Nobody can stop me from drawing cards in Gotham!

Chapter 55 Tony: Now it's time to fill in the gaps!

At first glance, the scene seems beautiful.

But Jaeger had no interest in appreciating it.

The answer is simple—he and the poisonous fog were carried by the energy-devouring insects, and now that the energy-devouring insects have all died, he is naturally falling downwards.

Fortunately, his two teammates were reliable enough to fly over the moment Jaeger fell, grabbing the poisonous mist's shoulders from both sides and lifting him into the air.

"Did we really kill all these bugs?" Jaeger breathed a sigh of relief. "I think I'm almost developing bug PTSD."

"I'm sorry, but so am I," Tony said. "I feel like I have an intense urge to kill all bugs right now."

"..." Clark sighed, "In any case, at least this matter can finally be over..."

"Is it really over?" Jaeger suddenly asked. "I had a lot of questions I didn't ask you before, Tony, because of the emergency."

"Go ahead and ask," Tony said generously. "After all, there's no rush now—you can ask at your leisure before you get back to the cruise ship."

"Alright, so first, let's talk about the Energy-Devouring Worms..." Jaeger's voice was muffled by the poisonous fog, "What exactly are Energy-Devouring Worms?"

"Is it some kind of alien creature, or some kind of artificially created species?"

"And you mentioned before that these creatures can reproduce to the point of consuming the energy of a star, but they also paradoxically have the weakness of being afraid of heat. So how exactly do they absorb the energy of a star?"

"Oh, right, you mentioned before that the Energy-Devouring Worms came by biting through a rift in the world, but I just observed that these worms' mouthparts don't seem to have any special abilities. How did they manage to bite through a rift in the world?"

"Stop, stop, stop! Do you think this is a press conference? I have to listen to eight hundred questions from different reporters in one go?"

Tony was taken aback when Jaeger bombarded him with questions as if he were afraid Jaeger would run away, and his lips twitched for a moment.

"But that's a good question, and I have time to explain it to you now."

"First of all, the energy-devouring worm is not an alien species. It is actually the product of a so-called mad scientist. When we arrested him, he admitted that the energy-devouring worm was inspired by the asteroid."

"Asteroid?" Jaeger paused, "That name sounds familiar."

"Heh, just a die-hard fan of 'The Salvation Plan'." Tony sneered. "I doubt the author of that book ever imagined that someone would actually be attracted to asteroids and create creatures like energy-devouring worms."

Upon hearing this, Jaeger was speechless.

—Speaking of which, he had also read the science fiction novel "The Rescue Plan," which is quite well-known in the West. The "planet-devouring body" is a concept mentioned in the book.

These cosmic microbes attach themselves to stars, absorb energy, and then use carbon sources to multiply and reproduce. They are indeed extremely dangerous organisms capable of killing stars.

But it's truly surprising that something like this could become a source of inspiration for a mad scientist...

But unlike Jaeger's thoughtful expression, Clark was somewhat puzzled—"The Salvation Plan"? What kind of book is that?

It wasn't that Clark was ignorant; rather, the book was actually published long after 2006. It was understandable that Jaeger, who had traveled through time, and Tony from another world knew about it, but Clark in the present would naturally not know of its existence.

"But the reason why planeteers are fictional is precisely because they are so special." Tony scoffed. "The energy of stars comes from hydrogen nuclear fusion. No life can survive in the radiation and temperature that provides a galaxy with massive amounts of energy."

"So, if that guy with only four PhDs could really create a species like the planeteer, he could win a Nobel Prize and live off that title for the rest of his life just for developing the technology that would allow life to reach the sun. Why would he be so cynical as to create a defective product like the energy-devouring worm?"

Jaeger, devastated by "a mere four doctoral degrees": "..."

Clark, who was also slandered: "..."

Suddenly, I felt genuinely sad for the scientist who was being ridiculed.

"So... the energy-devouring worms were just defective products?" Jaeger asked, calming himself down after being injured.

"That's right. So while these creatures also have the ability to devour energy, and even absorb it from a distance, they have many problems," Tony explained. "For example, they can't withstand heat like planeteers; on the contrary, they are afraid of high-temperature weapons."

"So how exactly do they absorb the energy of the stars?" Jaeger asked humbly.

"It's related to reproduction," Tony said. "The small number of energy-devouring worms, even the bunch we just dealt with, are far from enough."

"But if they really multiply to a certain number, according to that mad scientist, the energy-devouring worms will produce something called population resonance."

"Under this resonance, the devouring abilities of all the energy-devouring insects can be superimposed, including the devouring distance, so they can maintain a safe distance to absorb energy... Of course, I highly doubt the truth of this, maybe it's just a claim that the scientist made to save face after being arrested."

"After all, before he could actually reproduce to the required number, the swarm of bugs broke out of his lab and spread to the ground in New York City, causing us a lot of trouble."

Jaeger: "..."

Damn, so it might just be the ultimate fantasy of a mad scientist?

He had genuinely believed Tony's serious-looking words, thinking the world would end if these bugs weren't killed... only to find out it was just Tony using that rhetoric to put pressure on them?!

I feel like I've been tricked by those awful people from another world.

Facing Jaeger's eerie gaze, seemingly piercing through the poisonous fog, Tony said matter-of-factly, "Hey, I just don't believe it myself. What if that guy actually pulls it off? You never know how many tricks these guys can get up to..."

—Take the villains produced by Stark Industries, for example. They really caused Tony a lot of mess and a lot of trouble that he had to deal with!

And most of these people's products were ones that Tony genuinely felt were meaningless...

"Alright." Since the energy-devouring worms had to be killed eventually, and keeping them around was just a nuisance, Jaeger moved on to the next question, "What about the World Rift?"

"That was a bit inaccurate of my previous statement," Tony said. "To be precise, the rift already existed, but it emitted a special energy fluctuation that attracted the fleeing energy-devouring worms. And after the energy-devouring worms devoured the energy, the rift strangely expanded."

"...The World Rift," Jaeger pondered. "So you'll be using the rift to get back later?"

“That’s right,” Tony said. “If you and Big Guy are interested, I can leave you the coordinates, and you can go check it out with him when you have time—although I don’t recommend that you travel between worlds randomly.”

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P.S.: Reaching 1000 favorites is quite an achievement for a newbie like me (although there's been a lot of criticism, I'll gradually improve!)... So I'm planning to do a giveaway in my book club later, giving away a copy of the Batman and Deadpool crossover comic. Check it out if you're interested (◦˙▽˙◦)