strokinit Chapter 230 What if?
Chapter 230 What if?
Chapter 230 What if?
Time, space, reality—none of these things ever develop linearly.
The accumulation of even the smallest choices can lead to an infinite number of different realities and give birth to an infinite number of parallel universes.
However, among these countless parallel universes, some are inevitably more unfortunate than others.
I am the observer, your guide to experiencing these wondrous universes. #
Let's think together: what if there were another "Dr. Doom"?
Doctor Doom, clad in red robes and golden armor, waved his hand, plunging the Earth beneath his feet and the entire universe into a deathly silence.
"Count, Jarvis."
A deep, steady male voice rang out:
"Okay, Mr. Stark, this is the 1048576th universe you've destroyed. Haven't we achieved our goal yet?"
"The goal will never be achieved."
The face beneath the mask appeared somewhat stiff, and the scars on Doctor Doom's face were slightly distorted.
"Also, don't call me by that name anymore."
"As you command."
Jarvis's voice was as reliable as ever, just like the late butler Jarvis.
However, his return yielded a different result: "Mr. Stark."
"throat."
Doctor Doom sighed softly and switched the central control system back to its original state:
"Start 'Friday'."
A clear and crisp female voice rang out, bringing with it the long-standing companionship:
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, boss.
Good afternoon, Friday.
Having collected the overwhelming Amorod robots into his palm in a narrow spatial crevice, Doctor Doom found a piece of ice or rock and sat down to catch his breath.
He is now standing atop the Himalayas, or rather, a former summit.
This once towering peak on Earth is no longer worthy of its name, having just been cleaved in two by the Vishanti Sword, which it itself manifested not long ago.
The enormous energy blade flattened the entire Supreme Sanctuary and also shattered the originally resilient mountainside, triggering an unprecedented landslide.
However, this disaster did not cause any harm to the people at the foot of the mountain; the entire world had already fallen apart before this.
This is merely the last aftershock of Doctor Doom's battle with the Sorcerer Supreme of this world.
After defeating another familiar and formidable foe, Doctor Doom, who had been working for an unknown amount of time, decided to take a short break in this universe and check on his progress:
"Countdown, Friday."
"Okay, boss."
Unlike Jarvis, who always exaggerates, the data he gave on Friday was absolutely accurate: "This is the 1023rd universe you have destroyed."
"That's one more time, making it 10 times."
Destroying the universe is like a daily routine for Doctor Doom. He's too lazy to count anymore and needs someone to keep track of how many bowls of rice he's eaten on this endless journey.
The universe is intricately constructed, and its entire spacetime structure is as indestructible as Rupert's Tears. Even if Doctor Doom wanted to destroy it in a short time, it would take a lot of effort.
Fortunately, Doctor Doom had his own way of dealing with the problem—he discovered that the universe, like Rupert's Tear, has a tail called Earth.
All it takes is to destroy the Earth by specific means, applying a kind of "stress" to this "tail" through a combination of mysticism and science.
This destructive force will spread throughout the universe at faster-than-light speeds in a short period of time, turning it into a lifeless wasteland like Earth, the origin of this force.
Such exquisite technique and astonishing discovery could only be achieved by a mind as brilliant as his.
"Can anyone else do it?!"
Tony's boasting only made Captain America, who was already anxious, furrow his brow even more.
"Stop showing off, Stark. This is a battlefield, not a theater!"
Given the urgency of the situation, the last thing he needed to do was listen to his troublesome son, Howard, act up.
Two godlike beings were unleashing their power in the skies above the east coast, clashing hundreds of times in just a few minutes.
The immense impact of the clash between flesh and energy rippled through the clouds layer by layer, creating a sound wave that could be heard even hundreds of miles away.
It can also be detected by Captain America's super soldier senses.
"New enemies could appear at any time in the spacetime rift, and Superman could be defeated at any time!"
With no one there to comfort Hulk, and Captain America even more worried about the injured young hero, the Invincible Warrior, the other was also causing him considerable distress.
"We still have wounded soldiers who need stable treatment environments. If you have any ideas, please use them quickly!"
"I have a great idea!"
Tony easily hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s command channel:
"Whoever is on the other end, good morning, good noon, good evening—please help me pick up Nick Fury, the son of the beach."
Good afternoon, Tony.
Fury, known as the "Son of the Beach," unusually did not reply. He had just boarded the command seat of the Helicopter in a Quinjet and hadn't even had time to warm up before the situation took a turn for the better.
Staring with his last remaining dead fish eye, Fury silently noted Tony's rudeness in his mind, and then asked in a gentle tone:
"Is there anything I can do?"
Nick Fury knew that in such a situation, the space carriers could do very little. These airborne carriers, which still relied on giant turbine blades to maintain their flight, were simply unable to intervene in battles of Superman's caliber.
The air turbulence caused by the aftershocks of a one-man, one-aircraft battle was enough to put an aircraft carrier at risk of going out of control and crashing. It is unlikely that any conventional weapons on the aircraft carrier would be able to harm or even hit the other side.
"I remember your S.H.I.E.L.D. secretly used the Tesseract to develop quite a few 'unconventional' weapons?"
Tony, who had thoroughly reviewed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database, at least gave Fury some face and didn't reveal that the latter had also lost the Tesseract:
"Don't ask me how I know. Use all your weapons to fire at that crack in the sky. And I mean all of them!"
Fury, on the other end, paused for a second before speaking the last thing Tony wanted to hear:
"I need to apply for authorization."
"Frey, you."
Captain America really wanted to say a short phrase starting with "m" and ending with "er," but due to his position, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead, he communicated with the director in a more refined manner:
"Do you have to apply for permission before you can have sex with your wife?"
The captain, with his honeyed tongue, only uttered one sentence that made Fury unable to sit still: "Fuck you, Captain!"
All the fighters on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier took off, loaded with live ammunition containing the energy of the Tesseract, and bombarded the dimensional rift that opened up in the sky just seconds later.
The portal connecting to another universe is visibly shrinking and collapsing.
No matter what else is on the other side, they can't come over anytime soon.
"It's a success!"
"What's the underlying principle?"
There's no real principle behind it; it's just simple energy cancellation.
Tony didn't know why, but the energy spectrum of the other side opening the portal was consistent with the Cosmic Cube recorded in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, which allowed his side to skip the complicated analysis stage and fast-forward directly to the stage of making a miracle.
So, does that mean we've won?
Even if it's only temporary.
Meanwhile, Joey and Ultron were still clashing with pure brute force, both in a state of helplessness against each other, which reminded Joey of every unpleasant memory he had of fighting Kryptonians.
The Kryptonians' steel bodies and Vision's vibranium structure would likely require the destruction of Earth to settle the score with mere fists and energy beams.
"The portal is about to close, aren't you going to leave?"
Ultron is a cluster of machines controlled by a central consciousness. Just like Cyborg, any external machine can only be considered its GUI (graphical user interface), even the 'Vision' in front of us.
The collapse of the portal would definitely interrupt the operation signal from another universe, at which point Vision's body would have to be temporarily abandoned in this universe.
"It doesn't matter, this unit is insignificant anyway."
Vision, a high-performance machine powered by the Mind Stone and forged from bio-vibranium, was not something Ultron could do without.
Ultron rapidly repaired the micro-vibranium cell structure of Vision's body, which had been damaged by the high-intensity collision. This body was originally his masterpiece, but now it was lagging behind in the most basic performance.
He's not one of those carbon-based beings who hesitates and looks back when faced with unavoidable losses.
The physical body is not important; what matters is the data. By fighting this strange new creature, all the data that can be obtained can guide one more quickly toward the path to perfection.
Time is running out, and Ultron has one last experiment to conduct.
Ultron manipulated Vision's body to increase its density again, until it reached the limit that the machine could reach, and attacked Joey with the mass energy of a high-quality cosmic celestial body.
Thinking it was yet another fruitless struggle, Joey stretched out his hand to receive the immense force, but this time Ultron changed his tactics.
Ultron once again intangibly moved past Joey's body, turned around, and stabbed into Joey's chest from behind, grabbing his heart before beginning to materialize again.
Let me verify it—
He attempted to attack directly from the inside by switching between illusory and real forms, starting by killing this seemingly indestructible organism from its internal organs:
Are you consistent in your words and actions?