Karl had wiped out Ultron with a single move.
And he had done it with some method none of them could even begin to understand.
Even Thor was deeply shaken.
He had to know—
Thor was no ignorant fool.
To find a habitable world for his people, he had wandered through the cosmos for a very long time.
He had seen a great deal.
And yet, after witnessing Karl's methods, a chill still rose in his heart.
Any intelligent life-form would have found it horrifying to the extreme.
"That's unbelievable! What kind of technique was that?"
Tony Stark was the first to recover, and he immediately shouted the question.
"Just a few magical methods."
"Nothing worth mentioning."
Karl answered casually.
In truth, it was simply a cosmic powerhouse's control over matter.
It could be said that within the range covered by the universe inside him, he was the absolute ruler.
It was a little like beings such as Cyttorak, those immensely powerful cosmic lords.
The difference was that Karl carried his universe with him.
That was the advantage of choosing this path for his breakthrough.
Correspondingly, further improvement would also be much harder.
Only by comprehending a great many additional laws could he gradually complete that universe and bring it back to perfection.
Of course, there was no need to explain any of that to the Avengers.
"All right, stop worrying about me."
"Let's talk about what exactly happened here."
As soon as Karl said that, everyone, including the Avengers, turned toward Tony Stark.
Tony's scalp tingled.
"Ahem. Hear me out—no, wait, let me explain!"
"Go ahead."
Captain America spoke expressionlessly.
"This really wasn't my fault."
"I did it to protect Earth."
Tony then explained his line of thinking.
Karl silently nodded.
To be honest, aside from being too arrogant and not trusting his teammates enough, Tony Stark didn't really have any major flaws.
And in some very specific areas, artificial intelligence truly did have unique advantages.
The only real problem was that Tony had overestimated himself.
"I'm certain something went wrong!"
"Ultron's body was destroyed, but three AIs are still left behind."
"I suspect some aliens were meddling in this."
Tony couldn't help saying that.
"You shouldn't have tried to control a power you didn't truly understand!"
"That's your mistake."
Thor said coldly.
"That's enough."
"This isn't the time for you two to argue. Do you want to start fighting among yourselves before the enemy even makes a move?"
"Is assigning blame the important thing right now?"
"The biggest problem is Ultron. That guy isn't dead, is he?"
Karl spoke up.
A moment ago, he had only destroyed Ultron's external body.
It wasn't that Karl lacked the power—he simply couldn't erase the streams of data spread across the network.
Ultron was definitely still alive.
"That's right. Ultron definitely isn't completely dead."
"He must have transferred himself somewhere else and is now hiding in the shadows, building up strength."
"Maybe everything around us is already one of his eyes."
Tony had a headache.
A self-aware artificial intelligence was simply too terrifying.
Unless a place was physically cut off from the network, any defense was meaningless before an AI like that.
They had to find Ultron and destroy him before he developed into something truly unstoppable.
…
While the Avengers and Karl were still discussing the matter, the other three were watching as well.
These three were hardly close, trustworthy partners.
It would be more accurate to say they had banded together purely for profit.
For all anyone knew, once the Sorcerers were eliminated, they might start fighting each other over how to divide the spoils.
But Mephisto wanted a vast number of souls, and Kaluu wanted Kamar-Taj.
As for Shuma-Gorath, the strongest of the three, he wanted everything.
At present, however, with Earth's great spell array still in place, they had no way to break through Earth's defenses.
So for now, they were still cooperating.
"Mephisto, the puppet mind you created doesn't seem all that useful."
"It couldn't even withstand a single strike from this so-called newly ascended Sorcerer Supreme."
"With something like that, can it really draw the Sorcerers' attention away and create an opportunity for us?"
Kaluu asked with obvious skepticism.
"Heh. This is only the beginning. Why are you in such a hurry?"
"The real show is still to come."
"The evil soul fragments Shuma-Gorath provided haven't even started working yet."
Mephisto let out a sinister laugh as he spoke.
"Then we'll wait and see."
Kaluu gave a cold snort.
"Then watch carefully."
"The real entertainment has only just begun."
Shuma-Gorath also let out a shrill, grating laugh.
"Mephisto, begin."
"Set your puppet mind into motion."
"Otherwise our new friend might start looking down on us."
"Keh keh keh…"
Shuma-Gorath slowly swept his will toward Mephisto.
Anyone even a little weaker would have been crushed by that overwhelming pressure.
But Mephisto was no easy opponent either.
He merely gave a sinister laugh and transmitted his consciousness directly into Earth.
…
Ultron, who had originally been hiding within the network, suddenly stirred.
He moved into action at once.
Through the network, he remotely controlled numerous machine factories, issued orders directly, and had everything assembled in the small Eastern European nation of Sokovia.
In just a few short days, Ultron built an enormous army of iron suits.
Not only that, he also created more than a hundred constructs completely different from ordinary armor.
These suits were like giant transforming robots, their bodies enormous.
Each one stood more than five meters tall and was loaded with a terrifying array of integrated weapons.
More importantly, Ultron transformed his arms into tentacle-like appendages and drove them directly into the bodies of those machines.
Then black-and-red streams of data surged out from his body.
The eyes of those abnormal machines glowed red, and their outer surfaces underwent a shocking transformation.
Black energy coiled around them.
Savage, spike-like protrusions emerged across their frames.
Their auras also grew stronger.
They no longer looked like cold killing machines.
Instead, they seemed almost alive.
Their presence was not much weaker than that of several Avengers.
Kaluu, watching from the sky, was inwardly alarmed.
Those were no mere soul fragments.
They were clearly the living souls of powerful beings.
And not just that—they were grotesque things stitched together from many different souls.
Shuma-Gorath truly deserved to be called a demon.
He was evil to the core.
(End of Chapter)
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