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He raised his hand and flung Tony away violently.

Tony rolled around in the ruins until he crashed into a half-collapsed wall and finally stopped.

Even though he suffered injuries that would be fatal to an ordinary person, the Mad Titan's amazing physical abilities allowed him to maintain a relatively good condition.

He leaped to Tony's side, looked at Tony lying on the ground almost unable to move, and grabbed Tony's head from behind.

“Although these things are no longer important, I don’t mind adding some old friends to my story.” Thanos said, turning Tony over and reaching his left hand toward the crimson reactor on Tony’s chest.

Tony's mouth seemed to move.

Thanos didn't hear what he said, so he lowered his head.

This is a respectable opponent, even if he will, like every opponent he has faced in the past, leave the stage in disgrace.

"I create the future"

Thanos' headless body slowly fell to the ground.

"Why?" The Grandmaster gasped for breath, looking at the screen in front of him and at Colt across the table.

“A chess player doesn’t put himself on the board.” Colt calmly put away both players’ cards. “That’s not always an advantage.”

"We are different!" The Celestial Venerable completely lost his usual composure.

"Perhaps," Colt replied calmly. "Sometimes, being aloof is itself a flaw."

The Celestial Venerable gritted his teeth.

“A noble player may sacrifice any piece, but never himself.” Colt laughed, picking up the deck and beginning to shuffle. “You’re right, I understand that well—control, manipulation, it feels good. But ultimately, the player is only part of the game, isn’t he?”

The Celestial Venerable looked on incredulously.

“After going through a lot, especially,” Colt paused, “I started to think, is being a chess player, being an outsider, being a manipulator really that good?”

"In this universe, no living being can be omniscient or omnipotent. Even the Eternal and the Living Tribunal are ultimately just so-called gods who operate according to the rules of the universe itself. They are just characters in this drama."

"You think we are special, but in this vast universe, being special is perhaps just a kind of universality."

He raised his hand and touched the Grandmaster's screen.

"They each have their own lives and their own stories. Are we really any different from them? In this vast universe, what intelligent being doesn't have their own unique experiences that make them the protagonist of their own 'story'?"

The scene on screen subtly shifted from the Avengers fighting against the Chris and Crew alliance to ordinary civilians scattering and fleeing during the battle.

"They may be insignificant, they may be humble, they may be easily crushed into dust, but who can say that their experiences are not the entirety of their lives?"

Colt looked into the Grandmaster's eyes: "The high and mighty chess player should never have existed in the first place. Or rather, the chess player himself is just a piece. You think you are playing an unprecedented game, but perhaps this game was never a game at all from the beginning."

"What is that!" The Celestial Venerable gasped for breath, his eyes bloodshot.

“It’s nothing,” Colt said. “You ask me why I’m willing to bet everything on you? Because I’m not playing at all.”

"You are the best game master in the universe. I can't beat you in the game, so the only way for me to defeat you is to turn all of this into my rules and make this bet no longer a game."

"Billions of lives on Earth depend on our gamble, don't they? So let's make you part of the stakes too, and make this game no longer a game."

"After all, a high-ranking chess player would never exchange pieces with a lowly pawn, but I am not a chess player."

The Grandmaster stared blankly at Colt, his lips trembling, yet he couldn't utter a single word.

Dark red energy suddenly surged out, enveloping the entire battlefield.

"what!!!!!"

The furious roar seemed to echo throughout the entire universe.

The Avengers and mutants looked terrified.

The fleet in the sky began to distort without warning, and then disappeared, as if it had never existed.

"You have taken the last part of my life!" A woman draped in a scarlet cloak suddenly appeared in the center of the battlefield, twisted, chaotic energy writhing around her.

"Wanda!" Pym roared, staring at the almost torn-together ground. "Calm down! You've lost control! Your magic is tearing reality apart! If you continue, the entire Earth will vanish from the universe!"

“What’s the point!” Wanda turned and glared at him, roaring, then, “Shut up!”

The distorted energy of chaotic magic emanated from her eyes, and the entire battlefield fell silent.

All the Avengers and mutants could feel a familiar fear enveloping them.

This woman is no longer Wanda Maximoff; her only title now is Scarlet Witch.

"I've lost everything, everything!" The witch stared at the fleet before her, now completely twisted and utterly powerless. "Why must you take away the only thing I have left!"

"He's dead!" the witch roared. "Erased from reality! Even a distortion of reality can't find him! His past self, his present self, his future self—all gone!"

"Why, why do you keep taking away what little I have left!"

The crimson chaos magic continued to expand.

“Wanda, calm down. Your magic is getting out of control. You are dragging Earth into a rift in reality.” Black Panther looked at the wildly fluctuating readings on the instruments. “No matter what happens, we can find a way to solve it, but if Earth disappears, it will be a catastrophe for all of us.”

"A catastrophe?" The witch laughed, slowly raising her hand.

All the Kree and Skrull figures began to shake violently, like an old television set that had lost its signal.

"I could wipe you all from this universe with the flick of my finger, but I didn't do it from the very beginning," the witch sneered. "But I didn't do it then, so why shouldn't I now?"

"What do you mean you can't send Earth back to its original location?" Colt looked at the Grandmaster adjusting the instruments before him. "Do you intend to break the contract?"

"No, no, no." The Grandmaster seemed to have recovered from the previous blow. "Since I lost the bet, I will definitely fulfill the agreement as agreed. But now, Earth is shrouded in another, more powerful energy, which has severed the connection between the instrument and Earth. I have no way to send it back."

"What kind of energy?" Colt had a bad feeling.

“Chaos magic.” The Grandmaster sighed with his eyes closed. “I’m sorry, someone forcibly reversed the rules of reality, so he paid the price.”

Colt's eyes widened: "You can't be saying..."

"I'm sorry, but it seems the author of this story isn't planning to end all this so easily." The Grandmaster closed his eyes.

A golden light descended from the sky, severing the chaotic magic that had enveloped everything in the middle, revealing the pitch-black sky.

"Wanda, stop! You'll destroy the whole planet!" Beast and Jean descended from the sky.

"Attack!" Having successfully returned to reality, the Kree and Skrulls immediately ordered an attack on the witch.

A golden sword light swung out again, blocking all the attacks.

Only then did everyone realize that it was a young man with dark green skin, who was holding an ancient longsword and blocking the two sides of the battlefield. Behind him stood the Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and S.W.O.R.D.

"Get out of my way, all of you!" Without giving anyone a chance to explain, the witch roared. Jean and Susan tried to raise their shields, but their psychic defenses were easily torn apart as if they were made of paper.

Little Hulk raised his longsword and slashed at the chaotic and twisted magic.

The golden light barely managed to block the magical attack, but it was steadily waning.

"Wanda!" Voodoo appeared on the battlefield, pulling two teenagers with him. "Stop."

A hint of panic and fear finally flashed across the witch's face, which had been filled with anger and hatred.

“You don’t want to destroy everything in the end, do you?” Everyone could see Voodoo’s breathing quickened and his chest heaved violently with fear, while the Eye of Agamotto floated, shimmering with an almost invisible fluorescence in the dark red light.

"puff!"

The next moment, the witch vanished into thin air, and all the chaos magic disappeared. Everything that had just happened seemed like an illusion.

Then, as time passed, the pitch-black night transformed into the blue sky and white clouds that everyone was intimately familiar with, yet only truly appreciated after its loss.

35. Game Ending

Colt emerged from the blinding light that descended from the sky and silently gazed at the city before him, now reduced to ruins.

“You did a great job.” Reed stepped forward. “You saved the world this time.”

Colt didn't respond to him, but instead looked up at Hulk, who was holding the Sword in the Cosmic Stone high in the air and had subdued the two great empires.

“He finally drew his sword,” Colt said.

"We deciphered the coordinates Thanos left for Ronan and located the Infinity Knights' base. They used magic to move the castle from the Andromeda Galaxy to the interior of Earth," Reed said.

"You arrived just in time when Yongrog led his men to seize the Sword in the Stone, stopping the Kree and Skrulls and giving Teddy time to draw the sword," Colt remarked. "The Sovereign of Dorok..."

“What follows is a matter of cosmic diplomacy, and we shouldn’t interfere too much.” Reed looked at the S.H.I.E.L.D. representative who was negotiating with Teddy. “They will arrange negotiations between the two great empires and the political leaders of various countries afterward.”

……

Inside Avengers Tower.

Pym and Tony, shown on the projector, were examining Tony Stark in the life support pod.

"To be honest, things are much better than I thought." The projected Tony stood with his hands on his hips. "The Power Stone only damaged some physiological functions and caused some degree of brain damage."

“You can be completely blunt, Tony.” Pym took his glasses off his nose. “It’s not a complicated question. In other words, you’re in a vegetative state right now.”

"He's just a vegetable, it's no big deal, is it?" Tony shrugged. "That was Thanos. I killed him, so I have to pay a price. Otherwise, what are the people he killed supposed to think?"

Pym angrily threw the tablet in his hand at "Tony." The moment the tablet passed through the projection, the projection from the armor shook, and then the tablet fell to the ground and shattered.

“Hey!” Tony yelled, “You can’t just smash equipment like that because I have money. You know, maintaining the disaster damage control team costs a lot of money, and I also have to maintain the equipment for most of the Avengers!”

Pym ignored him.

“You can’t go on like this. Is your mental state unstable again? Why don’t you see a psychologist?” Tony continued. “You caused quite a stir last time you went crazy…”

"Bang!" Pym kicked Tony's armor away.

“We’ve already lost many people!” Pym roared. “If you could make your plans a little more detailed, let us examine them carefully, and build a device that could withstand that energy shock, perhaps you wouldn’t need to use this projection to talk to me right now!”

Tony stood up, turned his head slightly, and avoided making eye contact with Pym.

Pym snorted and picked up a tablet from the table: "Fortunately, the damage is indeed within a controllable range. With the help of nanobots and some gene therapy methods, it may be possible to gradually restore your physiological functions."

As Pym spoke, he handed Tony the medical plan he had devised. “However, I suggest you discuss it with T’Challa and Banner again. It’s a pity that Thor isn’t on Earth, otherwise we could use Donald’s expertise. After all, he was the one who helped you reboot your brain last time (Note 1).”

Pym looked at Tony with surprise, neither taking the tablet nor saying anything.

This isn't like Tony, he thought.

The other party's unusual behavior aroused his suspicion.

“Hank,” Tony began, “I think it’s time to hand it over to you.”

Pym was taken aback, then saw Tony open the back of his mech's hand, revealing the scarlet gem inside.

“You…” Pym was stunned.

“Actually, I didn’t want to give it to you originally, because, well, let me be frank, your emotions are still a concern. Banner is a good choice, but it seems he’s having some problems handling the Hulk now,” Tony said. “So, now I have no choice but to trust you.”