"Now isn't the time for small talk."
Tony looked around at everyone present.
"Ultron seems to have some kind of objective. The reason it solved the problem of us not being able to deploy our full forces is probably because it's going to come back again. I've got a bad feeling about this."
Quicksilver muttered helplessly,
"I've got a bad feeling too… looks like we might have to run again."
Steve began analyzing the situation.
"From the moment it appeared to intercept us, it could have killed us—but it didn't. I don't know what it's waiting for, but it definitely isn't anything good. There's also another issue…"
Steve looked around at everyone.
"Why hasn't Karl arrived yet? With his speed he could appear anywhere in the world in the next second. Ultron must have found some way to keep Karl busy—otherwise he would have already come here and wiped us out of danger."
He didn't finish the rest of the sentence, but everyone understood.
Ultron's plan clearly involved them.
The atmosphere fell silent.
But the silence didn't last long.
"Endless…?"
The quiet crowd suddenly turned angrily toward Yue Tingfeng.
Yue Tingfeng didn't look at them. He simply stared up at the sky.
Everyone followed his gaze.
In the sky, thousands of black dots had appeared.
There was no need to guess—they were Ultron's army.
Soon the Ultron legion surrounded them once again.
Looking at the approaching swarm, Yue Tingfeng said calmly,
"You still have more? Why not send them all out at once? Wouldn't that save everyone the trouble? Why drag this out like some shy ink-painted lady?"
Ultron didn't seem to care about Yue Tingfeng's mockery.
The Ultron army formed a circle around them, then looked up at the sky before gazing down at the Avengers.
"Have you ever been hit by a meteor shower?"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Tony couldn't stand it anymore. Wearing this armor and not fighting even once was unbearable.
He rushed forward and punched the nearest Ultron.
The heavily damaged Ultron didn't resist like a corpse. Instead it said calmly,
"Celebrate your apocalypse."
"What?"
Tony froze mid-punch, not understanding what Ultron meant.
The Ultron pinned beneath him continued speaking excitedly,
"Why don't you look at the sky?"
Hearing this, everyone looked upward.
Flaming meteors streaked across the sky like shooting stars.
There were countless of them.
The smallest meteors were over fifty or sixty meters in diameter, while the largest were several thousand meters wide.
The burning meteors painted the sky with a beautiful but terrifying spectacle.
No one dared admire that beauty.
Because it was also a death sentence.
Everyone's expressions changed instantly.
Quicksilver looked even more desperate than before.
Tony released Ultron and shot straight into the sky.
He had to stop them.
He had to stop them.
Pepper was still at home. She would die in this disaster.
The meteors were still extremely far away, though they had already entered the atmosphere.
Tony pushed his thrusters to maximum power and flew toward the nearest meteor at over Mach 3.
Small missiles launched from his shoulders.
Boom!
The explosion faded quickly.
The meteor remained completely intact.
"No… there must be a way."
Tony unleashed all his weapons.
Boom!!
This time the explosion lasted longer, and fragments of rock began falling downward.
He succeeded.
But when he looked up again—
the sky was filled with flames.
Some flames came from meteors burning through the atmosphere.
Others came from missiles striking the meteors.
The governments of the world had begun fighting back.
Tony wasn't alone.
But the situation was actually getting worse.
The shattered meteor fragments were just as deadly.
The bombardment broke the meteors into thousands of smaller pieces that began raining down toward Earth.
If this continued, entire cities would be buried beneath debris.
There was no way to stop it.
There were simply too many meteors.
"I like the expression on your face," Ultron said mockingly.
"Let's see how Mr. Superman deals with a global meteor storm."
"Do you like the view? Take a good look. It might be the last time you see it in your life."
"What do you think will happen if three hundred million meteors fall to Earth? Just thinking about it excites me!"
Ultron had already won.
Even if it lost, this disaster could wipe out over ninety percent of humanity.
One Ultron landed in front of the Avengers and looked around.
"I wonder where your Superman is right now. Perhaps busy saving some small disaster somewhere."
Everyone felt helpless.
At first it had been a single city disaster they might have stopped.
Now it had become a planet-wide meteor storm.
Their only hope was Karl.
If he couldn't stop it, everyone would die.
High in the sky.
Karl was racing across the planet, destroying meteors wherever he found them.
It was a race against time.
With his speed, Karl could reach any place on Earth in less than a second.
But he couldn't just fly past them—he had to stop and destroy each meteor.
And time was extremely limited.
The meteors kept appearing in waves.
They were scattered across the entire world instead of falling in one place.
Karl had to constantly change directions.
He had no time to check on the Avengers. He could only hope they would survive long enough.
The meteor storm had appeared too suddenly, almost as if it had been created out of thin air.
Otherwise Karl would never have been caught so off guard.
The meteors didn't arrive simultaneously but in batches, preventing him from circling the planet quickly.
Boom!
After destroying the last meteor over Asia, Karl turned toward Africa and Europe.
Europe had the help of the Sorcerer Association.
Even if they couldn't destroy the meteors, they could delay them until Karl arrived.
And Gu Yi was there, so he wasn't too worried.
As for North and South America, Karl could only hurry.
If he arrived in time, everything would be fine.
If he didn't…
Karl glanced toward the direction where the Avengers were fighting.
They should be able to hold on…
"Uncle Mordo, pull that one in!"
Di Wu struggled to drag two meteors into the Mirror Dimension, but several more were still falling.
She had secretly come to help.
Karl had originally taken her back to rest, but after catching her breath she ran out to assist.
Hearing her call, Mordo quickly opened a portal in the meteor's path.
"My Mirror Dimension can barely hold anymore…"
They were all exhausted.
Many sorcerers' Mirror Dimensions had already collapsed from overuse.
Mordo's was reaching its limit as well.
Many sorcerers were lying on the ground, completely drained.
They could only protect the most populated areas and abandon others.
There simply wasn't enough strength to stop everything.
Seeing Mordo collapse to his knees from exhaustion, Di Wu made a decision.
Her hands formed rapid gestures as she whispered a spell.
As she spoke, space began to tremble.
Above the city, a dark void suddenly appeared.
It was a silent, lightless space.
Just looking at it filled people with fear.
"What are you doing?"
Mordo stood up in shock.
He had never seen or read about such a spell.
Di Wu couldn't answer.
She focused entirely on maintaining the spell.
The black void expanded until it covered the entire sky above the city.
The meteors could no longer enter.
They were intercepted by the void.
Suddenly—
a distant roar echoed from the darkness.
"What exactly are you doing?"
Mordo stared into the void.
He couldn't see anything, but he could sense something approaching from deep inside.
Di Wu pressed her hand against the black space.
Her palm slowly tightened.
The void shrank along with her hand movement.
But it seemed to struggle, as if trying to escape her control.
Sweat soaked her hair.
Her arms trembled violently.
Her entire body shook.
This was a battle of endurance.
If she lost focus, the void would expand endlessly—and no one knew what would emerge.
Her fingers turned white from the strain.
Her arm shook so violently it could barely hold.
Di Wu pressed her other hand against her forehead.
A flash of light appeared.
Then a book materialized in her hand.
The Book of Vishanti.
Mordo gasped.
"That's Kamar-Taj's sacred artifact! Everyone knows it exists, but we've only seen pictures and descriptions. No one has ever seen the real thing!"
Di Wu lifted the book with one hand.
The Book of Vishanti floated in the air and began flipping through its pages automatically.
Finally the pages stopped.
Di Wu began chanting a complex spell.
Her once clear eyes changed as the incantation continued.
A massive magic array appeared in the sky.
Countless rotating triangles formed a gigantic formation larger than the void itself.
The formation moved toward the dark space.
Crack!
Space trembled violently.
The magic formation collided with the void.
Another distant roar echoed from inside.
Something massive was approaching.
Soon the opening in the void expanded to the size of a stadium.
Boom!
Something slammed against the entrance.
From deep inside the darkness, a gray-black metallic shape appeared.
It looked like a gigantic claw.
The terrifying claw struck the magic formation.
The formation began to crack.
Di Wu's expression hardened.
"Break."
She spoke softly.
Holding the Book of Vishanti in one hand, she tapped the cover gently with the other.
Boom!
The magic array in the sky began spinning like a giant grinding mill.
It crushed down on the claw.
Another roar echoed.
The massive claw slowly retreated back into the darkness.
The void shrank.
Finally it disappeared completely.
The sky returned to blue.
Mordo and the other sorcerers struggled to their feet and walked over.
The meteors had disappeared from the sky above the city.
But they were worried about Di Wu.
That spell had clearly pushed her far beyond her limits.
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