"Besides, that child holds many fascinating secrets," said another cosmic entity, gazing at the spot where Bruce had disappeared, seemingly smiling. "Perhaps he'll manage to do something none of us could ever predict."
These words from the cosmic entity drew the attention of the others.
However, not all entities shared the same view.
Bruce had no knowledge of the exchange between these entities.
He lacked the means to eavesdrop on cosmic beings, and naturally, he was unaware of their communications.
Of course, even if Bruce could understand their conversations, there was nothing he could do about it.
They were forever aloof and superior—others were hardly worthy of their attention.
Even though Bruce had broken through the boundaries of the universe, in their eyes, he was just a particularly strong insect.
And even the idea that enough insects could kill an elephant only holds true if the elephant doesn't wake up from their bites.
At this moment, Bruce was speeding forward.
The white light gradually faded, replaced by endless darkness.
Compared to the blinding white that had once seemed utterly hopeless, this darkness now felt more like a source of hope to Bruce.
After all, bats were creatures that sought light within darkness—though now, perhaps he needed to find essential shadows within a blinding white despair.
The Cosmic Treadmill gradually came to a halt, and Bruce's figure appeared upon it once more.
Even with the boost from being merged with the Red Death, embodying the very essence of the Flash, he couldn't relieve the sheer exhaustion in his body.
Clang!
He even collapsed straight off the Cosmic Treadmill.
"Even though you didn't create a worse timeline, you still learned a truth that's hard to accept," said the Red Death in Bruce's mind, having also seen the cosmic entities.
Bruce didn't fall into self-doubt at those words.
He simply lay on the ground, gasping for air.
"At the very least, we avoided something extremely dangerous. That's worth celebrating," said Barry, ever the optimist. Having used the Cosmic Treadmill and neither created a new timeline nor altered the existing one, Barry considered that a win.
"We have to stop all of this."
Only now did Bruce recover some of his strength and slowly rise to his feet.
"We don't have time to debate. What's most important now is to tell the others," Bruce said, feeling once again the near-forgotten sensation of utter exhaustion. He hadn't felt every muscle in his body tear with pain like this in a long time.
And that was with the help of the Speed Force aiding his recovery.
Otherwise, he might not even be able to move right now.
"Hoo~" Bruce exhaled a long breath.
Though his body was still fatigued, he could at least now head to the collision site in this universe.
"It's the first time I've seen the world in this state," Bruce muttered as he practically dragged himself into the Batwing.
If anyone saw him like this, the majestic image of Batman might be utterly shattered.
"Steve, what's the situation?" Bruce asked, piloting the Batwing out of the Batcave and heading at full speed toward the collision point.
"Oh, hearing your voice really puts me at ease," said Captain America. Hearing Bruce's voice lifted a weight off his shoulders.
"Any good news to share with us?"
Captain America's voice naturally drew the attention of the others. They were all watching him closely—especially hoping Batman had discovered something they didn't know.
Or perhaps found another way to save the universe.
"Have Reed and the others made a move yet?" Bruce didn't reveal what he had discovered. Such things were best explained in person.
Captain America glanced at Reed and the others who were watching him closely. "No, we're still at a standoff."
"Good. I'm already here," Bruce replied, cutting the comms immediately.
Captain America looked up at the blood-red sky, and the next moment, he saw the Batwing slicing through the clouds as it arrived.
"I was just about to ask what exactly happened to you, but it looks like we can ask the man himself," said Reed as he watched the Batwing descend.
They had already spent two hours here.
Frankly, Reed was getting impatient.
He had no idea what preparations the Earth above might be making—perhaps the other side was just waiting for them to act so they could destroy this Earth.
All of that was possible.
And during those two hours, Reed hadn't been idle. He had launched several probe drones toward the other Earth, hoping to get a read on its current state. But those drones disappeared like stones in the sea—no signal, no return.
Naturally, that made Reed anxious.
Now that Batman had arrived, the ultimate decision about the fate of the planet above would depend on whether Batman had found an alternative plan.
"From the looks of it, our Bat didn't find a way to stop us from acting," Reed said as Bruce stepped out of the Batwing, instantly drawing that conclusion.
Not because of anything Bruce said—just from the specks of dust and wear on his suit.
That alone proved Bruce had gone through a tough journey seeking alternatives—so much so that he hadn't even been able to keep his suit clean.
"Reed, we were all wrong," were Bruce's first words upon seeing the Creator, startling everyone present—especially Jessica, who had followed Batman the longest.
Reed frowned. He wanted to hear what Bruce had seen that made him say such a thing.
"Destroying the other Earth might save our own—but only temporarily. All we'd be doing is delaying our death," Bruce said as he slowly approached the Creator and the others who had supported Reed's plan.
His words confused many. They exchanged glances, not quite understanding what exactly this bat was trying to say.
"What exactly did you see?" Reed asked Bruce, who had just stepped up to him."This isn't a natural disaster, Reed," Bruce replied, the eyes beneath his Creator's mask hard and steady. "It's someone's experiment."
Bruce's words overturned everything Reed had deduced about the colliding-universe crisis. Reed had believed the multiverse had expanded to its limit, rebounded, and was now making universes smash together, annihilate, and then reboot.
That left a terrifying question: who could possibly orchestrate collisions across the entire multiverse?
Reed found the idea almost inconceivable; he couldn't build a theory on something so far outside accepted science—let alone let his imagination run that wild.
"How do you know?" Reed pressed. He trusted Bruce, yet the claim seemed unbelievable."Your machine," Bruce answered.
When Bruce had sent Captain America's team around the globe for exotic materials, Reed was aware—and had quietly helped to speed things up so Bruce got everything he needed.
But Reed still had no clue what the device actually did. Even a Creator couldn't deduce its function just from the parts Bruce had requested; Bruce's inventions always looked similar to contemporary tech yet differed in subtle but profound ways—differences that required immense computation and data to verify, something only Reed's City could manage.
That was how Reed realized Bruce never followed this world's normal R&D trajectory. In some respects, Bruce's tech behaved more like magic.
Because Reed's own City already diverged slightly from mainstream science—enough to create an entirely different technological society—he simply couldn't identify Bruce's creation. And that, he figured, was how Bruce had learned the truth: through that machine.
Bruce nodded; the device, coupled with the Speed Force, had shown him everything. Without the Speed Force, even the machine couldn't reveal the real picture.
The Creator inhaled deeply and let the matter drop; he knew Bruce would never lie about something this serious.
Gazing up at a hell-reddened sky where another Earth hung overhead, Reed asked, "Can you give me a way to deal with the thing above our heads?" Experiment or not, the priority was still preventing that other Earth—another universe—from crashing down at any moment.
Bruce looked at his hands, then at the planet in the sky. A bold idea formed—an idea so extreme that even the Flash had never attempted it. Flash wasn't known for madness, but Bruce, the Bat who once fought madness incarnate, had picked up a little along the way.
Just as Bruce was about to act, Reed noticed one of his probe robots—sent earlier to the other Earth—returning. He hurried to link its data feed and see what was happening there.
One look at the footage told Reed that planet posed no threat.
"Well, it seems we won't need to destroy another universe after all," he said to Bruce, projecting the images for everyone to see.
On-screen stood a figure they all recognized."Galactus?"
They were all too familiar with the purple giant. Bruce's arrival had helped them stop him once before, and now, in the other universe, Galactus had commandeered Reed's machinery and begun draining the planet's energy. The Creator's remaining robots had tried to aid that Earth's heroes but failed; every hero lay dead.
The scene filled them with grim, reluctant empathy. All of them had faced Galactus, and all were now caught in universe-shattering peril.
It also explained why Reed's other probes never came back: the chaotic energy there had wrecked them during entry.
Suddenly, the planet overhead exploded. Debris started to fall—but froze halfway down as the collision zone vanished.
"We can stop debating and focus on finding whoever is behind all this," Bruce said. "We have to stop them before more universes get dragged into these tests."
The Creator agreed. They would pool every resource and technology they had.
He extended his hand to Bruce in truce. As they shook, Nick Fury finally relaxed; he'd been bracing for civil war. Things had been that tense—if Bruce hadn't arrived in time, he might have walked into a battle already in progress.
"The next incursion hits in thirty hours," Reed reported. The collisions were accelerating; intervals were shrinking. Time was running out.
Meanwhile, in Earth-616 the clock was moving even faster. The Illuminati were fugitives, hounded worldwide by S.H.I.E.L.D. under Captain America, and another member had gone to Latveria seeking Doctor Doom.
"Prince Namor, you've barely touched your dinner—something troubling you?" asked Christopher, Doom's adopted son, hosting the weary guest."No, Christopher," Namor murmured, crestfallen. "Everything… everything is perfect."
(End of chapter)
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