Chapter 231: Humanity’s last hour.

-Inside Ryan's mind-

Although he was 'betrayed' by one of his clones, Ryan didn't realize anything and kept facing his repressed memories.

"Why? Why are you showing me all of this!? WHY THE FUCK IS THIS HIDDEN IN THE FIRST PLACE!?" Ryan yelled in anger as he watched the sight of his best friend – Kai, being stabbed by a gang member to death while they were teenagers. 

While dying in his arms, Kai said his last word to the crying previous life Ryan.

"Don't…Don't take revenge… GO… Run far far away from the city…Don't ever…come back."

While crying, Ryan said, "But Kai. Why did you jump in front of me?! You're the one who's supposed to live! Aren't you going to be a doctor in the future!?"

Kai coughed up blood before saying, "How could I ever save anyone… If I can't save my best friend?"

"FUCK YOU SYSTEM!" Ryan screamed in bloodcurdling anger, his voice shook the entire repressed memories space, cracking the space between his consciousness and reality a little. 

He knew the culprit who hid all of this from him. The deaths of all his closest family and friends. The anger was pushing him to the brink of insanity, and his eyes lost focus of what was important right now. It was as if someone was whispering to him to kill everything and everyone in this unfair world.

As an orphan, he felt that he didn't have a choice, that's why he joined the gang. However, he was too kind to actually follow the gang's action in oppressing the people. 

He accumulated the evidence for their crimes and submitted it all to the police commissioner as the other low rank detectives were colluding with the gang member. However, he made a mistake in determining who to trust, making him fall into the egregious situation where his life was at stake. 

"Ry…Ryan…" A soft whisper managed to penetrate the cracks of reality, however Ryan was too angry to notice it. Gwen saw everything that was happening, and she desperately wanted to be with him right now– to tell him it's okay, to tell him it wasn't his fault…

-Real World-

"Ummm…What just happened?" Tony asked in disbelief after Kai admitted that he had betrayed Ryan. 

'Betrayed how? What did he do? Isn't he asleep before? What is the connection between them?'

Tony got a lot of questions, he could only hold his tongue as no one would answer him right now when they were facing an universe ending threat.

"Sir. Incoming transmission from Albus." Jarvis sounded suddenly.

"Huh? Why now?" Tony replied, a bit suspicious from the AI's timing.

"Sir. Apparently he needed your order to implement project [FAILSAFE]" Jarvis explained. 

Tony thought for a while, "That's…Ryan's?? I…Okay. Let him connect." 

In front of him was the guy who looked like Ryan who's not really Ryan. END smirked and said, "You mewling quims really don't know your place." 

"What is this, Loki rerun?" Tony retorted, but END only gazed at him with disgust. 

He aimed his skeleton-like bony fingers toward the Avengers, but then Kai thrust his sword to the END's neck, stopping less than an inch away from his throat.

"Stop. We have a deal. I did this, then, you're not going to kill them."

"Oh how could I forget that!?" END said while holding his forehead like a class clown, making Hulk say, "He's annoying. Can Hulk smash him yet?"

END heard it and turned his face to look at the scary green monster. He abruptly pointed his index finger at Hulk and said, "Patience's my boy. The time to fight has yet to come."

Hulk grunted and wanted to step forward but Thor stopped him. "Friend Hulk. Something is wrong. There's magic in the air."

"Ale Ale Ale~" END added while singing the song and snapped his finger at the same time, causing a short snippet of the music to be played to the surrounding audience. 

 "Damn it, now I have an earworm." Tony muttered. "Who are you anyway? Explain your existence." Tony demanded.

'He called us mewling quims. So he got a god complex like Loki. Maybe this could illuminate us on what's currently going on.' Tony thought. 

Steve Rogers realized what Tony was doing so he helped, "Why are you here…END?"

Wanda gritted her teeth and said from afar, "It's to destroy this universe!"

The Avengers were stunned but END just chuckled as he turned his face to Wanda. 

"Your angry face is cute too. Marry me? I'll give you plenty of childrens. How many do you want? Two? Or Maybe 3? Just be clear that in no way I will teach them the ice cream song while they grow up-"

"SHUT UP! I WON'T MARRY YOU! IMPOSTER!" Wanda shouted in anger. She turned to the doctor and said, "AND YOU! How dare you betray him!? Aren't you supposed to be his best friend?!"

"Hey I'm his best friend!" Tony interjected. 

END shook his head before putting his hand on his back. "Anyway. I'm sure that Ryan's FAILSAFE program is already activated. But it's futile anyway. He didn't plan for something on my level of existence."

"A multiversal level destroyer." END muttered with a grin, raising the alarms inside everyone's mind. 

"What is your aim exactly?" Steve asked again.

End shrugged and said, "To bypass the barrier between multiverses. To do that, I need to compress the energy of this universe into a portal– which will promptly destroy everything inside it. I think I can do it when I reach that level…5, or 6? But who has the time? Destroying you guys is much…much easier…After all, you guys shouldn't even exist."

END suddenly raised his hand in the air, making everyone stand on guard. 

"Relax. I'm just reverting Hell's encroachment. I struck a deal with Kai afterall." END said while looking at Kai, flashing a mischievous smile. Kai's expression didn't change, looking stoic as he became the barrier between the Avengers and total annihilation. 

END had taken over the ice hell domain from Ikthalon, making him the ruler of a dimension. However, Ikthalon's dimension couldn't provide him the energy he needed to achieve what he wanted. He felt a bit disappointed at the Hell Lord. If it was more powerful, then he wouldn't even need to face the stuck up, do-nothing-wrong Avengers in front of him.

All around the world, the ice demons that crawled to Earth were shattered into pieces as END completely destroyed Ikthalon's influence on the dimension.

"It's over?" Annika asked, blood flowed from her forehead to her cheek. She sustained several injuries as she protected the people around the world together with Hela's Valkyrie.

Skye, who was flying between the skyscrapers in New York breathed in relief as she saw the invasion die down. However, she furrowed her brow as she still couldn't get in contact with her dad or other members of the Avengers after the battle was seemingly over. 

In fact, END had created his domain at the centre of Washington, separating it from the other part of Earth. No one could get in, nor could they get out of the domain without his permission. 

"Kai. Say something. Explain Yourself." Steve urged as Kai still kept his silence on the matter.

"Healer. Did you strike a deal with this devil? To sacrifice Ryan's body in exchange for Earth's safety?" Thor stated accusingly.

END snorted and said, "Please. You overestimate him. All he is asking for, is for me to have mercy on the people of the earth…and send them all away peacefully."

END tried to open the ITS marketplace, but he frowned as he realised that he didn't have access to the system.

"Is he still alive? He's struggling better than I thought." END said.

Kai finally had a change in expression, and his lips curled upward slightly and disappeared before anyone could notice it.

'My plan is working.' Kai thought before gritting his teeth. 'Gwen. Please make it!'

END glanced at Kai before summoning a floating throne and sat on it. "Hmm…As I already fulfilled the first part of the deal, I guess I need to settle the other part now." 

He clasped his hand together and a swirl of darkness started to spread throughout the entire earth.

"What is he doing?!" Steve yelled urgently. He took a step forward to stop END, but Kai's blade was thrusted on his neck, barely stopping as it grazed the Captain's skin.

"Not a step further." Kai warned.

"Kai. ARE YOU CRAZY-" Steve tried to retort, but he felt a pang of pain attacking his heart, and his knees turned weak as a massive headache almost melted his brain.

Not only Steve, but most of the warriors around the world also fell to their knees. 

"HULK SMASH-" Hulk jumped upward and clasped his fist together to attack END, but Kai suddenly flew below him at incredible speed, and slashed Hulk's arms with his swords. 

"ARGH-" Hulk yelled as both of his arms were severed from his body.

"HULK!" Thor yelled angrily and brandished his hammer towards Kai. However, a pillar of hellfire attacked Thor, burning his skin as it threw him hundreds of meters away. The gallant Asgardian warrior was in disbelief on how easily Kai managed to overpower him and stopped his hammer.

"Dragonslayer…Don't do this." Thor said, kneeling on one knee as part of his face was burned by the fire.

"Don't interfere. What happened…and going to happen…it's not your responsibility to fix it." Kai said with a tired face but with a hidden glint in his eyes.

"FUCK YOU!" Tony cursed.

"Do you really expect us to sit still and wait for our death to be served on a silver platter? You know us better than that KAI!" Tony shouted and his suit suddenly changed into a cutting edge– sleek black suit with numerous floating orbs behind him.

"What the-" Steve widened his eyes in surprise from Tony's change. The Iron Man was unaffected by the dark fog END was releasing as the new [FAILSAFE] suit had built it anti-magic capabilities.

Tony supercharged the arm cannon, and aimed it at END. He shot out a tremendous energy that could destroy the moon, however, END smirked and his jaw dropped 50 centimeters as he opened his mouth wide.

"Thank you for the meal!" END muttered as he swallowed the energy beam to other people's shock. 

"Don't use energy based attacks! He's immune to that. You're only going to make him stronger!" Kai shouted before he cursed to himself, "Damn it. I just need to drag the time for another 30 minutes!"

Dr Strange glanced at Kai and he came to a realization. "I see." He muttered ambiguously.

"Adam. Cage him. I will protect the others." Dr Strange said before he casted a few runes and plasted them on the Avengers body. "Drag the time! If we drag the time long enough, he will lose by himself!"

The rest was shocked, and Wanda took the first lead by lifting a few boulders and threw it at END. Steve threw his shield at END– only to annoy him and for him to rip off the shield into multiple tiny pieces.

"Uh..Cap. Is your shield really unbreakable? It's not even the first time this happened." Tony muttered sarcastically.

With a tired voice, Steve replied, "Yeah Yeah. I know. Give me another."

"On it." Tony said and one of the orb floating behind him flew to Steve and turned into a shield for him to use. "Nice. I really need to have a discussion with Ryan about his new tech…if we ever survive this."

"Don't worry. We will." Steve said reassuringly. Tony saw Kai still hadn't moved from his spot and couldn't help but yell at him. "Aren't you going to do something KAI? We're getting slaughtered out here!"

Albus chimed in and said, "He cannot move from his position."

"Why the hell not?" Tony asked angrily.

"Because Madam Gwen is behind him." Albus explained.

…

[Diablo Universe]

"Gahahahaha! I never expected an interesting prompt like this would pop out."

Raikas, the Barbarian King who had pushed back Baal and Diablo, sat in his primitive stone throne with his muscular upper body left bare. 

"I guess I should accept it huh. A hand for a hand! What a marvelous thing!" Raikas said as he stood tall and bellowed loudly. 

System Prompt: Hidden Quest Activated. 

Participant: Members of the chat group [Circus of Fools!]

Quest: A Hand for a Hand!

@HydraIsaBitch had helped the revival of a dead member of the chat group, @KickBaal. Now, It's time for you guys to return the favor. 

Note: To prevent the rule of his universe from interfering with a member from a different universe, each member would have only 3 minutes to make a difference in saving Ryan Knight before he falls into depravity and effectively kills himself and all of the things he loved. 

Will you participate in the quest? Click [Yes/No]

Raikas didn't hesitate and clicked Yes instantly. A swirling mass of dark energy congregates behind him, opening a pathway to a different universe. As Raikas stepped into the pathway, he suddenly muttered, "Wait. I forgot my hammer-"

But he was too late and was already sucked into the portal.