Chapter 154

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Imagine this.

If the Battle of New York described in the diary really happened, Loki painstakingly stole the Tesseract, opened the portal, and with much effort transported the Chitauri army.

He wanted to conquer New York and fulfill his ambitions.

But what awaited them on the other side of the portal was a dense army of Iron Legion!

Loki's expression must have been priceless.

And it's not just the Battle of New York.

The diary clearly mentioned that the age of superheroes is coming, a time when evil abounds.

Various threats emerge.

But what about humanity?

It truly lacks the means to deal with those various threats.

Logically speaking, Earth does need its defenses; it indeed needs the Iron Legion!

The only problem is this.

The current processing power of JARVIS is far from sufficient. Controlling a small number of Iron Man suits is no problem, but controlling the Iron Legion is out of the question.

Thus, the only limiting factor for the Iron Legion is the technology of artificial intelligence.

In terms of artificial intelligence, the great Tony Stark is the authority on this world, he's the best there is!

But as of now, the great Tony Stark is also unable to upgrade JARVIS, so the Iron Legion project has to be put on hold.

However, it seems this issue did not trouble the great Tony for long.

Didn't that other-worldly version of himself create the Iron Legion?

This means that he solved the artificial intelligence problem.

If that other self of his could do such a thing, then so can the great Tony Stark!

"The Age of Ultron?"

Tony Stark's gaze soon fell upon these words, and he couldn't help but spread his hands.

Age?

Isn't that a bit too exaggerated?

It seems that the AI crisis caused by that other universe's self must have been quite serious.

Otherwise, they wouldn't name the crisis with a term like "The Age of Ultron."

But still, as I said, that was another universe's Tony Stark, not him!

If the great Tony Stark really set out to research Ultron, he'd be as successful as his counterpart in Universe 838 – not a complete failure like his Universe 199999 counterpart.

This, the always overconfident Tony Stark had no doubt.

Just like in the movie "Avengers 2," after creating a failed Ultron, given the chance, Tony still unhesitatingly continued to create Vision.

That's just Iron Man's temperament.

Whether you call it blind confidence or arrogance, to some extent, he indeed does not learn from his mistakes.

If this is the case with tangible facts, there's even less reason to mention mere diary spoilers.

Moreover, the diary spoilers weren't limited to the failed example of the "Age of Ultron"; there was also the successful case in Universe 838!

"The Hydra Stompers?"

"Another Iron Man?"

Nick Fury raised an eyebrow while looking at another diary, his expression becoming quite interesting.

Zhou Cheng's diary mentioned it long ago, even stating that it was a female version of Captain America.

And what happened?

There simply was no Captain America in this universe!

Either way, there can only be one Captain America, right?

Well, that's probably just a coincidence, and Nick Fury didn't give it much thought after a mild comment.

The Hydra Stompers, there's nothing to fuss about there, there's no doubt that even if Rogers didn't become Captain America, he still bravely fought against Hydra.

This came as no surprise to Fury.

But "Another Iron Man," what does that mean?

Could it be that Steve Rogers in Universe 838 is a scientist on par with Tony Stark in every aspect?

What a narrative twist!

Although Fury enjoyed seeing such twists, Rogers as a muscle man didn't quite fit the image of a scientist, right?

Captain Carter, mutants, Doctor Strange killing Thanos, Ultron, and so on.

It seems that Universe 838 and Universe 199999 differ quite a bit!

"And that brings us to Vision."

"If Stark's Ultron project hadn't failed and Ultron had not become a villain bent on eradicating humanity, where would Vision have come from?"

"Remember, Vision was a joint creation of Ultron and Stark!"

"It's funny, Stark designed Ultron with the intent to maintain Earth's peace, to protect the planet from great threats."

"However, Ultron considered humanity itself to be Earth's greatest threat."

"There's no greater irony than that."

It's confirmed!

The Age of Ultron is indeed a crisis entirely of Tony Stark's making.

If the spoiler-filled diaries were merely making indirect revelations through the lines.

Then this spoiler is clearly stated in black and white, that the Age of Ultron is Tony Stark's fault!

And the diary also briefly outlines the crisis's approximate details.

This aligns indeed with some behaviors and thoughts of Iron Man.

Tony Stark truly intended to protect Earth by creating Ultron, but, accidentally, Ultron went rogue.

There's no denying that.

However, there's one thing Tony truly found incomprehensible.

How exactly did that other version of himself design Ultron's programming?

Why would there be such a massive deviation in Ultron's "thinking"?

To the point of being ludicrously absurd!

Based on what logic would Ultron conclude that humanity is Earth's biggest threat?

This error seems too outrageous.

To the point of being outrageously erroneous.

When it comes to artificial intelligence robots, even if not a specialist scientist, even a somewhat logical person would think of a key issue.

Intelligent robots, must not harm humans!

Like Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics," used by many sci-fi movies and novels,

The first law is that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Keep in mind, this is from a science-fiction writer!

Not to mention Tony Stark, a scientist of his caliber.

It's impossible he didn't think of it!

Tony is certain, no matter how the other version of himself programmed Ultron, the directive not to harm humans must have been embedded in Ultron's source code.

In other words, it is deeply ingrained in Ultron's DNA.

How could Ultron act against its own source code in this case?

The source code for an intelligent robot is like God's will to humans; it's impossible to defy!

So, what exactly is going on?

Tony Stark's brows knit slightly as he fell deep in thought.

Try as he might, he couldn't figure it out.

Besides this puzzlement, there was another thing that surprised Iron Man, another conundrum.

When the notebook mentioned Vision as a robot, Tony speculated there was a great chance that he created Vision.

After all, looking across America, no, the world, from a technological standpoint, he certainly had the upper hand.

As it turned out, he was half right in his prediction.

And that was exactly why Tony was completely baffled.

Did he and Ultron collaborate in creating Vision?

Wasn't Ultron a villain aiming to wipe out humanity?

The mere name "Age of Ultron" implies that Ultron had implemented his plan to annihilate humanity and caused massive destruction!

Otherwise, why would later generations name this crisis "The Age of Ultron"?

This raises the question.

According to diary entries, in this chaotic era of superheroes, facing various supernatural threats, the crucial force protecting Earth was the Avengers!

And Tony Stark was one of the "Big Three" of the Avengers!

In other words, Tony Stark should be Ultron's enemy, so how could they have jointly created Vision?

Not to mention that Vision is a superhero who later joined the Avengers and opposes Ultron's ideology of eradicating humanity.

Even if Tony wanted to create him, Ultron wouldn't be foolish enough to make an enemy that would oppose him, right?

So what exactly is going on here?

The matters concerning Ultron and Vision are truly tangled, not easily sorted out!

"No, not just humanity. Extinguishing humanity is only the first step."

"In Ultron's view, humans are merely the greatest threat to Earth but not the only one."

"All other life forms apart from humans also threaten Earth, just not as significantly as humanity does."

"Therefore, to usher in true peace on Earth, every creature must be eradicated, turning the planet into a dead world!"

"This rationale applies not just to Earth but to other planets and the entire universe."

"That's why Infinity Ultron would slaughter the multiverse."

Ah, this!

Tony Stark was utterly speechless.

Again, Iron Man wanted to dig into Ultron's source code to see precisely what that other version of himself had written.

Why would it lead Ultron to such extreme reasoning?

It's as preposterous as a joke.

To achieve true peace on Earth by eradicating all its creatures?

Good grief, how extreme is that!

Yes, if Earth had no living beings and became a dead star, there would indeed be peace.

But what's the point of such peace?

So, are the journal's spoilers correct—could that other version of himself really design such a ludicrous AI?

The AI itself is more absurd than Ultron's ridiculous ideas!

"Infinity Ultron?"

Nick Fury's single eye narrowed, instantly drawn to the term.

Why was the prefix "Infinity" added in front of the name Ultron?

So, what's the difference between Infinity Ultron and Ultron?

The details are naturally beyond Zhou Cheng's knowledge.

But one thing was for sure; Infinity Ultron was far stronger than Ultron.

Infinity Ultron could even slaughter the multiverse!

That's frightening!

We're talking about the multiverse!

It's been a long time since Zhou Cheng obtained the notebook, and through it, he gleaned lots of information about immensely powerful beings like Thanos, Odin, Dormammu, and others.

But among those mighty beings capable of impacting the multiverse, only a corrupted Scarlet Witch came to mind.

Moreover, while the corrupted Scarlet Witch merely "sliced through" the multiverse, Infinity Ultron "massacred" it.

It seems Infinity Ultron might be more formidable than the corrupted Scarlet Witch!

So what kind of monstrosity had Stark actually created?

"Wait a second!"

While mulling over it, Nick Fury suddenly had an epiphany, a crucial point dawned on him.

The prefix "Infinity" in Infinity Ultron also appeared in another context.

The "Infinity" Stones.

Could there be a connection between Infinity Ultron and the Infinity Stones?

Of course.

Merely linking Infinity Ultron to the Infinity Stones based on the prefix "Infinity" could be a bit forced.

Yet, it was the only connection to Infinity Ultron that Nick Fury could deduce from the information at hand.

As to whether they are indeed related, that is beyond Zhou Cheng's confirmation.

"It must be said, Infinity Ultron is truly ferocious, killing deities and Buddhas, unstoppable."

"Avengers fell like frail sheep before it, Asgard was destroyed in an instant, and only Captain Marvel could withstand a bit."

"But even she was just holding off the inevitable before being mercilessly annihilated."

"Universe by universe was destroyed, a disaster for the multiverse."

"Even the Watchers, beings above the multiverse, were terrified by Infinity Ultron!"

Gulp!

Black Widow couldn't help but swallow hard instinctively.

If what's described in the notebook is true, then Infinity Ultron is excessively vicious.

The mighty Avengers, reduced to "sheep"?

Even a place like Asgard, "destroyed in an instant"?

And Captain Marvel, capable of overpowering Thanos with all the Stones, could only withstand a little!

Without experiencing it firsthand, the mere description in the notebook is enough to send shivers down one's spine.