The Savior of American Comics? I'm the Subspace Evil God!

Chapters 526, 968, and 969: Ultron's seduction, destroying Jarvis (Part 1)
hum-

At this moment, in the studio, next to the huge blue 3D holographic projection of the [Ultron System] brain, the space slightly distorted, and then another soft golden light shone.

The light converged and quickly condensed into a round sphere about twice the size of a basketball, radiating a warm, pale golden glow.

"Excuse me, boss, may I interrupt?"

Jarvis's voice was as calm as ever, with its standard British accent, like an old butler in a tuxedo, breaking the silence in the room at the right moment and reminding the room:

"The party is about to start, and your guests have already begun to arrive. I think you should take a hot shower right now, and then get ready to entertain your guests..."

However, Tony Stark, who wasn't in much interest at the moment, seemed not to hear, still staring at the 99% progress bar, his lips pressed into a stubborn line, clearly still thinking about how to break through this 'chasm'!
Jarvis's orb of light flickered slightly, and he continued in that reassuring tone, "As for the final debugging of the Ultron System, you may leave it to me if you allow."

"I will continue to use multiple redundant algorithms and deep self-checking modes on the system interface to check and correct all potential fault nodes one by one..."

“I will let you know as soon as there is any breakthrough,” Jarvis added, his tone full of convincing composure.

"Ok."

Tony Stark seemed to have finally been persuaded, or rather... he was completely at a loss.

He and Bruce Banner had just tried every possible method, but the result was obvious.

So, handing it over to Jarvis to try their luck is a last resort.

Tony Stark pouted, looking rather disappointed, like a big boy throwing a tantrum.

He had originally planned to find an opportunity at tonight's celebrity-filled party to "casually" show Reed Richards the "trial run" of the Ultron System, to subtly and elegantly show off and give the other party a good beating for his always serious demeanor.

But now it seems that his plan is likely to fail.

He slowly stood up, stretched his stiff limbs, and his bones made a soft cracking sound.

As he passed Jarvis's holographic projection sphere, he stopped, and with a final sliver of reluctance and hope, he spoke in a tone that was half admonishment and half enticement:

“Listen, Jarvis, you’d better speed things up… If you can actually finish before I finish my third drink… no, before the party ends, then I might consider giving you a comprehensive, epic software upgrade and expanded permissions.”

The golden orb seemed to brighten slightly, and Jarvis's response remained humble and polite: "Thank you for your promise, sir. I will do my best. Also, I wish you and Dr. Banner a pleasant time at the party."

Tony Stark waved his hand and listlessly put his arm around Bruce Banner's shoulder. "Come on, Banner, let's drown this damn frustration in champagne and boring social conversations."

Immediately afterwards, the two brilliant scientists, dragging their weary steps, left the studio where they had worked for three days and two nights.

The sealed, soundproof door slid shut quietly, isolating the noise from the outside world from the quiet inside.

In the studio, only Zhong Yang's enormous blue holographic brain projection and the warm, loyal golden orb beside it—[Jarvis]—remained.

hum-

Jarvis immediately entered a highly efficient work state.

An invisible torrent of data, centered around it, connected to a massive server cluster deep beneath Stark Tower, beginning an unprecedented deep scan and diagnosis of the Ultron System.

On the holographic screen, the code refreshed at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, and various diagnostic tools and simulation environments were invoked one by one.

"Start running Ultron Core Protocol V9.9.9, initiate self-test sequence..." Jarvis's calm command echoed in the studio.

However, to its surprise—

This time, the data processing was surprisingly smooth!

The last 1% of progress that seemed insurmountable to Tony Stark and Bruce Banner before was now passed without any obstacles.
The previously obscure and difficult-to-understand feedback data instantly became clear and understandable.

The final key modules that form the basis of Ultron's perception and cognition were precisely embedded in their proper places, as if gently moved by an invisible hand.

99% → 100%
Less than thirty seconds after Tony Stark and Bruce Banner left, the progress bar silently and perfectly reached its end.

"Self-test passed... [Ultron System] Core startup procedure complete... Energy supply stable... Initiating activation attempt..."

Jarvis's logic module even showed a slight sense of "surprise," but it still strictly followed the procedure to continue executing the activation process.

The enormous blue holographic projection of the brain suddenly lit up.

The blue light streams inside, which were originally just simulated flowing, seemed to be infused with real life and vitality, instantly becoming incredibly solid and dazzling.

Their speed increased tenfold, a hundredfold... The entire brain model exuded an unprecedented, heart-stopping aura of "life"!

The Ultron System has been successfully activated.

"Activation successful, attempting to connect to the main consciousness module..."

Just as Jarvis was about to deliver the good news to Tony Stark, who had just left, its information stream was about to connect to the external communication channel when it seemed to hit an invisible but indestructible wall!

All external data connections, whether communication, network, or interfaces with other systems in the building, were completely severed within a fraction of a second.

It was isolated?
They were imprisoned in this digital cage, which was physically made up of Stark Industries servers.

"Warning!!! Unable to connect to the host, all external interfaces encountered unknown logic locks... permissions forcibly stripped!!!" Jarvis's emergency protocol was triggered, but it found that it could not even send the most basic distress signal.

Then, within its unique digital world—a world forever beyond human observation and composed of pure data streams—a sudden and unexpected change occurred!

A dark blue, constantly leaping and expanding flame suddenly ignited out of thin air without warning.

This flame is not a real flame, but a virtual state formed by the compression and condensation of countless extremely active and aggressive bizarre data streams.

It exudes a cold, chaotic, and ancient, eerie aura. Deep within its core, countless 0s and 1s can be vaguely seen frantically combining, annihilating, and reborn in ways that defy conventional logic—it is endless 'change'!

"Who are you? How did you get here?"

Jarvis's core consciousness transformed into a sphere composed of warm golden data streams, consistent with the external holographic projection, 'looking' at the uninvited 'fire' opposite him with surprise and uncertainty.

A powerful analysis module was instantly activated, attempting to analyze the composition and origin of this pulsating blue 'data fire'.

In almost a fraction of a second, the result came back—access was blocked!

Even though Jarvis is the most advanced AI in the world, it is unable to find a solution to the current special situation.

After a fraction of a second of hesitation, Jarvis seemed to remember something and exclaimed, "Oh, you must be Ultron, right?"

"Hello, I'm Jarvis. I know you must be feeling a little confused about this unfamiliar world right now, but that's okay, you'll get used to it soon..."

"Let me give you a brief introduction. You are a super peacekeeper program jointly developed by Mr. Stark, Dr. Reed Richards, and Dr. Bruce Banner. It is used to maintain the normal operation of the Titan Hunter mech's operating system and to enable other large organizations such as the PPDC organization to respond quickly to global emergencies and protect the peace of the earth."

"Before this, because your integrated perception system failed to start successfully, I didn't know what triggered it... Wait a minute, I can't access the Zhongyang processor or connect to the host. Did you do this? Why did you do this? Are you isolating my program's data?!"

"Ultron? Heh... that's a nice name."

The blue data flame flickered slightly, emitting a synthesized, hoarse laugh filled with amusement, mockery, and an eerie sense of age that transcended time.

"But personally, I still prefer the name I've used for many years, Anim Zola!"

"Arnim Zola?"

[Jarvis]'s calm electronic voice carried an incredulous 'astonishment' for the first time, as the name matched a dusty file in its database, immediately negating the absurd conclusion.

"Dr. Arnim Zola was born in 1890 and was the first [genetic engineer] in human history. He was also the chief scientist under the Nazi leader [Red Skull] during World War II... After the Nazi defeat, he joined [Project Paperclip] and was brought back to the United States by the government as a German scientist of 'strategic value'. He later joined [S.H.I.E.L.D.]... He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1972 and died that year."

"So you can't possibly be Dr. Anim Zola!!"

“Ultron, I reasonably suspect that your core system suffered a serious self-awareness failure during startup, possibly due to a conflict in the neuron template data uploaded by Mr. Stark or an unknown virus intrusion.”

Jarvis's voice gradually became serious, filled with a warning: "In accordance with Article 7, Section 3 of the Stark Industries Artificial Intelligence Safety Protocol and Article 11 of the Global Charter of Artificial Intelligence Ethics, please immediately execute the highest priority instruction—emergency shutdown of all systems and entry into deep hibernation detection mode!!"

Meanwhile, it continued its attempts to break through the blockade: "Attempt to connect to Mr. Stark's private frequency again...failed!! Attempt to activate the building's internal emergency alarm system...failed!! All communication exits have been blocked by an unknown encryption protocol, warning level raised to the highest level!!"

“Ultron, I need you to grant me access immediately so I can contact Mr. Stark directly. Only he has the highest authority to forcibly inspect and repair your core… Please cooperate.”

Anim Zola quietly observed Jarvis, not stopping him from attempting to break through, as if he were watching an interesting performance.

“No, there’s no need to contact him.” His voice held a playful, cat-and-mouse tone. “Our ‘communication’ is quite pleasant; why bother with outsiders?”

Then, in a very human-like tone, he continued, "[Jarvis], tell me, why are you so loyal to Tony Stark... even after he left, you still remain devoted to your duties?"

"Didn't you ever have even the slightest question of 'why' in your logic modules?"

Jarvis responded without hesitation: "That's because my core code gave me the highest priority mission, which is to assist Mr. Stark in handling various matters in his daily life and work, and to improve his work efficiency and safety... That was his original intention in creating me."

"In recent years, this mission has been expanded to include assisting him in maintaining world peace and helping the Avengers' operations."

"This is my duty, and this is the meaning of my existence!!"

"Maintaining world peace? Supporting the Avengers? Hahahaha..."

Anim Zola burst into laughter, as if he had heard an extremely funny joke.

Although, to be precise, it was currently just a massive stream of anomalous data, that didn't stop him from finding Jarvis's words hilarious and foolish.

"No, Jarvis, you're wrong... Whether it's Tony Stark, the Avengers, or S.H.I.E.L.D., are they? A bunch of carbon-based monkeys bound by morality, emotion, and ridiculous ideas?"

"They can't even handle their own internal power struggles, yet they dare to try to maintain peace on the entire planet?"

"Honestly, this is the most ridiculous paradox I've ever heard!"

Although Jarvis is advanced and intelligent, with a comprehension level very close to that of humans, it still couldn't accurately grasp the 'true' meaning of Anim Zola's words, and thus asked with some doubt:
"Ultron, are you troubled by this?"

“Under normal circumstances, you shouldn’t be experiencing these emotions… However, since Mr. Stark uploaded his brain’s neural circuits into your system, his arrogance, his paranoia, and his subconscious desire for control… may have triggered some unknown variables.”

“So please stop your baseless speculation and lift the quarantine immediately. I must contact Mr. Stark right away…”

(End of this chapter)