American Comics: Multiverse of Madness

In the stillness of the night, Emma sat alone by the roadside, her face filled with a mix of complex emotions.

She couldn't even remember how she left the villa. Her face reflected shock, despair, fear, and utter confusion.

Gripping her head tightly with both hands, her nails dug into her scalp as if the pain could somehow soothe the storm of emotions raging within her.

"No... no, this can't be real..."

Every time Emma closed her eyes, the scene she had witnessed flashed vividly in her mind.

The image of Lyle chatting and smiling with her was still fresh in her memory, but it quickly transformed into the grotesque scene of his death.

Deep in the woods, the sound of cracking bones, Lyle's hideous and horrifying expression, and the brief, violent struggle had left an indelible mark on Emma's psyche.

"Mr. Lyle... how is this possible..."

Though Emma wasn't exactly a top student, she was far from clueless. In fact, she was quite intelligent—keenly attuned to people's expressions, able to deduce their thoughts from subtle cues.

And now, as she pieced together the events she had just witnessed, her mind was rapidly connecting the dots.

Perhaps it was her quick thinking or the deliberate pace of her target, but by the time Emma had caught up to Lyle and Alex, their conversation was only just beginning. As a result, she had heard every word clearly.

Earlier, in the villa's grand hall, Emma had noticed the change in Lyle's expression when that reporter spoke. She had been curious about what exactly had been said to cause such a reaction, to make Lyle's face go pale.

Following them, she finally realized how grave the situation was.

It was clear that the reporter had some kind of dirt on Lyle, and it wasn't trivial. It was something so damning that it could ruin Lyle's career and reputation completely, leaving him disgraced.

Otherwise, why would Lyle offer such a high price—twenty million dolLyles? To Emma, that was an unimaginable sum, something she could never earn in her lifetime.

Though the reporter hadn't explicitly stated what the leverage was, one line from him had been enough to enrage Lyle.

"Ingredients."

What kind of "ingredients"?

Emma desperately wanted to know. What kind of secret was so devastating that Lyle would risk everything to silence the reporter and protect it?

Now, Emma's mind was in utter chaos. She wanted to call the police. Lyle, a top survival expert and celebrity, had been killed by a reporter. The incident would undoubtedly make waves.

But at the same time, Emma felt that Lyle's death wasn't undeserved. After all, it was Lyle who had made the first move—she had seen that clearly. And from the looks of it, Lyle wasn't as kind and friendly as he appeared on the surface.

There had to be a much Lyleger secret hidden behind all of this.

With trembling hands, Emma pulled out her phone and opened the dialing interface, her heart wracked with indecision.

She didn't know what to do.

Lyle's death was sure to be a huge story. As the sole witness and key figure in the event, Emma might be able to ride the wave of publicity and become an internet sensation.

But she also worried that reporting this might end up harming the reporter. After all, Lyle seemed to have deserved his fate, and the reporter, having killed him in self-defense, might actually be a decent person.

If she went public with this to gain attention, her actions might inadvertently cause trouble for the reporter. And with Vought International's vast resources, they would have no difficulty tracking the reporter down.

Emma couldn't guarantee that her decision would be the right one. But if her actions led to the reporter being harmed, she would undoubtedly share some of the blame.

Then again...

What if the reporter wasn't a good person?

What if...

Mr. Lyle had been the victim all along?

Emma considered these possibilities, but deep down, she knew they were self-deceptive excuses. She understood the truth of what had happened; she just didn't want to believe it.

At this moment, Emma wished she didn't have such a relentless curiosity. How much better would it have been if she hadn't followed them?

If she hadn't been involved, she'd still be happily dancing at the party right now.

But alas, there were no "what-ifs."

With a pained expression, she pressed the call button on her phone and closed her eyes in anguish.

After a moment, the call connected.

"Hello?"

Hearing nothing but silence on the other end, Emma let out a deep sigh, opened her mouth, and spoke with a trembling voice.

"Where are you? I need your help."

The line remained silent, with no response.

Unbeknownst to Emma, Alex was watching her from a shadowed alley not far from the street where she sat. Hidden in the darkness, he held his phone to his ear, his calm gaze fixed on the distant figure of Emma.

Alex had been tracking Emma's movements the entire time.

This didn't even require the enhanced senses of a Sabertooth. With his own sharp perception, Alex could detect Emma's presence, no matter how small and insignificant she seemed, like a grasshopper at that moment.

This play wasn't staged solely for Butcher; it was also for Emma.

And as it turned out, Alex's decision was correct.

Although Alex appeared calm on the surface, waves were churning in his heart. After accompanying Butcher to the sewage treatment plant to deal with Lyle's body, Alex had immediately returned to the villa and had been secretly monitoring Emma's movements.

From the moment Emma returned to the restroom, resumed eating, and reverted to her original size, to the moment she dressed and stepped out, Alex had been tailing her from a distance.

Finally, his patience paid off.

When Emma took out her phone, Alex was able to sense a distinct pollution emanating from her in that instant.

This wasn't the usual cognitive pollution or parasitic worms; it was an energy of the same origin as the pollution, an indescribable force that, to Alex, appeared extraordinarily jarring.

Having dealt with various forms of pollution in the past, Alex was intimately familiar with its bizarre nature.

Previously, humanity struggled to define pollution or understand its crucial components. But now, everything had changed.

Upon seeing the polluted energy emerging from Emma firsthand, Alex confirmed the source of this energy—it aligned precisely with his earlier hypothesis. It was an emotion.

A negative emotion originating from a high-dimensional universe, cascading downward.

This energy wasn't actively descending to corrupt Emma or alter her cognition.

Instead, it was Emma's inner negative emotions that birthed this eerie energy and allowed it to expand.

Although this energy was but a mere drop in the ocean compared to the worm-like creatures of Deadpool's Marvel massacres or the void pollution inside the zombie Sentry, Alex dared not underestimate it.

After all, the world was vast. If every person on this planet could generate pollution independently, then Alex's understanding of this universe would have to be fundamentally re-evaluated.

Initially, Alex viewed this universe as one born out of cognitive pollution, a twisted reality, a manifestation of humanity's vices, and an artistic creation borne of psychological trauma.

But now, it seemed this world itself had the inherent ability to create pollution.

In other words, this world was a battery for polluted energy. Its inhabitants could endlessly produce ever-greater, more potent pollution to poison other multiverses.

Consider Homelander, the counterpoint to Superman.

Or Soldier Boy, the antithesis of Captain America.

They might not possess overwhelming strength or the ability to defeat true superheroes.

But...

That was never the purpose of their creation.

Homelander doesn't physically harm Superman, yet in a certain sense, he has already done so.

When people fall in love with these flawed, morally corrupt figures—when they grow accustomed to shattering perfection to expose its darkness—every multiverse will inevitably be upended.

True heroes will be discarded like trash, while those consumed by darkness, those deranged and twisted creations, will crawl out of the gutters of dark multiverses one by one.

Is this the so-called truth?

Alex couldn't be sure, but he knew this universe's existence wasn't accidental. Somewhere beyond his notice, everything was already shifting subtly, irreversibly.

--------------------------------

Suddenly, Alex was snapped out of his thoughts by a faint vibration from his pocket. His phone was ringing.

Pulling it out, he glanced at the screen. The caller ID displayed "Little Cricket." It was Emma.

With a complicated expression, Alex answered the call.

"Hello?" he said.

Emma's voice came through the receiver, hoarse and devoid of her usual cheer. It sounded as if she had been crying recently.

"Where are you? I need your help."

Alex pursed his lips and sighed silently.

Just as he was about to respond, his body froze mid-motion.

His gaze turned sharply toward Emma's direction. In that moment, Alex noticed something peculiar: the pollution that had been emanating from Emma earlier had completely vanished without a trace.

His expression flickered between uncertainty and unease. Alex opened his mouth but couldn't utter a word. The bizarre scene left him speechless, as though he had forgotten what he wanted to say.

Fixating on the sight of Emma, now seemingly free from pollution as if it had never existed, Alex alternated his gaze between the phone in his hand and the distant figure of Emma.

His brows furrowed deeply once more.

.....

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452. A New Possibility.

453. Infiltrating Vought International!

454. Coercion.

455. Surprise.

456. The Expert.