Inside the Tactical Briefing Room of the Avengers Tower, the atmosphere was so oppressive it was suffocating.
If the previous discussion had only been about condemning the brutal actions of the madman Konrad Curze,
then now, as the Nebula that was once Nostramo slowly rotated on the screen, this group of Earth's mightiest Guardians had begun to touch upon the truly chilling root of that tragedy.
Tony stood with his back to the group, gazing out at the brightly lit New York outside the window, his fingers unconsciously tapping on the Arc Reactor on his chest in a hurried and erratic rhythm.
His voice lacked its usual banter, replaced by a coldness that seeped into the bones.
"No, this isn't that simple. It's not just a madman blowing up his own home."
He spoke quickly, as if diagnosing a system on the verge of collapse. "The entire system had flaws in its design from the very beginning; it was destined to fail."
"Imagine you built a top-tier robot, gave him the most sensitive conscience in the World so he could feel the pain of others. Then, you constantly ordered him to do things that most violated that conscience, like harming others indiscriminately."
He turned around abruptly, a blue holographic interface expanding by his hand.
"What would happen? His built-in 'moral programming' and 'mission directives' would clash violently, system resources would be maxed out, and logic would become a complete mess."
"Finally, to resolve this core conflict that was causing him to crash, he could only choose the most extreme method—formatting the entire 'source of the problem' that caused him pain, which was his home World."
"This isn't governing a country, nor is it war; it's a rotten-to-the-core, anti-human experiment! That Emperor might be a top-tier engineer, but in terms of humanity, he's an idiot!"
"He created a self-torturing killing machine, and then he was actually surprised when it finally exploded from the pain?!"
Captain America clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white from the force.
His upright body seemed to carry the moral weight of a World, yet it trembled slightly now.
He no longer simply blamed Curze as before, but instead pointed the finger directly at the Imperium that had created it all.
"Tony's machine analogy is cold, but he hit the nail on the head."
"What Curze did is the result, not the cause."
"The true root of the disease lies in that Imperium, in that Emperor known as 'Father.' He constantly talks about 'Order' and 'Justice'? Look at what he's built! A bullshit system that requires a 'son' to become a tyrant just to complete a mission!"
The Captain's voice was low and suppressed, filled with the anger and sorrow of ideals shattered by reality:
"The people of Nostramo... they might have lived in sin, but they received no trial, no chance for redemption, not even the right to choose, before they were personally sentenced to collective death by their returning 'Deliverer'... by their 'son'!"
"This isn't just Curze's crime alone; it's the crime of an Imperium that treats the Carnage of civilians as a 'necessary sacrifice' and condones such behavior! When a nation's upper echelons start calculating how many innocents are 'worth' sacrificing, that nation has already gone astray."
"A truly strong person is someone who, even in hell, believes they can bring a glimmer of light and fights for it, rather than... rather than burning hell and themselves to ashes and calling it 'cleaning up'!"
Thor rubbed the handle of mjolnir, faint sparks of electricity jumping between his fingers.
This Asgard deity, who had personally experienced Ragnarok, showed confusion and rejection toward another kind of "divinity" for the first time.
"Asgard was also destroyed... but that was a heroic sacrifice made in a final battle to protect the people of the Nine Realms. Our home turned to dust, but our people survived, and our spirit and heritage continue."
"But this time..." He pointed to the silent Nebula on the screen, "this is a 'god' carrying out a... judgment on his own people, on his own home?"
"No, this is a complete negation of one's 'roots'."
"In Asgard, betraying one's home and ancestors is the greatest blasphemy against the gods. My father Odin was also stern and ruthless, but he knew well that the throne is held up by the people, and the people's home is the foundation of the God Realm."
"This 'Emperor' seems to think that foundations are expendables that can be replaced or even thrown away at will."
"He heard the warnings of fate but treated them as a bugle call for war rather than a warning bell to be avoided with wisdom. He personally cut off his son's roots and then wondered why the tree didn't grow upward but instead twisted and rotted into the mud."
Bruce's face was exceptionally pale; he hugged his arms tightly as if suppressing the tremors of another soul within him resonating with the story.
His voice was very low, carrying a sense of empathetic fear:
"The war within... I know it all too well. But... but he is much worse than me, far worse." He looked at Curze's terrifyingly calm face and analyzed in a low voice, "Hulk is pure rage, pure destruction."
"When Hulk recedes, what remains is my guilt, remorse, and endless atonement."
"The two of us—one destroys, one cleans up. But he... his 'the midnight shade' and 'Konrad Curze'... one enjoys the slaughter, one hates it. But the most terrifying thing is that the side of him that enjoys the slaughter actually used the 'sense of justice' of the side that hates it... to commit even more terrible crimes!"
"This... this isn't two personalities fighting; it's a perfect self-destructive cycle! His pain isn't a side effect; it's the fuel driving him toward an even more horrific end! My god... this is even more... desperate than the Hulk."
Black Widow's tone was as cold as the winter soil of Siberia; she dissected the tragedy from a more practical perspective:
"He is no Inquisitor; he is a... victim completely lost in ultimate mental manipulation, eventually even beginning to think with the logic of his abuser."
"The Emperor condoned his 'dirty work,' and he took that 'necessary evil' as his own creed."
"But when this creed clashed violently with his innate sense of morality—such as the idea that innocents shouldn't be harmed—he didn't question the high-and-mighty Emperor who indoctrinated him. Instead... he destroyed the place that caused the conflict, using that to 'prove' the creed he was fed was correct, just to make himself feel better."
"It's an extreme trauma response, using a World-shaking act of violence to cover up his own total internal collapse. It's tragic, but... even more dangerous is that it proves the spiritual core of that Imperium itself carries a toxin capable of driving a god insane."
Doctor Strange, Stephen Strange, floated in the air, the Eye of Agamotto glowing slightly, his expression more serious than ever before.
"I have seen over fourteen million futures. In the vast majority, victory requires sacrifice, but... there was never one where sacrifice itself was treated as the ultimate goal and proof of 'Justice'."
He looked at the screen as if pitying a counterpart in another Universe.
"His precognition... is not a gift; it's a curse. It locked him firmly onto the worst possible path he could see. Kamar-Taj teaches us that the future is fluid, composed of countless choices; it is our choices that give meaning to time."
"But he gave up on choice from the very beginning, becoming a slave to prophecy while calling it 'executing judgment.' His greatest tragedy is that he never tried to find the one future that could defeat the prophecy—his own future. Or rather, his creator never taught him how to 'choose'."
The habitually silent Nick Fury stared intently at the screen with his one eye. His face, usually unperturbed, showed no expression, but his tightly pursed lips betrayed the turmoil within.
"A ruler whose moral baseline adjusts at any time according to so-called 'necessity'."
He took a deep breath, a flicker of unprecedented worry crossing his eye. "We must ensure that our World never, ever faces the so-called 'necessity' of having to make such a 'choice'."
"Because once you start pulling out a calculator to figure out how many innocent deaths are 'acceptable,' the gates to hell have already opened for you."
[M78 Nebula - Land of Light]
At the Space Garrison Headquarters in the Land of Light, the brilliance of the Plasma Spark Tower seemed to dim slightly due to the dead silence of the Planet on the screen. The atmosphere here was not one of anger, but of a deep, cosmic-scale sorrow.
For these giants who took the protection of life and the spreading of light as their mission, Konrad Curze's actions were a fundamental subversion of their reason for existence.
Father of Ultra, the veteran Great Captain of the Space Garrison, gazed at the Nebula composed of planetary remains. His eyes, condensed from light, seemed to reflect the fates of countless Planets that had once struggled in the darkness.
He spoke in a deep voice that echoed through the magnificent hall:
"A civilization lost its way in the darkness... and the Guardian who should have led it toward the light not only failed to be a beacon but instead personally pushed it into a deeper, eternal abyss. This is not just the tragedy of Konrad Curze as an individual, but the... ultimate failure of the mission of 'protection' that he carried."
"Our power stems from the Plasma Spark, from the brilliance of life itself, and ultimately should serve to protect every life, no matter how faint. This warrior had the potential to pierce the darkness, yet he chose to assimilate with the shadows, even devouring the homeland that nurtured him."
"This is a total departure from the meaning of 'Light's' existence. What he extinguished was not just a Planet, but hundreds of millions of flames of hope belonging to the future that could have been lit."
The First Captain of the Space Garrison, Zoffy, stepped forward. His gaze swept over the scenes of endless strife in the Warhammer Universe on the screen, his tone becoming even more solemn:
"I have traveled to Earth many times and marveled at the contradictions of the human race. They possess an incredible potential to create brilliant civilizations, yet they also frequently display an incredible capacity for self-destruction."
"In our Universe, the history of our contact with them tells us that humanity has indeed hovered on the brink of destruction many times, but in the end, there is always an internal strength—what we call 'bonds,' 'courage,' and 'never-giving-up hope'—that allows them to crawl out of the abyss and reclaim the light."
"But the Universe before us... the density of its darkness and the cruelty of its laws are far beyond anything the Earth we know can compare to."
"The trials humanity faces within it are of a hellish difficulty."
"I cannot help but ponder: in such a desperate setting, how can that 'internal strength' they rely on to crawl out of the abyss be awakened and nurtured? When even their Guardians choose destruction to solve problems, where can the seeds of hope take root and sprout?"
The young Ultra Warrior, Mebius, had eyes shimmering with a light of confusion and pain.
He thought of the times he fought side-by-side with his comrades on Earth, and of the mortals who taught him what it meant to 'protect.'
"But... why? No matter how bad a home becomes, no matter how many mistakes people make, shouldn't one strive to guide them and give everything to save them? On Earth, we are willing to pay the price of our lives just to protect a single person's smile."
"And he... for an abstract 'Justice,' he destroyed the lives and homes of countless people. This isn't protection; it's the most total betrayal. He betrayed the people who might still have been looking forward to his return; he betrayed all the bonds represented by the word 'home' itself."
Just then, an old, majestic voice that seemed to contain all the wisdom since the birth of the Universe resonated in everyone's hearts. It was the King of Ultra. This legendary existence did not appear in person, but his will had descended.
"Child, do not try to use the logic of light to understand a Universe born of darkness and that feeds on darkness.
There, 'Light' itself might be a form of heresy."
The King's voice carried endless compassion and insight.
"The tragedy of the soul named Konrad Curze did not begin at the moment he destroyed his home Planet, but at the moment his 'Creator' decided to use 'darkness' to fight 'darkness'."
"That Emperor attempted to play the Sun, yet he only created a group of Planets that rotated around him, unable to emit light themselves. He gave them power but did not teach them how to create their own 'Light'."
"He cast Curze, this darkest of Planets, into a deeper darkness, expecting him to bring Order. This is like throwing a flame into a powder magazine, expecting it to precisely burn away the fuse rather than detonating everything. The final result was destined."
"We protect life because we believe that every Planet, every life, no matter how small, contains a potential like the Plasma Spark within it, having the chance to blossom into its own light one day in the future. Our duty is to protect this 'possibility'."
The voice of the King of Ultra brought an ultimate conclusion to this discussion and revealed the fundamental differences between the two Universes.