A few minutes later—
Thousands of small Xandarian ships lifted off from the planet's surface and surged forward in a tight formation.
Clearly, Xandar had already contacted the Kree Empire and come to a simple conclusion: Ronan showing up was very bad news. Peace or not, this was going to be a fight.
The moment the Xandar fleet left the planet's atmosphere, Ronan could barely contain himself. He immediately ordered his warships to open fire.
Because of the distance, the first wave of attacks took about three seconds to reach their targets.
Those three seconds were all the Xandarians needed.
Brilliant layers of energy shimmered into existence as the fleet activated its shields.
A blinding flash followed.
Then… silence.
Score: zero.
Not a single Xandarian ship was destroyed.
True to its reputation as the backbone of the Peace Alliance, Xandar's shield technology was unmatched. These thousand ships might not have been built to hit hard, but defensively? They were absolute nightmares.
Ronan had expected this. His expression barely changed as he immediately opened a channel to Thanos.
"Now," he said curtly.
Thanos agreed without hesitation and calmly ordered Sanctuary II to begin charging the Dark Matter Fission Cannon.
Moments later, a streak of black light tore through space, crossing over a million kilometers in an instant.
The Xandarians didn't even have time to react.
The center of their fleet vanished.
Not exploded. Not shattered.
Gone.
At least two hundred ships were erased as if they had never existed.
And the nightmare didn't stop there.
On the surface of Xandar itself, a colossal crater—over a hundred kilometers wide—was carved into the planet.
That single shot killed billions.
When the surviving Xandarians realized what had happened, panic turned into fury. Their remaining ships abandoned all formation and charged wildly toward Sanctuary II.
Seeing this, Ronan's lips curled into a savage grin. He tightened his grip on the Kree warhammer and launched himself into space.
Thanos followed, the tyrant's blade gleaming coldly in his hand.
A few hours later—
Fire bloomed across the void as the last enemy ships were destroyed. Without slowing down, the fleet pressed on toward Xandar.
When they reached a point barely a thousand kilometers from the planet, Xandar was already bristling with defenses. Anti-aircraft cannons and orbital weapons locked on, the planet resembling a hedgehog with every quill raised.
Thanos merely smiled—a thin, indifferent curve of his lips—and contacted Ronan.
"Don't move," he said calmly. "I'll handle this."
Before Ronan could respond, Thanos vanished from Sanctuary II.
The next second, he reappeared on Xandar itself, standing at the edge of the massive crater left by the dark matter strike.
He raised his right hand.
The Star-Absorbing Technique activated.
A terrifying surge of energy erupted from deep within the planet's core and poured into Thanos's body. The power was overwhelming—far greater than anything he had absorbed before. For a moment, even he felt as if his body might rupture under the strain.
This was no ordinary planet.
Xandar's core was fiercely active, overflowing with energy. It was likely the very reason such a brilliant civilization had been able to flourish here.
Minutes passed.
As the planet's core energy was drained, disasters followed in rapid succession. Earthquakes split the land. Tsunamis swallowed coastlines. Gales ripped cities apart.
The people of Xandar had no idea what was truly happening. They could only assume it was some unprecedented natural catastrophe.
An hour later, the planet's magnetic field began to collapse. The atmosphere slowly bled away into space.
Only then did the horrifying truth become clear.
The end of the world had begun—before the enemy even arrived.
Even if they understood, there was nothing they could do.
Most suffocated in despair as the air thinned into nothingness. Those who sought shelter underground were buried alive when the planet's crust finally gave way.
One day.
That was all it took.
The once-beautiful blue world was reduced to a dead, silent rock drifting through space.
After finishing the absorption, Thanos returned to Sanctuary II.
He contacted Ronan once more and spoke only a single sentence:
"I have fulfilled my promise. Our cooperation is over."
He had briefly considered recruiting Ronan, but dismissed the idea. Taking him in would draw too much attention—and Thanos disliked unnecessary complications.
Ronan, meanwhile, stared at the projection of Thanos with fanatical reverence. He pressed his hands together and performed the highest salute of the Kree.
"Thank you," he said solemnly. "You will always be my friend."
He didn't overthink it. After all these years, his revenge was complete—and that was all that mattered.
After a brief exchange, the two parted ways.
The void swallowed their ships as they disappeared in opposite directions.
Two months later.
Thanos returned to the Milky Way, to a planet he had named Titan.
The name wasn't poetic, or symbolic in any grand sense. It simply reminded him of the world he had just left behind. Similar terrain. Similar skies. Similar silence. Size, atmospheric pressure, and ocean coverage were irrelevant details in the end.
So Titan it was.
The day after his return to the temple, the Black Order arrived to report, followed closely by Laufey and Hela. Together, they summarized the state of affairs over the past four months.
The Black Order spoke first.
They had conquered one hundred and four inhabited planets so far. For most of them, the process had been little more than paperwork with explosions. Civilizations that hadn't even reached a modern technological level stood no chance against orbital bombardment and interstellar warships. To them, a spaceship descending from the sky might as well have been divine punishment.
Unless a planet possessed a handful of exceptionally powerful individuals, resistance was effectively nonexistent.
Most worlds surrendered quickly, sensibly choosing survival over pride.
That said, resistance movements still cropped up with predictable regularity.
After all, Thanos did not come merely to conquer.
Conquest, like Asgard's approach, meant harvesting resources and leaving local governance intact. Painful for the ruling class, certainly, but tolerable. Thanos's rule was something else entirely. He seized total administrative control, enforced population regulation, and implemented strict resource equalization.
For local elites, it was nothing short of annihilation.
Naturally, they resisted.
Thanos's subordinates had long since developed a standard response to such defiance.
First, extermination of the ruling class. Then, relocation of the compliant population to the newly "vacant" territories.
Efficient. Final. Unarguable.
Once the Black Order concluded their report, Laufey stepped forward.
His forces had conquered only seven planets.
Every single one had undergone complete genocide.
The justification was blunt and unapologetic. Space was needed for the survival and expansion of the Ice Giants. The existing inhabitants were… inconvenient.
Thanos offered no verbal response. His expression did not change.
But internally, a line was quietly drawn.
Laufey was loyal—to his people first.
And someone who placed their own race above all else could never be trusted completely.
The Black Order served his will. Laufey served an agenda.
That distinction mattered.
Hela was the last to report.
She had conquered exactly one planet.
That planet, inconveniently, belonged to a coven of witches.
It was immediately obvious she had ignored Thanos's instructions entirely. Instead of expanding his dominion, she had returned to her mother's homeworld, slaughtered half its population, and then—by all accounts—settled in as though it were a vacation retreat.
A conqueror turned couch potato.
Thanos said nothing.
Silence, in this case, was far more unsettling than anger.
He merely instructed Laufey and Hela to remain on Titan and await further orders.
Once the reports were finished and the chamber cleared, Thanos opened the system interface and reviewed his current status.
Physical Condition: 0.7Strength: 0.3Agility: 0.4Mental Strength: 0.5
Active Skill: Destructive Power
Passive Skills: Titan Bloodline, Super Regeneration, Super Constitution, Super Strength, Super Agility, Powerful Spirit, Tough Skin
Unique Skills: Ruler, Star Absorption Technique
Equipment: Tyrant's Blade, Tyrant's Armor, Infinity Gauntlet, Power Stone, Mind Stone
Thanos studied the numbers without emotion.
Progress was slow—but inevitable.
And inevitability, he knew, was the most powerful force in the universe.
.....
Can't wait to read more exciting chapters then what are you waiting for Join my p*atreon right now.
Get 60+ Premium chapters.
Link: p*atreon.com/Earthly_Writer (Remove the *)
2 Chapters for all free members.