"Cough cough..."
Tony coughed twice, breaking the absolute silence of the ruins.
He raised his left arm, the tattered nano-armor making a grating metallic scraping sound, and pointed his finger at Kang the Conqueror lay unconscious in a pile of rubble not far away.
"I want to kill this flashy-dressed black hippie."
Tony shrugged, and several charred pieces of armor fell from his shoulder and hit the ground.
"Then Valeria's parents disagreed, and we started fighting."
Thor turned his head and scanned his surroundings.
The massive load-bearing wall was broken into three sections, the outer shell of the quantum collider was twisted and deformed, and sparks were still flying from the internal circuitry.
The ground had sunk two meters down, and the ground was covered with charred metal debris. The air was filled with the smell of ozone and burnt insulators.
"You destroyed an entire building just to fight over one person?"
Thor pointed to a piece of broken concrete at his feet, kicked it, and the stone rolled to Tony's feet, hitting his steel boots.
" Emma Frost is demanding tens of tons of Vibranium in compensation, and I think that's too little. The reconstruction work here is enough to keep Erik and his Mutants construction crew working non-stop for a month. You guys really know how to demolish houses."
Reed took half a step forward, blocking Susan's path.
He raised his right hand, his fingers moving rapidly in the air, and a blue holographic projection lit up in the ruins, constructing several intersecting timeline models.
" Thor, this Kang the Conqueror must not be killed."
Reed spoke at an extremely fast pace, his finger pointing to one of the branches of a timeline, the projection magnifying to show countless intricate branches.
"According to my multiverse detector data, as long as he dies at this point in time, the time branch will fluctuate violently."
Other parallel universes would immediately detect the absence of this anchor point. The timeline has a self-repairing mechanism; it will create new variants to fill the gap. You kill one, and countless others will appear. You can't kill them all. This is a topological Paradox of time.
Tony chuckled, then completely removed his mask, revealing a dust-covered face.
"Then kill them one by one, or a whole group of them."
Tony crossed his arms and raised his chin.
" Stark Industries ' firepower is enough to blast them to smithereens. At worst, I'll rush to manufacture several thousand anti-Consciousness armors overnight. I can even build the Sunset Protocol's anti- Sentry armor; dealing with a few time travelers in bodysuits is no problem at all. As long as the firepower is strong enough, no matter how many variants they come from, I'll send them all to the incinerator."
Dr. Banner stood to one side, his explosively powerful physique taut with muscles.
" Tony, this isn't a problem that can be solved with physical attacks. We're fighting against the inevitability of time."
Banner pointed to Reed's holographic projection.
"If killing could solve problems, the Avengers in other parallel universes would have already smashed them into mincemeat."
Thor looked at Tony and shook his head.
" Banner is right, it's not that simple, Tony."
Thor strode over to the unconscious Kang and looked down at the tattered, futuristic-looking suit of armor he was wearing.
" Kang the Conqueror can be described as a troublemaker throughout the multiverse. He is not a simple life form, but an inevitable Paradox. His real name is Nathaniel Richards, a scholar from the 31st century."
Thor looked up, his gaze sweeping over Reed before returning to Tony.
"As long as human civilization develops to the 31st century, and as long as someone invents a time machine, Kang will inevitably be born. He will discover the existence of parallel universes and make contact with variants of other universes. They will share technology, wage war against each other, and eventually form the Council of Kangs."
Thor spread his arms and made a circle in the air.
"This is a point in time that has solidified after technology has evolved to its extreme. As long as humanity continues to develop technology, and as long as time continues to flow, this point will always exist."
Thor lowered his hand.
"Unless you immediately lock down all human technology in the universe, smash all laboratories, and force humanity back to the Stone Age, completely abandoning science, Kang will inevitably emerge. You can't kill a concept."
Tony fell silent, his tattered armor emitting a faint humming sound. He stared at Thor, his mind racing.
"With your current strength, you can't even handle these disgusting guys?"
Tony pointed a finger at Thor.
"Didn't you just enter the Multiverse Level? You can't even handle a 31st-century scientist? You can even beat the Celestials, why can't you handle this little minion?"
Thor stood still, his casual clothes without a single wrinkle.
He raised his right hand.
Bring your index and middle fingers together and gently draw a line in the air.
A terrifying power, far beyond the comprehension of everyone present, gathered at their fingertips.
It was an interweaving of pure Law of Oblivion and Law of Reality, even mixed with a trace of high-dimensional calculation and analysis.
The air in mid-air was instantly torn apart, and a black crack appeared out of thin air. There was no energy leakage, but it carried an absolute determination to erase everything.
The surrounding light was swallowed by the crack, and even the passage of time seemed to slow down at this moment.
"Of course I can handle it."
Thor stared at the crack.
"I can completely erase the concept of 'Kang' from the very foundational logic of the multiverse. He will have never existed in any timeline or parallel universe. His time machine and his council will all be reduced to nothing."
Thor withdrew his hand, and the crack vanished instantly, leaving not a trace, and the air resumed its flow.
"But if I erased the concept of Kang from the multiverse, the entire multiverse would immediately descend into chaos."
Thor lowered his arm.
"All timelines that have ever intersected with Kang will collapse instantly. Countless parallel universes will collide and destroy each other due to the loss of their time anchors. Trillions of trillions of lives will be wiped out in an instant. The entire structure of the multiverse will disintegrate."
Thor looked at Tony.
"I'm not confident I can clean up a mess of this magnitude right now. You understand?"
Absolute silence fell over the ruins.
Wanda stood behind Thor, silently watching everything unfold before her without uttering a sound.
Strange leaned against the broken wall, his hands hanging at his sides, his fingers trembling uncontrollably.
The magical tomes of Kamar-Taj never recorded any means of erasing the concept of multiverse.
He performs surgeries during the day and practices magic at night.
His pride was shattered, leaving him only with awe of this supreme power. He finally realized that he was forced to sign a labor contract, and he would likely never be able to evade it for the rest of his life.
Doom stood in the shadows, his breathing completely still beneath the metal mask.
His green cloak hung to the ground, covered in dust. He had always tried to control his destiny with magic and technology, believing himself to be the most intelligent being.
But when Thor demonstrated his power to erase concepts, Doom felt a pure fear rising within him.
This power beyond dimensions completely shattered his inner pride.
He was forced to admit that the gap between himself and Thor was now an insurmountable chasm.
Magneto Erik looked at Thor and his worldview was drastically shaken. It turned out that the survival of Mutants was not even as important as a grain of sand on the scale of the multiverse.
He was glad that he had brought the Mutants to the Knowhere and stood on Thor's side.
Reed's brain raced, and his logical model completely collapsed.
He had always believed that the threat from the multiverse needed to be defended against through technology, but Thor could eliminate the threat directly at its source. His stance and understanding were completely overturned.
Tony didn't speak; he raised his left arm and tapped the side of his helmet.
" JARVIS, establish a multiverse timeline collapse model. Analyze the consequences of the concept erasure Thor just mentioned. Find alternative solutions."
JARVIS's synthesized electronic sounds came from inside the helmet.
"Sir, the computational load is too high. The current armor processing module is severely damaged and needs to be connected to Stark Industries' main server for array calculations. It is estimated to consume 70% of the computing power."
Reed strode over to Tony's side.
" Tony, open up your data interface to me. I have the Future Foundation's time-travel algorithm, which can be combined with JARVIS. We must find a solution that can both limit Kang and prevent the collapse of the multiverse."
Reed's fingers tapped rapidly in mid-air, bringing up rows of complex physical formulas and time models, while the data from the quantum probability cloud swirled continuously in the projection.
" Old Popsicle wouldn't agree to me sharing my data with just anyone."
Tony complained, but his fingers moved rapidly across the armored arm, and a holographic data panel popped up and was pushed directly in front of Reed.
"Here you go. Hurry up. I don't want to keep facing this black hippie. Input your spacetime anchor parameters and see if you can lock onto his time jump frequency."
The two immediately huddled together, rapidly swiping across the holographic screen amidst the ruins to discuss possible solutions.
A series of data streams flashed rapidly in mid-air, the blue light illuminating the serious faces of the two men.
Valeria rose from the charred metal wreckage.
She was still clutching the charred hard drive tightly in her hands.
She ignored Reed and Tony's discussion, as well as Susan, who stood to the side with a worried expression.
Valeria walked step by step to Thor's side.
Her golden hair was disheveled, and her face was covered in dust and blood.
The once sharp-tongued and arrogant seventeen-year-old genius scientist, the girl who always treated others as research subjects, now looked incredibly vulnerable.
She stretched out her injured right hand; the sharp edge of the metal had cut the back of her hand, and blood was still seeping out, dripping from her fingertips onto the dusty ground.
She grabbed Thor's arm.
He tugged at it twice with force.
Thor lowered his head and looked at the girl beside him.
Valeria's eyes were red and swollen with tears, which slid down her dirty cheeks, leaving a clear tear stain.
" Thor."
Valeria tilted her head back, staring intently at Thor's face. Her voice was trembling with suppressed sobs.
They ruined all my hard work.
She held the charred hard drive up to Thor; the black metal casing was completely carbonized, and the internal storage crystals had shattered into powder.
That was the data she had collected from 3,600 parallel universes, the result of all her efforts over the past few months hiding in the Knowhere.
"Can you help me restore it?"
Valeria's fingers trembled, and blood was still seeping from the edges of her nails.
She stubbornly held up that piece of scrap metal.
Please.