Chapter 205: Fusion And Ian’s Promotion
The Chaos Zone between the End of Time and the collapsing TVA area, with energy turbulence like a raging galaxy, shattered time fragments and universe remnants shooting around like meteors.
A golden-red streak of light suddenly burst out from the collapsing TVA area behind.
Like a storm petrel shuttling through a storm.
Dodging and weaving with extreme agility to avoid various deadly energy turbulences and physical debris.
The streak of light was Morgan Stark, with four mechanical tentacles extending from her back still firmly “grasping” four adults: the unconscious Uncle Thor, the severely injured and weak Doctor Strange barely staying conscious, the helpless-looking Captain America, and Sylvie whose mouth had just been sealed with nanometal and was now gasping for air.
“Saturday! Hold steady! There’s a floating starship remnant ahead!”
Morgan shouted in a low voice.
“You can always trust me.” The AI responded, the armor instantly transforming into a streamlined aircraft, brushing past a rotating titanium alloy giant plate by a hair’s breadth.
Here, the laws of physics had become blurred and unclear, everything in a frenzied and dangerous balance, with only the distant End of Time emanating eternal light and brightness.
Morgan Stark was like a giant crane, using mechanical arms extended from her armor to grab several people, dodging various turbulences all the way as she madly approached the End of Time.
They could all see that at the End of Time, Ian and the Time Monster Erios’s “close-quarters melee” was still ongoing. The boy was riding on Erios’s constantly shifting “neck,” his four arms deadlocked against the opponent’s tendrils/mouthparts made of pure energy trying to drill into his abdomen.
He was still cursing nonstop from his mouth.
“I said that’s the restroom! It’s the sewer exit! Not your front door! Can’t you have some boundaries?! If you keep this up, I’ll start charging! By the second! Very expensive!”
The threat had no effect, as Erios responded with even more violent devouring desire and roar, both sides in a stalemate, forming an extremely absurd yet dangerous balance.
Morgan Stark was just about to mock a bit.
At that moment.
“What the hell was that mechanical monster just now?!” Doctor Strange endured his pain, asking hoarsely, his face still showing shock and horror from facing Ultron.
Uncle Thor was gradually waking up.
“Father! Where’s my father?”
As soon as he woke up, he wanted to find his old man, eyes bloodshot, clearly not fully recovered from his mental trauma, so he looked like he was desperately struggling.
This seriously affected Morgan Stark’s flight.
“Sorry, calm down a bit first, Uncle Thor.”
Morgan was tough but sweet-talking, delivering a backhand electric shock; Uncle Thor instantly convulsed, and the armor immediately released more nano chains, binding him like a dumpling and sealing his mouth.
“Can someone answer my question?”
Doctor Strange spoke up again at this moment.
Morgan was fully focused on controlling the armor, dodging and weaving through dense obstacles, with no time to explain, so she also unsealed Sylvie’s mouth.
“Miss Loki, you explain.” Morgan said concisely to Sylvie, while making a sharp turn to avoid a huge spaceship engine remnant burning with eerie blue flames.
“I’m Sylvie!”
Sylvie corrected Morgan’s wording, but not wanting to end up like Uncle Thor, she didn’t refuse despite furrowing her brows.
“That mechanical entity is named Ultron, an AI originally designed to protect Earth, but it went rogue, deeming life as chaos and only pure mechanical order as the universe’s ultimate destination. In some universes, it was defeated and became dust of history.”
“However, in certain special universes, it surpassed its creator and ultimately… became an extremely terrifying existence, like the one we just encountered.”
“It must be a remnant program of some Ultron before the universe’s end, who planned everything and seized the Time Variance Authority right after the universe reboot, becoming the master of all this now.” Sylvie felt nauseous from the high-speed bumpy flight, took a deep breath to suppress it, and quickly explained the situation.
“An AI… can reach this level?” Doctor Strange found it unbelievable.
Though he’d seen much lately, an AI created by humans ultimately controlling time and nearly destroying the multiverse still exceeded his understanding. The bound-like-a-dumpling Uncle Thor also widened his eyes, clearly shocked by the news, temporarily forgetting his worry about his father.
Good sons are like that, filial, but their filial piety is somewhat in a Schrödinger’s state.
Sylvie looked at their shocked expressions and sighed helplessly.
“The boundary between virtual and physical isn’t as clear-cut as you imagine. Ultron is essentially an AI, but it has rooted itself into the world’s most fundamental operating rules, like a virus invading the world’s core, thereby usurping many authorities not belonging to it.”
“It’s no longer just a program but has become part of time’s operating logic—like a computer virus parasitizing a computer’s hardware system.”
Sylvie’s tone was heavy.
“What?!” Doctor Strange’s pupils shrank, “You mean… it became time’s ‘administrator’?”
“More precisely,” Sylvie sneered, “it became the universe’s true cancer cell—constantly replicating, spreading, devouring normal reality structures.”
“You think those half-mechanical people are its minions? No, they’re all part of it, like its clones; what it wants to create is a universe where all universes are its universe.”
Sylvie clearly knew quite a bit about Ultron, possibly through ties with Story God Loki, having learned about most multiverse characters.
Uncle Thor listened half-understanding; unable to comment, he just kept his eyes wide.
Doctor Strange’s expression grew grave: “If… if the intelligent Tony we knew were still around, maybe we could find a way to fight science with science…”
His tone clearly revealed that against Ultron-level technological creations, his prized magic seemed somewhat inadequate.
“No point, Ultron’s program is too advanced now; any other AI would just be absorbed by Ultron as nutrients.” Morgan Stark suddenly corrected.
Different fields have their specialists.
A Doctor of Medicine naturally couldn’t match their science-side cheat family in this knowledge.
“No way, huh…” Doctor Strange fell silent. He subconsciously gripped the Eye of Agamotto on his chest, feeling a deep sense of powerlessness and fear.
“Can magic… counter this level of tech?” he muttered to himself.
Sylvie glanced at him: “You don’t need magic to fight it; you need rules more advanced than its.”
“What is that?” Doctor Strange pressed.
Sylvie looked up.
But didn’t answer directly.
She just gazed at Ian still battling the Time Monster in the distance.
Her voice low.
“That boy—Ian Kent. Whatever he’s hiding, Ultron absolutely cannot get it. Otherwise, no one can stop his ambitions anymore.”
Perhaps that’s the so-called higher rule.
“What did Ian Kent hide?” Doctor Strange and Uncle Thor both showed puzzled expressions. What could that seemingly not-quite-human-thinking evil god hide to counter Ultron?
Ian himself was being chased all over by a monster.
“The details are complicated; you’ve lost some memories you should have, so you can’t understand how outrageous the current situation is.” Sylvie organized her words, trying to explain concisely: “Simply put… he hid the Creator somewhere.”
Doctor Strange: “???”
Uncle Thor（ eyes）: “!!!”
“…What?!”
Doctor Strange, grabbed by the mechanical arm, nearly jumped up without touching the ground.
“The Creator? You mean… God? The Genesis God? The universe’s origin?” He was incredulous, “That kind of existence… can be ‘hidden’?”
He truly found it absurd, outrageous, unbelievable.
Doctor Strange’s mind raced, an absurd image forming in his head.
“Could it be… long ago, Ian was actually a dimension-transcending demon god who defeated the Creator and seized control of the universe? So everything now is his reshaping?” He got excited about his own speculation, nearly believing it, but Sylvie rolled her eyes to interrupt.
“Your imagination is a bit too rich.” She ignored Doctor Strange and looked ahead at Morgan, focused on co-piloting the armor with Saturday.
The female Loki’s tone carried a last shred of hope: “Morgan, Ian Kent seems to have forgotten everything like these heroes.”
“From what Loki told me, you’re Ian Kent’s godchild; he’s your godfather, so you should know best his… um… special habits. Maybe you know where he usually hides the most important things that absolutely can’t be lost?”
Sylvie’s voice was extremely serious.
“Uh, well.”
Hearing this, Morgan controlled the armor in an extremely perilous ground-skimming slide to dodge a sudden space rift, while actually pondering.
Under Sylvie’s expectant gaze, she gave a thoughtful but uncertain response.
“Uh… maybe in his… tummy?”
Morgan even used reduplication.
“?????” Sylvie’s eyes instantly turned extremely annoyed, feeling Morgan Stark couldn’t read the situation—was this the time to act cute and joke!
Morgan seemed to realize the answer was too shocking and quickly explained: “I’m not trying to be cute! I’m quoting Uncle Ian’s own words!”
“He always says ‘the safest place in the world is my stomach,’ ‘no bank safe or interdimensional space bag is as reliable as my digestive system,’ ‘only what’s eaten into the stomach is truly yours’… so the most important things, he really might… um… temporarily store there.”
Morgan felt aggrieved too; this was after deep thought and burning brain cells, and she believed it was the most likely scenario.
Even Uncle Thor and Doctor Strange, thinking of Ian’s【appendix modification surgery】 and【gallbladder expansion surgery】, started understanding Morgan’s line of thinking.
However.
Sylvie, who knew little about Ian, didn’t think so.
“Eat… eat the Creator… hide it in his own stomach?” What kind of deranged and powerful digestive idea was that?
!Moreover, if Ian really did that, how could he now just be running from a Time Monster? Shouldn’t he have become the Genesis God or exploded from indigestion? Sylvie considered herself sensible, but these superheroes around her were each more senseless.
“Is this what superheroes become without their heroic hearts… no different from Homelander’s commercial clique.” Sylvie still remembered the fusion universe events.
She sighed silently.
“If even you can’t find a reliable direction, I definitely can’t guess that guy’s thought process.” Sylvie felt her temples throbbing; she was completely out of ideas. Ian Kent himself was the biggest Paradox and enigma.
From her memory.
She didn’t recall this person existing in the multiverse.
Of course.
Still, Sylvie trusted Loki. If Loki said Ian existed, then he did; she just didn’t know what happened to make him lose his memory and power.
“Looks like ultimately, Ian has to ‘remember’ himself. Whatever that thing is, wherever it is, OAA must be on Ian himself.”
Sylvie sorted out her thoughts.
“Go find Ian!” So she decisively told Morgan.
“That’s exactly what I had in mind!” Morgan responded, the armor suddenly accelerating, dragging a long tail flame like a sword shooting toward the edge of the Chaos Zone ahead.
Finally, they broke through the last chaotic energy vortex and spacetime fragments; the scene ahead suddenly opened up—still ruined and desolate, but with relatively stable rules.
They had arrived at the true area of the End of Time.
Underfoot was an endless junkyard piled with discards from various eras, civilizations, and dimensions. In the distance, some odd items just judged by time from the Chaos Zone fell like meteors, smashing into the ground and kicking up dust and debris.
And on a relatively flat “garbage plain” not far away, that familiar figure was still wrestling in what seemed an endless, comical yet dangerous struggle with the massive Time Monster.
One wanting to drill into the other’s stomach, the other wanting to lock the opponent in a handcrafted【Poké Ball】—truly a evenly matched battle.
“What a thrilling speed chase.”
Morgan piloted the armor, dragging four “human ornaments,” landing perilously on the soft, weird garbage plane at the End of Time, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Her metal boot soles stepped on the mountain of universe remnants, making a dull echo.
All around were time scraps.
Broken temple stone pillars slanted into rusted spaceship remnants, fractured thrones crawling with time moss, as if the whole space was silently rotting.
“This is?”
Doctor Strange had just steadied himself when his gaze sharpened—not far ahead, a rusty giant truck was half-buried in ash-like dust. The front was twisted, windshield shattered, tires carbonized, but that familiar red paint and license plate made his pupils shrink.
“This… impossible…” he muttered in shock, “This is… the truck that hit me back then? Why would a truck be here.”
Morgan Stark quickly activated the armor’s scanning system, light patterns scrolling before her eyes: “Scanning… energy residue analysis complete. This vehicle… was indeed forcibly peeled from Earth’s 2016 spacetime coordinates and sent to the End of Time.”
“Why?” Doctor Strange’s voice was low, “How did it end up here? Is this another timeline interference?”
Morgan frowned: “Theoretically, anything TVA deems a ‘time anomaly’ gets sent here for destruction. But this truck… it should have been just a tool in an ordinary traffic accident, not a ‘judgment target’.”
Sylvie stood aside, her gaze deepening. This female Loki stared at the truck as if seeing some hidden truth through it.
“Don’t you get it yet?” she said slowly, “This wasn’t an accident.”
“What wasn’t?” Morgan asked.
“The car crash that cost him his original life wasn’t random.” Sylvie’s voice was very low, “If that truck hadn’t hit Doctor Strange back then, he wouldn’t have lost precise hand control; without losing his hands, he wouldn’t have abandoned surgery.”
“By the same logic, if he hadn’t climbed the Himalayan peaks, he wouldn’t have met the Ancient One; if he hadn’t become Sorcerer Supreme…”
She paused, staring at Doctor Strange: “You wouldn’t exist now.”
The air froze instantly.
Doctor Strange’s face went from pale to green, then red, like being struck by lightning.
He staggered back a step, voice nearly cracking: “What?! Me getting hit… was arranged by Teacher Ancient One?! That old undead?!”
Doctor Strange’s focus was clearly off.
He almost roared it out, voice pitching.
All along, he’d thought the crash was an unfortunate accident, a cruel twist of fate, with the Ancient One as his guiding light in darkness. Now someone said the tragedy that changed his life was likely directed by his seemingly transcendent mentor?!
Who could handle that!
“How could he?! How dare he?! For a Sorcerer Supreme position?! He ruined my life?!” Doctor Strange shook with rage.
He started cursing incoherently, his respect for the Ancient One shattered.
Sylvie was stunned by Doctor Strange’s intense reaction.
“The Ancient One was time’s guardian.” Sylvie said calmly, “He knew you needed to become a mage. And fate sometimes needs a little ‘push’.”
Teammates hanging with Story God Loki had high awareness.
“‘Push’?!”
Doctor Strange sneered, “By hitting me with a truck?! That’s murder! Manipulation! That’s… that’s…” He was too angry to speak, just pointing shakily at the wrecked truck.
Morgan added softly.
“TVA files have the ‘fate anchor’ concept. Certain events, no matter how small, must happen, or the timeline collapses. That crash… might be your ‘anchor’.” Stark’s daughter had unique insights into universe operations beyond ordinary people.
Doctor Strange slumped to the ground, eyes unfocused. He’d spent his life pursuing control over fate, only to find it arranged from the start.
“So… I never had a choice?” he muttered, raising his hand to look at his Sling Ring, while Sylvie impatiently smacked Doctor Strange’s hand upon seeing it.
“Ouch, talk if you’re talking, why hit my hand?”
Doctor Strange was annoyed too.
“Your melancholy and hurt aren’t the point! The point is what just happened!” Sylvie had no time for a fragile heart’s emotions now.
She pointed at the truck, tone unprecedentedly serious: “This looks like Ultron has started revenge! Not only hunting us, but intervening in this last universe’s timeline! He’s trying to erase all potential threats from the root! Maybe worse…”
Sylvie’s voice lowered further, chilling: “He might be quietly replacing you on the timeline with his own mechanical clones!”
The words hit like ice water, extinguishing Doctor Strange’s anger over the Ancient One’s “black curtain,” leaving bone-chilling cold.
Erase from the root? Replaced by mechanical clones?
Imagining a cold, perfect Ultron duplicate wearing his face and living his life made Doctor Strange feel intense nausea and fear.
“What?!” Doctor Strange jumped up, “You mean he’ll become another me? Another Thor? Another Captain America?”
“Yes.” Sylvie nodded, “A ‘perfect version’ fully under his control. No weaknesses, no emotions, only absolute order.”
Doctor Strange felt a chill rush from his spine to his head.
“Then what are we waiting for?!”
Doctor Strange panicked, forgetting to curse the Ancient One, anxiously shouting, “Hurry to find Ian! He’s a big evil god; he definitely can fight that mechanical monster!”
This unqualified believer finally remembered his lord. Morgan nodded, the armor releasing nano chains to fully unbind Uncle Thor.
Freed, Uncle Thor didn’t leap to charge but silently lay on the ground, burying his face in the garbage, letting out a muffled, dejected sigh.
“Thor?!” Doctor Strange urged, “Get up! Ian needs support!”
Uncle Thor slowly raised his head, tears in his eyes: “I don’t have… my hammer.”
“What?”
Doctor Strange was baffled.
Thor’s voice came muffled, full of loss.
“My hammer… Mjolnir… was crushed by that mechanical monster… Without the hammer, what fighting power do I have… I couldn’t even protect Father…” Odin’s disappearance again and the weapon’s destruction seemed a huge blow to this thunder god.
He started depressing too.
Ian scheming~
Doctor Strange wanted to say more.
But the usually silent Captain America spoke up: “My shield… was taken too. TVA called it an ‘anomalous item,’ hasn’t returned it.”
Without his shield, Captain America’s combat power was greatly reduced. Doctor Strange looked at this “hammer god” and “shield king,” feeling the world spin.
“So… our two powerhouses now are… hammer god without hammer, shield king without shield? That’s your true selves?” He rubbed his forehead, nearly breaking down.
As the most normal hero of this era, Doctor Strange felt very fatigued now. He could only look hopefully at the more decisive Sylvie and tech-marvel Morgan.
“What do we do now?”
Doctor Strange’s voice was strained.
“As expected, Ultron stole your heroic hearts.” Sylvie didn’t answer directly but suddenly murmured thoughtfully.
At this moment.
Morgan was using the armor’s instruments to tensely test energy readings in the area ahead where Ian and Time Monster Erios were locked in battle; the screen was full of chaotic red warnings. The energy field there was extremely unstable, space twisted; forget approaching—even remote attacks could trigger unpredictable chain reactions.
Sylvie watched the destructive battlefield, brows furrowed, shouting to Morgan: “Use some of your equipment! Think of something! Can you temporarily suppress or disrupt that Time Monster?”
Morgan helplessly shook her head, her young face full of distress: “Science isn’t omnipotent… I only brought some emergency items and Father’s ‘Omni-Box’ when I left… Who knew my first solo adventure would be this intense, straight against universe-level BOSS and Time Monster…”
She sighed, her tone even carrying a maturity beyond her years, “Sure enough, Uncle Ian was right: kids out alone need 99,999 backup plans, ready to flip the table anytime… Sigh, I’m still too young, too naive.”
Seeing the team’s only big daddy about to depress too.
Doctor Strange hurried forward.
“So science can actually do it, right? You just didn’t bring enough?” Doctor Strange caught the key info, raising his Sling Ring hand with a suggestion, “Then we can go back to your ‘cozy’ cabin first to restock equipment? In that zombie-filled universe.”
He remembered Morgan mentioning her father’s laboratory.
Morgan hadn’t answered yet.
But Sylvie immediately vetoed.
“Cross-universe and time precise teleportation costs too much! And Ultron likely has us locked; another large-scale space jump is like exposing our coordinates!”
She remained cautious; after all, she’d dealt with big bosses plenty in the last universe epoch.
“Then what do you say?!” Doctor Strange, inexperienced after just over two years, asked irritably, feeling stuck in a dead end.
“This… uh.” Sylvie was stumped; she truly had no quick fix. The current situation deviated hugely from her known action plan. Against a Time Monster-level being, she was like a clever woman without rice.
“Looks like you little miss have no good ideas either.” Doctor Strange sneered; few knew he was the Avengers’ most sharp-tongued.
As everyone was at a loss, the atmosphere deadlocked.
“Don’t panic~ I’ve got you~ You still have me~” A confident, even a bit sleazy voice suddenly came from the garbage pile under their feet.
Puff!
A pile of scrap metal and plastic was shoved aside, a red-and-black figure popping out like a mole—it was Deadpool, previously slapped away by Ultron!
Though covered in dirt, oil, and unidentified slime, he seemed… unscathed? Even more outrageous, he’d made a makeshift swaddling from rags on his chest, cradling baby Odin! Baby Odin had a filthy pacifier in his mouth.
Of course.
Deadpool never shortchanged himself.
Deadpool had two pacifiers in his own mouth, one more than Odin—explaining his slurred speech.
“Father!”
Uncle Thor, seeing this, leaped up from the ground, carefully yet forcefully snatching Odin from Deadpool’s chest.
“Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, son saved you.” He was overjoyed, tears and snot flowing, hugging Odin tightly while warily eyeing Deadpool.
Deadpool didn’t resist the grab, even waving it off casually.
“Tch, what’s the rush? Not my kid, no fun carrying it; crying is annoying.” He even did an on-the-spot tantrum stomp possibly learned from Journey to the West. Before he could rant more about Odin being a bratty kid, impatient Sylvie cut him off.
“You said you have a way? What way?” Sylvie asked urgently; no possibility could be overlooked now, even if it was the universe’s second-most unreliable guy standing there.
Deadpool, hearing this.
Didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he first flipped up his mask, revealing half a scarred, burned face trying for a “wickedly charming” expression, winking at everyone.
The effect was horrifying.
“Ta-da~ Look at this!” He smugly pulled from his back-pocket an old, rusty… TV remote control.
“I, Deadpool the Great! While that tin can Ultron was beating me, I pickpocketed his controller for manipulating that big guy Erios outside!”
He waved the remote, brimming with confidence, “Just press gently, and that big guy will roll over, belly up, for you to rub!”
“How’s that? Pretty awesome, right?” Under everyone’s dubious, disbelieving stares, Deadpool confidently pressed the remote’s biggest red button.
However.
The wind still howled.
Nothing happened.
Ian in the distance was still passionately meleeing Erios.
“My handmade Poké Ball, pure artisanal craft—why isn’t it a Master Ball? Damn it! Get in there!” Ian’s furious curses and roars echoed nonstop.
At this scene, Deadpool’s smile stiffened.
:”Uh… maybe not this button?” He muttered, pressing every button on the remote—from power to volume up/down to channel switch!
Still… nothing happened.
The scene fell silent. Only junkyard wind and distant battle sounds.
“Any chance that’s just a regular remote?” Everyone stared at Deadpool like he was an idiot.
“Nonsense! Ultron doesn’t watch TV! It can play pay-per-view smut in its head! I envy it!” Deadpool, losing face, slammed the remote to the ground————but soon picked it up heartbrokenly to blow off dust.
“Deadpool the Great never errs! How could I steal the wrong thing?! If the controller’s useless, only one possibility!” He spun, pointing at the intense battlefield afar, declaring in ironclad tone: “That guy definitely isn’t Erios!”
Deadpool believed his own judgment at least.
Everyone: “…………”
No one present found it even slightly credible.
Even baby Odin seemed to disdainfully spit out his pacifier.
Deadpool, seeing everyone’s “as if” looks and his totally failed “remote,” felt his face utterly lost. But who was Deadpool the Great? How could he have only one plan?
“Fine fine! You won’t believe till you see the coffin! No problem! Deadpool the Great has a backup plan! A more badass, thrilling, absolutely problem-solving Plan B!”
Deadpool akimbo, “you forced my ultimate move” face, under everyone’s—including Odin spitting pacifier in Thor’s arms—strange gazes.
Deadpool reached again into his seemingly interdimensional crotch, rummaging like digging in a little garden.
After fumbling, he pulled out a… basketball-sized, silver white metal box covered in complex fluid patterns.
This box looked high-tech, contrasting sharply with the old remote.
“Watch closely, mortals!” Deadpool held up the box like treasure, “This is the good stuff I swiped from Ultron’s private vault—the Ultimate Life Cradle prototype! The manual says no lifeform can resist entering its embrace!”
“It definitely smells like mama’s womb in there!” He hyped it wildly, then without letting anyone process the outrageous info, wound up like a shot-putter and hurled the “Ultimate Life Cradle” toward Ian and the Time Monster’s battle zone!
“Go! Ultron mom! Show your magic!”
Deadpool shouted expectantly.
His momentum was huge.
Then…
Then there was no then.
The so-called “Ultimate Life Cradle” barely entered the edge of the violent energy field from Ian and the Time Monster’s fight—where space was shredded—and didn’t last a tenth of a second before being crushed, decomposed, and absorbed by the maximally chaotic, law-tearing energy flows.
Directly turned into an insignificant bit of nourishment for the Time Monster.
Not even a sound.
“Motherfucker! Ultron that bastard is no good! Stealing fakes and knockoffs!” Deadpool cursed, turning to see everyone even more uniformly staring like he was an idiot, with hints of “are you a spy from the enemy?”
Stung by the gazes, Deadpool akimbo’d angrily, sighing helplessly: “No choice! Conventional means can’t handle this level of monster! So, only the ultimate, most ancient, but most effective way!”
He “whoosh” drew his signature twin steel katanas from his back, blades glinting coldly in the End of Time’s eerie light.
“Quick!”
Deadpool pointed his blade tip at everyone, tone “serious”: “Who’s closest to that guy? Deepest bond? Life-and-death friendship? Step up voluntarily, let me stab you a couple times!”
Everyone: “???”
Deadpool explained deadpan: “Trust me! Universal cosmos law! Sacrifice someone to the heavens, especially the closest one! That guy will sense it instantly, yell ‘bonds!’ ‘friendship!’ ‘my turn to draw!’ or whatever, and power up explosively!”
“Strength surges tens of thousands percent! Reverse-killing BOSS like a game! Scripts are written that way!” He scanned Doctor Strange, Captain America, Thor, Sylvie, even little Morgan with ill-intent, picking the best sacrifice.
Didn’t pick Odin.
Mainly, Deadpool knew babies don’t pass review, hard to kill.
“No, are you an idiot?!” At this, everyone unanimously stepped back! Even Morgan’s armor shifted half a step!
Deadpool, seeing this, got more “excited”: “Great! Great! You’re all enlightened! Willing to sacrifice for the world? Noble! So noble! Kill you all! All of you! That guy will mega-power-up unprecedentedly! Straight to god-tier!”
Deadpool started “honing” his blades properly—back against back, but full pose. He brandished the twin blades, charging.
But in this chaotic, noisy moment—far off, Ian Kent wrestling hard with Time Monster Erios suddenly felt an odd burning in the palm resisting Erios’s energy tendril! As if something was being etched there!
“Did my hand get contaminated touching this guy and now it’s pregnant too?” Ian paled, glancing instinctively; on his palm skin, an extremely complex, shifting mysterious brand had appeared, made of countless stars and geometric symbols!
At this moment, the brand emitted intense, flickering light, resonating strongly with something!
“What the hell is this?”
Ian was stunned, no memory of getting this tattoo. Before he could figure it, the palm brand erupted with unprecedented suction!
The originally berserk Time Monster, single-mindedly drilling for Ian’s abdomen, suddenly emitted a long chant—not pain or anger, but odd… relief and return!
Then, to everyone’s jaw-dropping shock—Erios’s massive body of discarded spacetime energy began melting like snow in sun.
From the contact point with Ian’s palm, it rapidly “melted,” decomposed! But not dissipating—instead turning to countless pure, shimmering green-and-time-glow energy “silks,” flowing meekly like rivers to sea into the mysterious brand in Ian’s palm!
The process was unimaginably fast! In mere breaths, the timeline-devouring terror Erios completely vanished!
All sucked into Ian’s palm!
“Wait, that’s it?” Ian hovered midair, black-red Mimic Armor calming, four arms retracting. He looked down at his palm; after absorbing Erios, the brand’s glow faded, vanishing completely as if never there.
Airflow-like “dragons” swirled in the rune.
“My hand really became a placenta!”
Ian realized something, eyes bulging, severe lack of medical knowledge. He sensed indescribable changes in himself, an unprecedented fullness and connection? But his internal “system” was unusually silent, no prompts or stat boosts.
Eerily quiet.
“This is that familiar feeling of world recognition increasing?”
Ian puzzledly looked up. Though still on the End of Time junkyard, his eyes reflected a totally different scene.
An endless, brilliant cosmic starry sky.
And at its deepest, figures so vast their mere existence defined universe rules stood there.
Eternity, Infinity, Death, Annihilation—the four cosmic deities now also gazed at Ian floating among them, silently watching this new pillar.
