Reckless Decision

Upstairs, Luca naturally did not hear the conversation of the few people walking away, but his mind was not on them at this moment anyway.

Even though, in Luca's eyes, those individuals were radiating the white light belonging to "core components" from head to toe.

Captain America's shield, Iron Man's nano-suit core and glasses, Ant-Man's suit, and even Hulk's shorts—all of these were revealing to Luca that items belonging to characters relevant to the plot seemed more likely to become "core components."

Yet, he had no mood to care about such things right now; in fact, his expression had turned ugly to the extreme.

This was simply because he hadn't expected that this was the ill-fated timeline from the Avengers: Endgame plot where Tony Stark and the others had traveled back to.

Why call this an "ill-fated timeline"?

That goes back to the American TV series Loki, which Luca had finished watching not long before he transmigrated.

The premise of this Marvel Cinematic Universe spin-off series was that Iron Man and his team, in Avengers: Endgame, wanted to borrow the Infinity Stones from this point in time to save their own world.

An accident occurred during the process, and the Tesseract—the Space Stone—fell into the hands of the Loki of this timeline.

Loki then used the Tesseract to teleport away, causing a deviation in history, which led to him being captured by an organization known as the TVA (Time Variance Authority).

The purpose of this organization, the TVA, was to protect the so-called "Sacred Timeline," ensuring everything developed according to a predetermined trajectory.

However, Loki's departure and the subsequent events that occurred within the TVA were not important to Luca.

What mattered was a scene in the series that had left a deep impression on him.

That was, at the very beginning, after Loki was taken away by the TVA agents, those people dropped a "Reset Charge" directly into this timeline, completely destroying the timeline that had developed a "deviation."

Yes, the entire timeline was erased!

When he first watched the show, Luca had even complained about this to his friends.

When Bruce Banner borrowed the Time Stone from the Ancient One, he swore that they would definitely return the stones and not affect the progress of this world. Yet, the Space Stone was taken away by Loki, and Iron Man and Captain America ran off to 1970 to get a new Tesseract. In the end, this entire timeline was doomed.

He didn't even know who Captain America actually returned the other two stones to when he went back at the end.

Although Marvel's "parallel universes," "timelines," and "branching timelines" were already a muddled, chaotic mess, Luca and his friends hadn't reached any conclusion after discussing it for a long time.

But did Luca dare to gamble on this?

Should he gamble that he was in a timeline where the Avengers had traveled back, but Loki hadn't taken the Tesseract?

Or should he gamble that his own existence was a special parallel universe, one that wouldn't be affected by the TVA, leading to the entire timeline being pruned?

The more Luca thought about it, the worse his expression became.

"If it affects the timeline, does my existence count as affecting the timeline? Since I haven't been captured yet, does that mean this world doesn't have a Time Variance Authority?"

"No! I have to go see! No, wait! I have to stop Loki!"

Luca clearly remembered that after Loki picked up the Tesseract, he teleported directly to Mongolia, where he was captured by the TVA, and those people had left behind a Reset Charge before departing.

If that were truly the case, he wouldn't even be able to stop or confirm anything by then; he could only wait for the final verdict in terror.

Rather than gambling on such a possibility, it would be better to simply stop Loki at the source.

If it weren't for the fact that he knew he couldn't possibly defeat the Avengers: Endgame team, Luca had even considered killing them all right there to avoid affecting the plot.

Whether the other party's space-time lived or died had nothing to do with him; ensuring his own survival was what truly mattered!

With this in mind, Luca immediately gave up on waiting at home for the Battle of New York to end and quickly checked the equipment on his person.

After a moment's thought, he moved Gina, his mother, to the storage room to settle her in, left a note, and immediately headed out.

He rushed toward Stark Tower.

In fact, the streets outside seemed far less dangerous than Luca had imagined.

At this moment, large numbers of the National Guard had taken to the streets, and armed pickup trucks and soldiers wielding heavy firepower were drawing away a significant amount of the Chitauri's fire.

Although the battle remained difficult, it created space for the New York police and firefighters to evacuate civilians.

If it weren't for the fact that Chitauri continued to pour out of the hole in the sky, perhaps, relying on the existing forces in New York, they might have actually held out.

Of course, this might also be because the Chitauri Chariots and Leviathans, which possessed heavy firepower, were focusing their main targets on the Avengers.

In any case, Luca, an ordinary civilian, was so inconspicuous on the street that he was almost pulled away by the police evacuating the crowd and taken to a nearby subway station several times.

However, such good luck obviously could not last forever.

As Luca got closer to Stark Tower, the surrounding Chitauri soldiers became increasingly dense.

If it weren't for the fear of inexplicably perishing along with the entire timeline supporting him, Luca might have already turned back.

Whoosh.

A rectangular grenade resembling a walkie-talkie streaked across the sky and landed with a "clatter" in front of an armored off-road vehicle.

Immediately following, with a "boom."

An eerie blue light exploded, and the armored vehicle, along with a dozen soldiers nearby, was blown away on the spot.

Luca, hiding behind an overturned bus, didn't even have the interest to spare a second glance.

Instead, he was thinking in his mind.

"Did that Chitauri grenade just now have a synthetic white light on it? It's a pity it blew up instantly; I wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me."

Just as Luca was preparing to hide behind the bus a little longer, waiting for those Chitauri Soldiers to move on before creeping forward, a violent explosion suddenly erupted overhead.

Large chunks of debris rained down from the sky, accompanied by several Chitauri Soldiers who had been desperately climbing toward the rooftop, all of them plummeting down together.

Fortunately, Luca had kept his Power-Enhancing Shoes set to the first gear.

The moment he heard the explosion above, he pushed off with his feet, darting directly into a nearby shop.

Crash.

The glass shattered upon impact.

His prosthetic right arm scraped and knocked against the floor.

Luca rolled twice before steadying himself against a shelf.

Immediately after, a series of heavy thuds echoed as objects slammed into the ground.

The Chitauri Soldiers who had fallen from the sky were all smashed against the pavement, clearly beyond saving.

Luca glanced over and let out a small sigh of relief.

Good thing I dodged that fast.

However, just then, a low, blustering growl came from behind him.

"Kid! Get out of here!"