Star Brand Kevin and Carol were clearing out the battleships and Leviathans in the air. Carol glanced at the boy beside her as he punched through a Leviathan, destroying a battleship with a single blow and wiping out every enemy in his path. A youthful smile spread freely across his face, yet there was no arrogance in it at all.
Carol felt a little unconvinced. This young man was the youngest among them, yet he was also the strongest. That made her, the captain, feel a little embarrassed.
"Haha!"
Carol activated her Binary mode, and the cosmic energy around her expanded once more. Majestic chaotic energy surrounded her, and her powerful aura rose to another level. Her eyes flashed with silvery-white light as her fists drove straight through a Leviathan, tearing through the ship and taking out a group of Chitauri mercenaries along the way.
Under the assault of the two of them, the dim, dark sky was filled with dazzling fireworks for a time. The sound of artillery fire and roars alternated, composing a symphony of blood and broken limbs.
Thanos threw off the Hulk, who had been rampaging on top of him. The nearly three-meter-tall giant looked like a little chick in the hands of the Purple Potato Spirit.
"Hulk! Beat you up!"
Hulk roared and punched the Mad Titan in the face. After a flurry of punches, he did not even knock off Thanos's armor, nor did he stir up even a cloud of dust.
"That's enough!" Thanos shouted angrily, punching Hulk in the face, then striking him hard in the abdomen. This was different from Hulk's wild, unruly attacks. Thanos's powerful fighting style, thousand years of combat experience, and battlefield awareness had allowed him to develop his own method of combat, making him one of the strongest fighters in the universe.
Even without the Infinity Stones, he could crush the gods of many planets with physical skill alone.
Boom!
A powerful, heavy knee slammed hard into Hulk's abdomen. Stomach acid sprayed from his mouth along with blood. He could not help taking several steps back, a painful expression appearing on his face as dizziness clouded his mind.
Before he could recover, a fist appeared in his blurred vision and struck Hulk hard in the head. His strong body hit the ground with a heavy thud, crushing countless Outriders and Chitauri along the way. He carved a deep ravine through the battlefield before finally crashing into a Nova warship and passing out.
"Hulk!" Kallark roared. The power of his heat vision intensified, his bright red cape fluttering like Superman's. His powerful body hovered high in the sky, as if he stood above the world itself, and his searing gaze swept across the battlefield with the force of an army, melting everything in sight.
"Die, Thanos!"
The Mad Titan could not withstand such an attack. He drew the Tyrant's double-edged blade to his side, and the blades spun wildly, resisting the scorching heat that could melt steel.
His weapon was made from one of the hardest metals in the universe. It could even easily cut through Steve's vibranium shield, withstand Tony's lasers, and endure Thor's thunder without suffering any damage.
Thanos struggled to block the scorching gaze. His expression was ferocious and pained, and a fierce light flashed in his pupils.
"Ah!" Thanos roared angrily, turned to dodge, picked up the double-edged blade in his hands, and threw it toward Kallark. Then he shot toward Gladiator like lightning.
Kallark easily dodged, raised his arms, and prepared to deliver a fatal blow to Thanos. Then he swooped straight down from the sky.
Thanos climbed up and raised the double-edged blade in his hands, ready to fight.
Gladiator smashed the tip of Thanos's blade with one punch, knocked it into the ground with a backhand strike, and kicked Thanos's calf with tremendous force, causing the Titan to scream in pain. Then an icy chill was released from Kallark's mouth. He lightly spat it onto Thanos's ugly purple potato face, forming a thin layer of frost over it.
"Ebony Maw!" Thanos knew he could not defeat Gladiator and immediately shouted to the sky for help.
In an instant, Kallark felt as if a massive mountain had pressed down on his body. His body suddenly sank, and his posture dipped lower. Thanos seized the chance to punch Kallark in the face, then grabbed his cloak as he turned over and wrapped it around his neck.
The two of them fell into a stalemate, painful expressions appearing on both their faces.
"My lord!"
A look of sorrow appeared on Ebony Maw's face as he shouted anxiously. The distance between his master and Kallark was too close, and his magic could not be used properly. If he accidentally injured his master...
"Ebony Maw!"
Blood flowed from the corner of Thanos's mouth, and his eyes locked viciously on Kallark in front of him. The strength in his hands grew greater and greater. The face of the man before him became more and more pained, his gray skin gradually turning red and swollen, while his pupils seemed to bulge. His mouth struggled to draw in air.
At this point, Ebony Maw could no longer hesitate. He waved his hand and tore up the ground beneath Kallark, flipping his body upside down. Then he pulled a huge warship from the battlefield and pressed his withered hands downward. The massive hull fell heavily from the sky and slammed into Kallark.
Thanos took the opportunity to get up and run wildly away, rolling at the end to avoid being crushed by the enormous battleship.
"My lord, are you all right?" Ebony Maw floated over worriedly, standing on a small piece of earth beneath his feet.
"Go! Support Corvus and the others. Take the Infinity Stone!" Thanos stared ferociously at the figures in the air, a faint trace of fear in his eyes. He had almost been killed by one of them, and the remaining few did not seem much weaker. They could not be underestimated. In his current state, it would be difficult to defeat them. "Take the Stone and retreat immediately!"
"My lord! The grudge for Supergiant and Cull Obsidian..."
"Listen to me!" Thanos roared angrily. His injured body tried to stand, but he staggered and nearly fell to the ground.
Seeing this, Ebony Maw found it difficult to say anything more. After all, whether those people died or not had nothing to do with him. Noble and elegant as he was, he had always believed the other four Obsidian generals were a group of brainless fools unworthy of him.
As for the soldiers in the sky... as long as Lord Thanos still lived, more troops would join the Black Order. Naturally, powerful warriors would join as well, and new generals would soon be chosen.
Ebony Maw rode his small piece of earth and floated easily and gracefully in Renzo's direction.
Thanos sat tiredly among the ruins, the broken blade planted beside him. The damaged part of his right leg had already recovered. The armor on his body was tattered and scorched by Kallark's heat vision, hanging from him in ruined pieces.
"Roar!" Hulk's roar sounded in the distance, and the ground suddenly shook, as if a herd of elephants were trampling across it. "Hulk is going to crush you!"
The huge green body began to expand, and Thanos had the uneasy feeling that the reckless brute in front of him seemed larger than before.
On the other side, two heat rays shot into the sky, breaking through the battleship that had been pressing down on him. Kallark wore a torn, dust-covered cloak and stared down at Thanos from above.
Thanos stood up in panic and looked at the two powerful warriors rushing toward him.
"Where did these guys come from...?"
...
The situation on Renzo's side was unexpectedly smooth. Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight had already had half their bodies eroded by the Black Lantern Ring. Their originally shriveled, thin bodies had become even drier. The couple's facial features, corroded by darkness, could no longer be clearly distinguished, but the panic on their faces was unmistakable.
"Ah... ah..." Proxima Midnight murmured inarticulately. Darkness had seeped into their bodies, and their throats felt as though a mouthful of thick phlegm were stuck inside, making their voices thick and blurred.
Corvus Glaive's war blade had long since been thrown away. The couple were as stiff as corpses that had been frozen for many years, lifted from the ground and strangled by the neck. The evil light in their pupils gradually faded.
Renzo glanced at the two of them with indifferent eyes. The surrounding environment was still quiet, as if isolated from the entire battlefield.
"Your lord seems to have abandoned you." Renzo looked at the fleet gradually retreating in the sky. The Nova Corps' ships were slowly gaining the upper hand. With the help of Carol, Kevin, and Richard, the remaining miscellaneous soldiers—Leviathans, Kree, Outriders, and others—were easily handled by the group. The most ruthless among them were Rhomann Dey and Talos. One man's home had been crushed by Supergiant, while the other had been chased to the edge of the universe by the Kree, his people scattered.
Their hatred for the enemy could not be erased, like a hungry wolf and a hyena locked in a cage. Only one of them could die before it ended.
Corvus Glaive finally lost the ability to resist. Pure blackness covered his entire body, as if he had experienced an unbelievably terrifying nightmare, only to wake up and find the exact same scene from the dream before his eyes. He screamed until his voice went hoarse.
Proxima Midnight looked sadly at her husband, knowing she would become the same way in a few seconds—vicious and ominous. She could not help feeling a little sorrow.
After all, Proxima Midnight could not escape this nightmare. She became a Black Lantern zombie, a puppet in Renzo's hand.
"This gives me two more superpowered fighters, much stronger than Riptide." Renzo was very satisfied with the results of this battle. For no reason, he had gained two more helpers. There were also others supporting him against the final boss, so he did not need to bear any pressure at all. It was incredibly comfortable.
"Look here!"
A gloomy laugh reached his ears. As soon as Renzo turned around, a Leviathan smashed toward him, directly driving the two Black Lantern zombies he had just obtained into the ground.
Ebony Maw lightly clasped his hands, an elegant smile on his face. With a mere wave, countless stones rose from the ground and turned into sharp blades, rapidly stabbing toward the enemy.
Renzo stood still, allowing the attacks to pass through his body without harming him at all, like two people from different times and universes briefly meeting before fading away.
"Oh? How interesting..." Ebony Maw sneered. "Savage monkeys are still monkeys, after all. How can lowly creatures compare with the great Lord Thanos? Obediently hand over your Stone. The great Lord Thanos—"
Whoosh!
Ebony Maw stared at Renzo in disbelief, clutching his neck in pain. A faint burnt smell radiated from him, and black blood seeped through his fingers like a faucet that had been turned on and could no longer be closed.
He had never imagined in this life—or perhaps even in the next—that he, Thanos's mighty strategist and the greatest dark sorcerer in the universe, who could destroy a civilized planet with one hand, would die so abruptly.
Ebony Maw lay on the ground, his eyes turned toward the sky. The sorcerer who had ruled an era had fallen.
Renzo turned his head in boredom. He did not know why these villains always liked to talk nonsense. He was afraid of Corvus Glaive's war blade, but he was not afraid of dark magic. Just because he had been fighting for a long time did not mean he was incompetent.
"The next step is to take off Thanos's head..." Renzo looked at the war gradually calming down. Wormholes opened one after another in the sky, and a large number of Black Order fleets were constantly retreating through them like beaten dogs.
"Chase them! Wipe them out in one strike!"
Rhomann Dey looked as if he had been possessed by a demon. His eyes were red as he piloted a small Nova ship, chasing and attacking the enormous Leviathans. Richard looked worriedly at the state of his predecessor. The corpses of Nova soldiers and members of the Black Order were scattered chaotically across the battlefield.
On the once-prosperous planet Xandar, pure white streets had once been filled with alien races from various planets. Different species embraced and kissed on the roadside. Strange-looking space mercenaries wandered around with guns on their backs. Short merchants with shrewd eyes stared at everyone passing by, as if searching for someone to cheat. Fully armed troops patrolled valiantly through the air, and the sound of engines from time to time proved their presence...
"Wait. Where's Thanos?" Kevin noticed that the battlefield where Kallark had been fighting was lifeless.
"I'll go take a look!" Carol activated Binary mode and, like a meteor burning with raging flames, landed on the battlefield where Thanos had been.
Corpses covered the ground. Severed limbs, crushed heads, crashed spaceships... everywhere showed the brutality of the war. Carol was used to such scenes, and they did not stir even the slightest ripple in her heart.
As she approached, Cull Obsidian's body, its head smashed in, appeared before her, briefly attracting her attention before she continued forward.
Then...
As far as she could see, there was no trace of Thanos. There was only a thin human lying among the dust-covered ruins, shirtless, his trousers torn to rags, leaving only one blood-stained hand hanging limply to the ground.
Carol was surprised. How could there be a human here? Then what entered her view was...
A broken red cloak hung from the shattered war blade, swaying beneath the dark sky in the dusty wind. The bottom of the blade was embedded in a majestic body, and red blood flowed down along the edge. The corpse lay among the ruins of the spaceship, staring blankly at the sky, its pupils filled with unwillingness and hatred.
Even without his signature mohawk, Carol recognized the pierced corpse at a glance.
"Kallark!" Panic finally appeared on the heroic woman's face. "Kallark, Kallark..."
"Gladiator!" Kevin also noticed something strange and hurriedly landed on the ground, staggering and almost falling. "What happened to him?"
Kevin knelt beside Kallark's body, his hands panicked, not knowing where to place them. "Wake up... wake up! Kallark... Gladiator!"
He covered the horrific wound with his hand, and dried blood stuck to Kevin's palm. The smell of dirt and blood stabbed at the young boy's nerves.
"He's dead..." Carol clenched her fists, her silver teeth grinding together with a crisp sound. "I'm going to kill Thanos!"
"Where are you going to kill him?" Richard stopped Carol in time. "Can you kill him? Kallark was the second strongest among us. He died here. How are you going to fight Thanos? What are you going to use to kill him?"
"Calm down, Carol. Anger can't solve anything..." Richard grabbed Carol's wrist and was about to continue persuading her when a whimper suddenly sounded not far away.
"Uh... it hurts..." When the others heard this, they rushed over. The thin human they had ignored slowly climbed up from the ruins. "Is anyone... is anyone there?"
Dr. Banner cried out in pain. The wounds all over his body made him miserable. "Where is this? Is anyone there?"
He looked at the dark sky, all black. "Spaceship? Stark... this isn't funny..."
Dr. Banner thought Stark had developed some strange new black technology and was using him to test stereoscopic projection and synchronized perception. Stark Industries did have similar projects, after all.
"Who are you?"
Carol climbed onto the ruins and looked down at the man, cosmic energy condensing in her hands. She had never seen him before. If he was one of Thanos's subordinates...
One blast would melt him.
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