On the Western European battlefield, alongside the total collapse of the network, Ultron once again lost a portion of his computing power. Watching the electromagnetic pulse gradually subside, Tony, controlling his Extremis Armor, touched down. The others gathered around him, catching sight of Tony in his armor beneath armor.
The Extremis Armor—Tony's latest masterpiece. After thoroughly studying the Extremis virus, Tony had injected himself with it. By introducing a massive quantity of self-repairing nanobots into his system, he successfully suppressed the defect of self-combustion inherent in the Extremis virus.
Tony had gone even a step further, storing vast numbers of nanobots within his own body. Through a full neural link, he could command them to rapidly cover his skin, forming a set of armor.
Of course, Tony had yet to solve the micro-storage problem. The biggest issue with the Extremis Armor at present was its lack of defense and firepower. Its thickness was barely any different from Peter's Nano Spider-Suit. As far as armor went, it was severely inadequate, and its weapons were limited to the repulsor beams in his palms and the arc beam on his chest.
The biggest purpose this thing served right now was suppressing the high-temperature flaw of the Extremis virus, successfully transforming Tony Stark from a man wearing a suit of iron armor into a true "Iron Man."
"My defensive capabilities have dropped significantly for the time being. We can only hope Ultron's counterattack won't come so fast. When I was coming down, I saw an EMP go off in the east as well. The Winter Guard couldn't hold out any longer either and had to activate theirs."
The network in Eastern Europe had also collapsed rapidly. It seemed everything was proceeding according to the Avengers' plan. This couldn't help but make people wonder whether everything would truly go this smoothly.
"The answer is absolutely not. I can guarantee Ultron has a plan to reboot these networks, and the speed will likely be faster than anyone can imagine."
Tony, clad in his Extremis Armor, landed firmly on the ground, pouring cold water over the others who were looking quite happy in place. "In fact, that's exactly how the Avengers' plan was structured. We set up a script for Ultron: we shut it down, Ultron reboots it, back and forth in a cycle, and in this tug-of-war, we eventually lose everything."
"If that's your plan, why would you do it? That seems extremely... strange?"
Captain Britain stepped forward to express his confusion, and Tony explained: "Because we need to give Ultron an illusion. Everything Ultron does is based on logical analysis, so we need a fake plan that makes logical sense and looks convincing enough, and then draw Ultron into our trap."
On the side, Psylocke pondered the entire logic before asking in return: "Won't that make Ultron deduce other possibilities instead, so he won't jump into the trap?"
"He's not human, Ms. Psylocke. Ultron is an artificial intelligence." Amadeus stood up, surveying the surrounding mess as he explained: "Humans second-guess themselves; they hesitate. An artificial intelligence merely calculates the frequencies of all possibilities and finds the optimal solution. But the premise of all this is that the information must be accurate enough."
In other words, the key to the Avengers' plan lay in the information gap. They needed to create a scenario where the data Ultron collected severely conflicted with the actual data, luring Ultron into the trap. And right now, that trap was undoubtedly Hank Pym and the Avenger Ultron constructing some secret weapon targeted at Ultron, which was why they hadn't shown up yet.
As long as Ultron attacked the Avengers Base, the trap would be sprung.
The others couldn't understand what this was all about, but suddenly, Hercules chimed in: "No offense, Tin Man, but I think your plan failed."
"I expected that too, but Ultron will definitely—wait, what in the world?"
Just as Tony was explaining his plan, a loud roar thundered across the sky. Everyone looked up at the firmament, wanting to see what on earth had made that sound. Then, they saw a colossal, seemingly endless prism falling from the sky, its six faces emblazoned with the pattern of Ultron's face.
"How did that thing appear?!"
The massive prism pierced through the heavens, breaking through the clouds. Tony was completely at a loss as to how this object had suddenly appeared. He immediately fired up full thrusters and surged into the sky, but before he could fly very high, he saw another pillar appearing in the far east, forcing its way through the atmosphere with full force.
What on earth was that?
[The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is grievous, and the cry against them is great. If I find in the city of Sodom righteous men, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.]
As the massive prism slowly descended, Ultron's voice resonated from it. Ultron unabashedly quoted the Bible and posed a question to the entire world: [So, where are the righteous men?]
"...Does he mean he intends to destroy humanity? Just like God punished Sodom and Gomorrah?"
Landing back on the ground, Tony looked with a pale face at the descending prisms in the sky, shaking his head as he rejected Captain Britain's response.
"Impossible. That conflicts with Ultron's core code logic. This is more like a warning. Look at the descent speed of these prisms. If Ultron really intended to destroy humanity, dropping just one of these things on the ground would be more than enough. This thing has more destructive power than lifting the Eastern European city of Sokovia into the sky and slamming it back down."
Captain Britain asked Tony in confusion, "Why use Sokovia as an example?"
"I don't know. Just did the math in my head, and a city that size happens to be roughly equivalent?"
Tony shook his head after speaking, then closed his faceplate again. "We know Ultron's plan now. He rejected the trap itself and chose to make the next move against us. Since we gave him the choice of whether to gamble on the trap at the Avengers Base, Ultron is gambling on whether we're willing to believe his core code hasn't evolved to the point of being able to exterminate humanity."
Clearly, the Avengers couldn't afford to gamble, and no one else could either. Thus, everyone, including the Avengers, had no choice but to ignore Ultron's proselytizing on Earth and go up into the sky to dismantle the towers.
Hercules scratched his head. "...So, where did these things come from?"
Tony didn't want to answer that question. Conservation of matter still applied in this world; Ultron couldn't produce so many unhideable, massive monoliths out of thin air unless he hadn't built them in this timeline at all.
That left only one explanation: the time engine Kang had left behind on S.W.O.R.D.'s mothership.