Since You Want to Be a God, I'll Be a Monster

Eastern Europe, Sokovia

This war-ravaged little city was now shrouded in an eerie silence. The morning fog had yet to disperse, but the air was already filled with the scorched stench of motor oil and ozone.

"Evacuate the civilians! Quickly! Get off the bridge and head for higher ground... no, get out of the city!"

Wanda Maximoff stood in the middle of the street, her red coat snapping in the wind. Using her crimson psychic energy, she forcibly guided the panicked, crowded civilians and opened a path to survival for them.

"This way! Don't look back!" Pietro became a streak of silver lightning, and every time he stopped, he carried several slow-moving elderly people or children to safety.

Meanwhile, in the ancient church at the center of the city.

Ultron sat in the priest's chair, its ultimate Vibranium body giving off a cold silver-gray gleam. It did not look at the evacuating civilians, but instead stared up at the mural on the church dome—a prophecy of the apocalypse.

"You came."

Ultron did not turn around. Its voice echoed through the empty church.

"This is your plan?"

With the roar of thrusters, Tony Stark, clad in the sleek Mark 45 armor, slowly descended at the church entrance.

Then came Thor, Captain America Steve, Black Widow Natasha, Hawkeye Barton, as well as Jiang Li, Gwen, Vision... every Avenger had arrived, forming a fan-shaped encirclement around the church.

"You not only want to kill us, you want to drag this entire city down with you?" Tony charged his repulsor and aimed it at Ultron.

"Drag it down with me? No, Stark, your vision is far too narrow."

Ultron slowly rose to its feet. Complex streams of data flickered through its red electronic eyes—fragments of truth about the multiverse that it had glimpsed through the Mind Stone.

The reactors in the chests of several elite guards beside it glowed with an eerie violet light, as if crudely imitating the energy of some Infinity Stone.

"I saw a broader world. But in every possibility, humanity is the root of destruction."

It looked at Vision, a flicker of jealousy and regret passing through its eyes.

"You took my future, and my vision. But it doesn't matter..."

Ultron suddenly raised its hand and slammed its palm onto a mechanism in the church floor.

"I can create a new era. An era of nothing but metal and order."

"Rumble—!!"

The earth roared.

This was not an earthquake. Some massive machine buried deep underground had started up. The ground throughout the city began to crack, and countless stones floated up in defiance of gravity.

"What did it install underneath?" Gwen felt her Spider-Sense screaming wildly, every hair on her body standing on end. "The whole city is shaking!"

"A Vibranium core." Jiang Li glanced at the crack beneath his feet, his expression darkening. "It hollowed out the entire underground portion of the city and installed a massive anti-gravity engine. It wants to turn Sokovia into a meteor."

"It will rise into the sky, then reverse its magnetic field and crash into Earth." F.R.I.D.A.Y., Tony's new AI, swiftly delivered the simulation results. "The impact would be enough to trigger a global extinction event. Just like the dinosaurs."

"Poetic, isn't it?" Ultron spread its arms like a conductor.

The next second, the earth shook and the mountains trembled!

Massive cracks spread along the edge of the city, and buildings on the outskirts began collapsing. Just as Ultron had said, the entire city of Sokovia slowly broke away from the Earth's crust and rose into the sky!

"Move!!" Steve roared.

"Buzz—!"

Vision struck first. The Mind Stone on his forehead fired a golden beam straight at Ultron's brow. This was not a physical attack, but a logical lockdown with the highest authority!

"You've been removed, Ultron." Vision's voice was cold and resolute. "I'm going to burn you out of the internet completely."

Ultron clutched its head in pain. It could feel the countless tendrils it had spread throughout global networks being severed one by one.

"Bastard! Kill them all!!"

At Ultron's furious roar, countless Ultron Sentries swarmed out from underground, from ruins, and from buildings like locusts! The overwhelming mechanical army blotted out the sky.

"There are too many!" Natasha pulled out her electric batons and looked back toward a shadowed patch of rubble nearby. "Big guy, still asleep? Time to get up and work!"

"Roar—!!"

A beastial roar answered her. A green figure burst from the rubble as Bruce Banner completely unleashed Hulk. The enraged beast crashed headlong into the sea of robots, instantly tearing three mechanical bodies apart.

"So this is the party we're dealing with?"

Facing this apocalyptic scene, Jiang Li did not retreat. Instead, he stepped forward and stood at the very front of the group.

A massive slab of a building had broken loose from the vibrations and was about to crush a group of civilians below who had not managed to evacuate in time.

"Gwen, go protect the civilians! Use your mobility to catch anyone falling!"

"Got it! You be careful too!" Gwen fired webs and swung toward the crumbling edge of the city.

"Everyone else, hold the core! Don't let any robot interfere with Vision!"

Jiang Li raised his left hand. The dial of the Omnitrix spun rapidly before stopping on an image of a massive dinosaur silhouette.

Against enemies on this scale, and in a city this enormous, ordinary heroes were no longer enough.

"Since you want to be a god who destroys the world, then I'll be the monster that destroys cities!"

"It's Hero Time!"

He slammed down the dial!

"Roar—!!!"

A deafening roar drowned out even the engines.

Brown light surged as Jiang Li's body began expanding wildly. His muscle fibers twisted tight like steel cables, his skin transformed into an incomparably hard brown dinosaur hide, and his massive tail swept out, instantly smashing the enormous slab that was about to crush the civilians into pieces midair!

Vaxasaurian—Mighty Tyrannosaurus!

But it wasn't over yet!

"Still not big enough..."

Mighty Tyrannosaurus's deep, oppressive voice rang out.

Before everyone's horrified eyes, thick veins suddenly bulged across the body of the dinosaur humanoid, who was already four or five meters tall.

"Crack, crack, crack—"

The teeth-grinding sound of bones growing rang out.

Ten meters... fifteen meters... twenty meters!

Huge armored bone plates grew from his back, rising upright like those of a stegosaurus. The tip of his tail calcified into a spiked mace. With every step he took, the floating landmass trembled violently.

Humungousaur Giant Form!

"What kind of monster is that?!" Even Ultron froze for a moment. Its database contained no record of such a creature.

Jiang Li was now nearly sixty feet tall, like a Godzilla resurrected from prehistory. Standing in the street, he was even taller than the surrounding church.

"Ultron!!"

The gigantic Mighty Tyrannosaurus let out a furious roar and stretched out his massive hand, grabbing dozens of airborne Ultron robots as if they were flies.

"Crunch!"

His palm clenched, instantly crushing dozens of steel soldiers into flattened heaps of scrap. Parts rained down from above.

"Come on! Let me see how tough your metal shell is!"

Jiang Li suddenly swung his tail.

"Boom!"

The strike carried overwhelming force, sweeping through the middle of a building that had tried to serve as cover. Countless chunks of rubble, mixed with smashed robots, shot out like cannonballs and cleared every enemy from an entire city block.

This was the aesthetics of violence.

"Hulk!!"

Amid the rubble below, Hulk looked up at this "comrade" several times larger than himself. Not only was he not afraid, he excitedly pounded his chest as if he had found a kindred spirit.

Hulk roared and leaped onto Jiang Li's enormous shoulder. Using it as a springboard, he launched himself like a cannonball toward the swarm of robots in the sky.

"Whoa."

Flying through the air, Tony stared at the colossal creature and swallowed. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., remind me never to steal Jiang Li's donut when he's eating."

"Sir, Mighty Tyrannosaurus's muscle density is still increasing. His current individual strength... has already exceeded the Hulkbuster Armor's design limit."

"All right, looks like we found ourselves a good helper."

Every missile bay on Tony's armor opened, locking onto the enemy swarm in the sky.

"Avengers, the party has begun!!"

The battle instantly reached a fever pitch.

Sokovia was rising into the sky, and the air was growing thinner and thinner.