Planet Frieza 002, former headquarters of the Nova Corps, now the First Scientific Research Center of the Frieza Force.
Beneath the massive laboratory dome, countless precision instruments were operating at overload capacity.
The top minds of the entire galaxy were gathered here.
Kree scientists, Nova engineers, and that Rubber Man from Earth, Mister Fantastic Reed.
"Useless."
A light evaluation echoed through the empty laboratory.
Frieza sat on a floating, pure white executive chair, playing with the green Time Stone in his hand.
He looked at the pile of flickering holographic projections filled with garbled code in front of him. His brow furrowed slightly, and a look of impatience appeared on his face.
"Mr. Richards."
Frieza's voice was elegant and cold. "I have already given you three days. You have the infinite energy provided by the Infinity Stones, and the resources of this entire galaxy at your disposal."
"And now you're telling me you can't build a navigator that can stably lead to other parallel Universes?"
Standing at the console, Reed was drenched in cold sweat. His face, sunken from overwork, was filled with anxiety and helplessness.
"Lord Frieza... it's not just a matter of energy."
Reed wiped the sweat from his forehead, his voice hoarse. "Breaking the barriers of a single Universe is simple. With your current power, you could tear them open with ease."
"However, precisely locating those valuable Universes with advanced civilizations within the endless multiverse bubbles requires an extremely complex anchoring algorithm."
Reed pulled up a complex Mobius strip model. "I'm stuck on the paradox of quantum entanglement and time dilation. My brain excels at extension and macro-physics, but in this specific engineering algorithm model, I'm missing a piece of the puzzle."
"A puzzle piece?"
Frieza narrowed his eyes, his crimson pupils flashing with a dangerous light.
"Are you saying you admit you're incapable?"
"No... it's not that I'm incapable."
Reed felt the wave of killing intent washing over him, and his body trembled instinctively, but he gritted his teeth and said, "It's about specialization. If... if that egomaniac were still here, perhaps he could untie this knot."
"Egomaniac?"
Frieza paused for a moment.
Then, the image of that man in the red and gold tin can, whose mouth was tougher than his life, appeared in his mind.
The guy who, during the Battle of Earth, was pierced through the chest by Erik with countless steel bars and died a thorough death.
"You mean... Tony Stark?"
A playful smile formed at the corners of Frieza's lips.
"Oh my, what a nostalgic name."
"That monkey who only knows how to build tin toys actually has such a use?"
Reed nodded, his expression somber. "As much as I hate to admit it, in the field where chaotic algorithms and mechanical engineering intersect, he truly is a genius. Unfortunately, he's already dead."
"Dead?"
Frieza stood up from his chair. He slowly walked to the center of the laboratory and spread his arms.
"Reed, oh Reed."
"It seems you still have some misunderstanding about the weight of the title 'emperor of the universe'."
Frieza raised his right hand. On that hand, there wasn't just the Time Stone. Space, Reality, Power, Soul, and Mind.
The radiance of the six Infinity Stones intertwined at his fingertips into a brilliant rainbow.
"Before me, Life and Death are nothing more than a program that can be modified at will."
"Since one brain isn't enough, then I'll just find another."
Frieza's gaze suddenly became sharp.
"Reality, rewritten!"
"Time, reversed!"
"Soul, returned!"
Buzz—
An indescribable, great power instantly enveloped the open space in the center of the laboratory.
The Reality Stone reorganized the atoms in the air, constructing bones, blood vessels, muscles, and skin out of thin air. It was the physical body of Tony Stark. Even the large hole in his chest where the reactor had been destroyed was perfectly repaired.
Immediately after, the Time Stone was activated. It forcibly pulled the temporal state of this body back to one second before his death, then reversed the fatal wound.
Finally, the Soul Stone flickered with an eerie orange light. From that distant realm of death, it forcibly dragged back that proud soul.
Boom!
Along with a violent gasp, like a drowning man surfacing, the man who had originally been a corpse, suddenly sat up from the floor.
"Argh!!!"
Tony let out a shrill scream.
It was the hallucination of the excruciating pain of death lingering in his nerves. His hands frantically clawed at his chest, trying to pull out the steel bars that didn't exist.
"Jarvis! Suit! Thrusters at full power!"
Tony roared, his eyes filled with the fear and despair of a near-death experience.
However, the expected pain did not persist nor were there cold ruins or the pungent smell of blood. Instead, there were bright lights and a faint, expensive aroma of red wine.
Tony froze.
He gasped for breath, sweat sliding down his cheeks. He looked down and touched his chest.
No bloody hole.
Even the reactor that sustained his life was steadily emitting a blue light.
"I'm... not dead?" Tony looked up blankly.
Then, he saw the figure he wouldn't forget even as a ghost.
That demon who was looking at him as if he were a lab rat.
Frieza.
"Yo, good morning, Mr. Stark."
Frieza tilted his head, a playful smile on his refined face.
"How was the food in hell? Looking at your face, it seems it wasn't to your taste?"
Tony's pupils instantly contracted to the size of pinpricks.
Memories came rushing back like a tide.
Erik's metal storm, the excruciating pain of his body being pierced, the darkness before his consciousness dissipated...
He had died.
He was certain he was dead.
But now, he was alive again, standing before this demon.
"You..."
Tony struggled to stand up, only to find his legs were as soft as noodles.
"What did you do to me? Is this a hallucination? Or some kind of prank in Hell?"
"Tsk, tsk..."
Frieza shook his head, a look on his face that said, "You really haven't seen much of the world."
"I just resurrected you, is there any need for such a fuss?"
Frieza pointed to the six Infinity Stones floating around him.
"I have the full set of tools, fixing a broken toy isn't much harder than fixing a toilet."
Tony looked at those stones, and a storm surged in his heart.
He... collected them all?
That monster, whom even Odin couldn't stop, now actually possessed the power to rewrite reality?
A despair deeper than death welled up in his heart.
"Why resurrect me?"
Tony gritted his teeth, holding onto his last shred of dignity, and sneered, "If you want to hear me say thank you, you've got the wrong person. My advice is to just kill me again right now, and make it quick."
"Oh-ho-ho..."
Frieza laughed.
"Stark, I like your stubbornness."
"However, I am no philanthropist."
Frieza stopped laughing, his gaze becoming cold and pragmatic.
He pointed at the embarrassed Reed next to him. "That Rubber Man over there has run into a bit of a technical problem."
"He said that when it comes to the multiverse navigation algorithm, only an egomaniac like you can handle it."
"So, I pulled you back from the pile of corpses not to hear you perform stand-up comedy."
Frieza walked up to Tony and looked down at the former superhero.
"Work for me."
"Solve this problem and help me open the doors to other Universes."
"Otherwise..."
A red light flashed in Frieza's eyes.
"I wouldn't mind letting you experience what it means to wish for death but be unable to die."
"For example, I could pull out your soul and stuff it into a toilet-cleaning robot, making you scrub toilets for all eternity."
Tony shuddered and looked at Reed not far away. The scientist, who was once also incredibly proud, was now looking at him with a pleading gaze.
Reed whispered, "Tony... we need that navigator, for those who are still alive."
Tony fell silent.
He understood the meaning in Reed's eyes.
It was a trade.
Using his wisdom to exchange for the meager survival of the survivors on Earth.
"Heh..."
Tony gave a self-deprecating laugh and climbed up from the ground.
"Multiverse navigation?"
Tony walked to the console and looked at the messy data, his gaze instantly becoming sharp.
That was the domain of a genius.
"This algorithm is written like crap. Reed, was your brain squeezed through a ramen machine?" Tony cursed while his hands flew across the keyboard.
"Give me ten minutes."
"I'll show you all what a real genius looks like."
Watching Tony instantly enter work mode, Frieza turned around in satisfaction and sat back down in his executive chair.
"That's more like it."
"As long as your thinking doesn't backslide, there are always more solutions than problems."
"It seems this resurrection fee was well spent."
"Oh-ho-ho..."
***
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