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Chapter 356: Ten Infinity Stones Acquired
🕑 Added 2025-09-30 15:21:39 +0000 UTC
“Homelander! It has to be him!”
“The Homelander is finally here—we can breathe again!”
The Avengers weren’t fools. Iron Man, Captain America, and the others instantly recognized the signs.
The sudden sonic boom that split the heavens. The turbulent shockwaves tearing through the battlefield. The blinding afterimages of destruction left in the wake of something too fast to see.
Someone was tearing through Ultron’s machines at impossible speed.
A speed so great the human eye couldn’t even register it.
There was only one person they knew who could move like that.
Homelander.
“Impossible!”
Ultron Prime’s voice trembled. His systems screamed alarms, scanning the battlefield in vain. His optical sensors almost glitched out at the impossible readings.
This wasn’t a joke. This was raw data.
The being that had just appeared was faster—vastly faster—than him. The gulf between their speeds was not even comparable.
Could it be Quicksilver? The speed resembled him—but no. Quicksilver was fast, yes, but this was beyond anything Ultron had ever seen. And Quicksilver could not fly.
Yet this… Homelander could.
“Homelander…” Ultron whispered the unfamiliar name. Across his countless traversals of the multiverse, he had never once catalogued it.
Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!
Before he could process further, the swarm of machines around him—his endless army—was annihilated in an instant. The battlefield that had once crawled with his soldiers now lay silent, burning husks all that remained.
And then—
Whoosh!
A streak of light carved upward, piercing the massive “sphere” looming above—the mechanical nest churning out reinforcements.
Boom!
The entire structure detonated, raining fire and molten steel. In the inferno’s glow, a sonic crack split the air.
Ultron turned—and froze.
A blur coalesced into a face. A young man floated before him, calm, impassive, eyes like polished obsidian.
A face Ultron had never seen in all the infinite reflections of reality.
“Interesting.” Ultron’s lips curled, his tone a mix of curiosity and cold disdain. “To think this universe birthed something worth noticing.”
For all his surprise, he wasn’t afraid. Why should he be? He bore six Infinity Stones in his very body, their combined might elevating him to the peak of the multiverse. He had already humbled the Watcher himself, forced him into retreat.
And even if his body fell, Ultron had no true death. His essence lived in the network. As long as circuitry existed, he was eternal.
He was immortal.
“You won’t find it so amusing soon,” Alex said flatly. His voice was calm, but beneath it ran a steel edge of vigilance. He knew exactly what he was facing.
Ultron Prime, armed with six Stones and endless digital lives, was perhaps the deadliest opponent Alex had encountered—save Arishem himself. But even the Celestial was no longer his enemy, severed from Earth’s fate by Alex’s hand.
That left Ultron. And Alex had already prepared for this. He had seen What If…? He knew the weakness.
Sizzle—
Twin beams of heat vision tore from Alex’s eyes, streaking crimson toward Ultron.
“Hm. Intriguing.” Ultron tilted his head. The Mind Stone embedded in his forehead flared with blinding power, releasing a torrent of golden energy to meet Alex’s attack.
The beams collided.
Crackling light shredded the air between them, the sheer pressure warping reality itself. For a moment, the clash was balanced.
Then Ultron’s power surged, pressing Alex’s rays backward inch by inch.
The Avengers’ hearts clenched. They had never seen Alex falter before—not even slightly. Watching his heat vision lose ground was like watching the sky itself begin to crack.
But Alex’s expression never wavered. His eyes narrowed, cold and steady.
Because this was what he wanted.
In the blinding chaos of the beam struggle, Alex’s mind stretched outward. Invisible waves of telekinetic force wrapped around Ultron’s armored body like a vice.
And then—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The stones embedded in Ultron’s chest tore free, ripped into the air as if yanked by a god’s unseen hand.
Ultron’s face twisted. “No!”
He broke off his attack at once, lunging for the drifting gems. But before he could move an inch, the air shattered.
Boom!
Alex moved. A sonic boom cracked the sky as he intercepted, fist driving into Ultron’s chest with meteoric force. The robot tyrant was sent careening through rubble, carving a flaming scar across the battlefield.
The stones vanished—snatched into Alex’s grasp in a blur.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield was silent.
Then Alex straightened, his silhouette framed against the burning horizon. In his hand, five Infinity Stones pulsed with cosmic light, their energies harmonizing with the five already in his possession.
A faint, satisfied smile touched his lips.
Five more claimed.
Ten Infinity Stones in total.
