren’t you planning to destroy every universe while collecting the Infinity Stones from each one, then use those Stones to split your own universe apart and construct a new multiverse, working from both inside and outside to replace the Seventh Eternity and complete the succession of MCU Eternity, raising your own level to the multiversal tier?"

"We know each other well enough that we just wanted to stop by, say hello, and ask that when you become the Eighth Eternity, you give us a decent job..."

The Watcher with the red bracelet laid out the theory he had come up with earlier.

"Ah, right, exactly. You’re all completely right."

When Jovian heard the Watcher’s words, the corners of his mouth curled up. He had been worrying about how exactly he was supposed to raise his level to the multiversal tier, and now the Watcher had just showed up and handed him a plan.

"Don’t worry. Once I become the Eighth Eternity, I’ll definitely reward you all properly."

If Jovian really did become the Eighth Eternity, he would absolutely thank these Watchers well.

...

The Watchers looked at Jovian’s reaction and suddenly fell silent.

"Brothers, did I just say something I shouldn’t have?"

The Watcher asked his cousins beside him.

So the one who had unleashed the greatest crisis in the MCU was me all along?

He had known Watchers were not supposed to meddle in the affairs of the universe...

The more you interfered in certain things, the messier they got.

"Hah..."

The Watcher let out a helpless sigh. He could already picture Jovian rampaging across the multiverse.

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