Bang! Bang! Bangbangbang...

Jovian swung both fists in a blur, raining punches across Infinity Ultron’s face. For a moment, it almost felt like he’d gone back to those old boxing gym days, standing under the setting sun and unloading on a heavy bag, a piece of his long-lost youth.

As Jovian kept pounding away, memories that had never actually existed somehow began piling up in his head...

The Watcher sat on the ground, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and took advantage of this little chance to slack off and do what he was supposedly meant to do in the first place.

"This is seriously ridiculous. I’m just trying to do my job, so why is that so hard?"

Even for a being worshipped as a god by lifeforms across countless universes, even for someone who would survive the destruction of a universe itself, the Watcher was not omnipotent. He had spent who knew how long dutifully doing his work, only to get dragged into a fight this intense, and he genuinely could not understand how his life had ended up here.

"Watcher, quit slacking back there and help me beat the hell out of him!"

Of course Jovian had heard the Watcher talking. While he still had Ultron pinned down, he shouted over his shoulder.

"I’m coming, I’m coming!"

The Watcher sprang to his feet, dusted himself off, and charged toward Jovian.

"Enough!"

"Stop this already!"

After taking one savage beating after another from Jovian, Infinity Ultron finally snapped. The green Infinity Stone on his chest lit up with a strange glow, and in an instant that light spread over Jovian, the Watcher, and the entire universe itself.

Bzzzz...

Jovian’s body froze in place at once. He remained locked in the middle of a punch, but no matter how much force he put into it, he could not move even a fraction farther.

"You know nothing about the power of the Infinity Stones!"

Ultron looked at the immobilized Jovian and smiled, a twisted, eerie smile. What he had frozen was not Jovian alone, he had frozen the time of the entire universe.

Space, soul, reality, everything had been brought to a halt beneath that green light. No matter how much raw power Jovian had, he could not resist the supreme authority of the Time Stone. It was like pressing pause on a movie. Every frame stopped moving, except...

Except for the owner of the Time Stone.

"Now you can die!"

The spear in Ultron’s hand flashed purple as he drove it straight at Jovian’s heart.

Ultron had never understood the meaning of mercy. He only understood one thing, he had to act according to the program Tony Stark had written into him.

With that indestructible lance in hand, Ultron punched through the defenses of space, psychic force, and Jovian’s bio-magnetic field, pushing all the way to less than a millimeter from Jovian’s chest. If the lance moved forward by even that last millimeter, Jovian’s body would be destroyed in this universe.

And yet, unfortunately for him, Ultron’s own body suddenly seemed to hit pause. He froze in place and could not advance even the slightest bit.

"That was close. One more second and that lance would’ve gone right through me. Good thing I hit pause in time."

Jovian stepped back and avoided the lance. In this world where time itself had been frozen by the Time Stone, he could still move, because...

"Ultron, you don’t actually think your Infinity Stone is the one that froze time, do you?"

"No, completely wrong. The Infinity Stone that really froze the universe’s time, was mine."

"We’ve both got the same kind of Infinity Stones. The difference is, I’ve got twice as many as you do."

Jovian grinned viciously as he looked at the time-frozen Ultron.

The instant Ultron had stopped Jovian with his Time Stone, Jovian had used the Time Stone in the gauntlet on his left hand to cancel it out, then used the Time Stone on his right hand to freeze Ultron in return.

Bang!

Jovian did not hesitate. The moment Ultron froze, he reached straight for the Time Stone embedded in Ultron’s chest.

Boom!

The instant Jovian’s Infinity Stone gauntlet touched the gem on Ultron’s chest, the resonance between Stone and Stone unleashed endless power and blasted Jovian away on the spot.

At the same time, the flow of time in the universe resumed once more.

"Haa..."

Ultron slowly let out a breath as he watched Jovian get thrown back. Even though he had been frozen just now, his awareness had remained intact. Luckily, the moment Jovian touched the Stone, Ultron had triggered the Stone’s power. Otherwise, he would have been finished.

"What the hell was that?"

Jovian hovered in the air, completely baffled by what had just happened.

"You really are impressive..."

Ultron shook his head as he looked at Jovian in the sky. He truly did admire him a little now.

"This? This is nothing."

"What comes next is even better."

Jovian floated back in front of Ultron. The two faced each other head-on, locked in another tense standoff.

"Ultron, you’ve already lost. We’re not alone."

At last, the Watcher had enough time and room to stand at Jovian’s side. In his mind, their advantage was overwhelming. There were two of them, while Ultron was all by himself. There was no way Ultron could win.

"You’re right. Thanks for reminding me. There are two of you, and only one of me. I won’t be able to beat you like this, so I need teammates."

Ultron felt the Watcher made a very good point. The enemy had numbers on their side, so naturally he needed like-minded allies to help him.

Crack...

Krrrshshshsh...

Ultron threw out one hand toward the endless space around them. Instantly, the fabric of space filled with cracks like shattered glass. In the next moment, two enormous portals tore open in the body of the universe itself, and from those rifts, two figures stepped out.

One of them was tall, with skin like purple stone. He wore metal armor harder than Adamantium, held a double-edged greatsword in his left hand, and wore a metal gauntlet set with six Infinity Stones on his right.

The other was handsome and long-limbed, his lean, powerful frame wrapped in a sleek white suit of high-tech armor. Multicolored light glowed from the center of his chest.

"Mr. Stark, Mr. Thanos, I trust you already know who our enemies are?"

Ultron looked at the two men he had summoned and asked.

"Oh, of course I know."

"They’re the two idiots getting in the way of us cleaning this universe of vermin, right? One punk, and one bald weirdo?"

The man in the white armor, the one Ultron had called Stark, was none other than Tony Stark, the Tony Stark of the prime universe, the hero once known as Iron Man forever. But now that eternal hero wore a look of arrogance and contempt as he openly sized up Jovian and the Watcher, and gave them an assessment so obnoxious that neither of them could find a single reason not to slap the smug bastard across the face.

"The energy of the universe is limited, and unfortunately some people just never understand that. Listen, I’m not trying to kill all life in this universe. I’m trying to restart the universe itself, to make everything begin again from scratch."

Purple-potato Thanos sounded a little helpless. Why did nobody ever understand him? He was not pursuing destruction, he was pursuing rebirth through life renewed. It was just that on the road to this new world, sacrifices were always necessary. You had to tear the old apart before you could build something new.

"Mr. Jovian, Mr. Watcher..."

"You taught me a lot."

"Numbers are the foundation of everything. Right now, you have twelve Infinity Stones, while we have a full eighteen."

"And there are three of us, one more than you."

Infinity Ultron floated in front of Jovian. In his mind, once he had realized that six Infinity Stones could not beat twelve, the solution had become obvious. If numbers determined power, then all he had to do was gather more Infinity Stones than Jovian had. Simple. And so, at Infinity Ultron’s call, two others from across the multiverse who shared his ideals had appeared on the opposite side.

Tony Stark, whose hope in humanity had completely died after Pepper’s unexpected death and after watching one friend after another perish, deciding to destroy the universe and start everything over...

And Thanos, who had given up on erasing half the universe and instead decided to wipe out the entire universe and reboot it...

Had become Ultron’s strongest allies.

"Heh..."

Jovian looked at Ultron, at the corrupted Tony, and at the utterly insane Thanos, and let out a cold laugh.

"Hm?!"

The moment Ultron saw Jovian smile, he immediately tensed up, afraid Jovian was about to launch a sneak attack and strike first.

Smack!

What happened next was completely beyond Ultron’s expectations. Jovian did not attack him at all. Instead, he turned and slapped the Watcher clean across the face.

"Why did you hit me?!"

After taking that smack, the Watcher clutched his cheek, looking utterly wronged.

"Take a look at the mess you made."

"You just had to say Ultron was doomed because we weren’t alone. And now look, we’re the ones at a disadvantage."

Jovian glared at the Watcher and spoke in fury.

"You were the one who said twelve Infinity Stones were stronger than six! If Ultron got the idea to summon more people, then that’s on you too!"

The Watcher shot back angrily. He was absolutely certain that if helping Ultron figure things out counted as a crime, then Jovian was just as guilty as he was.

"Shut up."

"Hurry up and call somebody. I know you old bastard have been hiding an ace this whole time."

"Keeping something in reserve in a fight to the death, one look at you and I can tell you’re shady."

Jovian complained first like a true villain. As long as he made the accusation before anyone else, he got to be the good guy.

"You..."

"You actually knew I was hiding something..."

After hearing Jovian say it out loud, the Watcher realized his little secret had already been exposed, and he suddenly looked a bit embarrassed.

...

"Why do we have to fight them in the first place?"

Infinite Stark looked a little miserable. Thanos, Ultron, and he himself were all blood-soaked supervillains. Why exactly were they supposed to fight two guys who didn’t even look like they belonged in the same story as them?

"Because they want to stop us from purging the multiverse." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Ultron raised a hand, and his lance returned to it once more. A flash of green light followed, and the shattered sections of armor Jovian had smashed apart on his body instantly restored themselves.

At the same time, now that the Watcher had finally stopped holding back, the ace he had kept hidden appeared beside him and Jovian. It was a middle-aged man floating lightly in the air, with dry, tangled hair, a gloomy face, exhausted eyes, and a red cloak hanging behind him.

"Pleasure to meet you, Doctor."

Jovian smiled when he saw the weary-looking man and greeted him.

"I know who you are. The Watcher mentioned your name before."

That’s right, this gloomy man was Stephen Strange, Doctor Strange himself. Crushed by the loss of the person he loved most, he had been consumed by regret. In his obsession with reviving her, he pursued power too far, devoured countless infernal demons, and ultimately walked down the wrong path. His entire universe fell into hell. In trying to save one person, he ended up saving no one at all.

"Looks like I don’t need to introduce you two after all."

Seeing that Jovian and Doctor Strange already knew of each other, the Watcher nodded. That was good. At least he didn’t need to waste any more time or effort explaining who they each were.

"Watcher, Mr. Jovian, those three are our opponents, correct?"

Stephen stood to Jovian’s left and looked across at Thanos, Infinity Ultron, and Infinite Stark.

"That’s right."

Jovian stood between the Watcher and Stephen and nodded.

"So what if you’ve got one more person now? You’re still short five Infinity Stones."

"Everyone, our side has more Stones than theirs. The advantage is ours."

Infinity Ultron saw the Time Stone on Stephen’s chest at a glance. Eighteen minus thirteen still left them with five more. Obviously, they had the edge.

...

Silence.

The six of them stood on that endless world, staring across at one another.

In the next second, the ultimate three-on-three war began in that empty universe.

Boom!

Jovian moved first. One punch sent Ultron flying.

Bzzzt...

Infinite Stark did not give Jovian a chance to press the attack. A rapid barrage of Infinity energy blasts slammed into Jovian and sent him hurtling away.

"That won’t do."

A golden Spacetime Gate instantly formed in front of Jovian and swallowed every one of Stark’s Infinity blasts.

Then another Spacetime Gate opened behind Thanos, who had been bearing down on the Watcher, and Infinite Stark’s Stone-powered barrage came roaring out straight into Thanos’s body.

"Argh!"

Thanos grunted in pain, then the Stones in his hand flashed, turning the energy blasts behind him into a cloud of butterflies.

"Oh, sorry!"

Seeing that he had almost roasted Thanos, Stark immediately cut off his Infinity energy.

Bzzzt, bzzzt...

The instant Stark stopped firing, two crimson-gold beams suddenly tore through the air, launching him out of the atmosphere and straight toward a nearby planet.

Boom!

With a thunderous impact, Stark ripped through that planet’s atmosphere like a meteor and crashed into the ground.

"Coordination, we need coordination!"

Ultron rose and roared. Green light spread from his body and enveloped everyone present. In an instant, Stark’s body lifted back up from the planet, and the crimson-gold beams that had blasted him away even reversed course, flying back toward Jovian’s eyes as though he were reabsorbing them. The whole universe looked as if a movie had been put into reverse, everything racing back toward its starting point.

"As if I’d let you do that!"

Stephen activated the Time Stone on his chest and shattered Ultron’s temporal field. Everything snapped back to the moment when Stark had just been blasted away and had just crashed onto the planet.

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