Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 787 Reboot: Marvel

"Drip drip drip."

The sounds of medical equipment filled my ears.

Stephen Fang tried to open his eyes, only to find that his eyelids felt incredibly heavy.

The cold touch was the first thing to return.

It wasn't pain, but a deep, irritating numbness, as if the muscles and bones were soaked in viscous oil, too heavy to lift an inch.

Stephen Fang struggled to open his eyelids, his vision gradually focusing from blurry patches of color.

The glaring, cold white light made him squint uncomfortably.

Metal frames, flashing indicator lights, wires wrapped around the body. As far as the eye can see, there are only cold instruments.

He was strapped to a tilted medical bed, like a specimen placed on an experimental table for dissection.

Wow, that's quite a grand affair.

He tried to move his fingers to respond to his brain's commands, but it was like throwing a stone into the sea; he only felt a dull sensation as if he were wrapped in thick cotton.

The anesthetic was still potent.

The sound of light footsteps approached, carrying the cautiousness characteristic of a scientist.

Banner's tired and anxious face appeared above. Behind his thick glasses, his eyes widened instantly when he saw Stephen Fang's open eyes, and his jaw almost dropped.

"OMG!" Banner's voice rose, filled with disbelief and horror. He subconsciously adjusted his glasses, as if to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "Stephen Fang?! You... how could you be awake?! The dose I just injected you was enough to take down three adult African elephants! Biomonitoring showed that your nerve conduction should have been completely suppressed!"

Stephen Fang felt his throat tighten and dry. He opened his mouth slightly, his voice hoarse and muffled from just waking up: "Sleepy is inevitable." He tried to move his eyes, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. The medical equipment had a distinct Stark Industries style, but it wasn't entirely the familiar layout of the Avengers base.

"By the way, where is this?"

Banner was clearly still in shock; he waved his hands incoherently, "You...you don't move! Don't force yourself to move! Your body...it...it needs time."

He suddenly remembered something, frantically pulled out his communicator, and said urgently, "He's awake! God, he's really awake! Everyone! To the medical center immediately! Now!"

A series of gasps and a busy tone came from the communicator, a mixture of shock and disbelief.

They weren't kept waiting for long.

The sound of hurried, chaotic footsteps grew louder as the alloy door slid open, and one figure after another rushed in, filled with urgency, anxiety, and a hint of relief at surviving a close call.

The gold and red armor came to a stop beside the bed with a slight mechanical whirring. The mask popped up, revealing Tony Stark's signature face, which was now filled with complex emotions—worry, exhaustion, and a hint of barely perceptible "It really is you" resignation.

Immediately afterwards, Scarlet Witch Wanda appeared silently behind Tony, her face still somewhat pale.

Ant-Man, clad in his quantum suit, followed closely behind, his face showing undisguised amazement. Steve Rogers strode in, his composed leadership aura still evident despite his casual attire, though a heavy gloom and weariness lingered between his brows.

The small medical room was instantly filled with these familiar or "familiar" faces.

Stephen Fang's gaze slowly swept over the faces—Tony, Wanda, Banner, Steve, Scott—before finally settling on the two slightly peripheral figures by the door.

Hawkeye, Falcon... even the bystanders are here?
Stephen Fang managed a very difficult twitch at the corner of his mouth, forming an extremely bitter, ironic, and self-deprecating arc, his voice light and airy.

"Heh," he tilted his head. "What? The timeline has been restarted?"

Everyone fell silent, their gazes fixed on him with complex emotions.

Finally, Banner took a deep breath, stepped forward, and his gaze behind his glasses was filled with relief at surviving the ordeal, but even more so with heaviness: "Stephen, I think it's Dr. Strange. He used the Time Stone to find an extremely small branch of possibility in that future. He did everything in his power to transmit crucial information to me in this timeline. He told me about the future, and so..."

Banner's voice was deep, "We'll use the Space Stone, combined with the Pym Particle theory, to create a time machine that can truly anchor itself to points in the past."

He paused, as if organizing his thoughts to describe that faint hope: "But the probability of this outcome is so low it's almost despairing, less than one in a million. Because of the existence of spacetime turbulence, it's like trying to pinpoint a single drop of water in countless rushing rivers and then retrieval it before it evaporates. The probability of finding you and pulling you over is also minuscule."

Banner looked at Tony and Scott, and both of them nodded solemnly.

"We had no choice but to pull you into this timeline before the Chitauri's 'donut' ships tore through the skies of New York. We succeeded, before Thanos's fleet arrived on Earth, before everything slid into an irreversible abyss."

Banner's voice trembled slightly, a tremor born of disbelief at the success and fear of the cost. "We...maybe we could have avoided that all-consuming war, avoided those desperate sacrifices. Tony, Steve, Thor, Wanda, and everyone else...they shouldn't have."

Banner didn't say anything more, but the heavy ellipses contained so much.

“Wait a minute,” Stephen Fang interrupted hoarsely, his brow furrowed. “There’s a paradox in what you’re saying.”

His gaze swept over everyone. "I've come to this timeline. So, what about my original one? What was the ending? Just like that... gone? Erased?"

Everyone's face turned extremely ugly, their eyes darting away, unable to meet Stephen Fang's probing gaze.

The air was so heavy it was suffocating.

Finally, it was Tony Stark who broke the awkward silence.

A weary, emotionless smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "The ending?" Tony's Adam's apple bobbed, his eyes filled with an unfathomable sorrow. "In your timeline... Wanda got the Infinity Gauntlet, possessed all five Infinity Stones, and she lost control. That's the ending."

He managed to utter those words with difficulty, “There is no ending. She killed everyone who could resist. The only thing we can do is gamble this one in a million chance to use the time machine to pull you out. Only if you experience the end and see her horror will it be possible to prevent all of this from repeating itself on this timeline.”

Stephen Fang remained silent.

He closed his eyes, as if trying to dispel the apocalyptic scene of rivers of blood and the complete annihilation of his comrades from his mind.

When he opened his eyes again, his gaze had regained its usual sharpness, tinged with a cynical glint, and he posed a crucial question that was almost absurd:
"That's not right." He tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the room once more. "What about me in this timeline?"

(End of this chapter)