Malrick continued observing the collision between the two Universes.
Even though the Mutant World kept sending more armies and super‑powered individuals, he did not pay them any mind. Tony Stark had already faced cosmic‑level civilization battles in the Three‑Body Universe, so dealing with a parallel world's fleet was stress‑free for him. The waves of fighter jets entering Earth were like locusts rushing into insecticide, one after another. The sky above S‑Earth was filled with fiery explosions as fighter jets streaked through it. The invasion from the Mutant World was extinguished almost as soon as it began.
Even if a small number of super‑powered individuals survived the blasts, they could not escape the pursuit of Diana and Kara.
The Avengers had not failed in trying to dissuade the Mutant Earth. They repeatedly issued calm explanations to the other side, assuring them that the two worlds could safely endure the collision crisis. But the Mutant Earth did not believe them, or rather, they dared not trust anyone. They had already suffered four world collisions and had witnessed the destruction of four Earths and four Universes. They would not gamble with survival. This was a battle for survival, a conflict whose stakes were the lives of every man, woman, and child in their world, and potentially across other realities.
For most of the Avengers, this was their first time encountering the ruthless chaos of the multiverse. Tony, having just returned from the Three‑Body Universe, felt it even more deeply.
The Mutant Earth's attack continued, and the fiery explosions above S‑Earth never ceased. It seemed they would not stop until every fighter jet was expended, every Mutant was dead, and the Mutant Earth had been reduced to utter desperation.
Then, at a certain moment, Malrick found the clue he was searching for. He pushed the two Universes apart again, allowing S‑Earth and the Mutant Earth to drift away from each other. Instantly, the attacks from the Mutant Earth stopped.
On S‑Earth, beneath a sky still red with smoke and fire, the Avengers watched silently. Some sat on the grass in weary silence. Others stood upright, their hearts still pounding from the shock of witnessing such madness. No one could calm down for a long time. Everyone felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.
Under the orders of Captain America and Tony Stark, they eventually dispersed to comfort the affected populace. The gratitude and smiles of people who had survived the catastrophe eased some of the Avengers' complex emotions. But the madness they had witnessed from the Mutant World had already planted an urgent seed in their hearts.
Outside the Universe, Malrick felt a surge of clarity. He had finally discovered the true reason for the continuous world collisions.
"Thanks to the uniqueness of this Universe," he murmured to himself, "I have finally found the cause." "It is indeed a timeline issue, and it is highly unlikely that Doctor Strange caused it."
In truth, Malrick had already suspected that the world collisions were linked to a timeline problem. But every Universe's timeline is not a simple straight path. Instead, it resembles a branching tree, with infinite offshoots. When different Universes collide, it is actually two branches of time crashing into each other, causing interference and chaos within their own timelines.
Previously, Malrick could not determine where the error originated. One reason was that he did not allow a world collision to reach its end, and the other was that when two worlds collided, the timelines were already chaotic.
But this time was different because one of the colliding worlds was the Universe in which Malrick existed. The 199999‑S Universe where Malrick was located had a very special timeline. Most Universes generate countless timeline branches, but the timeline of Malrick's Universe was nearly a straight line.
This timeline began in the year Malrick first appeared in the MCU Universe. In that year, S‑Earth branched off from the Main Universe's timeline and formed a new Universe. Because of Malrick's uniqueness, this timeline had essentially no branches. However, every time Malrick returned after traveling between worlds, this timeline would be rewritten, producing a new future.
Now that Malrick's strength had reached the Multiversal level, he had already partially freed himself from the constraints of the MCU timeline. Yet the future of this timeline in the S‑Universe had grown uncertain and blurred.
So in the past, the colliding worlds were long tangled chains of extended timelines, unclear and chaotic. But this time, since the world Malrick was in collided, all influencing factors became much clearer.
After the two Universes approached one another, space, time, reality, and other elements separated in Malrick's vision. The past and future of the two Universes appeared to him as one straight timeline and one chaotic, tangled timeline. Although the Mutant Universe's timeline still became disorderly after the collision, the core issue stood out more clearly than ever.
All reasons had become visible.
Malrick saw that there was no direct entanglement between the two Universes. Instead, the upstream segments of their timelines were converging.
"The source of the timeline has a problem," Malrick said quietly.
He pushed the Mutant Universe far away and then turned his gaze toward the upstream timeline of his own Universe.
In the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, there is a concept known as the "Sacred Timeline," a baseline of connected events originally maintained to prevent multiversal chaos caused by branching realities. This timeline was once controlled to suppress dangerous divergences and maintain order.
Most Universes extend from this central structure, but there are also other major timeline branches that exist independently, such as the Sony Spider‑Man movie Universe or other distinct realities. Previously, Malrick had suspected that some external force beyond this structure might be causing the timeline to compress outside the known Multiverse, ultimately triggering the world collisions.
Now, with new insight, he saw that the main time branches themselves were being squeezed together, colliding like bamboo shoots forced into a narrow space. In reality, the upstream of countless timelines was colliding and contracting. This was a serious problem. Even the tiniest shift at the source of time could produce massive and unpredictable effects throughout the Multiverse.
This compression of the main timeline branches would force the many downstream timelines to press against one another, like a string of pressure‑activated landmines all set off in a chain reaction.
"No wonder the world collisions are happening more and more frequently," Malrick said, his expression unusually serious.
"It turns out the world entanglement caused by Doctor Strange's world travel or other local events were only localized triggers," he continued, "but the true reason is the contraction occurring at the source of the timelines."