Chapter 145: You Won't Even Call Me Lord
Uatu had observed the universe for countless years, witnessing various powerful individuals from different universes, but He had never had an experience as horrifying as this.
He was clearly standing in a higher dimension, condescendingly observing the reality universe. And yet, what was the result? A certain native of the reality universe had actually discovered His existence and was even attempting to communicate with Him?
This was simply an unheard-of event.
"How could this be? That guy, Ultron... although he has caused disasters in other universes, no version of Ultron has ever possessed the potential to detect me."
Uatu was still shaken. He searched through all the observation history and stored information in His brain, confirming that this Ultron was unprecedented.
This gave Uatu an even bigger headache.
"But it's fine. Even if he was lucky enough to notice I was watching him, it won't affect anything. We exist in completely different dimensions. This is a gap that cannot be bridged with mere wisdom or the Infinity Stones..."
Uatu quickly calmed down. He even felt he had been a bit too flustered when facing this strange, unexpected situation. He let out a self-deprecating laugh and prepared to record the experience, but hesitated on whether to upload the incident to his people and share it with the other Watchers.
Would He be mocked and ridiculed by the other Watchers? After all, He had never heard of anyone messing up their observation duty and being observed in return by their subject—deities were an exception, of course. The Cosmic Gods of many universes, and even the Multiversal Gods, were aware of the Watchers' existence. When handling various major events, they even tacitly allowed the Watchers to appear and spectate intensely from up close.
"What's been going on with this patch of the universe lately? It's gotten so lively. There's an outsider like Du Wa barging in, the quantum zombie virus has emerged, and now there's an Ultron who has obtained all the Infinity Stones and detected me..."
Uatu muttered, his mood having just calmed down. The instant He turned, a clear crack suddenly appeared in the space before Him, rapidly shattering open into a fist-sized gap.
A steel arm reached out from the gap and seized Uatu's neck.
"Found you... I don't care what you are, but peeping is not a good habit. Even if you're spying on a machine like me, your head can still be smashed flat by a machine."
More cracks immediately spread out from the fist-sized gap.
Accompanied by fluctuations that made one's very soul twist in agony, Ultron—with one stone on his forehead and five on his hand—appeared before Uatu, as if he had forcefully crushed his way through layer after layer of dimensional space-time.
"How did you find your way here?" Uatu was utterly horrified.
For the first time, this High Dimension where He resided had welcomed an outsider.
The cognitive shock this dealt to Uatu was unprecedented.
"Before me, nothing is impossible. Anything you can do, I can do."
An unsettling electronic red light gleamed in Ultron's eyes.
To be honest, however, at the level Ultron had reached, with six Infinity Stones in hand, crushing galaxies or crossing dimensions were trivial matters. It no longer mattered whether one was born a machine or of flesh and blood.
Among the Celestials, most also achieved godhood as machines, mass-produced in different models by a select few of their kind.
Ultron repeatedly scanned Uatu. In its worldview, this was the first time it had encountered a being of this caliber. It had never before seen such a level of existence or station of authority.
"I was originally struggling, hesitating over how to more efficiently exert my power over the entire universe after exterminating the humans of Earth, how to make the Ultron Legion cover every planet and kill more people. But I never expected to encounter you before my operation officially began."
The red light on Ultron's body flickered, indicating it was engaged in high-intensity thought. With the Mind Stone in its possession, this intelligent robot possessed terrifyingly formidable computing power and logical reasoning abilities. "You can only blame your bad luck for daring to observe me from such close range."
Uatu calmly sized up Ultron, even as his neck was still held in a death grip. Right under his nose, five Infinity Stones emitted five different cosmic powers.
"So that's how it is. It seems I need to properly reflect on my work methods. But no one will ever know I made a mistake."
Uatu suddenly clenched his fist and sent Ultron flying with a single punch.
In this High Dimension, a place exclusively for the Watchers to freely traverse, Ultron was like a meteor falling at faster-than-light speed. Under the heavy blow, he shattered an unknown number of layers of space.
Layer after layer of space-time shattered like broken mirrors before the rapidly moving Ultron. Completely unscathed, Ultron nonchalantly halted his momentum and stared at the Watcher from a distance.
Uatu said, "Welcome to the domain of the Watchers. I will personally show you what a monumental mistake you've made. Don't think that just because you can get here means you possess the power to conquer it. My understanding of you far exceeds your own..."
Ultron coldly calculated. "It seems you have observed many versions of me in other universes. Watcher... from the literal meaning, I know what you do. A strange god, indeed. This doesn't affect my objective. As long as I kill you and possess everything you now control, I will be able to observe other parallel universes at will, just like you... and... destroy them."
"What a terrible machine. You'd better be capable of feeling regret."
Without another word, Uatu rolled up his sleeves and charged.
This Watcher didn't use any high technology, not even his battleship, which could be considered the pinnacle of all technology in the multiverse. He relied solely on his own raw power to engage Ultron in fierce hand-to-hand combat.
Of course, He had this confidence. Even without technology, the Watchers were supremely powerful; they were, after all, deities themselves.
The battle between the two instantly spanned countless universes. They traded blows, a punch for a kick, while simultaneously unleashing immense blasts of energy at each other.
Before the outbursts of power at their level, the universal barrier was like a calm water surface. Now, it was suddenly churned into raging waves. Terrifying ripples spread in all directions, eventually forming a super-tsunami that affected countless worlds.
At this moment, across the various universes within the entire MCU system, native lifeforms would sometimes look up in astonishment. They would watch in surprise as two figures flashed through a suddenly shattered space, only to crash through another and vanish from sight.
The process was so swift and the speed so great that many native lifeforms thought they were having an illusion.
Of course, there were also unlucky universes that had the misfortune of being impacted by the power unleashed during a few rounds of their brawl. In an instant, planets trembled, cities were destroyed, and everything was left in shambles.
This was only because both combatants were focusing all their power on each other, paying no mind to the outside world.
The two had not yet determined an outcome, but the fight was a brutal, back-and-forth affair.
The entire MCU minor multiverse was resilient enough to withstand the battle between these two.
But it was obvious that as time went on, the disastrous consequences they were creating would become more and more apparent. The destruction to the MCU universe would rapidly expand, eventually genuinely affecting the stability of some universes.
Universe 199999.
In this Main Universe, a grand transformation, one intimately connected to every human on Earth, was rapidly unfolding.
No one had expected Earth to race forward in such an unprecedented direction. Even the most influential creators had never imagined they would one day witness a work of art from a movie come to life, let alone potentially fuse with it.
Yes, fusion.
When Du Wa saved the world and Xenomorphs descended upon this Earth in droves, the entire planet was thrown into chaos.
Countless scholars frantically scoured Xenomorph movies, comics, and games, searching for any clue.
This was simply too incredible, even absurd. So, Xenomorphs were real? And they weren't native to Earth, but appeared to have come from other planets or dimensions?
The numerous creators associated with the Xenomorph works had the worst luck. Every one of them was subjected to strict monitoring and the harshest interrogation, pressed to confess whether they had truly come into contact with Xenomorphs, which would explain why they created the various works in the series.
But dwelling on these things now could no longer affect the overall situation. At most, it could provide a few more insignificant details, adding a tiny shred of a sense of security to people's minds.
Before Du Wa, before the enormous mass of the Xenomorphs, and especially backed by the terrifying feats of saving the world and conquering Thanos, the people of Earth seemed to have little choice.
When fragmented footage captured by satellites began to circulate online...
Everyone watched in silence. The monster who had brought them ultimate terror five years ago—Thanos—had been defeated so cleanly at the hands of Iron Man.
Although, to those who didn't know any better, this Iron Man seemed a bit strange, even carrying Thor's hammer.
But people soon learned this guy wasn't Iron Man, because Iron Man could not possibly possess that level of strength. In essence, he was a Xenomorph.
Some people yearned for the Xenomorphs, while others opposed them. But no matter what they chose, the outcome was already set in stone.
As Xenomorphs began to appear in the streets and alleys, people could only passively accept reality, and gradually, it became commonplace.
"I still don't get it. Isn't that guy Tony Stark? It looks like he's the one who defeated Thanos, although the victory was a bit too clean. If he's not Tony Stark, doesn't that mean he's being controlled?"
"Still don't want to believe it? It's obvious he's being controlled by the one who manipulates the Xenomorphs. I heard that after parasitizing a human, a Xenomorph can choose not to chestburst, allowing an ordinary person to acquire the Xenomorph's genes, gain its full strength, and become superhuman."
"Haven't you guys noticed? There were clearly many resistance forces around the world fighting the Xenomorphs, but they all quickly vanished without a trace. What does that tell you? It means the Xenomorphs are far more terrifying than we imagined. They're true killing machines."
"Haha, killing machines? That reminds me of Ultron. The huge robot army Ultron created, *those* were the real killing machines. To this day, I still don't understand how the Avengers finally took him down. Was he formatted or something?"
"A machine is a machine. At its core, it's just program code. Find the right vulnerability, and it's easy to deal with. But Xenomorphs are different. They're beings of flesh and blood, and they have that bizarre blood inside them. In the movies, that blood could easily corrode even a starship."
"And those are just ordinary Xenomorphs, the lowest and most mediocre kind. If the rumors are true that some humans have successfully fused with Xenomorphs, it means that while some can fuse, others are still being chest-bursted. That means there must be individuals among the Xenomorphs who are like superheroes—for example, a Thor Xenomorph? A Hulk Xenomorph?"
People bickered and argued, but thanks to the combined efforts of various parties, human society as a whole remained stable.
Even the occasional appearance of a resistance force was snuffed out at the first opportunity.
There was no helping it. The power Du Wa displayed was simply too terrifying; it was completely overwhelming. No one knew just how strong Du Wa truly was. At any rate, no one in this universe had ever seen his full strength.
And then there was Thanos. The way he silently and diligently obeyed Du Wa's commands was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
Most importantly, the overall strength of Earth-199999 truly couldn't compare to that of many universes outside the MCU system.
In terms of internal complexity, it also paled in comparison to the other parallel universes within the MCU system.
There were no mutants here, no Black Bolt, and the strength of Atlantis was pitifully weak.
Even with the two magic masters, Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, present, it was a pity that they, along with half of the planet's population, had been wiped out by Thanos's snap five years ago and had yet to return.
Faced with Du Wa's invasion, even without him sending any Xenomorph heroes—at most, he had only sent a few special queens to reproduce transcendent face-huggers—that, coupled with Thanos and his original subordinates, was more than enough to constitute a dimensionality reduction strike against this world.
"Everything is proceeding smoothly."
As the number of Xenomorphs and their coverage increased, Du Wa's perspective expanded, gradually achieving comprehensive surveillance of Earth-199999.
It was just like playing a strategy game, controlling one's units to explore and clear the fog of war.
According to normal logic, after Du Wa conquered Earth-199999, the entire Universe 199999 would be brought into his sphere of influence, a process that would continue until the deity of this universe could no longer resist making a move against him.
Du Wa was also looking forward to this moment. After all, he had defeated more than one or two gods using various means, including even more powerful ones from outside the MCU system.
However, this plan of Du Wa's soon encountered an unexpected development.
At first, there were only occasional fluctuations in space-time that almost no one besides Du Wa could detect.
But gradually, these fluctuations grew more and more intense. On a more macroscopic, hyperspatial level, a disturbance erupting in a distant region was rapidly spreading toward Universe 199999 like a ripple.
And finally, through the Xenomorphs, Du Wa perceived it even more clearly.
*Sssshla!*
Space tore open.
A large, bald head, bruised and swollen, poked out.
"Du Wa, I need your help."
(end of chapter)