Avengers Assemble

"Bang!"

A stone wall was smashed to pieces. Thor struggled to rise from the rubble, covered in dust and looking utterly bedraggled, struck by a sense of powerlessness he had never felt even during the Battle of New York.

Ultron used the traction device on his arm to yank over a stone pillar and viciously smashed it into Thor, knocking the newly risen Thor back down. Then he rained punch after punch upon Thor's face.

Thor had been caught off guard and, for a moment, lacked the strength to defend himself. Even Mjolnir was flung from his hand and landed on the ground, leaving him to take the blows passively.

Meanwhile, Tony flew through the air as F.R.I.D.A.Y. continuously scanned the device beneath Sokovia. Even after understanding its principles, he still had no way to stop all of Sokovia from continuing to rise.

Even Tony found himself at his wits' end, his tone growing impatient as he said,

"It's made of vibranium alloy. If I have Thor strike it..."

But F.R.I.D.A.Y. immediately refuted his idea.

"That will not solve the problem."

Tony was truly speechless. He could only clear out the lesser enemies while flying and keep thinking of a solution.

"The next wave could come at any moment. Do you have a plan, Stark?"

Steve evacuated the civilians as smoke shrouded half the city, creating an atmosphere of deathly silence and despair.

"I've got a dirty option, Captain." Tony paused. "We might be able to blow up the whole city."

"I asked for a solution, not an escape plan."

Steve immediately shot back, clearly unwilling to accept that solution.

"We have to make a choice," Tony said firmly.

"..."

What answered him was a bleak silence.

"Captain, some people can't leave. If Stark destroys the city... do we save the people up here, or the people down below?"

"As long as there are people up here, I won't leave."

"I'm not saying we should leave." Natasha looked past Steve toward the sea of clouds before them. Such a rare sight was strangely beautiful.

"Maybe dying like this would be worth it. Where else could we ever see a view like this?"

Natasha seemed to have accepted it, staring at the spreading sea of clouds as she gradually lost herself in thought.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Natasha."

Suddenly, the voice of someone unexpected came through their earpieces. Then, a massive Helicarrier slowly broke through from beneath the sea of clouds, like a whale surfacing from the ocean, majestically soaring upward and turning its enormous body.

The other Avengers and the residents trapped in Sokovia looked like they had never seen anything like it before, their jaws nearly hitting the ground.

"Not bad, right? A few old friends and I dug it out. It's a little old, but it still works."

Nick Fury's smug voice came over the Avengers' channel. Steve grinned and cursed, "Fury, you old bastard."

"Oh~~ So you curse now too?" Nick Fury said lightly.

As they spoke, the Helicarrier deployed several lifeboats. The spectacular sight left Pietro in disbelief as he asked in shock, "Is that S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Steve immediately ushered the civilians aboard. At the same time, several Ultron robots flew toward the lifeboats, intending to attack and bring them down.

"Boom!"

A barrage of machine-gun fire rang out, shredding the Ultron robots to pieces.

By the time they detected the enemy, Rhodey was already piloting War Machine. He flew in and blew apart one robot with a punch, while the Gatling gun on his shoulder spun wildly, pouring out hundreds of bullets.

"This is going to make one hell of a story!" Rhodey said with a broad grin. He had already figured out how he would brag to his comrades afterward about fighting an artificial intelligence straight out of a movie.

"If you make it back." Tony destroyed a robot trying to sneak up on Rhodey with a micro-missile, his mouth as sharp as ever as he poured cold water on him.

Li Nian finally returned to the battlefield. Seeing Ultron robots filling the sky, he charged straight into them, smashing them to pieces. At the same time, he used the Gem's power to phase his body, thrusting both hands into the robots and destroying them from within.

"What the hell is that?" Rhodey stared at Li Nian's bizarre appearance. No matter how he looked at him, he did not seem human—especially that Gem on his forehead. What was that, performance art?

Li Nian destroyed several Ultron robots in quick succession while constantly searching for Ultron's main body.

Before long, Li Nian sensed Ultron's distinctive electromagnetic waves. "The church?"

Li Nian muttered, his gaze suddenly turning fierce as he shot toward Ultron's location.

Over here, Thor was being beaten back step by step. Ultron grabbed Thor by the throat, his electronic voice neither sorrowful nor joyful.

"You think you can save them? Even if I activate the core early, I can still reduce them to dust. You have no power to stop me."

Ultron's over-two-meter-tall body stood before Thor. His steel fist rose high, ready to smash down hard on the face of this Asgardian god.

"I am Thor, son of Odin. As long as I still have one breath left... cough, cough, cough. I've got nothing else to say. Are you ready?" Thor suddenly tilted his head toward Ultron's back, wearing a foolish grin.

"Hm?" Ultron finally sensed that something was wrong. Before he could see anything after turning around, a heavy blow struck his head, instantly sending him flying.

Li Nian held Mjolnir in his hand, weighed it twice, then returned it to Thor.

"I thought it could take a beating," Li Nian said innocently.

Thor smiled without saying anything, but Tony's voice suddenly came through their earpieces.

"Avengers, it's time to prove ourselves." Stark's voice was incomparably serious. At that moment, the other Avengers gradually arrived at the church ruins and gathered around the core.

Watching Ultron slowly descend, Thor destroyed a robot with one swing of his hammer, then shouted arrogantly at Ultron, "Is that all you've got?"

Ultron said nothing and merely waved a hand. In the blink of an eye, robots flooded into view, filling nearly their entire vision. They seemed endless, as if they had fallen into an ocean of machinery.

"You just had to run your mouth!" Steve rolled his eyes at the reckless Thor as though he had resigned himself to his fate.

Li Nian stood behind them and smiled helplessly. In the end, they had not escaped this iconic scene.

"That is all I've got. This is what I want to do: all of you against all of us." Ultron hovered in the air, delivering his pre-battle speech.

"You should be grateful for this. Grateful for my..." Ultron wanted to continue, but before he could finish, a yellow laser struck him, sending him tumbling into the robot army and out of sight.

Dead silence.

The Avengers turned to look at Li Nian, saying nothing.

"He was too long-winded." Li Nian waved a hand, indicating his innocence. It had all been the Gem on his forehead's doing.

"Avengers! Assemble!"

Steve shouted those immortal words. In an instant, every Avenger was on full alert. Facing the robots rushing toward them, each of them was prepared to die as they tightly encircled the core and fought the army of Ultron.