"The King of Sakaar…" Queen Adora repeated the words, her voice a hollow whisper.
She had assumed the volcanic demon was merely Sakaar's most powerful champion. She never imagined it was their king. It was a difficult concept for Adora to grasp—the master of a world, personally leading his soldiers to save another. In her eyes, the fiery figure grew taller and taller, until he became a truly unreachable, primordial force of nature.
In the heart of the inferno, the battle between Ben and Thanos raged on.
They had exchanged countless blows, each one powerful enough to level a city. The divine heat of the Eternal Flame could incinerate anything it touched, yet the damage it dealt to Thanos was minimal. The Titan's broken blade sliced through the fire, clashing against a sword of pure, solidified flame that Ben had formed. The scorching temperature had long since melted the ground beneath them into a boiling lake of magma, but the heat could not harm them. The lava exploded around them with every impact, and they sank deeper and deeper into the planet's crust, as if they were fighting in a bottomless pit.
The longer they fought, the more surprised Thanos became. It was difficult to imagine that such a powerful being existed in the universe, let alone that he hailed from a backwater planet like Earth and remained largely unknown. According to Loki's memories, the boy was still young—a teenager who now possessed the power of a Skyfather. In this fierce confrontation, even Thanos found it difficult to gain a decisive advantage.
He condensed cosmic energy into another powerful beam, but Ultimate Heatblast intercepted it with a laser of his own. With a powerful blast of fire from his feet, Ben launched himself into the air. A vortex of blood-red fire formed between his palms, spinning into a flaming discus that he hurled at Thanos.
Thanos swung his shattered blade and cleaved the discus in two. But in the next moment, the scattered flames detonated.
BOOM!
A colossal pillar of fire erupted from the ground, soaring into the sky like a column meant to hold up the heavens. Even the original Heatblast could create explosive fire, but amplified by the Eternal Flame, the concussive force was immense. The blast was powerful enough to momentarily cause a small collapse in the fabric of space, and the heat that followed was even more intense.
In the air, Ben, wreathed in fire, looked down upon the destruction, unsurprised. He never thought it would be so easy to defeat Thanos.
Sure enough, from within the pillar of fire, the stump of a massive blade cut through the flames, and Thanos emerged once more, completely unharmed. Ben smirked. Then again, Thanos didn't have any hair to get singed in the first place.
The Tyrant's Blade, however, had not survived. Thanos glanced at the useless half of the blade still in his hand, then discarded the weapon that had served him for decades, leaving only the purple Power Stone that had been embedded in its hilt. The blade's destruction was a testament not only to the power of Ben's attack, but also to the fact that the blade, as a vessel for the gem's immense energy, had become structurally fragile.
"You are indeed stronger than I imagined," Thanos said, stepping out of the fire. Ben was, without a doubt, the most formidable opponent he had ever personally faced. As for others, like Odin, Thanos knew of their power but had never crossed swords with them. It was precisely because of Ben's strength that Thanos was so reluctant to kill him. He hoped the boy would surrender, that he would see the logic in his ideals.
"You are powerful, but everything is doomed to end," Thanos whispered. He looked up at the Plumbers fighting his armies in the sky. "The warriors from Sakaar are brave," he conceded, "much stronger than those weaklings in the Nova Corps. But no matter how many you kill, it is useless. I believe you learned this on Earth. You cannot kill all the Chitauri. Your warriors will eventually tire, they will be injured, and they will die."
He spoke as if victory were already declared. As his words fell, a new wave of Chitauri poured, an overwhelming tide from the depths of space, as if a hole had been torn in the sky and someone was simply dumping endless garbage onto the battlefield.
"You see," Thanos said. "You cannot win."
"Really?" Ben smiled. "Take another look."
Thanos looked up, his gaze piercing through Xandar's atmosphere. The Chitauri, who had been swarming so aggressively moments before, suddenly went limp. As if their power had been cut, they lost all signs of life, their bodies tumbling from the sky like rain. The massive Leviathans went silent, their buoyancy failing as they crashed to the ground.
"The mothership," Thanos realized instantly, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features.
"That's right," Ben confirmed. "I sent people to blow it up. The Chitauri's weakness is so obvious. Did you really think they would be of any use?"
Thanos was silent for a long moment, then decided to compromise. He would make one final offer.
"You only wish to protect your worlds. I can promise you this: hand over the Infinity Stones, and neither Earth, nor Sakaar, nor even Asgard—no one you know will perish under my hand." In his grand calculus of cosmic balance, the lives he spared were irrelevant. Sparing a few planets would not affect the outcome.
"You don't believe me?" Thanos asked when Ben remained silent.
"I believe you," Ben replied calmly. "Because your daughter told me you never lie."
"Nebula? Ah…" Thanos sighed, a flicker of something akin to guilt on his face. "Perhaps I was too harsh with her in the past. I know you likely released Gamora on purpose. You want Nebula to defeat her? I am afraid you will be disappointed. Nebula has never been a match for Gamora. She will lose. And so will you." He dismissed the thought and pressed on. "Why do you continue to fight me? Does your organization truly intend to uphold some abstract notion of cosmic justice?"
Ben held up a hand, interrupting the speech he was about to begin. "I think you might be thinking too much," he said, his voice losing its fiery echo and becoming dangerously calm. He pointed a flaming finger at Thanos. "Maintaining so-called justice is just a byproduct. The truth is, I'm just here for revenge."
Thanos was stunned. He truly did not expect such an answer. He thought Ben must be another idealistic fool, fighting for some imagined righteousness.
Ben saw nothing wrong with his reasoning. "I'm fighting you because you provoked me first. Do you understand?" he said, his voice hardening. "You think that after you attack Sakaar, attack Earth, and send your lackeys after my friends, you can just call it a day and walk away? If that's the case, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. I hold a grudge."
Thanos felt that his losses in the last war—his generals, a precious Infinity Stone—were a sufficient price. But in Ben's opinion, it was not enough. Not nearly enough.
"Since you chose to start this war," Ben said, leaning forward, "you should have been prepared for this day. Or are you just so used to being arrogant that you think everyone in the universe exists to be slaughtered at your will?"
Hearing this, Thanos smiled faintly and shook his head. The boy's reasoning was petty, but the point was moot. "I believe that strength dominates all." He raised his head, looking Ben in the eye as he held up the glowing purple gem. "No matter how powerful you are, this Infinity Stone will absorb your power, strengthen it, and return it to you a hundredfold. The truth of the universe is contained within it. You can never be my opponent."
He clenched his fist. The energy of the Power Stone flashed, and an agonizing groan escaped his lips as its full, unrestrained might was completely unleashed. In that moment, Thanos felt omnipotent.
With a mere thought, the ground around them warped. The sunken pit they stood in rose up, hills flattened into valleys, and the boiling lava instantly cooled into black, brittle volcanic rock. The very crust of the planet was torn into massive chunks that began to float toward the sky, held aloft by the gem's raw power.
Thanos stretched out his hand. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, one of Xandar's moons seemed to receive a summons. It shuddered in its orbit, then began to fall, accelerating towards the planet.
On Xandar, the tides surged violently. The ground shook. This was only the beginning of endless disasters—tsunamis, earthquakes, the eventual, cataclysmic planetary collision.
"I warned you," Thanos stated, devoid of all emotion. To him, this was an act of kindness, a swift end. "But you are seeking death. There will be no more surprises now."
But Ben laughed again.
He stretched out his own hand, and resting in his palm was a glowing, purple crystal. It looked exactly like the Infinity Stone in Thanos's hand.
"I don't think so."