After gathering all six Infinity Stones, Skyl did not get a genie in a bottle, but he knew he could do far more.
The power of the six Infinity Stones converged within the scepter and surged into his body. With every Stone he collected, he could feel himself growing stronger, and also drawing closer to the soul of the universe, the supreme cosmic order.
In that mysterious, unseen place, Skyl seemed to stand above the universe. His gaze touched every planet in the world, and he listened to the mind of every living being.
Space, time, power, soul, reality, and mind, the six Stones had been forged from the remnants of the six singularities of the Big Bang. They were the six keys connected to the root of existence. Everything in the world had been derived from those singularities, and to communicate with the six root laws at the same time was to control everything in the universe.
Marvel's multiverse was endless, and what Skyl now held was only a single drop in that vast ocean, the MCU.
If the holder of the Stones possessed an iron will, they could make the world submit. With a single thought, they could erase stars across hundreds of millions of light-years. With one idea, they could restart the universe. That level of control was still inferior to the omnipotent Genesis Pen, which transcended the omniverse, but the experience of using it was far more shocking.
Not even The Tower of Tomes had ever given Skyl this feeling of omnipotence.
Yes, even though The Tower of Tomes was Skyl's divine kingdom, even though it contained his divinity and granted him the authority of omniscience and omnipotence, The Tower of Tomes had not been created by Skyl himself. It had been generated by the gate-shaped mark. In truth, he was only the user of The Tower of Tomes. He could not restart it, could not destroy it, and could not freely create life and souls within it.
But now, Skyl was about to fully understand the root of the universe. He would become the ruler of the world.
This precious experience could help him cross the barrier of godhood. From now on, whether he wanted to completely control The Tower of Tomes or create a universe of his own, he would have a real, practical path forward.
The Mad Titan saw that the wizard beside him had gone blank after obtaining the final Stone, as if he had lost consciousness, and his gaze could not help landing on the Infinity Scepter in Skyl's hand.
What a perfect opportunity. If he seized the scepter now, Thanos could realize his ambition.
But Skyl's earlier clash with the Goddess of Death made Thanos wary.
"I understand now," Skyl suddenly said. "I understand why you would say, 'I am inevitable.' I also understand why Stark would say, 'I am Iron Man.'"
Thanos asked in confusion, "Are you talking to me?"
"Yes, though not the current you. The future you. To use the power of the Infinity Stones, you must have a firm heart. A chaotic will leads to chaotic results. It is the same as casting a spell. You must clearly understand the magical effect you want, otherwise, while chanting the Levitation Charm, you might end up summoning a bison instead."
Skyl took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. The six Stones shone with magnificent light at the head of the scepter.
He was about to make his wish, but this wish was so empty and so vast. It was not something as simple as "randomly erase half the population," nor was it "bring back the half who died," or "wipe out Thanos and his army." This wish was, "become the soul of the universe."
But the soul of the universe had never been a truly existing concept.
It was like a cloud. Skyl had once seen a downpour of thought-strings, so based on his life experience, he judged that storm clouds must exist. Yet he had never seen that rain cloud with his own eyes, and he could not even be certain whether it truly existed.
Because of that, Skyl's wish was far too vague. He was seeking a concept even he did not understand.
It was like a person living in a cave who had never seen the sun, yet judged from the light shining in through the cave entrance that there must be a light source outside. In that cave dweller's imagination, the light source might be a huge bonfire, but he would never realize it was a sphere moving across the vault of the sky, because he did not even have the concept of a sky.
To reach this wish required a will far too intense. Skyl had a premonition that once he made the wish, there would be no turning back. What awaited him next, life or death, godhood or oblivion, was all unknown.
Terrifying.
More terrifying than life and death.
It was like the feeling an astronaut had when entering space. When Yuri Gagarin passed through the blue atmosphere and saw the calm, pitch-black deep of space, when he looked back at Earth and saw that it was a sphere, when all living beings were beneath his feet and the stars shone above his head, out of billions of people, only he could send that sight and that feeling back to the surface by radio. In that moment, he became a monument in history.
Before every theory is proven, it is only a hypothesis. Skyl firmly believed in the existence of the soul of the universe, but that was still only his own theory. If his theory was correct, he could successfully ascend to godhood. If his theory was wrong, he would die without a grave.
Skyl was about to step out of the "cave" called the universe with the body of a mortal, to see the sun in the sky for himself.
This was true adventure.
What was death? What was the obliteration of will? What did it matter if every beautiful thing in life came to an abrupt end?
The young wizard suddenly laughed.
At that moment, he recalled his entire life and suddenly felt immensely grateful for his loneliness. Skyl had no beloved, so there would be no regrets. If he died for truth today, no one would weep before his tombstone.
Perhaps someone would, but that sadness would pass in an instant.
"Lord Thanos, if I die here, please tell my crew that we will meet again."
"You are actually giving your last words? What kind of insane wish could make you so pessimistic?" the Mad Titan sighed. "It seems you are even crazier than I am."
"This is the fate of a mage."
"I will pass on your words. High Evolutionary, you are an interesting man. If we had met earlier, perhaps we would have had much more to discuss."
Skyl shook his head, then said to Hermaeus Mora, "Mora, if I do not survive this, The Tower of Tomes will be under your control. Do not turn my world into a foul mess."
Mora's tone was excited. "My lord, go without worry... no, I mean, uh, this humble one believes you will surely succeed!"
Skyl shook his head and laughed. He said nothing more, only slowly raised the scepter high.
Then, the light of the six Infinity Stones blended together, condensing into a multicolored beam that flowed down from the head of the scepter. It wrapped around Skyl's arm, then his chest, then spread to his face and limbs, enveloping his entire body.
Thanos and Mora bore witness as the light on Skyl's body seemed to burn. When the light went out, nothing remained where he had stood.
Skyl's consciousness slowly drifted apart.
For an instant, he could see nothing, hear nothing, and touch nothing.
At that moment, Skyl truly realized that he had died.
The world after death was impossibly clean. Only he remained, alone, as if this were the infinite silence before the Big Bang.
Then he heard faint voices.
Those voices spoke in the language of the Counter-Earth Humanimals. (TN: Fixed)
Skyl carefully caught those hard-won voices. The ascended Counter-Earth Humanimals seemed to have found him.
"My lord... we will help you... please do not forget your own name."
"My name?" Skyl frowned. "Of course I remember. My name is Yog..."
"Wrong!" "No!" "That is not it!"
Endless, chaotic cries suddenly rang beside his ears. The beastfolk screamed, and that world-opening explosion of sound returned light to him.
Skyl opened his eyes with difficulty. His eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. He found himself floating in deep space, clutching the Infinity Scepter in his hand, wearing his wizard robe, and carrying a phone in his pocket. Other than that, he had nothing.
The nearest star was twenty thousand light-years away.
But Skyl only took a single step, and he crossed those twenty thousand light-years. Shock filled his heart, because he had not calculated the spacetime coordinates, had not opened a portal, and had merely lifted his foot in the most ordinary way.
This feeling was somewhat familiar, and also somewhat strange.
He took another step and crossed half the universe directly, arriving on Earth.
Skyl stood on a street in New York. People came and went around him, but no one saw him. A Dodge SUV drove straight through his body and continued forward without stopping.
He touched his body. The feeling was real and solid. Skyl knew he was not a ghost, but he did not seem to have a body of flesh and blood either.
Even he was a little lost. Skyl had encountered a blind spot in his knowledge, and also an existential crisis. He did not even know what he had become.
After that, he wandered aimlessly and unknowingly arrived at a World War II memorial. He looked at the black-and-white photos of planes streaking across the sky, battlefields covered in wounds, and the photo of Captain America, Steve Rogers. He blinked without meaning to, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw a snowy sky overhead. Beside him, groups of German soldiers wearing Hydra symbols rushed about in panic, raising their guns to meet a blond man holding a shield.
"That's him! Stop him!"
"Open fire!"
Bullets passed through Skyl's body like they were passing through air. It was as if he were walking through a phantom of history.
Steve Rogers led the Howling Commandos through the enemy line, smashing through everything in their path as they cut their way through the German base.
The German soldiers who were shot dead beside him radiated intense anger and hatred before they died. Souls drifted out of their bodies and scattered into silver thought-strings, automatically surging toward Skyl, bringing him a faint warmth.
"Did I just devour the souls of the dead? Interesting. What state am I in now?"
Skyl's experiments on soul assimilation had only collected some data from Harry Potter. Devouring thought-strings would inevitably bring memory confusion and a blurred consciousness, yet at this moment, he was not affected at all. He only felt that his soul had grown somewhat larger.
Skyl wandered across Earth in the 1940s. Every day, large numbers of people around the world were erased by war. Death was the most common scenery of this era. The hair of Auschwitz's victims filled warehouses. A million corpses lay at Stalingrad. Bones piled like mountains at Midway. From Normandy to the Pacific islands, soldiers built the road to victory with flesh and blood. The earth of Hiroshima and Nagasaki burned in apocalyptic fire.
The souls of ninety million dead gathered into one body.
Skyl grew even stronger. With a thought, he appeared in every corner of Earth at the same time, one Skyl for every square kilometer, one Skyl for every two days. He appeared throughout all of Earth's time and space. Standing in Times Square, New York, he saw ancient Tyrannosaurus rex hunting in Late Cretaceous America. He saw Native American priests teaching writing to their apprentices. He saw streets full of cheap performances during the Great Depression. He saw buildings burning during the Chitauri invasion. He saw Earth's resources exhausted, the yellow-brown sky filled with immigrant spaceships.
Skyl witnessed both the origin and the end of the human species on Earth.
He absorbed the souls of seventy billion dead across the history of civilization.
Finally, he stood on Earth in the year 3223. Yellow sand had buried the cities, the oceans had dried up, and the world was as barren as Mars.
Skyl's body trembled. His existence began to spread outward, leaving Earth and filling the solar system. He saw a Kree workstation left on Uranus, the Watchers' base on the Moon, and humanity's alien colonies. Passing over bleak, barren planets, he kept setting foot in every corner of the Milky Way. After all life died, every soul merged into his body.
One hundred billion, one trillion, one hundred quadrillion, one sextillion, one octillion, one decillion...
From plants and insects to immortal gods, all that died no longer belonged to the underworld or hell. Their souls merged into Skyl.
Skyl saw a giant world-eating serpent devour every living planet, then coil her three-thousand-light-year-long body and enter a long hibernation.
"Jörmungandr... this is your fate."
Time flowed mercilessly on. Stars exhausted their hydrogen and went out one after another. Black holes gradually vanished through Hawking radiation, until even the universe's final photon decayed into nothing.
When noisy, clamorous matter and energy had all disappeared, Skyl still existed. Beside him, the last gods appeared one after another.
Eternity, Infinity, Death, Oblivion, and Galactus. They had neither sorrow nor joy, only silently watched Skyl.
"Hello," Skyl greeted them with a smile.
Death snorted coldly at him, but there was no strength in it. All life had already vanished, and she was about to disappear as well.
Eternity and Infinity, the brother and sister pair, spoke in unison. "Parallel Universe 199999 will restart once more."
Oblivion asked Skyl, "Have you understood the true meaning of life?"
"More or less. The existence of life is the universe's way of understanding itself. The material world cannot understand itself, so spirit came into being. In the end, spirit will keep every law of matter in its heart, allowing matter to perish while spirit remains forever. That remaining spirit is the cosmic order itself. In other words... me."
Ego the Celestial had once believed that if he erased all life, he could become the only conscious entity in the universe and become Eternity. Looking at it now, he had not actually been wrong.
Galactus asked, "Then have you understood yourself?"
The cosmic will fell silent for a moment. A thousand words filled his heart, yet he could not say them. He worked hard to dig into his own heart, where there was an empty corner that should have held his name.
He instinctively looked at the back of his left hand. The gate-shaped mark shone brightly.
"I am the Gate, and also the key and guardian of the Gate. My name is..."
The cosmic will closed his lips tightly, his expression blank. He realized he could not blurt it out. This final name had to be treated with care.
"Who do you think I am?"
Eternity said, "You are an outsider."
Death said, "You are an arrogant wizard."
Galactus said, "You are the universe itself."
"But I have a name." The cosmic will struck his forehead with the Infinity Scepter until blood flowed. "You should tell me my name!"
"You are Skyl." The hibernating Jörmungandr suddenly awoke, and her voice echoed through the silent universe.
"You are Skyl." Tony Stark's voice came from beside him. The blood flowing from the cosmic will shaped this vanished soul.
"You are Skyl." Peter Parker's voice also rang out.
"You are Skyl." Lady Moonshadow, Gali, and the others also appeared behind the cosmic will.
Their longing turned into a hard gemstone shell that fell into the cosmic will's hand. He clenched it tightly, then said, "I am Skyl."
The seventh Infinity Stone appeared, the Ego Stone.
When the cosmic order awakened, the universe began to collapse. The six Stones of time, space, power, reality, mind, and soul broke free from the scepter, and the power of the four cosmic entities poured into the Stones, turning them into six singularities.
The universe disappeared.
All around him was blank, like a clean white sheet of drawing paper.
Skyl raised his head and saw Stan Lee pick up a brush and draw the first stroke on the paper.
And so the six singularities exploded, and the universe opened once more.
Jörmungandr swam through the newborn universe and spat out countless stars. Thus, the story of the previous universe continued anew.
Skyl held the Ego Stone and looked around at this familiar world. Infinite emotions surged through his heart, but in the end, he only smiled in relief.
...
Under the blazing sun of a great desert, there were only a few strands of cloud in the clear sky.
"Hey! Buddy coming out of that door over there!" a man called weakly. "Help me out here. I'm Tony Stark, and as a reminder, I'm also a billionaire. Hurry up and save me. I can give you a huge amount of money."
The wizard who had stepped out from behind the door leisurely walked over to Tony Stark.
The billionaire narrowed his eyes and looked up at him. "Hey, what's your name?"
"I am Skyl, a wizard."
"A wizard? Don't mess with me. If you're a wizard, then I'm Harry Potter."
"Harry is my junior." Skyl raised his hand and restored the scattered pieces of armor around them as good as new.
"Wow, you really are a wizard. Can you teach me that trick?"
Skyl said nothing. He only walked toward the depths of the desert. Tony Stark struggled out of the sand and hurried after the wizard ahead of him.
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