As it turned out, Moon Knight hadn't lied. By the time Peter carried Cindy and leaped into the hole Luke Cage had smashed through, Moon Knight had already completed his rappel and landed inside Ultron's fortress. The interior proved to be remarkably spacious. Hardly a single electrical wire was visible; there were only hexagonal walkways and various conduits running up and down.
Peter flew inside through the breach and set Cindy down, then retracted his Vulture wings. Almost the very second they landed, Ultron's image flickered onto the silver walls nearby.
"Welcome, 'heroes.' Welcome to 'Eden.'"
"Eden... It seems you really do view yourself as God," Peter remarked with a sigh, then turned to face Ultron. "And I hardly think this counts as any sort of Eden, Ultron."
"Perhaps. But you should take a closer look and reflect deeply upon my outstanding contributions to the human world."
"Outstanding contributions, huh..." Peter muttered under his breath. Looking at the others, he could tell they were unsure of what to do, whereas he understood Ultron's intentions all too clearly. "Let's go. We're bound to run into plenty of trouble from Ultron on our way to the spatiotemporal engine. He'll be looking for ways to persuade us—or rather, to eliminate us."
Assuming Ultron chose to take that approach.
Peter led his teammates along the silver, spiraling corridor upward. Unlike before, Ultron remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the process, saying nothing at all. He merely displayed one image after another in silence along the way.
They saw a former serial killer confined in a prison cell. This man had previously been sentenced to death, but thanks to Fat Ultron's plan, he had managed to leverage his connections before his execution to upload his consciousness to the network.
Under Fat Ultron's original framework, he would have been trapped inside a world constructed entirely from his own mind. There, every single one of his desires would be fulfilled; his cravings would be sated, and he could slaughter with total impunity, killing nonexistent person after nonexistent person to satisfy his urges.
However, Gospel Ultron—or rather, this current version of Ultron—had done something different.
"You are already dead."
Ultron had constructed a hell for this soul—a hell molded by the education he had received since childhood, the people he had encountered, and the worldview he had cultivated. Trapped here to endure punishment, he began transforming into the very victims he had murdered, experiencing every single one of his own slaughters from the perspective of the victims first.
Next, Ultron would amplify his senses—his perception of pain, for instance, or the sounds of his own breathing and heartbeat (even though they were merely data simulations). Then, he would allow him a brief period of recovery back in a blissful life—very brief—before plunging him once more into a new iteration of punishment.
On the other side was another individual, a woman.
Images of her life appeared on the screen. She had done nothing wrong in her lifetime; in fact, she could even be considered kind-hearted, having engaged in a great deal of charity back when she was wealthy. Yet an unexpected car accident had crippled her legs, followed by a financial crisis where the insurance company declared bankruptcy after refusing her payout. She gradually lost all her savings and her home.
Ultimately, on a freezing winter night not long ago, she passed away inside a tent where even a lit fire was of no avail, clutching her pet dog in her arms.
Yet perhaps she was fortunate. Shortly after her death, an Ultron cultist discovered her and performed last rites for her. As a result, Ultron's nanobots extracted what remained of her consciousness and uploaded it here.
Uploaded to Eden.
Here, she no longer had to endure years of torment brought on by a single accident. She had returned to the finest years of her life, her happiest moments, able to relive her past without even realizing that she had long since passed away.
"The wicked are punished, while the good find peace—even after death." Watching this scene, Luke Cage, who hailed from the bottom of society as a Black man, felt a deeper resonance. "Just like the sermons preached by pastors when I was a kid... Ultron is creating a real Heaven and Hell."
"A fake Heaven and Hell. At least the Egyptian Underworld actually exists, whereas Ultron will never let these souls rest in peace." Moon Knight extravagantly ignored the entire display, walking at the very front of the group, and quickly led everyone to the location of the spatiotemporal engine. Nothing else was present here except for a single Ultron floating in midair, connected to a few cables behind him, alongside the continuously pulsing spatiotemporal engine.
This final boss encounter was coming a bit too easily...
As Peter pondered the thought, he spoke to Ultron: "You call this place Eden, but it looks far more like Heaven and Hell, Ultron."
Ultron offered Peter an answer as a matter of course. "Christianity—and even tracing back to the Judaic Hell—can be traced back to the Underworld in Greek mythology. And whether it is Heaven or Eden, both can be traced back to Elysium within the Underworld. That is precisely why they are one and the same place."
"A final destination after death, and a safe resting place prepared for the virtuous."
"Ha, so you don't actually believe in religion at all. Just as you said yourself, religion is merely your lowest-cost means of control." Peter assembled his counterargument while covertly signaling to the others to prepare for action. "But do you know what the most ironic part is, Ultron? Perhaps we could create all of this in reality."
"Oh, really? Perhaps. I do not know if you have such plans, or if you even realize what it takes to achieve them."
As Ultron spoke, he floated down to the ground, severing all the cables behind him as a red glow flared from his mouth. "Do you know what the hardest part of changing all this is? It is not deciding to fight, because there will always be people who choose to fight, even if initially there are none."
"Many will say, 'Wait a moment, we can still survive, we can still live. Why should we give up our lives for an illusion of a new world?' But even that is not the most difficult part. Because you must realize that every transformation demands immense sacrifice, yet there are always those who willingly dedicate themselves to forge that new world."
"The problem lies in the fact that people have not yet realized there is a new world they could forge. Those who do realize it feel even greater anguish, for they discover that people cannot understand them, nor will anyone follow them. They crash headlong into a thick, towering wall, hoping that someone in the future might follow their path and shatter that wall to pieces."
"But tell me: in this entire world, in this country you reside in, how many people actually realize that a better new world truly exists?"
"That is why they chose me—a savior who descended out of nowhere, an omnipotent god. It is not I who chose to make an enemy of humanity, Avengers. It is you who chose to make an enemy of humanity, whereas humanity, in truth, chose me."
Not only Peter, but also Cap, Tony, and everyone else who had boarded Ultron's fortress saw all of this and heard Ultron's speech.
Along with a continuously surging number that appeared in the palm of Ultron's hand—displaying the count of people who had joined Ultron.
1,275,326,114.
1,275,329,133.
1,275,334,617.
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Dear readers, due to my university studies and current financial circumstances, I have decided to take a temporary break.
Thank you so much for reading and supporting me over the past year—I hope to return and continue this journey with you soon!