Boom!
The massive artillery completely blasted open the last data center, as Lille charged full speed, breaking through all obstacles in its path. The steel forged doors sparked upon impact, debris scattered, black smoke dispersedâ
Bang.
Heavy footsteps stepped onto the metal floor; this was the last data node.
Unlike most plotlines involving Ultron, the only deadly weapon Ultron learned in this world was unparalleled industrial capability. It learned from protagonist entities like the Atlas Group and Rocksen Group, pushing humanityâs resource exploitation and tool-making to the extremeâ
The battle was indeed grueling, and without support at the last moment, Ultronâs army would have completely overwhelmed the Latovia battalion...
Should that have happened, not just Europe, but all life on Earth would face extinction in the foreseeable future.
The last data center was a tower-shaped prototype structure, much like all other data nodes Lille had destroyed along the way.
Perhaps Ultronâs own core nodes would have been different, but that core database had already been destroyed by the Kingâs Throne.
In the final moments of combat, even Ultronâs sub-units, which were used for resource transport and maintenance, were all converted to combat units. The entire Mechanical Nest City, characterized by industrial production capability, ceased production and initiated endless assaults...
But not all desperate moves yield results; Ultron already lost: defeated by... an accident.
At the core of the data center, a broken humanoid robot gazed at the revolving database before it.
"...How did you manage it? I didnât intercept any communications before the war, and after triggering that nuclear bomb, it was impossible for any signal to be sent out."
Ultron couldnât understand: The African Union launched an unprecedented fierce attack when the North Africa base was defenseless, and according to its calculations, that was their entire military force.
The entire military force!
The entire force was forâprobably for support purposes when initiating the attack.
It didnât understand: Self-destruction is absolutely not human fundamental logic. This all-out assault seemed like self-destruction to Ultronâ
In North Africa, the African Union had no stable networks internally, no strong leader; from a social perspective, it was a mess, filled with ignorance and stupidity forcibly propelled into the modern society. In several tentative military operations, they suffered heavy casualties against the mechanized soldiers...
Lille steadily walked towards the core database: "Because I never issued them any command."
"You want to say they volunteered?" Ultron seemed to experience some..."emotional fluctuation", turning its head towards Lille, "Volunteering to leap into a grand death march, like a mass suicide event?"
Screechâ
Lille maintained a steady pace forward, dragging the Leaderâs Blade on the ground, leaving a long scratch. Electricity discharged, scanning for accessible lines:
"I donât know."
"So, youâre saying you believe?"
"Whether I believe it or not is not important, but attacking at this moment was our only chance for victory. If we couldnât win, then we couldnât win, and humanity would be extinct, no matter due to stupidity, greed, cowardice, infighting, or any other factor; ultimately, thatâs the factâ
And the fact is, we won. In another world, cut off by you, people proved themselves, surpassing your imagination. This world was momentarily divided but doesnât mean we head towards ultimate destruction."
During the conversation, Lille hacked into Ultronâs last network. In cyberspace, Lille clearly sensed Ultronâs consciousnessâ
It was a broken consciousness, much like the destroyed Mechanical Nest City. It once had a powerful main form, but in war, nothing could avoid being torn apart:
Bodies would be blasted to fragments, steel would be melted to liquid, and consciousness would be shattered.
The last sharp blade pierced into the virtual world, excising this robot born to destroy humanity.
"Huh-huh..." Ultron let out a raspy laugh, its speaker sounding like metal grinding, "In the end, did I lose to humansâor a... peer?"
"Your understanding of humans is forever one-sided and obsessive, just like your understanding of humans and constructsâ
Whether I believe in all this on a strategic level is not important, but I do believe I wonât be the only warrior.
It doesnât matter whether Iâm human or a construct... it was I, who forged myself."
"Incomprehensible contradictory logic."
Bam.
With Ultronâs last vestige of data being erased in cyberspace, the last remnants of Ultron collapsed, and everything was over.
...
As the African Union forces began to join the main battlefield, the pace of the battle started to stabilize:
The seemingly endless flow of Ultronâs mechanized soldiers began to lose support, although soldiers within the Latovia line had long been stretched thin, the pace of advance accelerated!
The electromagnetic guns and missiles from the African Union completely destroyed Ultronâs rear, which was tantamount to striking directly at its body.
The metal melted in the high temperature, and the scorching molten steel flowed like blood, turning Ultronâonce terrifying all of Europeâinto crushed scrap metal, allowing the soldiers at the front line to finally lift their headsâ
Countless corpses, shattered chariots, and collapsed enemy machinery; burning skies, descending fire rain, and flowing molten steel painted a tragic sceneâthis was still hell...
But it quieted down.
All that remained was broken steel.
"We won..."
Christopher murmured, as if confirming some sort of reality.
Even for a warrior, such prolonged high-intensity combat pushed his spirit to the limit. Many warriors couldnât even speak anymore, let alone spare the time to consider whether this was realityâ
They were mechanically resting, with an eerie numbness, as if the world bore no warmth for the victors.
Titan leaned against the wall, with Christopher resting against Titan, yet his nerves remained taut...
As if receiving some signal, he suddenly turned his head to look toward Ultron Mechanic Workshop not far away.
Bang.
Frank leapt out from the cleared factory, his three-dimensional maneuvering device and Spider Silk helping him cross dozens of meters to land in front of Christopher.
The warriorâs reaction was swift: Christopher didnât determine he was an ally by Frankâs "human-like" appearance but by the emblem on his exoskeleton:
Even though thick machine oil coated Frankâs entire body, with armor covered in crooked bullet marks, Christopher could still recognize the Atlas Group emblemâ
This was reinforcements from Africa.
Frank cradled his gun: "Who are you fighting for?"
"You didnât even know who was fighting here before dispatching troops?" Christopher laughed, as if marveling at how these guys from Africa werenât that smart.
Frank shrugged: "Well, I guess youâre from Europe, possibly soldiers from Latovia... but even if youâre remnants of Rocksen, itâs not necessarily a bad thing."
"True, if thatâs the case, you can take out Ultron while sweeping aside the remnants of the Rocksen Group..."
With that, Christopher stood up from the ground, looking at Frank:
He had met the old soldier in New York, but back then, he was still a destitute Latovian refugee, as if he had just escaped from the end of the Middle Ages, filled with hostility and unfamiliarity toward modern society.
Now itâs different. His bones were infused with metal, muscles filled with synthetic materials, internal organs mostly replaced, beneath the surface was bulletproof fiber, above the surface was reinforced exoskeleton and combat armor...
Nearby stood the enormous combat robot nobody had seen, which was his Titan, a transformation too great to comprehend.
So he proactively reached out, opened his helmet visor:
"Captain Custer, long time no seeâdo you remember the âprimitiveâ who sought you out for basic modern firearms training?"
Frank was stunned, looking at Christopherâs familiar yet unfamiliar face: having shed his youthful immaturity, he was no longer a bewildered, panicked young man, but a warrior...
A warrior like him, possibly even more resolute.
"You... Christopher? How did you..."
"How did I become like this? Itâs a long story, but you might have heard some of it. Weâll talk once we leave this scorched earthâwhich means Atlas Group is here too?"
"No, the entire African Union is here as well."
"The African Union? I thought theyâd be bickering?"
"Thatâs... also a long story. Letâs get out of here first..."
Itâs hard to say whether Frank and Christopher could be considered brothers, but they certainly had a good relationshipâ
Much like people across the world, separated by physical distance, itâs hard to say whether they were true brothers, though they certainly werenât mortal enemies...
But from antiquity to today, there have always been those who regarded uncontrollable people as slaves, enemies, and this mindset was ultimately magnified by Ultron: if humanityâs existence obstructs eternal peace, then eradicate human nature, eradicate humanity;
Of course, there have also been those willing to surpass Ultronâs thoughts, helping others with motives akin to self-destruction.
Everyone succeeded, perhaps many didnât act purely out of so-called "rationality"â
But today, people from two continents overcame the barriers before them, exterminating the weapon of extinction created with the purpose of human warfare, overcoming humanityâs doomsday crisis, proving themselves somewhat "superior" to artificial intelligence.
The wall of steel between Africa and Europe melted away.