Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 788 Afraid of Thanos? You should be afraid of me!
An eerie silence fell over the room.

Tony, Banner, Steve, Wanda, and everyone else, almost simultaneously and with an indescribable sense of unease, avoided Stephen Fang's scrutinizing gaze and instead turned their attention to an inconspicuous surveillance camera in the corner of the room.

"Uh, well..." Banner's voice was dry, his eyes darting around, and his fingers unconsciously pushed up his thick glasses.

Tony cleared his throat, trying to break the awkward silence, and tapped his fingers lightly in the air a few times: "Friday, bring it up."

“Yes, Boss,” the AI ​​voice replied.

A pale blue holographic beam of light shone down from the ceiling, clearly outlining a surveillance video clip next to the medical bed where Stephen Fang lay:
The image shows this medical center.

Stephen Fang, dressed casually and beaming with an excited smile as if victory was in sight, was gesturing towards the camera, seemingly saying something like, "Ready? This time I'll definitely bring 'him' over here!"

His expression was relaxed, with a hint of eager anticipation, much like a powerful version of the goofy Star-Lord.

call--

At that moment, when the smile was frozen in time and at its most radiant, Stephen Fang in the video was erased as if by an invisible eraser, or as if a television screen with a poor signal had suddenly lost its keyframe.

There was no sound, and no lighting or special effects.

The person disappeared.

One frame shows a vibrant smiling face, the next frame shows only air remaining in the same spot.

It was as if he had never existed.

The only remaining evidence of his existence—that frozen, expectant smile on the screen—seems particularly abrupt and eerie.

The projection ended, and the light dimmed.

All eyes were once again focused on Stephen Fang, who was lying on the hospital bed, covered in wounds and having just crawled back from another hell.

The air was thick with an even greater sense of awkwardness and an indescribable chill than before.

Tony Stark broke the silence. "It seems... there's a time paradox. We succeeded in rescuing you, but at a price."

He paused, then gestured with his chin toward the direction where the projection disappeared. "The 'you' at this point in time is like a program being overwritten, data being cleared. Gone, completely erased."

Stephen Fang watched the entire process of his own disappearance in the projection quietly, his face expressionless.

After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly moved.

With an impatient and rough motion, he ripped off the IV tube stuck in his arm and the various sensor cables connected to his body.

Then, he grabbed the thick white bandages wrapped around his chest and abdomen with both hands and ripped them off!
"Shoot-"

The bandages were torn and ripped open, revealing the gruesome, crisscrossing wounds and dark red scars that had not yet fully healed.

He casually tossed the bandage stained with a few drops of blood on the ground, and with a blink of his eyes, he gave himself a divine resurrection.

After doing all this, he slowly raised his head and scanned the room, where every superhero held their breath and had a different expression because of his sudden action.

Then, he tilted his head, a half-smile playing on his lips, and said, "So..."

His gaze, like a cold probe, fell on Tony and Banner's faces, then swept over the others. "Now, what should we do?"

Captain America swallowed hard and said, "Arm us! To prepare for what might happen in the future!"

Stephen Fang didn't answer for a moment, and the only sound in the room was the monotonous "beeping" of the medical equipment.

Suddenly, he grinned and let out a low, ambiguous laugh.

"Hehehe"

The laughter sounded particularly abrupt in the oppressive medical center, carrying an elusive meaning that made Tony, Steve, Banner, and the others exchange bewildered glances, their eyes filled with confusion and wariness—why was he laughing after such a tragic end?

However, the next second, all the smile vanished from Stephen Fang's face!

A chilling, viscous, and almost tangible terrifying killing intent erupted from his battered body without warning!
The air seemed to freeze instantly, and even the buzzing of the instruments in the corner was suppressed by this pure malice.

This is the murderous aura that has witnessed mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and slaughtered gods and demons. It originates from the real battlefield where he just finished fighting Thanos to the death!
Several superheroes, including the battle-hardened Captain America and the heavily armored Tony, felt a momentary sense of suffocation. Their bodies tensed instinctively, and they subconsciously assumed defensive postures, even afraid to breathe deeply.

Stephen Fang's icy gaze swept across Captain America, Banner, Wanda, and the others, his voice hoarse: "Preventing what might happen in the future?"

"It's actually very simple." That chilling killing intent reached its peak, locking onto everyone in the room.

"First, let's get rid of you troublemakers, you're always dragging our feet, and you're always splitting into factions and arguing endlessly."

His voice suddenly rose, filled with an undeniable cruelty:
"It's red bean paste!"

After he finished speaking, there was a deathly silence!
In those suffocating few seconds, only a faint, almost audible sound, like a sigh of relief, could be heard from beneath Tony Stark's visor.

He managed a very strained upward twitch at the corner of his mouth, his metal fingers tapping against his arm armor, producing a crisp "tap-tap" sound, breaking the deadlock with feigned ease:

"Hahaha." Tony's laughter was a bit dry, with a hint of deliberate teasing. "Your future self still has the same unique sense of humor as always, Stephen."

The sound was like breaking some kind of invisible shackles.

The chilling killing intent emanating from Stephen Fang receded instantly like a tide, as quickly as if it had never existed.

He shrugged dramatically, then burst into a hearty laugh: "Hahaha! Look how scared you all are! Your faces are all white!"

He patted the metal railing of the medical bed, laughing as if it aggravated his wounds, and grinned. "Just kidding~! Just trying to lighten the mood. I just crawled back from hell, being too tense will make me crack."

joke?

The people in the medical room looked at each other, their tense nerves barely relaxing, but their hearts were still pounding in their chests.

Captain America, Banner, Scott, and the others looked shaken, and cold sweat even seeped from their backs.

No one thought it was just a joke.

An awkward and fearful silence filled the air.

Wanda spoke first, her voice trembling slightly, not out of fear of Stephen Fang, but because she remembered a more terrifying version of herself from another universe.

She gripped the edge of her cashmere shawl, her gaze urgent as she looked at Stephen Fang: "We...we need to hurry." Her voice was soft, but filled with urgency. "Compared to Thanos, the 'me' from another timeline...she's the bigger problem, the one who...got the Infinity Stones."

These words were like a bucket of cold water, waking everyone up and pulling them back from the terrifying atmosphere to the harsh reality.

Stephen Fang's smile vanished. He leaned against the medical bed, rubbing his temples which were still throbbing. His exhaustion and apprehension were clearly written on his face.

He clicked his tongue with a complex emotion. "Yeah, Wanda, the other you is much more troublesome."

"No matter how strong Thanos is, he's just a powerful target. But that you... the essence of chaos magic is altering reality. She herself is a walking, unstable cosmic bomb, and she can traverse timelines and multiple universes."

"Forget it, this is too much of a brain teaser." Stephen Fang shook everything out of his head. "Instead of this, I think it's better to deal with Thanos first."

Wanda shook her head. "Thanos is at least three to five years away from arriving on Earth."

"It's not that complicated. By the way, you said the time machine was made using the Space Stone," he paused slightly, "so... tell me, where is the Space Stone?"

About forty minutes have passed.

As the wormhole created by the Space Stone burst open in front of them, Stephen Fang stepped out.

At the same time, the smell of blood emanated from the wormhole. Just as everyone was stunned, with a "thud," a round, purple head was thrown out of the wormhole, spun three times on the ground, and finally stopped.

That is
Thanos's head
Stephen Fang dusted off his hands. "Now, we can finally think about how to deal with the Scarlet Witch, right?"

Inside the room, the sound of everyone swallowing their saliva rose and fell.

This time, even Iron Man didn't dare to smooth things over.

They were terrified that this hot-tempered Stephen from the future would kill them all.
The atmosphere was oppressive, and Stephen Fang didn't bother to say anything to the others. He simply used Flying Thunder God Technique to leave the scene.

While everyone's attention was focused on Thanos, in an inconspicuous corner, a tiny "ant" was watching everyone with greedy eyes.

That.
It was Ant-Man's face.

No, that's not accurate.

he is
They came from Stephen Fang's world via the last train wormhole.
Zombie Ant-Man!

(End of this chapter)