"Haha, it's not hard!"
Hercules laughed as he finished yet another brutal battle. He had just destroyed another Chitauri Leviathan warship. He had torn through its bloodstream, rampaged along its entire length, and finally ripped it apart from within.
Silent explosions illuminated the cold darkness of space.
"Be careful!"
But before Hercules could laugh for even two more seconds, from the direction of a nearby starfield, thousands of Necromancer ships aimed their energy spears at him.
Densely packed energy cannons fired volleys, creating an almost impenetrable web of deadly beams.
Even the son of the god-king from Greek mythology could not withstand such an unrelenting, concentrated attack for long.
Hercules could only instinctively raise his hand to shield his head and, using the wreckage of the destroyed Leviathan beneath his feet, made a powerful leap to try to break through the encirclement around him.
"Hercules! Catch!"
Seeing his brother in danger, the God of War, Ares, threw his tomahawk toward Hercules.
Just as Thor's Stormbreaker had the ability to return to its owner, Ares' tomahawk had the power of summoning and obediently returned after being thrown.
"Thank you, brother!"
Hercules, his body covered in bloody and scaly wounds, looked up and saw the tomahawk flying into his hands.
But as he reached to grab it…
Boom!
A blinding pillar of pure energy light burst forth.
It was not an ordinary volley from the laser cannons of the smaller ships, but a concentrated strike from a gigantic Leviathan in the distance, a biological warship resembling a cosmic whale.
It had opened its massive jaws, revealing a reactive cannon capable of piercing even the energy shields of the most advanced war cruisers.
The beam of light struck Hercules directly in the body.
His response was instantly stifled.
The mighty body suddenly tensed and then went limp, most of his skin burned and peeled away.
From a distance, he looked like a charred, blackened piece of wood. Unconscious, pulled by the Moon's gravity, he began to fall.
"Hercules!"
Ares summoned back his tomahawk and rushed toward his brother, ready to help him.
But another pillar of light shot toward him.
At the last moment, a silver bolt of lightning flashed by and dragged Ares aside.
"No time for grief, Ares!"
"There are too many of them!"
Quicksilver's voice echoed through the communicator as he once again transformed into a silver streak and vanished in another direction, racing off to save Drax, who was in the same mortal danger.
"Damn it!"
"Stark! Where's your Iron Legion when we need it the most?"
Rocket Raccoon piloted his ship, performing incredibly risky maneuvers between the enemy lines.
The Necromancer ships might have been mass-produced, cheap war machines, but their numbers were staggering.
Sweat drenched Rocket as he struggled to maneuver, destroying a few more smaller enemy ships.
But when he glanced behind him, the sight he saw chilled him to the bone.
Swarms of enemy ships piled up like an unending wave threatening to engulf everything.
"Stark! If you don't show up soon, we're all going to die!"
"There are thousands of them!"
Rocket cursed loudly.
Suddenly, one beam from an energy cannon failed to veer off in time and struck the left side of Rocket's ship. A piercing alarm immediately blared on the instrument panel.
"I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!" Rocket shouted.
"I am Groot!" the little Groot, standing on his shoulder, closed his eyes in fear.
Yet, death did not come. Rocket opened one eye, glanced back in confusion, and then his eyes widened in shock. Several Necromancer spacecraft exploded silently, turning into scattered flames and debris.
"Stop screaming, little raccoon, you're not the only one surrounded!" a familiar voice rang out.
From the clouds of smoke and flashes of light, Iron Man appeared, breaking out of the enemy encirclement under the protection of dozens of Iron Legion units. Of the hundreds of armored units controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S., only half remained; the rest had been destroyed.
"What a mess! How many more of these freaks do we have to get rid of?" Tony groaned as laser beams deflected off his armor.
"By the way, where's that famous King of the Moon? Wasn't he supposed to be our reinforcement?" Rocket glanced around, trying to spot Black Bolt or at least some sign of his presence.
Instead, everywhere he looked he saw only enemy ships, explosions, flaming wreckage, and hundreds of pillars of light piercing the darkness of space.
"Damn it, don't you have some spaceship from Earth that can help us?" Rocket shouted angrily at Tony.
Tony fell silent for a moment, unsure how to respond. At that moment, a familiar, sharp voice came through the communication channel.
"Our SHIELD Kun-type aircraft can now fly into space!" reported Nick Fury. Immediately after his message, from the direction of Earth, a swarm of space fighters appeared, hundreds of modified Kun aircraft. SHIELD had invested all its resources: even transport ships, which originally had no combat function, had been urgently converted into combat craft equipped with weapons and shields.
"Tony Stark, hold out a little longer!" Fury's voice echoed.
"We're joining you too! The Wakandan warriors are on their way!" announced the Black Panther, his voice coming through the channel.
His initial mission had been to accompany Star-Lord and his team in infiltrating the Sanctuary II, but that task had ultimately been assigned to the second-generation Ant-Man, Scott Lang. Thus, T'Challa remained on Earth and now led a massive vibranium spaceship to aid their allies.
"You… what about Earth?" Tony wanted to ask everything running through his mind, but Fury interrupted him, as if anticipating his thoughts.
"Don't worry about Earth. The whole world has entered the war. Humanity has united! This time there's no politics, no contradictions, no games behind the scenes! If these aliens achieved anything with their attack, it's that they forced us to be one for the first time."
Fury's voice was cold, but it burned with determination. Pandora's box had been opened, and humanity, like eight billion enraged beasts, had risen against the invasion.
"Good…" Tony muttered with a smile behind his helmet. "Luckily I switched to hero work in time… otherwise, as an arms dealer, I'd be bankrupt right now. Who would I even sell to when everyone's on the same side?"
"All right! Save your boastful comments for later, if we survive till then!" Rocket cut off the exchange between Tony and Fury. "Right now, if SHIELD and Wakanda don't arrive in time, we won't last long here!"
"What about the Inhumans?" Tony voiced the question that had crossed his mind.
The answer came immediately. In the most densely occupied part of the battlefield, a terrifying energy suddenly exploded, spreading like a shockwave. As it expanded, everything in its path, Necromancer vessels, Chitauri warships, and even the massive Leviathans, disintegrated and exploded like a cosmic firework.
Though sound cannot travel in space, Tony had the feeling he heard a terrifying roar.