Chapter 392: The System's Origins, and a Previous Life with a Death Wish
Every muscle in Ethan's body was tense. He was afraid the God of Stories across from him would suddenly lunge and beat him up.
He could beat his own world's Loki. He could not beat the God of Stories in front of him.
As far as he was concerned, he was innocent. Chen Ye the Night Lord was the one who'd beaten you, God of Stories. What did that have to do with Ethan?
Besides, the Loki he'd beaten was his own world's Loki, and it was the God of Stories himself who'd told Ethan to look after him. If Loki wouldn't behave, a good beating was simply the easiest fix.
Surely the great God of Stories wouldn't be so petty as to hold it against a junior like him?
Loki seemed to hear exactly what Ethan was thinking, and graciously said, "Don't worry. I won't take it out on you. Rest easy. My old personality really was asking for a beating."
Loki laughed at himself as he said it. If he could go back in time, he'd probably beat himself up too.
Just thinking about how insufferable and childish he used to be made him cringe a little.
For the God of Stories, it was a dark chapter of history he'd rather not look back on.
If not for the Time Variance Authority, his life might have ended as a tragedy.
Even now, as the God of Stories, with supreme power and wisdom, Loki still carried regrets no one knew about.
"Even gods have regrets. I have risen above the mortal world, yet there are fates I cannot reverse. Even standing at the summit of the universe, I can never return to that innocent age and write my story over again."
By contrast, the Loki in Ethan's world was in a far better position. At least he was still young. He could still change, and he wouldn't lose so much.
So of course Loki wasn't going to do anything to Ethan.
"How shall I put it? So much time has passed since your previous life. A thousand years? Ten thousand? You've been through the cycle of rebirth for a long time. Only with your appearance this time was I certain that you were his reincarnation."
"I've been watching you since the day you were born, Ethan. I know everything about you. Including your System." Loki paused deliberately, his eyes locked on Ethan, trying to catch the slightest change in his expression.
But Ethan's face was remarkably calm, as if he'd seen this coming all along.
That puzzled Loki a little. To his mind, the System was Ethan's greatest secret. Yet his greatest secret had been discovered, and he showed not the slightest reaction.
"You're not surprised? That I know about your System?"
By rights, Ethan should have panicked. His biggest trump card had been seen straight through.
But Ethan had been speculating about the System's origins for a long time.
A System couldn't just appear out of thin air. Ethan had read plenty of novels before he transmigrated. A System was either a treasure or some gadget built by a very powerful figure.
And a System that needed Infinity Stones had to have come from the Marvel world.
Add to that what Loki had just told him about his previous life.
Ethan had already guessed that his System had been given to him by his previous self.
Since the God of Stories had known his previous self, Chen Ye, and given Loki's own power, it was entirely plausible that he knew about the System.
Seeing Ethan so cool and collected, Loki muttered under his breath, "Boring."
He may have given up his divinity as a god of mischief, but deep down Loki still loved watching other people embarrass themselves, especially when that person was Chen Ye's reincarnation.
Faced with Ethan's composure, he may have felt a touch of disappointment. He'd been hoping for a much more entertaining reaction.
"It seems you're not too surprised that I know about the System. Then I'll tell you. Chen Ye did entrust me with handing the System over to you. I don't understand why he called the thing a 'System.' It's really just a little gadget he tinkered together himself. And I threw in a little bonus gift."
Seeing that Ethan seemed to have guessed something, Loki went on. "That's right. The Reality Stone's energy. I could have given you the power of both the Reality Stone and the Time Stone, but I didn't want to rush your growth. So in the end I gave the Reality Stone to the System. You needed it more."
Hearing Loki's explanation, Ethan had to agree. The Gacha module mattered enormously to him. By comparison, the rest was more or less filler.
Ethan began to wonder what his previous self's real purpose had been in giving him the System.
Countless possibilities flashed through his mind.
From what Loki said, his previous self had been an extremely cold man, the complete opposite of him.
Ethan didn't believe his previous self would be kind enough to pay such a steep price to build the System and then hand it over unconditionally, even if the recipient was his own reincarnation.
Could the System be a contingency Chen Ye had left behind? A way to take over Ethan's body one day and be reborn?
Or was the System actually a remnant of Chen Ye's soul, so that gathering the power of the Infinity Stones would bring Chen Ye back to life?
Or, once all the Infinity Stones were collected, would Ethan awaken his previous life's memories?
And then, would he still be himself?
Whichever guess was right, it put a pressure on him he'd never felt before.
After all, nearly everything he had now had been given to him by the System. Without it, would he go back to being an ordinary person?
It was a huge dilemma. Was his only hope that his previous self hadn't had any bad intentions?
But if Chen Ye hadn't had any designs, how had he fallen? Or rather, what secret was the System hiding?
Ethan decided to probe Loki carefully and see whether he knew the answer.
Loki fell silent again for a while.
"I don't know. All I can tell you is that Chen Ye, though cold, wasn't heartless. On the contrary, he helped a great many people. He did it all with no goal in mind, purely on a whim. One moment he might be saving you, the next he might kill you."
Loki paused, his gaze seeming to pierce the barriers of time and space, back to that turbulent era.
"As for his death, it was a war that shook the entire universe. It involved nearly every powerful being you can imagine."
"In that war, Chen Ye fought the entire Marvel Universe alone. The strongest of his enemies were the One Above All, the supreme being of the cosmos; the Five Great Gods; the Primordial Beyonders; and the Dreaming Celestial of the Celestials."
"Among the weaker ones were the Dynasty of Kangs led by Kang the Conqueror, God Emperor Doom and his Battleworld, the Council of Reeds, and even Dormammu, the Dread One of the Dark Dimension, and Mephisto, the Lord of Hell. They all joined the war. They shared a single goal: to kill Chen Ye."
"And Chen Ye fell in that battle."
"Sss—" Ethan sucked in a sharp breath at Loki's answer. A storm surged in his heart.
What had his previous self done, broken the laws of heaven? Basically every faction with a name had been his enemy.
And heroes and villains alike had joined forces to take Chen Ye down.
Hearing it put that way, his previous self had actually been pretty impressive. He hadn't embarrassed the good name of transmigrators.
But what outrageous crime had Chen Ye committed to make all these beings, even the One Above All, a god who had never once shown himself, personally take the field?
His previous self really had a death wish!
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