It

She suddenly opened her eyes!

Carolina gasped for air, her expression shifting as she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.

Her gaze darted around until she saw Zhang Ye standing beside the bed, and only then did she relax slightly.

"Witch Raven. I’m back? We’re back!?" Carolina asked in a trembling voice.

"Yes, that thing let you go," Zhang Ye replied calmly. Behind him, Moon Knight and John also stepped closer. Though they had expected it, they were still surprised that Carolina had regained her senses so quickly.

"Mr. Moon Knight!" Carolina was startled when she noticed the two men behind Zhang Ye. This was her first time meeting the legendary Moon Knight.

For a small, obscure hero group like theirs, they normally had little chance to befriend powerful heroes.

Seeing that Carolina recognized him, Moon Knight smiled beneath his mask, nodded at her, and said, "It’s me, child. You’re safe now. What you need most is proper rest and time to recover from your injuries."

"My… injuries… Hiss!" Only then did Carolina feel the burning pain coursing through her body, and she could not help sucking in a sharp breath.

"Don’t move around. Deadpool’s blade can weaken a wound’s healing ability. It took a great deal of effort for me to mitigate that, but you needn’t worry. As long as you change the dressing properly, you’ll recover after some time," John said with his arms folded.

"Thank you. You are?" Carolina had never met John before, so naturally she did not recognize him.

"A vampire wizard. You can call me John," John replied.

He did not mention the name Blood Baron. After all, he had done almost nothing good in the past, and now that he finally had a chance to turn over a new leaf, he naturally did not want to bring up his villainous name again.

But Zhang Ye clearly had no intention of letting him off. As soon as John finished speaking, Zhang Ye added, "You can also call him Blood Baron. This guy once took down Steve Rogers head-on."

"The past is too painful to revisit." John gave a bitter smile and shot Zhang Ye a resentful look.

From Zhang Ye’s words, Carolina quickly understood that the seemingly kind old man before her had once been a villain. But she did not dwell on it. After all, plenty of villains had reformed.

"Thank you, Mr. John. Will my injuries leave scars?" Carolina asked stiffly through the pain in her back. As someone who wanted to become a major star, she cared greatly about her skin.

"Don’t worry. I have a miracle medicine here. I guarantee that once you recover, nothing will be left behind." John smiled.

Meanwhile, Moon Knight pulled Zhang Ye out of the bedroom and into the living room.

"How is it?" Moon Knight asked curiously.

At that, Zhang Ye’s smile vanished, and his expression turned grave. "Terrible. I just came face-to-face with that thing."

"You saw it!?" Moon Knight was utterly astonished.

"Yes." Zhang Ye did not deny it. He continued, "That thing is hidden within the barrier between the Multiverse and reality. We cannot observe it directly, but in Carolina’s mental world just now, I accidentally ‘saw’ it."

"What is it?" Moon Knight asked. If they could identify their opponent, they could always find a way to resolve this crisis.

"I don’t know." Zhang Ye shook his head. "But I’ve seen that thing before. It came from an unknown abyssal rift. It looked like an insect cocoon made of shadows. Its abilities are unknown. All I know is that it invades and devours the Multiverse."

Zhang Ye recalled the scene he had previously witnessed through Miss Minutes while considering how he should resolve this crisis.

"You’ve seen it before. Then do you have a way to deal with it?" Moon Knight looked up and asked again.

"No. Rather than saying I saw that thing, it would be more accurate to say that I saw universes devoured by those things. Those worlds had already fallen apart and been swallowed by darkness like an eternal night."

Zhang Ye let out a faint sigh. Even he was beginning to lose confidence. Not even the terrifying Starlight Giant had been able to stop those maggots. How could he possibly contend with such an existence?

"You said you saw that thing in the mental world. If we can get through from there, perhaps we can find where that thing is hiding. We can gather the remaining heroes and make one last attempt," Moon Knight suggested.

"It won’t be that easy." Zhang Ye shook his head. "That place is the boundary between reality and the Multiverse. In other words, that thing is parasitizing the timeline. We can’t—"

Suddenly.

Zhang Ye stopped. He had abruptly thought of something.

"What is it? Did you think of something?" Moon Knight froze for a moment before moving closer to Zhang Ye.

Zhang Ye recalled what had happened in Carolina’s mental world. "I haven’t told you how I brought Carolina out, have I?"

Without waiting for Moon Knight to react, Zhang Ye continued.

"I ‘saw’ that thing, but it didn’t respond to my gaze. Nor did it stop me from awakening Carolina’s consciousness. It was as if it had set up a locked door in Carolina’s mental world, then ignored her completely once it was certain she could not escape."

"After I entered Carolina’s mental world, I never alerted that thing. Even when I brought Carolina out, no force obstructed me from beginning to end. At first, I thought I had found a loophole, or that it simply did not care about Carolina, someone who was about to die, which was why everything went so smoothly."

"But now I suspect that what I saw was not that thing’s true form at all. Maybe it was an illusion, or perhaps a reflected projection of that thing within the mental world."

"So?" Moon Knight frowned.

"It has only one goal: devouring the Multiverse. Whether it was Red Skull or Doctor Doom, regardless of who drew that thing here, its goal will not change." Zhang Ye drew a deep breath and continued.

"So here’s the question. Since it is parasitizing the timeline and can corrupt perception without ordinary people noticing, why doesn’t it simply create a human-extinction event in history? Wouldn’t that be easier than corrupting Deadpool and having him slaughter heroes?"

Hearing that, Moon Knight seemed to realize it as well.

"You mean—!"

"That thing’s target isn’t just this universe. It probably has other plans!"