Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Bhagavad Gita
After successfully reactivating the Amazo Core with his own hands and proving that it could be deployed in actual combat, that famous line from the Bhagavad Gita was the first thing that came to Tony's mind.
What kind of emotions the predecessor who once created a world-ending weapon had felt when quoting those words, Tony had no way of knowing.
He only knew that the man had used it as a comparison.
Tony, on the other hand, would literally become Death—the destroyer of worlds.
Anyone with a functioning brain could see the limitless potential of the Amazo System.
A single flash of inspiration from its original creator had produced a unique programmable machine capable of adaptive evolution.
At present, because of its unusual architecture, the Amazo Core lacked permanent memory. To maintain its infinitely flexible transformations, it could only imitate nearby superhuman abilities.
Once the original source moved away, the copied powers would be lost irreversibly.
But given enough time, Tony knew that limitation would eventually cease to be a limitation at all.
When that day came, there would be no need for an army of Amazo robots.
A single perfect machine that had evolved into a god would be enough to conquer every world.
Miguel's restraint only irritated Tony.
He knew perfectly well that what he was doing was wrong.
Yet he couldn't resist peering deeper into the elegant mysteries hidden within the Amazo Core.
Why couldn't Miguel simply make things easier?
Why couldn't he just punch him in the head hard enough to knock some sense into him?
That was one of the reasons Tony had deliberately provoked Spider-Man 2099 in the first place.
Having more or less figured that out, Joey was tempted to launch Tony's stubborn skull straight to the Arctic with one punch.
Unfortunately, he wasn't a psychologist.
And if he tried using a personality correction punch, there was no telling whether it would make things better or worse.
Besides, everyone spends part of their life wrestling with things they can't understand.
As long as Tony didn't want to die, sooner or later he would figure it out.
Just like everyone present now had suddenly been forced back into another familiar situation:
The Earth was in danger.
"Tony, contact those idiots at S.H.I.E.L.D. and find out where they've hidden the Tesseract!"
"If they won't tell me, I'll just start kicking down doors until I find it myself!"
"Hurry! Something really bad is coming!"
The fact that Kryptonian vision was blocked by lead had become an increasingly frustrating limitation.
Especially considering that nearly every high-security underground facility on Earth was built with radiation-shielding layers.
Judging from the power Zarab's species possessed, the master he had mentioned would naturally be an existence of overwhelming strength.
From the First One's fifth-dimensional perspective, that abnormal energy was slowly spreading across the planet.
Joey felt exactly like a Spider-Man whose spider-sense was screaming at him nonstop while the source of danger remained invisible.
His gaze swept across the Earth.
Yet he could find no trace of the energy signature that the First One was detecting.
As a result, his first assumption was obvious:
S.H.I.E.L.D. had probably done something stupid with the Tesseract again.
If the Tesseract in this universe also contained the Space Stone, then S.H.I.E.L.D.'s talent for causing disasters was proving every bit as impressive as expected.
Perhaps they had already triggered some kind of invasion beyond the range of his vision.
Before Tony could order J.A.R.V.I.S. to call S.H.I.E.L.D. and demand answers, a call from S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived first.
J.A.R.V.I.S.' holographic projection appeared.
"Sir, incoming call from Phil Coulson."
"Put it on the main display."
Tony redirected the communication feed onto the projection screen and switched it to speaker mode.
But the voice that came through wasn't Coulson's usual polite and composed tone.
Instead, a rough, explosive, and deeply powerful male voice boomed from the other end of the line.
"Motherfucker, Tony, did you make another dangerous piece of crap again? A liquid-metal robot that looks like a T-1000 is heading toward Earth!"
The profanity, the lack of manners, the instinctive tendency to shift blame onto someone else—
There was no mistaking it.
Only one person in S.H.I.E.L.D. fit that description.
The foul-mouthed one-eyed black egghead himself:
Nick Fury.
"What?! Fury, don't go accusing people before you know the facts!"
Tony knew perfectly well that whatever Fury was talking about had nothing to do with him.
Then he paused and thought about it.
Most of the trouble in his life lately could be traced back to that absurd T-800-looking robot that had appeared earlier.
Now there was suddenly a T-1000 too?
What the hell was going on?
Tony turned toward Joey, hoping for an explanation.
Only to discover that Joey had already vanished.
---
[It's him. He possesses the same energy signature as Zarab, but...]
"But the energy level is nowhere near Zarab's," Joey finished for the First One.
"Because he isn't Zarab's master."
"Just like Zarab, he's merely a herald."
Coulson had apparently spent quite a bit of time reporting all the Terminator-related nonsense to Fury after being completely led around in circles by Tony.
As a result, the moment S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sensors detected the approaching figure, Fury immediately assumed it was some kind of silver liquid-metal robot.
Joey, however, turned his gaze toward space.
The instant he saw the silver figure, he recognized him.
"Oh, shit."
[You know him?]
The newcomer rode a cosmic surfboard.
It looked as though he were surfing across an ocean.
Only his ocean was the endless universe itself.
And the waves beneath his feet were cosmic gravitational currents.
The surfer moved at a speed comparable to Reverse-Flash, faster than almost anything Joey had ever witnessed.
A trail of brilliant cosmic energy stretched behind him.
Even the vast rivers of stars seemed split in two by the silver arc cutting through the heavens.
"Oh, I know him all right."
That wasn't a liquid-metal T-1000 from Skynet.
It was the Silver Surfer.
And compared to that appearance-based nickname, he possessed another title far more dangerous:
The Herald of Galactus.
Earlier, while grumbling to himself, Joey had wondered what impossible disaster would strike next after the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, and the Inheritor family.
At his most pessimistic, he'd imagined maybe a rogue Celestial showing up.
How had things escalated to something this unreasonable?
---
Joey blasted through the atmosphere and accelerated without restraint.
His vision locked firmly onto the Silver Surfer.
He intended to intercept Galactus's herald before he could reach Earth.
Because if the Surfer entered the planet's vicinity and planted a beacon for his master...
No one would be able to stop Earth's destruction.
Had Joey known that the mysterious master behind the Zarab alien hunted by Ultraman was this kind of being, he honestly felt getting flattened by a truck back then might have been the easier option.
"I know who Zarab's master is now."
"And I also know that if he truly arrives here..."
"We're all completely screwed."
People often compared races like Kryptonians or Ultramen to gods.
The comparison was understandable.
Both species possessed power far beyond ordinary comprehension.
But now, through one wrong move, Joey, the First One, and the entire Earth beneath their feet might be forced to confront an actual god.
A supreme existence that transcended the multiverse itself.
A being whose power surpassed that of most gods.
Galactus.
The Devourer of Worlds.