#1004 - Molten iron

Boom!

The massive cannon completely breached the last data center. Riel, at full speed, smashed through everything in his path. The steel-forged door sparked upon impact, debris flying, black smoke billowing—

Bang.

Heavy footsteps echoed on the metal floor. This was the final data node.

Unlike most incarnations of Ultron, this world's Ultron had mastered a single, lethal weapon: unparalleled industrial capacity. It emulated the behavior of "protagonists" like the Atlas Corporation and the Roxxon Group, pushing humanity's resource-extraction-and-tool-creation abilities to the extreme—

"...How did you do it? Before the battle, I didn't intercept any communication signals. And after detonating that nuclear bomb, it was even less likely that any signals could have been transmitted."

Ultron didn't understand: the African Union had launched an unprecedented offensive, taking advantage of the weakened state of the North African base. According to its calculations, that was their entire military force.

Their entire military force!

Their entire military force, sent to support—it must have been an attack launched for the purpose of support.

It didn't understand: self-destruction was definitely not the fundamental logic of humanity. This all-out offensive, abandoning everything, seemed like self-destruction to Ultron—

In North Africa, the African Union lacked a stable network, a strong leader. From a societal perspective, it was completely disorganized, filled with ignorant and foolish individuals, forcibly thrust into modern society. In several tentative military actions, they had suffered heavy casualties in the face of the machine soldiers.

Riel walked step by step towards the core database: "Because I didn't issue any orders to them."

"Are you saying they volunteered?" Ultron seemed to exhibit some... "emotional fluctuation," turning its head to look at Riel. "Voluntarily jumping into a massive death march, like a collective suicide event?"

Screech—

Riel maintained his steady pace forward, the Leader's Blade in his hand dragging along the ground, leaving a long scratch. Electricity crackled, searching for an accessible line:

"I don't know."

"So you're saying you believe it?"

"Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant. But at this point in time, a surprise attack was the only chance of victory. If we can't win, then we can't win. Humanity will be wiped out, whether due to stupidity, greed, cowardice, infighting, or other factors. The ultimate fact remains—

But the fact is, we won. In another world, separated by you, people proved themselves, exceeding your imagination. This world was briefly divided, but that doesn't mean we have to head towards final destruction."

During the conversation, Riel had already hacked into Ultron's final network. In cyberspace, Ultron's consciousness was clearly perceived by Riel—

It was a fragmented consciousness, just like the destroyed mechanical hive. It originally had a powerful body, but in war, nothing can avoid being torn apart:

Bodies are blown to pieces, steel is melted into water, and consciousness shatters.

The final sharp blade pierced the virtual world, removing the robot born to destroy humanity.

"Heh heh..." Ultron let out a hoarse laugh, the speakers sounding like metal grinding against metal. "Did I ultimately lose to humanity—or to a...kindred spirit?"

"Your perception of humanity is always one-sided and biased, just like your understanding of humans and artificial creations—

Whether I believe in all of this is strategically unimportant, but I do believe that I won't be the only warrior.

Whether I am human or artificial is not contradictory...I am who forged myself."

"Incomprehensible, contradictory logic."

Bang.

As Ultron's last bit of data was cleared from cyberspace, Ultron's final remains collapsed. It was all over.

As the African Union's troops began to join the main battlefield, the rhythm of the battle began to stabilize:

The seemingly endless Ultron machine soldiers began to lose support. Although the soldiers in the Latverian lines were already stretched thin, the pace of the advance accelerated!

The electromagnetic cannons and missiles from the African Union completely destroyed Ultron's rear, which was equivalent to directly hitting its body.

Metal melted in the high temperature, and scalding steel flowed like blood, turning Ultron, which had made all of Europe tremble, into crushed scrap metal. The soldiers on the front lines could finally raise their heads—

Countless corpses, shattered chariots, and collapsed enemy machines; a burning sky, falling fire rain, and flowing steel formed a tragic scene. This was still hell.

But it had quieted down.

All that remained was broken steel.

"We won..."

Christopher muttered to himself, as if confirming some kind of reality.

Even as a Titan pilot, such a long period of high-intensity combat had pushed his spirit to its limit. Many of the soldiers could no longer even speak, let alone take the time to think about whether this was reality—

They were just mechanically resting, with an eerie numbness, as if this world had no warmth belonging to the victors.

The Titan leaned against the wall, and Christopher leaned against the Titan to rest, but his nerves were still tense.

As if receiving some kind of signal, he suddenly turned his head to look at the Ultron machine soldier factory not far away.

Bang.

Frank leaped out from the cleared factory, his three-dimensional maneuver gear and spider silk helping him directly cross dozens of meters to land in front of Christopher.

The Titan pilot reacted extremely quickly: Christopher didn't rely on the other party being "humanoid" to judge that this was an ally, but saw the symbol on the exoskeleton:

Even though viscous oil had covered Frank's entire body, and the armor on his body was riddled with bullet holes and crooked, he could still recognize the Atlas Corporation's logo—

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These were reinforcements from Africa.

Frank held his gun: "Who are you fighting for?"

"You deployed troops without even knowing who's fighting here?" Christopher laughed, as if marveling that these guys from Africa weren't so smart after all.

Frank shrugged: "Well, I guess you're from Europe, maybe soldiers from Latveria. But even if you're the remnants of Roxxon, it's not a bad thing."

"That's right, if that's the case, you can wipe out the Roxxon Group while you're taking down Ultron..."

Saying that, Christopher stood up from the ground and looked at Frank:

He had seen this veteran in New York. The two had also met, but at that time, he was still a poor Latverian refugee, as if he had just escaped from the late Middle Ages, full of hostility and unfamiliarity with modern society.

Now it was different. His bones were infused with metal, his muscles were filled with artificial materials, his internal organs had basically been replaced, his skin was made of bulletproof fiber, and above his skin was an exoskeleton and combat armor for enhanced support.

Next to him was a huge combat robot that no one had ever seen before, his Titan. This change was too great.

So he took the initiative to extend his hand and opened his faceplate:

"Captain Kastner, long time no see—I don't know if you remember a...caveman who asked you to train him in the basics of modern firearms?"

Frank was stunned, looking at Christopher's familiar yet unfamiliar face: having shed his naivete, the person in front of him was no longer a confused and panicked young man, but a warrior.

A warrior like him, perhaps even more determined.

"You...Christopher? How did you..."

"How did I become like this? It's a long story, but you may have heard something. Let's talk about it after we leave this scorched earth—so Atlas Corporation came here?"

"No, the entire African Union did."

"The African Union? I thought they would be arguing?"

"That's...also a long story. Let's get out of here first."

It was hard to say what kind of brothers Frank and Christopher could be considered, but the relationship was definitely good—

Just like the people in this world separated by physical distance, it was hard to say what kind of real brothers the people on the entire Earth could be considered, but they certainly wouldn't be mortal enemies.

But from ancient times to the present, there have been people who treat uncontrollable people as slaves and enemies, and this way of thinking was ultimately carried forward by Ultron: if there are humans, eternal peace cannot be achieved, then eliminate humanity and human nature;

Of course, there were also people willing to go beyond Ultron's ideas, helping others with almost self-destructive motives.

Everyone succeeded, and perhaps many people did not act based on so-called "rationality"—

Only today, people from two continents broke through the barriers in front of them, eliminated the weapons of mass destruction created by humans for the purpose of war, overcame the catastrophe of human extinction, and proved that they were still somewhat "better" than artificial intelligence.

The steel wall between Africa and Europe was melted.