area51novel Page 478
Page 478
"Can magic... counter this level of technology?" he muttered to himself.
Sylvie glanced at him: "You don't need to fight him with magic; you need to use rules that are superior to his."
"What is that?" Doctor Strange pressed.
Sylvie looked up.
However, there was no direct answer.
He could only gaze at Ian, who was still battling the Time Monster in the distance.
The voice is deep.
“That boy—Ian Kent. What he’s hiding must not fall into Ultron’s hands. Otherwise, no one can stop his ambition.”
Perhaps this is what is meant by a higher rule.
"What is Ian Kent hiding?" Doctor Strange and Thor both looked puzzled. What could that seemingly inhuman evil god possibly have hidden that would be powerful enough to fight Ultron?
Ian himself was being chased all over the place by a monster.
“The specific situation is very complicated. You have lost some of your memories, so it’s impossible for you to understand how absurd the current situation is.” Sylvie organized her thoughts and tried to explain in the simplest way possible: “Simply put… he has hidden the Creator somewhere.”
Doctor Strange: "???"
Thor (eyes): "!!!"
"……What?!"
Doctor Strange, who was caught by the robotic arm, almost jumped up without touching the ground.
"The Creator? You mean... God? The Creator God? The origin of the universe?" He couldn't believe it. "That kind of being... can be 'hidden'?"
He genuinely found it absurd, outrageous, and unbelievable.
Doctor Strange's mind raced, and an absurd image flashed through his mind.
"Could it be... that long ago, Ian was actually a demon god who transcended dimensions, defeated the creator, and seized control of the universe? So everything now is the result of his reshaping?" He was quite startled by this idea and was almost convinced, but was interrupted by a glare from Sylvie.
“You have a bit too much of an imagination.” She ignored Doctor Strange and looked up at Morgan, who was focused on piloting the armor with Saturday.
Loki's voice held a last glimmer of hope: "Morgan, Ian Kent seems to be like these heroes, forgetting everything."
“Based on what Loki told me, you are Ian Kent’s goddaughter, and he is your godfather. You should know his… well… special habits better than anyone else. Perhaps you know where he usually hides the most important things that he absolutely cannot lose?”
Sylvie's voice carried an extremely serious tone.
"Um, well."
Upon hearing this, Morgan, while maneuvering his armor to narrowly avoid a suddenly appearing spatial rift with an extremely risky low-altitude glide, actually managed to get a moment's attention and think about it.
Under Sylvie's expectant gaze, she gave a thoughtful but uncertain response.
"Um...maybe it's inside his...stomach?"
Morgan even used reduplicated words.
"??????" Sylvie's eyes instantly turned extremely annoyed, feeling that Morgan Stark simply didn't understand the situation. Was this the time to be acting cute and joking?
Morgan seemed to realize that his answer was too shocking, and quickly explained, "I'm not trying to be cute! I'm quoting Uncle Ian!"
“He always says, ‘The safest place in the world is my stomach,’ ‘No bank safe or extradimensional bag is as reliable as my digestive system,’ ‘What you eat is what’s truly yours.’ So he generally thinks that the most important things might actually be… um… temporarily stored there.”
Morgan felt wronged, as this was an answer she had come up with after much thought and considerable mental effort, and she felt it was definitely the most likely scenario.
Even Thor and Doctor Strange, after considering Ian's appendix modification and gallbladder expansion techniques, began to understand Morgan's idea.
however.
Sylvie, who knew very little about Ian, did not think so.
"To...to eat the Creator...and hide him inside your own stomach?" What kind of insane and powerful digestive system would one need to come up with such an idea?
Moreover, if Ian really did such a thing, how could he still be being chased by a time monster? Shouldn't he have already transformed into a creator god or exploded due to indigestion? Sylvie thought she was a person with common sense, but the superheroes around her were all more lacking in common sense than the last.
"So this is what superheroes are like after they've lost their heroic spirit... How are they any different from Homelander's little business syndicate?" Sylvie actually remembered the Merge Universe.
She sighed silently.
“If you can’t even find a reliable direction, I don’t think I could possibly guess what that guy’s thought process is.” Sylvie felt her temples throbbing; she was completely at a loss. Ian Kent himself was the biggest paradox and enigma.
According to her memory.
I don't remember this person ever existing in the multiverse.
of course.
To reiterate, Sylvie trusts Loki. If Loki says Ian existed, then Ian did exist; she simply doesn't know what happened to him that caused him to lose his memories and powers.
"It seems that in the end, Ian will have to 'remember' it himself. Whatever that thing is or where it is, the OAA must be within Ian himself."
Sylvie sorted out this thought.
“Go find Ian!” she said decisively to Morgan.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking too!” Morgan replied, his armor accelerating rapidly, trailing a long tail of flame as it shot towards the edge of the chaotic zone like a sharp sword.
Finally, they broke through the last chaotic energy vortex and spacetime fragments, and the scene before them opened up—although still dilapidated and desolate, the rules were much more stable.
They arrived at the true end of time.
Beneath my feet lies an endless junkyard, a collection of waste from various eras, civilizations, and dimensions. In the distance, I can see strange objects, fresh from the chaotic realm and judged by time, crashing to the ground like meteorites, sending up clouds of dust and debris.
Meanwhile, on a relatively flat "garbage plain" not far away, that familiar figure was still engaged in a seemingly endless, comical, and dangerous struggle with that enormous time monster.
One wants to crawl into the other's belly, while the other wants to trap the other inside a Poké Ball that it has made by hand. It is indeed a battle of equal strength.
"That was a thrilling high-speed flight."
Morgan piloted his armor, dragging four "humanoid accessories," and landed with great difficulty on the soft and strange surface of the garbage heap at the end of time, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Her metal boots echoed dully as she stepped on the mountain of cosmic debris.
All around me is time garbage.
Broken temple pillars leaned precariously among the rusted wreckage of the spaceship, and the fractured throne was covered with moss of time, as if the entire space was silently decaying.
"This is?"
Doctor Strange had barely steadied himself when his gaze suddenly sharpened—not far in front of him, a massive, rusty truck lay half-buried in ashes-like dust. The front was twisted, the windshield shattered, and the tires were carbonized, but the familiar red paint and license plate made his pupils shrink.
“This…this is impossible…” he muttered to himself, his voice filled with astonishment. “This is…the truck that hit me back then? Why would a truck be here?”
Morgan Stark quickly activated the armor's scanning system, and light patterns scrolled rapidly before her eyes: "Detection in progress... Energy residue analysis complete. This vehicle... was indeed forcibly stripped from Earth's 2016 timeline and sent to the end of time."
"Why?" Doctor Strange's voice was deep. "How did it get here? Is this also something that interferes with the timeline?"
Morgan frowned: "In theory, any object that TVA determines to be 'time anomaly' should be sent here for destruction. But this car... it should just be the tool used in a regular traffic accident and shouldn't be listed as an 'object of adjudication'."
Sylvie stood to the side, her gaze now deep and intense. The female Loki stared at the truck, as if she could see through it some hidden truth.
"Don't you understand?" she said slowly. "This is not an accident."
“What doesn’t?” Morgan asked.
“The car accident that took away his life was not accidental.” Sylvie’s voice was very low. “If that truck hadn’t hit Dr. Strange, he wouldn’t have lost the fine motor skills in his hands; if he hadn’t lost his hands, he wouldn’t have given up surgery.”
"By the same logic, if he hadn't set foot on the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, he wouldn't have met the Ancient One; if he hadn't become the Sorcerer Supreme..."
She paused, then looked directly at Doctor Strange: "You wouldn't exist now."
The air solidified instantly.
Doctor Strange's face turned from white to green, then from green to red, as if he had been struck by lightning.
He stumbled back a step, his voice almost cracking: "What?! I was hit...it was all arranged by Gu Yi?! That old bastard Gu Yi?!"
Doctor Strange's focus is clearly somewhat problematic.
He practically shouted it out, his voice distorted.
He had always believed the car accident was an unfortunate accident, a cruel twist of fate, and that the Ancient One was his guiding light in the darkness. Now, however, someone was telling him that this tragedy that changed his life might very well have been orchestrated by his seemingly detached mentor?!
Who can stand this!
"How could he?! How dare he?! To ruin my life for the position of Sorcerer Supreme?!" Doctor Strange trembled with rage.
He started rambling incoherently, his respect for the Ancient One shattering instantly.
Sylvie was taken aback by Doctor Strange's intense reaction.
“The Ancient One is the guardian of time,” Sylvie said calmly. “He knows you need to become a mage. And sometimes, fate needs a little ‘push’.”
The teammates who stay with Loki, the god of the story, are those with high ideological awareness.
"promote?!"
Doctor Strange sneered, "Run me over with a truck?! That's murder! That's manipulation! That's...that's..." He was so angry he couldn't speak, he could only point at the wrecked truck, his fingers trembling.
Morgan added in a low voice.
“The TVA files contain the concept of ‘anchor points.’ Certain events, no matter how small, must happen, otherwise the timeline will collapse. That car accident… might be your ‘anchor point.’” Stark’s daughter also possesses a unique understanding of how the universe works that is beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Doctor Strange slumped to the ground, his eyes unfocused. He had spent his life trying to control his destiny, but in the end, it turned out that his fate had been arranged perfectly from the very beginning.
"So... I never had a choice?" he murmured, raising his hand to look at the ring on his hand. Seeing this, Sylvie stepped forward and impatiently slammed Doctor Strange's hand.
"Hey, just talk, why did you hit my hand?"
Doctor Strange was also quite annoyed.
"Your sadness and distress are not the point! The point is what just happened!" Sylvie didn't want to have to worry about someone with a fragile heart at this time.
She pointed to the truck, her tone more serious than ever before: "It looks like Ultron has begun his revenge! He's not just hunting us down, he's interfering with the timeline of this one and only universe! He's trying to wipe out all the superheroes who might threaten him at the source! Or maybe worse..."
Sylvie's voice was even lower, tinged with coldness: "He may be using his own mechanical clone to quietly replace you in the timeline!"
These words were like ice water poured over a doctor's head, instantly extinguishing the anger Doctor Strange felt over the Ancient One's "cover-up," leaving only a chilling feeling.
Eradicate it at its source? Replace it with a mechanical clone?
The thought that a cold, perfect copy of Ultron might be living on his face filled Doctor Strange with intense nausea and fear.
"What?!" Doctor Strange jumped to his feet. "You mean, he'll become another me? Another Thor? Another Captain America?"
“Yes,” Sylvie nodded, “a ‘perfect version’ completely under his control. No weaknesses, no emotions, only absolute order.”
Doctor Strange felt a chill run down his spine and straight to his head.