"What!?"
"Thanos' antimatter cannon is fully charged!?"
Tony's team, who were fiercely fighting in space, immediately received the news that the infiltration mission had failed.
They were already surrounded by enemies, but this news hit like a death blow.
"No!!"
Black Bolt roared with all his might, releasing an even stronger wave of destructive energy than before.
Panic burned in his heart because he knew what this meant.
When Thanos' main cannon completed its charge, the first target would be the Moon, more precisely, Attilan, the city of his race.
And that was exactly what was happening…
"No…"
At the moment when everyone fell into despair, the very fabric of space tore apart.
A massive dimensional rift opened in the solar system, like a wound in the fabric of reality.
No one knew where it came from, no one could comprehend what had caused it.
Every eye was fixed on space when something resembling a colossal tentacle emerged from the rift.
A real, monstrous tentacle.
BOOM——!
The moment it appeared, the protective barrier of the Sanctuary II shattered like glass.
Even a quarter of the colossal spaceship was blown apart into fragments under the sheer force of a single strike.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Even the war itself fell silent for a moment.
Whether it was Tony, Aron, and the others battling in space, or the SHIELD and Wakandan soldiers fighting on the battlefield, everyone was struck dumb.
Even Nick Fury and the generals watching the battle unfold in real-time from Earth were speechless.
In space, before their very eyes, a crack over ten thousand meters long had opened.
From it, tentacles the size of mountain ranges emerged, like those of a gigantic cosmic octopus, wrapping around Thanos' flagship, Sanctuary II.
And then…
The entire creature emerged from the dimensional rift.
Anyone who looked upon its face y if it could be called a face, felt something invade their mind.
Hallucinations flashed before their eyes; their thoughts grew cloudy.
Only the strongest, those with the most unshakable will and discipline, could maintain their sanity.
When the creature fully appeared, the sight was terrifying.
It was a massive entity resembling a beast from the deepest oceans, with countless tentacles and more than ten enormous eyeballs, all moving randomly and gazing in every direction.
The moment it exited the rift, it coiled its tentacles around the entire Sanctuary II.
The metal armor of the warship, resistant to most weapons known in the galaxy, cracked under its crushing grip.
The entire fortress in space began to bend under the unimaginable pressure.
A thunderous rumble echoed through the void of space.
Inside Sanctuary II, panic reigned; soldiers and officers felt the ship trembling and breaking under the force squeezing it.
A horrifying sound filled their ears, the constant grinding of metal and the crunch of breaking bones.
The armor screeched, and vibrations ran through every corridor, every bridge, every chamber.
Those inside couldn't see the creature in full, but they felt it surrounding them, the metal tightening, doom closing in.
---
Main control room.
Corvus Glaive's face was twisted in shock and rage.
Enormous tentacles, hundreds of meters wide, wrapped around the ship's outer hull, covering the windows of the command bridge.
Through the transparent crystalline panels, the stars were no longer visible, only a horrifying living mountain of flesh, interwoven tentacles twisting, pulsating, and sticking together, like something straight out of a nightmare.
Click… click…
As the pressure of the colossal tentacles increased, the dreadful sound of cracking grew louder.
Cracks spread across the reinforced glass, and the walls of the command bridge began to bend and cave inward, as if the entire ship was about to be crushed.
"Quick! Open fire!"
"Fire! Destroy that monster with the antimatter cannon!"
For the first time, Corvus Glaive truly felt fear.
He could swear on his life, this creature was not born on Earth.
It looked like a demonic god from another dimension!
"Curse the heavens… I only wanted to conquer Earth! Why must a demon god from another realm appear!?"
"General! We're too close!" shouted one of the officers.
"If we fire the antimatter cannon at this distance, we'll be destroyed too!"
"Stop your nonsense! FIRE!" Corvus Glaive roared.
Without a moment's hesitation, he lunged forward, shoved the operator aside, and took control of the main cannon himself.
He aimed the weapon straight into the monstrous body and, without thinking, slammed the firing button.
...
"They're activating the antimatter cannon!"
"They're going to blow us all up with that thing!"
Star-Lord's team, still inside Sanctuary II, instantly realized the danger.
There was no more time for fighting.
Mordo, realizing it was a matter of life and death, began chanting spells at incredible speed.
The battle-hardened mage, usually slow to cast, now opened a portal almost instantly and transported everyone out of the ship.
At the very moment they vanished through the portal, it happened…
...
BOOM——!!!!
The antimatter cannon unleashed its deadly energy.
A weapon that existed only in theory on Earth had long been a standard instrument of star-level destruction in space.
A single gram of antimatter can release energy equal to a 20,000-ton nuclear explosion.
And now, Sanctuary II had fired not grams — but tons.
A blue sun of explosive energy burst from the cannon and instantly engulfed the monstrous creature, along with the Sanctuary II itself.
The energy of annihilation, born from the collision of matter and antimatter, spread in all directions like a bluish sphere, erasing everything it touched from existence.
The planetary fortress that Sanctuary II had prided itself on being began to melt and disintegrate like ice under a blazing sun.
But…
The colossal tentacled monster did not die.
It even seemed to relish the energy, as if intoxicated by its power.
"This feels familiar…" the creature growled in a deep, inhuman voice.
"But weaker… weaker than my own breath of destruction."
Quaggs, that was the name of the ancient being, spoke those words and then spread its twelve massive eyes wide.
From each eyeball, a pillar of dark purple annihilation energy erupted.
Those beams pierced through the bluish antimatter sphere like sharp arrows, dissolving it instantly.
The cannon's energy, which was meant to obliterate worlds, dispersed and vanished without a trace.
Sanctuary II was not so fortunate.
The ship that could rival entire fleets turned into a cloud of debris and was reduced to dust among the stars.
Quaggs remained untouched.
It slowly stretched its tentacles and vast body in the void of space, as if to show the universe how immense and unstoppable it was.
"Aron sent me here…" the monster rumbled, then paused.
It didn't know who the enemies or allies were; Aron hadn't made that clear.
So Quaggs decided on its own.
"It's simple…" it said.
The twelve eyes glowed with a terrifying purple light, and the ends of its tentacles shimmered with the same annihilating energy, ready to destroy.
Slowly, it aimed them toward the hordes of Chitauri, Leviathans, and necro-ships.
"Anything that isn't human… is the enemy!"
"Yes… that makes sense!"
With a monstrous, almost gleeful tone, Quaggs began to move its tentacles, blazing with purple light of annihilation.
In front of it, still raging in battle, were Rocket and Groot, Drax, Ares, Black Bolt, the Inhumans…