"The Chitauri actually invaded New York?" Thor's surprised voice immediately rang out as he stared at the big screen and asked in astonishment.
Then Thor remembered something, glanced at Nick Fury, and asked, "Is this the Battle of New York you mentioned earlier?"
"That's right, Thor, this is the Battle of New York! This is a war where the Chitauri invaded New York!" Nick Fury nodded emphatically.
"The Chitauri? They wouldn't dare." Thor immediately shook his head upon hearing this. "My father's reputation would scare them away from the Nine Realms. Someone must be backing them!"
"Thor, didn't you say that the Chitauri are interstellar mercenaries?" Black Widow looked at Thor meaningfully. "Then do you want to know who is behind them?"
"That Thanos?"
Thor pondered for a moment, "Wait a minute, Thanos... No wonder you asked me about Thanos and the Chitauri before. It wasn't just idle chat after all."
Thor, who had a super long reflection arc, finally reacted now.
Moreover, in the previous questions, everyone had analyzed that Thanos could be the mastermind behind the Battle of New York, the Endgame, and the Battle of Wakanda, so Thor naturally guessed Thanos this time as well.
"Thanos might be the ultimate mastermind, but behind the Chitauri, there's also a direct mastermind," Black Widow corrected Thor. "That direct mastermind is your brother, Loki."
"Loki?" Thor was stunned, shaking his head repeatedly in disbelief. "That's absolutely impossible, my brother isn't that kind of person!"
"Thor, this is the future predicted by the answering system; it won't be wrong," Nick Fury said to Thor with a serious expression.
"You must have made some mistake; this is impossible," Thor still couldn't accept it.
"Alright, whether Loki is the mastermind or not, we can discuss it later. For now, let's focus on analyzing the question."
Captain America forcefully interrupted the arguing group and said to them.
"Fine!" Thor nodded.
Nick Fury and Black Widow also regained their focus.
"Nick Fury, you said that in the Battle of New York, Stark flew into the portal with a nuclear bomb and destroyed all of the Chitauri fleet. So, for this question, should we choose A?"
Captain America glanced at Nick Fury and asked seriously.
"Logically, yes, but if we choose A, wouldn't this question be too easy?" Black Widow felt that something was not quite right.
The scene of Tony Stark flying into the portal with a nuclear bomb was even broadcast by the system. Doesn't that mean the system just gave everyone the answer for free?
It didn't even make anyone use their brains a little.
Although the difficulty of the system's questions varied, and some questions were indeed relatively simple, being this simple was a bit too much, wasn't it?
"No, we can't just jump to that conclusion." Tony Stark, however, shook his head. "The footage only showed me detonating the nuclear bomb, and that's all."
"We don't know what happened after the nuclear bomb exploded."
"We saw the Chitauri fleet, and at that scale, a nuclear bomb would be enough to wipe them all out," Nick Fury interjected.
Without waiting for others to raise any objections, Nick Fury himself began to analyze dialectically, "But we also saw that the other side of the portal was vast space!"
"No matter how powerful a nuclear bomb is, it cannot cover the entire space, so it is still possible for the Chitauri to mobilize other fleets."
Regarding this point, everyone also had no objections; it was an obvious and logical matter.
Everyone agreed.
"In other words, after Stark destroyed the first wave of the Chitauri fleet,
the Chitauri then mobilized other fleets, which were eventually all annihilated by one of the people in the options?"
Thor looked up and down at the people in the options and shook his head. "I don't think anyone could do something like that."
"No! Of course, no one could do it!" Black Widow nodded, her eyes flashing. "The Director is right. Even if one fleet is destroyed, the enemy can send a second one. The key isn't how many people are destroyed; the key is…"
"The portal!" Tony Stark interrupted Black Widow.
Nick Fury, Captain America, and others slowly nodded in agreement, not only because enemies would continuously pour in if the portal wasn't closed.
Also because judging the end of a war by killing enemies is fundamentally unreliable.
Whoever killed more ended the war, or whoever destroyed the last enemy force ended the war?
Clearly not like that.
"So, what this question is actually asking is, of the four people in the options, who closed the portal?" Coulson summarized everyone's statements, revealing the true nature of the question.
"If that's the case, Stark can be ruled out immediately," Black Widow made the first judgment.
"After he sent the nuclear bomb into the portal, he fell unconscious and then began to fall from a high altitude."
"And through the last question, we know that at this time, there were still many Chitauri rampaging in New York City, and Stark's situation was probably very bad."
"Although we don't know how he was eventually rescued, Stark should have temporarily 'gone offline' in the subsequent battle."
At that time, the military was already unable to cope, and everything relied on the Avengers' "response team."
And the high-level S.H.I.E.L.D. officials eventually had to make the decision to launch a nuclear bomb at New York. It was clear that the Avengers' situation was not optimistic, and they believed the Avengers couldn't win.
So, the bitter struggle the Avengers were entangled in can also be imagined.
Under such circumstances, no one believed that Stark would receive timely and effective rescue after falling from a high altitude.
It was very likely that everyone was too busy fighting their own battles to pay attention to Stark.
Black Widow was right; the most likely scenario for Tony Stark was to temporarily "go offline."
On this point, Nick Fury and Tony Stark, who had personally seen the footage at the time, both strongly agreed.
"Alright, we'll temporarily rule out Stark." Captain America glanced at Tony Stark, found that Tony Stark had no objection, and continued, "What about BCD? Thor, if Loki opened the portal, could you close it?"
"I don't believe Loki would do such a thing…"
"Hypothetically! Thor, just hypothetically!" Captain America emphasized heavily, "If Loki used the Tesseract to open the portal, could you close it?"