A Mutated Thanos, Beyond Words

Lin Yi tried to use Super Vision to see inside the metal, but just as with the blurry figure before, he could not see past its surface.

Lin Yi's expression cracked. He couldn't see through this, couldn't see through that. Were his Superman powers fake or what...

"Whoa, what the hell?"

Before Lin Yi could dwell on it, the Icosahedron seemed to come alive and stuck to his palm.

A tremendous force pulled at him. The Icosahedron dragged Lin Yi headfirst into the Quantum Tunnel before him...

"What the fuck!" Lin Yi was stunned. Where was it taking him?

He shook his hand violently and even used Super Strength, but he could not pry the Icosahedron loose.

Dragged helplessly through the Quantum Tunnel, Lin Yi wanted to cry.

"Fuck! I'm never trusting anyone again!"

He had no idea how long it took, but the view inside the Quantum Tunnel began changing rapidly—a sign that he was about to leave it.

Lin Yi had only one thought: Please don't take me back to prehistoric times!

Boom! His surroundings expanded in a rush as the Icosahedron led Lin Yi out of the Quantum Realm.

Lin Yi hurriedly looked around, trying to work out where the thing had taken him and when.

What he saw stopped him cold.

Before him stretched a smoking, apocalyptic wasteland.

Collapsed buildings and walls shattered by bombardment were everywhere. Smoke billowed, flames soared, and deafening explosions mingled with the shriek of energy beams in Lin Yi's ears.

Right. This was a battlefield in the middle of a fight.

Then Lin Yi looked at who was fighting and fell silent again.

A host of familiar faces were battling hideous alien monsters.

The Avengers, Valkyrie riding Pegasus, Black Panther and his army, and the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj drawing spell circles everywhere...

In the sky, Tony in his Mark LXXXV armor and Pepper Potts in blue armor were firing energy beams together.

But what was that in Tony's chest? Yellow energy was surging there. Had he put the Mind Stone in his reactor?

Wasn't this the battle between the resurrected Avengers and Thanos' Army? Peter Parker was even swinging around!

Had the Icosahedron brought him to a later point in the battle? On purpose, or by accident?

"Roar!"

A savage, furious roar rang out. Lin Yi turned toward it, his expression growing complicated once more.

What the hell is that? Thanos?

Lin Yi's eye twitched hard when he saw what was roaring.

The creature that appeared to be Thanos was at least twice the size he had been in the movies. It was swinging a glowing human figure back and forth, smashing it into the ground...

The purple monster's muscles bulged, vicious bone spikes jutted from its back, and black-purple patterns covered its body, writhing beneath its skin as if alive.

Its purple head was no better. Venom himself would have conceded defeat at the sight of that gaping mouth.

Even more baffling, did the monster have an Infinity Stone embedded in each arm? The green Time Stone was in its left arm, and the purple Power Stone in its right.

On closer inspection, the stones had no settings. They were embedded directly in its flesh!

"Roar!" The thing that appeared to be Thanos seemed to have had its fill of smashing and threw back its head for another long roar. It tossed the now-dark figure aside.

Lin Yi could see who it was now. Carol...

He felt like he was dreaming...

No, no. This had to be the Icosahedron's doing. It must have taken me to another parallel universe.

And the figure who gave me the Icosahedron—did they want me to save this universe?

Boom!

Before Lin Yi could think further, the thing that appeared to be Thanos swept its right hand out. Devastating energy blasted into the sky, knocking Tony out of the air while he was still firing that joint attack!

Tony spun through the air and, by sheer coincidence, crashed headfirst beside Lin Yi.

"Cough, cough..." Tony struggled to his feet. His faceplate opened, revealing blood at the corner of his mouth. He was clearly injured.

"Lin?" Tony cried out. His eyes brightened the moment he saw Lin Yi.

"Oh my God, how did you get out of the Quantum Realm?"

"Natasha and Clint told me you ran into an unknown figure and your Time Navigation Device was damaged!"

"Don't get me wrong. It's not that I wasn't going to rescue you. Finding someone in the Quantum Realm is hard, and I hadn't even started the research yet..."

Tony rattled on, but Lin Yi remained expressionless.

He wasn't blaming Tony. He was trying to understand what the hell was going on. This was actually his own universe?!!

What the fuck had happened?!

"Forget that for now. Is that... Thanos?" Lin Yi pointed at the monster tearing through the battlefield, at a loss for words.

Of all the movies and comics Lin Yi had seen, he had never encountered a Thanos quite so visually shocking!

And that warship in the sky, roaring with its mouth wide open and spewing monsters everywhere—was that supposed to be Thanos's Sanctuary II?!

Could someone tell me how it got a mouth and teeth? Had Thanos started working for Cthulhu?

At the mention of Thanos, Tony's pale face turned grave.

"It's Thanos. But something unexpected happened."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Nebula brought him here, and Strange confirmed it's really Thanos." Tony pointed into the distance.

There, Strange was struggling to hold back a swirling flood with magic, keeping the water from breaching its banks and drowning the battlefield.

"The magician said everything's gone off the rails. Not one of the futures he saw looked like this!"

Lin Yi looked over and met Strange's gaze just as the sorcerer turned his head, seemingly sensing him.

There was scrutiny in Strange's eyes, confusion, and more than a trace of helplessness. His lips moved, and his voice reached both men clearly.

"The timeline has changed in ways we couldn't predict. This isn't the time to discuss it. Tony told me you're extremely powerful. Whatever you can do, do it now, or it'll be too late..."

Strange was blunt about it. In more than fourteen million possible futures, he had never seen the powerful young man Tony had told him about—Lin Yi.

Nor had he seen a monstrous Thanos covered in purple-black patterns, or Thanos' Army bearing those same markings.

And now was no time to get to the bottom of it. Thanos' Army was stronger than in any future he had seen, while the number and pace of the Avengers' deaths were beyond anything Strange had anticipated.

Thanos was an unknown variable. So was Lin Yi, the powerful man Tony had described whom Strange had never seen.

If any hope remained, Strange could only place it in that other unknown variable: Lin Yi.

"To hell with it! Lin!" Tony gritted his teeth as his damaged Nano Armor rapidly repaired itself.

"The Infinity Stones are scattered across the battlefield. I'm borrowing the Mind Stone's power for now."

"The plan is to gather all Six Infinity Stones again! If we can make another Snap, those alien bugs and that crazed purple freak won't stand a chance!"

"Lin, I need your help!"

The Mind Stone's surging energy contorted Tony's face, but its power was also what had kept him going this long.

Lin Yi knew exactly what mattered. No matter what Thanos and his vast army had mutated into, the best solution was still one Snap to wipe them out!

He took a deep breath and pushed his questions aside. His focus locked onto the most conspicuous target on the battlefield. "Got it. Help the others. Leave Thanos to me!"

Before the words had left his mouth, Lin Yi shot away like a cannonball. An instant later, he appeared before the roaring, mutated Thanos.

Without a word, Lin Yi drove a fist packed with terrifying power straight at Thanos's face, its passage tearing through the air with a piercing shriek!