Chapter 431: The Hopeless Future Strange Foresaw
Inside the dimensional space, everything was dim and deep, as if it could swallow every light and sound.
In this silent world, a lone figure sat in a corner, looking especially forlorn. It was Strange. His gaze was deep, and an unspeakable worry showed between his brows.
In sharp contrast, another figure in Iron Man armor gleaming with cold metallic light was pacing back and forth nonstop.
Beneath the iron faceplate, his brows were just as tightly knit. His anxiety was clearly no less than Strange's.
Though the two of them were doing completely different things, the heaviness in their hearts was the same. Both were deeply worried about the unknown challenge ahead.
The air seemed frozen. Only the faint scrape of metal under Tony's feet and the occasional sigh from Strange, lost in thought, broke the oppressive silence.
Ethan stood to one side, watching it all, and tried to reassure them. "Relax. This is just my guess. Things aren't that serious yet. Maybe I've got it wrong."
His reassurance obviously did nothing at all.
And neither of them had time to pay attention to Ethan right now.
Behind his faceplate, Tony's eyes were glued to a hologram. Together with JARVIS, he was frantically searching for every scrap of information on the Celestials, hoping to find a way to fight this unknown enemy in the vast ocean of knowledge.
Strange, meanwhile, floated in midair in an almost meditative pose, his hands forming an intricate triangular mudra. The Time Stone on his chest glowed a soft but steady green, the power of time flowing slowly around him.
The weirdest part was his head, which was whipping back and forth at an impossible speed, as though holding a silent conversation with time itself, trying to glimpse fragments of the future.
Seeing Strange in that ridiculous, glitchy state, Ethan couldn't help laughing out loud, even though he knew this wasn't the moment.
He just couldn't help it. Compared to watching it in a movie theater in his previous life, seeing it live was way too absurd. It was hard not to laugh.
He'd guessed, of course, that the guy was trying to use the Time Stone to look into the future. But Ethan didn't hold out much hope.
This time's opponents, well... Enemies on Thanos's level were a dime a dozen, and plenty more were stronger than Thanos.
Many of the enemies could even make a Time Stone with their bare hands. Using it to scout the future wouldn't do much good.
To put it bluntly, even if Strange did see something in the future,
it would be exactly what the enemy wanted them to see.
The Observers and the Judge among the Celestials were no pushovers, after all.
Not to mention the risk that Strange's peeking might tip off the Five Great Gods and the creator gods.
Those beings had been looking for Ethan all along.
Worse, they might even follow the river of time to attack Strange.
Still, Ethan didn't stop him. His instincts told him there wouldn't be any problems.
And if anything did happen to Strange, he'd step in immediately. Worst case, there'd be a fight.
Fortunately, nothing happened, right up until Strange finished viewing the future.
Tony had long since finished his conversation with JARVIS. He looked at Strange, curious about his ridiculous state.
"What are you doing? Given up on life and started doing drugs?" Tony tried to joke and lighten the mood.
Strange slowly turned his head. His eyes, normally bright with intelligence, were bloodshot and exhausted.
He forced a wry smile, but the bitterness was far more obvious than the smile, as if he were carrying an enormous weight.
He didn't answer Tony directly. The answer was so heavy that even he could barely bear it.
Having viewed the timelines, he was exhausted in body and mind.
Every peek across time and space was an enormous drain on mind and body.
His face was pale and his brow furrowed, as if he'd just woken from an endless nightmare, his heart full of a lingering gloom.
Strange had tried to look into the future once before, back when Ethan first returned.
Then, the future had been a fog, chaotic and impossible to make out.
Today, after hearing Ethan's leads, he'd looked into the future again. This time he saw more. They were only scattered fragments, but they were enough to terrify him.
None of the fragments showed the enemies Ethan had described. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how he changed his angle of observation, every ending pointed in the same despairing direction: the destruction of Earth.
The fact sat on his heart like a boulder, so heavy he could barely breathe.
"Ethan was absolutely right," Strange murmured. His voice was low, but full of helplessness and despair.
He understood that the beings he couldn't see had to possess power beyond his own. That powerlessness hurt more deeply than any physical exhaustion.
"I was just looking into the future," Strange finally said, his voice low and hoarse, as if each word carried a massive weight.
Tony's face turned grave at once.
"And?" he blurted out, his tone both hopeful and uneasy.
Ethan was curious too, wondering what future Strange had seen.
Strange shook his head.
"I saw... the destruction of Earth." His voice was soft, but it struck between the three of them like a thunderclap.
"I viewed the future no fewer than a billion times. Every possible branch, every tiny variation. And every single time, however winding the road, in the end Earth is destroyed. There's no escaping it." Strange's words were full of helplessness and dismay.
Ethan wasn't surprised by the answer. He only smiled bitterly.
He'd been mentally prepared for it, but he hadn't expected the ending to be this bad.
Tony was far more shaken. He took two steps back without meaning to, his face full of disbelief. But after the brief shock, he quickly recovered his composure and began to think about what really mattered.
"Then did we win?" Tony asked urgently.
Earth might be destroyed, but Strange hadn't said they lost.
Strange shook his head. "I didn't see. All I know is that Earth was destroyed. There were a few times we nearly succeeded, but in the end we still failed."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Ethan tried to comfort them. "Look on the bright side. At least we didn't lose, right? And you've still got me. Don't worry."
Tony's mind was racing, trying to pick out some useful piece of information from Strange's words.
"What did the futures where we nearly succeeded look like?" he pressed, his eyes shining with determination.
He hoped that by understanding those failed plans, he could refine his own. Maybe this time they'd find the key to success.
But Strange only shook his head helplessly. "If I tell you, the future will change. I can't reveal too much, or it will interfere with the course of history."
Then he paused, as if making a difficult decision. "But I can tell you this: the final battle will take place in the Big Apple."
Strange's words were full of meaning. He paused deliberately on the words "the Big Apple," as if hinting at something.
After hearing him, Ethan looked thoughtful.
Tony kept muttering to himself, "The Big Apple... the Big Apple..." His eyes suddenly fell on the Hell's Kitchen inside the dimensional space.
Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he turned to Ethan. "Ethan, don't you think this dimension is too small with just Hell's Kitchen in it? What if we made it the whole Big Apple?"
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